Robert Ludlum - CO 1 - The Hades Factor

by The Hades Factor [lit]

  Randi swept up her Uzi, and Jon pulled the big Beretta from his waistband. In the cramped RV, they listened intently. No more twigs broke, but there was a light rustle of something moving among fallen leaves.

  It could have been the wind or an animal, but Randi did not believe it. Her chest tightened. "One," she estimated. "No more."

  Jon agreed, but: "It could be a scout sent ahead, the rest watching. Maybe from the trees back there."

  "Or a diversion, and the others out front."

  The sound ceased. There was nothing but the distant traffic.

  "You take the back," he said. "I'll take the front."

  He flattened against the wall next to a front window, inched to the edge, and looked out toward the door and studied the row of used RVs. He saw no movement.

  "Quiet back here," Randi whispered as she scrutinized the woods that formed the back perimeter of the lot.

  "There're too many blind spots," he decided. "We'll have to go out."

  Randi nodded. "You go left. I'll go right. I'll lead."

  "I'll lead." He raised the Beretta and reached to fling open the door.

  Suddenly there was a loud click and a scraping of wood on wood behind them.

  They whirled like a pair of synchronous swimmers at the Olympics, their weapons ready.

  Surprised, they watched four squares of the large geometric pattern on the vinyl floor swing up, instantly followed by a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.

  Jon instantly recognized the weapon. "Peter!" He forced himself to relax the finger on his trigger. "It's okay, Randi."

  She frowned and stared suspiciously as the lined, leathery face of Peter Howell emerged as far as his shoulders. He wore a trench coat over his black commando clothes.

  Instantly he pointed the H&K at Randi. "Who?"

  Jon said, "Randi Russell. Sophia's sister. She's CIA. It's a long story."

  "Tell me later," Peter said. "They've got Marty."

  ___________________

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  ___________________

  10:32 A.M.

  Lake Magua, New York

  Marty's head rotated as he gazed around the windowless room with its dank basement smell and single cot. He concentrated hard to see it. Where he sat tied to a chair with thin nylon rope, his mind was floating in a luminescent cloud above everyone's heads, dazzling and airy and all-knowing. He loved the feeling of floating, his heavy body so light he seemed effervescent. Part of him knew he had been too long between doses of Mideral, but the rest of him did not care.

  He was annoyed. "You must realize all this is absolutely ridiculous at your ages. Cops and robbers! Really! I assure you I have much more important matters to attend to than sitting here answering your stupid questions. I demand you take me back to the pharmacy instantly!"

  His voice was firm, even arrogant, and in the chair in the basement room of Victor Tremont's grand lodge he drew himself up defiantly. These people would not intimidate him! With whom did they think they were dealing? Zounds, the rascals and poltroons would soon know that it was unwise, even dangerous, to attempt to do battle with him!

  "We do not play games, Mr. Zellerbach," Nadal al-Hassan said coldly. "We will know where Smith is, and we will know at this moment."

  "No one can know where Jon Smith is! The world cannot contain him or me. We fly through a different time, in another universe. Your puny world does not have enough gravity to hold us. We are infinite! Infinite!" Marty blinked up at the pockmarked Arab. "My goodness, your face. How terrible. Smallpox, I should guess. You're lucky to have survived. Do you know how many died over the centuries from that dreadful scourge? How long and at what cost it has taken the world to eradicate the disease? There are still two or three test tubes of it in deep freezers. Why---"

  Marty rambled on as if sitting at his ease in some armchair and discoursing with a group of students on the history of viral diseases. "There's a new virus breaking out right now. It's deadly, Jon tells me. He says he thinks someone actually has it and is killing people with it. Can you imagine?"

  "What else does Jon say about this virus?" Victor Tremont asked, smiling and friendly.

  "Oh, a great deal. He's a scientist, you know."

  "Perhaps he knows who has it? What they plan to do with it?"

  "Well, I assure you, we---" Marty stopped and his eyes narrowed.

  "Ah, you are trying to trick me! Me! You fools, you cannot outwit The Paladin! I will speak no more." He clamped his lips tightly together.

  Exasperated, al-Hassan muttered an Arabic curse and raised his fist.

  Victor Tremont put out a hand. "No. Not yet. The medicine he got at the pharmacy where Maddux found him is Mideral, one of a new family of central nervous system stimulants. With what you learned from his doctor, we know he has a type of autism. From his behavior, I'd say he's off the medicine and irrational."

  "Then can we learn nothing about where Jonathan Smith is?" al-Hassan asked.

  "On the contrary. Administer his Mideral. Within twenty minutes, he will calm and come crashing back to reality. If his condition is Asperger's syndrome, he may be exceptionally intelligent. But the Mideral will slow him down and make him a little dull. At the same time, he'll be able to recognize he's in danger. We should be able to get what we need from him then."

