Pandemic pr-2

by James Barrington

  Westwood retched, or tried to, against the tape keeping his mouth tightly shut. Then Blake leaned down and ripped the tape off his face. Westwood choked, vomiting on to the carpet in front of him. His lunch didn’t taste any better the second time around.

  ‘It’s all over, Murphy – or whoever you are.’ As Blake said it, Westwood knew immediately that Richter had been taken.

  Henderson stood to one side, his Uzi covering Richter, as Ridout used a pocket knife to sever the cable ties around Nicholson’s wrists and ankles. As soon as he was freed, Nicholson stood up and glared at Richter.

  Since Henderson had entered, the Englishman hadn’t said a word but was figuring the angles and working out what to do next. He had no immediate idea how he was going to retrieve the situation – not unless one of the three Americans made a bad mistake.

  ‘You want me to waste him?’ Henderson asked Nicholson.

  ‘You can eventually, but not yet. He has some information that I need. With the aid of his tools here’ – he gestured at the items assembled on the table – ‘I think I can persuade him. Meanwhile, shoot him in the legs and tie him up in this chair.’

  Then Richter smiled and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said simply.

  The three men stared across the room at him, aware that something had changed, but without knowing what.

  Henderson raised the Uzi higher, but Richter just grinned at him. His plan was simple and as risky as hell, but it was absolutely the only choice he had. Otherwise he’d be joining John Westwood at the bottom of Nicholson’s well.

  ‘You daren’t shoot me,’ Richter said, ‘not while I’ve got this baby.’ He glanced down at the CAIP flask clasped in front of his chest. ‘You and I both know what’s inside it, and what happens to us all if it gets punctured. Do you want me to tell your two boyfriends about it, or would you rather explain it yourself?’

  For a long moment Nicholson just stared at him, then gestured to Henderson to lower the Uzi. ‘The flask contains a lethal pathogen,’ he said finally. ‘If it gets opened in here we’ll all die. Nothing else is changed, though. I still want that bastard strapped into this chair. His pistol is here on the table, so put your weapons down and grab him. Just take extreme care not to damage that flask.’

  Ridout gave Henderson a warning glance. ‘Watch him,’ he said. ‘He knows martial arts and he’s fucking fast.’

  ‘So what?’ Nicholson snapped. ‘There are two of you, and you’re both professionally trained. Just grab him and let’s finish this.’

  And that situation, Richter realized, was about the best he could have hoped for. He watched carefully as Henderson and Ridout placed their Uzis on the floor behind them, and began to approach him slowly from opposite sides. Nicholson stood watching with a slight smile on his face.

  Richter relaxed, watching everything and everyone. Preparing his body for combat, he stood with his feet slightly apart, his right arm by his side, his left still holding the CAIP flask in front of him.

  Ridout was on his right, and Richter guessed he’d prove more cautious in his approach because he’d already taken a beating when he’d encountered Richter out in the garden. Also, having had his right arm dislocated, he would still be hurting badly.

  Richter waited until the two men were each about four paces away from him, then he moved in a blur of speed and focused energy. He tossed the CAIP flask in the air towards Henderson, and immediately lunged at Ridout. Nicholson called out something and, as Richter had expected, Henderson stepped backwards and reached up to grab the descending flask. Ridout backed away in reflex, and Richter knew he had only a couple of seconds to get the situation under control.

  Nicholson had been right about the SIG, which was lying on the table beside the kitchen knife, but what he didn’t know was that the Glock 17 Richter had taken from Ridout was still tucked into the rear waistband of his trousers.

  Richter pulled the Glock free, extended his arm towards Ridout, and immediately pulled the trigger. The crack of the unsilenced 9mm weapon filled the room, but Richter didn’t wait to see the result of his shot. He swung round to Henderson, whose arms were extended above his head, clutching the flask, noticed the horrified expression on his face, and fired again.

