by Jack Slater
He focused his attention back on the lieutenant, who was shifting his weight anxiously from foot to foot. “Well?”
“No cameras,” the man said. “At least, not that he knows of.”
Trapp surveyed the two terrified-looking North Korean soldiers briefly, wondering if he had any more use for them, or whether they would simply get in his way. He realized that by pressing them into service, he might well have signed their death warrants—at best.
And yet, he had no other choice. There was simply too much at stake. He chewed his lip, then made his decision. If the two men paid the ultimate price, he would have to bear their lives on his conscience too. But right now, he needed to operate with complete freedom—and he couldn’t do that with the pair of them tagging along.
There was a door about ten yards further down the hallway. He pointed at it. “What’s in there?”
The lieutenant relayed his question, and turned back with the answer, a questioning look on his face. “Just a storage closet. Why?”
“Perfect,” Trapp grinned. He gestured with the barrel of his pistol. “Move.”
The two men did as instructed, shuffling slowly down the anodyne hallway. The closet was tiny, barely large enough to fit the three of them standing. Cleaning and maintenance supplies with unfamiliar, Korean labels were stacked on shelves that ran around the closet’s walls. Trapp rifled through several boxes until he found what he was looking for—a long line of electrical cord. He sliced several long lengths of it, and gestured toward the ground. “Both of you, on your asses.”
The prisoners did as they were ordered, but the lieutenant’s hand glanced out and grasped Trapp’s wrist, looking up at his captor with a pleading expression. It was the only thing that saved him from Trapp’s immediate instinct to strike back—and hard. Although it turned out that was exactly what he wanted.
“Hit me,” he moaned. “You promised.”
Trapp winced.
He had no desire to beat a helpless man.
It went against everything he stood for—a thumb in the eye of the moral compass that had guided him for so long. But, he realized, it was the only way. He might very well be condemning these two men to a horrible, painful death. The least he could do was give them a fighting chance. He grimaced, and handed each of them a cleaning rag.
As they stuffed them into their mouths, Trapp bound the two men efficiently, back to back. Unless either of his prisoners was a cousin of Harry Houdini, there would be no escaping these restraints.
Finally, he gagged the two men, aware that every second he lingered, his chances of detection increased measurably. He stood, took a deep breath, then wound his arm back and broke the lieutenant’s nose.
The stifled sound of the man’s cries of pain pulled him up short. But Trapp bit back on his disgust and hit the man again, not with the full power his enormous bulk could have generated, but enough to leave a mark on his eye that would last weeks.
Eventually, the lieutenant fell silent. Through it all, the sentry looked up at Trapp with an impassive expression—the look of a man who had seen, and lived, a life of such deprivation that even Trapp could scarcely imagine such horror.
The act of brutalizing the young man too physically sickened Trapp. But he had to do it. It was the only way. When he was done, the gaunt conscript slumped over, but not before casting Trapp one last look. In a way, the emotion it conveyed was almost worse.
Gratitude.
The door to the closet had no lock, but as Trapp closed it behind him, he figured it was unlikely that anyone would succumb to the desire to do some cleaning at this time of night. It was more likely that an alarm would be raised by the discovery of the body he’d left in his wake, or the absence of the sentry outside the warehouse.
Either way, it was as good a shot as he was going to get.
He prowled the hallway, pressing himself against the walls as he rounded corners. There was little signage, as far as he could tell, though what there was, he could not read anyway. In the end, it was more by luck than design that he stumbled across the observation deck.
The door was open—the first he’d come across like that, and it naturally drew his attention. Once he entered the room, leading with his pistol, he wished he hadn’t.
The scene in the room below was carnage.
Nine beds, like the ones he’d slept on back in boot camp all those years before, were squashed into a room which would best fit half that number. Five of the beds were occupied, three by women, two by men—all of Asian extraction.
There was blood everywhere, and Trapp was pretty sure that the occupants of at least two of the camp beds were already dead.
Dear Lord.
Trapp wasn’t as religious as he had once been. In his line of work, and with the horrific nature of his early childhood, it was sometimes hard for him to see God’s hand at work. But in that moment, he offered up a prayer for the souls of the poor individuals in the room below him.
He could not see how those that were still alive could possibly remain that way for long, and judging by the grisly sight in front of him, the two that had already perished must have died in excruciating pain.
Trapp stood, slack-jawed, in front of the polished observation window, almost losing track of time as his brain attempted to process the sight in front of him. It looked like something out of a Nazi death camp—a twisted tribute act to Dr. Mengele’s foul experiments.
He almost didn’t want to move, in case those poor individuals dying beneath him might look up and think that he was responsible for the pain.
And then he saw something altogether more shocking.
One of the patients moved, uncoiling from her fetal position. Her dark hair fell away from her face, and she looked directly up at the observation deck. Her slate-gray eyes met his gaze. And Trapp’s mouth fell open with horror.
It was Ikeda.
45
Ikeda’s eyes widened with shock, the scale of which seemed to match Trapp’s mounting revulsion. She blinked several times, as though she could not understand how he could possibly be on the other side of that glass, as though she was second-guessing her own sanity.
