“No one knows,” Luc said, returning the tubes to their padded transport case. “And it’s a pity that you don’t either.”

Macintosh turned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that if you knew something about it, anything at all, you’d be useful. I’d have a reason for letting you live.”

“Heh,” Macintosh managed through a wobbly smile.

Luc said nothing; he simply stared at him.

Macintosh licked his lips. “That’s not funny, Doc.”

Luc took profound pleasure in watching the smile fade and the eyes widen as the traitor came to realize he wasn’t joking.

Macintosh glanced quickly around, then made a move toward the midway. But the two roustabouts blocked his way. He tried the other direction, but three more identical roustabouts appeared.

“Oh, God!” Macintosh wailed. “You can’t be serious!”

“What did you expect?” Luc shouted. Finally he could vent his fury. “You’ve tried to blackmail me! Did you think I would stand for that?”

“No! Not blackmail! I—”

“‘Give me a piece of the action or I go to the police’. That’s what you said, wasn’t it.”

“No, really! I didn’t—”

“If you’d simply gone straight to the police, I would have been angry, but at least I could have seen you as a well-meaning citizen. But after I’d hired you, provided you with cutting-edge research technology, and trusted you with my records, you try to dip your filthy hands into what is mine, what I discovered and developed. That’s despicable—intolerable.”

“Please!” Macintosh dropped to his knees, held up his hands, palms pressed together as if in prayer. “Please, I’m sorry!”

Luc stoked his rage. Without it he might not muster the courage to give Oz the signal to remove Macintosh and dispose of him.

“Or if you’d accomplished what I hired you to do, I would have found a way to cut you in. But you’ve failed me, Tom—as a researcher… and as a man.”

Macintosh sobbed. “Oh, Jesus!”

Luc glanced at Prather and nodded. Prather cocked his head toward Macintosh. In a single fluid motion, one of the roustabouts stepped up behind the kneeling man, raised a balled fist, and slammed it into the back of his neck.

Luc staggered back as he heard bones crunch like peanut shells and saw Macintosh’s eyes bulge in their sockets as if his brain were pushing them from behind. Luc had never dreamed Prather’s men would kill the man right in front of him. A surge of bile burned the back of his throat as he watched Macintosh pitch forward, his face landing in the dirt. His hands and feet twitched in time to the tune of his choked gurgling; then he lay still.

Luc swallowed and stared at the roustabouts. The killer had stepped back to rejoin his brothers, and Luc couldn’t tell now which one had struck Macintosh, but the power behind that single blow had been… inhuman.

He felt weak in his knees. He’d wanted Macintosh gone, but not to watch him die.

A dismissive flick of Prather’s wrist set the roustabouts into motion. They grabbed Macintosh’s body by its feet and dragged him out like a piece of tarpaulin.