Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  “You want me to kill him?” Garrett asked.

  “Sure. Blow his fucking head off,” Rosenblatt replied coldly.

  Garrett pushed on the barrel of his rifle, causing Klan to gag.

  “No, please, it was not me,” he gasped. “I am not a researcher; I am only the facility manager. I did not know what went on in the basement. You must believe me.” And then he fainted, from fear and from the pressure of the muzzle on his carotid artery.

  “Damn,” Garrett mumbled, not wanting him to lose consciousness. But then he was suddenly aware of AKR and Wilson moving at the same time. Coming down the staircase was a man in khaki slacks, collared shirt, and a windbreaker.

  The newcomer smiled and held his hands out from his sides. “May I join you?”

  Garrett glanced at Rosenblatt and nodded. Both of them rose. The man moved across the lobby, still holding his hands out from his sides—still smiling. AKR tracked him with his rifle, while Wilson covered the stairs and the hallways that opened into the lobby. Garrett lifted his weapon, and the man stopped.

  “He’s lying, but then you already know that.” The newcomer’s English was good, with only a hint of a Parisian accent. He directed his comments to Garrett, assuming he was the one in charge. “We have in fact developed a bio-weapon, and it’s a bad one—very bad. One might say it borders on the diabolical. I know; I developed it. But our fearless director here”—he looked at the unconscious Klan with a sneer—“was right about one thing. We shipped it out yesterday. I couldn’t tell you where it is right now, but it’s probably somewhere over the Indian Ocean or the Mediterranean by now.”

  “So why are you telling us this, Dr. Meno?” Rosenblatt said. “You’ve just admitted to a monstrous crime.”

  “Ah, so you know who I am,” Meno said, beaming as he turned to the second astronaut. “This makes it easier. Parlez-vous français?” Rosenblatt did, but shook his head no. “American, no doubt,” Meno replied, his voice dripping with condescension. “A pity. Then let me break it down for you in English. You see, I have developed a pathogen that is like nothing known to man. It is robust, and it is deadly, and it will take months of effort by the best geneticists in the world to develop a vaccine. And more time still to produce it in quantity.” He eyed Rosenblatt closely, now rightly assuming that the smaller of these two was the brains and the other, the muscle. “I have no doubt that your Centers for Disease Control or the bumblers at Johns Hopkins could in time develop such a vaccine,” he continued, but when he mentioned Johns Hopkins, the sneer returned. They had denied him a fellowship. “But I know this germ. Trust me when I say that tens of thousands will die most unpleasantly before you even clear clinical trials. And if this pathogen evolves, as it has the ability to do once established in a large population, many more thousands will die.”

  “So what are you saying?” Rosenblatt asked coldly.

  “What I’m saying is that for safe passage and ten million of your dollars, I will give you the vaccine. Once I am safely away from here, of course. You see, I developed the vaccine along with the pathogen. It’s much easier, genetically speaking, to design the cure while you design the disease.” The condescension was back, along with a measure of triumph. “It’s not here, if that’s what you were wondering. It has been sent along to a location that is known only to me.” He turned and sat in a nearby armchair. “That’s it, gentlemen. You Americans like analogies, so take your pick. The genie is out of the bottle; Pandora’s box has been thrown open; or it is the time of the locusts.” Meno languidly propped his feet up on a low magazine table and put his hands behind his head. He exuded confidence. “Of course, I know you will need time to talk with your people. Take your time, but remember, the clock has already started.”

  Rosenblatt looked at Garrett and, in a tone of voice that Garrett had not heard before, said, “Get this scum away from me.” The look on his face was even more terrible. They had agreed that when it came to handling the medical staff, Rosenblatt was to set the agenda. Garrett and the others would take their cues, if not direct orders, from him. So Garrett swung his rifle up to the port-arms position and cracked Dr. François Meno in the mouth with the barrel, not doing him serious damage but carrying away his front teeth. He took the stunned Frenchman by the collar, dragged him into the cocktail lounge area, and dumped him into one of the Naugahyde chairs. Surprised and stunned, Meno tried to speak. Garrett hit him sharply with an open hand, and he passed out. He cuffed him to a nearby stanchion with nylon snap-ties and returned to the lobby. Rosenblatt was now hovering over Klan. He had found some water and splashed it in Klan’s face. This brought him around, and his eyes again grew wide.

