Evan Ziegler deplaned in Richmond, cursing the rain. It was the last day of April, but there was no warmth to the heavy mist. Just a gray day that chilled the bones and made driving ugly. He navigated the rental car through the sodden streets, past a group of school kids on their way home from classes, splashing in puddles and laughing when one of them slipped and fell, soaking his pants. Evan cracked a smile as a memory of Ben, drenched from a sudden downpour, came to mind. The smile faded as quickly as it had materialized.
He found the Commonwealth Park Suites Hotel easily enough and collected the package from the front-desk clerk. He sat in one of the wingback chairs in the oblong lobby and slowly opened the sealed flap. He tilted the envelope and the contents spilled onto his lap. There were three pages and a small plastic envelope with three tiny bags inside. He slipped the plastic envelope into his pocket and perused the written material. The cover page had a picture of his target and a brief bio. Albert Rousseau. Ziegler had pictured him as a geek, and he wasn’t far off. The man’s skin was pockmarked and fresh acne was scarring the few remaining smooth patches. Under the unruly mess of hair was a pasty complexion and bad teeth. Albert was never going to make the cover of GQ.
The address was on Cooley Avenue, in Carytown, a trendy section of Richmond just off the Fan District, and Evan found a Starbucks on the way. He picked up a latte and set the car’s radio to a classic rock station as he sipped on the drink. It was a few minutes after four o’clock when he pulled up in front of Rousseau’s town house. He found a parking spot halfway down the block and walked around to the rear of the dwelling. Each of the units had a small yard with a wood deck and a gas light. He counted the units from the corner and let himself into Rousseau’s yard. A neighbor three doors down glanced over, but Evan knew the look: Nothing was registering. He wouldn’t even remember that someone had entered the yard, let alone what that person looked like.
The back door had two locks, one on the handset and the other a deadbolt. Evan picked the lower one and tried the door. It opened. He grinned at the stupidity of having an expensive deadbolt on an outer door and not using it. He closed the door quietly behind him, listening for any sound that would indicate the house was protected by an alarm. Nothing.
He was in the galley-style kitchen, dated but clean. He glanced at the stove and noticed the gas burners. Excellent. A quick tour through the town house assured him that no one was home and that he was in the right place, then he got to work. The stove pulled away from the wall with a minimum of effort, and he hopped into the narrow space between the stove and the wall. The flexible gas line to the stove was old, probably twenty years. He smiled at that; this was getting easier all the time. Grasping the line with both hands, he bent it back and forth, weakening the line at one of the joints. It took the better part of fifteen minutes before the line cracked and the unmistakable odor of natural gas stung his nostrils. He immediately placed a small piece of clear tape over the break. The smell lingered for a moment, then dissipated through the house. He jumped up on the counter, then dropped to the floor and pushed the stove back in place.
Now it was time to wait.
Albert Rousseau counted the number of days until he would be fabulously wealthy. Twenty-three. He grinned and shut down the operating system on his office computer. He wanted to be home by seven in case it was a Seinfeld he hadn’t seen, although the chances of that were just about zero. He put the Mustang through its paces on the drive home, thinking about what kind of car he would buy with the money. He didn’t even worry about whether Veritas would pay for the information he had stashed in his town house on that tiny disc. They would pay.
Oh, my God, would they pay.
He found a parking space almost directly in front of his unit. Another sign the gods were smiling on him. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, a handful of mail in his right hand. He swung around and closed the door with his left. For a split second he was face-to-face with another man. A stranger. A stranger in his house. He reacted, but it was far too late for that.
Evan grabbed him by the hair and spun him 180 degrees, pulling him back all in the same motion. Evan’s forearm closed over Albert’s windpipe and instantly cut off the air supply. Albert tried to grab the assailant’s arm but found both his arms trapped against his body. His attacker had immobilized both arms by pinning them behind his back. He tried to scream, but there was no air. He fought to find some way to breathe, but the arms that held him were like vises. Panicked and seething with adrenaline, he mustered every ounce of strength and lashed out with almost superhuman strength. He felt the pressure on his windpipe slip a fraction as he managed to turn slightly, but the grip on his arms tightened and only a tiny gulp of air got through. The room went fuzzy, then gray, then black. His body stopped fighting and the pressure subsided. He willed his muscles to move, but there was no response. Then, as the last neurons in his brain stopped firing, he realized he was already dead and that his brain had taken longer to die than his body. He had a strange thought as his brain shut down; how long did the brain continue to function after the guillotine came down?
