Page 66 of Better off Dead

“So the chip in the bomb would be like the chip in the car?”

“Correct. I’ll verify that once the bomb is here, but I don’t see another way it could work.”

“What kind of range do these things have?”

“They vary. Depends on the application. Planes use them for automatic identification, in which case the signal can travel many kilometers. If you use one to unlock a door in place of a key, you’d want the signal to only go a few millimeters. You put one in a bomb, you’d want it to be similar, I guess, or your target would be out of the blast zone when it detonated. Unless it was a giant bomb and you didn’t care about collateral damage.”

Lane had done it again. The way he spoke, I couldn’t tell if “You put one in a bomb” was a question or a statement. And I suddenly realized who he reminded me of. Michael. When he briefly spoke to Fenton, right after we first found him. He either said, “You came.” Or “You came?” And that was right after something else weird. He said, “You got my warning?” Fenton had described it as a cry for help. An SOS. That was nothing like the same thing. I thought about what she had found. What she had based her conclusion on. And stood up.

I said, “Excuse me. I have to make a call.”

“Now?” Lane checked his watch. “The bomb will be here any minute. I’ll have to step out. Can’t you do it then?”

“No.” I moved to the corner of the room and dialed Dr. Houllier’s number. “This can’t wait.”

Dr. Houllier answered and I asked to speak to Michael.

He said, “Not possible. Sorry. He’s unconscious again.”

“Again?”

“Correct. He was awake for a while earlier, though he wasn’t saying much. Nothing coherent anyway. Just rambling about finding a goal or something like that.”

I thanked Dr. Houllier and hung up. Then immediately called him back and asked for Fenton.

I said, “Please hurry. This is important.”

Fenton came on the line after thirty seconds. “What’s up? Make it quick. I want to get back to Michael.”

I said, “I need you to think very carefully about a question. Don’t guess. Only answer if you are one hundred percent sure. OK?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“The condom you found in the message Michael sent. What brand was it?”

“Trojan.”

“You sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

Chapter53

A condom. And a businesscard. A Trojan. And a Red Roan. Which is a kind of horse. Michael had been trying to tell his sister that the device she was given to analyze at TEDAC was a Trojan horse. But Fenton had misunderstood from the start. She had made two false assumptions: That the bomb containing Michael’s message had been intended to explode. And that the transponder inside it was the trigger.

I was betting that neither thing was true. The bomb was just a vehicle. Its job was to deliver the transponder. To a place where only a bomb could go. And the transponder’s job was not to trigger the bomb it was in. It was to trigger something else. Which hadn’t happened. Because Fenton had fixated on Michael’s fingerprint. She hadn’t realized it was to ensure that the bomb reached her desk. Or that it doubled as a way to sign the warning. She hated puzzles after all. She was too pedantic. She’d taken it at face value. As damning evidence. So she destroyed it.

Fenton destroyed the first transponder. But another one was coming. In the smoke bomb. It was minutes away. Heading for the building I was in. Where two hundred people worked. Which was full of irreplaceable machines and priceless evidence. No wonder Dendoncker had been so desperate to push me into transporting the device for him. He had wanted it at TEDAC from the start.

Lane was scowling. “You broke off this meeting to talk about condoms? What’s wrong with you?”

Michael’s original bomb arrived at TEDAC weeks ago, initially with its transponder intact. But the place didn’t blow up. So the thing it was supposed to trigger wasn’t here at that time. It must have come in later.

I said, “The last three weeks. Have any new devices been brought in?”

Lane checked his watch again. “Of course.”

“Anything particularly large?”

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