Ben returned his gaze to the laptop and the cut-out diagrams. “What about the liquid filling those bulk holds? If the disease is in the tanktainers on the deck, what’s down below?”
“That’s not a liquid. It’s . . .” Kidan paused, then shook his head and set his pallid features. “No. I’ll answer no more questions until you treat my arm.”
Kidan raised his arm to show his captors, and a thick red drop fell onto the desk. The blood had soaked his sleeve to capacity. Ben didn’t need him passing out. Not now. He had more questions. “Yeah. All right. You have a first aid kit?”
“In the bathroom.” The scientist directed him with his gaze.
“Fine. I’ll be right back.” He tapped the desk with the cattle prod and placed it in Giselle’s free hand. “If he moves, zap him. Don’t shoot him. We need this guy to get a jump on a cure if this thing gets out.”
He caught her eye with a warning look, and she answered with an exaggerated nod. “Zap. Don’t shoot. I’ve got it, okay?”
“Okay.” Ben walked down the short hall and rummaged through the bathroom cabinets for the first aid kit. He’d just found it when he heard a double crack from the Glock.
56
Ben snatched up the first aid kit and ran down the hall. “Giselle?”
She held the Glock at a low angle, finger still on the trigger. Kidan was slumped over the desk, face lying in the shattered glass from his sculpture, blood spreading out beneath his chest.
Giselle cast a vacant glance at the first aid kit in Ben’s hand and let out a quiet huff. “I doubt that will help him now.”
“I don’t see a gun, Giselle. What happened to ‘Zap, don’t shoot’?”
She answered in a quiet monotone. “I tried to scroll through the computer file—only for a moment. But when I took my eyes away, he grabbed the broken sculpture and tried to stab me. You understand, yes?”
The base of the DNA sculpture, with its two broken helix strands ending in wicked tips, lay on the floor beneath Kidan’s limp hand. “We needed him, Giselle. What if this thing gets out?”
“The file mentions an antidote.” She walked to the computer and reached over the dead man as if he wasn’t there. “I saw it before he went for the sculpture. Leviathan has the cure.”
“Good luck getting it from them.” Ben rested a shoulder against the curtain, eyeing the neighboring balcony. He saw no lights, but the owners could still be at home, and Giselle’s gunshots left nothing to the imagination. The cops might be on their way. He snapped the laptop closed and tucked it under an arm. “This data should be enough to get the Company’s attention. But that’ll take time we don’t have. For now, we need to stop the Behemoth.”
Giselle grimaced, eyes canted down at the computer. “Gross.”
He followed her gaze. Blood dripped from the laptop’s corner—the blood of a man who liked to play around with infectious diseases. “Good point.” He grimaced, wiping the blood off on the motionless scientist’s back, and strode past her with a shrug. “Best I can do. Let’s go.”
She didn’t move, didn’t even turn—just stared out the balcony doors.
“Giselle. Come on.”
“Look at her, Ben. Do you see her? Resting now. Feeding. But soon she’ll be ready to leave her den and become the monster Leviathan created her to be.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Ben watched her. He didn’t like her tone—admiration instead of horror. “But we don’t want the monster loose, right? We need to get this data to the Company without showing the enemy our hand.”
“Why?” She turned, nodding at the computer. “Why give it to him?”
“Him? You mean the Director? Why wouldn’t we?”
Giselle stepped close, within inches of a kiss. The Glock and the cattle prod hung at her sides. “Look at what he’s done to you, Ben. Your face. Your life. You are homeless, nationless, a hunted man.” She reached up with the hand holding the Glock and traced a knuckle from his temple to his chin. “No safe havens. No place to lay this beautiful head. Why do you persist in serving him? Why are you so desperate to please the man who asks for everything and leaves you nothing?”
Did he have to justify himself, even to her? “Stopping Leviathan is our duty. We took oaths. The severance doesn’t change them. It’s all a mistake or a trick. Once he knows, he’ll fix it. You’ll see.”
