by Alex Ryan
How many of these things were inside Jamie Lin? Millions? Billions?
An epiphany hit her like a slap to the face. She jumped off her roller stool, tripped over one of the castors, and stumbled backward, arms windmilling wildly. She knocked a clipboard and a stack of folders off the lab bench behind her, sending paper flying everywhere, before catching her balance against the edge of the table.
“Oh, shit. I need to tell Nick,” she mumbled in English, surprising herself. “He won’t believe this.”
Her mind started racing in a hundred directions all at once. This technology was not a therapeutic breakthrough gone awry; it was a biological weapon. No, not a biological weapon—it was an entirely new class of weapon, unlike anything conceived before. A precision weapon that the human body had no biological defense against. This explained why the preliminary bloodwork from all the victims in Kizilsu presented like it did. How can the immune system identify and categorize a threat as a threat if the pathogen is not made of proteins and lipids? During a nanobot infection, the body’s entire immune response would be limited to an innate activity by macrophages and fibroblasts—which would fail, of course, because biological macrophages cannot digest nanobots via phagocytosis. No phagocytosis, then no antigen presentation. No antigen presentation, then no T-cell activation. No T-cell activation, then no directed B-cell activation. No B-cell activation, then no antibody production.
The adaptive immune response never gets triggered, she realized, bracing her palms against the lab table. That’s why I couldn’t find any trace of infection in the blood samples I took in Kizilsu, before Major Li intervened.
The sudden and disturbing sensation of millions of tiny insect feet crawling over her skin sent a shiver through her entire body.
This must be a Regiment 54423 project. That’s why Major Li took control of the task force and confiscated all the records. That’s why he seized the cadavers. He knew what this was. He knew what I would be looking for, and he knew that when I didn’t find anything, I would raise questions.
Her heart rate skyrocketed. She whirled around, checking to see if anyone was watching her. She stared out the narrow glass pane in the microscope lab door and into the hallway outside. No face in the window. No shuffle of footsteps.
She glanced at the mess on the floor.
I have to clean this up.
Her gaze shifted to the nanoscope behind the glass partition.
I have to destroy the samples.
The room was getting hot; the air was turning thick and heavy. She felt herself starting to hyperventilate.
I have to get out of here.
Her mobile phone buzzed in her pocket.
That was all it took to send her flying—out the door and down the corridor. She knew she shouldn’t be running. Running made her look guilty, or crazy, or both, but she wasn’t in control anymore. Fear was driving this train. She rounded the corner to the next hallway and gasped. Three men abreast, armed and dressed in uniform, were heading straight toward her. She locked eyes with the soldier in the middle and her legs went to jelly.
Major Li had come for her.
Chapter 25
1830 hours local
Polakov lingered in the stairwell linking the parking garage to the finely appointed marble lobby of Prizrak’s apartment building. He surveyed the lobby through the small square window in the steel fire door. The charade was over. He no longer needed to protect the identity of his asset. The Chinese entrepreneur had been working for him for years, feeding intelligence to the Russians. At first it had been for money, but over the years, it had become something more. Perhaps he should have controlled his asset differently, but if he had, then perhaps they would never have had the opportunity to obtain this amazing weapon. Very soon the weapon would be in his control and the pompous, erratic Prizrak would be dead, a thought that made Polakov smile.
The building did not have a doorman or lobby attendant as was typical in New York or London. The Chinese elite liked to keep their privilege a bit more concealed, Polakov surmised. Still, before he stepped out, he wanted to make sure the lobby was deserted. He had disabled the security cameras and inserted a blind loop into the DVR that recorded the feeds and then broadcast them over the web to the security company for remote monitoring. If someone was actually paying attention and recognized the loop, by the time a security patrol arrived, he would be long gone. Of course, it was possible that the apartment had separate government surveillance in place, but that footage would only be useful for “event reconstruction,” which would take place days, or even weeks, after Prizrak’s disappearance was confirmed. In that scenario, the Ministry of State Security would eventually identify him, but that was of no concern. After tonight, he would never set foot in China again. In any case, he planned to leave with his agent, not hurt him here. He would kill Prizrak once the technology had been transferred. He smiled, imagining the look of anguished astonishment on Prizrak’s face as he inserted a blade into the side of the man’s neck while chatting over a glass of wine.
His mobile phone vibrated in his pocket once, twice, and then stopped. The all-clear signal from his spotter. Polakov had kept Prizrak under surveillance since their meeting at the coffee house, tracking all the scientist’s movements during the day. The plan was to surprise the man at home and tell him the timetable had been accelerated and that they were leaving immediately for a private airport outside Beijing. He wanted to catch Prizrak early, alone, and supersede any opportunity for last minute “cold feet.”
Everything was in place.
The GRU agent opened the door and moved quickly across the lobby, past the ornate elevator to the stairs. He took the stairs two at a time at first but tired quickly—his fifty-eight-year-old heart and worn-out knees reminding him he was not the young KGB agent he liked to picture himself as. By the time he reached the landing at the thirteenth floor, he was panting and sweating profusely. Perhaps he should have maintained better fitness these last ten years. He took a moment to collect himself before walking to the apartment door.
