Whiteout - Ken Follett [151]
Toni said, “That’s where she’ll release the spray.”
The unmarked police cars drew up outside the theater. Odette and Toni went in, followed by two men from the second car. The show, a ghost story with songs, was popular with visiting Americans. The girl with beautiful hair was standing in the queue for collection of prepaid tickets.
While she waited, she took from her shoulder bag a perfume bottle. With a quick gesture that looked entirely natural, she sprayed her head and shoulders. The theatergoers around her paid no attention. Doubtless she wanted to be fragrant for the man she was meeting, they would imagine, if they thought about it at all. Such beautiful hair ought to smell good. The spray was curiously odorless, but no one seemed to notice.
“That’s good,” said Odette. “But we’ll let her do it again.”
The bottle contained plain water, but all the same Toni shivered with dread as she breathed in. Had she not made the switch, the spray would have contained live Madoba-2, and that breath would have killed her.
The woman collected her ticket and went inside. Odette spoke to the usher and showed him her police card, then the detectives followed the woman. She went to the bar, where she sprayed herself again. She did the same in the ladies’ room. At last she took her seat in the front orchestra and sprayed herself yet again. Her plan, Toni guessed, was to use the spray several times more in the interval, and finally in the crowded passages while the audience was leaving the building. By the end of the evening, almost everyone in the theater would have breathed the droplets from her bottle.
Watching from the back of the auditorium, Toni listened to the accents around her: a woman from the American South who had bought the most beautiful cashmere scarf; someone from Boston talking about where he pahked his cah; a New Yorker who had paid five dollars for a cup of cawfee. If the perfume bottle had contained the virus as planned, these people would by now be infected with Madoba-2. They would have flown home to embrace their families and greet their neighbors and go back to work, telling everyone about their holiday in Europe.
Ten or twelve days later, they would have fallen ill. “I picked up a lousy cold in London,” they would have said. Sneezing, they would have infected their relations and friends and colleagues. The symptoms would have gotten worse, and their doctors would have diagnosed flu. When they started to die, the doctors would have realized that this was something much worse than flu. As the deadly infection spread rapidly from street to street and city to city, the medical profession would have begun to understand what they were dealing with, but by then it would be too late.
Now none of that would happen—but Toni shuddered as she thought how close it had been.
A nervous man in a tuxedo approached them. “I’m the theater manager,” he said. “What’s happening?”
“We’re about to make an arrest,” Odette told him. “You may want to delay the curtain for a minute.”
“I hope there won’t be a fracas.”
“Believe me, so do I.” The audience was seated. “All right,” Odette said to the other detectives. “We’ve seen enough. Pick her up, and gently does it.”
The two men from the second car walked down the aisles and stood at either end of the woman’s row. She looked at one, then the other. “Come with me, please, miss,” said the nearer of the two detectives. The theater went quiet as the waiting audience watched. Was this part of the show? they wondered.
The woman remained seated, but took out her perfume bottle and sprayed herself again. The detective, a young man in a short Crombie coat, pushed his way along the row to where she sat. “Please come immediately,” he said. She stood up, raised the bottle, and sprayed it into the air. “Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s only water.” Then he took