Shadow

by James Swallow

  “The bioprinters,” said Park, with a sudden jerk. “They took two portable bioprinting machines from MaxaBio! They used my clearance to get them.”

  “We know,” said Marc. “We assumed they brought them here.”

  “No. After they took me from Singapore, I never saw those machines again.” Park looked at the floor. “I don’t even know where here is.”

  “You’re in Iceland,” Marc told her, and the woman’s eyes widened in shock. “Sorry. Should have … uh … mentioned that.”

  “Is it really that simple?” Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Load up a virtual model and press print killer virus?”

  Park nodded. “There is more to it than that, but as long as they have the right seed stock, biokits and base materials, it can be done. It’s the reason why high-acuity bioprinters are heavily regulated by the United Nations.”

  “It’s a lot easier and safer to move around a bunch of inert chemicals and lab equipment, than it is to ship a live bioweapon.” Marc looked back at the empty storage unit. “Much simpler to send the program rather than the virus.”

  “The Lion’s Roar could have moved those bioprinters to anywhere in the world,” Lucy went on. “If they can assemble a viral weapon on site, we are looking at the potential for a catastrophic terror attack we won’t know about until it’s too fucking late.”

  “I know where they sent them,” said Park, in a small voice. Marc’s head whipped around to stare at her. “I have the information in a safe place, I thought I could warn someone.” She continued, her tone dropping to a hushed whisper. “On the plane, when Axelle was with me. She thought I was asleep, but I overheard her on the phone.” Park gave a brittle smile. “Elle ne savait pas que je parle français.”

  “Tell me where,” Marc began, but at the corner of his vision he saw Lucy suddenly bringing up her trank gun.

  “Heads up!” she called.

  Marc drew his dart pistol and pivoted on his heel, in time to see figures moving behind the doors leading into the lab. The door opened a few degrees and the shapes of two mottled black cylinders came tumbling in through the gap.

  Flashbangs.

  An inner voice screamed out the warning and Marc lurched into a twisting motion, shoving Park to the floor behind a workbench. She fell into cover but he was too slow to save himself from the full effect of the ripple-blast from the stun grenades.

  The air in the room turned into a caged thunderclap and a blinding luminosity seared his eyes. Marc staggered forward, groping sightlessly for the edge of the bench. A shrieking whistle echoed in his skull and he felt himself listing, the sonic blast so loud that it had affected his inner ear and disrupted his balance. Blinking furiously, trying to clear the raw purple after-image on his retinas, he collided with a chair and sprawled over it, almost going down in a heap.

  Fuzzy blobs of color moved through his sight, dark dancing shapes full of menace coming closer. He picked out the ghost-image of Lucy’s face turn his way, then retreat. Another form emerged out of the fog of bright color, a gaunt white woman as pale as death with the heavy rod of a shotgun in her hands.

  The French woman from the phone, the one Park had called Axelle.

  Marc cried out as she fired a close-range shot into Lucy, as the other operative tried to scramble away. He felt the tremor in the air from the blast more than he heard it, and then to his horror Axelle shot her again. Lucy crumpled behind a storage container and Marc lost sight of her.

  He shouted, frantic and enraged, and fired the dart pistol in Axelle’s direction. But what he was aiming at was the woman’s blurry after-image, the space where she had been. Lurching up, his head swam and waves of nausea washed over him.

  Another ghost-image took form in front of him, this one solidifying into a man with lupine features and a cruel grin. Noah Verbeke, as large as life and twice as vicious, came into being like he had been summoned by a curse. The bigger man swatted Marc with a haymaker that came out of nowhere, and in his half-stunned state there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He lost the pistol again, and this time he had no idea where it had gone.

  Next time use a bloody lanyard, he told himself.

  “Be calm,” said Verbeke, his voice muffled and faraway.

  The bigger man landed another punch in Marc’s solar plexus and this time his legs gave way. Marc collapsed against the workbench, eyes streaming, ears ringing.

