“And those are the kind of people you trust to have your back?”
“They are the only kind I trust.”
“And what about me? What kind am I?”
A cool, appreciative smile pulled at the corner of Peter’s mouth. “You’re a visionary, Victor. A leader—just like I am.”
Victor stared out toward the lake. “So how do you see this going down? We all fly to Japan, walk right up to whatever high-rise building Nichibotsu Enterprises has its offices in, and start cracking heads?”
Peter shook his head. “No, most of them would know nothing. As I said before, the majority of their research concerns legitimate - if impractical - scientific pursuits. I suspect only a handful of people know anything about their work in virology.”
“And how do you know so much about Nichibotsu?”
Peter smiled. “You sound as if you distrust me, Victor.”
“I just want to know what we’re dealing with.”
Peter slipped his hands casually into his pockets. “I know so much, as you put it, because I’m on the Board of Directors.”
Victor considered this. He was not really surprised. Peter, a billionaire, would not invest in a company for a trivial sum. It simply wouldn’t be worth his time.
“And you think the other members of the board know about the virus?” Victor asked.
“I suspect they do, which is why we need to track them down. First, however, we must deal with Sophia’s contact, the man overseeing the work at the laboratory—Antoine Graves.”
Chapter 49
As it happened, information on Antoine Graves was not difficult to find. Keno unearthed several outstanding warrants from the Czech Republic, Kerovia, and Hungary for extortion and racketeering. Graves was also wanted internationally for his role in a human trafficking scandal that besmirched a number of politicians and lawmakers both in Europe and the U.S.
It was peculiar to Victor to think that the scientists would deal directly with a low-life like Graves, but there it was. Peter’s thinking on the matter (and Victor was inclined to agree) was that Nichibotsu had an arrangement with Graves to sell him the virus once it was finished (if it was ever finished), and from there he would sell it on the black market.
“I can’t imagine how anyone could be crazy enough to spread that virus around,” Victor said as he sat in the back of a limousine with Peter, waiting for the light to turn green. Razorback was driving, while Keno sat beside him with his laptop on his knees. The rest of the crew were in a minivan lurking several vehicles back.
“Don’t be so surprised,” Peter answered. “It would not destroy the world, after all—just change it. Perhaps someone wants to rearrange the political landscape to their own liking.”
Victor grunted. “Sounds like Adolf Hitler. I’m sure as soon as it was finished, he’d be cracking that vial open and spreading it around.”
“It would not be quite that easy,” Peter demurred. “If the virus were only released on one colony of bees, it might be confined there—and even if it spread, it is highly unlikely it would find its way across oceans. The best way to cause the most damage would be to orchestrate a synchronized release of the strain in numerous parts of the world at the same time. That would cause the greatest damage and allow the least time for scientists to recognize and address the disease.”
“Sounds like you’ve given this some thought.”
Peter smiled. “If you wish to defeat your enemy, Victor, you must be able to think like him.”
Victor glanced out the window. A group of figures in hoods and baggy jeans stood on the street corner, smoking and making little effort to hide the pistols protruding from their waistbands. One of them was holding an Uzi.
“Feels like we just entered a war zone,” Victor murmured as the light changed and the car accelerated. The figures stared at the limo, the orange glow of their cigarettes sketching their faces in shadowy lines.
About ten minutes later, they pulled up to the nightclub’s entrance.
A valet opened the limousine door. Peter and Victor stepped out. A long queue of people were waiting to enter the nightclub, most of them under thirty, shifting their weight and exchanging smalltalk with strangers. A neon sign reading “Boldogság” glowed above the entrance. It was a Hungarian word meaning “bliss” or “happiness.” Americans (those few who were crazy enough to explore this part of the city) usually just called the club “The Bulldog.”
The music pulsed through the walls like a giant heartbeat as they entered. Peter had only to show his VIP badge, which he had purchased online under a false identity, to cut to the front of the line.
“We’re in,” Victor said into his mic as the door closed behind them. He would have lowered his voice, but he doubted he’d even be able to hear himself. Ahead of them, down a long hall, colored lights flashed and shadows drifted along the floor. The hall smelled like booze.
Victor and Peter exchanged a glance.
“Sure you don’t want to just dance the night away?” Victor suggested.
Peter did not smile. He was all business tonight.
Victor hung back as Peter entered the main room. His heartbeat rose a notch, and he remembered how, on the night they infiltrated the compound and extracted the scientists, Washburn had talked about committed petty crimes as a kid. Washburn had described it as a “release valve.”
