Element 42

by Seeley James

  Otis Blackwell emerged from Tania’s room. Pia gave him a withering glance.

  “I’m here as a friend, not a reporter.” He pointed inside the room. “I brought dinner for her mom and dad.”

  Pia’s stare drilled through him.

  “I got to know her when I did the report on the Romanian thing.” Otis dropped his eyes. “I asked her out a couple times, but it never went anywhere.”

  Doc Günter walked up and waited for acknowledgement. At the same time, Jaz approached from the elevators. Pia faced Günter. “Did it work?”

  “Medicine takes time,” Günter said. “Listen, I have to apologize. I’ve made a terrible—”

  “No apologies until Tania is healthy,” she said. “But that gray rag Jacob found might be more important than we thought. And we have one more vial.”

  “I thought all three vials were destroyed,” Otis said.

  At the same time, Jaz said, “You have another vial?”

  Pia and Doc Günter turned to them.

  Realizing he was speaking out of turn, Jaz flushed. “Sorry, it’s just that the news—never mind.”

  “I’m asking as a reporter,” Otis said, “but let me guess: you don’t have a comment.”

  “No, but I’ll call you. Really.”

  Otis scowled and spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll hold my breath.”

  Pia faced Günter and squeezed his arm. “Keep focused on Tania.”

  He bowed slightly and disappeared into Tania’s room.

  Pia turned to Jaz. “What brings you here?”

  He smiled. “You.”

  She kept her face blank and focused her electric gray-green eyes on his blues.

  He stammered. “I was hoping to help in some way. I mean, I’m not much of a fighter, but there must be something I can do. How can I help?”

  “Tell your dad to answer his phone. I have one last chance to figure this out and I can’t trust anyone else.”

  “He goes off-electronics when he’s concentrating on a project like the Brussels thing. I’ll call his admin, she’ll know a way to reach him.”

  Pia spun away from him and dialed the Major.

  Jaz took the hint and backed up two steps. She ignored him while he waited for a wave or a smile. After a few awkward seconds, she heard his footsteps trudging away.

  The Major said, “We tracked a phone call that we think will lead us to our spy—”

  “I know who the traitor is, and he’s not using a phone we can trace.” Pia looked up and down the hallway. “We’ll talk when I get back.”

  “OK.” The Major was silent for a moment. “Are you in danger?”

  “I can handle it.”

  The Major patched them into a call with her tech staff, who gave Pia a rundown on the contents of Teresa’s phone. It held records of calls, texts, and emails to several employees of Windsor Pharmaceuticals in Guangzhou. Encrypted reports showed death rates, exposure times, among other data for Element 42. Cold and analytical, the reports identified stages of illness and recovery, the length of time for each stage, and the likelihood of recovery with and without treatment.

  “Nothing about Levoxavir?” Pia asked.

  “No, ma’am,” her tech reported. “The only pills dispensed were placebos.”

  “Hard evidence,” the Major said. “We have Windsor cold.”

  “Have Verges run this up to Homeland Security and have them keep an eye on Philadelphia.”

  “I will, and they’ll take it seriously, but it won’t do any good until we know what to look for. Windsor isn’t going to drape a rag over the city. They’ll have a system to reach farther and faster.”

  “Get the Chinese to arrest the Windsor people in Guangzhou.”

  “That has to go through the State Department.”

  “We can’t contact China directly?”

  “Contact who? The Chinese invented bureaucracy three thousand years ago. I tried putting in calls to the Public Security Bureau, their version of Homeland Security.”

  Pia sighed. “Then we can go through the investors. Who owns Windsor?”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” a new tentative voice said on the call. “Agent Carter here. I found the executives and the board members. One of them stood out. Marco Verratti.”

  “Interesting. Why kill a board member?”

  “Maybe someone worried he would talk?” the Major said.

  “Who else is involved in Windsor?” Pia asked.

  “They have four board members,” Agent Carter said. “The other three are: Anatoly Mokin from Kazakhstan, Dr. Wu Fang from Beijing, and Ed Cummings from New York City.”

  “Mokin,” the Major said. “He should be our—”

  “I’m working on Mokin,” Pia said.