The apartment door was cracked open, and the security keypad above the doorknob was blinking red. Not a good sign. He pulled his semiautomatic Radom P-64 pistol from the holster concealed beneath his jacket.
I know he’s here. If he had left the building, the spotter would have seen him . . . but that doesn’t mean someone else could not have arrived before us.
Leading with his pistol, Polakov slipped inside the darkened apartment. He cleared the small foyer for threats before easing the front door shut. Then he paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dark while he listened for movement. The apartment was as quiet as a vault. He debated his next move: sweep the apartment or call out to his agent? Both actions were risky.
If he was lucky, Prizrak had absent-mindedly left the door open and had fallen asleep in the bedroom, waiting for his call. Polakov would love the look on the arrogant scientist’s face when he woke to find his handler standing at the foot of his bed, pistol in hand. He missed such old-school encounters. He remembered shooting a Russian scientist, a traitor and defector from the former Soviet Union, in the forehead as he sat up beside his wife in a bedroom in West Berlin. That man had gifted him with such a look—that shocked, “this can’t possibly be happening” look. Polakov considered himself a collector of such moments—moments of vanquish and vulnerability at his hand.
He decided to err on the side of covert progression—a rule that had served him well over the years—and sweep the apartment. The GRU agent stepped lightly on soft, rubber-soled shoes from the foyer into the dimly lit kitchen. He stood a moment, scanning the room, and then eased into the dining room. He felt his pulse quicken. Something was wrong. He inhaled through his nose, checking for olfactory evidence of foul play, but the only two odors he could identify were benign—air freshener and roasted duck. The kitchen had been clean and orderly, the same with the dining room. No apparent signs of a struggle. He crouched, both hands gripping the Radom, and moved
into the living room.
Only one room left to search—the bedroom.
A soft whisper, like socks shuffling on a hardwood floor, sent his pulse soaring. He was not alone. Adrenaline and endorphins poured into his bloodstream. Hunter and hunted. Who was who? Just like in the old days. This is what he loved. This is what he lived for. He held his position, trying to pinpoint the sound. To his left? Yes. He started to rotate, but just then, he heard a click to his right. He whirled right, his barrel trained on the swaying curtains as the air handler turned on. The old Russian killer smiled and chided himself: Perishable skills. I have become both fat and stupid.
The apartment lights switched on, blinding him.
Something hard and heavy hit him on the back of the head. The blow sent him to his knees, dazed and disoriented. He raised his left arm above his head in anticipation of a second blow, but a second blow did not come. As his pupils constricted, adjusting to the light, a blurry figure came into sharper focus and his chest tightened in horror. The thing standing in front of him looked like an alien creature from a science-fiction movie—a faceless, bug-eyed humanoid dressed in a space suit.
He raised his right hand to shoot it, but the pistol was no longer in his grip.
He shook his head and felt his wits returning to him. “Prizrak?” he asked, squinting at his assailant, who he now recognized was a man wearing a full hazmat suit, complete with a military-grade respirator and goggles.
The man in the suit laughed, the timbre modulated by the respirator, creating an effect both demonic and robotic. Despite the distortion, this was a laugh he recognized, and it sent a shiver down his spine.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I like seeing you this way,” Prizrak said. “On your knees. You Russians are so proud. So arrogant. And yet such fools.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Polakov said. “It’s time. I came to get you. The plane is fueled and waiting for us.”
“I want you to beg,” Prizrak replied.
“Excuse me?”
“Beg for your life, old friend. Or are you too proud, even now?”
Polakov’s mind was racing. His asset had finally snapped under the pressure, and he, Polakov, had become the target of the Chinese scientist’s violent mania. His only chance was to redirect his rage, to shift the focus onto a different, more dangerous threat. “They know about us,” he said. “Your government knows about the weapon, and they are coming for it. If they catch us, they will confiscate your work, arrest us, and execute us as traitors. We don’t have much time. My car is waiting, Qing. It’s time to go.” As he spoke, Polakov glanced at the floor, searching for his P-64. He spotted it lying on the carpet, two feet from his left knee. He looked back at Prizrak and saw that the scientist was hiding something in his right hand behind his back. A knife? A pistol? The thing the bastard had clubbed him across the head with? Polakov’s instincts told him that Chen Qing was beyond reason. To survive, he had only one play, and that was to go for his gun and empty every round in the clip into to the mad scientist’s chest.
“I trusted you,” Qing growled. “I put my life’s work in your hands, and this is how you repay me? With lies and betrayal?”
“I did not betray you,” Polakov said. “I’m here to save you.”
“Silence!” Qing shouted, his voice manic and full of rage.
“Listen to me, Prizrak—”
“Do not call me that,” Qing screamed, cutting him off.
Polakov went for his gun . . . but he was too slow.
Qing’s right rubber boot connected with Polakov’s chin before his fingers could find purchase. The blow sent his lower jaw crashing into his upper, and he felt multiple teeth crack in his mouth. Stars danced in his eyes, and when they cleared, he watched Prizrak’s second kick send his gun skidding across the carpet and under the living room sofa.
