Chapter 18
JUSTINE’S OFFICE WAS on the fourth floor, fifteen seconds by elevator above Sci’s lab. Sci could have gone upstairs or asked Justine to come down, but generally speaking, Sci found virtual contact as informative and satisfying as meeting IRL. And it was usually faster.
He said to Justine’s image, “What’s the first thing you remember?”
“Well, I was asleep, when suddenly Jack bolted up in bed. It was an abrupt movement. He gets nightmares, you know.”
“Yes. He’s told me.”
“Anyway, I thought he was dreaming, but then I saw light on the wall. And I smelled smoke. Something was burning.”
“Did you hear an explosion?”
“Not then. Jack told me to get dressed and he ran out to where he’d parked the car. I ran after him. It took me a moment to realize that the fireball was Jack’s car.
“And then, there was a blast,” Justine said, “and that knocked Jack off his feet. He’s not hurt, Sci, but I worry about what this means. If it was personal, was blowing up the car the whole point? Or was it a warning? You know, at any given moment, a lot of people are pissed off at him.”
The machine at Sci’s right blinked to show that the analysis was complete, but it also flashed the words No match.
“This is odd,” Sci said, turning the screen so that Justine could see the display. “See, the gas tank was BLEVE’d. Blown out, so the explosive was in the tank. However, our spectrometer is calling the explosive ‘unknown.’”
“An unknown chemical? That has to be a first.”
“I’m going to have to research this compound, but I can tell you what it was packaged in. Latex.”
“Like a glove?”
“Or like a condom. Yep. The machine is telling me we’ve got some spermicidal lubricant here.”
“Let me get this right. Someone put explosives in a condom? Then put the condom in the gas tank?”
“Correct. A charge was set under the car to start the fire, and when the fire got hot enough, it melted the latex. That put this chemical in contact with the gas, and boom. That’s my theory, anyway. That’s why there was delay on the explosion. The latex was a delay device.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“This is the kind of thing a teenager would think up. A teenager with access to a car and a total disregard for life.”