In fact, rule number one in prison was just to keep your mouth shut.
But when they led him in, he saw someone he knew waiting for him.
It was the girl with the glasses from Z5. She had been one of the ones who had arrested him at the garage. She’d also been with him when they took him to Genoa and Joeri had been so cooperative and helpful pointing out the bitch Helene’s coastal villa.
The girl with the glasses looked up at Joeri as they brought him in. She was sitting at a table with a briefcase on the floor beside her.
He hadn’t thought much of the girl before. She wasn’t as pretty as the one-legged man’s main squeeze, the Asian chick, called Benny or something, but Joeri was broadminded and he was willing to reconsider his earlier assessment.
The girl with the glasses sure looked good to him now, after a few months of being penned up inside Carcere di San Vittore’s star-shaped walls, locked up with all these animals. And the chaplain.
She nodded for him to sit down opposite her on the rickety plastic chair that seemed to be obligatory in this place.
Then the girl took out a wallet and showed him her ID card. “Paola Rimmini, Z5,” she said. She was all business. Joeri thought it was cute. Like a little girl playing dress up with her big sister’s clothes.
“Are those glasses new?” he said. “They look really good on you. They suit you. They suit the shape of your face.”
Paola Rimmini ignored him. “You are Joeri Van der Veet, 25 years old, Dutch national.”
“You know I am. We had a little holiday in Genoa together. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me. I’ll be heart broken.” Joeri was being his most charming — and sincere — he’d never found a woman as attractive as he found this little short-sighted number now. Of course, a lot of that was due to enforced abstinence. But why take the romance out of things?
“You have a history of criminal offences relating to drug trafficking,” said the girl.
“That’s what my record says. I dispute it.” Joeri’s mind was racing. What was this all about?
The girl looked at him, her gaze level and cool through the lenses of her spectacles. She had gained a lot of poise and confidence since he’d last seen her. “Would you say that you are familiar with the narcotics underworld? That you are comfortable moving around in those circles?”
Joeri felt a wonderful warm sensation. He didn’t know what this was about, but he was beginning to sense an opportunity. He gave the girl a big smile and said, “I am very familiar. I am very comfortable.”
“And you can ride a motorcycle.”
“I can ride a motorcycle like no other man on Earth,” said Joeri. “Put me on a motorcycle and I will show you tricks you never dreamed of.” A motorcycle. She was talking about a bike. Imagine what it would be like to be on a bike again, moving at speed, free, the wind driving into his face, everything blurring past.
Freedom.
Nothing could be more the opposite of this place with its walls and locks than riding a bike again.
What was this about?
“Do you know anything about the world of outlaw motorcycle gangs?”
“Of course I do,” said Joeri, thinking quickly. “I know some of the guys in Satudarah MC. We’re pretty good friends, actually,” he added, exaggerating wildly. “They’re bigger than the Hells Angels in the Netherlands now. You have heard of the Hells Angels? They just opened a chapter in Belgium, the Satudarah boys. They’re allied with the Bandidos in Germany. You know the Bandidos?”
The girl nodded, as if grudgingly conceding that he’d passed some kind of test. She reached in a briefcase and took out some kind of hand-held device. At first Joeir thought it was a phone, and he was surprised that the guards had let her in here with it. But then he saw it was the kind of thing that deliverymen used when you signed for a package. It had a little screen on it where you signed your name with a plastic stylus.
She set it down on the table between them and looked at him.
“Would you agree to do some work for Z5?” she said. “This work would involve infiltrating a drugs trafficking network run by a motorcycle gang. There would be considerable danger involved and there is no way we could guarantee your personal safety.”
Drugs! Motorcycles! Joeri didn’t even hear the bit about danger.
“At the end of this assignment you may be returned to prison here or in the Netherlands, to serve the remainder of your sentence.”
Prison in the Netherlands! Even that would be bliss.
“You may be required to carry out further assignments for Z5.”
Please!
