technicians had put on full protective clothing, including face-masks, before analysing the contents. The analysis had occupied four difficult hours, but by the end of the afternoon there was absolutely no doubt about their conclusions. The liquid inside the aerosol was dimethylaminoeth-oxy-cyanophosphinne oxide. The stuff was virtually colourless, with a faintly fruity smell. The standard military abbreviation was Tabun GA. Most people called it nerve gas.
Telemann followed Benitez into the morgue. Forty-five minutes in the car from La Guardia had already given him a respect for the man. He was quiet, thoughtful, undramatic. Days back, after the aerosol analysis, he’d already understood the need for discretion, for secrecy, for ring-fencing the investigation, keeping it away from the media, from the politicians, even from his own colleagues. Mercifully, the NYPD had never had to deal with nerve gas before. Nor, for that matter, had there ever been much call for measures against anthrax or hand-portable nuclear bombs. But these weapons existed, and the threat was therefore credible, and now that one version of the nightmare had come to pass, he’d known at once that the secret must – at all costs – be kept safe. In all, eleven people knew enough to make them a risk. Each one he’d seen personally, spent time with them, explained the public order consequences of loose tongues and wild rumours. The investigation, naturally, was proceeding. But the cause of death was still, in official terms, unknown.
The two men walked into an ante-room of the big six-slab autopsy theatre. The room was tiled entirely in white. The light was harsh from the overhead neon strips, and there was a strong smell of bleach. One of the walls was occupied by a bank of tall refrigerators. Benitez nodded a greeting to an attendant, murmuring a name, and waited while the man opened one of the fridge doors. Inside, racked on metal trays, were half a dozen bodies. The attendant pulled out a tray near the bottom. Inside the clear polythene bag was a man in his early forties. His headlay to one side, mouth slightly open, and except for the long autopsy incision his body was unmarked. He looked fit, well made, in good shape, though the tan on his chest and his legs was beginning to fade.
Telemann looked at him for several moments before turning away. Ten years in the CIA had taken him to places like these all over the world – the same smell, the same low background whirr from the big white fridges – yet he’d never quite got used to the sight of a corpse. Badly damaged, by a bomb or a beating or a cleverly worked traffic accident, and it was sometimes easier to cope with. But like this, a man asleep in a plastic bag, it was hard, and gazing down he knew yet again that it was true what they said. Look a dead man in the face and you see your own funeral, your own end.
Telemann shook his head and glanced up at Benitez. Most of the details he already knew. Lennox C. Gold. Forty-one years old. An avionics consultant from San Antonio Heights, California, a hands-on-engineer who’d smelled the big money and left the development laboratories in the San Bernadino Valley with a headful of knowledge and a firm bead on the upmarket end of the American dream. Much of his experimental work had been for Department of Defense programmes, some of them sensitive, and his commercial activities had twice rung bells with the security agencies. He’d been duly investigated and placed under surveillance, but on both occasions nothing much had turned up. The guy was greedy, and ambitious, and worked like a demon, but on all three counts that simply made him a good American. Telemann looked down at him again, wondering. ‘The name …’ he mused. ‘… Gold.’
Benitez glanced up. He’d been reading another autopsy report, something unrelated.
Telemann nodded at the body between them. ‘Jewish?’
Benitez frowned. ‘Sure.’
‘Should that
Telemann followed Benitez into the morgue. Forty-five minutes in the car from La Guardia had already given him a respect for the man. He was quiet, thoughtful, undramatic. Days back, after the aerosol analysis, he’d already understood the need for discretion, for secrecy, for ring-fencing the investigation, keeping it away from the media, from the politicians, even from his own colleagues. Mercifully, the NYPD had never had to deal with nerve gas before. Nor, for that matter, had there ever been much call for measures against anthrax or hand-portable nuclear bombs. But these weapons existed, and the threat was therefore credible, and now that one version of the nightmare had come to pass, he’d known at once that the secret must – at all costs – be kept safe. In all, eleven people knew enough to make them a risk. Each one he’d seen personally, spent time with them, explained the public order consequences of loose tongues and wild rumours. The investigation, naturally, was proceeding. But the cause of death was still, in official terms, unknown.
The two men walked into an ante-room of the big six-slab autopsy theatre. The room was tiled entirely in white. The light was harsh from the overhead neon strips, and there was a strong smell of bleach. One of the walls was occupied by a bank of tall refrigerators. Benitez nodded a greeting to an attendant, murmuring a name, and waited while the man opened one of the fridge doors. Inside, racked on metal trays, were half a dozen bodies. The attendant pulled out a tray near the bottom. Inside the clear polythene bag was a man in his early forties. His headlay to one side, mouth slightly open, and except for the long autopsy incision his body was unmarked. He looked fit, well made, in good shape, though the tan on his chest and his legs was beginning to fade.
Telemann looked at him for several moments before turning away. Ten years in the CIA had taken him to places like these all over the world – the same smell, the same low background whirr from the big white fridges – yet he’d never quite got used to the sight of a corpse. Badly damaged, by a bomb or a beating or a cleverly worked traffic accident, and it was sometimes easier to cope with. But like this, a man asleep in a plastic bag, it was hard, and gazing down he knew yet again that it was true what they said. Look a dead man in the face and you see your own funeral, your own end.
Telemann shook his head and glanced up at Benitez. Most of the details he already knew. Lennox C. Gold. Forty-one years old. An avionics consultant from San Antonio Heights, California, a hands-on-engineer who’d smelled the big money and left the development laboratories in the San Bernadino Valley with a headful of knowledge and a firm bead on the upmarket end of the American dream. Much of his experimental work had been for Department of Defense programmes, some of them sensitive, and his commercial activities had twice rung bells with the security agencies. He’d been duly investigated and placed under surveillance, but on both occasions nothing much had turned up. The guy was greedy, and ambitious, and worked like a demon, but on all three counts that simply made him a good American. Telemann looked down at him again, wondering. ‘The name …’ he mused. ‘… Gold.’
Benitez glanced up. He’d been reading another autopsy report, something unrelated.
Telemann nodded at the body between them. ‘Jewish?’
Benitez frowned. ‘Sure.’
‘Should that
Similar Books
