LITMIR.BIZ

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popped off into his grasp and he closed his fist tight around it. Slender sheet metal buckled, the silicone board within popping as it was crushed in his powerful hand. “You can let go of the trigger now, David.”

      “How did you know it wasn’t set to go off when its antenna was removed?” McCarter asked.

      “It was just big enough to hold a transceiver, no booby traps. There’s nothing inside of this part of the device that could trigger the dispersant without a regular command,” Manning said.

      McCarter nodded. “Get that shit off the helium tanks fast. We’re taking it back with us.”

      Encizo spoke up. “You told us the guy holding that trigger said Paris would die.”

      James frowned as he leaned back, slipping a small tube into his vest. “Helium under high pressure was the dispersant. I’ve got the nozzles on both ends of the device sealed with epoxy.”

      “The superglue that you use to close minor cuts?” Manning asked.

      James nodded. “Works on closing off tubing pretty well, too. It should retain its seal for a good stretch.”

      “Find a means of hermetically sealing it, too,”

      McCarter said. “T.J., any more news?”

      “I’m on my way up. A black van just pulled into view,” Hawkins answered. “I made certain they didn’t see me enter the building.”

      “We’re roofing it,” Encizo muttered.

      McCarter tossed aside the severed hand, but kept the trigger unit, slipping it into a pouch for future study. If anyone could learn the origin of this particular bomb, it would be Gary Manning, if his keen observation of the strange dispersal unit hadn’t already raised a few clues and flags.

      For now, James had bound the device in a thermal blanket, duct taping the neck of the metallic cloth shut as it wrapped around the boxy unit. For something no larger than a shoebox, David McCarter didn’t want to imagine what kind of monstrosity was within.

      If one tiny bit was more than enough to kill a city, how much had Bezoar produced to deal with the whole world?

      McCarter put such grim thoughts aside as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop, crossing the gaps between the tightly spaced buildings as he and the others trekked in a roundabout path to return to their own transportation.

      HERMANN SCHWARZ KNELT at the edge of the bomb crater, looking around the scene with concern at the randomness of the single blast. The town of Albion, now a silent hole in the ground, had been nailed with several thousand-pound high-intensity bombs, turning the area into a lifeless wound in the Iowan countryside.

      His credentials read FBI Bomb Squad, as did the identification for Lyons and Blancanales, but he was the only member of their team who had more than enough scientific background and qualification to study the forensics of a high-powered blast.

      “Why here?” Schwarz asked.

      “Maybe they missed?” Lyons offered. “As far as smart bombs go, sometimes one or two stray off course during a salvo.”

      “You don’t think it was a miss, though,” Blancanales added.

      Schwarz shook his head, then stepped back. On his CPDA screen, he’d had a detailed report of Trooper Robespierre’s observations. “This was a fruit stand that had turned into an apocalypse, according to our state cop.”

      “Trooper,” Lyons corrected.

      Schwarz looked at the Able Team leader, and was about to say something, when he remembered his own short response and correction of technical terms when Lyons made a mistake. “Trooper.”

      “There had been a gunfight here,” Blancanales said. He’d read the report, as well. All of the federal agents on the scene were aware of what Robespierre had reported. Still, most of the investigation work was done around the shell-shocked town of Albion.

      “Shell-shocked” wasn’t the right term, Schwarz corrected himself. A bombarded town described as shell-shocked had pockets of destruction, survivors, damaged buildings. The wave of destruction that had come down on the tiny ville was complete. Not a single splinter of the town was still standing, bodies more than simply pulped, but incinerated and reduced to component atoms.

      So far, no one had claimed responsibility for the bombing, the end of hundreds of American lives.

      “Trooper Robespierre described something akin to a food riot, according to what was left over here,” Lyons continued. “People rushed this fruit stand, and the owner opened fire. There was at least one casualty, and then the stand owner fell, literally torn apart, as if by an animal.”

      Lyons looked at his Combat PDA, pulling up dash camera images from the wrecked cruiser. The digital footage had been grainy, but Aaron Kurtzman had done his technical magic, providing Able Team with a clearer picture of the situation. “They didn’t shoot the fruit stand owner with a shotgun. There’s no burns or stippling such as from contact-range shots with a 12-gauge.”

      “So he was bitten and clawed apart?” Blancanales asked as he looked at the image Lyons referenced. “What, is this another group of crazies who think they’re zombies?”

      “I don’t think anyone was pretending in this case,” Schwarz said.

      “Me, either. Look at this one. She’s on the ground and her throat is distended, bulging with obstructions,” Lyons said. “Kurtzman wasn’t able to make out what is sticking from her mouth, but I’ll bet you anything that she tried to swallow something whole.”

      “Throat and belly, that shirt’s coming open across her stomach,” Blancanales added.

      Schwarz leaned in to look at the picture Lyons had on display. His lips pulled into a tight line, disappearing under his mustache. “Even at their hungriest, people don’t try to eat each other,” Schwarz said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

      “They weren’t trying to eat each other,” Lyons said. “This was simply a gone-feral attack. He had a shotgun, and the rioters used the only weapons that they had—their teeth and nails.”

      Blancanales looked at the crater. “So the bomb was dropped here to prevent an autopsy.”

      “Even so, how would anyone be certain that things didn’t spread, didn’t get out of hand?” Schwarz asked.

      “The same way the bombs were delivered,” Lyons answered. “Aerial vehicles, manned or unmanned.”

      “That seems obvious enough, but you’d think that Albion’s residents would have noticed extra aircraft hanging around,” Schwarz mused. “I’ve had the Farm pull the FAA records about crop dusting in this part of the state, and none of the pilots even mentioned so much as a UFO.”

      Lyons looked at the blast crater again. “Maybe someone made use of local talent.”

      “Local pilots might work, but wouldn’t they get suspicious?” Schwarz asked. “Could you drop a bunch of bombs on this town for us?”

      “It wouldn’t have to be as vulgar as that,” Blancanales said.

      “Observation during routine flights,” Schwarz replied.

      “It’d work for me,” Lyons said. “That way you keep the bombers in reserve, but your experiment doesn’t breach the security protocols.”

      “An experiment in what?” Blancanales asked.

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