The helicopter appeared to have been well maintained and kept ready for action. Only a thin layer of dust had accumulated on its exterior. Nearby, several drums of aviation fuel were arranged in a neat formation. Kismet slid back the door and briefly inspected the fuselage. “This was somebody’s ‘Plan B’. They kept it ready to go right up until the end.”
Marie offered the only response. “I wonder why it was never used?”
“Like everything else down here, what was the point? There was no way one helicopter, or some incomplete weapons research or a stockpile of munitions, would have made an iota of difference.” Kismet turned away from the Hind and rejoined his companions. “And it’s not going to do us much good either.”
They returned back down the passage and moved toward the third stainless steel laboratory. Of the three they had so far encountered, this one seemed to most resemble the sobriquet Kismet had applied to the facilities. The neatly ordered space was equipped with stainless steel tables, computer terminals attached to gas chromatographs, centrifuges and autoclaves, and racks of glass beakers and test tubes. There was even a glass alembic, looking like a prop from an old mad scientist movie, on one of the tables. Additionally, there were two sealed glass chambers with airlocks and glove ports, and a bank of empty cages large enough to hold a variety of animals. The back wall was arrayed with shelves and cabinets storing glass and plastic containers of various chemical compounds. There was nothing resembling an archaeological discovery — no holy relics. Kismet turned to Chiron. “Well, let’s look behind door number four.”
But Chiron was not there.
“Pierre?”
There was a sudden rasp of metal, then the guillotine gate slammed shut with a forcefulness that sent a tremor through the room, shattering several glass containers. Marie shrieked reflexively and rushed to the solid barrier, along with a stunned Hussein. Kismet hastened to join them and peered through the narrow view port.
“Pierre, I told you—”
Chiron stood just beyond the doorway, his finger still on the large red button that had activated the emergency measures, which had sealed the lab. He raised his eyes slowly to the window and spoke. Although the thick glass completely muted his voice, Kismet had no trouble reading his lips. I’m sorry, Nick. Then he turned away.
Kismet felt numb. Marie and Hussein began frantically searching for some means to open the door, but Kismet was looking for something else: comprehension. Try as he might, his mind could not put the pieces together. The man he thought of as one of his closest friends had intentionally trapped him inside a chemical weapons lab, deep underground, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why.
And then he noticed something else about their situation that forced him to leave off wrestling with the riddle of Chiron’s actions. “It’s getting hot in here.”
When Pierre Chiron hit the switch, he did more than simply lock his companions inside Laboratory Three. The large red button controlled a fail-safe mechanism designed to protect the rest of the facility from an accidental release of biological or chemical contaminants. Under normal operating conditions, each of the four laboratories would have been monitored by an officer from the Republican Guard with a single order: at the first hint of danger — if a researcher dropped a test tube or if a Rhesus monkey, whether infected or not, escaped its cage — he was to hit the button.
Rihab Taha al-Azawi al-Tikriti, the scientist known to Iraqis as ‘Doctor Germ’, had designed both the laboratories and the fail-safe mechanisms with grim efficiency. The door was composed of a thick panel of lead, sandwiched between equally dense sheets of steel, and was held in place only by two stubby bolts. When the system was triggered, a tiny explosive charge would blast the bolts out of their recesses, allowing the gate to drop. There was no device in place to raise the barrier, which was nearly as heavy as a railroad car. Once a laboratory was deemed compromised, there was no reason for anyone to ever enter it again.
Between the steel walls and floor of the laboratory, and the solid stone of the cavern, there were several bands of granular magnesium. The same impulse that blew the door bolts also ignited these strips of flammable metal, causing them to burn with a brilliant white intensity. By the time the fuel supply was exhausted, the temperature inside the laboratory would approach 1600 degrees Celsius, at which point the stainless steel would become molten and collapse, releasing the final measure: an almost equivalent volume of sand and rock suspended above the laboratory that would drop down and completely bury the thoroughly sanitized remains of the laboratory.
Anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the laboratory would of course be completely incinerated long before the catastrophic denouement.
Part Three: Exodus
Twelve
Rebecca Gault jumped down from the moving rail car as soon as it entered the laboratory complex, dropped into a tactical crouch and brought her machine pistol to the high ready. Her team imitated her actions and before the tram could bump to a halt, they had formed a defensive perimeter and were scanning for possible targets. The holographic reflex sight on Rebecca’s weapon illuminated the center of Pierre Chiron’s chest with a red dot. There was no one else visible in the spacious cavern. The scientist was seated on a bulky object, covered with a large nylon sack bearing the seal of the United Nations and UNESCO. It looked eerily like a body bag. Without lowering the gun, she rose to her full height and advanced on him.
“Where are they?” she asked in their shared tongue.
Chiron gestured toward Laboratory Two. “I think you’ll be pleased. Two of them are still in their shipping containers. The third was disassembled for research, but all the important parts are there.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh.” The old man winced guiltily, but straightened, assuming a supercilious air. “That’s not your concern. You won’t be bothered. Have your men load this onto the tram.”
She regarded him with barely concealed distaste, but two members of the team hastened forward, following his orders without her verbal direction. There was no question of who was really in charge. The heavy parcel was hefted onto the rail car bed.
“What is that?”
“That also is not your concern.” Chiron gave a sigh, and then softened his tone. “Suffice it to say, I found what I was looking for. Now, let’s finish this business and be away from here.”
Rebecca nodded and secured her weapon. In the corner of her eye, she saw the scientist following her, but made no effort to acknowledge him. Her reaction to the man was not based on any sort of personal dislike. She barely knew him. Instead, she was troubled by the fact that he was there at all, right in the middle of a very delicate and important mission. The situation was further complicated by the fact that he was, nominally, at least, in charge.
The complicity of the French government in sustaining the hegemony of Saddam Hussein was arguably no worse than that of any other Western nation. Even the United States had turned a blind eye to the internal atrocities and human rights abuses of the Baathist dictator in order to cultivate an ally first against the growing Soviet influence in the region, then against the perceived danger posed by Iran. The French government in the mid-1980s had gone a step further by loaning the war-beleaguered nation three nuclear detonators in exchange for future oil leases. Because the deal did not include the plutonium cores necessary to arm the weapons, nor the technology to process that element, it seemed akin to giving a child a gun with not only the bullets but also the firing pin removed. It was perhaps not the wisest thing to do, but certainly posed no imminent threat.