Scorpion's Advance (26 page)

'When I'm ready, I'll destroy it.'

'And you are a part of all this?' Anderson asked Myra.

'Of course. Do you think that I want to spend the remainder of my life in this fly-ridden patch of desert? When Sam takes the Nobel Prize, the US authorities won't dare touch him. We'll be able to go back.'

'But you are Jewish,' said
Mirit softly and with astonishment on her face.

'So, I'm Jewish. Personally I've had enough of building other people's pyramids.'

'What's to happen to us?' asked Anderson.

'
Abbas is going to kill you.' Freedman said it as if he were cancelling a dinner appointment.

'Because we got in the way of your ambition?'

'If you like,' said Freedman, not rising to the bait. 'People with no brains always seem hell bent on obstructing those of us who have.'

The toothless man made to grasp
Mirit. Anderson said, 'Do you know that that bastard threw a kid off the walls of Jerusalem?'

Freedman shrugged and said, 'I don't concern myself with the details as long as the end result is achieved. Good help is so hard to find . . .'

Mirit cried out as the man dragged her towards the door in response to Freedman's nod. Anderson automatically lunged forward to help her but had only covered a couple of steps before something came crashing down on his head and everything went black.

Yet again, Anderson woke in darkness to wonder where he was, his head a cage of pain which showed no inclination to escape. He wondered if
Mirit was anywhere near and called out. No reply. His hands were tied behind his back and he appeared to be lying on something soft, soft but lumpy. He considered that it might be a bed but that didn't seem quite right. It was just too lumpy and uneven. There was a burning smell in his nostrils which irritated him because he felt that he should recognize it but didn't. The other strong smell was that of animals. He must still be in the animal labs of the Institute. A bed in the animal lab? Didn't make sense. He tried feeling underneath him with his good hand and touched something soft and furry. Yet here and there it was wet . . . and sticky.

He gave an involuntary cry as a stab of pain shot through his left hand from trying to move his right too much, and stopped the exploration. Outside the room a light was turned on and a faint glow entered through the door crack. Anderson turned his head and could see that he was not alone. A dull, glassy eye stared back at him. He recoiled and sucked in breath against a spasm of fear. He now knew what he was lying on. They had dumped him on top of a pile of animal corpses in the experimental lab. The burning smell was coming from the incinerator.

Anderson was filled with fear and revulsion. And Mirit, what had happened to her? The awful possibilities tortured him as he lay there, struggling ineffectually with his bindings, thrashing his feet into the yielding flesh of his mattress in a sub-conscious effort to avoid the final thought that Mirit was already dead.

The door opened and the light came on. The toothless man was there, a spectre of malevolence, looking at Anderson but not saying anything. He crossed the room to the back wall and took down a long fire rake from its mounting.

Anderson could see now that there were two loading hoppers for the incinerator. He was lying on top of a full one, the other was empty. He stared at the empty one. It contained only a few smears of blood on the sides and the dissected body of a mouse that had avoided cremation by sticking to the bottom. Anderson felt anguish push him to the bounds of reason as he considered that Mirit might have been lying on top of the other bin. He tore his eyes away from it.

The Arab opened the fire door and shielded his eyes for a moment before inserting the rake and retrieving it slowly with great care. Anderson found himself mesmerized. What was coming out was a skeleton, a human skeleton. The man wanted him to see it in its entirety so that he would know . . . know what? The answer paralysed him.

The Arab moved the skeleton along the hearth plate so that he could wheel in the other hopper. Anderson felt the jolt as it began to move and looked blankly up at the ceiling. With Mirit dead nothing really mattered any more. He made one last decision. As the fire door opened he would deliberately wrench his wrists against their bindings. He felt sure that the surge of pain from his fractured bones would push him into anaesthetized oblivion before he met the fire.

The hopper engaged noisily in front of the furnace and Anderson opened his eyes for the final act. He saw a vision. There was a man's face in the ceiling, a man with a gun, a man wearing sunglasses. The gun jerked mutely, like an air pistol, thought Anderson, and the Arab fell dead. The vision was Hiram.

The American dropped from the ventilator shaft and freed Anderson gently from his bonds. 'Jesus,' he whispered when he saw his damaged hand.

Anderson sat up on his animal mound and looked at the skeleton on the hearth. He got off the hopper and said to the American, 'Can I have that?' nodding to the gun.

Hiram handed him the weapon without speaking and watched as Anderson stood over the Arab's body and aimed. He went over and said quietly, 'You have to take this off.' He released the safety catch. Anderson squeezed the trigger three times and handed the gun back.