  “Whether you live or die depends on what you tell me next, so it better be right. Is the man who was charged with the culturing and manufacturing of this bio-toxin still here?” Klan bobbed his head in the affirmative. “Then take me to him.”

  While Garrett Walker had been rearranging François Meno’s dental work, a Citation Encore chartered to a Saudi multinational corporation landed in Nairobi. It had taken the aircraft a little over three hours to make the 1,200-mile trip from Harare. A swarthy man with a briefcase in one hand and a small package in the other disembarked, paid the customs agent a bribe in keeping with the plushness of the small corporate jet, and caught a taxi for the commercial terminal. The Citation’s pilot took on fuel and filed a flight plan for Aden. He was airborne and crossing into Ethiopian airspace as the sun was coming up. The Citation’s single passenger, per his instructions, took the package to the FedEx counter and paid for it to be sent overnight.

  “My name is Tamay,” he said to the man at the counter. “I believe you have something for me.”

  “Mr. Tamay?” he replied. “Yes, I believe this is for you.”

  The counterman, per his instructions, handed over an envelope. It contained a key to one of the airport lockers. Tamay quickly found the locker and removed an even smaller package stuffed with rand. It looked to be all there, but he hadn’t the time to count it; he had to hurry to catch his flight to Dubai. The briefcase held medical samples and nonpointed instruments, in keeping with his documentation as a pharmaceutical rep. In the false side of the case, entombed between two thin sheets of padding, was a row of syringes with the needles removed. Security was lax at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, but then he would have also passed unchallenged through the TSA maize at JFK.

  Vadim Karpukhin was not having a good time of it. He was a professional, and he knew from experience that his best course of action was to use the least amount of physical force to achieve the desired result. This meant disorientation, bondage, sensory deprivation and/or overload, and the threat of mutilation, but no real bodily harm. Failing that, there were drugs, but he had left Moscow on short notice, and he had no drugs available. He had been dispatched quickly and neglected to prepare the vials of thiopental sodium for travel. It was not difficult; he only had to prepare the needles and serum to appear to be the medication of a diabetic. But he had not taken the time, and now he wished that he had. In most cases, especially with westerners, only one in ten even needed to be drugged. When he first saw her at the hotel pool, oiling her body and repeatedly turning herself in the sunshine, like some ripe female rotisserie, he was certain that there would be no need for drugs. He went so far as to speculate that with a few hours’ work, this slip of a girl would quickly tell him what he needed to know. Then he could make his phone call and be on his way back to St. Petersburg. But so far it had not worked out that way.

  Karpukhin looked at his watch. He had used just about every trick he knew—all his skill and technique. Had he the drugs, he would now be rolling her onto her stomach and stabbing her skinny tush with a hypo. Why, he wondered, did American men seem to want their women to be so thin? And why did the women starve themselves for their men? He peered at her from behind the light without emotion. He lit a cigarette and considered how to proceed; he hadn’t much time left in the two days he had allotted to comp
lete his job. Then the odor of excrement hit him.

  “You sonovabitch! Damn it, I couldn’t hold it any longer, so I just shit the damn bed. You fuckin’ pervert! I may have to lay in it, but you, you asshole, have got to smell it!”

  He drew heavily on the cigarette, sucking the acrid smoke deep into his lungs. Vadim Karpukhin was becoming concerned. Not all people responded to torture, and this little lady might just be one of them. Well, he had one more thing to try before he had to get rough; it might work, and again, it might not. But he had no choice; failing Zhirinon was not something he cared to think about. He rose, took a last draw on the butt, and dropped it to the floor, grinding it out with the sole of his shoe. Then he snapped off the light and moved toward the bed.

