“All right,” he said. “What we’re looking for is a very concentrated poison called homobatrachotoxin. Exposure to even tiny amounts can result in numbness of the extremities or sneezing, so be aware of any symptoms. It could be in any form-liquid, solid, possibly even aerosolized. Take samples of anything that the public is going to come into contact with or consume.”
And then they went to work.
Samples were taken from every open container. Unopened containers were inspected for tampering. Public common areas were searched top to bottom. Equipment for the preparation and handling of food or drink was dismantled and scrutinized-from the pressurized system that delivered carbonated soda to the ice machines on every floor. Walk-i n freezers were emptied and examined; industrial meat slicers were disassembled and swabbed.
They found nothing.
Catherine lifted prints from the butane bottles and the welding rig, while Greg crawled underneath the superstructure of the volcano to do the same for the propane tanks and surrounding hardware used to power Mount Pele ’s flame effects.
After that, they began to look for possible shards of obsidian, starting from each possible heat source and spiraling outward in a gridded search pattern. They used flashlights to highlight any possible glint of reflection, though both were aware the rock wouldn’t reflect at all unless the surface exposed to the beam was polished instead of rough.
It was time-consuming, painstaking work, much of it spent on hands and knees. “Hey,” said Greg. He was on the upper gantry, looking underneath a worktable. “You ever been to Hawaii?”
“Can’t say I have. You?”
“Nah. Seems a long way to go to get the same kind of heat we get in Vegas. It’s just… moister, I guess.”
“How about Burning Man? Ever been?”
“Not yet. I’ve done a lot of research online, been to a few local events, but I haven’t made it out to the festival itself yet.”
“So-what’s the attraction? I have a hard time thinking of you running around nake d in the desert.”
“It’s kind of hard to explain. I think the social engineering is the part I like the best.”
“You mean the gift economy?”
“That’s part of it. The festival’s been around since 1986-though they didn’t start going to the desert until 1990-and it’s always evolving. They put a lot of thought into changing people’s perceptions and behaviors; the gift economy is a good example of that, but they also emphasize environmentalism, community, and what they call ‘radical self-reliance.’ Basically, it means you need to come prepared to survive in a harsh desert climate for a week without counting on all the trappings of civilization we take for granted.”
“Like indoor plumbing?”
“Well, they do provide porta-potties. But there’s no garbage collection-everything you pack in you have to pack out. They encourage interactive art as much as possible. It’s not the kind of event where you go to just passively observe; you go to become part of it, to join in.”
Catherine picked up a small chunk of dark matter and examined it critically. “Sounds-kind of exhausting, actually.”
“It can be. Challenging, definitely. But hey-when’s the last time you went to a party with fifty thousand people and didn’t feel like they were all strangers?”
“I can’t remember the last time I went to one with fifty-”
“Hey. I think I’ve got someth ing.”
Catherine got to her feet. “Obsidian?”
“No, something else. I can see something inside the volcano superstructure-it looks like some kind of tool, stuck between the outer skin and a support strut. Must have fallen inside from up here.”
“Hang on-I’ll see if I can reach it from underneath.”
Catherine crawled under the raised base of the volcano. The interior was a maze of thick plastic and metal tubing, electric pumps and exposed wiring. She shone her flashlight upward until she saw Greg’s gloved hand waving through an opening, then followed where it pointed to. Something was wedged between a strut and the exterior wall.
“It’s too high to reach,” she said. “We’re going to need a ladder.”
“I think I saw one next to the loading dock.”
A few minutes later she was twenty feet above the ground, while Greg steadied the ladder from below. “Got it,” she said. “Looks like a pair of metal-cutting shears.”
She climbed down, handing it to Greg when she was on the bottom rung. “Looks like we might have blood,” she said.
Greg grinned. “I’ll get the luminol.”
Conrad Ecklie hadn’t been undersheriff for long, but he already had a firm grasp of the job’s internal politics. He leaned back in his chair, bright sunlight shining through the window behind him, and considered his former C SI colleague sitting in the chair in front of him.
“Gil, I really don’t know what to say,” he began. “It’s not like you to jump at ghosts.”
Grissom met his boss’s gaze squarely. Even when Ecklie had been day-shift supervisor of the lab, he’d always had his eye on bigger things; as undersheriff, he was on his way. Grissom didn’t care about Ecklie’s ambition one way or the other, but he knew just how bright that flame burned-Ecklie wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice one of his own if it meant saving his own career.
“I’m not,” said Grissom. “I still believe our suspect is planning an attack on the Embassy Gold.”
“The evidence says otherwise, Gil. You didn’t find anything at the hotel, and I know how thorough you are.”
“Not thorough enough. If I could conduct a room-by-room search-”
“Gil, the GCG has over seven hundred rooms. Even if the hotel agreed to evicting their paying customers, it would take forever; there’s no guarantee we could even stop any alleged attack in time.”
“We could try.”
Ecklie sighed. “Look, I’m on the same page with you about preventing loss of life. I just don’t see the same potential threat-so far, all you have is two isolated victims. Hardly the kind of massacre you seem to be expecting.”
“Plus the students injured in the riot and Gustav Janikov. This killer isn’t about one-on-one homicides, Conrad; he’s more interested in the butterfly effect. Kill a single target to trigger a much larger chaotic event.”
“So you say. What I see is something more along the lines of professional jealousy.”
“What?”
“The killer obviously shares some of your expertise in the field of entomology. He wants to make you look bad while making himself look good-the spider thing was clearly meant for you.” He paused. “How’s Al doing?”
“Fine. The hospital’s releasing him tomorrow.”
“Good. Gil, I think you’re off base on this. I agree that the Fairwick murder had a secondary reason, but it was to target you, not the Embassy Gold. It’s made you jumpy-hell, it’s made all of us jumpy. But let’s focus on specifics here, not wild theories.”
Grissom frowned. “Jumpy?”
“Nobody’s disputing your evidence, just your interpretation. If this Bug Killer does strike again, it’ll either be directly at you or possibly at someone close to you. I’m sorry, Gil, but you’re a hazard to be around right now. I’m assigning you round-the-clock protection for the next few days. If you’re right about the killer being either of your two fellow professionals, they’ll both be out of the countr y by then.”
“And out of our reach.” Grissom got to his feet. “Someone may be getting jumpy,” he said quietly, “but it isn’t me.”
“Mr. Wornow,” said Catherine. She smiled at the artist on the other side of the interview table, who didn’t smile back. “Or would you prefer Monkeyboy?”
“Bill is fine. Are you almost done with Mount Pele? ’Cause I really need to get back to work, and if you’ve shut down the pumps it’ll take forever to clear all the hardened wax out-”