He knelt down by the skeleton and reached out his fingers. He didn't touch the bones; he just held his hand near. He couldn't say or do anything, but he wanted to. He wanted to scream, to shout, to accuse, to fight, to run . . . anything but float weightlessly on this agonizing ocean of grief. Then he saw. He couldn't believe it at first but there was no mistake.

'It's not a woman,' he said. 'It's not a woman.'

'Of course not,' said a puzzled Hiram quietly. 'It's
Shamir.'

Anderson was reborn in the ashes of the hearth. 'But I thought

'Oh, my God,' whispered Hiram as he realized. 'You thought it was Captain Zimmerman?'

‘I
thought it was Mirit,' repeated Anderson quietly.

'Cap . . .
Mirit's OK. The bastard was keeping her for something else.'

Anderson had never known such joy. His hand was shattered, his skull felt fractured, he was covered in animal blood and tissue and he was deliriously happy. Hiram could hardly believe the change that had come over him. 'Guess you like her a lot,' he said with awe-inspiring inadequacy.

Mirit didn't seem to notice the mess that Anderson was in. She kissed him full on the lips as if she would never breathe again. 'Oh, Neil . . . never leave me.'

'We'd best get you to a hospital, Doc,' said Hiram. Anderson said that he'd like to wash and change first.

‘I’ll help,' said Mirit. They walked along to the laundry room and stepped inside.

The weariness that Anderson had displayed suddenly disappeared. '
Mirit, the cultures. We've got to get them!'

'You'll kill yourself!' protested
Mirit.

Anderson ignored her. 'Do you have Klein's book?'

'Yes. I picked it up when the CIA freed me.'

'Good. Destroy it!'

'What?'

'Destroy it. It has the reference number of the Klein gene cultures in it.'

'But . . .'

‘
I haven't forgotten my promise but I don't want the CIA to get the Klein gene.'

Mirit
began tearing out the pages and sluicing them down a laundry drain while Anderson put on fresh clothes. 'We'll have to be quick before Hiram suspects!' he said.

For practically the first time in the Klein affair, things went smoothly. They located the cloning lab and found the culture store. There were eight vials labelled 6713. Anderson put them all in his pocket and closed up the fridge. 'Back to the
laundry room. Quick!' They returned without being seen and Anderson brought out the vials from his pocket. He held them out and said, 'Now tell me that you want to hand these over to the authorities.'

Mirit
looked him in the eye. She said, 'It is my duty as an Israeli officer to . . .'

Anderson interrupted her. That wasn't the bargain. I don't want to know what the Israeli army or the Israeli government think. I want
you
to tell me that
you
want to hand the Klein gene over.'

'You don't understand!'
Mirit protested.

'Yes I do. You are hiding behind your uniform, your rank, your "duty" and if the worst comes to the worst you can always say that you were only obeying orders!'

'How dare you!'

‘
Tell me!' insisted Anderson. Tell me that Mirit Zimmerman thinks that the Klein gene should be kept in existence!' He pressed one of the vials into her palm. 'Go on! Tell me!'

Mirit
clutched at the vial as her mind reeled. She watched as Anderson packed the other seven cultures into pockets of the soiled clothing that he then picked up in a bundle saying, 'We'd best get back to Hiram.'

'Feel better?' asked Hiram, as Anderson entered the incinerator
room.

'Much,' said Anderson, approaching the fire door. Hiram crossed and opened it for him, a gesture which brought a faint smile to Anderson's lips. He flung the bundle into the flames.

'Wait!' said Mirit, as Hiram made to close the heavy iron door. She came over and flung the last of the Klein cultures into the furnace.

'What was that?' said Hiram.

Mirit ignored the question and stared into the flames.

'I've just come of age,' she said. Anderson smiled at her and nodded his approval.

'Neil?'

'Yes?'

'Surrey isn't all that bad ... is it?'

The Steven Dunbar Series

LOST CAUSES

DUST TO DUST

WHITE DEATH

THE LAZARUS STRAIN

EYE OF THE RAVEN

THE GULF CONSPIRACY

WILDCARD

DECEPTION

DONOR

Other Novels

HYPOCRITES’  ISLE

PAST LIVES

TANGLED WEB

RESURRECTION

PANDORA'S HELIX

TRAUMA

CHAMELEON

CRISIS

REQUIEM

PESTILENCE

FENTON'S WINTER

THE TROJAN BOY

THE ANVIL

KEN McCLURE is an award-winning medical scientist as well as a global selling author. He was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he studied medical sciences and cultivated a career that has seen him become a prize-winning researcher in his field. Using this strong background to base his thrillers in the world of science and medicine, he is currently the author of twenty-four novels and his work is available across the globe in over twenty languages. He has visited and stayed in many countries in the course of his research but now lives in the county of East Lothian, just outside Edinburgh.

www.kenmcclure.com

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