The Pandora Deception--A Novel

by David Bruns

  JP beckoned Thor and Danny onto the mat. He pointed at Rachel.

  “You two fight her.”

  Rachel’s instincts kicked in immediately. She took two steps onto the mat and delivered a hard kick to the side of Thor’s knee. She felt muscle and cartilage give way as the big man went down.

  Then Danny was on her, knocking her flat on her back. He slammed a knee into her injured ribs and his fingers went for her neck.

  Rachel drove her knee up, but he turned his thigh to protect his groin. She tried the other side and he anticipated her move again. But she added a twist, driving her extended fingers into his eyes when he rolled his body.

  Danny flinched and she snaked away, landing a kick in his side as she staggered to her feet.

  Thor was back. His bald head was flushed red and his eyes held a murderous gleam. She launched a roundhouse kick, knocking the big man down again.

  Danny’s arm snaked around her neck. Sleeper hold. She drove her head back, trying to smash his face, but he evaded her.

  Rachel’s toes scrabbled at the mat as she tried for better leverage against Danny’s choke hold.

  Thor rose from the mat, his face a mask of red fury. He drew back a massive fist and drove it into Rachel’s solar plexus.

  The force of the blow knocked her and Danny off their feet. Rachel’s vision exploded with light as the pain blasted through her body.

  Danny held on, choking her air supply.

  “Tap out, goddammit,” he whispered in her ear.

  Her vision tunneled. All color slipped away from the scene, leaving everything in black-and-white.

  “That’s enough.” JP’s voice rang out. Danny released her immediately and she rolled onto her belly, alternately sucking in great lungfuls of air and retching from Thor’s punch.

  JP helped Danny and Thor to their feet and ushered the two men out of the room before he returned to Rachel.

  She got to a sitting position. She could feel a black eye forming, and the kick from Stretch still stabbed at her every time she drew a breath. She would be wearing a high-collared shirt for the next few days to hide the bruising on her neck. Rachel accepted JP’s help to get vertical again. She swayed and he caught her arm. His touch on her bare skin was electric.

  “You fought well, Ms. Bekele,” he said. JP smiled at her. Even with all her aches and pains, the transformation on his face almost took Rachel’s breath away again. His gaze was warm, intimate.

  He handed her his open bottle of water, a sign of intimacy that somehow seemed perfectly natural. She took a grateful sip. It hurt to swallow. She nodded her thanks.

  “I especially liked your reaction time when I put two of them on you,” he said. “Not really a fair fight. But when is a fight ever really fair?”

  Rachel took another sip of water. It was better to let him talk. She wasn’t sure she trusted her voice right now.

  “You have an impressive file, but I suspect, based on what I’ve seen, there’s a lot more to you than what’s on paper.”

  Rachel’s reply was a hoarse whisper. “The color of my skin and my lack of testicles means everyone underestimates me in this business. I use that to my advantage whenever possible.”

  JP threw his head back and let out a great bellow of a laugh. “I appreciate your honesty, Ms. Bekele.”

  “Zula, please,” Rachel rasped.

  “A beautiful name. I like it.” He touched her arm again and she felt the same jolt of energy. “My friends call me JP.”

  “Then I will call you JP.”

  JP drew close, closer than he needed to be. She felt the heat of his breath when he spoke.

  “Tell me, my warrior princess, have you ever killed a man before?”

  “Yes,” Rachel replied without hesitation.

  “I thought so. I can tell.”

  “When can I start?” Rachel asked.

  JP smiled. “You already have.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Larnaca, Cyprus

  As the Learjet broke through the low clouds, JP kept one eye on the window and the other eye on Zula. The woman wore a short skirt with an open leather jacket cut to allow for the sidearm holster under her left arm. Her long slender legs were crossed and she angled her body so she could watch their approach to Larnaca Airport out the window.

  He found himself fascinated with this woman. In the week since he’d hired her, they had done nothing but travel from home to work, where she sat in the lobby and read a book.

