The Hades Factor c-1

by Robert Ludlum

  “So he fashioned this message from allusions the three of you would understand but with any luck they wouldn't.” She crouched next to him. “Okay, I'm hooked. Translate it.”

  “The first two things are obvious: Marty and Peter were `attacked,' and had to `separate.' But Marty `stayed home.' That is, he's in the RV someplace and may still not know where Peter is.”

  “Clear as a bell,” she said with more than a little sarcasm. “So where are Mr. Zellerbach and the RV?”

  “In Syracuse, New York, of course.”

  She frowned. “Enlighten me.”

  “ `Hart's erroneous comedy.' ”

  “That tells you he's in Syracuse?”

  “Absolutely. Rogers and Hart's Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse was based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. So, Marty's in the RV somewhere in or near Syracuse.”

  “And `five ways east?' ”

  “Ah! That was particularly clever of him. I'll bet we'll find him on some kind of Highway `five' on the `east' side leading into Syracuse.”

  She was doubtful. “I'll believe it when I see it.”

  They had landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington and caught a ride over to Dulles, where they had eaten breakfast and bought new clothes ― simple dark trousers, turtlenecks, and jackets. They had discarded what they had worn in Baghdad and boarded a commercial flight for Syracuse. They had been watchful the entire morning, their gazes never ceasing to look for anyone too curious. For Jon, the entire trip had been one of fighting off tension between the two of them. He was getting over the shock of looking at Randi and thinking for a moment she was Sophia. But still, the fact was unchangeable: The face, voice, and body were so close that it kept his pain simmering. He was amazed that they worked together as well as they did, and he was grateful for her help in getting him out of Iraq and back into the United States.

  A half-hour ago they had landed at Hancock International Airport northeast of Syracuse, where Randi had rented the Oldsmobile Cutlass.

  Now they were on Route 5 ― there was no Interstate 5 ― watching both sides of the road as they skirted the city.

  “ `Colored lake green,' ” he read. “Something on this highway refers to the color green, and it involves a lake. A landmark. Maybe a motel.”

  “If you've interpreted the gibberish right,” Randi pointed out, “we could pass something like that a hundred times and not notice.”

  He shook his head. “I'll know. Marty wouldn't give us anything that hard to figure out once we'd gotten this far. Keep driving.”

  They cruised through the suburb of Fayetteville, still searching for the final references in the message. They were growing discouraged. They passed country clubs, malls, car dealerships, used-car lots, and all the other satellite businesses of the citified suburb that had once been a country town. Nothing rang a bell.

  Suddenly Jon froze. Then his arm shot out and he pointed. “There!” On their left was a pole sign at the entrance to a large park: GREEN LAKES STATE PARK. “Both `lake' and `green.' ” His voice was excited. “The message says `or thereabouts,' so he's got to be holed up somewhere nearby.”

  Randi's gaze was on the traffic as she expertly moved from lane to lane so they could keep their slower speed without interfering with the flow. “Looks as if you've been right so far. Let's see if I can help. Okay, now it refers to a letter that's been stolen and the message is signed `Edgar A.' ” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “What strikes me is Edgar Allan Poe's `The Purloined Letter.' Does that help?”

  Jon was staring off into the distance, trying to put himself in Marty's place. Marty was an electronics wizard, but he also enjoyed arcane information and trivia. “That's it! So where's a missing letter best hidden? In a letter rack, of course, with other letters where no one will notice. The best place to hide something is in plain sight.”

  “Then your friend is saying he's hidden where we can see him. What the hell does that mean?”

  “He's talking about the RV, not about himself. Turn the car and go back the way we came.”

  Annoyed at his bossiness, Randi pulled off into a side street, Uturned, and spun back onto the road toward Syracuse itself. “Did you see something earlier?”

  Smith's blue eyes were alight. “Remember those car dealerships lining the road on the other side of Fayetteville? I think one of them was an RV lot.”

  Randi began to laugh. “That's just dumb enough to be where he is.”

  Watching carefully, they drove through Fayetteville once more. The city seemed longer, more chaotic. Jon was getting impatient.

  Then he saw it. “That's it. On the right.” His voice was compressed excitement.

  She said, “I see it.”

  Ahead spread a mammoth lot crammed with a variety of recreational vehicles, new and used. Sunlight played across them, and the metallic vehicles glowed. There was no showroom, only a wood-sided sales office where a man wearing sunglasses and a polyester suit sat in a lawn chair in front, reading a newspaper.

  “Doesn't look busy. That could be a break for us.” Randi drove past, turned the corner, and parked in the shade of a large flaming maple.

  Jon decided, “We'd better scout it on foot to be safe.”

  They walked back, alert for surveillance. Cars and trucks continued along the busy road. No one sat inside parked vehicles. The few pedestrians strode past without paying much attention. No one leaned against the buildings across the street, pretending to be waiting for someone while in reality they were on watch. From where they walked, they could see the man sitting in front of the sales office. About forty feet distant, he turned the page of his paper, engrossed.

  Everything appeared normal.

  Jon and Randi exchanged a look and quietly stepped over a loose chain that fenced the lot. They slipped between two RVs and searched the packed area. They sped past row after row of campers, trailers, and RVs. Smith was beginning to think he had been wrong, that this was not where Marty had gone to ground. Finally they reached the last line of vehicles, which backed up to a stand of sycamores, maples, and oaks. A breeze rustled through the woods, disturbing the mounds of colored leaves that had already fallen.

