The Hades Factor c-1
Page 26
Inside, Tremont seethed with rage. What the hell was she doing? She knew damned well the serum wasn't 100 percent effective ― no serum or vaccine was. He had this contingency covered, yes, but she didn't know that. Outwardly he continued to nod. “She's right, of course. That'd be best. But taking the time to compare viruses would be an unnecessary delay. I assure you I'm quite willing to be infected with the real virus. Our serum will cure it. I'm certain.”
“No.” The surgeon general slapped his knees in disagreement. “There's no way we can let you do that. But the families of the victims are already clamoring to be helped, so it makes more sense to ask them if they'd be willing to let their sick relatives try it. That way we'll find out what we need to know and maybe save a doomed life, too. Meanwhile, I'll have Detrick and the CDC compare the viruses.”
Petrelli objected, “The FDA will never approve.”
Oxnard countered, “They will if the president tells them to.”
“The director would probably resign first.”
“That's possible. But if the president wants the serum tested, it will be.”
Nancy Petrelli appeared to think about this. “I'm still against using the serum without the usual series of thorough tests. However, if we're going to go ahead, then it does make more sense to try to save someone who's already sick.”
The surgeon general stood up. “We'll call the president and present both suggestions. The sooner we start, the more lives we'll have a chance to save.” He turned to Victor Tremont. “Where can we phone in private?”
“I have a line in the conference room. Through that door.” Tremont nodded to a door in the right wall of his office.
“Nancy?” Jesse Oxnard asked.
“You make the call. No need for both of us. Tell him I concur in everything.”
As the surgeon general hurried out and closed the door, Victor Tremont swiveled in his chair to bestow a cold smile on the Health and Human Services secretary. “Covering your ass at my expense, Nancy?”
“Giving Jesse the negative to work against,” Nancy Petrelli shot back. “We agreed I'd do the nay-saying, so he focuses on the positive, the advantages.”
Tremont's tones gave no indication of his anger. “And a really good job it was, too. But, I think, more than a little self-protection, too.”
Petrelli bowed to him. “I learned from a master.”
“Thank you. But it does show a shocking lack of faith in me.”
She allowed herself a curt smile. “No, only in the vagaries of chance, Victor. No one has ever found a way to outwit chance.”
With that thought, Tremont nodded. “True. We do our best, don't we? Cover all possible contingencies. For example, I would insist we conduct the tests, and I assure you the virus would be harmless before it reached me. But there's always that little residue of chance left, isn't there. A risk for me.”
“There's risk for all of us in this project, Victor.”
Where the discussion would have taken them, Nancy Petrelli never found out. At that moment the door from the conference room opened, and Surgeon General Oxnard reentered the room, a great bear of a man with a relieved smile.
He said, “The president says he'll talk to FDA, but meanwhile we're to start looking for volunteers among the victims. The president is optimistic. One way or the other, we're going to test this serum and beat back this godawful virus.”
* * *
Victor Tremont laughed long and loud. Yes! He had done it. They were all going to be rich, and it was only the beginning. At his desk, he smoked his Cuban cigar, drank his single-malt scotch, and rocked with laughter in private celebration. Until his cell phone rang in the bottom drawer.
He yanked open the drawer and snatched up the phone. “Nadal?”
There was a brief delay of wireless phoning from a long distance. Then there was the self-satisfied voice: “We have located Jon Smith.”
This was proving to be his day. “Where?”
“Iraq.”
Momentary doubt assaulted Tremont. “How did he ever get inside Iraq?”
“Perhaps the Englishman from the Sierras. I have found it impossible to learn anything about him. There is no certainty Howell is his correct name any more than Romanov. That leads me to believe he has much he wishes to be unknown.”
Tremont nodded angrily. “Probably MI6. How did you locate Smith?”
“One of my contacts ― a Dr. Kamil. I assumed Smith would be trying to find our test cases, so I alerted all the doctors I knew. Not that many are practicing now in Baghdad. Kamil reported Smith wants to know about the survivors as well.”
“Damn! He can't be allowed to find that.”
“If he does, it will not matter. He will never leave Iraq.”
“He got in.”
“He did not then have Saddam's police and the Republican Guards looking for him. Once they know the American intruder is there, they will seal their borders and hunt him down. If they do not kill him, we shall.”
“Dammit, Nadal, make sure you do this time!” Tremont snarled, and remembered their other problem. “What about Bill Griffin? Where is he?”
Already humbled by Tremont's anger, al-Hassan's face grew stonier. “We are watching everywhere Jon Smith has been, but Griffin appears to have vanished from the earth.”
“That's just perfect!” In a rage he punched the cell phone's off button and glared unseeing across the office.
Then the day's triumphs returned to make him smile. No matter what Jon Smith found in Iraq, and despite Griffin, the Hades Project was going forward according to plan. He sipped his whiskey and his smile broadened. Even the president was on board now.
