The Council of Ten (30 page)

Pam repeated the card insertion process when she reached the main laboratory and waited until the door was safely closed behind her before she activated the main overhead lighting. Since the lab had no windows, there was no reason to fear that her actions would be noticed from the outside.

The fluorescents illuminated a huge display of dials and gauges, of computer terminals and controls, centered primarily against the wall directly across from the entrance. The other walls were lined with various monitors, CRTs, and ever-whirling memory banks. Since the sensitive experiments carried out here often employed a large risk factor, the main lab was actually composed of two rooms linked electronically and visually. Pam approached the main console in the control room and flicked a switch.

The wall before her parted like curtains to reveal a ten-foot-high window of foot-thick glass looking into the inner lab where the experiments were actually carried out. The glass ran from waist level to within a foot of the ceiling to permit ample visual access of all that was about to transpire. Another two switches and the lighting within the inner lab sprang to life.

The inner lab at first glance looked far more simple than the control room. A series of white lab tables were scattered throughout, the largest directly in the center. The far wall contained neatly stacked shelves of various chemicals more commonly associated with such a lab, while the left side wall was lined with covered cubicles housing a variety of lab animals. Pam hated using animals for her experiments, avoided it at all costs, but tonight was an exception. Her only consolation was that whatever happened within, the airtight seal would keep her safe in the outer lab.

The inner lab was accessible from the control room in only two ways. The first and most obvious was a heavy, steel-reenforced door eight fleet to the left of the control board. The second was a small slot just to her right built into the console. She opened the slot and drew out a drawer that once closed was accessible only from the inner lab. Next, with calm reserve, she lifted the plastic bag full of the mysterious white powder and placed it in the drawer, slid the drawer inward, and finally made sure the slot was locked firmly in place.

Next she turned back to the control board and activated the Hands. The soft whirl of machines was comforting. Her CRT screen flashed the word
READY
, and inside the inner lab the Hands sprang to life. They were part of an incredibly complex piece of machinery, the Hands themselves (pincers actually) being the simplest mechanism to understand. They were extended from arms made from steel bands, which were surprisingly supple thanks to sockets modeled after human joints. They were maneuverable as well due to long, similarly agile attachments extending from the ceiling, which permitted the Hands range of the entire lab.

Using the central joystick, Pam lowered the mechanism to the proper height over the white experiment table and twisted a second, smaller joystick about so that the right Hand slid out in the direction of the drawer in which she had placed the powder. Of all the abilities of the Hands, perhaps their greatest was the range of being able to exert tremendous pressure when called upon while being agile enough to handle a single grain of sand.

Pam had been sorely uncomfortable using them at first. The precise maneuvers made to look simple by experts defied her for months. She had realized on her own what the problem was: she had been trying to work the Hands instead of considering them an extension of herself. Relax and just make them a part of you… .

Within weeks, the Hands became her specialty. The men she had once sought advice from were coming to her for it.

Pam moved her right hand under the table and fit it into what felt like a glove, which served as control for the pincers. Other mechanisms had been employed, but never with any success. People seemed to manipulate artificial hands best when using their own as guides. Pam opened the pincers, used the joystick to ease the arm forward in line with the bag, and closed the pincers gently over the top of the bag without disturbing the powder. Wasting no time, she had the pincers lift the bag from the drawer and place it gently on the main table five yards back. She held it there as she switched control over to the left pincer, easing it to the top of the bag. She let up the pressure inside the glove for more supple control and opened the seal. Both pincers were in position now and both her hands were inserted into the gloves to control them.

The extension process had truly begun.

As the left Hand retreated for a lab slide, the right gently pried the bag open, poked inside, and came out with a small sample of the powder, which was then agilely placed on the slide. Pam maneuvered the left pincer to the slot running to the electron microscope, treated the slide upon it properly with the right, and then moved both pincers away. She turned her attention at that point to the computer terminal on the main console, ordering up the proper program for a chemical analysis of the material.