Was that why Victor felt such a proclivity toward putting himself in danger? No, he didn’t think so, and maybe that was the difference between him and Washburn. Washburn was like a kid spending his allowance to see a horror movie. He got his scares and then happily returned home to his warm bed, his night-light, and the familiar routine of his structured life. Victor, on the other hand, didn’t just want to glimpse the other side.
He wanted to live there.
The music and lights assaulted his senses as he entered the dance room. Naked women writhed in cages suspended high enough for everyone to see. Below them a mob of people danced and drank, cheating the night away.
“Sounds like a great party in there!” Keno said into his ear. “Sure I can’t join the fun?”
“Do you have the cameras yet?” Victor asked. He stopped a passing waiter and took a martini.
“I do now,” Keno answered. “Let’s see…Graves is probably in one of the VIP booths. Not seeing anyone matching his description, though.”
“Keep looking.”
Peter was on the fringe of the crowd now, not far from the VIP area. He was milling about as if waiting to meet someone. A ring of security guards with automatic weapons stared impassively out at the dance floor. If anyone fired, this would quickly turn into a bloodbath.
Without warning, Peter turned and headed straight toward a booth where a man was sitting with a trio of young women.
“What are you doing?” Victor hissed. “Wait, damn it!”
Victor heard Peter talking to the suspect, but the noise was too loud to follow the conversation. He watched anxiously as the three young women were dismissed from the table and Peter took their place.
“What’s going on?” Keno asked. “This wasn’t the plan.”
“No shit,” Victor muttered.
A few moments later, Peter rose from the table. The suspect looked at his security detail, then rose, straightened his suit coat, and followed Peter toward the exit, escorted by four armed men.
“Khan,” Victor said quickly, “they’re coming to you: Peter, the suspect, and four security guards. You know what to do.”
“Roger that,” Khan answered.
___
Victor waited just three seconds before pushing open the door. As he did so, he met the eyes of a bald man in a suit. The man had a wire looped around his ear. Victor saw his lips move.
Then Victor was out in the street, out beneath the glare of a sodium-arc lamp that fizzed and blinked, crowded with giant moths. The air was warm, but it felt cool and refreshing compared with the cramped heat of the nightclub. The second welcome change was the s
mell, though Victor did not have time to consider this.
There was a pool of blood at his feet. As he watched, the pool reached out and kissed the edge of one of his black Oxfords. He pulled back, taking in the four bodies lying in the alley. One of them was still clutching at his throat, unable to stop the blood from jetting between his fingers. The others lay like a child’s dolls twisted into awkward and unnatural positions.
“Come on!” Peter shouted at him. He had his gun, a Luger, trained on a black man who was also staring down at the four bodies. The black man’s eyes registered shock, but already the expression was changing to a disappointed resignation.
“Funny,” the man said quietly, “I always thought I would see it coming.”
Behind him, Khan and Ajax kept their guns trained on the door at Victor’s back. The van came squealing to a halt at the end of the alley, just like clockwork.
Khan and Ajax grabbed the black man and pulled him toward the van. He didn’t run, but he didn’t resist, either. Victor and Peter came last.
“Is he our man?” Victor asked Peter, staring at the back of the man who may have ordered Victor’s assassination.
“He’d better be,” Peter answered.
The back door of the club flew open and several men with automatic weapons rushed out. They spotted the van, crouched, and sprayed the side of the vehicle before one member of the security detail shouted at them to stop for fear of hitting Graves. A few of the bullets passed through the passenger-side door of the van, narrowly missing Peter’s knees as he climbed into the seat. One of the windows shattered, littering the seats and floor with chunks of glass.
The tires squealed again as the van pulled away. Khan turned right onto a two-way street, then hooked a left at the end of the block and darted through a narrow alley. Sirens blared in the distance, then faded.
___
They stopped in the secluded back lot of an abandoned power station separated from the Danube by a steel-ring fence. Streetlights from the opposite shore cast a yellow glow over the water that reminded Victor of the first Mission: Impossible movie. Some of the movie had, after all, been shot in Prague, which was less than a five hour drive from where they were.
Razorback and Keno were already waiting for them by the limousine. The others climbed from the van and stretched, scanning the area, watching a barge drift by on the river.
“Can I have a cigarette?” the black man asked. He was bald and about forty years old, with a few days’ worth of stubble on his face.
“That depends,” Victor answered. “Are you Antoine Graves?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Call us concerned citizens.”
The man chuckled, looking around at all of them. “Concerned citizens. Right, sure.”
“No trouble?” Peter asked Razorback. Razorback shook his head.
