Steeling himself against what he might find, Yuri moved over to the door to the lab itself. He switched on the interior lights before cracking the door. He could tell the main circulating fans were functioning normally by the breeze flowing into the room. It rustled his hair and caressed his face. To be on the safe side, Yuri held his breath while he scanned the lab’s interior.

The gleaming fermenters were arrayed directly in front of him along the back wall of the lab. His makeshift hood was to the right. It functioned as his incubator, with a heat lamp and a thermostat, and also as his repository for the biowea-ponized anthrax and botulinum toxin he’d already produced.

Yuri’s lab bench was to the immediate left. On the bench stood the glassware he used for crystallizing the botulinum toxin. Beyond the lab bench was the pulverizer and the dryer for the anthrax spores.

Yuri’s pounding heart began to slow. The lab seemed normal with nothing out of place. It appeared exactly as it had when he left it that morning, including the way the glassware was positioned on the bench. With a sense of relief, Yuri pulled the door closed. It whistled from the inrushing air just before sealing on its weather stripping.

He looked down at the broken hasp. Although his anxiety had abated, his anger hadn’t. Then his eye caught something on the floor. Next to his foot was a carelessly discarded French fried potato along with a small smear of ketchup. Connie!

A muffled titter of laughter filtered down from above. Yuri was consumed by fury. With a string of expletives, he rushed from the room and took the stairs two at a time. When he got to the partially open bedroom door he pounded it open with the flat of his palm.

Connie glanced up from her TV show. She was supine on her bed.

“Why did you go downstairs?” Yuri snarled.

“I wanted to know what was going on in my basement,” Connie said. “I have a right, considering all the time you spend down there.”

“Did you touch anything?” Yuri demanded.

“No, I didn’t touch nothing! But I can tell you, that ain’t no still, not with all that stuff that looks like it came from a hospital.”

“I’ll teach you to disobey me!” Yuri snarled as he hurled himself at his wife.

Connie screamed and rolled to the side. The combination of Yuri’s impact and Connie’s weight was too much for the slats under the box spring, and the bed collapsed to the floor.

SIX

___

SIX

Monday, October 18

6:15 P.M.

Curt was driving his Dodge Ram pickup with Steve riding shotgun. They’d turned off Ocean Parkway onto Oceanview Avenue and were searching for Oceanview Lane.