The fans began to turn. The LEDs on top of the cylinders flashed red, then stayed lit up. And the people began to drop. They jolted back, convulsed, and collapsed like they were in some kind of macabre ballet. I watched them suffer through the same cycle of agony as the victims from the first group. Only this time, there was a difference. Every single person died. It took less than four minutes, and there wasn’t a single man, woman, or child in that tent with a breath left in their body. Not one out of the twenty there’d been to start with.
I closed the computer and waited for my stomach to untie itself. I knew there’d been no way to stop any of what I’d seen. In fact, there wasn’t really anything to have stopped. It was only a recording. The actual events had occurred eighteen months ago. They’d unfolded in some unknown location. It may not have been on the same continent as me, let alone a place I could have reached in time. And I had no idea who was responsible for it.
All of that was true. But none of it was any consolation. So I reached for my phone and called Lucinda.
“Have you watched it?” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“I thought so,” she said. “Pretty sick-making stuff, wasn’t it?”
“Where did it come from?” I said.
“The Spektra gas? You know where. You saw the emblem on the cylinder. And you know I can’t name the place over the phone. Just in case.”
“No. I mean the video. Who made it? Who did those—what did they call them—exposure tests?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did they get the gas? Was it sanctioned?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is this some kind of arm’s-length bullshit? Did the government want the data without getting its hands dirty?”
“David, I just don’t know. But I can’t believe they’d do that.”
“No. They just happened to be hiding a secret video of someone else doing it. That’s bound to be a coincidence.”
Lucinda didn’t answer.
“So either the government colluded with the experiments, or they lost the asset,” I said. “Either way, it stinks.”
“To high heaven,” said Lucinda. “Put like that.”
“So what else do we know? Where was the video made? Can we identify the location?”
“I don’t think so. There’s no audio, so we can’t do a language or dialect analysis. And I doubt you can gather enough detail through the windows for a database match. Or even a manual comparison.”
“What else can we do? What about the background files from the Web site? Is there anything in those we can work with?”
“No. Everything’s been stripped out. They’re content only. But I have found out a couple of other things since we spoke.”
“You’re an angel. Tell me.”
“OK. Well, first, did you notice that the video said the difference between the two clips was something called BMU8? The first time the gas had it, the second time it didn’t?”
“It was the other way around. That seemed to be the difference between Spektra IV and V. Whether it had this BM stuff.”
“Oh. Right. The other way around. But do you know what BMU8 is?”
“No. Never heard of it.”
“Nor had I. So I checked. Turns out it’s something quite simple. A stimulant. It aids breathing.”
“So why’s it added to the Spektra gas?”
“I’ve just been reading about it. Turns out it’s a technique they borrowed from the knockout gases that SWAT teams use. When they first tried them, it nearly always went wrong. If they pumped in enough gas to take down any hostage takers, for example, who were usually young and fit, it would kill any hostages who were old or ill or vulnerable. So, they added the stimulant to cut down on collateral damage.”
“But with a poison gas, you want as many fatalities as possible, surely?”
“You do. But with poisons, you’ve got the opposite problem. If a person doesn’t breathe in enough gas to kill them straight away, they might just go unconscious or end up restricting their airway or something. That reduces the volume of poison they ingest, and increases their chance of being resuscitated. Adding the stimulant increases the chance of instant death, and makes a higher yield achievable from a lower initial concentration.”
“So you’re saying it makes the gas more lethal?”
“Yes. Paradoxical, isn’t it?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
“Oh, wait,” Lucinda said. “Actually, no. I’m not saying it’s more lethal. Something’s either lethal, or it’s not. You can’t have degrees of lethal, obviously. What I’m saying is, it’s more practical. It can be deployed more easily. Either by inexpert personnel, or against targets with more diverse levels of fitness.”
“Such as civilians?” I said. “By them, and against them?”
“Exactly. Which brings me to my next point. That country you asked about. The Republic of Equatorial Myene. I put the word out on the grapevine for information. And something interesting has come back already. Word is, a coup is on the cards.”
“It’s in Africa, Lucinda. Of course a coup’s on the cards. There’ve been two hundred since 1960, alone. Attempts, anyway. It’s a standard political tool, in some places I’ve been to.”
“I understand that. But this is a serious one, apparently. I’m hearing that the rebels have some major-league backing. Money. Weapons. Mercenaries, ready to help them fight.”
“Are you sure? Most coup attempts turn out to be all talk and no trousers.”
“I’m hearing that it is, David. And it would explain the government being so keen on acquiring Spektra gas. Imagine whole villages being wiped out by one guy in a jeep. It would take a single cylinder. That would be quite an incentive to stay loyal to the regime.”
“One cylinder? Wouldn’t most of the gas just blow away?”
“No. Not if they have the right kind. On the videos, did you see the captions saying ‘Variant A’? That signifies the indoor version. It’s a fraction of the concentration. And the external type will be loaded with additives to make it more dense. Keep it close to the ground.”
I didn’t reply.
“I know what I’m talking about, David,” she said. “I was in the Balkans before New York, and we were all trained on this stuff.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I believe you. I was just thinking, coup attempt or not, we need to keep the Myenese and the gas apart. On separate sides of the ocean, preferably. And on that, there’s something else I need to check. Call me if anything else breaks?”
“I will. But I might have to increase my price to two lunches.”
The more I thought about the video, the less I liked the idea of the Myenese getting their hands on the cylinders of Spektra gas. Or of McIntyre continuing to be on the loose. The only link we had to either was the consulate’s IT guys, but I couldn’t put in a direct call to them. Hassling them would only slow things down. But at the same time, I was impatient for news. That just left me with Fothergill. I guessed he was busy, since he hadn’t returned my call from earlier. I was a little annoyed about that. I was still mulling it over, and wondering if he was worth another try, when his number appeared on my phone.
“Richard,” I said. “I was just thinking about you. Any sign of a rabbit?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “A bunny, maybe. A chink of light at the mouth of the burrow, at least. The Tefal-heads have found something. We think we know how Tony was communicating with his contacts.”
“Have you got a number? Let me have it. I’ll try to get hold of them right away.”
“No. It’s more sophisticated than that. It seems they were swapping messages via an Internet dating service.”
“Online dating? Are you sure he wasn’t just lonely?”
“Positive. This came from the other guys’ computer, remember. It was hard to spot. The messages were coded, but they’d kept enough of them for our boys to break their system.”
“Are they sure? Can we use it?”