Trust Me by Jeff Abbott

The cloud could expand, if lucky, to a mile and a half in width, and with the boost from the wind, carry close to eighteen miles.
    Twenty thousand people would be within the cloud’s path.
    The Beast would of course order evacuations, fight like the wounded giant that it was, but the death toll could easily be in the hundreds or even the thousands. He smiled.
    He hoped, as a first shot, this would prove a great success.
    He drove fast on the empty road, heading toward Houston. He had a gas mask but he didn’t feel he needed it; Ripley was far enough behind and he was driving into the prevailing wind.
    He drove south back to Houston, to Snow’s house without calling, because he thought the Beast, with its thousands of eyes, would be tracking every cellular call made near Ripley as part of the town’s postmortem. He listened to the radio, the music interrupted by a news bulletin, the increasingly frantic coverage, and the order for immediate evacuation.
    When he got back to Snow’s house, the yards were empty. He saw cars filled with families, heading out, even though the cloud was far away and the wind wasn’t moving the poison in this direction. People panicked so easily.
    He got out of the car, breathed in the cool air, and walked inside the house.
    Snow sat on her couch, watching CNN, eating pretzels and sipping a congratulatory beer.
    He watched the coverage, the panic, the horror, thinking, I did that. Good for me.
     
    She looked up at him. ‘I guess my baby delivered.’
    Mouser had a sudden hunger to touch her throat, feel the taste of her skin. But he barely knew her, so it would be wrong. The mission first, the mission always. He went and got a glass of water.
    ‘Only one car punctured by the blast,’ she said, watching the TV coverage. A satellite image of the derailment was on the screen. ‘The cloud is going to be big. They’re evacuating everyone within twenty miles.’
    He could see the dead by the rails, on the streets of Ripley. He counted a dozen bodies as the camera’s eye moved along the main drag. He saw a wrecked minivan, halfway in a storefront close to the rail yard, a flipped pickup truck. The chattering experts said the chlorine cloud was not likely to move south toward Houston and heavy rain pushing in from the Gulf would help ground the chlorine. But the situation was already being labeled a chemical attack. Not simply an accident, and the words al-Qaeda and terrorists were already on the commentators’ tongues.
    ‘Al-Qaeda. They always think of them first,’ Snow said.
    My God, Mouser thought. That was simple. And cheap. What blows to the Beast could he inflict with real money, money to last him for years, now that he had proven his worth. He nearly laughed in joy.
    The doorbell rang. Snow glanced up at Mouser. ‘You expecting anyone?’
    ‘Maybe my ex. We broke up, he might come here begging.’
    Mouser pulled the gun, went to the window. ‘Answer the door. Move out of the way if you don’t know ‘em.’
    ‘If it’s police …’
    ‘I’m not being taken. You?’
    She shook her head without hesitation.
    Mouser positioned himself. Snow answered the door.
    ‘I thought you were in Washington,’ Snow said.
    On the porch, Henry Shawcross said, ‘We have a serious problem.’

8
     
    ‘Please tell us you’re here to celebrate,’ Mouser said. He knew it wasn’t the case but he wasn’t ready to let go of the euphoria he felt.
    ‘No. My stepson has been kidnapped.’ Henry stood against the living room wall, arms crossed. Exhaustion marked his face.
    Mouser sat on the edge of Snow’s couch. ‘And I care why? That’s not our problem.’
    ‘Wrong. Luke’s kidnapping affects everything - the first wave and the Hellfire attack.’ Henry told him about Luke, the demands of the kidnapper. ‘They want the fifty million for his safe return.’
    ‘Then no safe return. They can’t have it,’ Mouser said. An absolute statement, no room for discussion.
    ‘I am not going to let