The Ares Virus

by A P Bateman

  “About ten years ago I was part of a black ops project to create the perfect specialist skills operatives ...”

  “You mean assassins,” McCray interrupted. “Let's not put garnish on a stew. Say it how it is.”

  “OK,” Hardy paused. “If you insist. The quest to create these assassins was called Operation Janus. After the Greek God with two faces. See, like you, we liked our Greek mythology over at Langley too.”

  “Roman.”

  “What?”

  McCray smirked. “I’m pretty sure Janus was Roman. Transitional god. Hence the two faces. Please, continue.”

  “Dick,” Hardy stared at him. “Anyway, operation Janus was revolutionary. It used genetic reshaping of cells, advanced drug therapy, plastic surgery and extremely successful methods of deep trance hypnosis. The result was, to an extent, the perfect assassin. An untraceable, unidentifiable killing machine. The training was both physical and suggestive through hypnosis and all memories of failure were erased from their minds. All they knew was success. Under interrogation, they could reveal nothing, would have no memory of their training or whom they worked for. There were even sleeper words installed in the chasms of their memory, which when used, would send them on a quest of self-termination. Suicide, if you will. We connected an installation trigger to a telephone message, which the operative would ring if ever arrested. You know, everyone is entitled to at least one phone call; it just happened that they would cut their wrists or hang themselves with a bed sheet after they had their call.

  “They could be integrated into society and called upon when needed. The side effects of the treatment were negligible ... just headaches, but these were easily rectified by the application of painkillers. These painkillers were laced with a concoction of drugs which continued the passive hypnosis state, and were subsequently issued on a regular basis as part of the technical support given in the field.”

  “I can't believe what I'm hearing ...” McCray shook his head in bewilderment. “These assassins were still people. It's just that they were puppets and operating on remote control. They must have been like something out of the Living Dead. No life in them. Zombies. How the hell can you justify playing with people's lives like that?”

  “That's rich, from the guy heading a project to create a super virus as a covert weapon of terror and attrition. A random killer of men, women and children.” Hardy scoffed. “Anyway, it wasn't quite like that. They still led lives, just not the one they were born to, that's all.”

  “But what about Operation Janus?”

  “Folded. A bleeding heart congressman found out and threatened to announce it, unless it was shut down. He could have shouted his mouth off afterwards, but we happened to have a few things on him, or at least set him up just in time to silence him. Sex with a minor. Managed to convince him it would border on pedophilia, which wouldn't have looked too good, seeing as he was a devout Christian and all.”

  “But what happened to the assassins?”

  “Terminated.” Hardy shook his head. “Poor souls never stood a chance. Just ex-military boys who volunteered for something they knew nothing about. All without family and very few friends. They were rounded up one at a time and subdued by pre installed trigger sentences. They merely fell asleep, so that good old-fashioned hit man types could deal with them,” he paused. “Hell, I think they rather enjoyed it. Kept them employed on the farm, so to speak.”

  “Jesus Christ! What about. ..”

  “Yes. I managed to spare one,” Hardy mused. “At the time, it was simply a matter of self-preservation. Hell, for a decade after the Cold War the redundancy axe was falling all over the place. I thought I could use my little secret to maximum effect. And I have. Each time something dirty is needed doing, they get on me to oversee it. 'Oh Hardy will get it sorted ... No questions asked ... He’s the man to go to... ' Damned fucking right I am! I claim the funds as expenses, pay my boy off through his accounts, not that he sees any of the money, because he doesn't need to. He lives a hollow life, with an eggshell for a facade. His house is rented, he drives a flashy car, his clothes are new, his bank accounts are healthy, but they're not really his. What the fuck does he need money for? Hell, after each operation I just say a trigger word and shut him down. All he does then is eat, sleep and train for the next hit. He may think he went to California or Florida for a little R&R, but that's just what I tell him.”

  “And he's the one after Isobel Bartlett ...” McCray shook his head in disbelief at what he had just heard. “When will the job be done?”

  Hardy sipped some coffee and smirked. “When he gets it done,” he paused. “One thing's for sure though ... He won't stop until it's finished.”

  McCray looked distant, his eyes not really focusing on anything in particular. He sipped a little coffee and looked up at Hardy. “Then Isobel Bartlett is as good as dead...”

  THIRTY FOUR

  There were tears rolling gently down Isobel’s cheeks. They trickled slowly at first and then as the flow met the already dampening skin they gained in pace until each rivulet ran quicker than the one before. She made no sound. No thwarted intake of breath, no nasal sound and certainly nothing like a sob. Stone had not been aware that she had been crying beside him and probably wouldn’t have had he not glanced across at her for that brief moment.

