Death Match

She nodded.

“You remember what I started to tell you? How only somebody in Eden’s top echelons could have done this? Known every aspect of Lindsay Thorpe’s background, tampered with her medical orders, modified her prescription, faked the paper trail. Just as only somebody with all Eden at their fingertips could have doctored my records, morphed me into a psychopathic desperado. Somebody who’d been with the company back when it was a PharmGen subsidiary. Somebody highly placed enough to know about the early tests on scolipane. Somebody who’d been a part of Eden Incorporated since the very first client walked through the doors.”

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“You know what I’m saying. The person who did all this — the person who’s targeting the supercouples—is avatar zero.”

“But who…” The question died in her throat.

Lash nodded grimly. “That’s right. Richard Silver is avatar zero.”

“Impossible.”

But Lash watched Tara’s eyes as she said this; watched her travel the same path of discovery he’d already taken. Who else but Silver would have such a number? Who else could have been in the system all this time? Perhaps on some level, she had already guessed. Perhaps that’s why she’d come prepared with the lead foil; why she’d come at all.

Tara just shook her head. “Why?”

“I don’t know why. Yet. We’re taught if you can determine motive, you can determine everything else: personality, behavior, opportunity. I don’t fully understand the motive. Fact is, only Silver can tell us for sure.”

There was a distant flurry of conversation, the opening and closing of doors. They waited, barely breathing. More chatter, closer this time; a distorted voice on a radio. Then more talk, farther away. And then, silence.

Lash exhaled slowly. “The idea came to me in your office this morning, when avatar zero kept coming to the top of the search list. The only avatar without a name. But it wasn’t until I met with an old classmate in Cold Spring — when I saw the co

“What about Karen Wilner?”

“I’ve barely had time to trace what happened to Lindsay Thorpe. I’m certain Substance P is at the heart of it. As for the delivery system, I can’t yet say.”

Tara looked at him. “Even with everything you’ve told me, it’s hard to believe. Silver might be a recluse, but he’s the last guy to strike me as a killer.”

“Reclusiveness is a red flag. Still, he doesn’t fit the obvious profile. But like I said, the profile’s contradictory to begin with. The murders are too similar, somehow. Artless, in a way. As if a child was committing them.” He paused. “Do I strike you as a killer?”

“No.”

“But you turned me in anyway.”

“And I might again. No one else believes you.”

“No one else has heard my story. Just you.”

“The jury’s still out until I hear what Silver has to say.”

Lash nodded slowly. “In that case, we’ve got only one option left.”

“What do you mean?” But from Tara’s eyes, Lash could see that she already knew.

FIFTY-ONE

Edwin Mauchly stood in the hush of Tara Stapleton’s empty office, sca

Though he had personally championed her rise through the ranks — though he had implicit trust in her talents — Tara remained a cipher to him. She always dressed professionally, rarely joked, even more rarely smiled. She was not given to small talk or gossip. All business, all the time.

His eye returned to the surfboard. Though he’d arranged for its presence here, it had always puzzled him. It didn’t jibe with her almost fanatic desire for privacy, with the wall she’d erected around her private life. Clearly, she wasn’t just showing off: if she wanted to do that, she would have brought in the championship trophies he knew from background checks that she’d won. No — the surfboard was there, one way or another, for her own benefit.

His eye fell to the carpeting, to the droplets of blood that were visible near the doorway. Elsewhere, Lash had left little or no trail. Not here. Why? Had he been gesturing? Threatening?

That led back to the main question. Why had Lash come here at all? Why had he taken the risk?

There were too many questions. Mauchly plucked the radio from his pocket, pressed the transmit button.

“Reading you, sir,” came the voice from the command center.

“Who is this? Gilmore?”

“Yes, Mr. Mauchly.”

“Go over with me again Ms. Stapleton’s movements after Lash left her office.”

“One moment, sir.” The clack of keystrokes sounded over the radio. “The advance team came through at 18:06. At 18:12 she left her office and was tracked to the radiology lab, down the hall. She was there for three minutes. At 18:15 she left the lab and proceeded to the elevator bank. She took elevator 104 up four stories, to the thirty-ninth floor. Sensors tracked her to the Proving Chamber.”

“The Tank.”

“Yes, sir. She opened the doors with her identity bracelet at 18:21.”

“Go on.”

“Passive sensors in the Tank confirm her presence there for the next nine minutes. After that, nothing.”

“Nothing? What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“Just that, sir. It’s like she vanished.”

“And the team we dispatched to the Tank?”

“Arrived there just now. The place is deserted.”

“Can you check the terminal logs, see if she accessed any systems?”

“We’re checking that now.”

“What about Lash? Any updates?”

“There was a sensor hit on the thirty-seventh floor ten minutes ago. Then several on the thirty-ninth floor a few minutes later.”

“Thirty-ninth,” Mauchly repeated. “In the vicinity of the Tank?”

“The last one was, sir.”

“And when was that?”

“Eighteen thirty-one.”

Mauchly lowered the radio. One minute after they lost contact with Tara. And on the same floor, the same spot.

Mauchly glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes without a sensor hit on either Lash or Tara. That made no sense — no sense at all.

He considered the situation. Except for the checkpoints and the elevators, there were no video cameras installed in the i

Still, the security protocols should have worked. There was only one way to defeat the identity bracelets, and that was a highly sensitive secret Lash could not be aware of…

Could he?

He raised the radio again. “Gilmore, I want you to divert the roving patrols. Send them all to thirty-eight and above. I want spotters in the stairwells and major intersections. If anything moves that isn’t a security guard, I want to know about it.”

“Very well, sir.”

Mauchly returned the radio to his pocket. Then he exited the office and walked thoughtfully down the hall.

The radiology lab was almost sepulchral in its emptiness. He gazed around at the idle equipment, the gleaming stainless-steel instruments.

Why had Tara come here?

Christopher Lash, psychopathic murderer, had just burst into her office. Had she then been seized by a sudden craving for extracurricular research? Again, it all made no sense.