“Good,” Peter answered. “You gentlemen stay by the vehicles. Victor and I will have a little talk with our new friend.”
There was no argument as the three men walked toward the river. They stopped by the fence. Victor gazed out at the water, and though it was beautiful to behold, the smell was not worth remembering.
“So what is it you want?” Graves asked. “Money? Information? I have plenty of both. If someone’s paying you to hit me, I can pay more.”
Peter watched the barge go by, not meeting Graves’s eyes. “Tell us about Nichibotsu,” he said.
“Nichi-what?”
“Victor here nearly caught a bullet, thanks to you. So I hope you believe me when I say that if you play dumb again, he’ll break one of your fingers.” He still kept his eyes on the barge.
Graves’s forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown. The expression reminded Victor of a poker face Washburn sometimes wore when he was trying to guess what kind of hand Victor had.
Graves sighed. “Are you sure you don’t have a cigarette?”
Peter pulled a carton from his breast pocket, tapped out a cigarette, and handed it to Graves. Then he drew his lighter from his pocket - the one with the dragon and the golden claws - and lit it.
Graves took a long drag, blinking contentedly. “You have to understand something. They don’t throw around names. If you want a list of everyone who works at Nichibotsu, I’m afraid you’re bound to be disappointed.”
“Then tell us how you got involved,” Victor answered before Peter could pose his own follow-up. Peter glanced at him, then returned his attention to the barge.
“I’m an investor. I invest in property and promising businesses.”
Like drugs and sex slaves, right? Victor wanted to ask, but he restrained himself.
“Someone came to me with a proposal,” Graves continued.
“How did they come to you?” Victor asked.
“Through a friend. He’s loyal and he vouched for them, so they had my attention.” He took another drag. “Anyway, what they really needed was muscle. Said they were conducting some kind of research, and they were willing to pay seven figures a month until the project was finished.”
“Holy shit,” Victor murmured.
“That was my reaction.”
“And what were they planning to do with the research once it was finished?”
Graves shrugged. “How would I know that? All they told me was that it was sensitive, top-secret work, and as long as I kept their scientists from being bothered, I would get my money.”
“So you still don’t know what the research is for?”
Graves puffed on his cigarette and stared at him. “It ain’t my business to know.”
Peter turned toward them. There was a hard, detached look in his eyes that Victor could not read. “Who contacted you?” he asked.
“Some Asian woman,” Graves answered. “Never got a name. I told you, they’re secretive.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Graves looked from Peter to Victor, then back to Peter. “At first I assumed you were with Nichibotsu yourselves, coming after me because of what happened at the compound. But if you’re not with Nichibotsu and you’re not with the authorities, then who are you? A competitor?” His eyes widened. “Wait a minute—you’re the guys who attacked my men, aren’t you? That’s how you found me. Sophia must have given me up.” He shook his head. “And I thought she was tougher than that.”
“Don’t give us that crap,” Victor answered angrily. “You know damn well who we are.”
Graves glanced at him, confused.
“We need a name,” Peter interjected.
“And I told you, I don’t—”
“Sixty-seven Izabella Street.”
Graves’s eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”
“That’s where your daughter lives. Latisha, isn’t it? Four years old, birthmark behind her right ear. She plays piano, but her real passion is soccer. Her mother is—”
Graves lunged at him. He would have grabbed him by the neck if Victor had not been ready. Instead, Victor cut in front of him and punched him in the stomach. Graves doubled over, wheezing.
Peter hitched up his slacks and squatted beside Graves. “You see, Antoine—may I call you Antoine? We don’t want to hurt your little girl. It’s a nuisance to even keep tabs on her, frankly.”
Victor studied Peter’s face, wondering if Peter really did have someone watching Latisha.
“Bastard,” Graves muttered, spitting on the ground.
“We’re not interested in you,” Peter continued. “You’re a small fish—we’re after the big ones.”
“And then you’ll let me go, right? I give you a name and I go free?”
“Of course. Unless you’d like to go back to talking about your daughter?”
Graves straightened, glancing at Victor and then back to Peter again. “I can do better than that. I can give you the whole board of directors—every last name.”
Chapter 50
Peter handed Graves a pad of paper and a pen.
Graves shook his head. “You think I’m a fool? If I write tho
se names down, I’m a dead man.”
Peter shrugged. “Maybe. But if you don’t write those names down, you’re certainly a dead man.”
“Listen to me,” Graves pleaded. “I have manpower, influence. We can go after them together. Think of it like a contract you’re giving me, only this one’s free. You give me the names, I take them out.”
“Just like that?” Peter asked.
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