Trapp pressed his palm against the polished barrier, and in that moment he felt a tenderness that he had rarely experienced before. He knew that he would do whatever it took to free Ikeda from her tormented prison, even if it cost him his life.
He glanced to the left and saw a speaker box against the wall. A feeling of joy danced inside him as he realized that he would be able to talk to this woman who he barely knew—and yet who he had grown to care for so deeply. Trapp started toward it, catching himself at the last moment, his finger hovering over the button, as he saw the stifled shaking of Eliza’s head, and the silent of dismay in her eyes.
What the hell?
And then he realized. His eyes danced upward, and he saw the camera dome that decorated the ceiling of Eliza’s prison. She had stopped him just in time.
He dropped his hand and Ikeda sagged with relief. She nodded her head forward slightly, as if to say, thank you.
He felt sick that she would think of something like that, when she was in there, infected with a deadly, malevolent disease, and he was safe. She had just saved his life, and yet she was the one that was grateful.
Trapp grimaced, his mind desperately searching for a way out of this predicament. He had come so far only to find Ikeda, her face cut and bruised—a reminder of the unimaginable torment she must have been through, in a state that even at his worst, Trapp could not have imagined.
He had been prepared to find her broken body, and had long ago resolved that whatever it took, he would return her home. He had been prepared to find her battered, broken, and clinging to life.
But he hadn’t been prepared for this.
A surge of anger plodded through his body, hot rage flushing his cheeks, his fingers curling into white-knuckled fists. Through his childhood, Jason Trapp had seen his father lose control hundreds of times, giving
in to the drink and the rage that swelled within his breast, and he had vowed he would never become that man. His entire life, he had forced himself to live within a tight bound of emotional control.
But right then, he wanted to find whoever had put Ikeda into that box and beat him into a bloodied pulp.
Seconds later, Trapp realized that his eyes were closed. He opened them to find Ikeda looking up at him imploringly and bit down on the rage, feeling only shame that she was handling this so well, and he was not. He bowed his head with apology, but—with little more than a flicker of her eyes—she batted it away.
She began to tap against her breastbone, causing Trapp’s forehead to wrinkle in a frown.
Light, light, hard, light.
Light, light.
Hard, light.
Hard, light, light.
And then it struck him, a flash of lightning burning away the confusion. Hiding her actions from the camera above, looking like she was simply trembling, Ikeda was signaling to him in Morse code. Trapp kept watching, and she kept tapping, until her message was complete.
And her message was simple: Find the scientist.
46
Trapp stormed into Boris Savrasov’s office with ice in his veins and fire in his heart. He led with his pistol, opening and closing the door silently behind him.
His respect for Eliza Ikeda had only grown as he’d watched the impressive operative signal the correct directions painstakingly against her breastbone. Even after all she had been through, horrors that Trapp could not even bring himself to imagine, she had remained strong. And not just strong, but prepared.
Even if she could not execute it herself, she had a plan. And it was time to go to work.
Trapp didn’t know who the scientist was, or what role he had played in this foul business. But he intended to find out.
The man, it turned out, was chubby and balding, and presently curled up on a narrow cot in the corner of the office. He was asleep.
At least, he was until Trapp pressed the barrel of his pistol against the man’s temple and growled in his ear. “Wakey wakey, motherfucker.”
It was a corny movie line, but Trapp didn’t care. He was in no mood to be messed around with, and he wanted the man scared to all hell. He placed the full weight of one knee on the scientist’s chest, preventing him from rising.
The scientist jerked awake, eyes opening and staring directly up at Trapp’s own, wide with shock. “Who —?”
Trapp moved the muzzle of his pistol, pushing it into the man’s mouth and through his teeth until the barrel was half way down his throat. The scientist gagged, tears stinging his eyes and leaking down his cheeks, a retching sound filling the air.
“I ask the questions,” Trapp spat with disgust.
He did not know how the individual beneath him had become involved in the plot that had reached out and ensnared Ikeda in its web. But he knew one thing: anyone with a moral compass skewed enough to stand idly by and watch the things that were happening in that room didn’t deserve to be treated with kid gloves. “You speak English?”
By now, that much was evident. But the scientist nodded anyway.
“Good,” Trapp said. “If you make a fucking sound, you die. Understood?”
Another nod.
Trapp withdrew the barrel of his pistol from the scientist’s mouth and wiped the saliva on his chest. The man trembled with fear as he stared up at the CIA operative’s impassive expression. He was right to. In that moment, Trapp did not care whether the scientist lived or died. He was here to get answers, and he had no intention of leaving without them.
Whatever it took.
“What’s your name?”
“Boris,” the scientist replied, his accented voice trembling as he spoke. “Boris Savrasov.”
“Okay, Boris. Why don’t you start by telling me the good news?”
“What good news?” Boris ventured, his face knotted with confusion.
“That you have a cure for whatever sick fucking virus you’re testing on those poor people.”
