Arnette. She consumed Massimo’s every thought. Memories of her delicately contoured face, her smile, the curves of her body as they made love, her terror filled eyes trickling with blood as she lay in his arms, and her last, rasping, pain-filled breaths as her body wracked against his.
“I will kill them, Arnette,” Massimo seethed. He tipped the whiskey bottle and refilled his glass as the pain of her loss savaged him then sat down on the sofa, the sofa that she had chosen because he liked real leather. ‘Italian,’ she’d said, ‘they make the best leather, just like they make the best men’. She’d kissed his cheek, given him that smile of loving indulgence, and brought him a glass of his favourite whiskey. Massimo picked up his glass from the table. It was heavy, one from the cut-crystal set they had chosen together for their first dinner party, a favourite set that was now used only on the rarest of occasions. It felt solid and real in his hand. Nothing else did. He was floating in a sea of horror, the yawning chasm of its depths dark and foreboding, ready to drag him down to the abyss below. He took another mouthful of whiskey to fend off the wave of despair crashing over him.
Yet why should he be allowed to escape the pain? Arnette hadn’t. She had suffered. He should too.
His mind turned back to the night his life had fallen apart. What a stupid phrase! Nothing had fallen apart. It had been destroyed. Deliberately. Savagely. Irrevocably.
She died because of your cowardice!
He took another swig of whiskey, the burning sensation as it washed down his throat barely noticed.
It was your fault!
Why didn’t you share the nasal spray with her? You kept it all to yourself.
I tried! I tried to reach her.
Why did you allow her to be in such a dangerous situation?
I didn’t know they were going to kill everyone.
But you knew it was a set up for something illegal. Something nefarious. She was an innocent!
But the video …
Sickness swirled in his belly.
Coward.
In those moments, when his mind tortured him, he could have thrown himself from their apartment window, or taken the kitchen knife Chef Arnold had cleaved the pangolin with and stabbed himself in the heart. He’d thought of it often - killing himself to end the pain - but living was a greater punishment and he had sworn to avenge Arnette’s death. It was his duty and he felt that truth to be suffused within the cells of his bones’ marrow. He would not die before he had finished the job.
After the telephone call from the man had come another. Return home. Grieve for your wife. Be a good boy and wait for us to contact you. No explanation of why they had killed his guests and his wife. No apologies for ripping his life apart. Just wait for instructions and play the grieving widower. The jibe to play the grieving widower had caused Massimo the greatest rage. More than being controlled by these psychopaths, sociopaths, monsters - whatever they were - was the suggestion that he would have to pretend to grieve, as if the death of his wife meant nothing to him. Meant nothing! Meant nothing when it meant everything.
Massimo had dragged himself from his place beside the park’s railings, whiskey bottle in hand, its contents halved in the last minutes as he sought oblivion, and staggered home—like a ‘good boy’. He had expected blue flashing lights outside the apartment block, police officers on guard, but there was nothing. Terry, the doorman, welcomed him with his usual professional curtesy, making no mention of his drunken state, and accompanied him to the lift, pressing the button before wishing him a good night. Even through the alcoholic blur, dread sat in the pit of Massimo’s stomach, and he stumbled to his apartment, expecting here at least there to be evidence of tragedy, yellow police tape proclaiming ‘Crime Scene Do Not Enter’ criss-crossed over the door. Again, there was nothing. He’d gripped the polished brass doorhandle, marking its virgin surface with the greasy print of his hand, and opened the door.
Stepping inside the hallway had brought back a flood of memories and he had staggered against the wall, stealing himself against the scene. But there were no sprawled bodies, no charred corpses, no slippery half-cooked pangolin strewn across the marble top of the island. All was in order and only the faintest whiff of burning, as though someone had lit a match and blown it out somewhere in a far room remained.
And Arnette was gone.
They took her!
A deep and all-consuming loathing had risen up through his belly.
I should have been here, he’d thought.
‘She had a heart attack,’ the man on the phone had said. ‘It was sudden and unexpected, the result of an undiagnosed heart condition. You did all you could, but nothing saved her. Got it?’ Massimo had grunted down the line. ‘Now, go home. Play the grieving widower and wait for us to call.’
Now, two days later, Massimo’s jaw tightened as the scene of her death flashed in his memory. The burning flesh of Leo Arnold melting beneath the fire’s heat, Sophie Barnard’s desperate clawing at her throat as it swelled, choking her to death, the terrified anger of the cameraman as his protected air supply had been ripped away. A horror movie on perpetual replay.
What had they released in his apartment?
Something that the nasal spray saved you from.
The spray was a fusion inhibitor, he realised. To protect against a biological agent that caused death.
Near instant death.
A virus?
No, it acted too quickly.
Could be modified. Gain of function. There’s big money in that, Massimo, as well you know.
Sarmer Bio-Labs?
Yes, Sarmer Bio-Labs.
But I’m just an investor.
Got to speculate to accumulate, aye, Massimo.
Massimo ground his teeth, remembering the proposal that had been placed upon his desk—an opportunity too good to be missed, an elevation from millions to billions.
Was that when things changed? Became dark.
For what seemed like the thousandth time, his mind returned to the apartment as Leo Arnold began to choke and then the pan had tipped, and the oil caught fire. Above the flames the air had crackled and sparked, and a golden haze, barely perceptible, had hung in the air.
An aerosolized biological agent.
In the pangolin?
Unlikely.
The cameraman?
I didn’t see him spray anything, but that’s the most likely explanation.
But it - the particles, the poison - seemed to hang in a cloud close to the ceiling.
It came from above?
It’s possible.
The decorators?
But that would mean it was planned weeks ago!
As all the good assassinations are.
Massimo rubbed the bridge of his nose, the perpetual headache of sleep deprivation, gnawing.
Who were they targeting? The guests were all poisoned.
A twofer job? One of Arnette’s phrases.
Massimo clenched his jaw a little tighter, willing his mind to stay away from her memory, if only for a few minutes.
The poison was in the air.
Yes.
It was a weapon. An aerosolized biological weapon.
Yes, a weapon.
Who would have access to that?
The military?
He scoffed at the thought. Ridiculous. Why would they be involved?
Then people with money, connections.
Big money!
Serious connections!
Them.
Him. The man who killed Arnette.
And where would he get it from?
The thousand dodgy labs around the world that can concoct hazardous chemical agents.
Like Sarmer Bio-Labs?
He shook his head. No, the poison had to come from somewhere else.
Growing weary of the constant churning of his mind he sank back against the sofa, rejecting the comfort it gave him, but thankful for it.
Fusion inhibitor. The words returned to his mind. The production of a fusion inhibitor had been part of the research proposal he’d invested in at Sarmer Bio-Labs. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out the nasal spray. It had saved his life, of that there was no doubt. The cannister was blank, white plastic, but across the bottom it was dimpled. He upturned the spray and peered at its base, but his eyesight was too poor to discern what was printed into the plastic.
Glasses!
He moved forward with a jerk, spilling whiskey on his lap then on the table as he planted the glass down and made his way to the home office to search for his glasses. They lay across the thick wadge of paper that made up another investment opportunity, this one a group of scientists researching the use of nanotechnology—another project that promised payouts in the billions. Glasses grabbed, he put them on, nearly stabbing himself in the eye in his haste, then held the bottle up to the light. There, on its base, was the distinctive symbol for Sarmer Bio-labs. Beside it, printed into the plastic, were a series of numbers and a couple of letters that meant nothing to him.
He stood in silence.
“Bastards!”