10:02 A.M., Fort Irwin,
Barstow, California
The man had followed Bill Griffin's rented Toyota pickup from Fort Irwin. He stayed at a safe distance, never too close or too far back, on the two-lane road and then on Interstate 15. He was waiting for him to land somewhere relatively permanent. A place where Griffin would return and where he would sleep. Griffin knew the man would have followed him all the way to Los Angeles if necessary until he was certain Griffin would remain in one place long enough for backup to arrive.
Now from behind the curtains of the Barstow motel room, Griffin saw the man get out of his Land Rover and head toward the motel office. An ordinary man in a nondescript brown suit and open-necked shirt. Griffin had never seen him before. He would have been surprised if he had. Still, he recognized the almost imperceptible bulge of a pistol under the man's suit coat. The man would check whether Griffin ― or whatever name the customer in unit 107 was using ― was registered for the night. Then he would make his phone call.
Griffin grabbed one of the motel's bath towels. He raised the rear window, climbed out, and circled behind the units to where he could see into the office. His stalker was showing a fake badge or official ID to the motel clerk. The clerk studied the register, nodded, and turned the register so his questioner could view it.
Griffin trotted to the man's Land Rover and slipped into the backseat of the high vehicle, crouched down, and waited. Quick footsteps hurried to the Rover, and the front door jerked open.
As it slammed shut, Griffin raised up, a silenced Walther PPK 6.35mm in his right hand, the bath towel in the other.
The man was dialing his car phone.
In a single motion, Griffin dropped the towel around the man's head and fired once. The man's head snapped back. With the towel Griffin caught most of the blood and brain matter. He quietly lowered the slumped body. Sweating, he got out, pushed the body into the passenger seat, and climbed behind the wheel.
Far out in the desert, he buried his stalker. Then he drove back into Barstow and left the car locked on a side street. Tired and angry, he walked to his motel, checked out, and drove toward Interstate 15. At Fort Irwin he had learned that Jon Smith had been interested in Tremont's “government scientists” and Major Anderson's service in Iraq during Desert Storm. When he reached Interstate 15, he turned
the pickup toward Los Angeles and its international airport. He had decisions to make, and the best place to do that was on the East Coast.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
8:02 P.M.
Baghdad
The bent woman in the black abaya was a block away from the used-tire shop when she heard the first fusillade. She paused next to an old man who sat cross-legged on the street, his palm outstretched as he begged. She gazed down at him with empty eyes, while her brain assured her she was not required to return to the shop to find out what the shooting meant.
But then she heard the explosive blasts of gunfire again.
When she had left the shop, her mission was over. She had made certain the undercover American doctor had made contact. At that point, she left, as she was supposed to. An armed attack had not been part of the plan. Nor had the man who had turned out to be the undercover doctor. She tensed. She might be many things, but one thing she was not was cavalier with her orders. She took tremendous pride in her work. She was thorough, responsible, and utterly reliable.
She looked down at the Iraqi beggar once more. She dropped dinars onto his palm. Her long abaya flapping around her legs, she moved as swiftly as her bent shape allowed back toward the tire shop.
* * *
In the Baghdad alley, the dark shadows were the only protection for Smith, the woman, and the baby. He pulled them close against the shack, which prevented them from being seen easily. The gunfire inside drowned out normal city sounds, but still Jon listened and watched. Through the gloom, he studied both ends of the alley. He could just make out what appeared to be a dozen Republican Guards. They were approaching carefully, their weapons first. They moved with certainty and stealth, Saddam Hussein's prized killers.
Still, he gave the woman a reassuring smile as she gazed anxiously up at him in the moonlight. “Be right back,” he whispered. He knew she would not understand, but perhaps the sound of a human voice would help her to maintain her equilibrium as she cradled the baby protectively to her chest.
His pulse throbbing at his temples, Jon rolled to the left and pulled on the first door latch. Locked. Then the second. Locked again.
The Republican Guards drew closer.
He reversed course and slid past the woman. He tried a third door. Also locked.
Frustrated and worried, he drew her away from the tire shop to the building next door and tugged on her arm until she crouched beside him, low against the wall where it met the old stones of the alley. He wanted them to be small targets. He could see nothing else he could do ― he was going to have to fight their way out.
His chest tight, he gripped his Beretta and continued to watch the stealthy shadows draw closer. Sweat gathered under his clothes despite the cool night air. The gunfire inside the tire shop had stopped. For a moment he thought about Ghassan and hoped he had survived; then he wiped away all thoughts of anything but the danger in the alley.
He concentrated. The only sound was the rhythmic pad of the soldiers' feet as they approached. He breathed deeply, keeping himself calm. He remembered Jerzy Domalewski's warning that it was better to shoot and risk death than be caught alive with the gun. He had to make every shot count, because it was not only his life at risk but the woman and child's, too. He would open fire as soon as the killers were close enough to make it impossible to miss. He needed to hit as many as possible, as quickly as possible.
He wished fervently he had more than his pistol as they closed in. He raised the Beretta. At just that moment, the baby let out a wail, instantly followed by a series of piercing cries. The sounds reverberated along the alley as the woman tried vainly to quiet the child.
Now the Guardsmen knew where they were. Smith's chest tightened into a knot. Instantly bullets bit into the wall. Wood splinters shot out, sharp as needles. The woman lifted her head, her eyes white with fear. As the baby screamed, Smith slid in front of them, firing left and right at the soldiers in the shadowy night alley.
