The Paris Betrayal

by James R. Hannibal

  They met in the garage of the town’s only mechanic—Ben, the Chechen dealer, and a third man who arrived two minutes late. Ben lifted his chin as the extra man sauntered in. “Who’s this?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? This is not a simple buy.” The Chechen slapped a black hardened suitcase down on the garage table, bouncing the ratchets and wrenches. “It’s an auction. Who wants to start the bidding?”

  The newcomer and Ben sized each other up. Ben cocked his head. “Spetsnaz, right?”

  The Russian’s lips spread into a thin smile. He nodded. “And you are CIA.”

  “Close enough.”

  They both turned to face the dealer.

  Ben grabbed the case and ran.

  One bullet grazed his side on the way out of the garage. Another lodged itself in his arm. But the real damage came from the grenade. The Chechen didn’t have much of an arm, so the toss came up short. An old Lada parked in the gravel parking lot and the Russian, who’d raced after Ben, took the brunt of the blast. Still, four small fragments penetrated Ben’s leg and back. He used the cloud of dust for cover, evaded the dealer, and called for armed medical support.

  Not too many top-notch surgeons hung around the North Caucasus in those days—even fewer with the clearance to patch up a wayward agent carrying a suitcase nuke. The Company sent in a three-year field ops veteran who’d allegedly been shipped off to Nowheresville Dagestan for losing an earring inside a senior agent’s abdominal cavity.

  Just rumors. Probably.

  Ben found the medic—Tess—at the rendezvous site, a converted shack north of Grozny. In his rush, and thanks to the lowered mental capacity that comes with severe blood loss, he failed to check the suitcase for a GPS tracker.

  Tess found the tracker moments after she arrived, checking the case before checking her patient’s wounds. She ripped it out, but disconnecting the tracker killed the power source. The last bread crumb it transmitted would lead the dealer straight to the covert medical suite. She chucked the device at a woozy Ben in frustration. “Way to go, rookie. Your dealer will be here any minute. Except this time, he’ll bring friends. We’ve gotta move.”

  As night fell, the two piled blood bags, drugs, and instruments onto a gurney and pushed it fifty meters into the trees. The dealer and two thugs showed up minutes later.

  Ben lay chest down on the gurney, following their movements through the scope of an M4 while Tess cut away his clothes. “So, you come here often?” he said, keeping his voice at a whisper.

  “Cute,” she whispered back. “Like men haven’t been hitting on me since the moment I touched down in these worthless mountains.” Without the slightest warning, Tess cut into him with a scalpel and began digging the first bit of shrapnel from his upper thigh. “I’m so sick of this place. The handsy law enforcement. The obsession with knives. The lurid looks and catcalls from every man everywhere”—Ben felt a chunk of iron yanked from his body—“including outside the mosques. But you know what I hate most about this place?”

  Ben let out a grunt, feeling her slice into his back to go after the next piece. He kept his eye pinned to the scope. The arms dealer located the disconnected tracker and held it up. The men shouted at one another, shaking their heads. “I don’t know. The grenades?”

  “The food. That’s what.” Tess rooted around in the wound with surgical pliers. “If I never see a slice of goat meat again, it’ll be too soon.”

  The dealer shoved one of his friends, a little larger than himself. The guy shoved him back.

  Tess held her train of thought. “Man, I could go for a burger right now.”

  With killers so close, Ben should’ve hushed her, but he fell victim to the irresistible pull of her Georgia accent and kept the conversation going. “I’ll see your burger and raise you some crinkle fries. You went through the schoolhouse, right?”

  “Yeah.” She got to work on the next chunk, digging in with the scalpel. “So?”

  “So, remember that place all the students used to go in Mt. Vernon, the one with applewood bacon burgers and the frozen custard? If we get out of this alive, I’ll take you there. I promise.”

  The third piece of shrapnel left his body. Ben had almost grown addicted to the sudden rise and fall of pain when she pulled them out. He heard Tess’s sweet southern laugh. “You’re thinking of the Shake Shack off Highway 1. I love their burgers. It’s a date. Roll onto your side. I need to get at that bullet.”