Seconds later, a model of the material’s molecular structure appeared on the screen. Within the helix, the computer analyzed and properly broke down the chemical composition of the powder. Pam felt her neck stiffen as she leaned forward to read.

The powder’s base was a simple paste ground into its present form. The active chemical ingredients puzzled her for their simplicity. She had seen all of them before but never in such a bizarre combination. She searched her broad academic mind for a reasonable match out of a textbook, but nothing came to her. Then she asked the computer to check if such a chemical composition was on record anywhere.

NEGATIVE. SORRY.

She told the computer next to speculate on what such a formula might be utilized for.

INSUFFICIENT DATA. SORRY AGAIN.

A few keys later and she had instructed the machine to crossmatch this composition as closely as possible with any currently known or in production. She was trying to get a feel for what she was dealing with, perhaps uncover a clue as to how best to proceed. A few seconds passed. A good sign. At last the computer sprang to life again, its green message darting across the terminal screen.

MATCH FOUND. LIKENESS 3.5%. CHEMICAL FORMULA COMPOSING HELON. NO OTHER LIKENESS MATCH FOUND OF MEASURABLE PERCENTAGE.

Pam asked the computer to tell her what Helon was. The terminal spit out line after line, but only the last few were of interest to her.

SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED FOR USE IN FOAM FORMS OF CHEMICAL FIRE FIGHTING AGENTS. NOTED FOR SUCCESSFULLY INTERRUPTING CHAIN OF BURNING PROCESS.

Pam leaned back, confused. A match likeness so small as this meant little, in this case simply that both compositions had something to do with air and oxygen. It could have been anything, but the business about interrupting the chain of burning disturbed her. Clearly, though, easy identification by the computer had been denied. That meant it was time to identify the powder by characteristics instead of compositions. The battery of tests was standard, an order she had followed a thousand times.

She started to turn back to the Hands when something else occurred to her. Drew had warned her that the powder might be dangerous to work with. Maybe the computer could help her yet. She swung again toward the terminal.

REQUEST INFORMATION ON TOXICITY LEVEL OF COMPOSITION X.

In her mind she could hear the computer tapes whirling. The answer came quickly.

COMPOSITION UNKNOWN.

SPECULATE.

Pam knew the computer could respond only to specific commands.

TOXICITY LEVEL OF COMPOSITION X 98%.

Pam’s eyes widened. A chill crept up her spine. The powder was pure poison, incredibly potent. But how? It didn’t seem possible. With a toxicity level of ninety-eight percent, a cheap plastic bag could have done little to contain its properties. Unless …

Pam went back to the terminal, fighting to still the slight trembling in her fingers.

Wanting to know if the formula was toxic to the touch, taste, breath, or what, Pam told the machine:

SPECIFY TOXICITY.

INSUFFICIENT DATA.

SPECULATE.

INSUFFICIENT DATA.

The lack of an answer actually provided one. If the powder’s toxicity could not be specified in its present state, then it had to be mixed with something else before the toxic properties were attained. Again, there was a procedure to follow, especially since the evidence already pointed to toxic transmission by air.

Pam moved to the Hands once more after depositing the slide in an isolation drawer. She maneuvered them back to the main table, reaching under it with one for a glass case about the size of a shoe box. After placing it on the table, she manipulated the other Hand to a darkened wall where the strike of a light switch revealed a selection of laboratory animals. Using the right Hand, Ellie opened one of the cages and withdrew a glass case containing a rat. She rested the case atop the table and fitted a plastic tubing into it through a tailored slot, attaching the other side into the now empty “shoe box” glass case.

She paused for a second to mop her brow and then extracted a small sample of the powder with the left Hand holding a scoop. She slid the glass cover into place and snapped a smaller plastic tube through a hole in its top. This tube connected to a vacuum tank the Hands were fitted for whereby substances could be induced through the tube into the glass case without releasing anything into the air. This was crucial, especially in experiments with potentially toxic or unknown substances, whose potency was unknown.

