by Alex Ryan
“Yes, I know,” he said.
She could feel him smiling.
“Were you sleeping?” she asked.
“No,” he grumbled. “Were you?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s been nearly two hours,” he said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “I was beginning to get worried.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m calling to tell you some news. Do you remember what I told you during the drive here from my apartment—my theory about nanobot apoptotic phagocytosis?”
“You mean the part when you said you think the nanobots eat each other after they’ve killed their target?”
“Yes, that part.”
“I remember.”
“Well, I was right, Nick. I have video proof.”
“That’s incredible, Dash,” he said, suddenly sounding very much awake. “And super creepy.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is very creepy. And I have you to thank for the idea. If you had not told me the story of Humpty Dumpty, I would not have thought of this.”
“Somehow I doubt that, but you’re welcome,” said Nick, chuckling on the line. “Now what? Should we call Zhang and tell him where we are? I imagine he’s pretty angry with the two of us right about now.”
“You can call him and tell him where we are, but I am not finished here. I have much more work to do. This was just the first step.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You figured it out. You solved the mystery of the weapon. What else is there?”
“Oh, Nick,” she said, frowning at the phone. “Understanding the function of this bioweapon is only half my job.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Developing a way to stop it.”
“I watched what these things did to Batur. We both saw what they did to Jamie Lin. How do you stop something that is unstoppable? There are no antibiotics for nanobots, and the human immune system doesn’t have the capability to fight these things by itself.”
“You are right, Nick. The human immune system cannot fight nanobots,” she said solemnly.
There was a long pause on the line before he finally said, “Then how do you propose to stop them?”
“The only way to stop nanobots,” she said, clenching her fist, “is with nanobots.”
Chapter 32
Club Pink
Underground City
0545 hours local
Qing reclined in the oversized leather chair, a black leash clasped tightly in his right hand. His eyes were closed as he concentrated on the pleasure. When the woman on her knees between his legs began to tire and slowed her rhythm, he jerked the leash, pitching her forward until her chin smacked painfully, and erotically, against his pubic bone. The tears streaming down her cheeks pleased him, so he lightened the tension on the leash to allow her more freedom to work. He closed his eyes.
The sound of his phone startled him and he sat up. He picked the phone up from the armrest of the chair, saw the text message, and smiled. A picture of the test subject—dead and bleeding in the warehouse—appeared on the screen. The image gave him great pleasure and drove him to immediate climax. He yanked the leash, delighting in the sound of his sex slave’s gagging sobs. Then he pushed her backward with his foot, sending her toppling onto her back. He stood, cleaned himself, and then pulled on his pants. He stepped over the girl and walked into the small, private sitting room connected to the “pleasure room” he had rented. He had not honestly been in the mood for his favorite Underground City diversion, but he needed a place to hide out where he would be safe from wandering eyes. What better place than a very expensive, members-only club with private security and underground cellular service?
He dialed Mok the Broker.
“Your ‘experiment’ is complete and my client—our client—is pleased,” Mok said.
“I told you they would not be disappointed,” Qing said. “How long did it take?”
“Nearly thirty minutes to die, but he was incapacitated and then comatose within minutes, just as you said.”
“So we have a deal?”
“We have a preliminary deal,” the middleman said. “The buyer would like to see an event-level demonstration, but afterward they will agree to all your terms.”
“Very good,” Qing said as he tightened his belt and smoothed his expensive shirt. “Do you and I have a deal as well? I must be out of Beijing by three PM today. The demonstration will follow shortly thereafter.”
“It will happen here, in Beijing?” the man asked, and Qing smiled at the uneasy fear he heard in the voice.
“Yes,” Qing answered. “You may want to have your people out of town with us at three PM. But don’t worry, it will be safe to return as early as tomorrow.”
There was a long pause as his new “partner” digested that information.
“Do we have a deal?” Qing asked.
“Yes,” the man replied. “We have a deal. My people are working on travel arrangements as we speak. Would you like to meet now?”