“Have you gone mad?” Polakov said, spitting tooth fragments onto the carpet. I will not die on my knees, he said to himself, and with a grunt, he struggled to his feet. When he leveled his gaze at Qing, he was nose to nozzle with a stainless steel pressure canister aimed at his face.
“Robert Oppenheimer once said, ‘I am Death, the destroyer of worlds,’” Qing said in stilted English. “Was Oppenheimer mad, Polakov? No, he was a genius misunderstood. As am I.”
“What are you going to do?” Polakov asked, truly afraid for the first time in his life.
“I am going to walk in the blood of all who stand against me. I am going to turn Beijing red.”
The canister hissed and a wet mist bloomed around him. Polakov gasped in horror, choking inside the acrid cloud of microscopic certain death. He exhaled forcefully, pulled his shirt over his head, and ran. He ran holding his breath, barely able to see because of the shirt over his face. He clipped a doorframe with his hip on the way into the foyer, stumbled, but kept on going. His lungs were screaming at him to take a breath, but terror ordered that he not. He fumbled for the doorknob, found it, and flung himself into the hallway. He turned left toward the service stairwell, threw open the fire door, and sprinted across the landing. His tried to descend the steps two at a time, but on his third stride, his left foot missed its mark and sent him sailing. As he tumbled down the concrete stairs, he felt a rib crack and then his left wrist snap. When he crashed to a painful stop on the twelfth-floor landing, he immediately began stripping off his clothing—shirt, pants, shoes, even underwear and socks.
He felt himself begin to swoon from the rising carbon dioxide levels in “his” bloodstream as his brain screamed for oxygen. He scrambled down the next flight of stairs, not daring to take a breath until he was clear of the contaminated clothing. At the next landing, he collapsed naked onto the cold floor. The only sound in the stairwell was the rasping echo of his lungs in hyperventilation. Exhausted and in excruciating pain, he collapsed onto his back. With each new breath, he began to regain mental focus, and as he did, the gravity of his situation became deathly apparent.
He had inhaled Qing’s death gas. Certainly he was now infected. Certainly? How many hours until he was dead? At this very moment, tiny robots were coursing through his blood like an armada of Special Forces cellular assassins in microscopic fast boats. The Chinese scientist had suffered a psychotic break—and now it appeared he intended to use the weapon to kill thousands, if not millions, of innocent people.
Polakov rose on unsteady feet. He would take the stairs to the lobby. Then he would cross bare-ass naked to the garage stairwell and use the magnetic key under the fender to unlock his car. In the trunk, he had his go bag—complete with extra clothes, extra passport, and backup weapon. He would regroup. He would contact Moscow. Then, he would hunt down Prizrak and kill him.
Halfway down the stairs, Polakov’s eyes felt funny. The world around him began to turn pink and hazy, then crimson, and he realized his eyeballs were filling with blood. After a moment, he was completely blind. His head exploded with pain—the worst migraine imaginable. He pawed at his eyes and tried to express his confusion and anger in words, but the words were suddenly lost to him. His ears began to ring. He felt hot, wet trickles begin to run from both ears, down his neck. The ringing got louder, and louder, and louder, until finally it stopped and the world enveloped him like a womb—silent, dark, and thick. He felt dizzy and lost his balance. He fell head forward and tumbled down yet another half flight of concrete stairs. More bones broke, but he had trouble comprehending this. His tongue went numb and he lost control of his bladder. And then the pain began to fade, which made him happy. His thoughts turned to death and revenge and killing . . . killing someone he hated.
But he could not remember who he wanted to kill.
He could not remember anything.
He was confused.
He was tired.
He was . . .
Chapter 26
Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
2008 hours local
“Stop that woman!”
M
ajor Li’s voice boomed like a shotgun blast down the corridor.
Dazhong tasted fear. It was the taste of self-doubt and dread. Of desperation and subjugation. They would catch her; it was inevitable.
Then someone screamed the word “No,” and it took her a second to realize that the voice she’d heard was her own—an unfamiliar voice, ripe with strength, outrage, and defiance. She would not take the blame for this. She refused to be the scapegoat for their demented bioweapon field test.
She spun around and, without a backward glance, sprinted off in the direction from which she’d come. She darted past the microscopy labs and cryo-preservation facilities. She navigated a dogleg in the hallway and leapt over a cooler-size lockbox someone had left on the floor, all without breaking stride. Her legs felt powerful; her senses were clear and crisp. If she could just reach the west stairwell, then she might make it down to the ground floor and out the building before they secured the exits.
She drove her shoulder into the stairwell door at full speed. The impact sent an electric stab of pain down her arm all the way into her fingertips, but the heavy steel door crashed open, swinging all the way into the concrete wall. She crossed the landing in a single stride and bounded down the steps two at a time, using the inner railing to steady herself. There were six switchbacks between her and the ground floor. When she had reached the fourth one, she heard a door slam open above.
