Fire with Fire(120)

Caine shrugged. “Look, Opal—Major Patrone—is the one with the zoology degree, so I’m sure she’s already way ahead of me on this, but look at the layout of that ‘organism.’ And then add that to the fact that it spontaneously denatured upon the death of its host, leaving no signs of toxins or virus, or bacteria, or foreign DNA. This thing—whatever it is—broke down into the same goo that you’d get if our own biochemistries were broken down. And I’ll bet the remains are a close or exact chemical match for a particular part of our bodies: our nervous system.”

Downing nodded. “Caine is correct.”

“So then what was it?” Trevor sounded a little more patient again.

“Best guess?” Caine shrugged. “An independent nervous system of some kind.”

“Which could have turned off my father’s heart.”

“Maybe, Trevor, but let’s look at some of the other facts.” Caine’s voice was calm. “First, it’s a pretty extensive organism if that’s its only purpose. And I do mean purpose, because I’m guessing this thing can’t be natural—not in the evolutionary sense of the word.”

Opal nodded. “I’m about a half-century out of date in terms of designer organisms, but this doesn’t look natural at all. Particularly its speedy decomposition into materials that mimic the body’s own byproducts.”

“So you’re saying that thing was designed to disappear as soon as it killed Dad.”

“If it did kill him,” Caine persisted. “And we’re still waiting for Mr. Downing to tell us what the coroners found in that regard.”

Now all the eyes came back to rest on Downing.

“They found very little—except that when they polled the chip in Nolan’s coronary controller, they found that it failed to operate at the moment he went into arrest.”

“Preposterous.” Elena’s voice was sharp, declarative. “Dad always had the best controller available, and Mom’s colleagues at Johns Hopkins always reviewed his test results.”

Riordan’s eyes hadn’t left Richard’s face. “But Mr. Downing didn’t say the coronary controller broke; he said that it ‘failed to operate.’ I’m betting that it’s not a typical malfunction either, is it, Richard? Any more than the security system and power failures at Alexandria were typical malfunctions.”

Trevor looked from Caine to Downing. “What are you talking about?”

Downing shrugged. “During Caine’s sequestration at a safe facility in Alexandria, the internal power and security systems were mysteriously ‘turned off’ right before he—and Opal—were attacked there.”

“You mean someone broke in and cut the systems?”

“No. That has been ruled out. It looks like they were shorted by a focused EM pulse.”

“That’s damn near impossible.”

“Perhaps. But that is the closest the scientists can come to an explanation of what happened—in both cases.”

“So you’re saying that this . . . thing”—Trevor waved at the screen—“didn’t cause my father’s death? That it was an EMP burst?”

Downing shrugged. “It’s possible that this organism could have been capable of the electric discharge itself, like an eel. In that event . . .”

Opal frowned. “In that event, Richard, wouldn’t there be other gross anatomical signs of such a trauma? And wouldn’t the chemical residues be different and the controller burnt out?”

Downing sighed. “It’s true that there are weakness with that explanation—but the alternative is the ranged EM pulse theory, which, as Trevor rightly points out, seems impossible.”

“No, Richard, we don’t know it’s impossible.” Caine leaned forward. “We only know that it is beyond our present capability. But so is generating, and sending, enough of an electrical spike from this filmy organism. And to have it send that discharge straight into Nolan’s cardiac controller? That’s a feat of bioengineering that’s at least as ‘impossible’ as a focused EM pulse. More so, I should think.”

It was Elena who engaged the conundrum head-on. “So what is your point, Mr. Riordan?”

“I’m saying that there may be a connection between the controller malfunction and this organism, but it may not be the simple connection we’re postulating. Even if this organism was the means whereby Nolan was killed, that only gives us more questions to ask: how was it implanted, and when, and by whom?”

Elena nodded. “Perhaps by whoever put in the coronary controller. Probably the last time it was replaced.”