“No. I have work to do,” Qing said as he slung his messenger bag over his shoulder. “I will meet you at two PM.”
“Very well, two PM,” the man replied. “At our last meeting place. Do not be late.”
Qing suddenly realized that Mok the Broker possessed one more thing that he needed. He had lost much when he had severed his ties with his Russian handlers. He had no team now, and he would need one desperately in the coming hours. “Actually, I could use some assistance.”
“What kind of assistance?”
“A small security detail,” Qing said, “to watch my back while I work.”
“A security detail?”
“Yes,” Qing said. “Just a few men to make certain no one interferers with my efforts while I make preparations for the demonstration.”
“You will pay extra?”
Qing laughed. Small-minded men like Mok the Broker were so predictable. “No,” he said, not for lack of funds, but for the sake of dominance. “The money you will make from this transaction—your brokerage fee plus your bonus for getting me safely out of China—will make you a very wealthy man. Who knows, Mok? I would not be surprised if you chose to retire when this deal is done.”
There was a short pause.
“Very well,” his new, official business partner relented. “I will assign you three men. Where shall they meet you?”
Qing told him.
“Ah,” the man said with what Qing heard as admiration and respect. “Now I understand how you have been avoiding surveillance. Very clever.”
“I need them armed and ready to move in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes,” Mok said, and the line went dead.
Qing slipped his phone into his pants pocket and then pushed through the frosted-glass door back into his pleasure room. The woman bowed her shaved head and stared at the floor. With two fingers, he raised her head by the chin and smiled down at the frightened eyes, rimmed with tears.
“I’m afraid I must go, my dear,” he said and kissed her on the top of her head, the stubble tickling his lips. As he closed the door behind him, he purged the session from his mind and shifted his thoughts to the future.
By this time tomorrow, Beijing would be engulfed in death and chaos.
And he would be watching it all unfold on television, while enjoying a bottle of very expensive wine.
Chapter 33
Jamie Lin’s apartment
0550 hours local
It was more than a sixth sense. Experience and training were in control now. Any lingering question about whether something untoward had happened to his agent had long vanished. Lankford did not expect to find her here, at her apartment, but he hoped he might find some clue as to where Jamie Lin was or what had happened to her.
He was hardly surprised when she had called to say she was not feeling well. Her schedule the last few months had been physically and emotionally arduous—working at ViaTech, working her assets in the field,
mining data and preparing intelligence reports, and of course keeping up appearances as the late-night party girl her cover demanded. The girl had run herself ragged. He had told her to take the morning off and call him in the afternoon. When he hadn’t heard from her by dinner, he thought nothing of it. But when all his calls and text messages went unanswered well into the night, he became concerned.
Lankford entered her access code and the lobby door clicked loose from its magnetic lock. He resisted the urge to look up at the lobby camera as he crossed to the elevator. He pressed the call button and the doors opened immediately. As he rode the lift to the fifth floor, he contemplated his feelings for Jamie Lin. Becoming too emotionally invested was a real risk of his position, and sexist or not, the tendency was far worse managing a female agent—especially a young agent like Jamie Lin. Since the beginning, he had felt like a big brother to Jamie Lin, fiercely loyal and overprotective. This played well for their cover relationship—a perpetual not-so-secret “secret” office tryst. But lately, if he was honest with himself and factored in their twenty-three-year age difference, his devotion had evolved. Now he viewed Jamie Lin more like the daughter he never had than a sister.
He balled up his fists.
If someone hurt her . . .
The elevator chimed and the doors opened. He moved swiftly down the hall, acutely aware that he was being recorded. At her apartment door, he pulled out his key and resisted the suddenly overwhelming urge to pull his pistol. He tried the deadbolt first and found it unlocked. As he shifted the key into the doorknob, his instincts were screaming. Jamie Lin always locked the deadbolt, whether she was home or not. Lankford positioned his right hand near the pistol in his waistband and pushed the door open.
