Konrath, Joe - Dirty Martini (6 page)

“No time.”

“Dammit, Jack.” Herb came up after me. “You’re not even wearing a vest.”

“Armor didn’t seem to help the SRT.”

I jogged toward the house. Herb and Rick flanked me.

“Her suit is leaking,” Herb said. “I can feel the air.”

“Positive pressure. It’s supposed to do that. With air blowing out, nothing can get in.”

Herb appeared ready to burst into tears.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Jack.”

“Me too.”

I paused for just a moment, and stared at my partner through the Plexiglas face shield, wondering why this moment seemed so final.

“Okay.” I took a big gulp of canned air. “Let’s do this.”

CHAPTER 7

T
HE CHEMIST WATCHES
the cop in her space suit approach the front door. The suit offers more protection than the previous batch of cops had, but it still isn’t enough.

She has seconds left to live. Minutes, if she’s extremely lucky.

The Chemist has spent a very long time getting things ready. There are enough traps to kill at least a dozen cops. Even careful ones in protective biohazard suits.

He hadn’t expected that the next death would be Jack Daniels, however. She’s a celebrity. Now this will be national news for sure. He should have set the TiVo after all.

He wonders which one will get her. The modified M44? The rattraps? The pull-loop switch? The metal ball? So many terrible things await her.

And which toxin will it be? BT is perfect for food contamination, and the slower onset of symptoms has the desired effect of overburdening the hospitals and spreading panic and paranoia. But situations like this one called for something more immediate. More dramatic.
Convallaria majalis
.
Ricin.
Rhododendron ponticum. Ornithogalum umbellatum. Thevetia peruviana. Strychnos toxifera
. Each of these induces instantaneous, messy death.

Of course, nothing is quite as cinematic as good old homemade napalm. Or potassium cyanide gas. He’s covered those bases too.

The Chemist spent several months researching this particular phase of the Plan. Booby trap diagrams are easily found on the Internet, but he’s taken them to the next level. They’ve become works of art. Fatal works of art. The slightest scrape of skin, the tiniest tear of fabric, the smallest misstep, and you’re dead.

So exciting. So amusing. And he has the perfect view of everything.

He wishes he had a bag of popcorn.

A television news truck pulls up. It’s about damn time.

The money will be nice. But what will really keep him company in his old age are the memories of moments like this.

CHAPTER 8

T
HE SPACE SUIT WAS
claustrophobic, hot, and cumbersome. I found it extremely hard to focus. The jog up to the front door had a surreal quality, as if I were indeed stepping foot onto another planet.

“Keep your eyes moving.”
Rick, through the comlink.
“Not only side to side, but up and down. Pay attention to where you’re placing your feet, and what’s overhead. You’re looking for IEDs.”

Improvised explosive devices. Traps that released chemical or biological weapons. The things that decimated the SRT.

I stopped before entering the doorway and poked my hooded head inside, twisting my shoulders to get peripheral views. I could see the living room to my immediate left; the sofa and entertainment center looked completely normal. Beyond it, a hallway. To my right, several doors. No signs of Alger, or any of the fallen cops.

“Where’s the first heat signature?” I said into my headset.

“To your right.”
Herb’s voice.
“Second door.”

“Watch the thermals. If you see any signs of movement, let me know.”

“Roger that. Take it slow in there, Jack.”

I lifted up my right foot and crossed the threshold. The floor was dark wood, scratched, in need of refinishing. I noted some splinters and a screw; leftovers from the battering ram. I shifted my weight to my foot slowly, cautiously, as if I were on thin ice. It held.

“Attention, Special Response Team, this is Lieutenant Daniels, Homicide.” I’d almost said
Violent Crimes
, but recently the suits had changed division names. “I’m coming into the house to find you. If you see someone in a big orange suit, hold your fire.”

My words echoed in my earpiece, but had another added echo after bouncing off of my faceplate. I moved with care, as if every step counted, but the boots attached to the suit were too big for my feet and it was like walking around in clown shoes. Four steps into the hallway, my toe snagged on the base of a coatrack and I almost fell on top of my shotgun.

I was going to kill myself before I even got to the booby traps.

“What do you see, Jack?”

“It’s a house. A normal, average house.”

“It’s not normal. Don’t think that way. The IEDs will be hidden, or camouflaged. They might look like a child’s toy, or a framed photograph, or a pair of slippers. Assume that everything is deadly.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slow. Passed through the hallway without further incident, and stopped at the second door.

“How far into the room is the thermal reading?”

Herb said,
“It’s about two yards in front of you. Not moving.”

Some sweat had beaded up on my forehead, and I didn’t have a way to wipe it off.

“I’m going in.”

My right hand kept the Remington at waist level. My left turned the knob and eased the door open.

I let out a nervous laugh when I saw the familiar rectangular object.

“It’s a space heater.”

“How many cords?”
Rick asked.

That was a curious question. I lowered my line of vision to floor level and saw two.

“Thermal levels increasing.”
Herb sounded as edgy as I felt.

“Two plugs, leading to the same outlet.”

“One is probably a motion detector, which activates a switch to increase the temperature. Certain poisons, like arsenic, become gaseous when heated.”

