The clasp popped open. Okay, now get the kit out. Come on. She could do it; she was almost there…
She found the pouch inside the purse and scooped it out in a shaking hand.
With effort she ripped the first injection device free of its plastic clip.
The jerking and twitching of her legs had died away, replaced by a heavy sense of muscular fatigue and a numb, limp paralysis. This was a bad sign, a later stage in the progression of neurological attack. But at least it made it possible for her to inject herself cleanly.
Twisting at the hips, she pushed the green tip of the injector hard against her thigh, and the needle punched through the fabric of her pants leg and penetrated the muscle. She held it in place, counting to ten.
Popped it free. Cast it aside.
One down. One to go. The atropine was only the preliminary treatment. The second injection was the antidote itself.
She reached into the pouch again, and suddenly the shaking of her left hand became a generalized agitation of both arms, and she was rolling on the floor, arms crossed over her chest as if straitjacketed, then pounding the floor with her elbows, her hands.
The seizure passed, and she lay still, stunned by her exertions
But breathing. Still breathing. The atropine had kept her lungs working, at least.
Get the antidote into her system, and she might actually survive.
She rolled onto her side and reached for the pouch. Her left arm was heavy, fatigued, but not yet paralyzed. Movement was difficult, not impossible.
Snap the injector free…
She was trying, but she had no strength. Her fingers could not exert enough pressure to break the injection device out of its clip. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t Another tremor swept through her, jerking her sideways. The room darkened.
She wavered on the edge of unconsciousness, then came slowly back.
And found the injector, liberated from its clip, held loosely in her hand. The jerk of her arm had broken it free. All she had to do was stick the needle in her thigh…
But her arm wouldn’t move.
The last wave of seizure activity had stolen all her muscular strength. The extreme muscle fatigue Dr. Gant had called flaccid paralysis, which already had overtaken her legs, had now taken possession of her upper body as well.
The injector began to slip from her fingers. If she dropped it, she would never be able to pick it up. With an effort of will, she managed to hold on.
There was no hope of injecting the drug into her thigh-it was a million miles away. But another injection site would do. Deep muscle was what she needed. The muscle tissue of her breast and underarm was close enough that she could reach it simply by bending her arm at the elbow.
It was a slow process, though not painful-she felt no specific pain anywhere, only the numbness of utter exhaustion. An inch at a time she advanced the injector. She could see it clearly, could even read the words printed on the side of the tube-PRALIDOXIME CHLORIDE.
Now the injector was pressing against the muscle just behind her right breast. But she couldn’t fire it, couldn’t push hard enough to pop the needle through the protective tip.
She had enough strength left for one final exertion. She pushed herself up with one arm and thudded down on her side, and the weight of her body compressed the injector between its target and the floor.
She felt a sudden burning pain under her arm, and she knew the needle had plunged through her shirt and into her muscles, releasing its ampoule of medicine.
For a long moment she just lay there, certain that the injection had come too late. She felt no improvement. Her lungs were barely functioning. Every breath was a struggle.
You’re not going to make it, she thought as her awareness flickered on the verge of a blackout.
Time crawled past. A minute or more. The TV still babbled; the air conditioner still hummed.
And she was breathing just a little easier.
Her lungs were starting to work again. She was weak and wheezy, but it seemed the antidote had kicked in.
All right, then. Time to summon help.
Her cell phone was in her purse, and it was already turned on-she left it on all the time to take incoming calls.
She willed her hand toward the purse, reached inside, and dug out the phone.
Got it.
All she had to do was dial 9, then 1…
Her fingers stabbed at the keypad, missing their mark. The keys were too small, her hand still too shaky.
There was another way: press redial. It was only one button to hit, and it was bigger than the other keys.
On her fourth or fifth try, she succeeded. The phone’s LCD screen lit up with the words SENDING CALL.
Who was the last person she’d talked to? Andrus when she was at the chem lab? No, it was Dodge, of course. She’d called him from her car, minutes ago.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever be happy to hear Detective Dodge’s voice again, but she would be thrilled to hear it now.
But he wasn’t answering.
Three rings.
Four.
No pickup on the other end.
But this was his cell phone number, the one he gave to informants. He would always answer the cell phone.
Except tonight.
Six rings by now. Seven. Eight.
She lay on her side, fighting for breath, praying for Dodge to answer.
32
Dodge thought he might get lucky after all.
It had seemed like the longest of long shots, but Tess McCallum seemed to have bought the industrial-size bag of bullshit he was selling. He’d thought federal agents were supposed to be worldly-wise and cynical, but McCallum was a babe in the fucking woods.
By the end of the night he would have pinned the blame on Winston, and McCallum would be abjectly apologetic for all the nasty things she’d said about him.
Was there any way she could make it up to him?
Dodge smiled.
He could think of a way. A few dozen ways.
He turned into the driveway of his house, a bungalow dating from the 1930s, perched at the edge of a hillside. He hadn’t lied about the view. From the front of the house he could see the full expanse of LA, from the dark rim of desert on the east to the infinite Pacific on the west. If there was any poetry in his soul, it was aroused by that view, at night, under a swollen moon.
Adjacent to the bungalow was a carport. He parked inside, killing his lights and motor.
As he got out of the car, he was thinking of Tess McCallum and what he might be able to do with her in a very short time. Guilt was a powerful emotion, or so he had been told-he had never been much prone to guilt himself-and he intended to have McCallum feeling very fucking guilty before long.
Thing was, he didn’t even care that much about her personally. There were women in his little black book who had her beat in the looks department. But he’d never bagged a federal agent. He wanted a taste of that certified U.S. Prime pussy. It was the kind of memory he could take with him into his old age.
Smiling, he stepped out of the carport, then heard a footstep behind him.
He pivoted, his hand sliding inside his jacket to unholster his Smith. 38, and there was a flicker of motion on the margin of his sight, and crashing pain and the million lights of the city exploding before his eyes, weakness in his knees, numbness and confusion and roaring darkness, and he fell on his face and twitched and lay still.
33
After twenty unanswered rings Tess gave up on Dodge. If she was going to get out of this, she would have to do it some other way.
And she would get out. She had to. Mobius had taken everything else from her, but he would not take her life.