Delusion in Death (In Death 35)

When Roarke came back, set his place, filled his bowl, it wasn’t quite as odd.

“Do your shopping or whatever you do online for the next day or two,” Eve told Summerset. “Until I get a handle on this.” As she spoke, she reached for the bread. Roarke’s hand met hers, covered it, held briefly. And his eyes gave her simple gratitude.

“Was it terrorism?”

“I don’t think so—not traditional—but I can’t rule it out. A substance was released, by person or persons unknown, at the bar during the latter part of happy hour. Let’s call it a super-hallucinogenic, airborne. People inhaled it into their systems and within a couple minutes became delusional, violent. The incident lasted approximately twelve minutes. There were eighty-nine people in the bar, including staff. We have six survivors.”

“You’re saying they killed themselves.”

“Each other. The ME hasn’t called suicide on any victim, as yet.”

He said nothing for a moment as Roarke poured wine for all of them. “There were two incidents, similar, during the Urban Wars.”

Everything froze. “This happened before?” Eve demanded.

“I can’t say it’s the same. I wasn’t there, but I know someone who was at the first attack. He told me he was going to a café where some of the underground was known to meet, and where he hoped to have some personal time with a woman he had feelings for. He was young, no more than eighteen, I think. It was in London, South Kensington. Most of the m

ain fighting was done there, at that time. He was a half block away when he heard the screaming, the crashing, the gunfire. He ran toward the sounds. Many were dead. The window of the café burst as he ran to it—by bullets, by bodies being heaved out. There were only perhaps twenty in the café at that time of day. All of them were dead or dying by the time he was able to get through.

“He assumed, as did others who’d come, it was an enemy attack, but all the dead and dying were known.”

“What caused it?”

He shook his head. “The military came in, closed it off, and closed it down. It happened again in Rome a few weeks later. Our ears were to the ground for a repeat. ‘In the wine’ was what we were told. Whoever hadn’t had any was killed by those who had, and were maddened by it.”

“What was in the wine?”

“We were never able to learn. It never happened again, not that we heard. And we heard everything sooner or later. The military, the politicians, sealed it, and not even our considerable intelligence units could break through. I thought at the time that might be for the best.”

Eve picked up her wine. “I bet you could find out now.”

5

As they started upstairs, Roarke took her hand again.

“That was good of you.”

“What was?”

“All of it. I know it cost you time.”

“Turns out he had useful information, so it didn’t cost me time.”

Roarke paused on the landing, just looked at her. She tried to shrug it off, then sighed.

“Listen, like it or not, he’s yours. I’m not going to kick at him when he’s twisted up worried about you. I’ll wait till he’s untwisted, then kick at him.”

That made him laugh and give the hand he still held a little swing. “Fair enough. You gave him a task. He’s the sort who does better when he has a task.”

On impulse, she headed for the bedroom rather than her office. Might as well get comfortable before diving in again.

“He’s still got his Urban Wars contacts. I want to see what he can dig up. I don’t know if what happened downtown is connected to two attacks, in Europe, decades ago, but it’ll be good to have the data. I’m no Urbans buff, but we had to study it in school. In the Academy we had lectures on tactics, riot control, chem and biological threats using the Urbans as a platform. I never heard of what Summerset talked about.”

“Nor have I, before this, and it sounds like the military shut the door on it. If any of it came here, or threatened to, Homeland would’ve had a part in that,” he added. “Closing it, covering it. It’s something they’re good at.”

“We’re not dealing with them yet.” She released her weapon harness, set it aside. “If and when we do, the more we know, the better.” Sitting, she pulled off her boots. “And if and when, if we find out they knew there was a formula, and what happened today was a possibility—and they just kept the lid on? I’m going to bury them.”

“You’ll need two shovels as I’ll want one of my own.”