Biowar (38 page)

Dean pushed into the room, running past the collection of instruments, a rifle in each hand. The stocks folded up along the bodies of the guns, making them look and feel more like large pistols than assault rifles.

He slapped the door open and went into the hallway. The network of security cameras didn’t extend past the classroom wing, which meant he could proceed easily without being detected. On the other hand, it also meant that the Art Room couldn’t tell him where any other guards were.

“Take the right hallway to the end, into the vestibule,” said Rockman. “Go downstairs. Ready with the grenade. We’re locking the doors behind you. It’ll only slow them down, so keep moving.”

“No kidding.”

The door opened into a hallway flanked by laboratories on either side. The door was metal; Dean stopped outside and took out an inch-thick disk from his jacket, putting it against the panel. But before he could push the slider on the back and activate the unit’s radar, the door began to open. Dean stepped back, then grabbed the person and threw him down as he came through.

Her down. It was a woman. He clamped the inhaler over her nose before she could scream.

“Radar,” said Rockman.

“We don’t have time to screw around,” said Dean, jumping up.

“Radar. Stay with the program, Charlie Dean. We need to see inside that wing.”

Dean pushed the radar on and waited for the Art Room to analyze the inputs.

“Clear. Go.”

“Charlie,” said Telach, breaking in. “Walk calmly to the very end of the hall; throw your grenade into the room at the right. Just stand there and wait.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Charlie, we need you to follow directions.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Then go.”

Two of the rooms were open, and Charlie could hear the scientists inside talking. But no one noticed him as he passed, or at least no one had time to react before he reached the end of the hall. The door was open; he rolled the grenade inside and stood back.

There was a shout and some yelling. Something crashed inside.

“Wait sixty more seconds or it will knock you out, too,” warned Telach.

“Heads up!” warned Rockman.

Dean pulled the rifle up as someone in a lab coat came out of one of the labs he’d passed. A burst of rifle fire sent him back into the room.

“Go, Charlie. Go,” said Rockman.

Dean spun into the room, stepping over two bodies in lab coats. He moved around a bench stacked with autoclaves but found his way blocked by a row of minirefrigerators that reached nearly to the ceiling. He had to backtrack and move down the row to the right.

“The petri dishes at the far end of the room,” said Telach. “On the right. Your sniffer’s got a good hit. This is it.”

Dean reached the bench, where what looked like a strange knickknack cabinet held about fifty small, round dishes used to grow bacteria or other organisms. The cabinet had climate controls and a set of locks.

“Charlie, drill through the glass. We’ve compromised the alarms and the explosives,” said Telach.

“Explosives?”

“We’ll explain later. Just go.”

Dean took his pocketknife out and held it against the glass. When he pressed the Swiss insignia on the side, a diamond-tipped drill began to revolve at high speed. It whined; the glass cracked before the drill made it all the way through.

“Now what?” asked Dean.

“You’re okay. Tape the crack, then put the gas in. Go,” said Telach.

Dean pulled off his sport coat and stripped the cartridge from beneath the armpit, pulling the long bladder of poison gas out with it. He had trouble getting the stopper set right around the cartridge opening and finally jammed it in.

“Get away from there now, Charles,” warned Telach. One by one the fans on the petri holder began revving at high speed, their instructions commandeered from the Art Room. “On the other side of the room.”

Dean got behind the counter. The chlorine gas would kill any bacteria on the outside of the dishes. While he was waiting, Dean stripped out the containment bags from the lining of his coat, along with a set of gloves.

“Go. Don’t breathe too deeply,” said Telach. “You can break the glass. Be expeditious.”

Yes, thought Dean,
expeditious.

When Charlie had the dishes in the bag, Rockman directed him to put them in a small carrier at the far end of the room. The unit looked like a small musical instrument case; it was lined with insulation.

“Good. You have exactly three minutes before the Mossad people arrive,” said Rockman.

“That much? I can hear the helicopter already.”

“The second door on your left is an emergency staircase to the rear of the building. Take it. The car’s waiting on the other side of the wall.”

