"What do you mean? That's it," l.u.s.t responded after looking at her lover with eyes that shouted his name. Preston didn't see any further signs of concealment in the two suspects. The story had been so strange it had to be true, considering what he'd been through with Sloth earlier.

"Are you serious?" Preston said. "What about Particle N?"

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Greed asked, somehow managing to sound polite. He didn't face them. He had caught l.u.s.t's gaze. Preston felt the need to break their trance and get them back on topic.

"The s.h.i.t that's in the air!" Preston said with a dull roar. "The main ingredient of this plague."

Greed c.o.c.ked his head to the side, looking back at Preston with an unbelievably shocked expression.

"My G.o.d," he said. "We had no idea you had stumbled upon that yet. You never entered that in any of your databases. You kept it a secret, even from us. Smart move, Detectives." The CEO shook his head, letting out another small chuckle amid a wrinkled smile. "Well done. To answer your question, though, we don't have an official name for it. Although, I like what you said." He considered it for a while longer as Preston grew more impatient. "Particle N. Grand."

"Whatever," Jack replied, on edge. Then, turning to Preston, said, "Well, at least we can confirm who was reading the police files."

"Think about it," l.u.s.t added. "When refined, it can give you anything. It could theoretically heal the sick or advance medical science by light years. The only problem is supply, and money, of course." She looked to Argosi, confirming it was alright to be spilling such sensitive information. He nodded in approval. Alexandra rested her head on his shoulder as they leaned back into the couch.

"So that's it then," Preston theorized aloud. "Wrath's experimenting on the ma.s.ses. He has the pharmaceutical industry in the palm of his hand. This, combined with the hospital's research, must have yielded some pretty tangible results by now." Preston's eyes continued to light up as he spoke. "Christ," he stated, "the seven of you. All of his sins alone probably made the whole thing worth it."

"Oh, how sweet," l.u.s.t purred again, grabbing Argosi tighter.

"That just leaves one question," Argosi said. "How are you going to track down a man whom I've only been in contact with through email and the Internet in the last couple years? Before that, we communicated via telephone or through Envy. I've been searching for him since I first met him years ago."

"That's a valid question," Jack said quietly to his partner. "How are we going to track him down?"

"The same way we should have been dealing with this from the start," Preston responded with a smile. "We'll follow the source."

"We'll also get a sketch artist over here. I want both of their faces drawn up for us, Envy and Wrath," Preston said.

"Okay," Argosi said with a laugh. "Envy is easy enough, but Wrath is going to be another story."

"Why's that?" Jack asked. "Did he have plastic surgery or something?"

"Doubtful. It's just that he doesn't tend to keep the same face for long, as far as I hear."

Chapter 16.

"I'm sorry, guys. You kind of surprised me," Jason said as he answered the door, running his hand through his hair. "What time is it anyway?"

Both detectives stood at the door, eagerly waiting to see if there was any new information yielded from Sloth's factory that had been brought out in the open. Jason had spoken to them late the night before, which as he just now realized was in fact only six hours earlier. At the time, he remembered saying he would start working on putting the pieces together first thing in the morning, which, for him, was several hours from now.

"Sorry, kid," Burroughs said, making his way inside with his partner in tow, "this type of thing just can't wait."

"Is the sun even up?" Jason asked in pa.s.sing as he watched the two men intrude into his apartment.

"I'll be right with you," Jason muttered back quietly, heading toward the bathroom. The young scientist stood facing the mirror, trying to stir himself from his morning stupor. The last time the detectives had visited, he was prepared and eager to please. Now, they had shown up without warning to his home, and he had virtually nothing to show for it.

A few minutes later when he went out to the living area, both detectives were sipping coffee that had been prepared in his kitchen. They were also hunched over the computer, sniffing for fresh clues.

"I know this case is important, but . . ." Jason trailed off as the sound of his voice barely elicited a response from his audience. The detectives hadn't even looked at him as he spoke.

The apartment was small and cramped. While there was no lab equipment present, numerous doc.u.ments collected in the course of the investigation had begun piling up at various points throughout.

