Dead and Alive

X-rayed, and then he turned the same stare on Michael.
    “It was not an accident that I crossed your path rather than that of other detectives. You’re different from most who carry a badge, and I am different from everyone. Our difference is our strength. We have been chosen for this, and if we fail—the world fails.”
    Michael grimaced. “That wouldn’t look good on my résumé.”
    “Earlier, at the Luxe,” Carson said, referring to the just shuttered movie theater where Deucalion lived, “you said Victor has progressed doggedly for so long, in spite of his setbacks, he has no fear of failure, he believes his triumph is inevitable. So he’s blind to the rot in his empire. At the time, I thought the rot might not be as extensive as you hoped. But after our lark in the park with those replicants … maybe collapse is coming even sooner than you think.”
    Pulses of inner light passed through the giant’s eyes. “Yes. The clock is ticking.”
    After listening to Deucalion’s one-minute abridged version of his discoveries in the Hands of Mercy, Carson was left with stomach acid burning in the back of her throat and a clutching chill in the pit of her stomach.
    “When does the place melt down?” Michael asked.
    “In fifty-five minutes. When Victor hears about the fire, he’ll know I did it, but he won’t know how out of control things were in there tonight. He’ll continue to trust his New Race to defend him. But he won’t risk staying in the Garden District. He’ll fall back to the farm.”
    Carson said, “The creation-tank farm, the New Race factory Pastor Kenny told you about?”
    “As I learned tonight, it’s farther along than Kenny thought. The first crop begins rising from the tanks tomorrow night—five hundred a day for four days.”
    Michael said, “We
way
underestimated our ammo needs.”
    “Victor owns large tracts of land north of Lake Pontchartrain.” From an inside coat pocket, Deucalion withdrew a packet of papers. “I retrieved the information from his computer. There’s a place called Crosswoods Waste Management, owned by a Nevada corporation, which is owned by a holding company in the Bahamas, which is held by a trust in Switzerland. But in the end, it’s all just Victor.”
    “Waste management?” Carson said. “Is that a dump?”
    “It is a very large dump.”
    “What would he want with a dump?”
    “A graveyard for his failures and for the people his replicants replace.”
    Michael said, “It must have a more memorable smell than your average dump.”
    “The tank farm is on a twenty-acre property adjacent to the dump. We’re going to be there well ahead of Victor. In fact, I will be there in ten minutes.” Deucalion handed the packet of papers to Carson. “Addresses, background, a little reading for the road. If you take Interstate 10 east to Interstate 12 west, then the state route north as I’ve marked, it’s about seventy miles, less than an hour and a half.”
    “A lot less if she’s driving,” Michael said.
    “When you’re getting near, call me,” Deucalion said. “We’ll join forces there.”
    “And then what?” Carson asked.
    “And then … whatever’s necessary.”

CHAPTER 36
    ERIKA FIVE LOADED a stainless-steel cart with everything Jocko needed, and took it to the second floor in the service elevator.
    After Victor had joined the original two residences, there were three hallways. At the south end of the house, the south-wing hall ran east-west. At the north end, the hall also ran east-west. Each measured eighty feet. Those corridors were connected by the main hall, which extended 182 feet.
    In the south wing, the service elevator was not far from the kitchen. Once upstairs, Erika had to push the cart the length of the main hall to the north wing, where the troll waited in his new quarters toward the back of the house.
    The double doors to the master suite were at the midpoint of the main hall, on the left, opposite the head of the grand staircase. She thought Victor remainedin the suite, but she couldn’t be sure. If by chance he stepped into the hall and saw her pushing the cart stacked with bedding, towels, toiletries, and food, he would want to know where she was going and to what purpose.
    The nine-foot-wide hallway featured a series of Persian rugs, as in the north and the south halls, and the cart rolled silently across them. Where mahogany flooring lay exposed between rugs, the rubber wheels made only a faint noise.
    When,