  Marty sang loudly. He barely noticed when al-Hassan untied one of his hands and gave him a pill and a glass of water. He stopped to swallow the pill then resumed singing as al-Hassan tied him again.

  Victor Tremont and the Arab watched as his vocalizing slowly faded, his arrogant pose slumped against the ropes, and his feverishly bright eyes turned quiet.

  "I think you can question him now," Tremont said.

  Al-Hassan smiled his wolf smile and walked around to face Marty. "So, let us begin again, Mr. Zellerbach, eh?"

  Marty looked up at the lean, dour Arab. He cowered on the chair. The man was too close, and he looked evil. The other man--- the tall one--- stood on Marty's other side. He was too close as well, and too menacing. Marty could smell them. Strangers. He could barely breathe. He wanted to make them go away. Leave him alone.

  "Where is your friend Jon Smith?"

  Marty quavered in the chair. "Ir-Iraq."

  "Good. He was in Iraq. But he is now back in America. Where will he go now?"

  Marty blinked up at them as they leaned closer, eager. He remembered posting the message to Jon on the Web site. Maybe Jon had already found it and was heading toward the RV. He fervently hoped so.

  He felt his teeth grind. No! No, he would not tell them. "I--- I don't know."

  The Arab muttered another curse and swung his fist. Marty screamed with fear.

  Pain exploded in his head, and a great wave of black rolled over him.

  "Damn." Victor Tremont knotted his fists. "He's unconscious."

  "But I did not strike him with that much force," al-Hassan protested.

  Tremont scowled with disgust. "We'll have to wait until he comes to and try something less physical."

  "There are ways."

  "But with him, it will be tricky not to kill him. You saw how excitable he is."

  They stared in frustration at the silent Marty, whose head hung limply forward, his body lashed to the chair.

  "Or," Victor Tremont began to smile. He paused as his shrewd mind worked on an idea. "I have a much better way to find what we need to know." He nodded. "Yes, a much better idea."

  __________

  10:35 A.M.

  Syracuse, New York

  Peter Howell peeled off his trench coat to reveal his black commando suit. His pale gaze surveyed the bullet-spattered interior of his high-tech RV. Brief sadness showed on his lined face, and then it was gone, overtaken by complete concentration as he walked rapidly through it, checking.

  "What happened to Marty?" Jon stared at the Englishman's back as he turned from the driver's seat. "Do you know where they've taken him?"

  "Spotted him at a chemist's
a few blocks from here. Pharmacy to you Yanks. There were three." Peter's wiry body bristled with energy as he strode toward them. "The leader was that short, heavy fellow we saw back at the ambush on the dirt road in the Sierras."

  Randi said, "That means the people with the virus have him?"

  Jon grimaced. "That's what it means. Poor Mart."

  "Will he talk?" Randi asked.

  "If he had, I'd think they'd be here by now," Peter said.

  "But he will?"

  "He's not strong," Smith admitted. He described Asperger's syndrome.

  "That little fellow is a lot tougher and shrewder than one would imagine, Jon," Peter decided. "He'll find a way not to crack."

  "Not forever. Not many can. We've got to get him out of there."

  "Do we know where he is?" Randi asked Peter.

  Peter shook his head. "Unfortunately, I was on foot and unable to follow the car they took him away in."

  "How did you figure out where to find him?" Jon asked.

  "Located the RV from his message about an hour ago." Peter reported how he had found the RV empty, just as they had. But he had also found drafts of a fake doctor's prescription printed out from the computer. "Marty must've forged a prescription for his Mideral. He was almost out of his pills last night when we separated." He described the gunfight in the park.

  Jon shook his head. "How do you think they found you?"

  "I figure they must've been tailing us all the way from Detrick just looking for the most agreeable moment to attack. I thought I'd shaken any possible pursuit, but it would seem they're quite good." His gaze settled on bullet holes that had pocked a map of Third World countries and shook his head. "I went looking for the closest chemist's shops. I got to the third one just as Marty came out and those three seized him."

  "No indication on the car who they were?"

  "None, I'm afraid."

  "Then the only way we're going to find him is to find them."

  "Right. A serious problem. I may have a solution, but first fill me in quickly about Iraq."

  Smith hit the high points of his investigation in Baghdad until the Republican Guards' attack in the tire shop.

  The Englishman's wrinkles expanded in a wide grin at Randi. His gaze swept over her in appreciation. "The CIA is improving the quality of its agents, miss. You're a welcome change over the usual sobersides in their three-piece suits. Just a garrulous old man's opinion, mind you."

  "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself." Randi smiled back. "I'll be sure to pass on your recommendation to the director."

  "You do that." Peter turned to Jon. "What happened next?" His face went quickly sober again as he listened to what they had learned from Dr. Mahuk in the pediatric hospital, and how they had been captured by the Baghdad police who had apparently been in the pay of whoever was behind the virus.

