“I told you, I got something to show you.”

Snake suppressed a scowl. He’d had to learn to get used to Alois treating him like a real father. “What?”

“A little toy I been workin’ on.”

“Well, where is it?”

Alois reached into his pocket and brought out a dull metal cube about an inch and a half square. Using his thumbnail, he flipped a tiny catch, and one side of the cube slid halfway open.

“What is it?” Snake asked. “A Rubik’s Cube or something?”

Alois handed the cube to his father as though passing him a rare and fragile relic. “Look inside, but don’t touch anything in there. Seriously.”

Snake gingerly moved the little cube up and down until he got it the proper distance from his aging eyes, then backed to the edge of the shade and turned the gadget until the sun shone into its tiny opening.

What he saw appeared to be the works of a mechanical watch. In front of the watch sat some sort of compressed spring. Snake squinted into the tightly crowded space. Rising out of the mouth of the spring was a thin sliver of metal, like a needle. But Snake had no idea what the function of the mechanism might be.

“What is it?”

“I call it the Needle Box,” Alois said proudly.

“And what the fuck does it do?”

“It kills.”

“Kills what? People?”

Alois gave him a strange smile. “Anything. Any mammal, for sure.”

“How?”

“Simple. Inside there is a spring-loaded hypodermic needle. Attached to the needle is a tiny rubber bladder. The trigger is attached to a timer right now. But the whole thing is mechanical. Doesn’t put out any electrical field.”

Snake turned the gadget in his hand again. On the opened side he saw a tiny hole, which must be where the needle would emerge if triggered.

“What comes out of the needle?” he asked.

“Anything you want. Cyanide. Ricin. Thallium. The quickest killer’s cyanide, obviously. I already killed a pig and two dogs with it. Killed them so fast you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Huh,” Snake said, still studying the toylike device. “Could you rig one to trigger remotely?”

“Sure, yeah. It’s the poison that’s tricky. Ricin or thallium’s the way to go if you want somebody to suffer. Thallium’s the worst. That’s a living hell, and the best doctors in the world can’t save you.”

“Where do you get thallium?”

Alois smiled with wicked pleasure. “It’s gettable.”

Snake nodded in appreciation of the skill that had gone into building the little machine. Alois had obviously inherited the aptitude that had made Snake a dab hand with improvised explosives. “And how do you plan to use this thing?”