“You may be subject to death or injury. Z5 will have no liability of any kind in case of such an eventuality. If you consent to this agreement you will effectively remain a prisoner in the custody of Z5. Any attempt to flee from said custody will result in immediate return to prison and may be met with lethal force.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Joeri.
The girl stared at him, a prolonged hard stare, then handed him a plastic stylus and Joeri signed his name on the little screen.
And then he was free. Just like that. He couldn’t believe it. He went back to his cell and looked at his stuff there and decided to just leave all of it. They gave him his clothes back — his jeans and his leather jacket — and suddenly he was a human being again. A free human being.
Although he shuddered like a little girl when he heard the metal door slam behind him.
He got into Paola’s yellow Fiat 500 and they zoomed off down the Via Gian Battista Vico. He looked over his shoulder at the prison walls getting smaller, smaller, and then they were gone. Those huge walls he could never have climbed over, shrunk to nothing.
“Do you think we could get some food? Maybe find some Dutch food somewhere?”
“No.”
They drove past the University of Milan — all those cute young things in their little skirts — and took the Viale Corsica east towards Linate airport.
3: Bio-Weapon
Thomas ‘Doc’ Palfrey, PhD in marine biology and a former captain in 16 Air Assault Brigade, veteran of many a battle and fire fight, who had survived a variety of attempts on his life, some of them viciously imaginative, sat in his mother’s study at Brett Hall trying to convince himself that he didn’t actually feel anything resembling nervous trepidation.
Marion Palfrey was simply an intimidating woman. That’s all there was to it. And somehow when she was your mother the intimidation factor increased sharply.
Benadir didn’t seem intimidated, though. Thank god she was here.
Benadir Abhilasha, with short cropped black hair and eyes he could gaze into all day, was Doc’s lover and also, theoretically, his boss. She ran Z5’s London station. Dame Marion Palfrey was her boss, everybody’s boss. She ran the whole shooting match.
But Benadir was accustomed to meetings with the grand dame.
“How long has she kept us waiting this time?” said Doc in a low voice, just as the door opened and his mother strolled in.
“It can’t have been more that ten minutes, can it?” said Marion Palfrey as she came and sat down at her desk. She smiled at Benadir. “Thank you for coming down from London at such short notice.”
“I assume that it’s something important.”
“Naturally.” There was an acerbic note to Marion Palfrey’s voice, implying she wouldn’t have anything to do with matters that weren’t important. “More to the point, the two of you might as well leave here together after you’ve been briefed.”
“Leave?” said Doc. “Where are we going?”
Marion Palfrey punched a key on her computer and a screen on the wall opposite lit up with the image of a rocky, broken coastline angling south eastwards on a diagonal line. Hugging close to the mainland was a big shard of island, long and narrow and sharp, tapering like an arrowhead.
“Vancouver Island. I trust you have no objections to flying there this evening.”
“This evening?” sai
d Doc. “Isn’t that rather short notice?”
Marion Palfrey shrugged. “Why would you need more notice? You just pack your toothbrush and leave.”
“Toothbrush?” said Doc. He could feel himself starting to lose his temper. This always happened. He promised himself he wouldn’t let her get to him, but she inevitably did. His mother could always push his buttons. “Look, you can’t just send us gallivanting halfway around the world without any kind of an explanation.” Benadir touched him on the arm and he fell silent.
Perhaps his voice had been getting a trifle loud.
“You are receiving an explanation now,” said Marion Palfrey. The image of the island vanished from the screen to be replaced by a man’s face. “Do you know who this is?”
“Professor Laurence Rondivallo,” said Benadir. “The distinguished Australian biochemist.”
“He was distinguished,” said Marion. “Before he disgraced himself throughout the civilised world.”
“He’s the biological weapons expert,” said Doc.
“Correct. A man without principles, ideology or, apparently, any form of moral compass.” Marion peered at the image on the screen. “A man whose expertise is for sale to the highest bidder.”