  The impact of the bullet in the centre of Henderson’s chest knocked the man backwards and he crashed to the floor. As he fell, he released his grip and the flask tumbled, spinning through the air, but Richter ignored it. Having examined it earlier, he knew that simply dropping it could only dent it. It was far too tough to rupture through falling onto a carpeted floor.

  Instead, he swung further to his right, levelling the Glock now at Nicholson. The Agency man was reaching down for one of the Uzis, but Richter took less than half a second to focus on his target. He sighted carefully, then pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into Nicholson’s left thigh, smashing the femur about six inches above the knee. The Uzi forgotten, the big man tumbled sideways, screaming in pain.

  From the moment Richter had tossed the flask into the air, less than four seconds had elapsed.

  In the hallway above, John Westwood heard three rapid shots and a scream of pain. He summoned a smile as he gazed up at Blake. ‘You sure your buddies have everything under control down there?’ he asked.

  ‘Smart guy.’ Blake kicked Westwood in the stomach again, then picked up his Uzi and headed cautiously down the hall.

  Richter moved quickly over towards Nicholson, picked up both Uzis, pulled out the magazines and tossed them and the weapons to one side, well out of the man’s reach. Then he span back to Henderson and Ridout. He knew both were wearing Kevlar vests, so he guessed that at worst the breath had been knocked out of their bodies.

  Henderson had already dragged himself into a sitting position against the wall, and was pulling his own Glock from its shoulder holster. Without hesitation, Richter swung the pistol up, sighted and squeezed the trigger. Henderson’s head snapped back as the 9mm copper-jacketed slug punched half his brains through the back of his skull and splattered them onto the wall behind him.

  Richter swung his pistol around further, covering Ridout this time. Then he lowered the weapon on seeing that his first shot had missed the Kevlar jacket and had hit Ridout just below the navel. He was clutching his stomach and moaning, and was obviously no threat.

  Just then Blake pushed the briefing-room door open and Richter saw the muzzle of a Uzi swinging towards him. He dived sideways, over the top of Ridout, and somersaulted across the floor, landing in a crouch and with the Glock extended in front of him.

  Blake pulled the trigger and a ten-round burst screamed across the room towards Richter. Three of the bullets smashed into Ridout, two hitting the Kevlar jacket but the third ploughed into his head, just above his right ear, and killed him instantly. The other rounds pursued Richter’s rapidly moving figure, crashing into the wood-panelled walls. As happens with all submachine-guns on automatic fire, the muzzle of the Uzi had lifted, and Blake was lowering it to adjust his aim, when Richter fired twice with the Glock.

  His first bullet hit the Uzi’s pistol-grip, severing Blake’s middle finger, and the second passed over the weapon and hit his neck, half an inch above the protection of his Kevlar jacket, and he fell back, dead.

  John Westwood had just managed to struggle to his feet, leaning his back for support against the wall, when he saw the door leading to the cellar swing open. He’d intended hopping down the hall to the kitchen, to find a knife to cut the tape binding his limbs, but as the door opened he realized he needn’t bother.

  Richter glanced both ways as he emerged from the doorway, pistol in one hand and a cumbersome bunch of Uzis, Glocks and magazines clutched to his chest by the other. He nodded to Westwood, dropped the weapons and mags on the floor, and stepped away towards the kitchen. He returned a few moments later with a steak knife, and sliced through the tape binding Westwood’s wrists and ankles.

  ‘You OK, John?’ he asked, and Westwood nodded. ‘Didn’t anybody ever tell you never
to open the door to strange men?’

  ‘I didn’t open the door to anyone,’ Westwood protested. ‘This door was bolted on the inside, but somehow they must have got in at the back.’

  Richter nodded. ‘My fault,’ he said. ‘The back door, off the kitchen, is secured by an electric lock with an external keypad, and obviously Nicholson’s men knew the code. It hasn’t got internal bolts, but I should have jammed a chair against it or something.’

  ‘What happened down below?’

  ‘We had an exchange of views, and the CIA will be sending out three letters of condolence next week.’

  ‘So who’s that still yelling down there?’ Westwood demanded.

