He wondered how much the life of a tech was worth to Dr. Reischtal. At first, Tommy would have assumed he could take a hostage to escape. He’d been planning on twisting his head when one of them grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and biting down on the tech’s hand, threatening to rip the biohazard suit wide open if they didn’t wheel him right out the front door.

Sergeant Reaves, as always, was the problem. He hung back, hands clasped loosely in front of him, eyes missing nothing. Tommy had no doubt he could have his handgun out and squeezing the trigger in less time than it took for Tommy to sneeze. Hell, he’d empty the clip into both Tommy and the tech before anybody could say, “God bless you.” And while Tommy was the most desperate he’d ever been in his life, he wasn’t suicidal.

They wheeled him out of the conference room. Tommy sank back in his straps on the wheelchair as they rolled him back to the elevator.

Back in the car, Ed asked Qween, “Did you take us back there for the reasons we talked about or for some kinda half-assed payback?”

“Didn’t sound half-assed to me,” Sam said.

Qween watched the lights slide past the windows. “Little of both, Ed Jones.” She didn’t say anything else, and seemed oddly contemplative. Whatever had happened back at the mission had calmed her. She sounded at peace with herself and the universe.

Ed didn’t like it. “We asked you for help, not for an excuse to seek revenge. We got bigger problems here than you.”

Sam nodded. “I know. But listen, we got what we needed. If that was the price, than so be it.”

“I just don’t like to be used,” Ed grumbled. “If it was necessary, I would’ve been happy to go back there when all this other shit was finished.”

“No point in worrying about it now,” Sam said. “Like you said, we got other problems. Let’s go take a closer look at that address.”

Qween laid back on the seat and unfurled her cloak. With the windows rolled up to hold the air-conditioning in against the summer heat, it soon became clear that it had been a while since she had bathed. She pulled up her knees and crossed one leg over the other, her left foot braced against the back passenger window. She let out an “Oh, yeah . . .” that Koko Taylor would be proud of.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ed said, trying to breathe through his mouth. Sam rolled down his window and stuck his head out, taking deep breaths of the sweltering heat.

Qween laughed. “You two need to get over your own damn selves.”

There was no chance to try anything.

They wheeled Tommy out of the elevator and into Don’s room without any preamble, just banged him into a door and there was Don. He had been lying so still before they came in that Tommy had thought he might be dead, but the sudden movement startled the large man, and he flinched against his restraints. His eyes, blood red and swollen, slid wildly around his sunken sockets, lighting briefly on Tommy.

There was no sign of recognition.

The techs left before Tommy’s wheelchair had stopped moving. Nobody wanted to be in there any longer than necessary. The shock of seeing Don, up close and personal, made Tommy forget about his escape plans for the moment. He stared at his partner.

The skin around Don’s stomach had pulled back, revealing a distended organ, while the flesh around his face had simply wilted and hung off his skull like fake eyelashes on a decomposing corpse. Dark saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. He struggled against the straps, but the movements were feeble. Large black bruises had formed along limbs, concentrating in his joints, as if slow-motion car crashes were happening under the skin.

Watching Don on the closed-circuit TV had been bad. This was worse.

Tommy could now actually hear the sounds coming from Don’s throat. It wasn’t screams exactly, it was more like someone trying to force air through a saxophone that had been buried in the bottom of a swamp for a long time.

The other thing was the smell. Tommy’s neighbors composted their own fertilizer when he was a kid. They would dump everything into the box out back of their house. Coffee grounds, leftover eggs, bones, rotten fruit, everything. Every once in a while, the husband would go out and churn the decomposing mess with a pitchfork, bringing the dark matter on the bottom up to the top. Once, Tommy had tried to help. Until the smell attacked him and made him vomit. The neighbor had laughed and scraped the bile and half-digested scrambled eggs and toast into the compost pile with a shovel.

The putrid smell in Don’s room reminded him of that decaying organic matter. Tommy breathed through his mouth, trying to be a silent as possible. He wanted Don to forget he was in the room. He wanted Don to rest. He wanted Don to find peace.

But Don wouldn’t stop screaming. He was like some malfunctioning machine.

The hoarse cries grated against Tommy’s eardrums. After half an hour, he could almost understand why some asshole parents hurt children who wouldn’t stop crying. He just wanted it to stop. Finally, after another twenty minutes or so, Don’s whispering squeals began to taper off. An hour later, Don was still and quiet once again.

Tommy didn’t move. He barely breathed. He was afraid that any movement, any sound at all would trigger Don’s panic once again.

After another hour, his own eyelids grew heavy. He fought sleep, because he was afraid of making some kind of unconscious noise, like snoring, or jerking against his own wheelchair straps, reawakening Don.

He was also acutely aware of the two cameras in the room. One was attached to the ceiling, aimed down at the bed. This was the feed that Tommy had been watching down in the conference room. The other camera had been set up on a tripod on the far side of the room, getting a closer view of Don’s body. Tommy knew that he was in the shot as well.

Both cameras’ red lights were on.

That helped to keep him awake. For a while.

CHAPTER 46

9:36 PM

August 13

Lower Wacker was an industrial tunnel that ran along the Chicago River, originally designed for through traffic and deliveries to the buildings above. Ed coasted past the loading dock and they all took a good look. There was nothing special about the dock; it looked like a hundred others that were spaced out along the street.

Ed checked the mirrors. The street was practically deserted. Only a few parked cars dotted the sides. He cruised down another hundred yards, whipped a U-turn at the next intersection, and parked so they could watch the loading dock. A cab passed them, going fast and gaining speed, as if it was nervous about being underground.

“Now what?” Qween asked. She seemed happy to leave the decision making up to the detectives now that they had finished with the homeless shelter.

“Let’s sit tight for a while,” Ed said. “See if we can’t spot anybody going in or out.”

Qween grunted. “Shit. You two ain’t gonna bust any heads open, I’m goin’ to sleep.”

Sam popped more nicotine gum and got comfortable. Most of the time, he had about as much patience as a pregnant woman waiting to use the restroom. With stakeouts though, he adjusted, somehow slowing his internal clock, altering his rhythms to endure long periods of sitting still, often watching a home or building where nothing would move for hours. Ed thought it might have something to do with Sam’s insomnia. The detectives’ combined ability for patience when necessary was part of the reason they worked well as partners.

An hour passed. Two.

This time, Ed was the one getting impatient. “I’m thinking we might be wasting our time out here. Maybe we should take a closer look. See if that door’s really locked.”