She closed her eyes, shoulders tensing, and when she opened them again, her shout knocked him back a step. “Wake up!” The rest came through clenched teeth. “He doesn’t care about you. To him we are nothing—cogs.” She backed away from him, spreading the Glock and baton wide. “Our homes are gone. Our lives? Gone. How long should we suffer these indignities? Do you think Leviathan would treat us this way?”
“Leviathan?” How could she go there? Even after all they’d suffered, how could she compare the enemy to the Director? “I don’t understand. You’re not making sense.”
“Ben, what if we didn’t hand this bioweapon data over to anyone, hmm? What if Jupiter sees a larger picture? Perhaps a controlled release of the plague is . . . healthy for the world—an ordered and effective version of the chaos we’ve already experienced. We had a chance at a global reset, yes? But we blew it.”
Now she was talking crazy—straight-up crazy. “You’re scaring me.”
“Oh, don’t be scared.” Her demeanor shifted. In an instant, her defiance gave way to the pleading of a playful sweetheart. “And”—she smiled, tilting her head—“don’t be mad, mon rêve. My dream. I did this for us.”
The blood drained from Ben’s face. He felt the same vanishing of tissue and bone he’d felt when he watched the cottage explode. “Giselle, what did you do?”
She lowered a shoulder in her sultry way, sauntering toward him one slow step at a time. “I saw the writing on the wall long before Rome. I saw the brilliance of Jupiter’s Tokyo attack, the control wrapped in chaos. I put out a quiet feeler, and he found me, embraced me.”
“Jupiter. You’re working with him? What you’re saying is treason.”
“Treason is in the eye of the beholder, yes? He wanted you. So did I. Our pursuit of you is of mutual benefit.”
Idling engines. Car doors shutting. Ben heard voices—either cops called by the neighbors or Kidan’s private security. Giselle needed help. Ben could save her, but not here. Not now. They had to leave. He reached for her.
“Don’t!” The Glock came up as fast as the bullets could fly from its chamber.
Ben froze, then slowly raised both hands to shoulder height, shamed by the fact she’d outpaced him with his own gun. “I’m sorry. Relax, okay?”
“I am relaxed. You are the one who needs to relax.” Another smile. Another lowered shoulder and a sultry step. She didn’t seem to care about the voices outside. Who were they? “You must listen. You must hear me out.”
“I’m listening. I always listen to you, right?”
“Because you love me. Yes. I said the words. We’ve loved each other from our first assignment together. You know it. And love prompted me to act on your behalf. You are too good—too skilled—to be the Director’s lackey. You must see this.” Another smile. Another step.
In this madness, would she come close enough for Ben to take the gun? Could he outmatch her reflexes? He forced his shoulders to relax. “And with Leviathan?”
“Think of this as a brilliant young lawyer might, jumping from a firm where his talents are not rewarded to one which would value him greatly.” The Glock came close to Ben’s striking range, then paused. Giselle knew his abilities well. “Mon rêve—mamour—you belong with Leviathan. You belong with me.”
No. Whatever happened, he didn’t belong with Giselle—not anymore. “Clara.” The name escaped his lips on instinct. “What did you and Jupiter do with Clara?”
“The blue-haired woman?” She scrunched her nose, as if she’d been suddenly hit with a foul smell. “We did nothing with her.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know Leviathan sent Duval to Zürich. S
he disappeared after he attacked us. And I know you chose that hair color because you’d been watching us. You wanted me to think you were her when I saw you at Jupiter Global.”
She shrugged. “Am I your love? Is she? I had to ask in my way. And you answered with the disappointment on your face.”
“I care about Clara.”
Her eyes flashed. “You should care about us, yes? You and me.” Giselle flicked a dismissive hand. “It is behind us now. I forgive you. She no longer matters.”
“She does matter. The people in Tokyo, Munich, and St. Petersburg matter. The lives Leviathan took and the families they destroyed with those bombs matter.”
“Sacrifices in the name of control. Preparations for a mass culling of the pride. The pandemic taught us the failure of chaos. In the face of crisis, too many pursued their own ends, leading to a global meltdown. We could not band together, even to face the worst crisis of our collective lives.”
“And how will releasing another disease help?”
