Lethal Dose by Jeff Buick

door. It opened. He grinned at the stupidity of having an expensive deadbolt on an outer door and not using it. He closed the door quietly behind him, listening for any sound that would indicate the house was protected by an alarm. Nothing.
    He was in the galley-style kitchen, dated but clean. He glanced at the stove and noticed the gas burners. Excellent. A quick tour through the town house assured him that no one was home and that he was in the right place, then he got to work. The stove pulled away from the wall with a minimum of effort, and he hopped into the narrow space between the stove and the wall. The flexible gas line to the stove was old, probably twenty years. He smiled at that; this was getting easier all the time. Grasping the line with both hands, he bent it back and forth, weakening the line at one of the joints. It took the better part of fifteen minutes before the line cracked and the unmistakable odor of natural gas stung his nostrils. He immediately placed a small piece of clear tape over the break. The smell lingered for a moment, then dissipated through the house. He jumped up on the counter, then dropped to the floor and pushed the stove back in place.
    Now it was time to wait.
    Albert Rousseau counted the number of days until he would be fabulously wealthy. Twenty-three. He grinned and shut down the operating system on his office computer. He wanted to be home by seven in case it was a Seinfeld he hadn’t seen, although the chances of that were just about zero. He put the Mustang through its paces on the drive home, thinking about what kind of car he would buy with the money. He didn’t even worry about whether Veritas would pay for the information he had stashed in his town house on that tiny disc. They would pay.
    Oh, my God, would they pay.
    He found a parking space almost directly in front of his unit. Another sign the gods were smiling on him. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, a handful of mail in his right hand. He swung around and closed the door with his left. For a split second he was face-to-face with another man. A stranger. A stranger in his house. He reacted, but it was far too late for that.
    Evan grabbed him by the hair and spun him 180 degrees, pulling him back all in the same motion. Evan’s forearm closed over Albert’s windpipe and instantly cut off the air supply. Albert tried to grab the assailant’s arm but found both his arms trapped against his body. His attacker had immobilized both arms by pinning them behind his back. He tried to scream, but there was no air. He fought to find some way to breathe, but the arms that held him were like vises. Panicked and seething with adrenaline, he mustered every ounce of strength and lashed out with almost superhuman strength. He felt the pressure on his windpipe slip a fraction as he managed to turn slightly, but the grip on his arms tightened and only a tiny gulp of air got through. The room went fuzzy, then gray, then black. His body stopped fighting and the pressure subsided. He willed his muscles to move, but there was no response. Then, as the last neurons in his brain stopped firing, he realized he was already dead and that his brain had taken longer to die than his body. He had a strange thought as his brain shut down; how long did the brain continue to function after the guillotine came down?
    Evan let the lifeless body drop gently to the floor. The last thing he needed was bruises anywhere on the corpse; they might be noticed in the autopsy. He had been very careful not to squeeze the windpipe so hard as to crush it, a useful trick he had picked up during his tenure with Team Six. He had picked up a lot of useful information while with the Navy SEALs, most of which dealt with killing people. It was proving to be most valuable.
    He carried the body into the kitchen so there would be no drag marks on the floor and propped it against the stove. He retrieved the plastic pouch from his pocket and carefully