The man put his hand back on the table, unrolled the silver foil, took a handful of pills out of it, popped them into his mouth, closed his eyes, and started to chew and swallow, chew and swallow. All so quickly that there was nothing they could do to stop him.
Phyllis Simpson watched him and started to curse herself. 'What's that?'
'Digoxin,' the man mumbled, his mouth full of white, mangled pills. 'You believe those Heaven's Gate guys used barbiturates? Now, they really were crazy.'
She darted a worried glance at Carney.
'Shit,' the cop said, got up, walked around the table, took the man by the neck, and yelled, 'Cough those fucking things up now.'
He started choking. Carney shoved his fingers down his gaping throat, waited to hear him gag, then screamed, pulled his hand out. 'Fucking bit me! Simpson. Get the paramedics in here. What did he call that stuff?'
'Digoxin,' she said, reaching for the phone.
He swung the guy around in the swivel chair, stared him in the eye, and said, 'Listen. Either you cough those things up now or I hold you upside down until you spit them out. Now, what's it going to be?'
The man wasn't crying any more. 'Fucking cops,' he said, his face going red, voice slurred, breathing laboured. 'Can't you even let a man die with dignity?'
'No,' Carney yelled, then picked him up under the arms, let him stand for a moment, and punched him hard in the stomach. The man creased over onto the table, gasping, coughing, retching. 'Spit those fuckers up. Where the hell are those paramedics, Simpson? They on coffee break or something?'
'Don't try to make him throw up. It's not the right thing to do. I did poisons in training. Digoxin is digitalis. We can't deal with this, Mike. He needs medical help.'
The man slumped back onto the table, groaning. Phyllis Simpson walked over, felt his forehead, looked into his eyes. 'Can you see okay?'
The man shook his head. A thin dribble of opaque yellow vomit trickled out of the corner of his mouth. He yelped, then farted. The room filled with an obnoxious smell.
'How much did you take? Come on, now. It's not too late.' Simpson tried to ignore the stink. He was shaking, and Phyllis had an idea it was halfway between an involuntary spasm and laughter.
'Enough,' the man said, then rolled out of the chair onto the floor, mouth open, starting to choke on the stream of puke that kept coming out from inside him. His eyes were popping out of his head. His body was going into convulsions.
'What they tell you about this?' Carney asked. 'In training?'
The man puked a real bellyful onto the floor. Shit stains ran down the seat of his pale chinos.
'You can pick these things up anywhere. They use them to strengthen the contractions of the heart. Too much and the system just goes haywire.' The convulsions were getting worse, she thought. She let go and he twitched a whole revolution across the floor, spraying bile everywhere.
'Is it bad?'
She looked at him. 'What do you think? From what I recall, they said that anyone who survived the first twenty-four hours would probably pull through.'
A noise was coming out of his mouth, not quite human. It sounded like an old door with rusty hinges, a low, slow exhalation of sound, dying away into nothing. Then he twitched, a sudden spasm that went the length of the body, pulled his hands up into a rigid, rabbit like pose underneath his chin, opened his mouth wide, face white and waxy, eyes popping, and went still.
Phyllis Simpson turned away and stared at the wall.
'Well,' said Carney's voice behind her, 'I think he just missed that one by — oh — twenty-three hours and fifty-eight minutes.'
The door opened with a bang and two paramedics walked in, beaming. 'Phyllis!' the first one said. 'And my favourite lieutenant. Now, you people been beating up on the good people of Vegas again or wha-'
They stared at the body on the floor and fell silent.
CHAPTER 27
Tactics
Michael Lieberman sat on the steps at the front of the mansion, watching a handful of soldiers mill around the helipad. From this distance, it was hard to see what kind of troops these were — American or Spanish. When you put people inside khaki and gave them a gun, they all looked much the same. On the flat parched grass of the clifftop two helicopters sat side by side, the rotors on the nearest turning slowly in a leisurely windup sequence. He winced. Aeroplanes he could handle. Helicopters, with their noise and constant vibration, always seemed somehow unnatural. These were his least favourite form of transportation.
Ellis Bevan came and stood by him. He was wearing a grey shirt and slacks of an identical colour. The best uniform he could muster, Lieberman thought. 'Where are they going?'
'The mountain,' Bevan said, his flat, expressionless face already soaked in sweat. The day had developed with some fierce, burning vengeance in its belly. This was the hottest yet. It was impossible to escape the ferocity of the sun anywhere, even in the close, damp, humid dark of the mansion. 'If anywhere is going to come under attack, it's there.'
He looked Bevan in the eye. 'You're sure?'
'Oh yes. That's where the dome is. And close by we have another control centre too. It duplicates what we have here to some extent, and handles all the telecom traffic with the satellite. They could reduce this place to rubble and we'd still be operational. If they are going to hit somewhere, it's on the peak.'
'Hope you're right this time.'
Bevan tut-tutted quietly to himself. It was a small, infuriating gesture and succeeded in making Lieberman feel immature. 'You're still mad at the way we lured you here?'
'I don't like being lied to.'
'If we'd told you the truth, would you have come?'
'No.'
'So you get my point? Also…' Bevan fell into silence, watched one of the helicopters manoeuvring into the sky.
'Also what?'
'You knew this woman. Maybe you had some involvement too. We couldn't rule that out.'
'Jesus,' he grunted. 'It's nice to have your trust, Ellis.'
'You're bad at seeing other people's points of view, Lieberman. It makes it hard for you to work alongside others.'
'Thanks for the analysis. I wish it was original. So, speaking of teamwork. These guys with the guns, they're answerable to you now? My, your empire grows and grows.'
'It's a security issue. Do you think I should leave this to Schulz?'
Lieberman laughed. It was a good answer. 'No, of course not. But this is a waste of time. Charley's too smart to start lobbing missiles or something at us.'
'You're probably right,' Bevan said, watching the helicopter disappear along the coastline, out over the iridescent blue sea. 'That doesn't mean we just sit here doing nothing. Speaking of which…'
'Yeah, yeah… I know. I was just taking a break from looking at those damn screens. When I designed that thing we used models and paper and stuff. Not so much in the way of computers. It all looks so different from what I remember.'
Bevan eyed him and nodded. It might even have been a gesture of sympathy. 'This idea of crippling Sundog through the Shuttle isn't going to happen, is it?'
He didn't like the note of pessimism in the man's voice. 'I'm working on it. You people have asked me to disarm some little scorpion you've invented, one that can bite me the moment it knows I'm there, and, guess what, I don't even get allowed to touch it. If it was easy, I wouldn't be here, now, would I?'
Bevan let his dead blue eyes wander over the desiccated corn fields. 'I wouldn't argue with that. We need all the hands we can get right now. And if it means anything, I'm glad you're one of them.'