  He noticed that Zula no longer winced when she turned to the right, a sign that the bruise on her side had healed. This was the first day she’d worn a low-collared shirt since the job interview. The smooth dark skin of her upper body rippled with muscle, and he sometimes found himself staring at the hollow of her throat. If he looked closely enough, he could see the marks of still-healing bruises.

  JP still chuckled to himself at the thought of her fighting skill. She was a lioness, that one.

  Last night he had nearly invited her into his apartment, but at the last moment thought better of the idea. There was an old American saying about dipping your pen in the company inkwell. And then there was Talia. He’d told her he had hired personal security, but had not mentioned that Zula was a woman—and an attractive one.

  As if reading his thoughts, she turned her head and met his gaze. He saw a flare of emotion in her eyes that seemed intimate and calculating at the same time. And then it was gone.

  Once again, they were employer and employee.

  The call that had set him on a course to Cyprus had come from Talia before the sun had risen over Khartoum earlier in the day. In the Project Deliverance compound, she was the only one who had unrestricted access to the internet, from a secure room adjacent to their bedroom.

  The encrypted satellite phone was only supposed to be used for emergencies.

  “Have you seen the news?” Talia’s voice was tight with anger and a tinge of fear.

  JP rolled over in bed and sat up, pressing the mobile phone to his ear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear.”

  “The site,” she hissed. “They didn’t destroy the test site. It’s on the news.”

  JP padded across the bedroom to his desk and opened the lid of his laptop. The machine sprang to life. He logged on to the Al Jazeera website and did a quick search on “Yemen.” There was a new story, a mysterious disease outbreak in Houthi-held territory.

  “Are you still there?” Talia’s voice had softened. She sounded more afraid now than angry.

  “Yes, I’m looking at it now.” He gritted his teeth. The World Health Organization had been called in. There was even a picture of Sven Gunderson, Talia’s former supervisor, consulting with a group of doctors from MSF.

  There was no mention of the type of virus, but if the WHO was involved, it was just a matter of time before they figured it out.

  “The article says Cairo is involved,” Talia said. “How long will it take them to trace it back to me?”

  JP focused on the picture of Gunderson. He chose his words carefully, even though the call was encrypted. “The article I’m looking at has your boyfriend in it,” he said. “It looks like he’s joined the party already.”

  Talia made a noise like a wounded animal. “What happened to your contact? This never should have happened. I told you I should handle it.”

  She was blaming him? JP started to snap back but held his tongue. “How close are we to the next version?”

  Talia was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry I said that. It was unfair, my love.” Her voice broke. “I’ve waited for so long, and now…”

  JP closed his eyes. He wanted to hold her, comfort her. “Focus on the end goal. How long until the next version is ready?”

  “A few days, a week maybe. These things are not predictable.”

  “I’ll go to see you-know-who immediately,” JP said. “Today.”

  “This could ruin everything,” Talia said. “You need to fix this.”

  She hun
g up.

  JP thumbed his phone to Zula’s number. The voice that answered was husky with sleep, which he found strangely appealing.

  “We’ll be traveling today,” he said. “Pack for one night. Bring whatever you need for an international trip.”

  “Where are we going?”

  JP considered his answer for a moment. Where were they going? Nothing he had to say to Saleh could be said over the phone. He would have to track down the old man on that stupid yacht of his.

  “I don’t know yet. Just be ready.”

  He sent an encrypted email to Saleh and padded to the window. Nothing to do now but wait.

  Predawn stillness cloaked the city of Khartoum. There was no more sleeping for him this night. In a few moments the Muslim call to prayer would ring out and the metropolis would come to life. He redialed Zula’s number. When she answered her voice told him she had given up sleep as well.

  “I’m going for a run,” he said. “Be downstairs in ten minutes.”

  Zula was there when he arrived, dressed in a pair of tight shorts and a matching tank top, her hair pushed back by a headband.

