The Ares Virus

by A P Bateman

  He held the cross hairs on the Isobel's back and then steadily raised the rifle until the acute center of the cross was approximately ten feet above her head. He felt the gentle breeze against the side of his face, and estimated the increase in wind pattern at their approximate height and then brought the rifle across three feet to her right and held it still. The sun was high and the base of the slope had warmed considerably in the sunlight. He allowed for the certain rising thermal, lowered the rifle a touch, and held it steady. He breathed progressively, eased the air from his lungs and held his breath when his lungs were empty. The trigger was light and smooth and the rifle recoiled a little as he fired three successive rounds. The bullets threw up clumps of clod and shale just above Isobel's head and she stopped moving in the lens, cleared her eyes with her sleeve. He had not allowed enough drop in elevation for the thermal moving up the slope. He took aim once more and calculated for the rise in warm air accordingly and fired three more shots.

  ***

  Stone had seen the bullets hit the ground. The trajectory had been so great that the bullets had hit the embankment on their edge, channeling through the shale and had bounced off to the right after hitting an area of stone. He had never witnessed a sight like it before and would never have thought it possible to actually see bullets land. However, he knew from the full three second pause between the impact and the sound of the gunshots that they were approaching the thousand yard point in distance.

  “Go on Isobel!” He hollered. “Another few yards and we're in the clear!”

  “I’m trying,” she groaned. “I... can... hardly ... breath ...”

  She was cut short, her footing slipped and she slid back down the slope at least three feet. The bullets impacted into the ground where her head had been and a thick wad of earth flew into the air and showered them with debris. The gunshots rang out and sung around the valley and mountain ridges, but its resonance was one of failure and not of victory. Stone shoulder barged her again and found renewed strength and determination and they scrambled for another ten seconds or so and crawled over the crest and rolled into safety, their lungs heaving and their hearts pounding so heavily, that they could hear nothing else in the world. Not even the wild volley of gunshots fired in a rage from the valley far below.

  FIFTY ONE

  “How was your trip?”

  “Fine,” Tom Hardy paused and looked momentarily behind him to make sure that Agnes Dempsey had closed the door as she left. “A complete success. In a manner of speaking.”

  “You have the... merchandise?”

  The CIA man laughed. He placed the freshly made cup of coffee down on the desk and smiled at him. “Merchandise?” he whispered mockingly. “Yes, I have the merchandise.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved the two flash drives. “Now, McCray, here's the deal... I've burned my bridges, damn near still crossing the fucking bridge as we speak. There's no going back for me. In forty-eight hours max, the CIA will have internal affairs on my ass. After that, my ass is screwed. Good and proper and a real tight fit. Homeland Security and the FBI will have me as most wanted.”

  “But...”

  “Shut your mouth!” He glared at the man behind the desk, his eyes intense, cold and cruel. “Interrupt me again and I'll break your nose. Don't fucking doubt me for a moment. All of a sudden, I'm fresh out of patience.” He waited for a protest, clenched his fist in case. He meant it, and what's more, McCray could see that he was deadly serious. “I've left this in your hands, listened to your advice from the start. Well, after seeing the way you operate, I can tell you one thing, you're a pussy. A gutless piece of shit, who couldn't get the balls together to make the move soon enough for fear of getting caught in your own damned department. Then, some stupid bitch takes the files from under your own fucking nose and beats you to it. I should have hired her! Well McCray, several people have died as a result of you not getting your shit together and thankfully, I've managed to sort this matter out.” He turned the two flash drives over in his hand, and their shiny finish caught the light and glistened majestically, like the purest of gold. “I've sorted this unnecessary fiasco out, and as a result, I've fucked myself over. I'll be a marked man. A fucking fugitive and all because you didn't have the balls to have moved on this quicker.”

  “I ...” McCray protested, but the CIA operative moved so fast he didn't have time to shield his face. The punch connected with the tip of his nose and his top lip and he recoiled back into the chair with a yelp. The chair was on a swivel and castors and he swung around half a turn. He twisted the chair back, his hand cupping his nose and tears running down his cheeks.

  “Don't say I didn't fucking warn you, McCray,” he sneered viciously. “I'm telling you like it is. You don't interrupt me, ever again. Understand?” he paused, waiting for the man to nod. McCray took out a handkerchief and mopped the blood from his nostrils. He nodded reluctantly, more of a flinch, but it was good enough for Hardy. “Now, listen up. Interrupt me again and I'll break more than your nose. I may just throw my hand in and break your fucking neck. We need our little demonstration in place and we need it now. We need to have ARES manufactured immediately and set on an unsuspecting public. Which is your part. We need our demands channeled immediately afterwards and directed towards the people who can make decisions and get us our ransom money ... Which is my part.” He dropped the drives on to the desk in front of him and slid them across towards McCray. “And we need Morgan-Klein to get APHRODITE manufactured immediately. Our investors need to start buying everything in Morgan-Klein, like yesterday. This is a two phase operation. We need cold, hard ransom money to disappear and we need real time investment in Morgan-Klein to live on. I trust you have the facilities in place to start making it? Please don't tell me you haven't sorted that out yet ...”