  He waited for the next blow, but Verbeke retreated. Second by agonizing second, Marc’s vision cleared, and he saw two more men in the same black tactical gear as the Irishman moving to where Lucy fell. They hoisted her off the ground and shoved her up against a cabinet. She had the first blush of a wicked bruise forming across her right cheek, but she was alive and breathing.

  Relief flooded through him as he caught sight of spent shotgun shells and a couple of small, tattered polymer pads scattered across the floor. Axelle had used flexible baton cartridges, tagging Lucy with the so-called “bean bag” rounds to put her down but not end her.

  He was still trying to process what that meant when Verbeke hove back into view and made a broad give-me gesture.

  “I’ll need your weapons and equipment.”

  Marc feigned dizziness, which wasn’t a hard act to pull off, and tried to get a read on the situation, his eyes darting around looking for something to turn the tables. In the back of his head, another thought was pressing at him.

  Has Verbeke been here all along?

  The other man pulled Park roughly to her feet and she spat in his face. Verbeke calmly wiped the spittle from his cheek, and then broke one of the woman’s fingers in retribution. She screamed and he shoved her away, toward Axelle.

  “I became bored with watching you stumble around like idiots,” Verbeke told Marc, as if he was intuiting his thoughts.

  He pointed at the ceiling and Marc looked in that direction. His vision was still hazy, but he suspected there was another security camera hidden up there.

  “She wanted to kill you both before you entered the building,” continued Verbeke, jerking a thumb at the pale woman. “But I said no, I wanted to see how far you could get before you figured out how fucked you are.” His grin widened. “Which reminds me.” He held out a hand to Axelle, and with a weary expression the woman handed him a fifty euro note. “You made her lose a bet,” he said, leaning in to Marc and smirking, as if he was confiding a secret. “That’s going to upset her.”

  “You…” Lucy said thickly, sucking in a breath. “You have about ten minutes before the whole of the Icelandic police force comes down on this place. You hear that, asshole?”

  “Is it talking?” Verbeke faked a confused expression, looking at Marc but gesturing toward Lucy. “All that mongrel chattering. I don’t listen.”

  “You should,” said Marc, finally recovering his balance.

  “Don’t play games.” Verbeke gave him a mocking pat on the cheek and a pitying look. “You’re on your own here. You have no backup. And the SR are a bunch of gutless fools.” He pulled Marc to his feet. “Your weapons and equipment. I won’t ask a third time.”

  On that cue, Axelle lifted her shotgun and rested the barrel on Park’s shoulder, the muzzle pressing against the side of the scientist’s head. At point-blank range, even a non-lethal baton round would fatally fracture her skull.

  Lucy reluctantly rose to her feet and followed the command. The thugs at her back already had her trank rifle and smartphone, and she removed her spare ammo clips, letting them drop. Next was a backup dart pistol, a couple of loads for that, and then the ceramic knife sheathed to the inside of her wrist. One of the thugs shoved her in the small of the back. She scowled, before producing a second blade hidden in her boot.

  Marc gave a shrug and dropped the backpack containing his smashed tablet and the busted HERF projector, then removed his phone, smartwatch, the emergency flash drive containing his preferred suite of offensive software programs, and lastly a flexible microcircuit.

  Verbeke gave him a long
and disappointed look when he didn’t produce any weapons, as if Marc was the most derisible excuse for a man he had ever encountered.

  “How it is that soft little things like you are allowed to exist I will never understand,” he told him. “Do you even know how to use the tools you are given?”

  Marc returned a level look.

  “I know a tool when I see one.”

  Verbeke grinned again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He gave Marc another pat on the face, but this time it was more of a slap.

  “You recognize you are a failure here, yes?” He gestured around at the lab. “I let you get this far.” He patted Marc to emphasize each word. “I. Let. You.”

