The Sinai Secret Read Online Free PDF

records had revealed Lang's name on the grant.
    Morse headed down a short hall. "This way."
    The room they entered was filled with people. A woman and a man Lang took to be crime scene technicians were using what looked like an artist's brush to sweep shards of glass into small plastic bags. A man sat in front of a computer. Another, this one in police uniform, interviewed a man in the uniform of the school's security personnel. A woman was using her flashlight to study the pages of a loose-leaf notebook.
    When Lang had last left the place, it had resembled a modernized version of Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. Now it looked like it had hatched Hurricane Katrina instead of a humanoid monster. The only things in place were two long tables that would have been too heavy to move without a crew. Loose pages, perhaps from the notebook, were scattered on the floor, which crunched with broken glass as Lang walked. Microscopes and tools he didn't recognize were thrown about as though shaken in some huge blender. He saw a spectrophotometer lying on its side. The thing had cost the foundation as much as a pair of Ferraris.
    "What the hell...?"
    Morse pointed to yet another man, who was photographing the chalk outline of a body sprawled across the floor. "We found him there. The rent-a-cop heard sounds like somebody was tryin' to take the place apart, came in, took one look, an' called us."
    "Any idea who... ?"
    "This ain't Law 'n' Order, where we solve the case in half an hour so the prosecutor can have the other half for a conviction between ads. Fact is, we don't even know yet what time the vie died. We're assumin' it was 'bout the time someone was trashing the place."
    "Any motive?"
    "That's why I called you, Mr. Reilly. Other'n the fact that you're involved in half the mayhem in this town, I figgered you might have an idea, since your foundation funded this operation."
    It had been the grant. How had Morse gotten that information in the middle of the night?
    "I only met the man two, three times."
    "Awful lotta money to give a stranger."
    "Dr. Lewis wasn't a stranger," Lang said stiffly. "He was an internationally respected physical chemist." Or was it a chemophysicist? "He was doing research on non-fossil fuels."
    "You mean like gas substitutes, like ethanol to run cars?"
    Lang's knowledge of chemistry and physics stopped at the composition of water and the law of gravity.
    "I'm not sure."
    "Not sure? You're mighty careless with a whole lot o' money, Mr. Reilly."
    "The foundation hires people to manage how the money's spent, Detective, as well as how much each project legitimately needs and the qualifications of the people running those projects. I assure you, the foundation watches its money a lot closer than your employer does."
    A safe guess. With ability to pay bribes being the former administration's only apparent qualification for selecting city contractors, and a tax department that could not be more incompetent if operated by Moe, Larry, and Curly, both the city and county were perpetually curtailing an ever-diminishing list of services. Those most in need of those services were, of course, those who didn't pay for them.
    The only true beneficiary of the system was, or had been, Lang's client, the former mayor.
    Morse held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just an employee doin' my job. Think I wouldn't like to see the mayor crucified for what he stole?"
    Hopefully Morse would not be on the jury panel.
    "Sorry, Detective, I..."
    Another man entered the room. Even though he had never seen the newcomer, Lang knew who he was. Slender build in a medium-priced suit, shiny wingtips. Large, over six feet, mid-thirties. Dark hair cut slightly shorter than currently fashionable, and freshly shaved, as though he had put down his razor just before coming here. Or, more likely, had an electric shaver in his government- issued Ford or Chevy.
    Lang had seen him hundreds of times in slightly differing sizes and shapes. This man, or one just