  “You have a project under way and never told—”

  “Chapman mentioned Wu Fang,” Pia said. “Do we have his contact info?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Agent Carter said.

  “Send it to me. I’ll call him—”

  “No,” the Major said. “You might spook him. We need a face-to-face to see if he’s lying.”

  “Right.” Pia said. “Agent Carter, track down Wu Fang for me. What can you tell me about Cummings?”

  “He’s a hedge fund manager,” Agent Carter said, “nice website, solid—”

  “Hold on a sec,” Pia said. “I have a call coming in.”

  She flipped the call over.

  “Ms. Sabel, I’m Ed Cummings, and I can help—”

  “What is your role in the mass graves on Borneo?”

  His gasp overwhelmed his phone. “You already traced that to…” The line was silent for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and took a breath. “We need to meet.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Kazakhs must have strong stomachs, because their campsite smelled like a year-old porta potty. I guessed they were short on handcuffs because three of the Kazakhs held Miguel and two more held me. Another man busied himself by smashing our phones, presumably to foil GPS tracking. I saw no need to tell them Sabel agents carry spares.

  Mercury said, Some people listen when the gods speak to them, bro. Some people would consider it an honor to have a God tell him to save himself. But not—

  I said, And some Gods are above pettiness.

  Mercury said, Yeah? Well, He doesn’t return your calls.

  I focused on Diego.

  “He says they have been waiting for you all week.” Diego’s voice wavered as he spoke, which was understandable since the rifle barrel under his chin pushed his whole head back. “He wants to know where the tall woman is.”

  “What language is that? Kazakh?” I asked.

  “Kazakh’s a Turkic language. I speak a little Uzbek, also Turkic. We’re making do.”

  I turned my head as much as I could with four hands and a rifle muzzle holding me in place. Straining at the corner of my eye socket, I caught the gaze of the head guy and spoke in Pashto. “Let Diego go. He’s just a translator.”

  Afghanistan and Kazakhstan are only a thousand miles apart. I hoped he understood me. In a mad attempt to avoid one more combat deployment, I’d learned Pashto and Arabic and put in for a desk job at the Pentagon. Instead, the language skills made me popular with battalions heading for the nastiest deployments. It took two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star to get me transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency, where the babes-to-guys ratio was more agreeable than the war zone.

  He nodded and grunted.

  Not a definitive statement, so I tried a different tactic in Arabic. “Your pal Yuri is helping us back in the states. He told me where to find you, but not your name.”

  His head came up fast. He shouted in Kazakh.

  Something as thick as a baseball bat hit the back of my leg. I fell to the ground. Three Kazakhs jumped on me. They held my face in the dirt. I could see nothing, but I heard a thud and Carmen screamed. Emily wailed in sympathy but another thud cut her off. She continued crying through what sounded like a gag.

  Another
bat whooshed through the air followed by the sound of it striking meat. Whooshes came from all around me. Many of the blows landed on me but I could hear plenty more landing on my team. The pain in my back and legs mounted.

  Silver and black dots winked from the edges of my vision, filling in more and more until I could see nothing. Just when I thought I’d pass out, someone grabbed my body armor and yanked me upright.

  My legs crumpled beneath me.

  “Mukhtar,” the head guy introduced himself. “As-salaam ’alaykum.”

  Peace be upon you. A formal Arabic greeting. His men laughed.

  I responded in Arabic. He welcomed me and waved an arm around his encampment as if he were showing off a palace. In the dawn’s first light, I saw several tents lining an acre clearing, a small fire smoldering in a shallow pit, a stack of supply crates leaning to the tipping point. Next to one tent was a stack of mosquito foggers, insecticide sprayers with five-foot aluminum barrels and small motors that belonged in a sci-fi movie. Two of the three trucks that had been parked at the death camp were parked down a jungle trail.

  Mukhtar’s hand grabbed my chin, twisted my head to the right. It took a moment for my eyes to focus but I saw what he wanted me to see: two freshly cut posts, anchored in the dirt with an iron ring bolted to the top of each. Whipping posts or firing squad poles.