  “No, it's all in place,” McCray paused, dabbing his nose carefully. The handkerchief was red and sodden. “I can be ready to move today.”

  “Good. I will make the call tomorrow morning, set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. By the time you've generated and cultured the virus and have it ready to release, they will have assumed it was just a hoax. That's when we make the strike; refresh their memories about what we meant, and what we want.”

  “Where do we release it?”

  “You let me worry about that,” Hardy paused. “The accounts are set and ready to receive transactions. After that, the money will be wired on a merry little journey, which the authorities will be unable to trace. Or at least, unable to trace before we've turned it into hard currency.”

  McCray nodded thoughtfully. “Where's Isobel Bartlett?”

  “She's been taken care of,” Hardy replied. “Her and that damn Secret Service agent, together.”

  “You have confirmation of that?”

  Hardy glared at him. “There you go again. I don't think you understand me clearly yet. From now on in, you don't question my judgment, and you don't question my decisions, got it?”

  McCray looked sullen. “Jesus, I was just trying to get a clear picture, that's all.”

  “Well, the picture's this... All you have to worry about from now on is getting the ARES formula into a lovely, deadly little super virus. If you ask me, I shouldn't have left you with so much to do. You clearly couldn't handle it. Now, I've got to watch my back as well as seeing to it that we reach the objective.” He glanced at his watch, and then frowned at him. “What are you still doing here? Haven't you got a virus to make someplace?”

  FIFTY TWO

  They heaved for breath, exhausted from the arduous climb up the side of the edifice. Isobel lay on her back, her breasts heaving, rising and falling dramatically with every labored breath. Stone preferred to lie on his stomach, his head resting between his outstretched arms. His breathing was as intense as Isobel's but he was fitter and his recovery time was quicker than hers. Although he was completely exhausted and thankful for the opportunity to rest. However, time was not on their side and he knew that they would ha
ve to keep moving if they were to survive.

  He rolled over on to his side and looked at her. “Isobel,” he said calmly. “We've got to get out of here. He lost a lot of time and distance taking those long shots but he’ll be getting closer now.”

  “I know,” she panted. “What do we do now?”

  “We have to take a different route,” he said. “We have to use the forest as cover and make sure we are never exposed like that again. But first, we have to move onwards.”

  “To where?”

  “I know a place,” he paused, sat up straight. “Over there ...” he pointed towards a ridge on their left. “The other side of that is a small town called Deal. I was there recently.”

  “How far?”

  “About five or six miles or so,” he replied. “If anything happens to me, keep that ridge in sight and don't stop walking until you get there. The sheriff is a good cop. He’ll help. Mention my name.”

  She looked at him seriously, her face a picture of concern. “Don't say that,” she said quietly. “Don't say anything will happen to you.”

  He looked at her and she reminded him of a child. Fragile and insecure. He wanted to put a comforting arm around her and tell her it would be all right, but at that moment he wasn’t sure it would be.

  ***

  Curiosity killed the cat, apparently. But to those who know, curiosity had nothing to do with it. Arrogance was the key factor. Arrogance and stupidity. Cats were not as intelligent as people think. Sure, they are smart. They even had a fair stab at being bright or clever, especially when compared to the overt and open behavior of a dog. But what the cat possessed, which would always be its downfall, was the supreme arrogance and belief in its own importance. A cat will cross a road, and take its time. It will not believe that the car approaching will have the sheer audacity to hit it, nor does the cat think it should quicken its pace to compensate for the car's speed. The arrogance of the cat was what got it killed. Curiosity was just a kinder word for the cat's own stupidity.

  Humans were different to cats. Sure, they were arrogant and stupid and many worse things combined. But above all, above everything else, they were curious. Curiosity led to the invention of everything man-made. Curiosity took man to the moon and to the bottom of the ocean's depths. Curiosity took man to the highest peaks and to the sound barrier. Arrogance and stupidity got him killed doing it.

  He knew they would be curious. He knew that at some point, they would be unable to resist. At some point, a head would pop over the edge of the peak and present itself as a target. When someone is followed, they always look back. And that was always when they made their biggest mistake. That was when they got themselves caught. Or shot.

  He had the trajectory acutely set and he had estimated the wind speed and thermal rise accordingly. Had Isobel not slipped a second after he had pulled the trigger, she would have been nailed by his shot, fallen to the very bottom of the precipice. He was clear on the diametric of the shot and knew that he would make it this time. All he needed was a head above the parapet.

  ***

  “It's time to get going,” Stone said. He got to his feet, but first checked that he was far enough away from the cliff edge. He looked down at Isobel and gave her a friendly nudge with the sole of his shoe. “Come on, we're out of time. The only thing going for us, is that he will be as tired as us when he reaches the top.”

  “Gee, you really know how to cheer a girl up.”

  “All part of the service,” he said with a smile.

  She got to her feet and stood shakily. “I've got cramp,” she said. “It's not fully there yet, but it's on the verge of cramping.”

  “You'll walk it out.”

