“How could that happen to Francie Fain?” I asked.
I wasn’t challenging the facts, but I was ignorant of what kind of toxin had such violent effects. I imagined the result of ingesting poison would lend itself to a more tranquil death, like in the cozy mystery novels of Agatha Christie.
“I can answer that in three words. I can’t get my brain around the Russian expression, but the translation is easy,” Vickee said. “‘Kiss of death.’”
“Am I supposed to know what that is?” I asked her.
“How’s your Russian, Coop?” Mike asked, interrupting us. “‘Kiss of death’ is the English translation of the Russian poison used against Francie—the latest in a long line of deadly chemical weapons.”
“A nerve agent, developed by the Russians,” Vickee said. “An extremely powerful nerve agent. At four o’clock today I’d never heard of it, and now I’m practically an expert.”
“Go back to your news stories,” Mike said. “Think nerve agents as military weapons.”
“Out of my reach,” I said. “Help me.”
“Remember your history? Tokyo subways in 1995? Someone released an odorless gas called sarin, which killed a dozen people.”
“Sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Sarin’s a nerve agent,” Mike said. “You breathe it in or it makes contact with your skin and you’re dead in minutes. It’s a weapon of mass destruction, which was supposedly stockpiled in Iraq in the nineties, and then outlawed by international panels of weapons inspectors.”
“But Francie had nothing to do with—” I tried to say something but Mike was rolling over me.
“Fast-forward to 2017, when Kim Jong-un’s brother was assassinated in the airport in Kuala Lumpur,” he said, “by two women who smeared a nerve agent on his face. I think that one was called VX.”
“You’re talking military stockpiles and foreign dictators,” I said. “This has nothing to do with Francie.”
“Hear me out,” Mike said. “After the Korean kill, there was that couple in England last year—the Skripals. They were Soviet ex-pats poisoned by the cutting-edge level of agents. Novichok—‘the newcomer’ is how it translated. It was developed for military use—probably ten times more potent than whatever they used before it. The bad guys applied it to the door handle of the house where the Skripals lived and were likely targeting the father, who’d been former KGB—a double agent. Both of them, father and daughter, touched the handle—just touched it—and they almost died.”
“But Novichok had an indeterminate shelf life,” Vickee said. “It can remain dangerous for years, once it’s deployed. So this latest poison was developed for the one-time hit—not contagious, no lingering effects, no chance of killing people aside from the target. That’s why the Russians have been calling it the Kiss of Death.”
“Russian military nerve agents?” I said, protesting again. “That’s ridiculous. Francie is a defense attorney for the indigent. Her being the target of the Kiss of Death makes no sense at all.”
“Do you know Quint Akers?” Vickee asked me.
“Sure. Francie’s supervisor.”
“We talked to him late today—but we didn’t tell him the diagnosis. He says Francie was in England a few weeks ago, and we know that places her not terribly far from where the Skripals were targeted.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking about this stuff,” I said. “I was supposed to be at that conference, too. It wasn’t about espionage and spies and secret agents. That’s absurd. It was an international symposium on violent crime.”
“Scully thinks the English visit is a long shot, too,” Vickee said, “but this newest nerve agent can work instantaneously when you touch it—or it can be absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream, depending on the method of delivery.”
“Francie may have been collateral damage, right?” I asked. “That makes more sense than her being a target.”
“It is what it is,” Vickee said. “The medical experts are certain they have identified a nerve agent, and in all likelihood it was a direct hit on Francie. We’re doing a clean sweep of Francie’s apartment tonight, in case whatever toxin it is happens to be in something that’s there—maybe even something she brought home from England—a gift or a souvenir that she just opened yesterday.”
“Did those Skirpers—?”
“Skripals,” Mike said.
“Whoever they are. Did they live?” I asked. “Did they survive direct contact with the nerve agent used against them?”
“Yes, but it’s slow going. They were both in comas for weeks,” Vickee said, nodding at me.
“Tell Coop the truth,” Mike said. “Not everyone recovers. Some who survive these chemical weapons have permanent nerve damage, chronic weakness in the arms and legs, severe depression, an inability to concentrate enough to read or to write. These are deadly, dark drugs.”
All this, and Francie was pregnant, too. Vickee hadn’t mentioned that and I didn’t dare ask.
“I told the commissioner that Francie wrote you a note to hand off at your party,” Vickee said. “That it mentioned something about a new job. Did you know anything about it?”
“That came as a total surprise. We never had the chance to talk,” I said. “I’ll make sure to give Mercer the note to get to you, for vouchering.”
“The conference—did she have a chance to tell you about that?” Vickee asked.