Evan let the lifeless body drop gently to the floor. The last thing he needed was bruises anywhere on the corpse; they might be noticed in the autopsy. He had been very careful not to squeeze the windpipe so hard as to crush it, a useful trick he had picked up during his tenure with Team Six. He had picked up a lot of useful information while with the Navy SEALs, most of which dealt with killing people. It was proving to be most valuable.
He carried the body into the kitchen so there would be no drag marks on the floor and propped it against the stove. He retrieved the plastic pouch from his pocket and carefully opened it by cutting a slit down one side. Inside were three smaller plastic bags, the combined contents weighing no more than one ounce. Another cut in one of the tiny bags and the odor of sulfuric acid wafted up and stung his nose. The other two contained potassium chlorate and methenamine. He mixed the three chemicals together and gently set them on the counter. They were a ticking time bomb now. He had less than ten minutes before the mixture would ignite. But he didn’t need ten minutes of gas in the house or the entire block would disappear. Three minutes tops. He had a few minutes to kill before he removed the piece of tape from the gas line.
Rousseau’s ID card was attached to his shirt pocket, and Evan glanced at it. Something wasn’t right. He cradled it in his right hand and read the inscription: Clearance level 6…Statin Group. He held the photo ID for a few moments, then let it drop back against the dead man’s shirt. Statins. That wasn’t right. Statins were cholesterol drugs. Bruce Andrews had sanctioned Albert Rousseau because he was threatening the BioTech research into brain chips.
Or so Andrews had said.
Evan recoiled from the body and almost toppled over one of the kitchen chairs as he staggered backward. Jesus Christ. What was going on? How could Rousseau be a threat to the brain chip program if he worked on cholesterol drugs? That didn’t make any sense. The two weren’t even in the same building. Evan knew the corporate structure of Veritas well, and he was positive the statin research group was in BioTech Five, along with the corporate offices. Brain chip development was in one of the satellite parks in White Oak, a biotechnology park in Henrico County, miles from the Richmond research park.
Evan checked his watch. Shit, he had to get moving or the trigger was going to ignite before the house had a chance to fill with gas. He grabbed the kitchen chair that had fallen over and tucked it back under the table, then hopped up on the counter and slid his arm down behind the stove. He felt the tape with his fingers and pulled. The unmistakable odor of natural gas immediately filled the room. He set the trigger device on the back of the stove, picked up the plastic bag and left through the back door, locking it behind him. There were no neighbors about, and he walked briskly down the back lane and around the corner to his car. He checked his watch again, quickly started the car, and pulled away from the curb. He was less than a block away when the town house exploded.
The explosion blew out the back of the unit and all the front windows on the main floor. The side walls held, which was good as it limited collateral damage. Flying bricks, jagged shards of glass, and splintered wood rained down on the town houses backing onto the target. Dogs were barking, children screaming, and adults yelling as Evan rounded the corner and the carnage disappeared from his view. He would read about it in tomorrow’s newspaper, but the explosion had gone off almost exactly as he had hoped and he doubted there would be any casualties except for Albert Rousseau.
But that didn’t mean no innocent people had been killed.
Evan pulled over at the first coffee shop he passed and ordered an extra-large latte. He sat by the window and watched the rain splatter in the puddles. Albert Rousseau was a lab rat from BioTech Five, not a key player in the brain chip department, as Andrews had said.
How many of the four people he had killed for Andrews were legitimate threats to the program that could give his son back feeling in his body? One? Two? None? He drained the last of his coffee and returned to the rental with one thought on his mind:
Get face-to-face with Bruce Andrews and ask the question.
Why is he killing these people?