The desk by the computer was filled with neatly organized stacks of data CDs and manila envelopes.

Moving toward the desk, he casually pushed Detective Burroughs aside. The disks and doc.u.ments that had been pulled from Sloth's warehouse had been delivered via courier a few hours earlier, right before he settled in for what he considered to be a full night's sleep. The doc.u.ments sat in a fresh non-descript plain manila envelope on the desk. Frankly, he was surprised that the detectives hadn't torn into it already when they were raiding his kitchen for coffee like children with Christmas presents.

There was an uncomfortable silence about the room as he pulled up the files. Only the whir of the computer permeated the cramped apartment. He could feel their eyes on him, with the occasional intentionally placed sigh escaping their lips. The night before, he'd managed to do some preliminary digging, but nothing monumental had surfaced.

Jason McGovern's eyes were darting between the screen and Detective Burroughs's face. Someone had roughed him up, almost within an inch of his life. He'd seen enough dead bodies in his career to know the timeframe it took for wounds to perfect. The reason they were so eager was because the man had been injured the night before.

One of his eyes appeared to be almost swollen shut. Most of his face was black and blue.

"Tell me there's a map of some kind." Paige said, practically drooling as he decided the time had come to speak. "An address, anything."

"Alright, alright," Jason responded. "I'll just need you to give me another minute. These files look to be encrypted using a similar formula as those recovered from the Gluttony site. It'll only take a few minutes to crack, now that we know how to break it." He began typing quickly, running several algorithms to break the code.

"Great," Detective Paige offered. Despite the swelling around his mouth, he was able to speak clearly, portraying his frustration openly to the room.

"Hmm," Jason said, raising his hand to his chin.

"This better not be bad news," Burroughs said anxiously, still on the edge of his seat.

"Nah, nothing to worry about," Jason replied. "It's just that instead of encryption, these files are locked with a simple pa.s.sword. I would think they'd be trying a little harder at this stage in the game."

"d.a.m.n it," Burroughs said, falling back in his chair. "So it's a dud."

"No way to tell yet," Jason said coolly. He'd already begun running a program to crack the pa.s.sword. It was running through hundreds of combinations, offering one character at a time once it was isolated. Slowly, the word was starting to appear.

"We'll cross that road when we come to it," Detective Paige said, trying to calm his partner.

The uncomfortable silence resumed again, this time broken up by the clacking of computer keys as Jason continued to type the occasional command.

"Don't they usually let the tech guys handle stuff like this?" Detective Burroughs asked plainly. In truth, it appeared to Jason that he was growing more impatient as well. He'd clearly decided to make small talk to help him cope.

"This is child's play," Jason responded cordially. "Besides, if we wait for them, Bloodstrife will have covered the country by the time they get around to helping us. Have you ever tried to get a pa.s.sword reset at the station?" After getting a tense nod from Detective Paige, he said, "Yeah, well, these guys are worse."

The pa.s.sword had been broken. McGovern double clicked on an icon. The screen came to life with various full color maps of greater Chicago. Other individual diagrams showcased about fifteen major U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Finally, a map covering the entire country came into view.

"What does this mean?" Burroughs asked blankly.

"These," Jason said, still studying the doc.u.ments, "are simple wind pattern maps."

"How does that help us?" Paige asked.

"I don't know," Jason said, still lost in the image, "if it does."

"d.a.m.n it!" Detective Burroughs yelled. He turned to one of Jason's beat-up folding chairs, grabbed it, and threw it down on the floor.

"Hey!" Jason said, raising his voice for the first time to the detectives. "I know this is frustrating, but if you just give me a minute, I might be able to figure out what's going on here."

"He's right," Detective Paige said calmly. "Sit down, Preston," he relayed, his speech taking on the form of a command. Paige threw a glance back toward Jason, as if saying that he would keep his partner under control.