  "So three victims were cured in Iraq, too?" The Englishman swore. "A diabolical experiment. Don't like to think about the money and power that can actually accomplish anything in that closed-off country. Of course your trip confirmed the virus's roots in the Gulf War." He paused. "My turn. Got a little piece of news that blows the lid off this whole nasty business. I believe I know what Sophia discovered that was so important in Giscours's report from the Prince Leopold Institute."

  Jon inhaled, excited. "What?"

  "Peru. It was Peru all along." He described Sophia's field trip there twelve years before as an anthropology student from Syracuse. With that small piece of information, he had contacted a former associate in Lima, who had secured a list of scientists who had trekked into the Peruvian Amazonia that same year.

  Smith asked instantly, "You have the list?"

  A grin of satisfaction spread across Peter's brown, leathery face. "Does a fox find the heather? Come, children."

  As he stalked to the kitchen table, he pulled out two folded sheets of paper from somewhere inside his black commando outfit. He lay them out, flicked on the overhead light, and the three of them bent over, quickly reading the names.

  Peter explained, "There were a lot more in Amazonia that year, but not at the same times as Sophia."

  The fourteenth leaped out at both Jon and Randi.

  "That's it!" Randi said. "Victor Tremont."

  Smith nodded grimly. "CEO and chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceutical. The president's going to give him a medal today for saving the world with his serum. The great humanitarian, working his company around the clock to produce it while he sells it only at cost."

  "Bloody hell." Peter shook his head. "Believe that, and you'll believe we Brits acquired our empire to bring civilization to the natives."

  "We already knew Blanchard had the serum," Randi said, thinking about the newspaper story. "Now it seems Tremont himself brought the virus from Peru."

  Jon nodded. "And because he's a scientist, he could've recognized the potential of a serum for such a deadly virus and somehow managed to infect a few people during Desert Storm. He must've known it wasn't very contagious and that it was slow-acting, lying in the body for years like HIV."

  "Good God," Peter breathed. "So he started his secret testing on humans in Iraq ten years ago, when he had no guarantee he'd ever develop a serum to cure them when the virus went into its last fatal stages? He's a monster!"

  "Maybe it's worse than that. It's very convenient for the virus to break out now." Jon's eyes were icy blue. "Somehow he made the pandemic start so he could cure it and make a fortune in the process."

  Shocked silence filled the RV. Smith had spoken the words they had not wanted to hear. But it was the truth, and the implications hung in the air like a sharp ax waiting to fall.

  Randi finally said, "How?"

  "I don't know," Jon admitted. "We've got to check Blanchard's records. Damn, I wish Marty were here."

  "Perhaps I can substitute," Peter said. "I'm pretty fair with a computer, and I've been watching him use his own special programs for days."

  "I tried, but he was using a password."

  Peter gave a grim smile. "That I know, too. Typical of Marty's odd sense of humor. The password is Stanley the Cat."

  __________

  10:58 A.M.

  Long Lake Village, New York

  In the deep recesses of whatever honesty and integrity he had left, Mercer Haldane had suspected what Victor Tremont had never admitted: Somehow Victor had caused the pandemic that was sweeping the world. Now, as he looked down through his office window at the platform and giant TV screen that were being assembled for this afternoon's ceremony, he could keep silent no more. God in heaven, the president himself was coming to send off the first official batch of serum as if Blanchard and Victor were Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Einstein rolled up into one.

  For days the moral battle had raged inside him.

  Once he had been an honorable man and had taken great pride in his integrity. But somewhere along the line of building Blanchard into a world-class pharmaceutical giant, he realized now he had lost his way. The result was that Victor Tremont was to receive America's revered Medal of Freedom for what could be the most despicable act the globe had ever seen.

  Mercer Haldane could not tolerate that. No matter what would happen to him... even though he would probably have to take the blame... so be it. He had to stop this tragic farce. Some things were more important than money or success.

  He reached for his phone. "Mrs. Pendragon? Please get the surgeon general's office in Washington. I believe you have the number."

  "Of course, sir. I'll put the call through immediately."

  Mercer Haldane leaned back in his executive desk chair to wait. He rested his neck against the cool leather and put his hands over his eyes.

  But another wave of doubt assaulted him. With a shock, he remembered again he could go to prison.

  Lose his family, his position, his fortune. He grimaced.

  On the other hand, if he said nothing, Victor would make a great deal of money for all of them. He knew that.

  He shook his
white head. He was being a fool. Worse, a sentimental old fool. What did all those faceless millions really matter? They would die one way or another anyway, and the way life was, most would not expire from natural causes but from disease, hunger, war, revolution, earthquake, typhoon, accident, or an angry lover. There were too many people anyway, especially in the Third World, and the overpopulation increased geometrically every year.

  The result was nature would strike back anyway, as it always did, with famines, plagues, wars, and cosmic disasters.