  ‘Nicholson,’ Richter replied. ‘I had to take his mind off grabbing a Uzi and ventilating me, so I popped a round through his leg. He’ll be walking with a limp for a while.’

  Nicholson was lying where he’d fallen, both hands clutching his wounded leg just above the knee. The floor around him was soaked with blood and Richter knew he would die from blood loss if something wasn’t done quickly about the bullet wound. He knelt beside him and tied a rough tourniquet around the man’s thigh, then applied a broad bandage, taken from a first-aid kit in the kitchen, around the wound itself.

  ‘Now,’ Richter said, after Westwood propped Nicholson up against the wall, ‘as I was saying before we were interrupted, we want to know more about CAIP. Tell us, and we’ll call for an ambulance so you can be in hospital within the hour. If you refuse, then you can probably guess what we’ll do.’

  Nicholson looked from Richter to Westwood, but just shook his head, his face a mask of pain.

  ‘I don’t believe this, Paul,’ Westwood murmured. ‘It’s a covert operation that’s over thirty years old and he still won’t tell us what it was about?’

  ‘He will eventually. He just needs to be encouraged a little.’ Richter stood up, leaned against the wall of the briefing-room and rested his right foot very gently on Nicholson’s left shin. ‘I’ll ask you again,’ he said. ‘What was CAIP?’

  The injured man shook his head once more, and Richter could see him tensing for the pain he knew would come. Richter pressed down harder, then moved his foot backwards, rolling the wounded leg sideways. Nicholson’s scream cut through the air as he grabbed frantically at his shin, desperate to immobilize it.

  ‘What was CAIP?’ Richter repeated, as the howl died away into a moan. ‘I can go on all day, Nicholson. You can’t, unfortunately.’ And he pushed sideways once more, watching the injured man’s expression closely for signs of capitulation.

  And then Nicholson spoke, almost imperceptibly. ‘Stop,’ he said, his voice weak and wavering. ‘For God’s sake, stop. I’ll tell you.’

  The other two men crouched down in front of him, listening intently.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ Nicholson repeated, sweat glistening on his brow. ‘I’ll explain what CAIP was – and why we did it.’

  ‘OK,’ Richter grunted, ‘let’s hear it.’

  As Nicholson began speaking his voice was so low that they had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. ‘First, you need to understand the background. What do you know about Weltanschauung and eugenics?’

  Richter glanced at Westwood, who shrugged his shoulders in incomprehension. ‘Not a lot,’ Richter replied, ‘though I do know what the words mean. Weltanschauung is a High German term meaning a world view or philosophy. The fact you’ve mentioned eugenics suggests you’re thinking about Hitler’s perverted vision of the future of Germany and the Third Reich. His Weltanschauung was that only the strong should survive, and that the toughest of those would become the rulers of the rest, first of Germany, then of Europe and finally of the world. Every other race and nation would be reduced to second-class citizenship, used as a slave-labour force or, in the case of the Jews, exterminated. Basically, the Nazis used the idea as a justification for the Holocaust.

  ‘Eugenics is pretty much the same, but without the jackboots and concentration camps. Refinement and enhancement of the race through selective breeding. It’s a discredited, foul idea.’

  Nicholson shook his head. ‘Not so,’ he said, his voice strengthening. ‘The idea of eugenics is no different in concept to what farmers and biologists do with plants and animals. They try to breed the hardiest crops, the fastest horses, the most intelligent dogs or whatever. Eugenics is no different.’

  ‘Except that you’re talking about human beings,’ Westwood interrupted. ‘That makes it different. The concept is unacceptable.’

  ‘The government of Singapore would argue with you,’ Nicholson said. ‘They started a eugenics programme back in 1986. They offered pay increases to female university graduates who had children and at the same time paid grants for property purchase to women who hadn’t been to university, as long as they agreed to be sterilized after they’d had one or two children.’

  ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ Westwood said.