“I’m amazed he’s still at large,” said Benadir.
“It’s not for want of trying, on our part and on the part of the CIA, Europol, FBI and any number of other organisations. Unfortunately he has a knack of operating in parts of the world where law enforcement and indeed civilisation can’t seem to reach.”
“But now he’s on Vancouver Island,” said Doc.
Marion Palfrey’s eyes glittered. “Yes. Which presents us with a unique opportunity to apprehend him.”
“Any idea what he’s doing there?” said Doc.
The light in Marion’s eyes faded. “If you mean, what his ultimate objective is, then we can be sure that it will be… disagreeable.”
Doc stared at the man on the screen. He had engineered bio-weapons that had killed thousands. If not for the efforts of Z5 and others they would have killed tens of thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. Disagreeable seemed a bit of an understatement.
“Whatever his goal may be, he has put himself in a uniquely vulnerable position, and we fully intend to take advantage of it.”
“Can we see that map again?” said Doc. The coastline reappeared on the screen. “Big island,” he said. “There must be a lot of places for him to hide.”
His mother smiled. “Don’t worry. You aren’t expected to simply turn up and start looking for him. We already have certain measures in place. This operation has been carefully planned and we’ve been making preparations for some time.”
“Funny how this is the first we’ve heard of it,” said Doc, glancing at Benadir. He suddenly wondered if perhaps she’d known about it, but judging by the look of studious attention on her face, it was as new to her as it was to him.
“That’s because there was no need to tell you about it until we were ready to use you. The two of you will be flying in to the island as tourists. You have to pretend to be a couple — do you think you can manage that?” This was his mother’s little joke. Doc and Benadir had been together for years now.
“I think we can manage it,” said Benadir.
“As I mentioned, we’ve already put certain measures in place. Firstly, we have infiltrated the drugs underworld on the island. A network of biker gangs controls the flow of narcotics in the region. And we have succeeded in placing an operative amongst them.” There was a note of triumph in Marion Palfrey’s voice. Doc wanted to ask her who this Z5 agent was, but his mother bulldozed ahead, giving no chance for questions. “As you will have surmised, this could prove crucial given Rondivallo’s predilection — or should I say addiction? He is known to be an avid cocaine user.”
“So you’ve managed to infiltrate the local drug scene,” said Benadir with approval. “Clever.”
Doc nodded. “It’s a small island, so Rondivallo will be limited in his choice of contacts. It’s a good way to locate him.”
“I thought you just said it was a big island,” said Marion Palfrey acidly. “But in any case you’re right. It’s our best bet for finding the man. Of course he’s unlikely be foolish enough to buy the stuff himself. But even if he uses an emissary he’s apt to give himself away. He will be looking to make a substantial purchase of the most high quality product available. There’s no way such a transaction can escape notice among the biker gangs. Thus we have prepared a trip wire, so to speak, to alert us to any activity by Rondivallo in this area. And not just in this area…” Marion Palfrey paused and now her face grew grave. “We have also alerted all the local hospitals, doctors and medical personnel to notify us of any patients who turn up suffering from unusual or inexplicable symptoms.”
“Symptoms?” said Benadir. “You think that that Rondivallo might actually deploy some of the bio-weapons he’s been working on?”
Marion Palfrey nodded. “We have to assume that’s a strong possibility.”
4: Paralysis
“But why would he do that?” said Benadir. She glanced at the image of the island on the screen, rocky and wild. “If he’s going to use a bio-weapon, why would he chose a place like this as his target - somewhere with a low population density which can be easily isolated? Surely he’d be looking for a location that was exactly the opposite? A densely populated and highly interconnected urban centre where his weapons would cause the maximum devastation.”
“Maybe it’s a trial run,” murmured Doc. Both the women looked at him. He nodded at the map. “It would be an ideal place for a rehearsal before the big show…” Listening to his own words, Doc felt a chill.
The big show.
“Whatever that might be,” he added.
