TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

NYQUIST COMMANDEERED A table near the back of the main part of the restaurant by the hallway that led to the room where Soseki made his final speech. Unbeknownst to Romey, Nyquist had done a quiet walk-through of the place, just to see if there was anything anyone had missed.

He couldn’t tell if there was. The large meeting room looked abandoned, as if the meeting had just ended. Garbage littered the floor, some glasses covered a nearby table, a half-empty bottle of water stood on the stage near the podium. He did send a message to the crime scene techs to make sure they picked up all the bottled water, labeled it properly, and then tested it, although he was pretty certain that the water hadn’t killed Soseki.

Nyquist had seen that needle that Tyr had isolated off the vids. There was, in Nyquist’s opinion, no defending against something like that. It went to something he always said to DeRicci when he was trying to calm her down: Something will get through. A determined terrorist can get past all barriers. Your job is to make sure those barriers are sound, and what does get through is a fluke.

He wasn’t sure this was a fluke, but he did know that these people were determined.

He had watched a few minutes of the rest of the vid Tyr had prepared, the clone waiting for his moment to get close to Soseki. The fact that there were more of them made Nyquist extremely nervous. Something—someone—big had planned this attack for a long time.

After he had that realization, he commandeered his table. He set up a small command, a networked screen, a bit of crumpled up napkin so that it looked as if the table was in constant use.

Then he left again, slipping out front so that he could find out how Jacobs was doing.

She still crouched near Soseki’s body, a laser knife in her hand. A ring of uniforms stood around her, facing the street. Another group of uniforms was moving from building to building, as if they were searching for someone. Someone who had seen the clone?

He didn’t know, and at the moment, he didn’t care. The clone was Romey’s problem. Nyquist’s problem was pretty simple and extremely complex at the same time.

He tried to get to Jacobs, but one of the uniforms held him back. So Nyquist sent her a message. She nodded, then squinted, the way some people did when they were using their links.

Clearly she hadn’t sent a message to him. The message was going to the uniforms, telling them that Nyquist had clearance.

He slipped past and stopped near Jacobs.

“Come closer, Bartholomew,” she said, “and take a look at this.”

She beckoned him to crouch beside her. She had opened a tiny section of Soseki’s deltoid muscle. Or what should have been Soseki’s deltoid muscle.

Instead, it looked like she had carved into the sidewalk.

“Is that as thick as it looks?” Nyquist asked.

She handed him a small screen that magnified the image from the tip of the laser. He didn’t see muscle or skin or blood vessels. He saw only grayness so solid that it looked like part of a tube.

“I couldn’t cut into it with a regular knife,” she said. “I had to use the laser. This is his right side. The attack happened on his left. It’s even more solid over there.”

“What is this?” Nyquist asked.

“I have no idea,” Jacobs said. “But it’s both fast-acting and terrifying. I say we don’t ever let the cause of death out. I say we just tell people he was poisoned and leave it at that.”

“I’d love to order that,” Nyquist said, “but I’m not in charge of this investigation.”

She pursed her lips. She had already made her opinion known on that.

“So let me make sure I’m understanding this,” Nyquist said. “It turned his insides to sludge.”

She shook her head. “More like it filled in his skin with this new substance, destroying everything else it came into contact with. And I’m not even sure there’s any skin here either. This may just be the substance, using his body as some kind of mold, and working through it.”

Despite himself, Nyquist shuddered. It really had turned Soseki into some kind of statue.

“I can give you the chemical compound,” Jacobs said, “but this is post-reaction. I don’t know if the compound is the same before it comes in contact with the skin.”

Nyquist nodded.

She handed him a small disk, which surprised him.

“You could send this through my links,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m telling you, Bartholomew, this stuff scares me. It’s quick, lethal, and effective. I don’t want any part of it out there. I don’t want anyone to know what it really is.”

He closed his fist around the disk. “Someone already knows what it is, Marigold,” he said softly. “And worse, they know how to use it.”

She bit her lower lip, then teared up.

“Sometimes I hate this job,” she said.

“I know,” Nyquist said. “Believe me. I know.”