“You’re going there,” the Turk said, pointing toward a steep canyon sandwiched between two wind-scoured mountains. Smith tried to look up it, but between the snow and the gray clouds hanging from the edges of the rock walls, it was impossible to penetrate more than a quarter mile.
“The Iranian border is about ten kilometers, and while there are no fixed defensive structures, there are patrols. Your passports and other papers are in your packs and the cover story of two adventurers getting turned around in bad weather is solid but less than original. Better to just avoid contact.”
“What about Farrokh’s people?” Smith said, settling onto the bumper and pulling his boots on. Despite the ungodly pounding he’d taken only a few hours ago, Howell was already busy attaching climbing skins to his skis in order to give them the traction necessary to carry him up canyon.
“They know you’re coming and by what route.”
“How will we identify them?”
Nazim thought about it for a moment. “They probably won’t kill you right away.”
“No code word?”
“Our communication with them isn’t that good. It’s channeled through too many intermediaries to be reliable.”
“Great.”
The Turk slammed the back hatch closed as soon as Smith stood, obviously anxious to get out of there.
“Do you know anything about the snowpack, Nazim? Is it stable?”
“I’m afraid I’m from a small village on the Mediterranean,” he said, climbing behind the wheel. “To me, snow is snow.”
The motor roared back to life and he began rocking the car out of the hole his wheels had sunk into. When he was free, he rolled down the window and motioned Smith over.
“Mr. Klein says you have many enemies. Perhaps even in your own intelligence agencies. Be careful who you trust.”
With that, he started backing down the way they’d come. After a few yards, though, he slammed on the brakes and leaned out the window again. “Peter! The Battle of Gaugamela in 382 BC. Who had the larger army?”
“Darius. And it was 331.”
Another thumbs-up from Nazim and he disappeared into the fog, guiding the car in a controlled skid down the slope.
Smith clicked into his bindings, then checked to make sure the batteries in his avalanche beacon were fully charged. “You ready?”
“Absolutely.”
Smith nodded in the direction of the canyon. “Age before beauty.”
65
Sarie van Keuren followed along obediently. There was no other option.
She’d spent the last eleven hours locked in a dormitory-style room, unable to sleep. De Vries, the Iranians, Smith, and the parasite were enough to keep her awake for the rest of her life.
Mehrak Omidi opened a heavy steel door that looked like every other door they’d passed and motioned her inside. When she started to back away, he shoved her through.
It turned out to be nothing more than a simple conference room. There weren’t enough chairs around the large table and some of the people were standing against the walls, expressions ranging from stony resolve to barely controlled panic.
Sarie barely saw them, though, instead focusing on a Plexiglas wall that displayed a white cube of a room and its lone occupant: Thomas De Vries.
He rushed at the glass when he saw her enter, slamming into it, mouth twisted in a silent scream. Blood washed across his face as he tried to get through, adding fresh streaks to the dried ones already there.
She looked away, telling herself that the thing in that room wasn’t the person she’d known in Uganda. De Vries was gone — destroyed by Mehrak Omidi and the indifferent cruelty of nature.
“I’d like to introduce your team,” Omidi said, closing the door behind him with a metal clang that carried a strange finality.
“My team?”
“The men who are going to help you alter the parasite. Make it more controllable.”
She had a hard time tracking on the names as he went around the room introducing biologists, chemists, and lab techs. Instead she looked each one in the eye, trying to find something meaningful. Why had they been chosen and not someone else? Were they the best minds Iran had to offer or were they just believers?
When the introductions were complete, Omidi pointed to a stack of folders centered on the table. “They’ve all read my report on what I’ve observed about the parasite, and everyone is aware of your background and reputation.”
“My background and reputation?” she said, though it almost sounded as if someone else were speaking. “What are you talking about? What are you people doing here?” She pointed at De Vries, who had exhausted himself and was now on his knees in front of the glass. “Do you see him? They want you to turn this into a weapon. To use it against other human beings.”
“Your moral outrage is commendable,” Omidi said. “But weren’t you part of a team that included a microbiologist from America’s bioweapons research program and a former employee of the British Secret Service?”
“The U.S. doesn’t have a bioweapons program,” she responded.
“You’re being a bit naïve now, aren’t you, Doctor? The Americans spend more on their military than the rest of the world combined. They are the only country to have ever used a nuclear device during war — against primarily civilian targets.” He looked at the people in the room as he spoke and it became obvious his words were meant more for them than for her. “They invade and bomb any non-Christian country at the slightest provocation — sometimes at no provocation at all. Do you really believe that they’ve drawn some sort of line that prevents them from doing this kind of research?”
“Even if that’s true, why would you want to do the same?”
“What we develop here will never be used, Doctor. It will be held up as a deterrent — a safeguard against America trying to take away our freedom again.”
“What makes you think you can control it? That no one else will ever get hold of it? That it won’t get out of this facility by accident? We have to destroy it. We have to let it disappear.”
“It can never disappear again. You know that.”
“It doesn’t have to—”
“Enough!” Omidi said, clearly finished using her as a foil for his lecture. He pressed a button on the room’s intercom and said something that Sarie couldn’t understand. Everyone else did, though, and the sound of rustling fabric filled the room as everyone shifted uncomfortably and shot nervous glances at one another.
A moment later, a door at the back of the room holding De Vries slid open, revealing a tiny elevator and its lone occupant. He was tall and dark skinned, with a thick build and matching beard. There was no fear in him at all, only defiance.
De Vries heard the door and turned, leaping to his feet and charging the man, who, unable to retreat, stepped forward and raised his fists.
He had the look of someone who had seen, and probably perpetrated, a great deal of violence in his life. It was understandable that he didn’t see the pudgy, bleeding old man as much of a threat.
The shock was clearly visible in his eyes when he was lifted into the air and slammed into the wall behind him. De Vries clawed at his face, going for his eyes as the man threw a forearm up and used the leverage of the wall to push his attacker back.
The gap opened between them was wide enough for the man to lift a booted foot and deliver a kick that caused De Vries to slide back on the slick floor. He stayed on his feet, though, and ran at the man again, this time bringing him down.
The battle became impossible to follow after that — De Vries’s arms blurring as he broke down the man’s pathetic attempts to defend himself. They stayed locked together like that for what seemed like an eternity before the elevator door slid open again, revealing an armed man in a hazmat suit.