The Hades Factor (6 page)

Dodging trash cans, he saw the truck's passenger-side window suddenly lower. A gun barrel thrust out, aimed directly at him. For an instant he was terrified. Trapped on the sidewalk, the truck blocking the avenue from him, he could neither hide nor evade. And he was unarmed. Whatever their plans had been earlier, now they were counting on shooting him dead.

Smith tapped his brake and swerved so the thug in the truck cab would have to contend with a shifting target as he tried to find his aim.

Sweat beaded on Smith's brow. Then for an instant he felt a sense of hope. Ahead lay an intersection. His hands were white on the steering wheel as he pushed the Triumph toward it.

Just as he accelerated, the gun in the truck fired. The noise was explosive, but the bullet was too late. It blasted across the Triumph's tail and shattered a store window. As glass burst into the air, Smith inhaled sharply. That had been too damn close.

He glanced warily again at the gun barrel as it bounced in the truck's open window. Fortunately, he was closing in on the intersection. A bank stood on one corner, while retail businesses occupied the other three.

And then he had no more time. The intersection was immediately ahead, and this might be his only chance. He took a deep breath. Gauging distance carefully, he slammed his brakes. As the Triumph shuddered, he swung the steering wheel sharply right. He had only seconds to check the truck as his fleet sports car swerved away off onto the cross street. But in those few moments he saw what he had hoped for: The victim of its own speed, the truck hurtled ahead down the avenue and out of sight.

Exulting inside, he gunned to full speed, hit the brakes again, and turned another corner, this time onto a leafy street of Federalist row houses. He drove on, turning more corners and watching his rearview mirror the whole time even though he knew the long truck could not possibly have made a U-turn despite the light traffic of the late night.

Breathing hard, he stopped the car at last in the lacy shadows of a branching magnolia on a dark residential street where BMWs, Mercedeses, and other artifacts of the rich indicated that this was one of Georgetown's most elite neighborhoods. He forced his hands from the steering wheel and looked down. The hands were trembling, but not from fear. It had been a long time since he had been in trouble like this--- violent trouble he had not anticipated and did not want. He threw back his head and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply, amazed as always at how quickly everything could change. He did not like the trouble. ...Yet there was an older part of him that understood it. That wanted to be involved. He thought his commitment to Sophia had ended all that. With her, he had not seemed to need the outside peril that in the past had affirmed he was fully, actively alive.

On the other hand, at this point he had no choice.

The killers in the truck who had attacked him had to be part of what Bill Griffin had tried to warn him about. All the questions he had been mulling ever since leaving their midnight meeting returned:

What was so special about this virus?

What was Bill hiding?

Warily, he shoved the car into gear and drove onto the street. He had no answers, but maybe Sophia did. As he thought that, his chest contracted. His mouth went dry. A terrible fear shot ice into his veins.

If they were trying to kill him, they could be trying to kill her, too.

He glanced at his watch: 2:32 A.M.

He had to call her, warn her, but his cell phone was still at his house. He had seen no compelling reason to take it to London. So now he needed a pay phone quickly. His best chance would be on Wisconsin Avenue, but he did not want to risk another attack from the truck.

He needed to get to Fort Detrick. Now.

He hit his gas pedal, rushing the Triumph toward O Street. Tall trees passed in a blur. Old Victorians with their ornate scrollwork and sharply pointed roofs loomed over the sidewalks like ghost houses. Ahead was an intersection with lamplight spilling across it in silver-gray splashes. Suddenly car headlights appeared ahead, bright spotlights in the dark night. The car was approaching the same intersection as Smith's Triumph, but from the opposite direction and at twice the speed.

Smith swore and checked the crosswalk. Bundled against the cool night air, a solitary pedestrian had stepped off the sidewalk. As the man swayed and sang off-key from too much whiskey, he staggered toward the other curb, swinging his arms like a toy soldier. Smith's chest tightened. The man was heading heedlessly into the path of the accelerating car.