  Pavel Zelinkow knew the Citation had made the flight from Harare to Nairobi without incident; the pilot had called an exchange and left a message that he had delivered his passenger and was out of Kenya. He also knew that the courier, presumably with his lethal cargo, was now on a flight from Nairobi en route to the Saudi capital. Pavel Zelinkow was totally unaware, however, that the courier had agreed, for a very generous gratuity from someone else, to carry the package from Harare to Nairobi and deliver that package to the FedEx counter at Jomo Kenyatta International. Feeling confident and close to success, Pavel pushed himself away from his desk and went to the side counter for a second cup of espresso. This morning, in celebration of the product having been safely shipped, he poured a bit of anisette into the strong brew and, selecting one of his better Dominicans, went out onto the balcony. It was a warm morning, and he was quite comfortable in his fleece-lined slippers, pajamas, and robe.

  From the compound of some fundamentalist cleric near Riyadh, Zelinkow mused, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would put his plan into action—and what a fiendish plan it was. As horrible as the projected outcome of this venture was to be, Zelinkow could only marvel at the simplicity of al-Zarqawi’s plan, now that the bio-weapon was, or soon would be, in his hands. In Saudi Arabia, there waited a dozen young men who would be injected with the deadly virus. They would become biological suicide bombers. These lethal individuals would then fly to Paris and London, and then on to the United States, each to a major city—New York and Los Angeles had been targeted for two each. Upon arrival in their target cities, they would draw large sums of money and indulge themselves. Zelinkow drew thoughtfully on his cigar and reflected on the irony of it. Most suicide bombers were promised forty virgins if they gave their life for the cause, but their reward was in the next life. These dozen men in America would, as the Americans were fond of saying, be able to have their cake and eat it as well. These highly contagious young men were to take their large bankrolls and buy as much sex on the American market as their libido could stand. Their instructions were to literally screw themselves to death, and in doing so, they would figuratively screw America.

  He tapped the ash from his cigar and watched the Eternal City bask in the early-morning sun. When the pathogen reached Riyadh and was safely in the hands of an al-Zarqawi agent, he would be finished with this business. All that remained were a few housekeeping chores in Zimbabwe—unpleasant chores, but housekeeping nonetheless. He glanced at his watch. Perhaps it was time for Mr. Frémaux to call Claude Renaud to see how that end of the business was going. Renaud would be one of those loose ends that usually followed an undertaking of this kind, but that couldn’t be helped. If he carried out his instructions at the Makondo Hotel, he would be the only loose end. Zelinkow fully expected Renaud to start talking once he went through his money, but who would listen? Who would he implicate?

  Zelinkow suddenly felt a chill. The morning, though spectacular in promise, was not yet as warm as he had imagined. He set the Dominican in a stone ashtray to burn out and went back inside. Knowing that Renaud, if he had not yet completed his final task at the Makondo, might need some prompting, Zelinkow dialed Renaud’s cell, the one with a dedicated line to the mercenary leader. He dialed twice but got only static—no ringing, and no indication of the absence of a signal. Strange, Zelinkow thought; he had spared no cost in making sure that the cell coverage that supported his operations was both secure and reliable. Very strange indeed.

  A terrified Lyman Hotch led Elvis Rosenblatt and Garrett Walker down the corridor of the basement lab. The explosion in the far wing of the hotel had not visibly disturbed the lab, but a fine coating of dust had been jarred loose from the structure as the shock wave passed through the building. They were still in their sealed suits. It was possible that some of the pathogen or dangerous materials in the lab spaces could have been released by the blast.

  “I cannot help you,” Hotch wailed. “It is all gone.” He turned to plead his case, but Rosenblatt pushed him down the corridor. Both he and Garrett had powerful lanterns.

  “I want to see where you made the stuff. Keep moving.”

  Hotch led them to a laboratory space that was set up to culture viruses. To Garrett it looked like something from a TV commercial for a pharmaceutical company. Rosenblatt walked over to the desk, which was littered with Swedish pornographic magazines. He began to rifle the drawers. Suddenly he whirled on Hotch.

  “Your notes? Where are your notes?”

  “I told you, it’s all gone. We were told to destroy everything. I burned my ledgers and doused all the culture mediums and laboratory plumbing with bleach. We were told to leave no evidence behind. I told you, there is nothing left.”

