He met her gaze, and it told him nothing at all; she was as smooth as plastic, as cold as nitrogen. He couldn’t imagine her warm.

“I’m right,” he said. It sounded feeble and stupid, and he thought he saw a flash of impatience in her eyes. “We’re right, Agent Carling. We could save lives! Doesn’t that mean anything at all?”

“Sure. It means you don’t understand the game.” She studied him for a few more seconds and said, “Got a cigarette?”

He sat back, staring, and finally pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, passed the pack to her. They lit up together in silence. Martin studied the sole government-provided decoration in the room, an unevenly lettered red NO SMOKING sign behind Carling’s head.

The heat of the smoke he sucked in was the only warmth in the room.

“Dichlorhyradine,” he said. The word came out wreathed in white. “Processed chemical byproduct, but we don’t know who’s producing it. It’s hydrophilic and inserts itself in cellular membranes. It’s in the water, Agent Carling. Ordinary tap water.”

She stared over his shoulder. Over the sharp tinny smell of burning tobacco, he caught a hint of flowers. Perfume?

“Damn it, are you listening to me?” he demanded. She focused on his face.

“What does it do?”

He watched Carling smoke; to her it was a neat efficient process, no sensuality to it at all. He imagined she ate the same way, mechanically, fueling up.

“Under certain circumstances, dichlorhyradine destabilizes. It has a low ignition threshold and causes an enzymatic reaction, highly exothermic.” He thought he caught a flash of interest in her eyes. Could he convince her? Hell, he’d better. If he couldn’t convince Carling, what chance would he have on the Hill? “Uh, just a sec.”

He flicked the latches on his briefcase and sorted through papers, found a folder and laid out a chart, traced a jagged red line with his thumb.

“See? Oxidization. Self-fueling. From the moment of ignition to irreparable damage is a matter of minutes, maybe less.” He fumbled through his papers and pulled out another chart, this one in green and blue. “We think it’s facilitated by high mineral concentrations. Some water samples are dense with it, some are clean. Anyway, once it ignites, the victim is certainly dead from shock and release of toxins. I don’t know how you’d save one, provided you caught him in time to try.”

She leaned forward to study the chart, but suddenly it looked to him like a parent dutifully examining a third-grader’s drawing. Oh, honey, it’s lovely. Let’s put it on the refrigerator.

“I understand you found traces in liver samples,” she said. Did she mean it? Was it just a soft-soap? God, how could he tell anything at all about her?