“I don’t suppose we have any notion what kind of biological agent he might be planning to use?” said Benadir. “Or what its effects might be.”
“Unfortunately, we do,” said Marion Palfrey. “And we know that because we believe he’s already begun to use it.”
There was silence in the big room for a moment.
Marion Palfrey consulted her computer and cleared her throat. “As I say, we asked the local doctors to watch out for anything unusual in terms of symptoms among their patients.” She glanced up. “And of course we also asked them to watch for any unusual deaths. Well, one of these doctors is rather a bright young woman called Eva Flowers working in a place called the Chase River Medical Centre in Nanaimo. And Dr Flowers has notified us about two of her cases. Both involve sudden paralysis and specifically the inability to speak.”
“Inability to speak?” said Benadir.
“Yes, that was one of the first symptoms. Loss of control of the vocal chords; accompanied by a mild inflammation of the throat. This was soon followed, however, by a more general paralysis and then coma.” Marion inspected the notes on her computer again. “The first case was an Edgar Honnington, a wealthy retired gentleman who was found collapsed in his home. His symptoms were what you might call anomalous. He clearly hadn’t suffered a stroke or any other commonly recognised condition, and yet there was this paralysis. He is currently in hospital, under observation.”
“Do we have copies of the medical reports?” said Doc.
“They are on your computers, if you care to look. The second victim, some seventy-two hours later — which is to say, yesterday — was one Chan-juan Zeng, a Chinese national who was visiting the island. Again we have the same symptoms. Difficulty speaking, then paralysis of the vocal chords, followed by a more general paralysis and subsequently coma. She is currently also under observation in hospital.”
“Is there a possibility that this is some kind of infection which was brought in from China?” said Benadir. “Perhaps like avian flu or SARS? And Miss Zeng was the carrier who introduced it?”
Marion Palfrey shook her head. “While there is an understandable temptation to ascribe such an exotic syndrome to an exotic point of origin, there
is nothing to support such a notion. Arguing most forcefully against it is the fact that Edgar Honnington fell ill three days before Miss Zeng. Which is highly unlikely if she was the one carrying the infection onto the island. Then there is the also the fact that the two of them never met.” She checked her computer. “Honnington fell ill in Nanaimo while Miss Zeng collapsed in Ladysmith. Some considerable distance away and, as I said, there was no possibility of physical contact between the two of them.”
“Are there any common factors at all between the two patients?” said Doc.
“Yes,” said Benadir. “We need to know, who exactly is Miss Zeng?”
Marion Palfrey sighed, as if she felt this was an unprofitable line of enquiry. “She is the personal assistant and probably the mistress of a Mr Zemin Sun, another Chinese national who is rather a prominent businessman.” Marion glanced up at them. “One of these very wealthy new Chinese entrepreneurs. He has made his fortune in real estate, apparently.”
“So both of the victims are wealthy men,” said Doc triumphantly. “That’s a common factor right there.”
“Hardly. Wealth, in this case, is a relative term. Honnington was the retired owner of a small chain of electrical goods outlets. He had enough money, from what I can see here to acquire a large house and a respectable collection of native art, which seems to have been his passion. Zemin Sun, on the other hand, is a property billionaire. In quite another league entirely. And as I said, there seems to be no connections between them.” she looked at Doc and Benadir.
“And of course,” said Doc, “there is no guarantee that there’s any connection between these coma cases and Professor Rondivallo’s activities.”
Marion Palfrey shrugged dismissively. “Well, no doubt you will find out more once you are on the island.” She glanced at her watch. “Which, if you get a move on, should be within about twelve hours.”
Doc and Benadir knew when they’d been dismissed. They left, to start a hasty process of packing. Dame Marion Palfrey remained sitting alone in her study, concentrating on paperwork until a melodious tone on her computer told her that Sofia Forli in Milan was making contact.
Hard Targets: A Doc Palfrey Omnibus Page 17