The drunk pedestrian never looked up. There was a sudden scream of brakes. Helplessly Smith watched as the speeding car's fender struck him, and he flew back, arms wide. Without realizing it, Smith had been holding his breath. Before the drunk could land in the gutter, Smith slammed his brakes. At the same time, the hit-and-run driver slowed for a moment as if puzzled and then rushed off again, vanishing around the corner.

The instant his Triumph stopped, Smith was out of the car and running to the fallen man. All the night sounds had disappeared from the street. The shadows were long and thick around the artificial illumination of the intersection. He dropped to his haunches to examine the man's injuries just as another car approached. Behind him, he heard a screech of brakes, and the car stopped beside him.

Relieved, he lifted his head and waved for help. Two men jumped out and ran toward him. At the same time, Smith sensed movement from the injured man.

He looked down: “How do you feel?--” And froze. Stared.

The “victim” was not only appraising him with alert, sober eyes, he was pointing a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a silencer up at him. “Christ, you're a hard man to kill. What the hell kind of doctor are you anyway?”

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CHAPTER

Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

SIX

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2:37 A.M.

Washington, D.C.

A part of Jon Smith was already in the past, back in Bosnia and his undercover stint in East Germany before the wall came down. Shadows, memories, broken dreams, small victories, and always the restlessness. Everything he had thought he had put behind him.

As the two strangers pulled out weapons and sped toward him through the intersection's light, Smith grabbed the wrist and upper arm of the thug at his feet. Before the man could react, Smith expertly pushed and pulled, feeling the tendons and joint do exactly what he wanted.

The man's elbow snapped. He screamed and jerked, and his face turned white and twisted in pain. As he passed out, the Glock fell to the pavement. All this happened in seconds. Smith gave a grim smile. At least he did not have to kill the man. In a single motion, he scooped up the weapon, rolled onto his shoulder, and came up on one knee with the pistol cocked. He fired. The silenced bullet made a pop.

One of the two men running at him pitched forward, twisting in agony on the cold pavement. As the man grabbed his thigh where Smith's bullet had entered, the second man dropped beside him. Lying on his belly, he lifted his head as if he were on a firing range and Smith were a stationary target. Big mistake. Smith knew exactly what the man was going to do. Smith dodged, and his attacker's silenced gunshot burned past his temple.

Now Smith had no choice. Before the man could shoot again or lower his head, Smith fired a second time. The bullet exploded through the attacker's right eye, leaving a black crater. Blood poured out, and the man pitched facedown, motionless. Smith knew he had to be dead.

His pulse throbbing at his temples, Smith jumped up and walked cautiously toward them. He had not wanted to kill the man, and he was angry to have been put in the position where he had to. Around him, the air seemed to still vibrate from the attack. He gazed quickly up and down the street. No porch lights turned on. The late hour and the silenced bullets had kept secret the ambush.

He pulled an army-issue Beretta from the limp hand of the man he had shot in the eye and, with little hope, checked his vital signs. Yes, he was dead. He shook his head, disgusted and regretful, as he removed weapons from the reach of the two injured men. The man with the broken elbow was still unconscious, while the one with the bullet through his thigh swore a string of curses and glared at Smith.

Smith ignored him. He hurried back toward his Triumph. Just then the night rocked with the sound of a large truck's approach. Smith whirled. The broad white expanse of the unmarked, six-wheel delivery truck sped into the intersection. Somehow these killers had found him again.

How?

In combat, there is a time to stand and fight, and a time to run like hell. Smith thought about Sophia and sprinted down a row of looming Victorian houses close to the sidewalk. In some backyard a lonely dog barked, followed instantly by an answering bark. Soon the animals' calls echoed across the old neighborhood. As they died away, Smith slid into the black shadows of a three-story Victorian with turrets, cupolas, and a wide porch. He was at least a hundred yards from the intersection. Crouched low, he looked back and studied the scene. He memorized the parked cars and then focused on the truck, which had stopped. A short, heavy man had jumped from the cab to bend over the three wounded men. Smith did not recognize him, but he knew that truck.

