The Serpent's Kiss

77

Derek and Jill walked around the house, flashlights beamed around the foundation and at the window sills. Derek took every opportunity to peek in the windows, but on most of them drapes were drawn. What he saw otherwise was unremarkable.

“Can you tell if the windows are wired?” Jill asked.

“No.”

Jill thought he had gotten surly and quiet since getting out of the car. Maybe it was what Simona had said about nobody being lucky three times.

“There’s always the door,” she said.

Derek shook his head. “Let’s try a window.” He stepped over to a rear window, studied it for a moment, then with a sudden move smashed out part of the glass using the butt of his gun. In the neighborhood’s silence it seemed loud. They waited. Nothing changed. Off in the distance a dog barked. Further off they could hear traffic.

Derek reached in through the broken glass, unlocked the window, then gripped the frame and opened it, sliding it upwards. Carefully he removed any chunks of glass. “All right,” he said. “I’m going in.”

“No,” she said, a hand on his arm. “I’ll go first.”

“I’ll take the risk, Jill.”

“Shut up. I’m smaller and I don’t have a bum leg. Now, cup your hands.”

Derek frowned, then obediently stooped and laced his fingers together. He boosted her up to the window so she could squirm through. After a moment of rustling, she reappeared. “There’s a back door. I’ll open it for you.”

“Be careful!”

“Of course.”

He waited. It seemed interminable, though it was probably only a minute or two. The rear door opened silently and Jill waved him over. Once he was inside, she said, “Flashlights?”

“Just turn on some lights,” Derek said. “Flashlights will attract more attention.” Jill turned on a light and they found themselves in a tiny kitchen. The appliances looked like they had been around since the ‘50s or ‘60s. The decor had the feel of the ‘70s, with yellow and green ceramic fixtures and tile. The kitchen sink was piled with dirty dishes. Against one wall was a small Formica table with aluminum tube legs. A copy of the Detroit Free Press was strewn across the table, as well as a cereal bowl of brown milk, a juice glass with dried orange juice on the bottom, and a grimy spoon. On the table was an opened box of Cocoa Puffs.

They moved from the kitchen into the living room. It was small and cramped, the furniture worn and old-fashioned, as if Kevin Matsumoto had either inherited his parents’ leftovers or had picked it up at a garage sale. The only thing new was the TV, which was a flat plasma screen attached to one wall. There were more newspapers piled in messy stacks. The carpeting looked old and ratty, speckled with debris as if it had never been vacuumed. Next to an old armchair were chemistry textbooks, a scatter of books and technical journals. Derek leaned over and picked up one of the books, showing it to Jill. It was: “The Anarchist Cookbook.”

“Figures. I wish that thing had never been published,” she said.

Derek scanned the room, focusing on several photographs on the wall. He stepped closer. “Shit.”

Jill joined him. “He looks familiar.” She pointed to a photograph of a round-faced Asian man with a Fu Manchu mustache, big scruffy black beard and mane of pitch-black hair worn long.

“Shit,” Derek repeated. “That’s Shoko Asahara.”

“Who?”

“The head of Aum Shinrikyo. After the gas attack he was arrested, tried and found guilty. They sentenced him to death by hanging, but so far it hasn’t happened. Oh, damn. I…”

Jill turned. “What?”

“Shoko Asahara was the name he took when he started the Aum. His given name was Chizuo Matsumoto.”

“You don’t…”

“I think Asahara had five or six kids by his wife. After Asahara and his wife were convicted, the kids ended up living with remaining members of the Aum, who started calling themselves the Aleph. Asahara had a lot of followers in a lot of countries.”

“So Kevin could be his son.”

“Or think he is.”

Jill swallowed. “Let’s keep looking.”

There were two more rooms. One was clearly a bedroom. Dirty clothes erupted from a laundry basket. It smelled rank, of sweat, dust, mold and dried semen.

Derek stuck his head in the sole bathroom. He sniffed. “The chemistry lab,” he said. “Can you smell it?”

“I smell something.”

It was a small, cramped room, the tub looking like it had never been scrubbed, a pink moldy shower curtain pushed to one side, damp towels on the floor like twisted snakes. Derek eyed a closet. With slow, deliberate movements, he stepped into the bathroom and turned the knob. It opened without any resistance. There were four shelves. The top two held soap and razors and deodorant and all the other paraphernalia of a single man’s bathroom. The bottom two shelves held rows of chemicals and Pyrex laboratory vessels — beakers and Ehrlenmeyer flasks of varying sizes. Derek studied the labels on the chemicals. “DMMP,” he said.

“What?”

“One of the four ingredients needed to make sarin.”

“It only takes four?”

“Yeah, ain’t chemistry wonderful? He’s our boy.”

He backed slowly out of the bathroom and looked across the hallway toward the second bedroom. The door was closed.

“I really don’t like the fact that door is closed,” Derek said.

Jill nodded, her heart hammering in her chest. “Suggestions?”

He sighed. “No.” He held up the atropine injector he had brought with him. “The person who stays in the hallway gets this. I suggest I be the first one in.”

They looked into each other’s eyes. She said, “He likes bombs, too.”

“A real Renaissance Man, our Kevin. Here. Take it.”

She took it. Derek studied the door. It was uninformative. “Step back,” he said.

When she had moved down the short hallway, he reached out, hand shaking, and gripped the knob. Slowly he turned, sensitive to any resistance. There wasn’t any.

Once it was turned all the way, Derek opened the door the same way. Also nothing unexpected. Once the door was open halfway, he stopped. He wiped sweat off his forehead and craned his neck. He panned his light around the room, shook his head and reached in and turned on the overhead light.

This room had been The Serpent’s work room and office. There was a long workbench filled with tools and wires and mechanical and electronic objects. At another table there was a computer system. Blackout blinds had been pulled over the two windows.

“Let me check the floor,” Jill said.

Derek nodded.

Jill joined him, got down on her knees, and began to gently feel the carpet. She peered around the door and said, “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“The door’s wired. Good thing you didn’t open it any more. It looks like it’s set to go off if the…” She fell silent.

“What?”

“Look!” Jill jumped to her feet and pointed. On the wall behind the door was a digital readout. The wires from the door ran to the readout. Bright red letters counted down. 10. 9. 8…

There was a touchpad beneath it.

“Get the hell out of here,” Derek said.

“Derek—”

He grabbed her and shoved her out into the hallway, then glanced around the room and leaped over to the computer desk.

7. 6…

He snatched a pad of paper off the desk and rushed for the door, getting tangled up with his crutches.

5. 4…

Jill caught his shirt and dragged him out of the room, nearly carrying him.

In his head, Derek counted: 3…

Jill flung open the front door.

2…

They tumbled outside onto the concrete stoop.

1… Derek thought.

They raced across the lawn.

0…

Nothing happened. They turned to look at the house. “Maybe it was just an alarm,” Jill said.

Then the house erupted into flames, glass and wood exploding outwards. The compression wave slammed them off their feet. By the time they came to their senses, the small house was engulfed in flames.