Balance of Power - An Action Thriller Novel (A Noah Wolf Novel, Thriller, Action, Mystery Book 7)

by David Archer

  Noah considered all this information for a moment. “So, what you’re telling me is that Randy would be completely aware that he was being pronounced dead, but he wouldn’t be able to speak or move his eyes or anything else. Right?”

  “That about sums it up, yeah.”

  “But it won’t actually kill him?”

  “Well, not if you can believe the Russians. Remember, it was their military doctors who conducted these experiments.”

  “Then it would work. How hard is it going to be to get hold of the second ingredient, assuming we can even get our hands on the first?”

  “Well, if you were schizophrenic, you’d probably have it in your medicine cabinet. I’d lay odds Doc Parker probably keeps a big bottle of it somewhere around his office.”

  Noah blinked. “Well, him we can trust. Let’s find out if we can get our hands on the tetro-whatever, then we can ask him about haloperidol in the morning. If nothing else, he can probably figure out a way to get me some of it.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Neil said. “That only leaves the question of the vector. How do you intend to inject Randy with it, if you’re not going to let him in on the plan?”

  “Well, I’ve been giving that some serious thought. How long does it take for the paralysis to set in?”

  “According to this article, between seventeen and forty-six seconds. After that, the victim is completely cataleptic. He can’t move, he can’t speak, he can’t so much as open his eyes, or close them, for that matter.”

  “Then I’ll have to get to him when he’s completely alone, where no one else can possibly overhear, and then I’ll explain it to him right after I give him the shot. It’ll be too late for him to decline to participate, but at least I can warn him about what he’s about to go through.”

  “Okay, and then you’ve got about thirty-six to thirty-eight hours before he gets back on his feet and is really, really pissed off. Most of that time, he’s probably going to be in the morgue. How do you plan to get him out without tipping anyone off?”

  “Actually, I’ve got an idea on that. As an E & E operative, he pretty much belongs to the organization. Every once in a while, I’ve heard, R&D uses cadavers in testing some of their equipment. I’m going to find out from Renée how they go about it, but I would bet it’s just a matter of the Dragon Lady approving a requisition form for a corpse.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Since they were going to be discussing sensitive issues, Noah decided to forgo the grill and have dinner inside, and asked Neil to do whatever he could to make sure no one could possibly overhear them. Neil grinned and jogged over to his trailer, coming back a few minutes later with a couple of small suitcases.

  The first one he opened contained a device that could detect any type of radio signal, the same sort of device used by other federal agencies in sweeping for bugs. It took him less than ten minutes to pronounce the house completely clean, and then he opened the other case.

  Inside that one was the drone that Noah and Sarah had bought for him, equipped with a GoPro camera that was set to infrared. “This baby you got me is fantastic,” he said. “When it gets closer to dinnertime, I can use this to scan the area and make sure nobody is close enough to be aiming any type of listening device at us.”

  Sarah went all out, making pot roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots, while Noah and Neil made a run to the store to pick up beer, soft drinks, and snacks for after dinner. They were back in plenty of time, and at her insistence, both men helped Sarah give the house a thorough cleaning.

  Marco and Renée showed up a half hour early, so they all sat out on the rarely used patio, just off the kitchen. Noah, Marco and Neil opted for bottles of beer, while the girls each took one of Sarah’s raspberry wine coolers.

  Marco was watching Neil, who was doing something with his phone. “What are you up to over there, Neil? Texting some new girl?”

  Neil only grinned and shook his head, but a moment later he looked up at Noah and said, “Boss, the only heat signatures within half a mile, other than us, seems to be a coyote and a couple of rabbits. I’ve also checked the house again for any new radio signals. We’re all clear, boss.”

  Marco and Renée glanced at one another, then Marco looked at Noah. “Boss man? Something going on?”

  Sarah spoke first. “Renée, how high is your security clearance?”

  Renée’s eyebrows rose half an inch, but she didn’t hesitate. “I have Q clearance,” she said. “Everyone in the offices at R&D has to have it. Why?”

  “Because the matters we are about to discuss would certainly be classified top secret, and probably with a restricted designation,” Noah said. “Do you know anything about the circumstances surrounding Sarah’s recent capture by the Chinese?”

  “The circumstances surrounding it? All I know is that she was captured by someone during a mission and ended up in the hands of the Chinese interrogators. Is there something more?”

  “Actually, there is. The fact of the matter is that a member of another team had been subverted by a CIA mole, and Sarah was targeted specifically because she is on my team. The Chinese, it seems, are doing everything they can to identify me, so when the mole found out where she was, he arranged for her to be grabbed and sold to China.”

  Renée turned and looked at Sarah, her eyes even wider. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Sarah, I didn’t know.”

  “That’s because we’ve been keeping it pretty secret,” Sarah said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m actually okay.”

  “Part of the reason it’s been so secret,” Noah went on, getting Renée’s attention again, “is that a decision was made at the main office to use that operative against the mole. He was given a file that seems to be about me, even though it’s completely fabricated, and has passed it off. The idea was to set a trap to catch the mole if he tried to contact or subvert me, but it didn’t work. He’s using some false information in the file to blackmail me into doing what he wants, and I have to do everything possible to convince him I’m playing along.”

