“That’s what I’m getting at. Existence of the red mercury was so secret that it was even kept out of the Classified Safety Analysis Files.”

Gilbert shook his head the way a professor might at a confused student. “Red mercury is a sham. Supposedly the Russians used it as a catalyst for fusion weapons. It is mildly radioactive and very toxic. And useless. Quantities pop up on the European black market every now and then. Some sucker pays a few thousand bucks for crap he thinks is weapons-grade material.”

“So why did Wong mention red mercury?”

“Maybe our good doctor wasn’t so good. Maybe he had something cooking on the side.”

“But twenty-three kilograms? That’s more than a minuscule amount.”

“True. It’s quite a lot. And if he had any, it wasn’t produced here.”

“But he mentioned it specifically when I asked him about the outbreak. That and the EBEs.”

“Let me tell you something about Dr. Wong. He was a fossil, a relic of the Cold War. When DOE consolidated its weapons operations in Los Alamos, Wong was left here. Out to pasture. I’m sure he was upset because of his treatment by DOE. Maybe that’s why he concocted this chimera about red mercury and EBEs…whatever those are.”

I pushed the diary toward Gilbert. The damp pages left a slimy trail on his desk blotter. “You asked me to find the cause of the nymphomania. Here it is.”

Gilbert got up from behind his desk and opened the blinds of his window. A hundred meters away, on the barren ground inside the concertina wire of the Protected Area, waited a long white semi-trailer. A tent covered the rear of the trailer. Security guards in camouflage and carrying submachine guns patrolled the vicinity.

“Dr. Wong’s death spooked a lot of important people,” Gilbert said. “I spent my breakfast hour on a conference call with Germantown and D.C. Because of what happened to Wong, the shipment of the material I’m concerned about has been accelerated.” Gilbert rapped the window for emphasis. “The material will be loaded into that trailer, which will leave for the WIPP facility in New Mexico within days, not weeks.”

“You have Wong’s diary. It’s enough for you to demand to personally inspect the trailer.”

Gilbert pulled a folder from his in-box. “That ain’t how it works.” Gilbert opened the folder and produced a sheaf of forms. “As the Assistant Manager for Environmental Restoration, my signature verifies the accuracy of these shipping documents for the trailer. If I don’t sign them, I’d better have an excellent reason. It’s called playing the DOE game.”

“And if you refuse?”

Gilbert closed the folder. “Then I get reassigned. Some political hack will take my place behind this desk and whatever’s in the trailer will get buried deep in Carlsbad Caverns. After which, the cause of the outbreak will remain a mystery forever…until the next wave of nymphomania, or worse. Meanwhile, I take water samples in Idaho for the rest of my career.”

“You hired me to find the cause and I told you.”

“Felix, give me something I can work with and I’ll get a warrant. I’ll have a team of federal marshals knocking down that fence and cutting that trailer open.”

Gilbert slid the folder back into his in-box. “But red mercury? Why not magic dust or dilithium crystals while we’re at it? Wong yanked your chain real good.”

The book shriveled under the glare of Gilbert’s desk lamp. The pages wrinkled and tore. My ego felt the same way. I was at another dead end.

Frustration turned into suspicion. Maybe Gilbert wasn’t so clean himself. I tipped my head and reached to remove my contacts so that I could hypnotize him. I stopped. Gilbert had asked me as a friend to help him, so why would he keep secrets from me? I felt guilty for suspecting him and lowered my hand.

“Felix, the key word in this investigation is ‘deception.’ The only way I can get at the truth is to call their bluff.”

“Whose bluff?”

“The ones who know what caused the nymphomania. What are they hiding? And why?” Gilbert leaned against the window frame and rubbed his temples. “I need proof to show that the inventory reports about those shipments are a lie. I know it seems like an impossible task, but that’s why I asked for your help. If that trailer leaves Rocky Flats without answering that question, I’ll have failed. You’ll have failed. Don’t let that happen.”

The anguish of defeat pressed upon me. I loosened my collar. Sweat tickled my brow but I couldn’t wipe it or I’d smear my makeup.

This was my job. Sure, I could quit and can the hassle. Then what? Go somewhere else and quit that, too? Maybe this failure was the result of the gradual loss of my vampire powers because I wouldn’t drink human blood.

No, that couldn’t be it. I’d prove Bob Carcano wrong. A pulse of determination surged through me. My fangs extended. Gilbert had his back to me so he didn’t notice. I held my lips closed until the sharp incisors retracted and then I touched the tips to make sure they didn’t protrude.

Gilbert turned from the window. He glanced at me. “You got dental problems?”

“Something like that. If I find out what’s in the trailer, that will solve the conspiracy?”

“Yes.”

“That simple?”

“If you call breaking into the Protected Area and getting shot simple.”

“Consider it done.”

Gilbert’s forehead wrinkled in doubt. “How?”

“I don’t know yet. Let me surprise you.”

AFTER THE MEETING WITH Gilbert Odin, I spent a few hours trolling the Internet for red mercury, EBEs, and Project Redlight. Every hit on red mercury confirmed what Gilbert had told me, that it was hokey material. EBEs, I discovered, stood for “Extraterrestrial Biological Entities,” a long-winded way to say “aliens.” The proverbial little green men from Mars.

This led me back to websites devoted to Project Redlight, supposedly a secret air force program either studying UFOs and their EBE occupants or debunking the whole extraterrestrial story. I wasn’t sure which, but as every paranoid conspiracy nut would confirm, all interplanetary flights to Earth lead to Area 51. In this mishmash of crackpot theories I didn’t find anything that mentioned nymphomania or Rocky Flats. All this work and so far I had nothing to show for my investigation but wasted time stumbling through a labyrinth of hoaxes concerning flying saucers.

Bob called and asked that I join him for dinner. I needed a break from the frustration of my case and agreed to go. I drove us that evening to a taco stand on South Federal Boulevard where we met Andre. We sat around a wooden picnic table, in the warm envelope of air radiating from the space heater slung under the metal awning. Loud motorcycles, tall pickups, and garish low-riders cruised by. Not even the most reckless of vânätori would dare attack us here, out in the open.

I reached for the plastic basket containing my tacos.

Bob lifted a pouch of human blood from a paper bag on the bench. He snipped the pouch open and squeezed blood over his chile relleno combination plate. “Smothered. The only way to eat Mexican food. Of course, come tomorrow, this chile and beans are going to turn my ass into a weapon of mass destruction.”

Andre, sipping on his beer, choked and shot suds out his nose.

Bob offered a plastic bottle to me.

I took the bottle and uncapped it. The aroma smelled of pig’s blood. “Thanks.” I poured the blood into my tacos.

Andre wiped his face with a paper towel. His gaze shifted from the plastic bottle to the pouch resting beside Bob’s plate. “What’s this, Felix? You’re choosing animal blood over human?”

Bob was about to shovel chile relleno into his mouth. “Felix doesn’t drink human blood.”

Andre’s face took on the astonished, injured expression of a priest hearing that a friend is an atheist. “This is…obscene.” He turned to Bob. “Why?”