“Good thing I’m wearing a mask. I can see some fumes coming off of—”

Because I had no peripheral vision, I didn’t see the baseball until it was practically in my face. I jerked to the right, and it bounced off my faceplate. My finger reflexively squeezed the trigger, and I sprayed buckshot along the far wall, the boom of the shotgun rattling my teeth.

“Jack! Jack, are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Something hit me in the face. It’s some kind of spiked thing.”

It spun crazily in front of me, a baseball on a string. Sticking out of it on all sides, like prickles on a cactus, were nails.

“Did it penetrate your suit?”

“I don’t think so.” I eyed the deep scratch in my faceplate, saw some sort of liquid dripping down the outside. I shuddered, wondering what those nails were coated in.

“You have to make sure, Jack.”

“How?”

“Find a piece of paper. Hold it in front of your mask. If there’s a hole, the positive pressure will blow the paper.”

I looked around the room, found a paperback copy of
The Tomb
by F. Paul Wilson, and waved a page a few inches before the scratch.

“It’s okay. No air coming out.”

“Check above you, look for more projectiles.”

I had to bend backward to see the ceiling. “There’s a wire on top of the door. When I opened it, this thing was rigged to fall. Doesn’t look like there’s anything else up there.”

“Remember to keep looking above you.”

“Message received.”

I racked another shell into the chamber.

“. . . help . . .”

The word gave me gooseflesh.

“Did you guys hear that?”

“One of the SRT members.”
Herb’s voice was pained.
“He sounds alive.”

“Where are you?” I tried to listen for noises in the house. “The first or second floor?”

Coughing, then,
“. . . help me . . .”

“We can’t tell where he is.”

I turned around and hurried down the hallway faster than I should have. Ahead, I saw stairs, and sitting on the bottom step, slumped over, one of my men.

I swiveled around, 360 degrees, looking for wires and traps and anything unusual. Finding nothing, I knelt next to the fallen cop and tilted up his head to see his face.

His gas mask was filled with bloody vomit, coating the inside of his goggles and oozing out the NBC filter.

I shut my eyes, then forced myself to place a hand on his chest, seeking evidence of breathing that I knew wouldn’t be there.

“I found Buhmann,” I said, sneaking a look at the name tag on his vest. “He’s gone.”

“Did you find what killed him? It might still be active.”

Paranoia cut through my anger, and I stood up and took a step back.

Except for his gas mask, Buhmann appeared normal. No injuries, no blood, no—

“It’s on the stairs.” I squinted and moved in closer. The camouflage was insidious. Eight three-inch nails, protruding up through the carpeting, painted to exactly match the color of the shag. The only reason I spotted them was a drop of blood on the middle nail.

I wondered what kind of person thought up something like that. I could picture him, sitting quietly at a workbench, calmly putting together such a horrible thing.

Cold-blooded
wasn’t the word for it. This guy was a monster.

“. . . please help . . .”

“I’m going up.”

“There are several thermal readings nearby. Be careful.”

I didn’t need to be told to be careful. If the SWAT cop’s combat boots weren’t thick enough to stop a nail, my oversized rubber clown shoes wouldn’t offer me any better protection. Still, I took the stairs as quickly as I could, anxious to find the poor soul crying for help.

The stairs ended at a hallway, and three more bodies.

“Three more down, at the top of the stairs.”

“What do you see?”

“The nearest, vomit in the gas mask. The other two . . .”

It looked like their masks were filled with blood and bits of tissue. I remembered the wet coughing I’d heard earlier over the comlink. What kind of poison makes you cough up your own lungs?

“. . . dead. They’re all dead.”

“Who are they?”

I didn’t recognize the voice on the radio, and assumed it to be one of the remaining SRT members I’d made stay outside.

“Name tags are Winston, Banks, and Kordova.”

“Look for what killed them.”

I took a cautious step forward. The hallway was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side, filled with an extensive collection of NASCAR plates, framed pictures, and assorted knickknacks. A few of the plates had shattered and fallen to the floor.

“Two of the bodies, I see wounds on their calves. Might be buckshot.”

“A hand-loaded shotgun shell packed with a fast-acting poison. Do you see any evidence of trip wires or pressure plates, or a gun or pipe sticking out of the walls?”

“No. Wait . . . there are some rattraps.”

I was reaching for one, when Rick yelled,
“Don’t move!”

I froze in a crouching position.

“The traps fired the buckshot. It’s easy to rig a trap to fire a shotgun cartridge. There’s got to be tripwires in the hallway, stretching between the walls.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“They might not be stretched tight. Might be hanging loose. Monofilament fishing line is very thin, and it’s clear. How’s the lighting?”

“Not very good.” I saw a light switch on the wall. “There’s a switch, I’ll just—”

“Don’t flip the switch!”

“Jesus Christ! I’m going to die of a heart attack before any of these traps kill me!”

“The switch may be rigged. Take a Maglite from one of the SRTs’ utility belts.”

I altered my course to reach down for one of the flashlights. I tugged it out of its little holster and felt like a ghoul, robbing the dead.

“Got the light?”

“Yeah.”

“What color is the ceiling?”

“White.”

“Hold the Maglite down low and point it at a forty-five-degree angle upward. You won’t see the lines, but you might be able to see the shadows of the lines on the ceiling.”

Smart. I was becoming very grateful Rick had come along.

I twisted on the Mag and kept it at waist level, sweeping it back and forth.

The ceiling became a spiderweb of crisscrossing gray shadows.