The man waved urgently. Another two men exited the cab and ran to carry away the injured attackers while the first man raised the truck's rear accordion door. A half-dozen men piled out over the tailgate and waited, their heads swiveling as they examined the night. Even in the capricious moonlight, Smith could see the heavy man's face glisten with sweat as he issued orders.

The two wounded men and the corpse were put into the car that had pulled up alongside Smith, and one of the men drove it quickly away, heading north. Then the big delivery truck left, too, going south toward the river, while the leader sent his men off in pairs, no doubt to search for Jon Smith. With luck, each would assume he was more than a match for a forty-year-old, sedentary research scientist, despite the reports of their two surviving comrades. An ivory-tower freak who wore a military uniform as a courtesy and had gotten lucky--- people had made that mistake about Smith before.

He listened from his hiding place until two of them drew close. This pair he would have to neutralize somehow. He turned and loped off into the shadows, making sure they heard him. They took the bait, and a wide gap opened between the pair and the others as they pursued him. All his nerves were afire as he trotted across dark yards, watching everywhere. Four blocks beyond the intersection, he found a combination that would work: A white, Colonial-style mansion stood lightless up at the end of a short drive, while off to the side was a gazebo, nearly invisible in the camouflage of night and the thick trees and bushes that marked the property.

He coughed and scuffed his shoes against the driveway to make sure they would hear and think he was heading off to hide at the mansion.

Then he slipped into the secluded gazebo. He had been right--- through its latticed walls he had a clear view of the property. He set the Glock and Beretta on a bench; he did not plan to use them for anything more than intimidation. No, this work had to be done in silence and with speed.

One long minute passed.

Could they have somehow guessed what he was doing and called in the rest of the team? At this moment, were they circling to come up from behind? He wiped a hand across his forehead, removing sweat. His heart seemed to thunder.

Two minutes... three minutes...

A shadow emerged from the trees and ran toward the left side of the big house.

Then a second ran toward the right side.

Smith inhaled. Thugs, civilian or military, were predictable. Without much imagination, their tactical ideas were rudimentary--- the direct charge of the bull, or the simple ruse of a schoolboy quarterback who always looked the opposite way from where he intended to throw the football.

The two closing in like pincers in the night were better than most, but like Custer at Little Big Horn or Lord Chelmsford at Isandhlwana against the Zulu, they had done him the favor of splitting their forces so he could take them on one at a time. He had hoped they would.

The bolder padded around the mansion's right side, between it and the gazebo. That was a break for Smith. As the man continued on, Smith crept toward him from behind. He stepped on a twig. It was a soft snap, but loud enough to alert the attacker. Smith's heart seemed to stop. The man whirled around, pistol rising to fire.

Smith acted instantly. A single powerful right fist to the throat paralyzed the vocal cords, a sweeping arc of right leg smashed a size-twelve shoe to the side of the man's head, and he dropped quietly.

Smith slid back into the gazebo.

One... two minutes.

The more cautious of the pair materialized in a patch of moonlight between the gazebo and the fallen man. He had had the sense to circle his partner out of sight. But that was where his imagination ended, and he hurried to kneel over the fallen man.

“Jerry? Jesus, what---” Smith's appropriated Beretta smashed across the back of the bent head.

Smith dragged both unconscious men into the gazebo. Crouched over them, he panted as he listened to the night. The only distinctive sound was of a distant car heading south. With relief, he left the gazebo and loped through the shadows of houses and trees back the way he had come. As he neared the intersection where he had been attacked, he slowed and listened again. The only noise was what sounded like the same car driving in the opposite direction, this time north.

On elbows and knees, a pistol in each hand, he crawled to within a front yard of the intersection. The sprinkling of parked cars on either side had not changed, and his Triumph still waited at the curb where he had left it to go to the aid of the fake victim. No one was in sight.

There was no way the six-wheeler truck could have found him first on Wisconsin Avenue and then here. No one had that kind of luck. Yet the truck, the car, and the “drunk” had created a diversion, intending his death.

