Color of Blood(55)

“Smile at him?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sounds weird but the PSY OPS folks taught us that civilians are usually so confused when they’re attacked that they will only try to defend themselves if we act like we’ve done something wrong—you know, if we run away or something like that.”

“So let me get this right: the mark has just been groped by a smiling group of strangers that just injected him with a drug that will stop his heart. And they just stand there?”

“Mostly, yes, but you know it’s very fast acting. Sometimes they’re down in less than a minute. You know their adrenalin has amped their heart rate, so the drug is quickly dispersed into the heart muscle. Usually the last thing they see before losing consciousness is a group of smiling, friendly people,” she said, chuckling.

“Why the armpit?”

“It’s nearly impossible to see discoloration or bruising in an armpit that’s covered with hair. And remember, if it’s a civilian, and he just died of a heart attack, is a goddamn coroner going to painstakingly shave every piece of body hair on a cadaver to look for signs of a tiny injection? No f*cking way.”

“And the drug?”

“I can’t tell you that, Cunningham. It’s a classified product made under contract by one of the big pharma companies. We call it ‘bug juice’ because we don’t even know the name of it, much less the active ingredient. I’m told it has an incredibly fast half-life, is an obscure substance that is nearly impossible to test for, and is lethal in ninety-nine point nine percent of all subjects at the correct dosage.”

“Is there an antidote in case someone gets stuck accidentally?”

“You bet. And you better believe we need it. One member of a hit squad accidentally injected one of his team members. Happened in Ankara two months ago,” she said, laughing as if it were the funniest thing she’d heard in months. “Can you believe it? The two guys grab the mark from behind and raise his right arm, but the agent in front is so friggin’ nervous that he jams the syringe into the armpit of our agent by accident. He injects our guy!”

“God, what happened?”

“Oh, they shot him,” she said, searching for more tomatoes in her salad.

“They shot our agent?”

“No, stupid, they shot the mark in the head and then injected our agent with the antidote. My God we had tears in our eyes, we were laughing so hard back here. I thought Perkins was going to wet his pants. Do you know Perkins?”

Dennis shook his head.

“Jeeze!” Dennis momentarily lost track of his line of questioning. “Guess you had to be there to get the humor. But back to how we’d take out a civilian. How does our competition do it?”

“For civilians?”

“Yes.

“Well, it depends. The Israelis use ‘bug juice,’ I’m told, in much the same manner. The Brits use another substance that is ingested, so there’s no need for all the hoopla around injecting and standing there smiling, crap like that. But it’s traceable, breaks down more slowly, etcetera. And the Russians prefer really exotic stuff like polonium. They’re f*cking crazy over there and don’t really care if it’s traceable. They’re scarier now than when the KGB was running amok.”

Sally finished her salad, pushed away her plastic plate and looked at her watch. “Got to go, Cunningham,” she said. “War’s a-calling.” She stood up. “Oh, I heard something about you,” she said, concentrating. “What the hell was it?”

“Something good, I hope,” he said, looking up at her and trying to avoid eye contact with her bra that pressed furiously against the blue, pin-striped blouse.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I heard you were working with Massey and his group. Tell me that’s not right?”

“Jeeze, news travels fast.”

“So it is true,” she said. “What a big, fat bastard he is. You must be off your rocker to work with him. You know he’s the Agency’s link into JSOC, don’t you? And isn’t he a good buddy of your boss?”

“Marty?”

“Yeah, him.”

“I guess they know each other.”

“You must be really hard up to work for Massey.”

“My project’s a small one, believe me,” Dennis said. “Short-term deal, then back to the IG.”

“Riiiight,” she said, stringing out the word so it lasted for about three seconds.

“Really.”

“Nice knowing you, Cunningham.”

She walked away. Dennis watched her saunter across the cafeteria, nodding hellos to employees and generally looking terrific.





Chapter 23


Judy had broken the rules only a few times in her career, but this was by far the worst breach.

She knocked on the door and waited in the shade of the front-door awning, the beam of the burning sun only a foot away. A woman, slightly plump but handsome at the same time, answered the door.

Judy introduced herself as a member of the WA Department of Public Health and wondered if she had a few minutes to answer some questions.

The woman seemed perplexed and asked for identification. After holding Judy’s ATF badge and looking at it closely, she said, “All right, then.” The woman did not notice the discrepancy between the ATF card and Judy’s introduction, which is what Judy anticipated.