  He eyed her as they did some light stretching. Her frame was even more slender than he had imagined, and tight with muscle. In this Muslim country where women lived under layers, he rarely saw a true female form except for Talia’s.

  They started off slow, with Zula ignoring the stares from traditional Muslim women they passed. JP was acutely aware that he was older than her and slower and she was deliberately taming her pace. By the time they made the turn onto the promenade above the Nile, his muscles were loose and he picked up the pace.

  The river flowed dark and smooth beside them as they ran from one pool of streetlight to the next. Zula’s breathing sounded even and measured next to his harsh panting. The eastern sky lightened enough for him to make out the distant shape of Victory Bridge, his normal turnaround point.

  When they passed the fruit seller’s donkey cart, JP kicked his pace up a notch. Zula matched him. The woman ran like a gazelle, with long strides that ate up the sidewalk. Next to her, JP felt like a thundering rhinoceros.

  At one hundred meters from the bridge, JP said, “Race me to the bridge.” He switched to an all-out sprint without waiting for an answer. Head up, arms pumping, for a few seconds, he thought she hadn’t heard him.

  Then Zula flashed by in a blaze of red-and-white running gear, beating him by an easy five meters. The sun crested the horizon, creating a halo around her head when she turned to face him.

  JP put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “You’re supposed to let the boss win.”

  Zula pressed her hands against the bridge abutment to stretch out her calves, ignoring the stares of the passersby. “I never let a man beat me. Ever.”

  She was facing away from him, so JP couldn’t see if she was smiling.

  He suddenly missed Talia very much.

  * * *

  He let Zula leave the jet first to check out the Mercedes-Benz limousine waiting on the tarmac of the Larnaca Airport.

  When she was satisfied, she beckoned to him and he got into the car.

  “To the harbor,” he told the driver. The man behind the wheel was good at his job, making short work of the heavy Cyprus evening traffic. Zula sat in the front passenger seat, hands on both knees, her eyes constantly surveying the external environment for potential threats.

  “You’re good at your job,” JP said.

  “In my line of work, one mistake is too many,” she replied. A smile traced her lips, but she did not look back at him.

  JP forced himself to watch the traffic instead of the woman. He needed to be sharp for this meeting.

  Saleh and Zarecki. The Saudi spymaster and the Jewish arms dealer. Two old men with more money than time and a burning desire to change the world before they left it. In rare moments like this, when he was being honest with himself, they disgusted him.

  But rich men with unfinished business and a ticking clock were useful to JP’s cause. Their burning desire to destroy the Iranian regime required money and lots of it.

  Money JP was only too happy to take.

  The Church of St. Lazarus flashed by, the ancient stone building already lit for evening services.

  At the dock, he and Zula left the limo and made their way to a waiting Zodiac boat. The air was still and heavy with moisture. The low cloud cover had turned dusk to darkness early. Lightning flashed on the horizon. A storm was coming.

  The water in the harbor was flat as glass; the only vessel in motion was their own.

  He watched Zula’s face as they approached Saleh’s magnificent yacht. She scanned the long vessel, but seemed unimpressed by the display of wealth. On the other hand, their pilot was part of the yacht crew and obviously proud of his charge. He said something to Zula, who nodded and smiled.

  They approached the fantail at speed and the pilot flared to a stop, reaching out to grab a cleat with his bare hands to pull the craft close. JP stood, taking the offered hand of the security man on deck.

  He turned back to the boat. “Stay here, Zula. I won’t be long.”

  When she started to protest, he snapped, “Just do it.”

  Saleh’s security man, still wearing the semiautomatic strapped to his chest, stepped into the RHIB and the pilot roared off to take station a hundred meters away.

  Saleh waited for JP at the top of the stairs. The old man had a stormy look on his face. “You brought a woman with you?”

  “She’s not a woman. She’s my personal security. And we have much more important things to talk about than whether or not I’m traveling with a woman.” He brushed past Saleh and stepped inside.