  There was no fast-moving anonymous interstate in the region, but skirting Green Mountain National Forest was Highway Seven and as roads go it was almost as good. They had gained in altitude, were gaining continuously and outside the air had cooled considerably. It was dusk and Stone flipped from sidelights to headlights. Most of the approaching vehicles had done the same. He glanced across at her again, then reached behind his seat and fumbled for a moment and came back with a wad of tissues.

  “Here, take these,” he said.

  She accepted them and wiped her eyes with one of them. She bunched away the others, stuffing them into her pocket. “Thank you.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “What do you think?” Her tone was sarcastic, sardonic. “We need to go to the police or something. What about David Stein?”

  Stone knew what he should do. But he also knew that the FBI would see that the investigation of their fellow agent's killer would take priority over anything that he was working on. Their priorities would be conflicted and that would not be an acceptable compromise. He had a job to do and he was going to make damn sure that he continued to do it.

  He looked at her momentarily, struggling to take his eyes off the road for long. “I will report what happened back there,” he paused. “But for the time being, I'm more concerned for your safety.”

  “Bullshit!” she retorted venomously. “You're just concerned with finding the flash drives.”

  Stone shook his head. “Not true. If you can swear on your life that they're safe, I would rather they stay where they are. If what I hear is true about ARES, then I would rather they never turn up again. But decisions like that are not mine. Nor are they yours either.” She didn't reply, simply looked ahead towards the oncoming traffic.

  “Look, Isobel,” he reasoned, “I need the full breakdown of what happened back at the bioresearch facility. And I need to know how they got to you so quickly.”

  “How the hell should I know that?”

  “You contacted Delaney from your apartment, right?”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah, I contacted her mother first, it was the only number I had for her.”

  “And she put you onto her?”

  “Yes. It took a bit of persuading and she wouldn't let me know if she was still with the FBI, but she did give me her number in the end. We were good friends at college and we shared a house in our final year.”

  “And then you called Delaney?”

  “Yes.”

  Stone pondered for a moment. “And you left soon afterwards. How did you travel to New York?”

  “By train,” Isobel paused. “Oh my god! I'd almost forgotte
n with all the shock. There was the girl!”

  “What girl?” He frowned but kept his eyes on the road as he negotiated a bend. “What are you talking about?”

  “Firstly, I was convinced that someone, a man, was watching me at the station back in Washington. Then, I was sure a woman was doing the same. Soon after that a girl with not dissimilar looks to myself rushed up to the edge of the platform. After a while I put it down to nerves, but the woman who I was sure was watching me at the station got off at Wilmington and I started to relax. My legs were stiffening so I decided to go for a walk down the line of carriages, but then I saw the same woman again. She looked up at me and seemed real pissed that I'd seen her. At Trenton, I got off the train, quite casually, but slipped back on just as it started to depart. The woman came running back onto the platform and made a call on her cell phone. By then, I was utterly convinced that I was being followed.”

  “So what did you do?” Stone asked. “And where does the girl on the platform come into this?”

  “I'll get to her in a moment,” Isobel paused. “I got off at Newark International and took a rather expensive cab into the city.”

  “What then?”

  “I made contact with Elizabeth Delaney and arranged to meet for breakfast the next day,” she paused, looked remorseful. “That was the first time I'd seen her in six years. And the last time that I will ever see her again… If I hadn’t involved her she’d still be alive…” she wiped her eyes with a tissue and sniffed. Stone knew she was trying not to cry. “Later, I watched some TV, just flicked through and saw that the girl who had looked similar to me had been murdered. The footage showed a body bag on a gurney, but the news station also put out a picture of her. The report had said that she had come out to look for accommodation. That fitted in with her tearful goodbye to her boyfriend at the station in Washington. They were obviously going to spend a bit of time apart from one another. A hotel porter was also killed…”

  Stone nodded. “And you're convinced that it was case of mistaken identity, that you were the one who should have been killed?”

  “Well aren't you? Especially after today?”

  “I don't know. It was David Stein who was shot, not you. You were just as clear a target.”

  “Yes, but my hotel room at The Amsterdam Court was ransacked. The killer never found the drives. He needs me alive, until he has them in his possession. Elizabeth Delaney sent me a text message to meet, he already had her when the message was sent. You know that!” She suddenly looked tearful at the thought.

  “Well, it certainly seems viable,” Stone paused. “Given the anomalies and connections.”

  “What does?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking out loud. The way it moved so fast, the way it all escalated so quickly. Tapping your phone line, scanning your cell phone. They were on to you before you left the facility and they had the counters initiated before you got home. You would have had surveillance on you before leaving your apartment for the train. That's quick. Quicker than anything the Secret Service could do. It indicates a highly professional input. CIA or NSA at least. Or at least a splinter cell, or highly financed ex-operatives. And to get a wet worker in so quickly.”

  “Wet worker?”

