Elad wasn’t looking much better. But his sickly expression wasn’t because he’d been beaten like his fellow Mossad agent. After Ballard had shown him that video, Elad had looked as sick and horrified as Skylar felt.
Skylar had had her doubts about the guy before. She’d wondered if she could trust him. But in a strange way, seeing how disgusted he was with the person he used to be helped her realize the guy was on the level. Whatever life choices had led to the first time he’d done business with Ballard were forgotten. Or hell, maybe she was just reading too far into this. Maybe Elad was still a dick, and he was just learning how to come to terms with it all again.
Right now, she hoped it was the former. Because Elad and Friedman were the only people on this platform who were anything close to allies. And if she stood a chance of escaping, they might be the only hope she had.
She’d had a front-row seat to Ballard’s sales pitch to Archon. She should have known those nasty Archon sons of bitches would want in on the Ring. The shady international contracting group had been happily playing defense for Russian bioterrorists last time she ran into them. No surprise they’d want access to a weapon that turned their enemies into mindless bags of meat. If they had the Ring, they’d be able to command ridiculous prices for their services.
Skylar had tried to convince Kasim that they needed to go after Archon following their last operation. But she and Wolfe had still been recovering from the weaponized archaea, and then there’d been endless reports and debriefings. By the time Vector’s field team was back in fighting shape, there’d been other threats to focus on.
Ballard had regaled his clients with the science behind the particles. He’d poked and prodded a few of the humans with their brains exposed, letting the Archon cohort get an up-close-and-personal view of the gray matter infected with the particles.
The five Archon dudes, all tatted up with bushy beards and bulging muscles, looked like lions at the zoo waiting for feeding time. They were practically drooling as Ballard detailed the ways that the Ring could make crowd control easier—or incite a politically expedient riot.
Ballard was an expert salesman. Skylar could imagine him working a rapt crowd into a fervor in some dingy hotel conference room. He would be peddling some crackerjack self-help bullshit that would change their lives if only they paid him twelve installments of one hundred ninety-nine dollars.
And the Archon dudes kept eating it up like starving street urchins being tossed a free cookie.
Finally, Ballard returned to the area where Friedman, Elad, and Skylar were tied up.
“And these are the three who interrupted our meeting in Beirut,” Ballard said. “I have to apologize again. I hadn’t anticipated that anyone would be so rude.”
The Archon man who seemed to be in charge clasped his hands behind his back, studying Skylar. “Very unfortunate. But you promised me a demonstration, yes?”
Judging by his accent, Skylar guessed he was from the Middle East. Maybe Iran. She wasn’t all that surprised. From what little they knew of Archon, the group had its fingers in countries around the world.
“That’s right, Vahid,” Ballard said. “It’s almost a blessing that they blew our meeting in Beirut. Now you get to see our operations up close.”
He snapped his fingers. Two technicians in lab coats walked over and grabbed Friedman.
“The particles can be delivered in a variety of methods,” Ballard said. “In Beirut, you saw the aerosolized version infect an entire crowd through quadcopter drones. It’s easy enough to adapt drones to dump chemicals, and we’ll be happy to supply them. The technique is effective… but indiscriminate. These particles don’t come cheap, either. We’re working on reducing the costs, but let’s just say what we did in cooperation with the Lebanese government today didn’t happen on a discount. For a more cost-effective approach, you can also inject the particles directly into a single target. Or, for fun, do this.”
Three guards held Friedman down. He fought against their grip, but his wiry strength was no match for them. One of the guards forced Friedman’s eye open, keeping his head cranked back. A technician withdrew a small plastic eyedropper from his pocket. He squeezed it until a single drop landed on Friedman’s eye.
The Mossad agent thrashed and screamed, trying to blink the liquid away.
“Aww, look at him go,” Ballard said. “The nanoparticles are working their way through the vessels in his eyes as we speak. They’ll settle into his brain in mere seconds.”