  Renée was nodding. “And I guess you need some kind of help from me, which means you need something from R&D but don’t want to go through official channels. Am I right?”

  Marco cleared his throat and touched Renée on the arm. “Before this goes any further,” he said quickly, “I had absolutely no idea this was going to happen tonight.”

  Renée smiled at him. “It’s okay, Marco,” she said. She turned back to Noah. “So? How can I help?”

  “The mole has ordered me to kill that same operative. The problem with that is that Allison believes the man is salvageable and still an asset. I’ve gone over this with her, and if there’s no other way, then I’m to go ahead and terminate him, but we’re trying to find a way to make it appear that he’s dead and then cover up the fact that he’s not.”

  Renée nodded slowly. “Maybe a bombing? Blow up his car and make it seem like he was in it?”

  Noah shook his head. “I had actually considered that gambit, but there needs to be an actual death certificate, and a body that someone—assuming the mole has subverted others inside our organization—could examine. Neil came up with an idea, but we’d have to get hold of something called…” He looked at Neil.

  “Tetrodotoxin, TTX.”

  “Is there any possibility that R&D would have some?” Noah asked.

  “TTX? Yeah, as a matter of fact. One of the labs is actually working on something that involves it, but I don’t know what.”

  “What about haloperidol?” Neil asked quickly. “Any of that out there?”

  Renee’s eyebrows suddenly lowered, and she looked at Neil suspiciously. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I handle the requisition forms, and that’s something else the same lab is working with. Did you already know that?”

  “No, but TTX and haloperidol are the magic mixture the Russians came up with for making someone seem to be dead, and that’s what we’re trying to do. When you said a lab was working with TTX, I just naturally
figured they might be working on the same idea.”

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense.” She turned to Noah. “So you want me to get this stuff for you, right? Let me ask you this—how soon do you need to have it?”

  “I’m supposed to make sure Randy is dead within the next thirty-eight hours or so,” Noah said. “This is the only chance he’s got to survive this thing, so the sooner, the better.”

  Renée looked into his eyes for a moment, then nodded as if coming to a decision. “Well, as it happens, I occasionally work late, with Wally’s authorization. What that means is that I happen to have in my possession a set of keys, and I’m listed with security as having twenty-four-hour access to the facility. Now, the problem is that I can’t just walk into one of the labs and take something out, because I don’t have the kind of pass that opens the lab doors.”

  Noah sighed. “What about tomorrow morning? Is there any way you could…”

  “Hold on, I wasn’t finished,” Renée said, holding up a hand to stop him. “There is somebody who does have a lab pass, and it just happens to be my roommate. Her name is Mary, and if I asked her to, she’d go out with me and get what you need.”

  “The problem with that,” Noah said, “is that we don’t know who we can trust. The mole could have any number of people in the organization that report back to him. Frankly, I’m sticking my neck out pretty far just talking to you about this.”

  Renée sat and looked at him for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. “Okay,” she said at last, “there’s one other thing I can think of. How do you feel about Wally himself? Would you be okay with him being in on this?”

  Noah’s eyebrows went up a quarter of an inch. “Actually, I would,” he said. “I gather you’re thinking of a way to make that happen?”

  “Yes. Wally’s an incredible genius, and while he rarely takes credit, most of the things our labs come up with start out as a doodle on his desk pad. He and I are also very old friends, since we were both recruited from the CIA when Allison set up E & E. If I just gave him a call and told him I need him to meet me at the office for something important, he’d drop whatever he’s doing and meet me. Once we’re inside I can tell him what you need, and there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll get it for you and let me bring it back.”

  Noah looked at Neil. “Can you tell her exactly what it is you’re going to need?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Neil replied, “but this may be better than we ever dreamed. They probably already have the correct formula worked out. I can write up a note she can give him, and I’m pretty sure he’ll know what to send back. But, Noah, what if Wally has been compromised?”

  “Wally has probably the highest access of anyone outside the main office,” Noah said. “If the mole had somehow managed to compromise him, I suspect finding me wouldn’t have been a bit difficult. Write your note—this is a go.” He turned to Renée. “Why don’t you call him now and set up a time? The sooner, the better. Dinner can wait.”

  Renée grinned and nodded, then took out her cell phone. She dialed the number and listened for only a moment. “Wally? Hey, listen, it’s Renée. I've gotta run by the office for a few minutes, and there’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Would you mind meeting me out there? Twenty minutes? Actually, I’d need a little more than that. Let’s make it’s about thirty minutes, is that okay? Okay, great, I’ll see you there.”

  She turned to Noah. “Okay, it’s set. I can be back here in an hour and a half with what you need in hand.”

  Noah nodded. “All right,” he said. “We’ll hold dinner for you.”

  Marco shrugged and shook his head but followed Renée back out to his car. The two of them drove away, and Noah felt Sarah wrap her arms around him from behind.

  “I hope this wasn’t a mistake,” she said softly. “We’re letting a lot of people in on secrets that were supposed to stay within our small group.”