“Jamie Lin? Sweetheart, it’s me—I’m sorry about the other night . . .”
The smell hit him like a slap in the face.
He moved swiftly left, kicked the door closed behind him, and pulled his pistol. He’d spent enough time in Iraq and Afghanistan, hunting evil in torture chambers everywhere from the Hussein palaces to basements in Kandahar, to recognize this smell. It was the miasma of death. The reek of decay. His pulse spiked. His movements became reflex.
He scanned the room over his subcompact Sig Sauer 320 and regretted not bringing a weapon with more rounds. The apartment was silent, the air perfectly still. He heard nothing, except for the thumping pulse in his eardrums. He moved right, away from the window, and slid along the wall of the eat-in kitchen. His eyes darted back and forth, clearing the kitchen behind the small pass-through bar. Next, he scanned the short hallway that led to the bathroom and Jamie Lin’s bedroom.
He advanced, leading with his Sig.
The light reflected off something on the hallway floor. He inched forward and saw that it was a puddle of dark, congealing blood, beside it a bloody footprint. He paused, his hearing now hyperacute, and held his breath. Nothing—no breathing, no rustling of cloth on skin, no shifting weight on floor boards.
He moved swiftly into the hall. Blood was everywhere. He nearly stepped in one of the pools but stutter-stepped and caught himself against the wall. He looked into the bathroom as he continued down the hall, his brain registering the horror of the body—what looked like a bloated, short man—naked and lying in a pool of black blood. A few loops of intestines lay drying on the floor beside the swollen mass of tissue. He left the nightmare in the bathroom and moved on to the bedroom.
The bedroom door was slightly ajar. He crossed the threshold and fluidly cleared both corners. He rapidly moved on to clear a small closet and then dropped to a knee to clear under the bed. With his peripheral vision, he kept watch on the hallway, his gun hand instinctively drifting that way. He stood and his gaze fell on Jamie Lin’s bed, the sheets stained in dark-gray circles that still looked damp. The pillow was spotted with blood, and on the floor by the nightstand he noted a puddle of blood and vomit. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but notice the undigested remains of her last meal—the meal she had shared with him at the Noodle Bar.
Jesus Christ . . . what the hell happened here?
He swiveled back toward the hall, his gun still up but his mind already piecing together the gut-wrenching truth. Dread bloomed in his chest, and it felt as though a thorny rambler was entangling his heart. He moved slowly, reluctantly, out of the bedroom and into the hall. He was keenly aware of each step, a part of him not wanting to step in any bits of Jamie Lin spattered about the floor. Using the tip of his gun, he pushed the bathroom door inward until it bumped against the gray, naked legs of the corpse. He tasted bile in his throat and felt tears spilling onto his cheeks.
The bloated corpse was Jamie Lin—his agent, his friend, his adopted daughter. Her face was a grotesque and deformed caricature of a woman, the lips and eyelids split and gray with blood. He recognized her hair—streaked in electric blue—and he recognized the bracelet that was barely visible on the swollen wrist, biting into the edematous tissues that had swollen to at least three times their normal size.
The corpse had been opened from breastbone to pelvis—the cut ending just above a patch of neatly trimmed pubic hair. Looking into the abdomen was like looking into a vat of motor oil. A flap of scalp was flipped down over her left eye, just beneath where a hole had been carved through her skull. He gagged and looked away, but it was too late. He vomited, adding his own wretch to the horror on the floor. With the purge, his brain suddenly rebooted, and the CIA operator inside him started asking questions.
Was this a murder? Why was the body mutilated? Was someone sending a strong, sick message, or was this something else entirely? It was almost like . . . a fucking autopsy.
His mind went to the bioterrorism attack in Kizilsu. He remembered Jamie Lin’s asset was the fucking CDC director for emergencies like Ebola.
Oh shit.