  “Ah, the voice of sympathy and understanding.”

  “That's just another service.”

  She scowled, but it was in jest. It helped to lighten the mood. “We'd better check he's still on our tail,” she said. “Take a quick look.”

  “I know,” Stone replied. “But therein lies the quandary... Just like the soldiers of the First World War, sooner or later someone had to put his head over the top of the trench and see what the enemy was up to.”

  “And?”

  “And they generally lost their head to a sniper,” he said bluntly. “I'm quite attached to my head, I like it where it is.”

  “But how will we know if he's still after us? How will we know where he is?”

  Stone walked forwards, caught hold of her shoulder and led her away from the cliff edge and towards the bank of trees at the other end of the plateau. “Oh, he'll be after us. I know that for a fact,” he said. “As for where he is, I already know that. He'll be at the bottom of the cliff with the rifle aimed high and all the variables taken into account. He won’t follow us up the way we came, he’d be too concerned of me firing on him from above as he climbed. He's a professional, and he wouldn't miss again. He'll be waiting for us to check on him and I'm certainly not going to give him the satisfaction of that.”

  They walked on for twenty minutes in silence. Their pace was quick but it felt like a comfortable amble compared with the sprint up the steep incline. Stone kept them on course with the distant mountain ridge, which ran parallel with the road below them in the cleft of the valley. The terrain was easier now, but the forest was dense and occasionally they would come up against vast rock falls and the remains of ancient glaciers, long since reduced to rubble. These crossings of rock procured them no cover and it was with quick feet and a heavy heart that they broached these obstructions, ever fearful for their safety.

  After crossing one particularly wide piece of rocky ground, Stone called a halt and sat down on a rock, just behind a thin vale of trees. “This is far enough,” he said. “We have to know if he is still following us.”

  “What was it you said about the soldiers in the First World War? Sticking their head up and getting them shot off. Seems reasonable enough not to take a look to me.”

  “I know, but there's more to it than that. This guy killed Delaney in New York. He shot David Stein dead and he killed Joe Carver,” he said.

  “And the girl in New York,” Isobel interjected. “And the hotel porter.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Stone. “He stops at nothing. So he isn't going to stop after we reach Deal. And he isn't going to stop if we make it back to DC. This guy is hunting us. You heard him shout it from the bottom of the valley. We ran because we had no cover. We kept running because we needed to reach cover.”

  “Hell, I was running because I was shit scared,” Isobel interrupted. “Cover had damn all to do with it from my point of view.”

  Stone shrugged. “Well, I was running for cover and safety.” He pointed to the distant ridge, and then swung his arm in a wide arc. “And now, I have it. In spades. I have cover, I have the invisibility that cover can bring the experienced soldier and I have the advantage of surprise.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because we ran. We ran for our lives. He's hunting us like scared game. And now the rules of engagement have changed,” Stone smiled but his eyes were hard and cold. “Because now we're going to stop running and take the fight to him.”

  FIFTY THREE

  The pain was acute. It seared like a burn and pulsed with his heartbeat and had continued to bleed with the exertion put upon his leg. He took the bottle of pills out of his pocket, twisted off the lid and tipped two capsules into the palm of his hand. There were only two more left in the bottle, and he knew that the pain would outlast the painkillers. He swallowed the two capsules down and they stuck momentarily in his throat. He would have swallowed them with water, but he had none. It had been the one thing that he had overlooked. But he knew that his quarry had none either, so there was no advantageous factor over him. He got the bitter tablets down his throat with a shudder and continued to climb.

  He had chosen a different route, foregoing the obvious hazards of following them to the top of the cliff. It would have been too easy to have been ambushed,
too easy for the Secret Service agent to put a bullet in his head as he reached the top. Instead, he had moved approximately five hundred yards to his left and negotiated a slighter gradient, a less demanding route. The result was a viable compromise; he had wasted a little time, but would have undoubtedly arrived at the peak with reserves of energy and not burned out and ready to quit.

  He had doubled back and picked up the trail from the top of the cliff, using the crystal clarity of the magnification of his sniper scope to survey the possible ambush sites around him. Stone's shoes were rubber soled with minimum tread and a thick heel, resulting in a difficult track to follow. However, Isobel Bartlett wore a slightly raised heel and although far from narrow, the increased elevation in the heel created a deeper track, as the pressure was acutely localized and left a significantly easier imprint to follow. The rest was simply a case dead reckoning. He knew that the only viable option left open to them was to head for the town of Deal. And he too, knew the area well. He had been there recently and seen the various sights. He had pushed a Chevy Tahoe off a precipice and watched it burn with the body inside, not one week before.

  FIFTY FOUR

  Stone had found them some water amongst a rock fall.It was the result of rain running from the higher rocky ground, which had filtered down through the gravel and collected in a shallow pool at the bottom. The mineral-rich gravel had filtered out the impurities and it tasted sweet and thin, softened by nature. They drank thirstily and could feel their energy levels rising as the water enriched them to the core, rehydrating their kidneys and liver. The affect was instantaneous. It was like refueling a vehicle. They were revitalized and ready to continue.