"On a contact wound, theoretically, we could," I said.

"The obvious problem is that a foriv-five loaded with highperformance ammunition is so incredibly destructive, you aren't likely to find a good pattern, not on the head."

This had been true in Danny's case, even after I had conjured up my plastic surgery skills to reconstruct the entrance wound as best I could. But as I compared the cloth to diagrams and photographs I had made downstairs in the morgue, I found nothing inconsistent with a Sig P220 beino the murder weapon. In fact, I thought I might have matched a sight mark protruding from the margin of the entrance.

"This is our confirmation," Frost said, adjusting the focus as he continued staring into the comparison microscope.

We both turned at the sound of' someone running down the hall.

"You want to see?" he asked.

"Yes, I do," I said as vet another person ran past, keys jingling madly from a bell.

"What the hell?" Frost -of up, frownin- toward the door.

Voices had gotten louder outside in the hall, and now people were hurrying by, but going the other way. Frost and I stepped outside the lab at the same moment several security guards rushed past, heading for their station. Scientists in lab coats stood in doorways casting about. Everyone was asking everyone else what was going on, when suddenly the fire alarm hammered overhead and red lights in the ceiling flashed.

"What the hell is this, a fire drill?" Frost yelled.

"There isn't one scheduled." I held my hands over my ears as people ran.

"Does that mean there's a fire?" He looked stunned.

I glanced up at sprinkler heads in the ceilings, Fiji(] said, "We've got to get out of here."

I ran downstairs and had just pushed through doors into the hall on my floor when a violent white storm of' cool halon gas blasted from the ceiling. It sounded as if I were surrounded by huge cymbals being beaten madly with a million sticks as I dashed in and Out of rooms. Fieldin- was gone, and every other office I checked had been evacuated so fast that drawers were left open, and slide displays and microscopes were on. Cool clouds rolled over me, and I had the surreal sensation I was flying through a hurricane in the middle of an air raid. I dashed into the library, the restrooms, and when satisfied that everyone was safely out, I ran down the hall and pushed my way out of the front doors. For a moment, I stood to catch my breath and let my heart slow down.

The procedure for alarms and drills was as rigidly structured as most routines in the state. I knew I would find my staff gathered on the second floor of the Monroe Tower parking deck across Franklin Street. By now, all Consolidated Lab employees should be in their designated spots, except for section chiefs and agency heads, and of those, it seemed, I was the last to leave, except for the director of general services, who was in charge of my building. He was briskly crossing the street in front of me, a hard hat tucked under his arm. When I called out to him, he turned around and squinted as if he did not know me at all.

"What in God's name is going on?" I asked as I caught up with him and we crossed to the sidewalk.

"What's going on is you better not have requested anything extra in your budget this year." He was an old man who was always well dressed and unpleasant. Today he was in a rage.

I stared at the building and saw no smoke as fire trucks screamed and blared several streets away.

"Some jackass tripped the damn deluge system, which doesn't stop until all the chemicals are dumped." He glared at me as if I were to blame. "I had the damn thing set on a delay to prevent this very thing."

"Which wasn't going to hell) if there was a chemical fire or explosion in a lab," I couldn't resist pointing out, because most of his decisions were about as bad. "You don't want a thirty-second delay when something like that happens."

"Well, something like that didn't happen. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost?"

I thought of the paperwork on my desk and other important items flung far and wide and possibly damaged.

"Why would anyone trip the system?" I asked.

"Look, at the moment I'm about as informed as you are."

"But thousands of gallons of chemicals have been dumped over all of' my offices, and the morgue and the anatomical division." We climbed stairs, my frustration becoming harder to contain.

"You won't know it was even there." He rudely waved off the remark. "it disappears like a vapor."

"It's sprayed all over bodies we are autopsying, including several homicides. Let's hope a defense attorney never brings that up in court."

"What you'd better hope is that somehow we can pay for this. To refill those halon tanks, we're talking several hundred thousand dollars. That's what ought to make you stay awake at night."

The second level of the parking deck was crowded with hundreds of state employees on an unexpected break. Ordinarily, drills and false alarms were an invitation to play, and people were in good moods as long as the weather was nice. But no one was relaxed this day. It was cold and gray, and people were talking in excited voices. The director abruptly walked off to speak to one of his henchmen, and I began to look around. I had just spotted my staff' when I felt a hand on my arm.

"Geez, what's the matter?" Marino asked when I jumped. "You (lot POST-traumatic stress syndrome?"

"I'm sure I do," I said. "Were you in the building?"

"Nope, but not far away. I heard about your full fire alarm on the radio and thought I'd check it out."

He hitched up his police belt with all its heavy gear, his eyes roaming the crowd. "You mind telling me what the hell's going on'? You finally get a case of spontaneous combustion?"

"I don't know exactly what's going on. But what I've been told is that someone apparently tripped a false alarm that set off the deluge system throughout the entire building. Why are You here?"

"I see Fielding way over there." Marino nodded. "And Rose. They're all together. You look cold as shit."

"You were just in the area?" I asked, because when he was evasive, I knew something was up.

"I could hear the damn alarm all the way on Broad Street," he said.

As if on cue, the awful clanging across the street suddenly stopped. I stepped closer to the parking deck wall and looked over the top of it as I worried more about what I would find when all of us were allowed to return to the building. Fire trucks rumbled loudly in parking lots, and firefighters in protective gear were entering through several different doors.

"When I saw what was going on," he added, "I figured you'd be up here. So I thought I'd check on you."

"You figured right," I said, and my fingernails had turned blue. "You know anything about this Henrico case, the forty five cartridge case that seems to have been fired by the same Sig P220 that killed Danny?" I asked as I continued to lean against the cold concrete wall and stare out at the city.

"What makes you think I'd find anything out that fast'?"

"Because everybody's scared of you."

"Yeah, well they sure as hell should be."

Marino moved closer to me. He leaned against the wall, only facing the other way, for he did not like having his back to people, and this had nothing to do with manners.

He adjusted his belt again and crossed his arms at his chest, He avoided my eyes, and I could tell he was angry.

"On December eleventh," he said, "Henrico had a traffic stop at 64 and Mechanicsville Turnpike. As the Henrico officer approached the car, the subject got out and ran, and the officer pursued on foot. This was at night." He got out his cigarettes. "The foot pursuit crossed the county line into the city, eventually ending in Whitcomb Court." He fired his lighter. "No one's real sure what happened, but at some point during all this, the officer lost his gun."