  I swallowed a dry lump in my throat and cursed myself for pressing the opportunity immediately. The Army was big, bureaucratic, and slow, but no Army officer would’ve let me run off as poorly prepared as I had been for this mission. Guessing the Kazakhs had fled Borneo was a horrifying miscalculation on my part. Which begged the questions: why hadn’t they?

  I strained over my shoulder to check on my teammates. Our hosts had effectively destroyed my ability to fight or flee. Miguel suffered similar blows. Two Kazakhs stood under his arms to hold him up. Carmen and Emily were farther to my left. As I turned my head to assess their fate, a Kazakh swung a big stick into Carmen’s breasts.

  “You stole from me,” Mukhtar said in Arabic.

  “I gave the vials to Yuri.”

  He laughed and snapped his fingers. The man with the big stick slammed it against Emily’s breasts.

  Carmen screamed at them, Miguel yelled death threats. Emily shrieked in pain.

  “Stop this,” I said, “and I won’t kill you.”

  He laughed. “And how will you kill me?” He scowled and yelled. “Tell me where are the vials?”

  “Your men destroyed them at NIH.”

  “You gave Yuri fakes.” Mukhtar looked a question at me. “What is NIH?”

  Memory is a funny thing. Men in black on the NIH video were automatically Kazakhs in my mind. Mukhtar’s reaction had me revisiting that video and I remembered Miguel calling them tall. The guys at NIH were Americans, six inches taller than the average Kazakh.

  Mukhtar’s thinking moved at the same pace as mine. Our eyes met when we figured it out. But he was free and I was tethered to his sadistic henchmen. He stepped away and pulled out a standard satellite phone with the big, cigar-like antenna. When he connected, he spoke in Kazakh. I glanced at my translator.

  Two men tied Diego’s hands to the iron ring on the whipping post. His bloody face rose for a fleeting moment. Our gaze connected.

  “Anatoly Mokin,” Diego said.

  Mukhtar cut his conversation mid-sentence and whipped his gaze to Diego.

  In my state, I didn’t understand what Diego was telling me until Mukhtar reacted. Mokin had tried to steal crude oil with mercenaries posing as Islamic fundamentalists. He’d planned to blame al Qeada, Boko Haram, or ISIS for the raids. British Petroleum had hired us to defend their sites and we stopped him cold. In the mercenary business, reputation is everything and Sabel Security ruined his.

  Mukhtar shouted in Kazakh at the men restraining Diego. A tense moment passed before he looked at me. In Arabic, he said, “Who destroyed the vials?”

  I didn’t speak.

  A Kazakh knelt next to Diego, grabbed his foot, and pulled it over his knee like a farrier shoeing a horse. With a dramatic flair, the man brandished a long dagger, holding it high above his head before slashing it through the sole of Diego’s foot.

  My translator screamed.

  Another slash across his foot, followed by another gut-wrenching scream.

  “Stop!” I shouted first in English then Arabic.

  “Who has my vials?” Mukhtar asked.

  “No one. They were destroyed.”

  Mukhtar returned to his call, his back to Diego and me. His farrier slashed Diego’s foot a third time then dropped the foot. My man howled in pain. The Kazakh picked up Diego’s other foot, forcing him to stand on his injuries. My toes curled with sympathetic pains.

  “Mukhtar, c’mon man. I could make something up, but they’re gone. Stop this.”

  Mukhtar faced me. “How were they destroyed?”

  “I wasn’t allowed into the crime scene, I only saw video of the entrance. I thought they were your men.”

  He waved his hand and two men dragged Carmen to the second post.

  The stick whooshed again and my legs buckled before I felt the strike. Landing on my knees, I heard another whoosh. It slashed across my back.

  “I still don’t know.” Another blow cracked my back. “But Pia Sabel will pay you more than Anatoly Mokin has paid you in the last five years.”

  Mukhtar raised a hand. His men pulled the rope binding Carmen’s wrists through the iron ring, tugged it tight, and tied it off.

  Mukhtar asked, “Who is Anatoly Mokin?”

  “Yuri told me he’s your boss.”

  “Who is Pia Sabel?”

  “The tall woman who took your vials to NIH. She’s very rich and—”

  “How do you know her?”