  With this declaration, Hotch slumped down a wall and lowered himself to the floor. Rosenblatt sat on a lab stool, lost in thought.

  “I can see what they did and how they were accomplishing it. With his help and some time, I could probably replicate the process. Maybe reverse-engineer how they produced it to come up with a vaccine.”

  “But if that Frog is right, Elvis,” Garrett said, “time is something we may not have.”

  Rosenblatt went back to searching the lab. “There has to be something they left behind, some clue.” He was beginning to sound a little desperate. “Could you have someone bring down my equipment? I’m going to need it.” Then he added, “I think it’s safe enough, but have them wear a mask.”

  Garrett was about to call up to AKR when his voice came over the circuit. “Garrett, AKR. Can you hear me?”

  “Garrett here, what is it?”

  “I need you up here now. Something’s come up. I’m sending Wilson down to be with the doctor.”

  Garrett didn’t question him. “The doc needs his equipment; have Wilson bring it. I’ll be up as soon as he gets here.”

  Moments later, Garrett saw Wilson struggling down the dimly lit corridor with the equipment bundles. He helped unburden him, then was off at a jog to find AKR. He found him waiting in the lobby.

  “Steven will be here in a few minutes in the other Jet Ranger. He wants you waiting at the pad. Something’s happened, but he didn’t say what. He just said for you to be waiting when he sets down.” Garrett nodded and headed for the front entrance. Once outside, he was met by Mohammed Senagal.

  “Where is Tomba?” he asked, removing the helmet of his suit.

  “There was a matter that needed his attention,” Senagal answered neutrally.

  Garrett was about to question him further, but he heard the rotor beat of an approaching helicopter. He raced toward the helo pad. The Jet Ranger touched down, and Steven appeared in the doorway. He motioned Garrett aboard. Garrett hesitated, wondering what could be so urgent that he was being called away. Then he realized that he was not in command of the operations; that was AKR’s job. He vaulted onto the helo, and they lifted immediately into the air.

  In the basement of the lab, Dr. Elvis Rosenblatt was unpacking his test equipment, a small but highly effective spectrometer, a portable electron microscope, and several pieces of metered test equipment. Perhaps, he thought, I can find some residue of the virus on one of the ampoules. Even a dead virus might give him the clue he needed. It was a long shot, but there seemed no other way.

  �
��Nkosi,” Wilson said, “there is someone coming down the corridor.”

  The newcomer approached with his hands at his sides. There was a sense of purpose as well as a resignation that made him unafraid. He gently pushed the barrel of Wilson’s weapon aside and entered the lab.

  “My name is Johann Mitchell,” he said in a barely audible voice, “and I helped to create this monster. Perhaps I can be of service.”

  In the road that led from the main compound, a solitary figure was moving slowly and carefully through a grove of mopane trees. There was a Toyota 4x4 parked just below the now-destroyed sentry post that had guarded the access road to the complex. It might still be serviceable; if he could reach it, he could make his escape.

  Claude Renaud had watched the systematic destruction of his force by the invaders. They were obviously a disciplined, Western military force. When he saw two of them illuminated by an explosion, he was surprised that they were both black. He saw them only briefly, but there was something familiar about them. No matter, he had to get away. His force had been beaten, and beaten almost without a fight. He clearly heard the distinctive chatter of an RPD, but it was quickly silenced by a volley of fire and an explosion. Instead of using this brief stand of resistance to rally his men, Renaud had taken the advantage of the exchange to scurry away from the complex to safety. So much for the completion bonus, he thought, but there were still the funds that had been building up in his Maputo bank account. All that mattered at this moment was to use the remaining darkness to make his escape.

  Renaud managed to work his way past the rubble of the guard shack. There were two charred bodies, but only one was recognizable. He stepped past them without emotion, peering into the darkness for the dim outline of the Toyota. As he moved along the side of the road away from the complex, his heart almost sang as he caught a glint of the setting moon off a windshield. Renaud plunged toward the vehicle, praying that it would run. The pickup was parked on an incline, so he could allow it to roll for perhaps a hundred yards before he had to start the engine.