  The Shake Shack. Highway 1. Ben kept an eye on the restaurant from across the parking lot at the Sunshine Motel, wearing the blue Bill’s Squirrel Stop sweatshirt and ill-fitting jeans he’d purchased at the station.

  He’d paid cash for the room. The clerk hadn’t argued, and she hadn’t asked for a name, giving Ben the impression she made similar transactions all the time. He stood at the window to peek through the curtain. Would Tess remember their conversation from so many years ago, in the heat of a secret battle? He touched the scar the Chechen’s bullet had left in his arm. If only he’d come to see her for lead and iron poisoning this time, instead of the horror he faced now.

  61

  A black Honda Accord pulled into the lot. The woman behind the wheel climbed out and stretched her arms. Tess had dressed the part for a fast-food lunch date, wearing a faded green jacket and Levis. Ben pressed a cheap truck-stop flashlight laser-pointer key chain against the window and dropped the red spot on the Honda’s hood. A glance his way and an almost imperceptible nod told him she saw it and had traced the source to his second-floor room. He closed the curtain and retreated to the bed.

  Ten minutes later, he heard a knock.

  “It’s open.”

  The door swung inward, leaving the diminutive medic silhouetted in the frame, dwarfed by the oversize duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She lifted the strap over her head and let the duffel fall with a heavy thump on the threadbare carpet. “When I said, ‘It’s a date,’ Calix, I meant a meal, not a motel room.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t read into it. Although, we both know I move pretty fast—four years from asking a girl out to taking her out. Glad you remembered.”

  “Oh, I remembered.” Tess reached outside the doorframe and lifted a Shake Shack bag and a drink carrier into view. “Even the applewood bacon.”

  While Tess donned protective gear in the bathroom, Ben gave her a rundown, including the Behemoth, the files he saw at Kidan’s place, and Giselle’s return from the grave to declare her loyalty to the enemy and stab him with a new strain of the bacteria. Then he dove into the food she’d brought him. He’d pictured the burger as some kind of momentary heaven, but the bacteria robbed him of that too. His taste buds failed him. The burger might as well have been warm, soppy ash.

  “You smell like goat,” Tess called from the bathroom. “You know how I feel about goat.”

  “Sorry. I crossed the pond using an alternative transport solution—deeply alternative. I showered, though.”

  “Didn’t take.” She reappeared wearing white polypropylene from head to toe, along with a mask and googles. “No biggie. The mask helps. Welcome to dating in the post-pandemic age.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Ben answered the joke with a sad smile.

  “Too soon? I thought we were flirting, but if you’re still upset about Giselle, I—”

  “Strangely enough, it’s not her. I encountered someone else along the way. I lost her too. I think I . . .” He trailed off. “Never mind. Forget it.”

  Tess sat down on the bed beside him. “Wow. Someone else. You do move fast, Calix.”

  “Can’t help it.” He circled a finger over his exhausted features—the sunken, bloodshot eyes, and the frostbitten nose. “Women throw themselves at a face like this.”

  She took samples of his breath and blood and slid the receptacles into a compact analyzer linked to her tablet. “I heard about your severance,” she said, waiting for the machine to do its work. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  Ben sensed an unspoken caveat.
“But . . .”

  “But nothing.”

  “Spit it out, Tess.”

  “Okay. We can go there if you want.” She walked away from the bed and turned, looking stern behind the mask and goggles. “You have to admit. The circumstances are odd. Severances don’t come every day, Calix. And they don’t come undeserved.”

  Tess too? How did all his colleagues find it so easy to see him as a traitor?

  Before he could defend himself, she went on. “Take Giselle, for instance—your secret against-policy girlfriend-turned-traitor. How could you not know about her treason? Reason suggests you did, and either joined in or turned a blind eye.”

  “Either way, I deserve what I got, right?” He looked down at his hands, beginning to believe they were as dirty as she claimed.

  “Calix . . . Like I said. I’m sorry.”

  The tablet beeped. Tess checked the screen, then removed the mask and goggles. “At least Giselle told the truth about one thing. You’re not contagious, as long as you don’t bleed on anyone.”

  “Silver linings.”