“It occurred right after I’d been released from the kidnappers. No, we never discussed that either. My fault, because I just didn’t focus on things that didn’t seem life-or-death at the time.”
Now I could kick myself for being so self-involved during my recovery.
“You have no idea what changes Francie was planning on making in her life?”
“I never thought she’d leave her job any more than I’d leave mine,” I said. “She lived for her work.”
“Like Coop said, does the commissioner think this poisoning was intentional?” Mike asked. “Isn’t there a chance Francie Fain wasn’t the intended victim?”
“There’s a chance she wasn’t, but like I said, this latest version of nerve agents isn’t contagious,” Vickee said. “Do you want to help?”
“Course I do,” Mike said.
“Scully had to call the head of the FBI,” Vickee said. “It’s the feds who are going through Francie’s apartment with our team. They’re better prepared on the chem weapons response. But we need someone to look at the video surveillance tapes for the hours before and after she collapsed on Baxter Street. It wasn’t an issue when we thought she was simply ill, but it’s critically important now.”
“I’m the man,” Mike said.
“Great. I told the commissioner you were the perfect candidate to do this because you were there just after she fell down, and you rode in the ambulance with her,” Vickee said. “We figured if we let Major Case guys do it, there’d be too many of them we’d have to tell about the nerve agent. But you—”
Mike poked her in the rib. “But me, I’m discreet, right?”
“You’d damn well better be the soul of discretion,” Mercer said, tipping his glass and pointing it at Mike.
“Who’d want Francie dead?” I said, looking for comfort in my drink.
“Maybe a perp she represented?” Mercer said.
“The ones she got off are grateful,” I said, “and the others are safely behind bars upstate, courtesy of my colleagues.”
“Did she have a guy?” Mike asked.
I waited for Vickee to answer, to see what she knew about Francie’s pregnancy—which would mean Keith Scully knew about it as well.
“We don’t know exactly,” Vickee said.
“You do know there’s a rumor Francie was pregnant?” I said, unable to hold back any longer.
“I guess that news is out there already,” she said, nibbling on a breadstick. “My boss wasn’t sure that her friends knew, so I wasn’t going to mention it.”
“I’m not certain that anyone else does,” I said. “Sorry, Vick. I didn’t mean to make you spill the beans. I just didn’t want the fetal DNA to be overlooked, if it becomes an issue. It could provide a valuable lead.”
“Scully’s on it,” Vickee said. “Francie’s in real danger of losing the baby, and he knows what has to be done if she does.”
There was not a ray of hope in this story, no matter how I looked at it.
“How do you not go public with this?” I asked. “If Francie wasn’t the intended victim, there could be so many more people at risk. The perp—or perps—might try again until they get it right.”
“Scully and the mayor are going back and forth on that,” Vickee said. “It’s been forty-eight hours since Francie went down, and no other cases have been reported. Scully thinks he’s only got another twenty-four before he has to make a statement. The mayor disagrees with him, of course. I get the feeling he hopes this is a one-off that will save him a huge political headache if there are no other victims.”
“What a coward,” I said. “But that’s nothing new for him.”
“So there’s only one thing we haven’t talked about yet,” Mike said, “and that is what the commissioner did with the patient.”
Vickee’s back stiffened again. She didn’t speak.
“We know she’s not at New York/Cornell Hospital,” I said.
“If you can trust us to tell us this much, and to ask me to screen the videos,” Mike said, “you might let us know about the disappearing act the commissioner pulled.”
“Don’t put me in that position, Mike. Francie’s getting all the medical attention she possibly needs,” Vickee said. “And she’s safer this way, too.”
“Safer from me?” Mike asked, leaning back and putting his hands on his chest, in mock surprise. “I’m not the baby daddy, Vick. I’m not a suspect here. Let us in, will you?”
Vickee stood up and stared her husband down. “Mercer, I’m out of here, okay? I’m as concerned about Francie Fain as the three of you,” she said, pointing her finger at Mike and then me, “but that’s as far as we go tonight.”
Mercer got up to join her.
“If you two think you can top the best scientists in this country researching this new drug and its antidotes 24/7, trying to reverse the symptoms and all that,” Vickee said to the two of us, “I assure you I’ll advise the commissioner that you should just jump in and go to the head of the class.”
I’d never seen my friend this angry.
“And in case you think you deserve some kind of award for having very special balls, Mike, ’cause they’re what you’re usually trying to show off,” Vickee said, “let me just remind you they’re no match for the brains of the five or six Nobel laureates who have been up all night working to keep Francie Fain alive.”