“Aren’t you listening?” She sighed, tilting the Glock. “Culling the pride. Control over chaos. If Leviathan controls the antidote, Leviathan controls the outcome. Jupiter Global’s pharmaceutical subsidiaries will team up and miraculously provide the cure. Governments will bow and scrape, desperate to give them whatever Jupiter desires.”
Insanity. Both she and Jupiter were out of their minds. But in Ben’s experience, crazy people made big mistakes. The Behemoth could be their biggest. “It’s a giant, slow-moving cargo ship. I’ll call in the cavalry. A Company team will interdict the ship. Your whole plan is a waste.”
“Ben, Ben. The Company won’t listen to you. And even if they would, don’t you think Jupiter has accounted for such contingencies? Remember the material in the bulk cargo holds you asked Kidan about?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a breath. “CRTX. The ship is a floating bomb.” He saw the diagram in his head. “There must be tons of it in there. Thousands of tons.”
“Ten thousand tons, to be exact—with the explosive power of a sixty-kiloton nuclear bomb. If the Company attempts to board or sink the vessel, Jupiter’s people will detonate the weapon, sending thousands of steel canisters filled with plague flying a kilometer or more from the blast center. Kidan’s creation is resistant to seawater, Ben. It might wash up on any shore.”
“But Jupiter doesn’t want just any shore, does he?” Ben recalled the weather charts for the Atlantic he saw in the Behemoth’s passage plan. “He’s going after the United States.”
“Yes, mamour. The United States will fall. The Director will suffer for his crimes against us. And you can be there to watch. Go to Jupiter. He’s been waiting for you so long, but he wants you to come willingly. No strings. Just as you are.”
Someone pounded on the door. Ben shot forward and grabbed for Giselle’s wrist. The Glock went off, but missed wide. He pulled her close, held her tight, looking down into her eyes. He had her. The success—the ease—of the maneuver surprised him, until he felt the cattle prod jammed into his belly.
The shock sucked away all muscle control. Ben dropped to his knees. But Giselle pulled the prod away before he lost all consciousness.
She frowned at him with the look of a scolding, disappointed wife. “Renounce him, Ben. Can’t you see? This is for your own good. The United States—the Company—they don’t deserve your loyalty. Curse your precious Director and let Jupiter make you a prince among Leviathan’s operatives. Rub your victory in the Director’s traitorous face.”
Ben fought for control of his lips. His reply came out as a grunt.
Giselle kneeled to grip him by the collar. “What, mamour?”
How had their relationship gone so wrong? Ben wanted to say so much. He wanted to declare his loyalty to his country, his agency, to her. She needed help, not a bullet. But he could only manage one word. “No.”
“Too bad. If you won’t see reason, then I suppose you should go ahead and die.”
She hit him again with the crackling prongs.
57
Ben’s eyes popped open, and he gasped for breath. He tried to sit up. Failed. Tried again. Barely made it. An object fell from his chest to the floor with a thump, but he didn’t have the energy to look. Heat seared his stomach. A soreness like he’d never felt wracked his body.
Giselle.
Traitor.
He’d been tased before. All the Company’s agents went through the experience at least twice in the schoolhouse—more if they made a fuss. But this hurt more, or maybe not all the hurt came from the physical wound.
A fog clouded Ben’s vision and took longer to clear than expected. The bright light of a rising sun pouring into the room didn’t help. How long had he been out? He rolled to his knees and crawled to a gray mass he thought was the desk, waited for the vertigo to stop, and pulled himself to his feet. A greasy wetness clung to his fingers. Ben squinted at his hand. Black? No. Dark red. Blood.
Blurry shapes took form. The desk. The broken DNA sculpture. Kidan’s body. Ben grimaced and wiped his fingers on the scientist’s lab coat. “Sorry,” he said to the dead man. “That’s twice. I know.” The fresh stains looked so much brighter than the dried blood where he’d wiped off the laptop.
The laptop.
He looked around. Gone. What else had she taken? He checked his waistband and his front pockets. Giselle had made off with the evidence, but also his Glock, his wallet, and Kidan’s keys. She’d taken the Jag, where Ben had left his go-bag with his protein bars and cash. He punched the balcony doorframe. “Oh, we are so broken up.”