  Zarecki was already there, looking even closer to death than when he’d last seen him. His skin had the consistency of candle wax, and he was hooked up to his oxygen tank. A half-empty pack of cigarettes lay on the table. He was dozing when JP entered the room, and when he raised his eyes, JP could see they were yellow and rheumy.

  The brief assessment confirmed what JP already knew: This man had months to live, and that was if he took care of himself, an unlikely prospect given the cigarettes. When he shook the old man’s hand, his fingers were like slimy, bony sausages. It was all JP could do not to wipe his own hand on his pant leg.

  Whatever the outcome of this meeting, he knew one thing. His and Talia’s plan to change the world was on the same timetable as Zarecki’s health.

  Saleh closed the door. He took his seat and slapped his hand on the table. “You insist on this sudden meeting, you bring a woman to my home, and you treat me with disrespect in front of my employees. I hope there is some explanation for this behavior.”

  “You failed me, Saleh,” JP said in as even a voice as he could manage. “You said you had the Saudi Air Force under your control. You said you could destroy the test site. What happened?”

  Saleh scowled, shifting in his chair. He looked at Zarecki first, then finally met JP’s gaze.

  “The cease-fire,” he said with disgust in his voice. “There was nothing I could do. The jets were grounded and a Doctors Without Borders rabble-rouser found the village before we could stop him.” He smirked at JP. “Does it really matter? I’m told everyone in the village died.”

  JP wanted to slap his palm against his forehead. “Viruses are genetic organisms, living things. They have DNA, which makes them traceable. It’s only a matter of time before they track the virus back to the source.

  “If they can track the virus, it will eventually lead to me,” JP said. “And I lead to you.”

  That silenced the two men. In the stillness, JP felt a rumble of distant thunder.

  “We can’t use Yemen for testing anymore,” he said. “It’s too risky. The new virus will be ready soon and I’ll need a new test site.”

  Saleh snorted. “How can you wipe out an entire village and not have anyone notice? At least in a war zone we can clean up the mess with a bomb or two.”

  JP heard fat drops of
rain spatter against the deck of the boat above him. He briefly thought about Zula getting soaked in the rain, and the image of her running form flashing by him in the Khartoum sunrise came to him.

  “I have an idea,” JP said. “But I will need to create a distraction. A major distraction.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Project Deliverance, undisclosed location in Sudan

  JP climbed out of the Land Rover in the underground parking lot of the Project Deliverance compound. He was tired and anxious to see Talia.

  Zula exited the vehicle from the other side. Despite the fact that she had sat for three hours in a downpour in the Larnaca harbor and they had flown overnight, she looked fresh and alert. She took in the underground garage at a glance, her eyes sucking in details.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  JP gave her a tight smile. He had taken her electronics before they took off from Cyprus. “Sorry. Some things have to stay secret—even from you, Zula. This is a secure research lab for Recodna. You won’t find it on any company registers or even any maps.”

  “Funded by the owner of the yacht?” she replied.

  A heavy door behind JP opened with a crack of steel. Kasim, his head of security, entered the garage.

  “What do we have here, boss?” Kasim said in his booming voice. “You bring me a gift?”

  The big man moved into JP’s line of sight, his hand resting on the submachine gun strapped across his body armor. His gaze traveled up Zula’s body, his face a leer.

  “Ms. Bekele is my guest here, Kasim,” JP said sharply. Too sharply, he realized. Zula could take care of herself. “Find her a place to sleep in the security quarters. We’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  “She can share my bed, boss.”

  JP laughed as he moved toward the elevator. “I’d like to see you try, Kasim. I think she likes to be on top.”

  “Where are you going?” Zula said.

  “The laboratory below is off-limits to security. The only person who’s not a member of the research team that has access is Kasim, and that’s only under my specific authorization.” He smiled at her sour expression. “Don’t worry, Zula. It’s safe.”