Devil s Due Page 0,66

looked back, the door was closed and locked, the peephole dark.

He was watching her go.

She followed Jazz's excellent example, taking the steps fast, and saw the electrician's van idling in the parking lot twenty feet from the sidewalk. She crossed to it without incident, she checked for Cole's familiar face before opening the passenger door.

Cole was a medium guy - medium height, medium weight, medium complexion. He'd disappear into a crowd of two. He'd chosen the vehicle well; the paint on the exterior was sun-faded and the contractor's logo and information were chipped. Cole himself was wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and a tool belt that had just the right wear on the leather.

She wouldn't have given him a second glance, and Lucia knew herself to be more paranoid than most.

He put the van in gear without any words being spoken, and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.

"Sorry," she said, and indicated what she was wearing, which wasn't exactly appropriate to the occasion. "I haven't been home."

"Yeah, I heard you were in the hospital." He gave her a long look. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. Any word on the origin of the anthrax strain?"

"Came out of a lab in California, and believe me, somebody's ass is cooking on a grill right now. Rawlins is pissed. He really doesn't like terrorists."

She grinned. "And you do?"

"I spend a lot more time rubbing shoulders with them. Hard to get a real hate going when you've met their wives and kids. You know you have to do it, but sometimes it gets hard."

"Probably the same for them."

"Yeah. It is." He glanced out the back windows of the van. "You armed?"

"Always."

"Good. Not that I figure we'll need it, but I don't want to get caught with my tool belt down, if you know what I mean. Your source was right, by the way. These guys are ordering in big amounts of sodium cyanide, and their next-door neighbors are shipping in hydrochloric acid. I can see why you're not fond of the combination. It'd make a hell of a nice hydrogen cyanide cloud. In an enclosed space, it could kill hundreds, maybe thousands. Arrowhead Stadium's right down the street. The volume of gas we're talking about, you set it off in a place like that, you could count on major results."

"God," she whispered reverently. "How easy would it be - ?"

"The stadium? Not very. I mean, we're talking about a lot of chemicals here, very high profile, and chemicals are bulky to move around. But you look at some of the high-rise buildings in the city? Pump some of this into the air handlers, and you're talking big numbers of bodies." Cole considered it, his light brown eyes distant as he rubbed his chin. "Unless they're making a hell of a lot of gold chains and pimping up the hubcaps of half of the country, I can't see how they could be using everything they've ordered."

"So we take a look."

"Wrong," he said. "I take a look. You watch my ride. Looking like you do, I don't think anybody's going to believe you're apprenticing as a cable puller, so you'd better keep out of sight."

He wasn't being judgmental, just practical. She nodded and settled herself in the grimy seat. It occurred to her that she should call Jazz, but truthfully, she didn't want to. She knew she was pushing her luck. Fresh from the hospital and already taking risks? Jazz wouldn't approve. Loudly. At length.

As if she'd conjured up a connection telepathically, her cell phone rang. She exchanged a quick glance with Cole as he turned the van down Eldon Road, heading toward the railroad tracks. The entrance to SubTropolis was just ahead. Lucia pulled her phone out and flipped it open, and winced as static blasted her eardrum.

Wind noise.

No, jet noise. Someone was calling her from a plane. "Hello?" She couldn't hear a damn thing. The connection was terrible, and the van she was in was rattling as well. She blocked her other ear and concentrated. "Hello? Anyone there?"

The answer, if there was one, was lost in the dull thump of the van's tires going over railroad tracks. There was a line of vehicles passing through the SubTropolis gates, most of them 18-wheelers. Cole slowed the van to a crawl.

She listened for another few seconds, but the connection cut out.

"Anything important?" he asked.

"Couldn't tell," she said. She checked the caller ID, but as she'd expected, it was an air phone. "I hope