What about the voices he’d heard?
Outside, the rising sun glistened off the pristine infinity pool beneath an empty, picture-perfect balcony, so different from the mess inside. Ben drew closer and shielded his eyes against the sunlight. As best he could tell, the neighbor’s balcony was empty too. Giselle or Jupiter must have called off any cops or security.
The more time passed, the more clarity Ben gained, until he noticed something off with the desk. Giselle, despite her earlier protest about the laptop, had dipped a finger in Kidan’s blood and scrawled on the desk.
While pulling himself from the floor, Ben had smeared the first letter, but he could still make out a C. “Call me,” he said, reading the bloody message, then shook his head. “That’s messed up.” Why and how would she think he’d even try?
Then it dawned on him—the thing that had fallen from his chest when he sat up.
A compact satellite phone lay on Kidan’s floor—black against the white shag carpet.
The pain in Ben’s abdomen returned when he bent to pick it up, bringing with it a soreness in his limbs and a slight vertigo. Giselle’s confiscated cattle prod had done a number on him. Holding the phone in his palm, he flipped up a short, thick antenna and pressed the power button to bring it out of sleep mode. The screen came to life with a waiting message in glowing blue letters.
My love,
You must be angry with me.I must apologize for the little prick,but one day you will thank me.
Ben touched his abs and winced. “Little prick? Is that what you call it.” He scrolled on.
Jupiter is a patient man.He is still willing to meet.Go to him. He is your cure.
Ben closed the message and found a single speed-dial number saved on the home page. Instead of her name, Giselle had assigned the contact to Mamour, the French shorthand for My love. He shifted his gaze to the bloody Call me scrawled on the desk and snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Ben had to regroup. He could deal with Giselle’s insanity later—or never. Right now, the priority was stopping Leviathan’s attack. He drew in a breath. “The Behemoth. Three hours.”
Three hours had passed long ago.
The rising sun no longer blocked out the Mediterranean beyond the beach. Ben opened the balcony door and scanned the many piers at Valencia’s port. The Behemoth had left.
“Okay,” Ben said, holding his aching gut and trying to rea
ssure himself. “Not good, but not the end of the world.” A cargo ship like the Behemoth took days to cross the Atlantic, and with the marine tracking apps available online, any civilian could find it. The US Navy should have no problem hunting it down.
He nodded. He’d find an internet café and send a message home, a worthy risk. If only Giselle had left him some proof.
The thought brought his time in the dock office to mind. The sealed envelope. The thumb drive.
Ben’s hand went to his back pocket, and he smiled. He’d never told Giselle about the drive, and when she cleaned him out, she’d missed it.
As he drew the thumb drive out, wondering what might be on it, he saw a spot of dried blood on his forearm. Splatter from picking up the laptop? He scratched it off, and found a needle mark underneath. The blood was his, not Kidan’s.
I must apologize for the little prick . . . Go to him. He is your cure.
“No . . . She wouldn’t.”
All that pain in his stomach—he’d assumed it came from shock burns. Ben pulled up his shirt to get a look at his abdomen. The two burns were there, raised marks left by the prongs. But not far away, closer to his navel, he saw a gray blotch with three lines spidering outward.
Giselle had injected him with the plague.
58
Ben walked the beach behind Kidan’s place, shoes tied together and slung over his shoulder, sat phone held loose, ready to fall from his fingers.
The gentle wash of water over sand filled his whole body, but it couldn’t drown out the rush of his thoughts.
The idea of the disease—the sheer weight of it—felt different this time. In Rome and the hours after, Ben suffered the worry and stress of unanswered questions. Had Massir infected him? Was he a walking dead man?
This time he knew. He’d seen the effects firsthand. The infection was spreading, attacking from within, and no amount of violent action could stop it.
The certainty hit him in alternating waves of horror and peace.
A rocky point with a low bluff separated the resorts and residences from the industrial piers. Ben plodded toward it without purpose, leaving absentminded footprints to be quickly washed away by the surf. For the hundredth time, he glanced down at the phone.
The Paris Betrayal Page 22