  “Wally’s good,” Neil said. “Noah is absolutely correct. If somebody was pulling Wally’s puppet strings, they wouldn’t need anybody like Randy. The only real risk in this ploy is using Renée, but I doubt she’s even in a position that would be of any benefit to the mole.”

  Noah suddenly turned and looked at Neil. “You just made an extremely good point,” he said. “I wonder what it was about Randy that put him in the mole’s sights.”

  Neil shrugged. “You know, now that you mention it, I’m not sure anybody has even asked that question.”

  * * * * *

  “So,” Renée said to Marco as they drove toward R&D. “You really didn’t know about this before we got there?”

  Marco shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I had an idea that they wanted to talk to you about something, but I never would’ve guessed it was this. Honey, I’m not sure, but this could blow up in your face. You sure you want to get involved?”

  “Wally is probably Noah’s biggest fan,” she said with a grin. “Even if I wasn’t getting him involved now, I would have confessed about this to him in the morning just to cover my own ass. Trust me, he’ll bend or break any rule to help Noah, even if that means taking risks for himself. You’ll see. Just come on in with me when I talk to him.”

  Marco made a face and rolled his eyes. “Like you thought I’d let you do this on your own? If it blows up, I want you to know that I’ll be right there beside you in the firebox.”

  Wally was already waiting when they pulled in, sitting on the hood of his classic 1966 Riviera. He slid off the hood as they parked beside him, then led the way to the door and used his keys to open it.

  Once they were inside, he turned and nodded toward Marco, then looked at Renée. “Okay, sweetheart,” he said with a smile. “I figured it was something pretty important if you wanted me to come out tonight to talk to you in a secure environment. What’s going on?”

  “Ah, nothing much,” Renée said. “I just need you to help me steal some top secret material out of one of your labs.”

  Wally’s smile didn’t even flicker. “Far out,” he said. “Who we gonna kill?”

  Renée burst out laughing. “Actually, the idea is to avoid killing someone.” She gave Wally a quick rundown of the situation and Noah’s plan, ending with Neil’s idea about using the chemical mixture that would make Randy appear to be dead. The note Neil had written got his attention for a moment, then Wally took out a disposable lighter and set it aflame, dropping it into the dirt around a potted plant.

  Wally laughed as he did so, rubbing his hands together with childish excitement. “Wow, this is awesome! Yeah, no problem, let’s go get it. And, by the way, Jake and Clancy have already perfected the dosage and blended it into a single formula. The stuff hits in about forty-five seconds, and then the only things that continue working are the involuntary muscles, the heart, diaphragm, stuff like that, but they’re so slow that it takes some extremely special medical equipment to even detect. Give it to someone while they’re hooked up to normal monitors, and they go flatline almost instantly.”

  Wally was leading the way through the labyrinthine hallways as he spoke, and they arrived at a door a minute later. Wally used a key card to open the door and invited the two of them inside.

  Despite the fact he was considered simply an R&D supervisor, almost all of the projects his shops and laboratories worked on stemmed directly from ideas of his own, and the scientists and engineers that worked under him filed daily reports. Wally was almost always up to speed on everything they were doing and spent enough time wandering from one lab or shop to another that he was intimately familiar with all of them. His key card opened a secure cabinet in this one, and he reached in and quickly extracted a single vial.

  He handed it to Renée and then opened another cabinet to retrieve a sterile syringe with a hypodermic needle. “You’ll need this, too,” he said. “That dose should work just fine; it’s calculated for a male between 160 and 200 pounds. If I remember Randy correctly, he’s about 180. That should keep him in zombie land for about thirty-five hours, maybe a
little less.”

  Marco nodded. “Sounds about right. Gotta tell you, Wally, this is pretty cool of you.”

  Wally chuckled and waved in dismissal. “Oh, don’t be silly,” he said. “I know what’s going on with the whole mole situation, so anything I can do to help Camelot find that bastard, I’m willing to do. And don’t worry about repercussions later, Renée. I can handle it. There won’t be any problems. Now, you kids better run along and get that back to Noah. And tell him if there’s anything else he needs, just to send you after it. You’ll get it.”

  He locked the lab as they left and walked with them to the exit door. As they stepped outside, he waved and then got back into his car and drove away.

  “You were right,” Marco said to Renée as they got into the car. “That was easy.”

  “I was pretty sure it would be. Wally likes to hang out in my office sometimes, and Noah is one of the things he’s always talking about. Like I said, Wally is his biggest fan.”

  “Sounds like it. I thought for a moment he was gonna insist on coming along to the party. Not sure how well that would have gone over, you know?”

  Renée chuckled. “Yeah, not so well. Wally’s a genius at the logistics end, but I’ve heard some of the crazy ideas he has come up with as plans for carrying out various missions. Sometimes they get a little wacky, and I’m being generous.”

  They got back to Noah’s house and recounted their adventure to him, passing off the vial and hypodermic. Noah put them into a cabinet in the kitchen and thanked them both.

  “Okay, mission successful,” Neil said. “That means it’s time for dinner, right?”