De Vries abandoned his barely conscious victim and charged to within a few meters before a muzzle flash glinted off the glass. He went down hard, thrashing wildly but unable to get back to his feet.
A uniform gasp rose when the gun sounded again, sending a round into the center of the old man’s chest. It was impossible to know if it was the act of shooting the helpless man that affected them or the fact that De Vries didn’t stop trying to get up until the gun was empty.
Smoke swirled around the room as De Vries’s body was dragged into the elevator and the man on the floor crawled toward the glass. His right cheek was split from the edge of his mouth almost to his ear, and bare cartilage was visible on the bridge of his nose. Both eyes were still intact, but one no longer tracked straight as he silently pleaded with the people watching from the safety of the conference room.
Sarie swallowed hard, fighting the urge to throw up as Omidi looked on.
“We got him from a rural prison where he was awaiting execution for rape and murder. To pity him would be a waste of time you would be well-advised to use more productively.”
She’d been in danger all her life — in the backcountry, on her father’s farm, in her home outside of Cape Town. But it was danger she had grown up with, that had become part of her.
This was different. There was no sky above her, no beat-up rifle in her hand — nothing familiar at all. It wouldn’t be malaria or a snake or even a gang of violent men. No, she’d lose who she was a thousand feet underground, finally bleeding to death while Omidi’s people jotted notes.
She took slow, even breaths like the psychologist had taught her as a child and felt a little of her calm returning. She wouldn’t let Omidi use fear and empty promises to break down her resistance. There would be no reward for helping him — no safety, no flight home, no rescue. Her life was coming to an end. The question was, what was she going to do with the time she had left?
Sarie let the fear and uncertainty remain etched deep into her face, though she felt only anger and hate. It would be those emotions that would get her through this. Anger and hate.
“All diseases spread quickly in Africa,” she said, beginning the speech she’d worked out during the hours she’d spent locked away. “AIDS is a perfect example of that. But it’s different in the West. They have sophisticated medical response systems, reliable media, and an educated population.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the man in the glass cage staring at her, and it caused her to lose her train of thought.
“Go on,” Omidi prompted.
“The initial symptom of the infection is obvious disorientation. Warnings will be all over the news about this, and since nearly everyone in America has a house, a gun, and a phone, they’ll have a lot of options. They could barricade themselves somewhere, shoot the infected person, call the police or an ambulance…”
Of course, she was talking nonsense. The disorientation phase wasn’t serious or lengthy enough to ensure that it would be noticed. Even a married person with a family might become sick while their spouse went to work and go fully symptomatic while alone. Or, even more likely, the disorientation phase could occur at night when the victim was asleep. Hospitals, unable to provide a cure and handle thousands of violent patients, would shut down. Family members would try to protect loved ones from authorities, who would have no choice but to euthanize victims in an effort to contain the pandemic. And to the degree that people in America had guns, did it really help? Many would find it impossible to shoot family and friends, while others would panic and shoot everything that moved.
Omidi nodded thoughtfully. His own arrogance and misogyny would work against him. Despite not having a background in biology or disease control, he would never believe that anyone could outsmart him — particularly a woman.
“I agree,” he said finally. “Along with making the parasite easily transportable, we’ll have to make the onset faster and more violent. We can’t leave time for people to react.”
66
So we’re still not completely certain,” Lawrence Drake said, leafing through the stack of police and fire reports.
Dave Collen slid another folder onto the desk. “We don’t have a body, if that’s what you mean. But the local investigation is still ongoing and I wouldn’t expect to at this point. What we know is that Russell’s car was there and that she hasn’t been seen since. The cops believe she was in the house when it went up.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I don’t know. It was too risky to have surveillance there when it went down. We’re still not sure how the fire started or what happened to Gohlam. It’s possible that instead of using a gun, he decided to use some kind of incendiary device and he blew himself up in the process of getting Russell — either by accident or by design.”
“That’s a lot of speculation, Dave.”
“I know, but at this point there isn’t anything we can do about it. It’s possible that Russell escaped and went to ground, but I doubt it. With an Afghan coming after her, it’s more likely that she’d want to use our resources to find out where the orders came from.”
“Unless Brandon’s message spooked her.”
Collen nodded. “Unfortunately, it gets worse. I think we have to assume at this point that the Iranians have van Keuren.”
“Do we have updated casualty estimates?”
“Even with the response plan we’ve put together under the cover of upgrading our biological attack readiness program, adding her into the equation could push it to a million.”
Drake let out a long breath and pointed to the file Collen had placed on his desk. “Smith and Howell?”
His assistant nodded. “They were on the plane to Brussels that got diverted to the military base on Diego Garcia. The public story is that the plane had a problem with its navigation system and made a safe emergency landing. Based on what little I’ve been able to get out of Army Intelligence, the real story is that there was a Sudanese man with an unknown infection aboard and that he’s been killed. The passengers all look clean and will be released soon.”
“What about Smith and Howell?”
“They got on a private jet that we don’t know anything about. Every avenue I’ve tried to get information on it turns into a dead end.”
Castilla, Drake thought. It had to be. “Do we know where it went?”
Collen flipped open the folder, paging to a satellite photo of a small jet landing on a remote airstrip. “Turkey. They got immediately into a car and started toward the Iranian border. The satellite lost them in the cloud cover when they started into the mountains. By the time I got a man up there, the tracks were already covered. He estimates that they couldn’t have gotten their vehicle any closer than seven or eight miles from the border before the snow got too deep.”
“To what end?”
Collen jabbed a finger onto a topographical map of eastern Turkey. “In all likelihood, Smith and Howell went up this canyon on foot.”
“So we have the enigmatic Dr. Smith and a former MI6 operative headed into Iranian territory under orders from what can only be the White House. The Iranians may have van Keuren, and no one has actually seen Randi Russell’s body. Jesus Christ, Dave. Is there anything left to blow up in our faces?”
“It’s not all bad news. Even if it is Castilla, I think we can be pretty confident that he’s grasping at straws by sending two lone men across the border like this. How are they going to find the facility Omidi’s taken the parasite to? And even if they do find it, how are they going to stop him?”