82

Lia was led to a library inside the low-slung building that sat in a compound owned by Umar Ibn Umar, a cousin once removed from the Syrian President. Umar was seated on a leather club chair, pretending to be absorbed in a book. He dawdled over a page for several minutes, nodded to himself, then finally rose, rolling a thick cigar in his fingers.

“I’m glad you could come,” Umar told her.

If there was one thing that Lia hated—hated—it was cigars. Especially when they were smoked by slick-haired fat boys who wore pinkie rings and thought they were James Bond.

“I had nothing better to do,” said Lia. “Apparently the beach isn’t very close to my hotel.”

“Beach?”

“False advertising.”

He gave her a faint, token smile. “Would you like a cigar?”

“Only to break it in half.”

“Very good cigars. From Cuba.”

“I’m sure Fidel rolled it himself.”

“So what precisely is it that you’d like to buy?” asked the Syrian.

“Disease,” said Lia. She saw no point in playing this with any degree of finesse, despite the advice Rubens and Telach had given her last night.

The Syrian laughed. “You can pick that up in any slum.”

“I’m looking for a very specific type,” she said. “The kind that comes from rats.”

“Interestingly enough, we are in the market for that ourselves,” said the Syrian. He went to a sideboard and took the top off a crystal bottle filled with what looked like whiskey. “A drink?”

“Does that come from Cuba, too?”

“America, actually. Jack Daniel’s. The Americans know how to make bourbon particularly well.”

“They have to get something right.”

He filled the glass nearly halfway, then took a very tiny sip.

“I understand you’ve dealt with my Austrian friends,” said Lia.

“You keep calling them Austrian. I don’t know anyone from Austria.”

“Radoslaw Dlugsko. UKD,” whispered Rockman. “He’s Polish; the company is allegedly based in the Ukraine. Austria was just a convenient stop.”

Lia wanted to reach up through the satellite and slap the runner.

“I know them from Austria,” Lia told the Syrian. “Actually, the principal I met with was Greek.”

Umar Ibn Umar took a long, thoughtful pull on his cigar. “Why aren’t you dealing with them?”

“The Austrian police put them out of business two days ago. Very inconveniently, since I have a buyer lined up. An important buyer. I feel an obligation to carry through with my arrangement.”

“Austria is not familiar to me,” Umar Ibn Umar said, waving his hand as if dismissing the existence of UFOs or unicorns.

“And UKD?”

He shook his head.

“Oh, well,” she said, calling his bluff. “I’ll be off.”

She got to the hallway before he called her back.

“Perhaps we can deal with your client directly,” said the Syrian.

“Not possible.”

He frowned. Before he could say anything else, the phone rang. The Syrian picked it up, but there was no one on the other end.

“Sorry about that,” whispered Rockman. “We got to it a second too late.”

Well, just peachy
, she thought to herself.

“We’re moving to get more backup,” added Rockman. “You’ll be all right.”

Even more peachy.

The Syrian gave the phone a quizzical look, then hung up. “As I was saying, perhaps we can deal with them ourselves.”

“The people I’m dealing with aren’t as free to move around as you and I,” said Lia. “It’ll be much easier for all concerned if you simply sell the bacteria to me. You’ve probably grown twenty pounds of it already.”

“Hardly.” He considered his cigar ash. “What do you know about the disease?”

“It’s a type of rat-bite fever that has no cure,” said Lia. “It’s the perfect assassination weapon.”

Umar Ibn Umar smiled. “Perfect for many things. But there is a cure. We’ve been promised it.”

“What? Penicillin?”

“No, it’s supposedly resistant. However, we have questions about the potency of the bacteria. It doesn’t seem to actually work.”

“Doesn’t work?”

“No.” A second phone began to ring—it was a cell phone.

“Jam it,” said Lia, talking to the Art Room.

Umar Ibn Umar gave her an odd look as he took the phone from his pocket and put it to his ear.

“Interesting,” he said. “Why would my phones stop working?”

“Why doesn’t the disease work?” asked Lia.

“Your Israeli masters haven’t told you?” Umar Ibn Umar took a pensive puff. “I would have thought you were high-ranking enough to be in on their secret.”

“Guards behind you,” whispered Rockman. “Their guns are out.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” she said.