  “It is a silver lining. And here’s another one.” Tess shed the upper half of her polypropylene overalls as she spoke, tying them around her waist below her T-shirt. “This bacterium isn’t too far removed from the one you encountered in Rome. I had an inkling, so I came prepared. I brought meds.”

  A hope Ben spent the last thirty-six hours suppressing rose to the surface. “You can help me beat this thing?”

  “I can help you fight the battle. I can’t help you win.”

  “Meaning?”

  She showed him the tablet. A computer-generated bacterium rotated on the screen. “See this? That’s your bug. Mean and nasty. Normally we fight plague with antibiotics, but a weaponized bug resists them. Only the specific cocktail of engineered antibiotics, enzyme inhibitors, and stimulants created by the same folks who created this ugly bug can stop it.”

  “The antidote.”

  She nodded. “Think of it as a key to the bacterium’s lock. Unique and intricate—able to work all the tumblers. With a month of study, a team of microbiologists might pick the lock, but—”

  “By then, I’ll be dead.”

  “Yeah.” She removed a CO2 injector from her kit and wiggled it in the air. “I can give you this, my own cocktail, to slow down the replication and treat a few symptoms. Take a breath. Here it comes.” She jammed the injector into his thigh.

  The hiss and cold of forced air.

  The prick of a needle stabbing through his jeans.

  Ben felt every milliliter of medicine entering his bloodstream. Would it help?

  As if reading the question in his thoughts, Tess pursed her lips, handing him a packet of five similar injectors. “At best, these’ll buy you two extra days. Take one in the morning and one at night.” She handed him another, larger injector. “I brought this too.”

  He turned it over in his hand. A clear window enabled him to see the red fluid inside. “What is it?”

  “We call it a kick. Think of it as adrenaline on steroids combined with the ultimate painkiller. The effects are impressive, but there are . . . Let’s call them drawbacks. The Company hasn’t fielded it for safety reasons. In your case, those reasons don’t matter.”

  Tess explained how the kick worked, and Ben slipped it into his pocket with the other injectors. He stared at the curtain separating him from shops and streets outside, filled with unsuspecting Americans who’d already suffered through one terrifying pandemic. “What about them? What if Leviathan’s weapon gets out?”

  “The R0 you told me about doesn’t leave much room for optimism. Natural plague victims need to start receiving treatment within a day or two of infection. Strong symptoms give them plenty of warning. But the weaponized critter you described doesn’t show itself for sixteen days, and kills fast once it does. If your info is good, any antidote we create will be useless.”

  “If my info is good?”

  Tess shrugged. “Severance, Calix. The Director made the judgment declaring you’re not trustworthy. Don’t blame me.”

  He let it go. “Okay, let’s assume I’m not a traitor or an incompetent and I’m giving you solid intelligence about the coming attack. What’s the prognosis?”

  “Total devastation. And I mean total.” She glanced at her screen and the rotating bacterium. “All mammals are affected by Yersinia pestis, the original bubonic plague bacteria. Controlling it in the human population will be hard enough. In the animal population, it will wipe out entire food supplies—truly reshape America.”

  Reshape America. Control from chaos. “Then help me contain it. Help me stop this attack. Go to the Director. Or better yet, take me to him.”

  “No way. I wouldn’t take a severed spy to the Director, even if I could. I’ll send in your blood. I’ll make a report on this bug. It’s the best I can do.”

  That wouldn’t be enough. He snapped his fingers. “I lifted a thumb drive from Sea Titan’s offices.” He handed it over. “I found that in an envelope addressed to the Behemoth’s captain. Can you check it?”

  “Maybe.” She connected the drive to her tablet, glancing at him sideways. “This better not give me a virus.”

  “Funny.”

  Tess huffed and shook her head. “Empty.”

  “What?” Ben sat forward and looked at the screen. Sure enough, the drive contained no files.

  “Stop wasting my time.” Tess yanked the drive and chucked it into his lap. “And don’t you dare start in on the Behemoth, this fabled ship with a nuke’s worth of CRTX and ten thousand tanks of plague. I ran a search for her after I took your samples.” She swiped the screen to show him a marine cargo tracking site. “She’s in dry dock—never left Spain. An empty drive. An imaginary plague ship. You have no proof to back your story. All you have are words.”

