The navy spends its training budget on all kinds of strange things.
I was once sent on a course to learn about how I learn. Seriously. It seems there are different ways, and knowing which one suits you is allegedly beneficial. For example, some people favor an auditory style, which means they like things explained to them in words. Others are kinesthetic. That’s a fancy way of saying they learn from experience. And the final group are visual. Breaking ideas and concepts down into pictures and diagrams is the key thing for them.
It turned out I was a visual person.
Only it’s not just textbook illustrations I respond to.
I took the curving on-ramp far faster than strictly necessary and kept my foot on the gas until the tires started to squeal. I’d hoped it was late enough for the highway to be clear, but I saw another vehicle trundling through the junction, making me drop a little speed. It was an old van. Its dull silver bodywork looked rough, as though it had been badly resprayed, and a crude picture of a woman had been painted on the side. She was half sitting, half lying back with one knee raised. Her clothes were all leather and fishnets and her wild purple hair flowed all the way back to the rear doors. I couldn’t help wondering who it was based on.
I pulled onto the main highway and moved straight into the left-hand lane. I saw a picture had been painted on the far side of the van, too. It was another figure, in the same pose as the purple-haired woman. But this one’s clothes were all torn open and inside them lay a grinning skeleton. It still had its head and hands, but somehow it reminded me of the body I’d seen in the OR. The two paintings could be before and after shots, like some government health warning against the mystery blood drug.
The silver van rapidly dwindled to nothing in my mirrors, and after it disappeared I didn’t come across another vehicle for twelve or thirteen miles. There was no other traffic on either side to distract me. Nothing to divert my imagination from what Lesley might have in store for Tanya. Or what she might already be doing to her. My foot leaned harder on the gas and the heavy sedan swayed through the next set of bends. I was moving fast, but I had no idea if I was heading in the right direction. My only leads had gone up in smoke. No one had a clue where Tanya was. I certainly didn’t know where to look. And all the time the car’s wheels were thumping tirelessly on the road like the ticking of a giant clock, counting down what few minutes I had left to find her.
The toll plaza had been busy on Saturday when Weston brought me back from Lesley’s, but now, with no one around, it looked like a field the day after a festival. There was debris everywhere. Coffee cups, soda cans, food wrappers, newspapers. All kinds of rubbish that people must have jettisoned while they were inching along in the queues, earlier in the day.
A slight breeze was blowing across to my right, stirring up the lighter items. It caught an A5-sized piece of paper and set it dancing, holding it level with my window for a second. It was an advertisement for a mobile dog- grooming service. I looked around and saw dozens more lying discarded on the ground. They were from a whole range of different places. But none were takeout menus. And none had my picture on them, this time, either.
I wondered what had happened to all the flyers the NYPD were handing out on Friday. Some would have been discarded straightaway, I guessed. Others would have been held on to, at least for a while. Some might still be in people’s cars. I wondered how far they’d been taken. I imagined them radiating out from that point on the highway, trampled on floors and stuffed into door pockets. I pictured a map with tiny colored dots to show their final destinations, like the one of the railroad victims in the FBI’s office. In my mind, these dots were also red. Only I could see hundreds, scattered randomly all over the country.
I thought about the image. What it could mean. And then, once again, I picked up my phone and called Lavine.
“Anything?” I said.
“No,” he said. “We’ve got two and a half hours left. Varley’s going nuts. It’s chaos. So much for well- rehearsed protocols. More like setting a bunch of monkeys loose in a banana plantation.”
“Then listen. I’ve got another question. The medicine vials Maher’s people found. At the clinic. Were there all different types? Or just the mystery ones.”
“Just the mystery ones,” he said. “Why?”
“How many were there?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. We already thought about it. We figure they disposed of the other kinds in the normal way, and hung on to the mystery ones because they aren’t licensed here.”
“I understand that. But how many were there?”
“Let me check. Seventy-two.”
“Were they all used?”
“No. Sixty-five were used. Seven were unopened.”
“The sixty-five, does that include the one they used on Taylor?”
“I think so. Let’s see. Yes, it does.”
“OK. So that makes sixty-four used on patients. Have you heard from the other clinics? Did they find any vials?”
“David, I don’t have time for inventory queries. Can’t this wait?”
“No. It can’t. Think about it. There are five clinics. What’s five times sixty-four?”
“Three hundred twenty. OK, that’s weird. I’m putting you on hold for a minute.”
He was back after two minutes.
“Boston and D.C. did find vials,” he said. “There were sixty-four hidden away in both places. All were used. We’ve got to assume it’s the same for the others.”
“I think we do.”
“Three hundred twenty vials. That number again. But you were expecting it?”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“Because I know what they’re doing.”
“You do? Then talk to me. Stop wasting time. The bombs. Where are they?”
“Nowhere. There aren’t any. You’re on a wild-goose chase.”
“We aren’t. Maher found detonators. Bomb-making equipment.”
“He did. But no explosive. And he said miniature. Focus on that.”
“Prepacked explosive, so no trace. And powerful, so small size.”
“No. Something else altogether.”
“Maher’s people are on this, you know. They’re the best. And they’re thinking there must be a large number of devices. Each one too small to do much harm on its own. But coordinated, so that together they could take down a power grid, say. Or a telecom network. Or the water supply. It’s a recipe for maximum chaos.”
“No. Look at what they had at the clinics. The drug. Remote triggers. And one other thing. Something unique to them.”
“What?”
“Access to the inside of people’s bodies. It wasn’t just ripped-off organs they were putting back in there.”
“They planted bombs inside people? You’re crazy.”
“Not bombs. Devices for releasing the drug. They put them in during the operation, alongside the new organ. They lie dormant till a signal triggers them. Then a whole vial’s worth of the drug gets dumped directly into the bloodstream. And you know what happens next. Ten pints of the red stuff pours straight out through the poor bastard’s skin, like water through tissue paper.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I’ve heard of similar things, for cancer and diabetes.”
“Using mechanical devices? With remote control? Nationwide?”
“Not so far. They’ve used polymers, up to now. For gradual diffusion.”
“Any proof they’ve made the leap?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t tally with the video.”
“It does. They said people would drown in their own blood. And you saw Taylor.”
“Taylor didn’t drown.”
“Not literally. But you get the picture.”