83

“Charlie, we’re moving the rendezvous point and going with a backup plan,” Telach told Charlie after he got in the car. The driver, a Brit named Jack Pendleton, started away smoothly. Pendleton was a member of the British Special Air Service, or SAS, the Special Forces military branch trained in covert operations. Assigned to Middle East duty, he had been “borrowed” by Desk Three. Even though he was an ally, Dean had to take out his sat phone and pretend to be using it as cover when talking to the Art Room; Pendleton wasn’t cleared to know about the com system, let alone the rest of Desk Three’s technology.

“You with me, Charlie?” asked Telach.

“Yeah, I’m here. What’s going on?”

“I’m going to explain everything to you, Charlie, but first we have to get that sample safe. That’s our priority.”

“What’s wrong with Lia?” he demanded.

“She’s okay. Follow my directions. Have the driver turn at the second intersection.”

Dean leaned forward in the seat. There was no question that the sample he had stolen was extremely important. But so was Lia.

He knew where she’d gone. They could just drive straight there, then make the rendezvous.

Unless he didn’t make it.

“The turn’s coming up, Charlie. You have to trust me.”

“Turn here,” he told Pendleton.

“That’s going to take us out of the city,” said the driver.

“Yeah,” said Dean.

The houses thinned quickly. They began climbing up the hillside. Dean could see the Syrian’s walled compound in the distance.

Lia was there. In trouble.

Duty or love—which was more important?

“Next left, Charlie,” said Telach.

If they went straight, they could get down to the compound.

I’m not a Marine anymore, Dean told himself. I don’t follow orders blindly.

Hell, he hadn’t done that as a Marine.

But he had the driver take the turn.

“Next right,” said Telach.

“Where’s Lia?” demanded Dean.

“She’s okay. We’ll have you back her up in case the Israelis don’t get there quickly or something goes wrong. But first, you hand off the sample.”

“If she’s in trouble, every second counts.”

“I’m well aware of the constraints,” said Telach.

Constraints?

Jesus!

“All right. Stop on the side of the road,” said the Art Room supervisor.

They pulled over. Dean opened the door. “I’m going to leave the pack here.”

“No,” said Telach. “Thirty seconds. A woman on a bicycle.”

Dean got out of the car and waited. Sure enough, what looked like an old woman dressed in a black chador soon rounded the curve.

“She’s going to say something to you in Arabic,” Telach told him.

“What do I do?”

“Nothing. She has orders to shoot you if you do anything.”

The woman approached the car, stopped, then repeated a long phrase twice.

“Give her the sample; go ahead,” said Telach.

Dean reached back into the car and took out the small insulated bag. The woman took it without comment and began pedaling away. Dean saw an airplane banking above.

“It’s ours, Charlie,” said Telach. “Now go ahead; go over to the compound. We’re still assessing the situation.”

Inside the car, the driver was suppressing a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Dean.

“The hag said you have tiny balls and couldn’t fuck a cat. Anyone who understood her couldn’t have helped but react. That’s how she knew you were the right contact.”

“Everybody’s a comedian,” said Dean.

There were a half-dozen men at the entrance to the compound and two guards on the western fence, nearest the town. But the southeastern side was uncovered.

“When are the Israelis getting here?” Dean asked.

“They’re on their own schedule,” said Telach. “But I’d say within a half hour.”

“Too long. I’m going in.”

Telach didn’t answer right away. “All right,” she said finally. “Get as close to the wall as you can. What weapons do you have?”

“I have the AK-47 I took from the school, and an M4 in the trunk.”

“All right. Wait until the aircraft attacks the main gate. When it does, go over the wall.”

“Then what?”

“It depends on what they do. You’ll have to trust us.”

“I really wish you’d stop saying that.”

“I will when you start doing it.”

“I’m here, right?”

Lia followed the guards to the back of the house, expecting to be led to the bunker they had ID’ed below the back of the building. But instead they led her outside to a side garden and left her. She looked around. There were guards at the far end of the compound and back in the house, but otherwise she seemed to be alone. Lia took out her handheld computer and thumbed up the bug scanner; she wasn’t even under surveillance.