Detective Burroughs picked up the weathered chair and sat in it, crossing his arms in frustration. It hadn't been damaged, but the noise it made when striking the floor probably woke a few neighbors. Clearly restless, Detective Burroughs sat for only a few moments. He then turned to his partner, gesturing to join him in the kitchen.

They walked to the semi-private area, hearing the sound of clicking computer keys gradually soften. McGovern continued to work in relative silence, probably grateful for the reprieve.

The kitchen was fairly tidy, considering. Virtually barren save for the most basic of appliances, the s.p.a.ce was practically untouched. It appeared to be the only room in the apartment where there were no case files being held in storage. Both detectives noticed they had tracked in water from the previous night's storm which still dotted the street in puddles when their shoes began to squeak on the linoleum.

"You know, this is really starting to p.i.s.s me off," Preston said, leaning against the counter, his shoes squeaking as he repositioned them.

"I don't disagree," Jack affirmed. He stood on the other side of the narrow room with his arms crossed.

Preston's wounds had perfected. He was broken, coming undone both from the physical trauma as well as the frustration. Jack feared the worst if there wasn't a pleasant resolution to the case.

"Look, if this turns out to be a wild goose chase," Preston whispered to his partner, hoping that Jason was focused enough on his work to disregard his comments.

"Even if these maps turn out to be useless, we still have mounds of other evidence to sift through," Jack said. "Sloth's building might still be hiding something. I mean, we were just there all night, after interrogating Argosi. A few hours isn't enough time."

"This is all starting to get pretty twisted," Preston lamented. His demeanor had changed from one of anger to defeat.

"Yeah, I mean, we knew Argosi was dirty, but Doctor Morrissey as well?" Jack shifted uneasily, wondering if he looked as fatigued as his partner. At least Preston had made a quick trip home to change out of the blood-soaked clothing. Jack, on the other hand, had barely been home in the last day. He'd only enjoyed a brief dinner with his family the night before. Even being accustomed to his line of work, Jack knew his wife would probably be getting a few more "headaches" in the near future for being gone so much.

The kids were starting to miss their father as well. They had also experienced long periods of absence from him in the past, but seeing as how the case was only heating up, things were going to get worse before they got better.

"Okay, detectives, I think I've gone over this enough. I can read these back to you now," Jason said, his voice drifting into the kitchen. Both sets of shoes squeaked on the tile floor before being silenced when hitting the carpet as they made their way back to the computer.

Neither bothered to take a seat on the other side of the desk. They huddled behind Jason, still standing as they studied the computer screen.

The two detectives reviewed the complex wind pattern maps, practically already familiar with the setup. In truth, they looked fairly similar to the diagrams used in weather reports on the news. There were images of the jet streams as well as arrows indicating direction and wind speed. What was most interesting were the barely visible red splotches huddled together in groups all over the map. It made the picture look grainy and pixelated, as if there was something wrong with the display.

"Can you magnify those red bits?" Preston asked, having no idea how to do it himself.

Jason zoomed in on the splotches. Currently, they were only looking at a map of Chicago; however, each wind pattern map depicting a different city had the same red patches, albeit scattered in various places. The map of the entire U.S. was covered in them, some areas a darker red than others.

"Wind pattern maps . . ." Jason offered softly.

"Yeah," Jack replied. "We got that part already.

"No," Jason said, gesturing for them to join him at the computer again. "This might be what we've been looking for after all."

"If you're jerking us around, well, let's just say I know how to dispose of a body," Preston said, half serious. "I'm a cop."

"You see those red dots?" Jason asked with a victorious smile. "It appears that your drug runners haven't only figured out how to pull Particle N out of the air, but have also learned how to track it in the atmosphere. I'd say that's how they're able to manufacture it so efficiently," McGovern continued, still focused on the screen. "The only way I was able to identify the substance before was that there was still some left in the microscope you found at Gluttony's factory. I hadn't found a way to locate it."

"Yes," Preston said, barely involved in the conversation as he studied the screen. The other two men picked up on Preston's expression of contemplative thought. After a few moments of virtual silence, hearing nothing but the hum of the computer and muted breathing, he continued, "I think I know how to track them down then."

"I don't see any factory locations on this map," Jason said, staring at the screen in depth. He zoomed out, obviously searching for something he'd missed.

"That b.u.t.ton in the corner," Preston said, pointing to an icon which displayed the words Live Feed.

"Yeah, it's basically a modified hookup from the National Weather Service," Jason stated. "The dealers are able to program specific variables into the image processor and search for whatever they wish. In this case, it's Particle N. Since it's only a one-way feed, the Weather Service can't see any of this."

"That's the idea," Preston said with a thin, scarlet-stained smile. "Push it."

"You're the boss," Jason said, mildly confused. He clicked the live feed b.u.t.ton. The computer thought for a moment as it processed the stream. The screen flared to life with moving images of the wind trajectories. It was similar to the still frame, but minute changes occurred each time it refreshed. "According to the time stamp, these images were taken last night, about an hour before you busted Sloth's factory, Detective Burroughs. So, when this updates, we should see quite a change, especially with that storm we had."

The images continued to shift and contort, until it was obvious they were witnessing the atmospheric effects of the storm the night before. The red particles flew about in the air wildly, pushed along by the low pressure system. Moreover, the concentrations of the particles changed with the direction of the wind as the screen began moving. Every few seconds, it refreshed with updated information, and by default, the red particles traveled along the distance of the city, carried by the storm as it pa.s.sed through.

Preston began to chuckle to himself.

"What's so funny?" Jack asked.

"This might be the most important evidence we've collected," he replied with a genuine smile, the first he'd produced in some time. "They just gave themselves away." He gestured vaguely toward a point on the screen. "Look in grid 3A."

After a few silent moments, Preston turned his head slightly to the other two men. Noting the dim look and lack of conversation, he touched the screen, pointing to the grid for them.

"Okay?" Jason asked. "What of it?"

"Look at the concentration of particles in the grid on that spot," he said, moving his finger slightly so they could see. Then, he moved back, allowing them a full view of the display.

To them, the grid appeared no different than any other. There was a medium-sized group of red particles that seemed to float about the map. According to the diagram, it was near the center of the city. But such groups were all over the place and this one didn't appear any different.

"They don't move," Preston finally stated, with cautious enthusiasm. "The storm carries every other particle on the map, but the wind speeds should be pushing the group in this grid away by now. They're stationary against the wind, which means-"

"Something is holding them there," Jack said.

"G.o.d, these guys are good," Jason said, still smiling. "Weird way of going about things, though."

"What do you mean?" Preston asked, confused.

"You remember that simple pa.s.sword I had to crack to get into this thing?" he said, still absorbed in the view of the city map. "It was Elisabeth."

"You gonna be ready for this?" Jack asked as they left Jason's apartment. Both men walked down the hall attempting to speak softly. Despite having discussed the case for nearly an hour in McGovern's apartment, it was still fairly early. Any coffee they had managed to drink while inside had worn off long ago. Besides, Preston felt too anxious to sleep. His insomnia had helped him stay alert at Sloth's facility overnight, but Jack seemed to be fading. No doubt he'd been sleeping with his wife by his side when he got the call. He wouldn't have been used to such a thing.

Preston's hands instinctively found their way into his pockets. He walked silently beside his partner, his eyes staring forward.

"I think," he finally managed to say, "I'm ready for this to be over."

"We'll need to talk to the lieutenant right away," Jack said, trying to take Preston's mind off the pa.s.sword. It was a taunt, pure and simple. They had suspected the drug makers had access to police files for some time. Argosi, or Greed, had practically confirmed it during his interrogation. "We'll be launching this thing ASAP. They would have known what was in those files when you stormed the place. They'll be moving soon."

"It doesn't matter," Preston said distantly. "If they move, we can continue to track them. They'll take that cloud with them wherever they go."

"I'm more worried about them going overseas where some inept foreign government won't be able to stop them," Jack stated. "They could operate indefinitely if the money kept flowing. We know it isn't important to them."