  “An assassin,” he paused. “We call it wet work. For obvious reasons.”

  Isobel grimaced. “But I don't get it. What are you saying? That the CIA are behind this?”

  Stone shook his head. “Not exactly. The CIA aren’t bad, but sometimes they have to do bad things. Occasionally they go way past their remit. Sometimes an agent goes too far. Can’t see the wood for the trees… Look, it doesn't matter. Not just yet, anyway.”

  “You know something. Something you're not telling me.” She looked at him accusingly. “Please, level with me. I'm going out of my mind, I just want this to end.”

  “It's not as simple as that. I need to put things together properly, before I can draw a conclusion. But what happened at the bioresearch facility is merely the tip of the iceberg. I was on this investigation for months, before you took the drives. Several pieces of the jigsaw are missing and I have to find them and arrange them before I can start to put the whole picture together.”

  She looked at him, but decided against pressing the subject. “So where are we going now?”

  “Montpelier, Vermont. I had a call this morning that I had somehow been expecting, giving me the news that I have been dreading.”

  “Which is?”

  “I've got to go see a coroner.”

  THIRTY FIVE

  The motel was set approximately two hundred feet back from the road, situated within a well cultivated ring of privet. From the parking lot it looked as if you had driven into the center of a grand eighteenth century European maze and the goal, the reward for the accomplishment of reaching the middle was the delightful motel nestled inside.

  He had parked outside on the side of the road and had moved quickly over the stretch of short grass to a vantage point between the dense hedgerow and the welcome sign and tariff at the entrance. From here he could watch the main entrance and from here he could see Isobel Bartlett and the government agent get out of the Mustang and go inside to the reception.

  The parking lot was well lit, as too was the entrance to the reception and he was confident that from his position, crouched in the shadows, the back light would only add to the effect of darkness outside and he would be virtually invisible from the direction of the motel.

  He could see Stone standing at the reception desk, conversing with the receptionist as she signed them in. Isobel Bartlett was standing at the window, well lit up from behind. Silhouetted and staring out into the darkness. She was looking directly at him, but from where she was, he knew that she would see nothing but the floodlit parking lot and not so far as to the cultivated gardens beyond. He enjoyed knowing that he was invisible to her, enjoyed the sensation of power. He raised his arm and pointed two fingers at her forehead. He sighted in as if aiming a large pistol and then mouthed a silent boom. The shot would have taken the top of her head off. He would have got off another shot before the agent moved. Hit him in the back of the head and watched him slump forwards onto the desk in front of the receptionist. He imagined it in frighteningly realistic images, could see everything in a movie format. He blinked tightly, clearing the fantastical images from his mind. Stone and Isobel were outside and back inside the Mustang. He heard the twin carbon steel exhaust pipes pop and gurgle as the big V8 engine fired up and he watched as the vehicle drove around fifty paces or so and parked outside a chalet to the right of the reception building. Stone swung round and reversed in to the space. Professionals never nose park their vehicles. The man noted this.

  He watched them both get out and Stone carried a bag to the door. He remembered that Isobel had left her luggage back at The Albany and the memory of what had happened, the supremacy of those two shots, filled him with pride. Pride and confidence that he was on top form and would continue to have the advantage over his quarry. When the moment was right and when the objective was completed he would end their lives in a heartbeat.

  They were already dead. They just didn't know it.

  ***

  “I need some clothes.”

  “We'll get you some tomorrow.”

  “And I've got no washing things. Nothing.”

  The room was a large family room with two king-sized beds and a fold out sofa-bed. Rob Stone dropped his sports bag onto the king-sized bed nearest to the door and flicked the television on with the remote. He sat down and searched for the news channel, and then dropped the remote onto the bed when he found it. “I'll get you everything you need in the morning,” he said, with as much reassurance as he could muster. “Whatever you need, we'll get. It’s on Uncle Sam.” He got off the bed and stretched. “Look, they had a vending machine in reception. You wait here and I'll go and get you some wash things. The machine had razors, soap and toothpaste and brushes. I’ll see what else they’ve
got. Don't answer the door to anyone but me.”

  “Like I would.” Her tone was sardonic, dry.

  Stone pulled the blinds closed and the action didn't go unnoticed by Isobel. She shuddered at the thought of David Stein and what had happened back in New York, but it already felt an age away. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally and her mind was a blur. Stone smiled at her but it failed to lighten the mood. He opened the door, and looked back at her.

  “I'll only be a few minutes,” he said, again mustering all the reassurance he could.

  The night air was cold and crisp and distinctly cleaner than it had been in New York. They were in the heart of Vermont and high in the mountain range the air couldn't get any purer. It carried a scent of pine needles and the odor of the forest vegetation. It reminded him of where he had been born and raised, far away from the large cities and everything that went with them.