I said, “Excuse me. I have to make a call.”
“Now?” Lane checked his watch. “The bomb will be here any minute. I’ll have to step out. Can’t you do it then?”
“No.” I moved to the corner of the room and dialed Dr. Houllier’s number. “This can’t wait.”
Dr. Houllier answered and I asked to speak to Michael.
He said, “Not possible. Sorry. He’s unconscious again.”
“Again?”
“Correct. He was awake for a while earlier, though he wasn’t saying much. Nothing coherent anyway. Just rambling about finding a goal or something like that.”
I thanked Dr. Houllier and hung up. Then immediately called him back and asked for Fenton.
I said, “Please hurry. This is important.”
Fenton came on the line after thirty seconds. “What’s up? Make it quick. I want to get back to Michael.”
I said, “I need you to think very carefully about a question. Don’t guess. Only answer if you are one hundred percent sure. OK?”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“The condom you found in the message Michael sent. What brand was it?”
“Trojan.”
“You sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
Chapter 53
A condom. And a business card. A Trojan. And a Red Roan. Which is a kind of horse. Michael had been trying to tell his sister that the device she was given to analyze at TEDAC was a Trojan horse. But Fenton had misunderstood from the start. She had made two false assumptions: That the bomb containing Michael’s message had been intended to explode. And that the transponder inside it was the trigger.
I was betting that neither thing was true. The bomb was just a vehicle. Its job was to deliver the transponder. To a place where only a bomb could go. And the transponder’s job was not to trigger the bomb it was in. It was to trigger something else. Which hadn’t happened. Because Fenton had fixated on Michael’s fingerprint. She hadn’t realized it was to ensure that the bomb reached her desk. Or that it doubled as a way to sign the warning. She hated puzzles after all. She was too pedantic. She’d taken it at face value. As damning evidence. So she destroyed it.
Fenton destroyed the first transponder. But another one was coming. In the smoke bomb. It was minutes away. Heading for the building I was in. Where two hundred people worked. Which was full of irreplaceable machines and priceless evidence. No wonder Dendoncker had been so desperate to push me into transporting the device for him. He had wanted it at TEDAC from the start.
Lane was scowling. “You broke off this meeting to talk about condoms? What’s wrong with you?”
Michael’s original bomb arrived at TEDAC weeks ago, initially with its transponder intact. But the place didn’t blow up. So the thing it was supposed to trigger wasn’t here at that time. It must have come in later.
I said, “The last three weeks. Have any new devices been brought in?”
Lane checked his watch again. “Of course.”
“Anything particularly large?”
“I can’t share that kind of information. It’s too sensitive.”
“Come on, Lane. This is important.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story. A guy with a liking for cryptic messages sent a warning that the transponder in the device that’s about to arrive is supposed to trigger something else. Not be triggered itself.”
Lane smiled and shook his head. “No. That theory doesn’t hold water. For it to be right, the device already here would need to have the corresponding transponder. And no such devices have been brought in. Fact.”
“Are you sure? You said some evidence waits awhile before you get to it.”
“We prioritize. Some evidence does have to wait for full analysis. That’s true. But we don’t just throw it in a closet when it shows up. It doesn’t slip down the back of the couch. Every piece that’s waitlisted is examined on delivery. Photographs are taken. Components are listed. Transponders are highly unusual. If anything had arrived containing one, I would know.”
“These inspections. They’re done without exception?”
“Priority cases go straight to analysis planning who handle the documentation and record keeping. It’s integrated into their process. Everything else gets an initial inspection. Without exception.” Lane paused for a second. “Actually, there was one exception. A truck bomb. A city destroyer. It came in from overseas. The vehicle was too large to fit into a work bay here so the minute it arrived we sent it away again. To our old premises. At Quantico. A huge place. You could fit dozens of trucks in it.”