I slipped a small cylinder from my pocket and held it up.
“What’s that?” Stoddard said, eyes shining like two headlights staring down a midnight stretch of the Dan Ryan.
“It’s one of your products, Jon. I press the button, and it disperses whatever’s inside in an aerosol form. This one’s loaded with a chemical agent. I know it works pretty fast. And I know it leaves you pretty well dead.”
“It’s murder. You won’t do it.”
“Actually, I’ve been looking forward to it.”
“They won’t let you.”
I looked around the room. “ ‘They’?”
Stoddard began to blink his eyes quickly. His face was flushed and sweating.
“It will take a few minutes,” I said. “You’ll start to cough. Feel like your throat is closing up.”
Stoddard’s hand went to his throat. Molly walked over to a small cot set up in the corner of the lab. She sat down, then lay on her side.
“Not interested, Molly?”
“I’m okay with dying if that’s what you mean.” She rolled over and faced the wall. I pushed the button on the aerosol device. Stoddard collapsed into himself and began to murmur softly.
“What’s that, Jon?”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
I took a syringe out of my pocket. “You got about twenty minutes before it shuts down your lungs. Then it’s all too late.”
Molly coughed from the corner.
“Give me the shot,” Stoddard said.
“I want to hear it first.”
Stoddard pointed a finger at the cot. “It was all her idea. From the beginning.”
“Molly?”
“She hired Gilmore. Paid him to release the pathogen once the Canary triggered. Thought it would be a classic profile for a terrorist attack.”
“What about the bug itself?”
“She started working on the modifications to Roar over a year ago. It was designed to go active for two to three days. A controlled kill, just as you described. Enough to scare the government. Then show what CDA could do to defuse the crisis. Secure our company’s future. Secure our country’s future.”
“And the five hundred dead?”
“A price worth paying. Now give me the shot.”
“You’re leaving out some of the best parts.”
“What do you want?”
“The gangs, Stoddard. I want to hear about the gangs.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You grew up in K Town.”
“Everyone knows that.”
I threw down the documents I’d gotten from Northwestern. “You taught a night class at Kellogg in the fall of 2007. Ray Sampson was one of your students. Then you became his adviser.”
I wasn’t sure if Stoddard was still with me, so I pushed the paperwork closer. I slipped Ray Ray’s picture on top. “This guy ran the Fours until he was killed last week.”
“So?”
“I think he was working with you. I think you told him about the release. And gave him a stash of masks. I want to know why.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I checked my watch. “Can you feel your throat closing yet?”
“Please.”
“I can wait all day.”
Stoddard rolled his eyes around the room. All he saw were closed blinds on the windows and Molly’s back on the cot.
“They were part of it,” Stoddard said.
“The Fours?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Seed money. The seed money I used to start CDA came from the Fours.”
“So they were your partners?”
“I needed twenty million to get CDA going. Back then, it wasn’t going to happen with the banks and the few small investors I had. So, yes, they provided me with most of the venture capital.”
“And you cleaned their drug cash in the process.”
“Of course.”
“Keep going.”
“CDA was getting too big. I couldn’t have the taint of gang money in the company. Ray understood that and was willing to keep a low profile. But I knew it wouldn’t work. Not in the big picture.”
“Why pay a return to your investors when you can just kill them off?”
“The subway release was just the first, and smallest, of several Gilmore made. The rest were targeted hits on K Town, focusing especially on the Fours and their leadership. We figured nature would take its course after that.”
I thought about Ray Sampson, sprawled on the stone cobbles outside a church.
“One way or the other,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind. What about the masks?”
“No filters in them. Useless. Actually made the poor bastards more vulnerable than ever.” Stoddard coughed into his hands and spit on the floor.
“Not much more time, Jon. What else?”
“We had nothing to do with the fires in K Town. That was the government’s thing.”
“A happy coincidence?”
“They saw a chance to control the infection. And get rid of some undesirables at the same time. Who was I to argue?”