  “Jesus.” He let out a long, shocked breath. “There it is.” Peter's RV was at the very back among a long row of dusty used vehicles that appeared to have been for sale a long time. Its metal sides had been ripped up by what had to have been gunfire, and several of its windows were shot out.

  “Wow.” Randi took a deep breath. “What happened to it?”

  Jon shook his head worriedly. “Doesn't look good.”

  No one was in sight. They split up, and, weapons in hand, reconnoitered. When they saw nothing suspicious even in the woods, they approached the trashed vehicle.

  “I don't hear anything inside,” Randi whispered.

  “Maybe Mart's sleeping.”

  He reached to try the door, and it opened in his hand as if it had been closed so hurriedly that the latch had failed to catch.

  They jumped back, their weapons ready. The door swung back and forth in eerie silence. No one appeared. After another minute, Smith climbed up into the living room. Behind him, Randi aimed her mini-Uzi around the interior, her fierce black gaze sweeping it.

  Jon called softly, “Mart? Peter?”

  There was no answer.

  Jon padded forward across the cramped interior. Randi, her back to him, advanced in the other direction toward the driver's cab. A box of Cheerios, Marty's favorite dry cereal, stood beside a bowl on the kitchen table. The spoon was still in the bowl, as was a puddle of congealing milk. One bunk had been slept in. It was a jumble of sheets and blankets. The computer was on, but opened only to the desktop, and the bathroom was empty.

  Randi returned. “No one up front.”

  “No one anywhere,” Jon said. “But Marty was here not long ago.” He shook his head. “I don't like it. He hates to go out in public or to risk contact with strangers. Where could he have gone? And why
?”

  “What about your other friend? The MI6 person?”

  “Peter Howell. No sign of him either.”

  They studied the silence and emptiness. There was a sense of abandonment. Jon was at a loss and very worried about Marty and Peter.

  Randi was peering at the interior, at the bullet holes that had eaten up sections of the walls and destroyed some of the hanging maps. “There was one hell of a battle, from the looks of it.”

  He nodded. “My guess is Peter must have had armor sheeting built in under the RV's metal skin. Look at where the shots landed. The only way the bullets got inside was through the windows.”

  “And the fire fight obviously wasn't here. We'd have seen signs outside.”

  “Agreed. Marty, Peter, or both escaped in the RV and were hiding out here.”

  “We'd better search more thoroughly.”

  Jon sat at the computer to look for what Marty had been working on, but Marty had applied some kind of password that blocked him. For a half hour he tried to break through. He keyed in the name of Marty's street in Washington, his birth date, the names of his parents, the name of the street where he had grown up, their elementary school. They were all traditional sources for passwords, and Marty had probably used them in the past. But not now.

  Smith was shaking his head in discouragement when Randi called out. He turned quickly.

  “Look! Now we know who has the serum!”

  She was sitting on the small sofa, all long legs and blond dishevelment. As she leaned forward, her blond curls fell toward her eyes, and her pink lips were pursed in thought. He could see her long dark lashes even across the room. Her twill trousers had pulled up a little, and her slender ankles showed above her tennis shoes. Her breasts were outlined high and round under her tight white turtleneck. She was beautiful. With the intense expression on her face, she looked so like Sophia, and for a moment he regretted agreeing to work with her.

  Then he pushed it all away. He knew he had made the right decision, and they had to get on with it. “What have you got?”

  She had been going through the piles on the coffee table. She held up a copy of The New York Times so he could see the front-page banner headline:

  BLANCHARD PHARMACEUTICALS HAS CURE

  He crossed the room in three long steps. “I recognize the company name. What does the article say?”

  She read aloud:

  At a special press conference last night, President Castilla announced that preliminary tests showed a new serum had cured a dozen victims of the unknown virus that is sweeping the world.

  Originally developed to cure a monkey virus found in a remote area of Peru, the serum was the result of a decade-long research-and-development program into little-known viruses at Blanchard Pharmaceuticals that was initiated by its CEO and chairman, Victor Tremont.

  "We are grateful for the foresight Dr. Tremont and Blanchard showed in investigating unknown viruses," the president said last night. "With their serum, we are optimistic we will be able to save many lives and stop this terrible epidemic."

  Twelve nations have placed orders for the serum and others are expected to make formal requests shortly.

  President Castilla said he would attend a ceremony at 5:00 P.M. today honoring Tremont and Blanchard at the company's headquarters in Long Lake.

  The ceremony will be broadcast around the world….

  Jon and Randi stared at each other.

  “The article says it was a decade-long project,” he said.

  “You're thinking about Desert Storm.”

  “You bet I am,” he said angrily. “Nineteen ninety-one. Maybe they had nothing to do with infecting the twelve victims. This is a monkey virus, and we can't be sure it's the same virus that we've been working on, even though the serum apparently cures it. But I've got to wonder. Now they come forward with a serum? Very convenient.”

  “Too convenient,” she agreed. “Especially since we know three were cured last year in Iraq and three here just last week. But as far as we know, it's a different virus.”

  “Suspicious as hell.”

  She said, “You don't believe it's a different virus.”

  “As a scientist, it's such a remote possibility that the only alternative that comes to mind is some madman from the company stole it and decided to play God. Or Satan, if you will.”

  “But how did the epidemic break out? Awfully good timing that Blanchard happens to have a serum that works on monkeys and apparently on people. How could Blanchard or anyone know it'd break out now, or ever?”

  He grimaced. “I've been wondering the same thing.”

  They stared at each other in silence.

  That was when they heard a faint sound behind the RV. A twig snapped.

  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 m
oment.”

  “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.”