“Christ on a crutch. So what killed them?”
“Smell,” Young Roger answered, before Caitlin could. “The neurotoxin entered the body through the nasal cavity, just like it did to those Inuit in 1930.” He paused to let that sink in, then went on. “More specifically, through the paranasal sinuses. I’d recommend the CDC teams on the ground now perform detailed examinations of those sinuses in the remains of the victims, along with the throat, larynx, and primary nasal passages, in search of any abnormalities in the form of lesions or even the slightest tissue damage. I expect they’ll find enough—at least something that proves we’re looking at a weapon spread through smell.”
Caitlin turned back toward Tepper. “Go back to the days Jack Strong got himself involved with the same reservation, D.W. All those men who got torn apart in those hotel rooms were already dead, or totally incapacitated, when they were attacked. That’s how it all happened so fast; that’s why they never even screamed. The Comanche were trying to scare John D. Rockefeller off by perpetuating the myth of a monster spawned by nature, some otherworldly force rising when necessary to protect them. But that monster was no more than warriors turned into violent killing machines after ingesting a particularly potent strain of peyote. That’s what those manacles I found in the cave were for, to keep the warriors restrained until the effects of the drug finally wore off.”
“You’re saying they brought their mythical killer back when the need arose,” said Jones, “only this time thanks to Cray Rawls instead of John D. Rockefeller.”
“I believe so, yes. And I asked Young Roger here to look into the possibility of smell as a weapon, even before I had any inkling about this corn fungus. This ringing any bells with you, Jones? Because the military’s had a program in it for decades.”
“Sure,” Jones cut in, “under nonlethal weapons development. Last time I checked, though, what we’re facing here is pretty damn lethal.”
“On that subject,” began Young Roger, “in 2007, a fireball hurtled out of the sky and blasted a forty-foot crater in Peru. The crater filled with boiling liquid and a noxious gas poured out that sent dozens of people to the hospital. Some of them suffered temporary paralysis and nerve damage. It was determined that whatever leaked out of that crater affected their nervous systems. Sound familiar?”
“Any of them die, kid?”
“Not a one,” Young Roger told Jones. “But you ever hear of an Israeli company called Odortec?”
Jones stiffened. “That’s classified.”
“Not here, it’s not,” said Tepper. “Keep talking, son.”
“Odortec has been specializing in scent-based weapons of the nonlethal variety for law enforcement for years. Word is they’ve expanded their horizons considerably as of late.”
“Word from where?” Jones challenged.
“The Deep Web. Would you like me to cite the specifics?” Young Roger asked him.
“Homeland’s connected to this company … have I got that right, Jones?” Caitlin challenged.
“I’m taking the Fifth,” he said, still glaring at Young Roger.
“The fact that the toxin disappears when the smell does makes it close to the perfect weapon,” Young Roger said, addressing all of them. “No trace elements, no residue, minimal collateral damage, and no way to trace anything to potential perpetrators.”
“I imagine that would make aroma the perfect means of delivery,” Caitlin ventured. “Right, Jones? An untraceable weapon of mass destruction.”
“You said it,” Jones conceded. “I didn’t.”
“You might as well have,” Caitlin told him. “Man oh man, where does it stop?”
“It doesn’t, Ranger. You want to talk to me about new avenues in lethal weapons development, fine, let’s have that conversation. Right now, people scream when we use drones; they scream when we launch raids; they scream when we take out a wedding party to take out a dozen militants who’d cut the heads off their own children.”
“Something I’m trying to get straight here,” Captain Tepper said, his words aimed squarely at Young Roger. “These two incidents, the one up in Canada a long way back and now the one down here at Hoover’s—it wasn’t eating the food that did the deed; it was smelling it?”
“That’s right.”
“But in both cases the food had to be cooked … have I got that right, son?”
“As rain, Captain. An aquifer on that reservation created a super-deadly strain of corn fungus, but not until heat was added to the equation. Kind of like a final catalyst.”
“Any kind of heat?”
“I suppose. Why?”
“Because,” Caitlin answered, before Tepper could, her gaze fixed on Jones, “what would happen, exactly, if somebody blew up a whole bunch of that toxic cuitlacoche?”
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BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS