The Red Horseman by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page B

interrogated the crew thoroughly. And if
he was assassinated, how was it done?”
    “You tell me,” Tarkington muttered.
    “Remember that top secret CIA progress
report that went through here a couple of months ago
on the development of binary chemicals?”
    Toad nodded once.
    “When I saw it then, I thought of the Keren
case,” Jake Grafton continued, “but I forgot
all about it until the other day when I was staring at that
photo Judith Farrell donated to the cause. And
I confess, I used the computer yesterday after you
left to reread the Keren file.” He smiled at
Toad.
    “It would have occurred to you sooner or later.”
    “Binary chemicals.”
    “That’s right. The poisons of the past-arsenic,
strychnine, that kind of thing-all had a couple of
major drawbacks. If given in sufficient
quantity to do the job they killed very quickly, before the
killer had a chance to leave the scene of the crime. And
there was always the problem of killing too many people, anyone
who ingested the poisoned food or drink. Binary
chemicals remove those drawbacks. You give your
victim one chemical, harmless in itself, perhaps serve
it in the punch at a party. Everyone drinks it and no
one is the wiser. It’s absorbed by the tissues and
so remains in the body for a lengthy period, at least
several weeks. But it’s benign, produces no
ill effect.
    Then at a later date the assassin serves the
other half of the poison, also quite benign
by itself, And the second half of the brew combines with the first
half in the body of the victim and becomes a deadly
poison. The victim goes home and goes to bed
and the chemical reaction takes place and his heart
stops. No one will suspect poison. Even if
they do, investigation will reveal that everything the victim
ate and drank was also ingested by other people.”
    Jake Grafton turned his hand over.
    “So Keren could have been given the first drink of the
chemical at any time in the preceding few weeks,”
Toad said.
    “Correct. At a party, a luncheon, a
dinner, whatever. it could have been in anything he ate
or drank. And that everyone else ate or drank.”
    “Then aboard ship . .
    “The second chemical could have been in the food
when it came aboard, maybe in the ship’s water
tank. Probably the food, which would be consumed or
thrown away. When Keren had ingested a sufficient
dosage and chemical reaction was complete, his heart
stopped. And no one aboard the ship knew anything
about it. They were all innocent.”
    “Wouldn’t this stuff still be in his body?” Toad
asked “Probably. If the pathologist had known
what to look for. Zero chance of that.”
    con”But why did the body go into the water?”
    “That’s a side issue,” Jake Grafton
said. “Nothing in life is ever neat and tidy.
Someone panicked when they found him dead. You can
make your own list of reasons.
    Maybe the British found out who threw him
overboard and kept quiet to protect the dead
man’s reputation. Extraordinarily wealthy man,
Pillar of the community, why smear him after he’s
dead? The British think like that.”
    “But later they said Keren committed suicide.
That’s certainly frowned on by the upper crust.”
    “if you have a corpse floating in the ocean and no
proof of murder, what would you call it?”
    “He was a Jew from the Levant,” Toad said
carefully.
    “Emigrated to Britain as a young man. Poor
as a church mouse.”
    “Then he made hundreds of millions and the
Mossad was right there when he died to snap a photo
of a CIA agent.
    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Toad said,
eyeing the admiral.
    “Not me,” Jake Grafton said with finality.
“I have no reason to go Prying into someone
else’s dirty little business.
    And no levers to pry with even if I were foolish enough
to try.” He tossed Toad’s summary at him.
“Put this into the burn bag and let’s get back
to work.”
    On Friday evening Jake took Callie and
Amy to a movie.
    Afterward they stopped for ice cream. It was a little