I shoved over a pad and paper. “Write it down.”
He scribbled away for a few minutes. His throat had started to swell, and his eyes were closing.
“That’s something to do with the mucous membranes,” I said as I read what he’d written. “In some people they start to swell about three minutes before the lights go out. But you probably know all that.”
“Please.” Stoddard scratched at my arm.
“Keep writing.”
Stoddard bent over the pad again. Molly shifted on the cot. I looked up to see the compact silver-and-black gun in her hand.
“No.” I ran at her. She fired just as Jon Stoddard turned. The gun was loud for its size. The small-caliber slug caught Stoddard just under the eyebrow. America’s leading biowarrior was dead before he hit the floor.
“I was sick of listening to him.” Molly coughed and dropped her pistol. I kicked it to a corner and pulled mine off my hip again.
“How many different ways are you going to kill me, Michael?”
“You’re not going to die, Molly. Not yet, anyway.”
I took off my mask and held it down by my side. James Doll came through the door.
“What the hell happened?”
“I was about to tell Molly the stuff I sprayed in here will irritate the lining of her lungs and give her a headache. Nothing more.” I nodded toward her piece. “She shot Stoddard. Guess you can add it to her tab.”
Molly sat down again on the cot. “It needed to be done, Michael. All of it.”
“Keep talking and I won’t half mind shooting you myself.”
“I don’t think so.” Molly’s eyes reached over my shoulder. I heard Rodriguez’s warning in my head and knew what was coming next.
“Lay it down.”
I turned. James Doll had his service weapon out and pointed my way. “I can let you scare them. But I can’t let you kill them. At least not both of them.”
“Why?”
“The gun.”
I slid my piece across the floor. Doll put it in his pocket along with Molly’s.
“You ever heard of something called the Dweller, Kelly?”
“Does it have anything to do with Robert Crane?”
Doll pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
I did. Doll took a chair across from me.
“I didn’t understand why they sent Crane after you either. Then they told me about the Dweller.” Doll nodded toward the cot. “You want to explain the rest?”
Molly took her time getting up. I could hear the wheeze in her breathing as she walked over to a workstation and typed in a command. One of the monitors came to life with an annotated map of northern California. A second filled up with colored strings of DNA code. The word DWELLER was displayed at the top of the screen.
“Jon and I realized our company might need additional protection someday. Maybe not this soon, but someday. So four months ago, we infected almost a quarter million people in the Bay Area with a biological weapon. We call it the Dweller.”
I glanced at Doll, whose gun stared a hole right through me. Molly’s voice staggered on.
“It’s a stealth virus. No one gets sick unless and until it’s activated. Then the host dies within two days.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“We’ve given Washington a piece of the Dweller’s genetic code. They’ve examined it, and they believe. They can’t afford not to.”
I turned to Doll. “So she’s blackmailing you?”
“Stoddard approached my boss when you started getting close. Told him CDA was responsible for the Chicago outbreak and why. Then he told my boss about the Dweller. And insisted you be taken care of.”
Molly hit a few more keys, and the two screens went blank. “I love my country, Michael.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I could sell my toys to the highest bidder. And there’d be plenty. But I don’t.”
“You’re a real patriot.” I took a step.
“That’s enough.” Doll moved to the middle of the room, where he could cover both of us with his gun.“We need to get you out of here, Ms. Carrolton.” He began to herd Molly toward the door.
“You won’t get her back,” I said.
Molly stopped. “Won’t get who back?”
“Ellen’s gonna know the truth about her sister.”
Molly’s features froze. For a moment, I thought they might crack and crumble right off her face. Then she turned to Doll. “What happens to him?”
“That’s not your concern, ma’am.” Doll nodded toward the door. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”
Molly looked like she might fight it. Then she erupted in a fit of coughing. Doll led her out, the door locking behind them. Five minutes later, the man from Homeland returned. He still had his gun out.
“Now what the fuck am I going to do with you?”