“This is all very interesting,” the man Ballard had called Vahid said. “But how do I know this is not an act? This man could be in your employ.”
“You want further proof?” Ballard asked. “You choose the next subject.”
Vahid glanced at Elad and Skylar. His eyes lingered on Skylar, tracing her up and down, and he licked his cracked lips. She glared back at him, daring him to choose her.
But Vahid turned from her to his own men. “I don’t want to use one of your subjects. They might be part of your ploy.” He nodded toward one of his comrades. “Use Hamid.”
“What? No!” Hamid said, brown eyes suddenly wide with fear.
“Very well,” Ballard said, gesturing to his guards.
They descended on Hamid before the unfortunate man could escape. They locked a set of metal shackles around his ankles and secured him to a stanchion near Friedman. As the guard kept him pressed to the ground, one of the technicians forced the man’s eye open. The second squeezed a droplet of the particles into one of the man’s eyes.
Then they all retreated, leaving the confused and betrayed man to push himself back up to his feet.
“You cannot do this to me,” Hamid said. “Please, do not—”
“Continue the demonstration,” Vahid said.
“This latest batch of particles gives me immense control of those infected with the Ring of Solomon,” Ballard explained. “We’ve advanced our tissue-targeting technology so the nanoparticles can activate even more specific portions of the brain, triggering the appropriate response all at the touch of a button.”
He pulled out a device that looked like a phone.
Friedman glared at him, blood dripping over his forehead. “I swear to God, I will—”
Ballard hit a button. Immediately, Friedman and Hamid went still. Both appeared frozen except for the slow rise and fall of their chests. Their eyelids peeled back, and they stared as if transfixed by a vision only they could see.
“Before, you saw rage. You saw humans reduced to primal urges,” Ballard said. “We’ve modified the particles. What you’re seeing now is a prototype batch. One that activates the portions of the frontal lobe in a way that overrides the individual’s ability to make decisions on their own. They lose all sense of self.”
Ballard stepped within arm’s reach between Hamid and Friedman. The men didn’t move.
“Hamid, this is David,” Ballard said. “I want you to hit David as hard as you can. Right in the stomach.”
Hamid turned, almost robotically, and let loose a punch that Skylar was certain would knock any grown man flat on his rear. The fist connected with a solid thump. Friedman doubled over from the sheer force of the blow then straightened, his face showing no expression.
“Elegant, isn’t it?” Ballard said, hamming it up for his audience. “You mind if your guy gets, uh, damaged?”
Vahid shrugged. “I require a thorough demonstration.”
Ballard nodded. “Hey, David? Beat Hamid to death. Hamid, stand there and do nothing.”
Skylar wanted to close her eyes as the Mossad agent methodically battered the other man into a bloody pulp. She could see that Friedman was doing almost as much damage to himself, his knuckles busted open and his breathing labored. Even as Hamid finally crumpled, Friedman kept hitting him, smashing the Archon goon’s face against the metal floor until nothing was left but a mass of mangled tissue, dark blood, and matted hair.
“It is just as you said,” Vahid said as Friedman continue
d his grim work. “With the Ring of Solomon, you control the demons that possess these people.”
“I assure you it’s nothing supernatural,” Ballard said. “Modern technology. Something that can be entirely yours. Do you want to try?”
Vahid rubbed his hands together as if Ballard had just offered him a greasy cheeseburger. “I would.”
“Give any instructions you want,” Ballard said. Then with a crooked smile, he added, “And if it helps, this man is Mossad, an agent of Israel.”
A fire seemed to glow behind the Iranian’s eyes. Sworn enemies, Israel and Iran. And now he had utter power over Friedman’s fate.
Skylar fought against her restraints. The chain clattered behind her, but she couldn’t yank it free. She tried to yell at them to stop. It came out in a muffled garble.
Ballard laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your turn.” Then he turned back to Vahid. “Go on.”