They had to have known exactly where he was.

He waited as the moon went down. The night grew darker, a large owl hunted through the trees, and the distant car continued to drive south, then north, then south again, slowly making its way closer to the intersection.

Satisfied that no one was lurking there, Smith jumped up and ran to his Triumph. He took a small flashlight from the glove compartment and slid under the car's rear. And there it was. No imagination, no originality. The bright funnel of his flashlight revealed a transmitter no larger than his thumbnail attached to the car's undercarriage by a powerful mini-magnet. The tracking device's reader was probably in the truck or with the short, heavy leader.

He flicked off the flashlight, slipped it into his pocket, and removed the tracking device. He admired the creativity that had manufactured such delicate engineering. As he crawled out from under the Triumph, he noticed the car he had been monitoring was almost at the intersection. He knelt beside the Triumph, watching. The car was moving slowly as the driver pitched newspapers from his rolled-down window onto the lawns and driveways of the neighborhood.

The driver made a U-turn.

Smith stood up and whistled. As the car slowed in the intersection, he ran toward the open window. “Can I buy a paper from you?”

“Yeah, sure. I've got some extras.”

Smith reached into his pocket for change. He dropped a coin, bent to pick it up, and with a cool smile he stuck the microtransmitter to the car's undercarriage.

Straightening, he took the newspaper and nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”'

The car drove on, and Smith jumped into the Triumph. He peeled away, hoping his trick would occupy his assailants long enough for him to reach Sophia. But if these attacks where part of what Bill Griffin had warned him would happen, they knew who he was and where to find, him. And where to find Sophia.

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4:07 A.M.

Fort Detrick, Maryland

The report from the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium was the third Sophia read after plunging back into work, the last scientist still there. She was too worried to sleep. If the damned general was right that Jon was off on one of his enthusiasms over some medical development, she would be furious. Still, she hoped Kielburger was right, as that would mean she had no reason to be concerned.

She continued studying the latest reports, but not until she reached the one from the Prince Leopold lab did something finally offer hope: Dr. Rene Giscours recalled a field report he had read years ago while doing a stint at a jungle hospital far upriver in Bolivian Amazonia. He had been preoccupied at the time battling what appeared to be a new outbreak of Machupo fever, not far from the river town of San Joaquin where Karl Johnson, Kuns, and MacKenzie had first found the deadly virus many years before. He had had no time for even thinking about an unconfirmed rumor from far-off Peru, so he had made a note and forgotten about it.

But the new virus had jogged his memory. He had checked through his papers and found his original note--- but not the actual report. Still, the note to himself back then had emphasized an apparent combination of hantavirus and hemorrhagic fever symptoms, as well as some connection to monkeys.

A surge of angry justification rushed through Sophia. Yes! After Victor Tremont had been unable to help her, she had doubted herself. Now Giscours's report confirmed her recollection. What contact did USAMRIID have down there? If she was right, there had been no major or even minor outbreaks of that virus since. Which meant it must still be confined to the narrow, deep jungle in a remote part of Peru.

In her daily logbook, she described her reaction to the Prince Leopold report, and she summarized what she recalled of the strange virus and her two conversations with Victor Tremont, since they might be relevant now. She also wrote some speculations about how a Peruvian virus could have been transmitted beyond the jungle.

As she was writing, she heard the door to her office open. Who---? Hope filled her.

Excited, she spun her chair around. “Jon? Darling. Where the hell---”

In the instant before her head exploded in violent pain and color, she had a glimpse of four men surrounding her. None was Jon. Then darkness.

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Nadal al-Hassan, disguised from head to foot in lab scrubs, methodically searched the female scientist's office desk. He read each document, report, notebook, and memo. He studied every file. The task was offensive, even though he was protected by surgical gloves. He knew such modern blasphemies occurred in his own country as well as many . other Islamic, even Arab, nations, but he made no secret of his distaste. Allowing females to study and work beside men was not only heresy, it defiled both the dignity of the men and the chastity of the women. Touching what the woman had touched defiled him.