  He couldn’t believe Tess would turn on him like this. “I have a deadly disease. You saw the results.”

  “Your disease is bad, but it’s a far cry from the monster you described from Kidan’s files. All your illness tells me is that you had direct contact with the same enemy you encountered in Rome.”

  “But Giselle—”

  “Had you cornered—unconscious—so you say. And you want me to believe she let you come running home with knowledge of Leviathan’s whole plan?” Tess dropped the tablet into her bag. “Look at this from my view. As far as I know, Giselle is dead, and you’re trying to use me to feed the Company more bad intelligence.”

  “Tess, please . . .”

  “I want to believe you.” Tess softened her voice, reaching to touch his cheek, but pulled back, setting the hand in her lap. “You know I do. But I can’t take the risk. And by the way, changing your story to make Giselle the villain isn’t helping. The last I heard, you were blaming Dylan for your troubles. Poor little guy. The Company recalled him from an assignment, put him through an investigation.” She raised an eyebrow. “But Dylan came through the investigation clean. No severance.”

  “Wait.” Ben had looked down to rub the spot where she injected the cocktail. It had started to burn. He looked up. “You’re telling me Dylan is stateside?”

  Her softness vanished. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”

  “I need to see him. I know he’s not happy with me right now, but he can help with my situation.”

  “I doubt he can help. And I know he won’t want to. And to say Dylan’s ‘not happy’ is a gross understatement.” She pressed her lips together. “Have you ever heard the term shootin’ mad?”

  His attempt to answer became a fit of coughs. Ben’s symptoms were worsening. He swallowed against the sandpaper in his throat. “I’m dying, Tess. And Dylan’s a grade-A geek who hates guns. How bad can he hurt me?”

  62

  The pepper spray hurt. It hurt a lot, given Ben’s condition. So did everything else Dylan threw at him.

  Ben had spent a full day of his precious time preparing for the encounter, but he started with the direc
t approach out of respect for his former colleague. He rang the bell at Dylan’s front gate. Big mistake.

  Shady Oak, Virginia, boasted acreage lots, Potomac views, and distinguished residents from Washington DC’s elite political and diplomatic circles. How Dylan nabbed a house there was beyond Ben’s comprehension. During a recent mission, the young Welshman had bragged about an online auction and creative bidding strategies, but Ben had zoned the rest out as geek chatter.

  Ben showed up looking presentable in a fresh polo and jacket he’d picked up at the local Walmart. More than a day had passed since he met with Tess, and he’d kept busy preparing for this encounter. He needed Dylan—more than he planned to let on.

  When Ben rang the bell, the geek appeared on a video monitor wearing a Game Gear headset. “Go away. I’m busy.”

  “It’s Ben.”

  “Yes, Grandpa. I can see you. Here in the twenty-first century, we have this thing called live two-way video.”

  The Welsh accent only exacerbated Dylan’s sarcasm. Ben bit back an angry reply. “Dylan, I don’t feel well, and I’m short on time. A bioweapon is headed our way. How about you skip the okay-boomer jabs and open the gate?”

  “What part of ‘go away’ don’t you understand, traitor?”

  Traitor. Of all the things Ben imagined he’d be called in the spy game, traitor had not been among them—especially not by a member of his own team. “Dylan. I said open the—”

  A stream of pepper spray hit him in the face.

  By the time Ben could see again, blinking against his tears, the screen had gone dark. “Fine. You wanna play? You’re on.”

  Tess’s cocktail of antibiotics and symptom-fighting meds had given Ben a smidgeon of relief from the bacteria, not enough to feel like himself, but enough to go a few rounds with the likes of Dylan. And he’d bought some extra goodies for the occasion, all stuffed into a new backpack. Ben also had the kick Tess gave him, but she’d warned him not to use it unless he had no other choice.

  After wiping his eyes and face with his shirt, Ben ran along the property’s redbrick wall, searching for a good entry point. He found an oak with overhanging branches and nodded. “You’ll do.”