Suddenly a voice snarled, “Get ready. Don't move until I tell you!” It was a woman's voice speaking in American English, and it came from the tire shop's rear entrance, where the bullet-riddled door hung half open on one hinge.
Before Jon could react, a long black abaya flowed out the doorway and into the gloom, immediately followed by two pale hands with short, blunt fingernails expertly clutching an Uzi submachine gun. The featureless woman balanced the weapon back against her bent body with impressive ease. She squeezed the trigger and sprayed the Republican Guardsmen in both directions.
As the woman turned left to concentrate fire, Jon stayed low on his heels so he was beneath her bullets and still protecting the Iraqi woman and baby. While she was left, he wheeled right and picked off two of the thugs with his Beretta as they raced across the alley. When she turned right, he aimed left. By rotating their fire from one end of the alley to the other, in five minutes all the attackers had gone to ground ― dead, wounded, or just saving their hides. Shocked grunts and cries echoed along the dark passage. But there was no more sound of feet and no significant movement.
The abaya-clad woman barked, “Inside! Both of you.”
Jon felt a jolt. There was something oddly familiar about the woman s voice.
But that would have to wait. He pulled the woman with the baby back inside the tire storage room, and they ran after the bent woman as she limped past the tattered curtain and into the front, where blood had splattered the walls and pooled on the floor. There Ghassan and four Guardsmen lay dead against opposite walls. The metallic scents of blood and death stank the air. Jon's throat tightened. Ghassan must have killed the four soldiers before dying of a mortal wound to the chest.
“Ghassan!” The Iraqi woman gasped.
The woman in the abaya spoke rapid Arabic to the woman with the baby as she swiftly pulled off the pushi and abaya. Asking questions, she removed the harness that had kept her bent over. With relief, she straightened to her full five feet nine inches. Jon watched, fighting shock, as she adjusted the U.N. armband on her tweed jacket, smoothed her gray skirt, and stuffed the pushi and abaya into a compartment hidden under the false bottom of her gym bag. She had accomplished her transformation in less than a minute, at the same time carrying on a conversation with the woman.
But that was not what had frozen Jon. It was the disguised woman's appearance.
She had the same striking gold hair as Sophia's, although it was short and curled around her ears. She had the identical curved, sexy lips, the straight nose, the firm chin, the glowing porcelain skin, and the dusky come-hither look to her black eyes, although right now her gaze was hard and bright as she seemed to be asking the Iraqi woman a final question. It was Sophia's sister, Randi.
Smith inhaled sharply. “Christ, what are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass!” Randi Russell snapped without even looking at him.
Jon barely heard her. His heart felt as if it were breaking all over again. He had not remembered how much the two sisters had looked alike. Studying Randi now made his skin crawl, but at the same time he could not tear his gaze away. He held on to the shop counter and felt his heart rage. He blinked. He had to get over this quickly.
Her final question answered by the woman with the child, Randi Russell turned on Smith. Her face was cool marble. Not at all the face of Sophia. “The Guards' backups will be here any minute. We're going out the front. That's the most dangerous part, but it's safer than the alley. She knows the back streets better than I, so she'll lead. Keep your Beretta hidden but handy. I'll bring up the rear. They'll be looking for one European man and two Iraqi women, one wearing an abaya.”
Jon forced himself back to the present. He understood. “The survivors in the alley will report us.”
“Exactly. They'll describe what they saw. Let's hope my change of appearance will confuse the new team enough to hesitate. They hate Europeans, but they don't want an international incident, either.”
Jon nodded. He felt his cool reserve return.
“They're looking for us,” Jon growled.
“Let's go!” Randi said.
The woman carrying the infant hurried off, and within twenty feet slipped into a space between buildings so constricted one person could barely fit. Spiderwebs caught at his face as Jon ran along the narrow passage behind her. Alert and on edge, Beretta ready, he glanced back frequently at Randi to make certain she was all right.
At last they reached the end and stepped out onto another thoroughfare. Randi hid her Uzi back inside her gym bag, and Smith slid his Beretta beneath his jacket and into his waistband. The woman and child stayed ahead, while Jon and Randi strode along together, following at a discrete distance. It was natural ― two European U.N. workers out for the evening. But it left Jon with a queasy feeling, as if the past had just slammed into the present and left him aching and forlorn. He kept pushing back the pain of Sophia's death.
Randi growled, “What in hell are you doing in Baghdad, Jon?”
He grimaced. The same old Randi, as subtle and understanding as a cobra. “Same as you, obviously. Working.”
“Working?” Her blond eyebrows raised. “On what? I haven't heard of any sick American soldiers here for you to kill.”
He said, “There seem to be CIA agents here, though. Now I know why you're never at home or at your `international think tank.' ”
Randi glared. “You still haven't said why you're in Baghdad. Does the army know, or are you off on another of your personal crusades?”
He spoke a half-lie: “There's a new virus we're working on at USAMRIID. It's a killer. I've had reports of cases like it in Iraq.”