  ‘Your ignorance doesn’t alter the reality of the situation. The government of Singapore made no secret of their programme, and it was entirely voluntary. If it’s successful, the result should be an overall increase in the intelligence level of that nation, and at the same time a reduction in the rate of population growth. Which is,’ Nicholson added, ‘the second factor.’

  ‘I’ve no idea where you’re going with this,’ Richter said.

  ‘You’ll see, I promise you. Let me ask you something else – what’s the population of the Earth?’

  ‘We don’t have time for twenty questions, Nicholson. Get to the point.’

  ‘This is the point. The present population of this planet is around six billion, and it’s doubling about once every twenty-five years – that’s an exponential increase. That means about twelve billion by twenty twenty-five and twenty-five billion by the middle of this century. Some time in the next century the figure would reach half a trillion.’

  ‘So what?’ Richter demanded.

  ‘So a global population of that size would mean standing room only, everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. That’s a population density of about the same as Manhattan over the entire surface of the Earth, including areas that are presently uninhabited, like the Arctic, Antarctic, Siberia, Amazon Basin and the deserts. Actually, it couldn’t get that big, because the food supply would run out long before – you can’t build cities on the same land you grow crops on.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the CIA and CAIP?’

  ‘Everything,’ Nicholson said. ‘In the late sixties and early seventies a bunch of studies were carried out here in the States, and they all came to more or less the same conclusion. Something had to be done to slow down the rate of population growth, and if possible to reverse the trend. Most of the studies suggested that the ideal size for the world’s population was between about two and a half billion and five billion people. Even the higher figure is a lot less than we’ve got right now.

  ‘The most immediate problem was food. Some analysts were predicting that if the population boom in certain countries continued, within the foreseeable future, in just a few decades, the whole world’s food supply wouldn’t ultimately be enough to feed everyone. America would end up having to supply wheat and other staples, but even that relief would only delay the inevitable. Even with all our resources, there simply wouldn’t be enough for everyone to eat, and whole sections of the world’s population would end up starving to death.’

  ‘They do now,’ Westwood objected.

  Nicholson nodded. ‘Yes, but that’s usually for different reasons. In politically unstable countries the food that we and the voluntary organizations supply often doesn’t get through to the people who need it. It’s stolen by government officials who sell it, or it gets dumped in warehouses to rot, that kind of thing.’

  ‘This is fascinating, but irrelevant,’ Richter snapped. ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘It’s not irrelevant,’ Nicholson responded sharply. ‘It’s crucial, because it explains the idea behi
nd CAIP. The areas where the population was growing the fastest were identified. Not surprisingly, the Third World was one of them. Africa had always had a high level of infant mortality, but better food and medicines were beginning to reverse that trend: modern science was actually helping create the problem. In the opinion of many analysts, Africa was on the verge of a population explosion, and somebody was going to have to do something about it, soon. And we did do something about it.’

  ‘What?’

  Nicholson ignored Richter’s question. ‘Voluntary birth control had been tried in Africa, but that didn’t work. The men refused to use free condoms, and the women didn’t bother to take contraceptive pills. So a group of senior Company agents was tasked with finding a covert method of keeping those populations in some sort of check, just to slow down this dangerous growth.

  ‘We tried impregnating the wheat and other crops we supplied with drugs that would reduce fertility levels, but that seemed to have little effect, so we looked around at other things. Then the Department of the Army came up with what seemed at the time like a possible solution. It was radical, so we needed high-level Government approval before we implemented it.’

  ‘How high up?’ Westwood asked.

  ‘The Department of State,’ Nicholson answered.

  ‘And that was CAIP?’ Richter suggested. ‘What was it?’

  ‘CAIP was the most important operation the Company got involved in throughout the whole of the nineteen seventies. In fact, it was perhaps the most important covert operation of the whole century, and one day the world will be thankful for what we had the courage to do.’ There was almost a ring of pride in Nicholson’s voice as he uttered these words.

  ‘What were you bringing out of Africa?’ Westwood probed.

  Nicholson looked at him, and shook his head, grimacing. ‘I said it before, your ignorance is total. We weren’t bringing anything out. We were taking something in.’