The Serpent's Kiss

78

Jill rolled over and pressed her hands to her ears, which hurt. Every sound seemed muffled — the flames devouring the house, the distant cry of sirens, the murmur of voices from neighbors appearing to see what had happened. Even Derek’s voice.

He said, “You okay?”

Jill looked over and saw he was sitting up, staring at the house.

“Can’t hear very well,” she said.

He nodded and pointed to his own ears. “Me neither. Hope it passes soon.”

She pulled herself to a sitting position, then cautiously climbed to her feet. For a second she swayed, then her equilibrium kicked in and she steadied. She reached down and helped Derek stand up.

“Where’s your crutch?” she said.

He gestured to the crutch lying in the grass fifteen feet away.

Jill nodded, jogged over and retrieved it for him.

Derek frowned, scanning the ground. “I dropped it. Where is it?”

“What?”

“The notepad I took off his desk.”

“Was there something on it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have much time. But I thought I ought to grab something.”

“Let’s hope it was worth it.”

One of the neighbors trotted over. He was a big, burly guy with a shaved head and a gray goatee. Even though the head and goatee made him look tough, Jill thought he was a puppy dog. Something about the attitude suggested he was a nice guy. He wore faded jeans and a gray sweatshirt and looked like he might spend some time in a gym. “Hey, you two all right?” His voice was a little high-pitched for such a big guy.

“I think so,” Jill said.

“What the hell happened?”

“House blew up,” Derek said. “Duh!” He limped away, scanning the ground for the notebook.

Jill frowned. She turned to the neighbor. “You know the guy who owns this?”

“Owns? No. It’s a rental. Kid lives there, young guy, anyway. Japanese, I think. Odd kid. I’ve talked to him once or twice. Not too friendly.” He gazed uneasily at the house. “He in there?”

“No,” Jill said. “Any idea where he might be?”

The neighbor shrugged. “Don’t know. He works strange hours, comes and goes.”

“Any idea where he works?”

“Palace.”

Jill said, “In Auburn Hills?”

“Yeah. Offered my daughter tickets to a concert a month or so ago, said he got them

because he worked there.” He licked his lips. “She turned him down. He’s a creep.”

Jill said, “Any idea what he does at the Palace?”

He shook his head. “Hey, here’s the fire truck.”

Jill turned to see Derek struggling to catch the notebook, which was being blown around the yard by the wind. Under different circumstances it would have made her laugh. She ran over and picked it up. She jogged back to Derek with the paper. In a low voice, she said, “I really don’t want to spend the next couple hours explaining this.”

“I’m a bad influence on you, Agent Church,” he said, taking the notebook from her. “I’m with you, though. Let’s go.”

The firefighters almost blocked them in, hooking up to a hydrant about fifty yards down the street, the street quickly clogging up with rescue vehicles and police cars. Flashing red, blue and white lights cut the darkness. Jill helped Derek into the car, walked over to the neighbor who had been so helpful and handed him a card, saying, “Give this to a cop, tell him to tell the firefighters that nobody’s inside.”

He studied the card. “FBI?”

“Yes.”

“What’s this about?”

“Thanks!” she said, not answering, and ran back to the car.

“Hey!” he shouted. “You’re not staying?”

She fired up the ignition and slowly threaded their way out of the neighborhood. Derek, in the passenger seat, turned on the map light and studied the notepad.

“Well?” she said.

“It’s… blank.” His voice was so laden with disappointment that Jill thought he might break into tears.

“We’ll think of—”

”Wait. It… it looks like he may have written over it. Um, I’m about to trash evidence here.”

“We just fled a crime scene, Derek. What difference does it make?”

He found a pencil and lightly rubbed it across the top page. “I have a feeling a document examiner somewhere is having a heart attack right now,” Derek said.

“Anything?”

Derek angled the page this way and that, squinting. “Numbers and letters. Like he’s calculating something.”

“That’s all?”

Derek frowned. “‘0.5mg X 21,454 = 10,727mg. Total.’ And then it says: ‘25 % dispersion???’”

“What’s that mean?”

Derek was silent. “It also says: ‘1700 mg/70 kg X 21,454 = 36,471,800 mg. Total.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“70 kilograms,” Derek said. “That’s like the average person’s weight. 154 pounds or so. Oh shit.”

“What?”

“And 0.5 mg is about the lethal dose of sarin gas. Or in other words, 1700 mg per 154 pound person.”

“That’s all it takes to kill somebody? Half a milligram?”

“Fun stuff. And both times he multiplies it by 21, 454. He’s trying to figure out the dosage of sarin needed to kill 21, 454 people! Jesus! And he talks about a 25 percent dispersal rate. He’s got more calculations, adding a quarter more to these numbers. That’s got to be some sort of guess. If you’re aerosolizing a space, how much of it lands on the floor or whatever. But 21,000 people?”

“Tonight at eight o’clock?” Jill asked.

“That would make sense.”

He angled the sheet closer to the light, then held it up so the light shone through the back of the piece of paper. “It says: ‘airborne exposure limit: 0.0001 mg/m³.’ Yes, he’s definitely calculation how to kill over 21, 000 peo—”

Jill let out a little cry, half gasp, half controlled scream. “Oh dear God!”