This is not yet the final draft, but should be pretty close.
~~~~~
There were cops at the door, cops down the hall, cops back and forth, cameras, DNA tools, bio isolation gear, everything. I could hear casualties talking softly and occasionally moaning in the other direction.
We were stopped again at a checkpoint halfway down the hall. I could see trails of debris from panic flight. People had run screaming, if I made my guess. It stank. I’ve smelled better morgues.
A senior detective checked our IDs, made us pose for pics, which I strained to stand still for. My cover was pretty much trash at this point. I’d have to hope that everyone would continue to vouch for me, rather than trying to get clear of the pending blast. My choice was be imaged, or start a scene. I needed the intel. I let them do it.
My image didn’t trigger any alarms. Detective Marquardt waved us over, and said, “I saw you at Vrenkel Service the other day. In a rented car. So I can stop worrying about that connection in my investigation,” he said with a glower. I guessed he was a tiny bit annoyed, in that he’d had a false lead, and been unable to trace me. Not an auspicious start.
“That was me,” I admitted. “I was only seeking information, and didn’t touch the scene.”
“Fair enough. I’m not happy, but I know how these things work.” He turned, pointed at a couple of things and nothing in particular. “Please be careful. There’s considerable dispersal and we need to preserve as much as possible. Some of it will have to be compromised, I’m afraid. You’ll need masks.”
Meyerson whimpered softly behind us. Silver followed Marquardt. She seemed eager to get into this one. I pulled the filter over my face and followed her.
He pointed to a desk set up as a collection and monitor point and said, “We found this halfway across the room. It’s mostly intact. I’m calling that the murder weapon for now. You’ll need gloves or…” he grabbed a pair of tongs, grasped the item and handed it over.
Silver took it, raised her eyebrows, and carefully passed it over.
I examined the projectile. It was just crude enough to indicate it was custom made, but of sufficient quality to be professional. And it was a creepy little thing.
I passed it back to Silver. “What do you make of that?”
She took it, held it carefully and examined it, then said, “Great Goddess.” A few more turns and long looks and she punctuated it with “Holy hell!”
It was a syringelike dart, with a reservoir in the body. Said reservoir had been breached on contact. Then it had dumped a large volume of ultracompressed gas—my guess was about a cubic meter—out the syringe and into the target, in this case, the target’s abdomen.
It had been a hypergolic gas or gases.
“What was it? Any idea?” I asked.
He said, “Residue indicates chlorine trifluoride.”
All I said was, “Daaamn.” I handed it back very carefully.
There really wasn’t much that profanity could emphasize. The substance in question is more reactive than straight fluorine, self-oxidizing, and the decay products are hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid.
What followed was a low-order deflagration burn. You might know it as a “fuel/air explosive.” I’m very familiar with them.
Only this one had been inside a human body. Inside the lower GI tract. Hence the reeking mist of blood and s**t pervading the atmosphere in this locale. A cubic meter of outrageously reactive gas inside his guts had flashed them into burning vapor, blown him into cooked shreds coated in acid, and splattered those shreds on the walls, which were now etching bubbling paisley moirés into the surface. It was beyond excessive or obscene. It was awe-inspiring.
The body stopped just below the shoulders, with the arms hanging from muscle around shattered shoulders. One leg wasn’t far away, the other lay below a trail of blood down the wall it had hit in flight. The entire torso had been gooified.
Among the smells, though, were things I knew. “I can smell the chlorine,” I said. “The acid level seems rather high. The victim eats a lot of seafood and bitter vegetables.”
Behind me, Meyerson overloaded again and mumbled as she staggered back a few meters.
Marquardt watched her leave, then turned and said, “There’ve been a number of really sophisticated assassinations the last few months.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said.
“The rate seems to be increasing, and this is the third one in a few days here.”
“Yes, it’s disturbing.”
“You don’t mind if I inquire with your Embassy as to why you’re here, do you?” he asked.
“You can ask. They can confirm my ID but that’s about it.” There was a code in the choice of names, numbers, etc, that would tell the Embassy it was military. If they asked, the military, meaning Naumann, would confirm that.
“Well, I’d certainly like to know why important people are getting sliced up, suffocated, blown to paste, and you’re on the scene within minutes, obviously familiar with the matter.”
“I’m here to investigate,” I said. “I wouldn’t be a very good investigator if I wasn’t on track in a hurry.”
“Be advised this has to go through the Dominion Police. I expect they’ll have some questions, too.”
“Hopefully we’ll all have answers very shortly. What’s next after sponging up the DNA?”
Down the hall, poor Meyerson made gagging noises.
“We’re trying to determine delivery method. We presume a pneumatic method.”
Silver said, “Subsonic pneumatic. Probably ten meters or so. He’d have been dressed as a cleaner or maintainer and carrying some kind of tool approximately a half meter long.”
“That’s interesting,” Marquardt said. He turned to the staff working over the debris crumb by crumb and said, “Vitkin, you heard. Interview the witnesses.”
He didn’t question how Silver had that information. It was obvious to all, but would remain unsaid, that we were probably military, and why we were after this particular suspect.
We went through the entire scene, escorted by the locals. I couldn’t fault their willingness to share information. I think the high profile and exotic nature of the assassinations had made them eager to put aside any jurisdictional or other issues and get what they could. Silver had already given them a nice lead.
Vitkin came back, with Meyerson, who looked a bit less green, though she made a point of looking at us and not the scene.
He said, “I think we have a match. Three witnesses saw a caretaker come down the hall with a cleaning buggy. Two say they remember him wearing a protective hood. It could have been reinforced with flex armor.”
“It would be,” Silver said.
“Two box trucks left the area right after that. Janus Janitorial and Leonov Electrical.”
Marquardt said, “So we’re looking for two vehicles.”
I said, “Double check witness locations. I expect it was one truck with a different logo on each side. They’ll both be real companies, the logos will match, and he’s already scrubbed them off. You’ll waste time and manpower investigating each while he goes a third way.”
“I’ll pull traffic records then.”
“You’re looking for an anomaly. Either it was reported as a fault, or it was reported as on zone control but actually wasn’t.”
“I certainly hope information like this will keep coming.”
I am going to preorder a copy!