The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [103]
"So, rapid-acting, lethal, and undetectable, right?"
"All of the above," Dr. Pasternak agreed.
"How do you reload it?" Davis required. Damn, how has CIA not developed something this good? he wondered. Or KGB, for that matter.
"You unscrew the barrel, like this"-he demonstrated-"and take it apart. You use an ordinary syringe to inject a new supply of the drug, and swap out the gas charge. These little gas capsules are the only hard part to manufacture. You toss the used one into a trash can or the gutter-they're only four millimeters long and two millimeters wide-and reinsert the fresh one. When you screw in the replacement, a little spike in the back of the barrel punctures it and recharges the system. The gas capsules are coated with sticky stuff to make them harder to drop." And just that fast, the blue one was "hot" except for the absence of succinylcholine. "You want to be careful with the syringe, of course, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to stick yourself. If you cover your man as a diabetic, you can explain away the presence of syringes. There's an ID card to get insulin refills that works just about anywhere in the world, and diabetes has no outward symptoms."
"Damn, Doc," Tom Davis observed. "Anything else you could deliver this way?"
"Botulism toxin is similarly lethal. It's a neurotoxin; it blocks nerve transmissions, and it causes death by asphyxia, also fairly rapidly, but it's readily detectable in the blood during a post, and kind of hard to explain away. It's available fairly readily around the world, but in microgram doses, because of its use in cosmetic surgery."
"Docs shoot women in the face with that, don't they?"
"Only the dumb ones," Pasternak replied. "It takes wrinkles away, sure, but since it kills the nerves in the face, it also takes away your ability to smile much. That's not my field, exactly. There are a lot of toxic and lethal chemicals. It's the combination of rapid action and difficult detectability that made this a problem. Another quick way to kill someone is to use a small knife at the back of the skull, where the spinal cord enters the base of the brain. The trick is getting right behind your victim and then hitting a fairly small target with the knife, and not having the knife jam between the vertebrae-at that range, why not a silenced.22 pistol? It's fast enough, but it leaves something behind. This method can easily be misdiagnosed as a heart attack. It's just about perfect," the physician concluded, in a voice sufficiently cold as to sprinkle snow on the carpet.
"Richard," Hendley said, "you have earned your fee on this one." The professor of anesthesiology stood, checking his watch. "No fee, Senator. This one's for my little brother. Let me know if you need me for anything else. I have a train to catch back to New York."
"Jesus," Tom Davis said, after he left. "I always knew docs had to have evil thoughts."
Hendley picked up a package on his desk. There were a total of ten "pens" in it, with computer-printed instructions for this use, a plastic bag full of gas capsules, and twenty large vials of succinylcholine, plus a bunch of throwaway syringes. "He and his brother must have been pretty close."
"Know him?" Davis asked.
"Yeah, I did. Good guy, wife and three kids. Name was Bernard, Harvard Business School graduate, smart guy, very astute trader. Worked on the ninety-seventh floor of Tower One. Left a lot of money behind-anyway, his family's well taken care of. That's something."
"Rich is a nice guy to have on our side," Davis thought aloud, suppressing the shiver that came along with the opinion.
"That he is," Gerry agreed.
The drive ought to have been pleasant. The weather was fair and clear, the road not at all crowded and mostly straight northeast. But it was not pleasant. Mustafa kept getting "How far now?" and "Are we there