Boris’s eyes flickered closed, and for a second it appeared as though he was communing with a higher power. When he spoke, his voice cracked with fear. “There — there is no cure.”
Trapp’s heart plummeted fifty stories in an instant. He pictured Ikeda’s tired smile as she looked up from inside that bloodied room. How could he face her again, knowing that she was destined to suffer a fate more painful than anyone should have to endure?
He pressed the barrel of the pistol against Savrasov’s forehead, ramming the weapon forward until the Russian’s head could not move against the cot beneath him. “That’s not the answer I was looking for, Boris,” he growled. “So why don’t you try that again?”
For a second time, tears bloomed in Savrasov’s eyes. He sagged back against the bed, the life draining from his eyes. “Please,” he whimpered. “Just kill me. I deserve it. Either you do it, or I will.”
Trapp’s finger tightened on the trigger. Another half ounce of pressure is all it would take for a round to exit the barrel and blow Savrasov’s brains out. The man’s gray matter would spatter the stained white sheets beneath him, and the sound would warn anyone within hearing range that someone had breached the camp’s defenses.
But it would be worth it.
This man had sentenced Ikeda to die.
Shouldn’t he meet the same fate?
The two men remained locked in that dark embrace, the silence punctuated only by Savrasov’s heavy breathing, and Trapp’s teeth slowly grinding in his jaw.
Finally, Trapp relinquished the pressure and staggered backward. He kept the weapon trained on Savrasov, but there was little need—the man was patently broken. He posed no threat. He just lay there, shivering, silent tears streaming down his exhausted face.
“I can’t let you die, Boris,” Trapp finally croaked. “At least, not yet.”
It took all of his self-control to resist the temptation to end the Russian’s life right there and then, but Jason Trapp knew that there was more at stake here than just Ikeda’s life. Even as he spoke the words, he pictured the bullet tearing through Boris’ skull. And yet he knew he would not pull the trigger.
“You’ve killed her,” he stated simply. “And I promise you, you will pay for that crime. But there are other lives on the line here. You can still save them.”
Savrasov’s reaction was not one that Trapp expected. He frowned as he spoke. “Killed who?”
Trapp didn’t want to humor the man with conversation. When he looked at Savrasov, he saw a murderer. And yet, at the same time, speaking Ikeda’s name felt like the right thing to do. Almost as though he was paying homage to one of the best people he had ever met.
“Eliza Ikeda,” he growled. “She’s still alive. But for how long, Boris?”
Savrasov shook his head violently. “No,” he croaked, his tongue tripping over the words in his eagerness to talk. “No—you don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“She’s immune. The colonel put her in that room to torture her, so that she was forced to listen to those men and women die. He wouldn’t give them painkillers, wouldn’t let me end their lives in peace, just so that she was forced to hear them scream. He wanted to break her!”
Savrasov’s words barely registered in Trapp’s mind. He heard them, but the meaning did not compute. “What are you talking about?”
“The virus,” Savrasov almost shouted, his expression manic. “It’s genetic. It only targets a specific genetic sequence, and the woman you call Ikeda, she is not a carrier. I promise you. She is not susceptible to the strain of Marburg that I created.”
Marburg.
Again, Savrasov’s words—or at least, one of them—hit Trapp like a sledgehammer. He knew that virus. It was one of the deadliest ever categorized by the Centers for Disease Control. So contagious, so deadly, that very few researchers were even authorized to study it. It was a word that carried so much weight that once uttered,
Trapp barely registered the rest of Boris’s sentence.
And that was what Ikeda had.
Even now, the virus cells were dwelling in her cells, turning them into breeding grounds, from where they would surge, infecting the rest of her body, liquefying her organs and flooding out of her from every pore, her blood turned into a vector for further transmission. An age old horror, playing out yet again to scar yet another generation.
But finally, Savrasov’s meaning became clear.
Trapp almost stumbled with shock. “Not…susceptible,” he repeated. “You’re saying she’ll live?”
Savrasov nodded, a sheen of sweat now visible on his forehead. “Exactly. She’s not sick, because she could never get sick.”
“But…” Trapp trailed off, picturing the charnel house of horrors Ikeda was currently lying in. “If she’s not the target, then who is?”
And at that moment, it became patently, horrifyingly clear. America’s citizens were not the objective for the North Korean bioweapon. China’s were.
“Why?” Trapp mouthed, stunned by the potential consequences of the virus getting loose. “It could kill millions…”
“Hundreds of millions,” Savrasov moaned. “More. It could wipe out the entire country. You need to stop it!”
Trapp thought fast. He didn’t yet see how all the pieces fit together. What game were the North Koreans playing? Why wipe out America’s satellites, blinding her, then release a weapon of mass murder into China’s cities, towns, schools and homes?
And then it hit him. The North Koreans weren’t trying to humble either America or China, at least not directly. Their goal was to pit the two superpowers against one another, to weaken and exhaust the two countries, like two heavyweights in a ring.
And the plan was horrifyingly close to working already. If this virus was released, it would be the final straw.