  I shot a glance at Emily to convince her to keep her mouth shut, then remembered we were talking in Arabic. “She’s a big deal in Washington. Everyone knows her.”

  “Do you work for her?” Mukhtar strolled toward me, stopping a few feet away. “She will pay for your safe return?”

  I stood up, regretting my big mouth. “We can always ask her. It’s worth a try.”

  “Will she return the vials in exchange for your life?”

  “Mukhtar, listen when I speak. The vials have been destroyed.”

  Mukhtar’s first punch landed on my chin, his second and third in my belly. “I want the pieces.”

  He spoke in Kazakh again. Nothing good happened when he spoke in Kazakh.

  One of his men raised a rifle and aimed at Carmen’s head.

  CHAPTER 32

  Washington’s ubiquitous gray stone buildings met the gray sky high above Violet’s gaze. A frosty drizzle fell on her shoulders as she dashed for the cab with her phone to her ear.

  “I am shocked,” Chen Zhipeng said, “to hear about it from someone else instead of you.”

  Violet Windsor stared straight ahead, holding her phone to her ear. When the cabbie glanced at her in the mirror, she turned to the side and leaned her head against the glass. “I’m sorry, Shifu. Teresa never said anything about a missing cloth.”

  “It is not for her to tell you. It is for you to inquire.” He paused to control the rising volume of his voice. “Your employee must be honest with you.”

  “I will try harder.”

  “Have you been honest with me, Violet?”

  “Yes, Shifu.”

  “Borneo cannot be connected to Windsor in anyway,” Chen said. “You must be certain the cloth is incinerated.”

  “I understand.” Violet watched the Hay-Adams Hotel fade behind her as they turned onto H Street and circled Lafayette Park.

  “You do not understand,” Chen snapped. “You must be certain of every detail. I have taken precaution to distance myself from your operation but this is a disaster. When you ruin Chen, you ruin the Party and China.”

  “I will take care of it right away, Shifu.” Violet took a deep breath. “I need my company back. I need my resour
ces. I need Teresa.”

  “That is something I cannot control. The authorities have seized the plant until the chemical agents have been recovered and the Levoxavir found. When they find those thing they will release everything to you. Do you know where to find Levoxavir, Violet?”

  “No,” she said. Which was true. Chapman’s office in Washington was empty, and the researchers there said Chapman had moved everything to his satellite office in the NIH complex just before he left for Borneo. And NIH was crawling with FBI.

  “I fear someone think it a good idea to deploy Element 42 and sell Levoxavir.”

  “No one would do a thing like that, Shifu. I’m sure we’ll find it as soon as Anatoly and his men are questioned by the authorities in Guangzhou. Are they in custody now?”

  “Do not concern yourself with Mokin. Keep your focus on the cloth.”

  “But Anatoly’s men are here in Washington. Are they here on your orders?”

  “No.”

  Violet’s heart stopped beating, her stomach flipped. “You’ve not spoken to him about this?”

  “I do not associate with men like Anatoly Mokin.”

  Violet wanted to scream. Instead, she took a deep breath. “You insisted I choose him for the board, along with—”

  “Find the cloth.” Chen clicked off.

  Violet kept her nose to the window as 15th Street bent around the Washington Monument and hurried by the Holocaust Museum. Even from thousands of miles away Chen Zhipeng knew everything, yet he’d never mentioned Chapman’s death.

  Her cab slowed to a stop.

  “Jefferson Memorial,” the cabbie said.

  Violet stared out the window at the tree-lined walkway as if it were a picture at an exhibition.

  Chen had to know the cloth would be impossible to find. How do you find a rag? Had it been at NIH? Did they send it to the CDC or throw it away? How did Chen even know about the cloth?

  “Ma’am,” the cabbie said, “you wanted the Jefferson Memorial, right?”

  Startled from her thoughts, she paid the fare, buttoned her long coat, and stepped out. The nippy air swept her hair into her face, and the swamp-scent of the Tidal Basin tinged her nose. Deep in thought, she negotiated her way through a throng of hyperactive schoolchildren. She walked to the east side of the memorial’s broad apron overlooking the water. She leaned against the massive stone barrier and assessed the crowd, looking for Kasey Earl.