Vahid thought for a moment then pulled a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his belt. He gave it to one of his underlings and instructed the man to give it to Friedman. The Archon goon stepped around the body of his comrade and handed the knife over warily.
“Hold the knife up to your throat,” Vahid said, staring through narrowed eyes at Friedman.
The Mossad agent did exactly as commanded.
“Press it into your flesh until you bleed. Then stop.”
Again, Friedman complied. The knife bit into his skin.
“Very, very good,” Vahid said. “Now finish the job. Kill yourself, Israeli pig.”
There was no hesitation. Friedman sliced his throat open with a single sweep of the blade. He sat upright for a moment, eyes blank, his lifeblood cascading down his chest. Then he collapsed in a bloody heap, his fingers twitching for a few seconds before he finally went still.
Skylar yelled out against her gag. She hadn’t known this man long. She had no reason to feel any particular loyalty to him. But he had served beside her in the field. That was enough for her. She knew that if he’d had to die, Friedman would have wanted to go down fighting for the country he served. Not like this, a puppet putting on a show for a greedy mercenary’s amusement.
This technology needed to be stopped. This facility needed to be destroyed. There was no room for something like the Ring of Solomon particles in a free world.
Skylar wanted to kill them with her bare hands and rip this place apart, piece by piece. If Vahid took just a few steps toward her, she could wrap her fingers around his neck, watch the life drain from him. Strangle him with the chain around her ankle.
She’d make Archon regret this little shopping trip, and then she’d take down Ballard and his crew. Either that or die trying.
Because she couldn’t imagine letting him leave here alive. And she couldn’t bear knowing that a fate like Friedman’s might await her. That these people would kill her, torture her, or do whatever atrocious things they had in mind, then get away with it. No repercussions. No punishment.
She didn’t think she could grow any angrier.
Until Elad opened his mouth.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Elad said, turning toward Ballard. “I’m ready to help you again.”
Alex climbed the ladder to the platform. Behind him came Arnon. Water sluiced off their dry suits as the air split with rumbling thunder. They stripped off their masks and fins then exchanged their dive equipment for the weapons they had stowed in their dry bags.
Another set of stairs took them behind a crane. Sheets of rain pelted the metal structure in a deafening cacophony. A crack of lightning fractured the black sky, followed by another wave of thunder that shook through Alex’s bones.
On the way here, Alex had memorized the schematics of the oil platform. Those plans had been from when this behemoth of metal and machinery was used to suck up oil from beneath the Earth’s crust. He assumed Gadriel had gutted the place and revamped the interior to suit their needs, but some intel was better than no intel.
Lightning spiderwebbed across the darkness again. For a second, the whole world lit up as if it was the middle of the day.
Alex spotted people moving about the platform, hustling between doorways or running over catwalks. He wasn’t sure how many were armed, but he saw antiaircraft batteries and machine guns mounted beneath camouflaged netting and panels nearby.
The looming structure of the oil platform offered nearly six stories of rooms and chambers with a combined deck area of over three-hundred-thousand square feet. Sneaking around in this facility hoping to randomly stumble on Skylar and Friedman—assuming they were even here—would be about as smart as skinny-dipping in those waters he’d just climbed out of. It was bound to end in disaster.
Alex gestured toward the closest doorway. According to the old schematics, it led to a facility that had once served as the oil platform’s diving support center. That center, isolated from the rest of the rig, had contained a decompression chamber. The chamber formerly helped the deep divers who maintained the massive structure readjust to the reduced pressure of the atmosphere and avoid the bends as the nitrogen bubbles in their blood expanded. Closets and storage cabinets had held the helmets, airlines, tanks, fins, tools, and other equipment that the divers needed. Most importantly, there had been computers there to communicate between the dive masters and the personnel in the oil platform’s command center.
Computers that were networked to the rest of this facility.
Even if this place was now a floating lab instead of an oil platform, it still needed maintenance below the waves. Alex guessed the dive center would still be pretty much the same as it had been before. And if so, he and Arnon could tap into the computers there.
