“You’ve got to be kidding. An artificial volcano? A cursed piece of obsidian? A string of events so unlikely that no one would believe they could actually happen…”
An old woman tottered in the front door and sank into a booth. Her hair was a wild white mane, and she wore an old sundress covered in bright red flowers. She carried a white shopping bag with the letters ABC on it.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Catherine.
“No? Then let me re-create it for you, via the magic of storytelling- because, let’s face it, there is no way we could ever actually duplicate the events that transpired.
“Okay, first of all there’s Kanamu’s injury. Happens as a result of taking a piece of obsidian from Hualalai, which he isn’t supposed to do. Despite this, he turns the rock into a necklace and brings it with him to Vegas-where he correctly predicts something so unlikely that the odds against it make him rich. And it involves a virgin.”
“So? Statistically, she was going to lose her virginity someday-and she’s a celebrity. The only real surprise is that she didn’t announce it on Twitter.”
Greg shrugged. “Well, maybe. But look at the accident itself. You saw how all the individual items were arranged; the necklace and the torch both had to be in just the right position for the link to soften and break; the rock had to fall just right to not drop off the edge of the gantry. Kanamu’s syringomyelia was caused by the fall at Hualalai, and if Kanamu hadn’t had syringomyelia, he never would have hesitated the few seconds it took to get just the right distance away from the exposed flywheel-and then he had to pitch the rock at exactly the right angle for it to hit the flywheel and kick back at him, nailing him right in the forehead and knocking him out. A chunk of rock from a volcano killed him, and did it using the only artificial volcano within a thousand miles.”
“One of two, actually,” said Catherine.
“Even so. Would you agree the entire sequence is so unlikely we couldn’t re-create it if we tried?”
“If I do, will you stop using the word virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Then I agree.”
Greg’s smile got wider. “And would you also agree that one of the basic principles of science is the repeatability of phenomena?”
“I could argue the point, but sure.”
“Then, by that definition, what happened to Hal Kanamu wasn’t scientific in nature.”
Catherine sighed. “No, it wasn’t. It was sheer bad luck. None of it was impossible, just improbable. So if you’re trying to ascribe some sort of magic explanation to all this-”
“Hold on there, Scully. I didn’t say it was magic. I just said it was nonscientific.”
“What’s your point? Assuming you actually have one.”
Greg leaned back, blowing on his coffee and looking pleased with himself. “I’m not sure I do. I just get a kick out of the fact that even with all our reliance on rational thought and deductive reasoning, there’s still room in the universe for the mysterious.”
She gave him a reluctant smile in return. “Yeah, well, just remember that it’s rational thought and deductive reasoning that provide us with a paycheck. What happened to Kahuna Man was unusual and bizarre, but it didn’t break any natural laws-it was just very, very unlikely.”
Greg nodded. “I guess in a way that makes him a Vegas success story.”
“How so?”
“Well, isn’t that why people come here? To beat the odds?”
The woman in the booth by the door turned around to look at them. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. She met Catherine’s gaze and chuckled at some secret internal joke, her laughter a low, raspy rumble; a smoker’s laugh.
Their food arrived. The next time Catherine looked over, the woman was gone.
15
NICK OPENED THE hatch of the water tower.
The smell that drifted out of the dark interior was cool and damp, refreshing in the heat of the day. Nothing buzzed or chittered at him. He pulled the Maglite from his belt and clicked it on, then shone it inside. The tank was about half-full; the water fractured the flashlight’s beam, throwing it up on the walls in wavery shimmers. Enough penetrated the surface that Nick had a pretty good view of what was beneath it.
Nothing.
“Doesn’t look promising,” he called down to Riley. “I’m going to take a sample for testing, though.”
“Be careful,” she called back. “If Grissom’s right about L W combining those two chemicals-”
“I know, I know. Any exposure to bare skin would be fatal. But I highly doubt this is where the Bug Killer decided to stash his cache of poison-the hatch didn’t even have a lock on it.”
“Who needs a lock,” she pointed out, “when touching a single drop will make an intruder drop dead?”
Nick hesitated. “Good point.”
It wasn’t until after he’d taken the sample, closed the hatch, and started back down the ladder that Nick noticed it. He stopped, put a hand over his eyes, and squinted. “Hey, Riley? I think I just spotted something weird. Take a look on the ground, just on the other side of that sage. No, to the left, about five feet away.”
She found what he was pointing at and crouched to get a closer view. “That’s… not the kind of track you expect to see in the middle of a desert,” she said.
Nick jumped the last few feet and trotted over. “Maybe not. But I think it explains the dolly trac k s leading up to the ladder.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Grissom is gonna want to hear about this.”
When Nick told Grissom what they’d found and where, he understood the significance of his mental image of ants building a bridge across water-and knew what the Bug Killer’s plan had to be. He talked to Nick very briefly, then hung up and made another call.
“Brass.”
“Nick just found a flipper print outside a water tower at the greenhouse site.”
“A flipper? As in snorkel-and-skin-diving, scuba-gear-type flipper?”
“Yes. I think LW was using the water tower to test his gear-and I know what he needed it for.”
“Well, Lake Mead is the nearest large body of water-”
“His target is still the Embassy Gold. Specifically, the fountains right outside.”
Brass understood immediately. “The pumps-they’re all located under the water itself, just like the Bellagio’s . They have to use scuba equipment any time they do maintenance.”
“Extremely powerful pumps,” said Grissom. “Capable of expelling a thick stream of water a hundred feet straight up. But if someone were to change the orientation of one so it was aimed at the crowd instead-”
“You’ve got the world’s largest squirt gun. Except this one’s going to be loaded with more than just water, isn’t it?”
“Jim, the emergency doors for the Canyon Amphitheatre empty directly onto the plaza facing those fountains. And on a Friday night-even without a panicked group of Athena Jordanson fans pouring from the exits-it’ll be full of tourists.”
“I’ll call the Grand right away. They only do fountain shows in the evenings-in fact, I think they time them to entertain people leaving the theater. We can get a diver down there to disconnect whatever he’s set up-”
“Don’t send a diver yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll tip him off. There’s still an hour before Athena Jordanson’s concert starts, and if he isn’t in place to watch the chaos, he will be soon.”
“Grissom, where are you?”
“In the field,” said Grissom, staring up at the sinuous bulk of the Embassy Gold.
He won’t be in the crowd after all, Grissom thought. He won’t risk exposure to the toxin. But he will be nearby. Behind glass, where he’ll be safe. Studying the results of his experiment like a child with an ant farm.