Lankford pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose and backed quickly out of the bathroom. He sprinted down the hall through the living room to the front door, where he kicked off his shoes. He felt an upwelling of panic and fear driving him to that place where fight or flight takes control. Every fiber of his being wanted to strip off all his clothes and run screaming from the apartment. But the training saved him from himself. Thank God for the training. He returned his subcompact Sig Sauer to his holster. Then he stepped out of the apartment, closed the door, and locked the dead bolt. Aware of the cameras, he walked as calmly as he could manage toward the elevators.
He rode down, every brain cell still screaming to strip naked and find a scalding hot shower. But he doubted a shower would do any good. If this was a bioweapon, he had been either infected or not. His life was in fate’s hands now.
He moved across the lobby at a quick walk and banged out the door. When his shoeless feet hit the sidewalk, he lost the battle. He took off at a sprint down the block, running like he had not run in years. When he reached his car, he glanced in both directions and then tore off his shirt, pants, and socks. He put his gun, wallet, and keys on the driver’s seat and then shoved the contaminated clothes down a nearby storm drain. Wearing only his underwear, he strode to the back of his car, popped the trunk, and pulled gray sweat pants, a T-shirt, and a pair of Nikes from a gym bag.
Lankford quickly dressed, scooped up his wallet and gun, and collapsed into the driver’s seat. He took three deep, cleansing breaths and then slipped the key into the ignition. He reached to put the transmission into drive, but the weight of the last few minutes buried him like an avalanche. He gripped the steering wheel in both hands and pressed his forehead against his clenched fist. Tears came and he gulped for air.
I’m so sorry, Jamie Lin . . . I’m so, so sorry.
He let himself suffer, condensing and compacting months’ worth of grief into thirty seconds. He would give himself that luxury—thirty seconds to mourn. Then he turned it off like a toggle switch, and his angst was replaced instantaneously by cold, calculated anger.
Whoever did this—this horrible, disgusting thing—to his agent w
ould pay.
He put the transmission in drive and pulled away from the curb.
An image of Nick Foley, the SEAL turned spook, popped into his head. He remembered Foley’s smug expression and holier-than-thou attitude as they had chatted in the cafe. Why? Why did Foley take that tack with him? Because Foley was one step ahead. Whatever outfit Foley was working for was way ahead of the CIA on this Kizilsu thing. To find out who carved up Jamie Lin, he needed to find Foley.
I’m coming for you, Foley, you Navy SEAL sonuvabitch. I’m coming for you right fucking now.
Chapter 34
Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The human livers arrived at the CDC by helicopter exactly one hour after Dazhong telephoned Major Li with news of her discovery. Of that hour, ten minutes had been committed to her explaining her plan. Five minutes had been devoted to Major Li yelling at her and arguing why her plan would not work. Two minutes had been consumed by Major Li waffling and then changing his mind. The remaining forty-three minutes had been composed of pulling cadaver livers previously dissected from Kizilsu victims out of cold storage, loading them in biohazard transport containers, and flying them at God’s speed to the Chinese CDC from Regiment 54423’s undocumented, unacknowledged, top-secret research facility, located on the northern outskirts of Beijing. In the world of high-stakes government bureaucracy, this achievement was nothing short of a miracle.
With the livers in her possession, she worked feverishly to execute her plan. Unlike most plans to save the world, hers was simple—so simple it would either work perfectly or fail completely: Use Qing’s own creation to defeat him and then destroy the technology forever. The logic was sound; the trouble lay in the execution.
She used a centrifuge to separate as many intact nanobots as possible from five kilos of cadaver liver tissue and then divided the collected population into cryogenic canisters for preservation. According to her agreement with Major Li, 10 percent of the collection was to be earmarked for reverse engineering by the army’s greatest technical minds. With the resources and full support of the Chinese government, the army would eventually crack all Qing’s secrets, including how the nanobots were fabricated, programmed, and deployed with optimal lethal efficiency. And maybe, if Dazhong was lucky, someone might devote some thought and effort to developing nanotechnology safeguards.