Such was the case here and Pam could afford to take no chances. Again procedure. Her eyes found the rat scratching at his glass walls and sniffing furiously, obviously agitated. She used the left Hand to open the passageway into his home so that the air contained in the second glass case could travel into his. Then she hit the proper sequence on the computer terminal, so the screen would display exactly what the rat was feeling through a CAT scan-like monitor. The technology of it all never ceased to amaze her.

Pam waited, alternating her eyes between the rat and its outline dancing across the computer screen. Nothing. Her suspicions were confirmed. In its natural state, the white powder was harmless. The problem now became one of identifying what additive turned the powder hostile, a process that could take weeks or months, never mind a night.

In the end it took hardly any time at all.

The true scientist sticks to established procedure and when searching for the proper additive, established procedure was precise on where to start. Pam turned her attention to the right Hand, which was still inserted into the vacuum tank, and used it to pour an amount of a colorless liquid down the tubing. Almost immediately, the liquid joined with a portion of the white powder, diluting it.

The inner lab’s microphone broadcast a slight hissing sound. Pam gazed at the video display on the monitor to her left, but she saw nothing where she expected to see a gas forming.

The computer began to beep, alerting her to the action unfolding on the terminal screen. Pam looked at it, eyes incredulous, bulging at what the screen revealed. She shifted her stare to the rat, back to the terminal, then to the rat once more.

The animal was dying horribly, eyes bulging as its nails scratched futilely at the glass encasing it. Seconds later it lay dead on its side.

Shuddering, Pam made herself watch three different, graphically enhanced computer analyses of the rat’s death, each making her grow progressively colder. The third was the most terrifying because it visually depicted the
exact
process that had led to the rat’s death.

No! Impossible! No substance could
—

She ran the analysis again. The rat had indeed suffocated, died for lack of oxygen to breathe within its glass tomb. The oxygen had been swallowed up by the white powder in gaseous form once she had dissolved it with the most common element of all: water.

The computer had drawn a probability likeness to the chemical helon, used in fighting fires because of a chemical structure that interrupted the chain of the burning process. Now she knew why.

What Drew had stumbled upon here was worse than anything he could have imagined. How much of this powder had his grandmother and the other women smuggled into the country? She tried to estimate the figure in her mind, gave up, and turned to the computer.

SPECULATE ON PERIMETERS OF TOXICITY SPREAD OF CURRENT ACTIVE SAMPLE OF COMPOSITION X.

A fifth of a gram, she reminded herself, as the computer searched for a response. At last it came, terrifying in its simplicity.

26.5 SQUARE MILES.

From only a fifth of a gram! Pam felt she might pass out. She had to call Drew. Yes, they would meet here and go straight to the FBI, State Department, even the White House if that’s what it took. She had the proof he needed to support his incredible story. And more.

Pam reached for the phone, searching her mind for the number she was supposed to dial, and began pressing out the digits.

The cold steel found her throat at the same time a huge hand stripped the receiver from her. She swung quickly, a scream starting in her throat only to be choked off by the steel against it, and looked up into the most hideous face she had ever seen.

Teeg smiled.

The pay phone rang finally just after two
A.M
. Drew grabbed it before the first ring was even complete.

“Pam!”

“It’s me.”

“Are you finished? Did you find anything out?”

“Yes. Plenty.”

“Hang on. I’ll be right over.”

“Hurry, Drew. I’m scared. Oh God, I’m scared.”

“But you’re all right.”

“I don’t want to be here alone. Hurry, please hurry!”

“I’m not far away. Just give me a few minutes.”

“Hurry,” Pam said and the line went dead.

She had found the answer. The mystery of the white powder his grandmother had spent nearly five years smuggling was about to be solved
.

Drew felt relieved, elated. And then the elation vanished.

Pam hadn’t said “I love you.”

She thought at first that the giant was holding a strangely shaped knife at her throat. Then she realized it was actually his
hand
or, more accurately, what he wore in place of it.