They positioned themselves outside the door. Alex counted down on his fingers, then they burst through. The room looked like a mechanic’s workshop mixed with a dive shop. Yellow lights glowed overhead, and the place smelled like sweat and saltwater.
It was nearly exactly like Alex had envisioned. Except that there were seven men standing around the space, managing the equipment or working at the communications computers. Seemed like they might have been in the middle of an emergency underwater repair when that storm rolled in.
All those people turned and saw Alex and Arnon.
One of them picked up a radio.
Alex fired.
The man slumped down, head cracking against a table in front of him. His handset clattered to the deck. The gunshots rang against the metal walls, nearly deafening in the enclosed space despite the rifle’s suppressor. The other workers scattered and ducked.
“Surrender now, or—”
Alex tried to give them an out.
But before he could finish, one of the workers threw a heavy wrench at Arnon. She ducked as the tool skimmed the top of her head. The wrench crashed against the wall, where it left a fist-sized dent.
“Just shoot them!” she shouted at Alex.
Alex’s world became the point at the end of his rifle. He searched for targets as they scattered, desperate to stop them from sounding an alarm or attacking. A man hiding behind a workbench ran at Arnon with a hyperbaric torch made for underwater welding. The blinding white flame at the end of it was meant to melt steel. Human flesh didn’t stand a chance.
Arnon didn’t see him. Another man was swinging an oxygen tank toward her, and she was busy trying to defend herself against that attacker.
Alex swiveled on his heels. Three well-placed shots, and the brute with the welding torch tumbled over the deck. The welding torch remained on, biting into the metal flooring and sending up an acrid odor that filled the space.
Another man charged Alex with a hammer. Alex went to fire, but the man was too close for him to adjust his aim in time. As Arnon struggled with the man using an oxygen tank as a battering ram, Alex met the guy with a hammer in brutal hand-to-hand combat.
He did his best to parry every blow, feeling the desperation of his opponent. Outgunned, the guy must have known his only chance was to stay close
to Alex, to attack him with all the rage of a rabid animal.
Alex tried to swing the stock of his rifle into the side of the man’s head. His attack missed, and the two remaining workers joined in the assault, cornering Alex.
His finger tensed on the trigger. But he had just spotted a stack of dive tanks at one wall. Alex knew the deep dive tanks were often filled with pure oxygen to avoid the nitrogen in compressed air a normal scuba diver used. That helped reduce the risk of the bends. It also meant that a stray bullet would let loose a sudden influx of oxygen. Mixing with the gas and fire from the welding torch would result in an immediate and violent inferno.
Then Alex wouldn’t have to worry about setting off any alarms.
Because Alex would no longer exist.
-34-
Alex dodged under the swing of one of the guards’ attacks. With oxygen tanks everywhere and the welding torch still burning, he couldn’t risk firearms. He had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, just like any good operative hailing from Langley.
But he was out of practice. In truth, Alex had started relying too much on Skylar’s superior fighting skills in the field. She was a better shot—and a dirtier fighter. Alex excelled in interrogation and strategic planning. As a team, they were unstoppable. But, separated like this, he was all too aware of his weaknesses.
Knowing that Skylar’s life was on the line, knowing that he had sent her to Beirut while he went to Naxos, was enough to bring out the animal in him. If it was his choices that led to her death, if he lost his partner because he let himself get beaten up by three Gadriel goons now, he’d never forgive himself.
Not for as long—or, more likely, as short—as he lived.
Alex swept a leg out and brought down one of the men. The guy crashed forehead first against the metal floor, blood weeping from a gash along the side of his face.
Shoving away another one of the men, Alex scooped up the hammer that his first attacker had dropped. The two other goons grabbed the closest weapons they could find. One, a set of dive weights on a belt. The second, a six-inch long dive knife. The man with the belted weights swung them like a spiked morning star on a chain.
Demon Mind (Vector Book 2) Page 30