  “You keep touching me.” Marc leaned in and gave a stage whisper. “I mean, I don’t have anything against it, and I am kind of flattered, but you should know I don’t swing that way.”

  Verbeke’s hand dropped and his smile turned rigid.

  “We knew you were here. Didn’t you think the people who run this place would monitor the approaches?”

  “Given how sloppy your people work,” Lucy chimed in, “we figured you’d have your thumbs up your asses.”

  “I sent out the woman to entice you.” Verbeke continued to ignore Lucy, giving Park a careless kick as he fixated on Marc. “And in you came. Who was the idiot who thought that was a good idea? The mongrel, or you?”

  Marc tried and failed to hide a grimace. He felt his confidence crumble. All the velocity, the energy, that had been driving him forward on this mission leaked away. The reality of it was inescapable. This was on Marc, and his overconfidence had blown the operation. His luck had run out.

  “Your friend Larsson,” said Verbeke. “He’s not smart. He keeps pissing off the wrong people. He should mind his own business.” He paused, letting that lie for a moment. “So should you. Who else have you been talking to? I am told Rubicon have a nasty habit of sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Ruby who?” said Marc, making a face. “Never heard of her.”

  “English always think they are so clever,” sneered Axelle, breaking her haughty silence. “But you’re only good for the muscle we can use or the money to milk.”

  “Yeah,” Marc admitted. “Sad fact is, there are a lot of assholes who think like you back home. But lucky for the rest of us, they’re thick as shit.” He fixed Verbeke with a steady gaze, changing tack. “Why don’t we cut to the chase, yeah? Because you’re talking to me like you’re the one in charge but we know that’s not true. You’re a dog on a lead, aren’t you? Someone else is pulling your chain.”

  He tried to close off the hollow feeling inside him and concentrate on the moment.

  The momentum of this operation was in danger of unravelling and Marc knew he had to find some kind of leverage, some way to stay in the fight until an opportunity presented itself. And the only way he could see was to stick the knife in Verbeke’s sense of self, to undercut this braggart’s hard-man attitude.

  “Did they make you say please and thank you when you were busted out in Slovakia? Sit, stay, roll over?” Marc faked a grin and directed it at Lucy. “Look at this shower of shits. They’re not smart enough to put this together on their own, are they?”

  “I am used to being underestimated.” Verbeke’s flinty tone told Marc he had struck a nerve. “The bleeding hearts always think their compassion makes them cleverer than the rest of us. But you’re the biggest fools of them all. You look down your noses at us. Blind and ignorant, hiding it behind a veil of righteous arrogance. So busy signaling your virtues and preening, you don’t see the corrosion everywhere.”

  “We know you,” insisted Axelle. “We know your master and his self-centered crusade. There are a lot of people who want you dead.” She eyed Lucy. “Take you. The Soldier-Saints in America have a bounty for your pretty black head.”

  “Those pencil-dicks?” Lucy snorted. “Is it a lot? I’ll be insulted if it’s not.”

  “Oh, I would hurt you for free,” Axelle replied, and her gun dropped off Park’s shoulder, coming around to aim at the other woman.

  Marc saw the sudden change in the Korean’s expression, the abrupt flash of rage in her eyes as she saw her moment to act. She snatched at a metal retort stand on the nearby workbench, and gave a wordless cry of fury as she smashed it into the back of Verbeke’s head with all the force she could muster. As she was reeling back for another blow, the man rounded on her, and he tore the stand from her grip. His face turned crimson and a punch came next, the blow landing hard in her stomach. Park crumpled to her knees and coughed out a spatter of thin bile.

  “You bastard!”

  Marc rocked off his heels, his fists bunching, but Axelle was suddenly aiming her shotgun at him and he faltered as the muzzle rose.

  Verbeke paid no attention to him, tossing away the stand. He put a heavy military boot on Park’s ankle and pressed down hard, drawing a thin scream from the woman.

  “I let you live,” he growled. “Know your place!”

  Through her tears, Park cursed him in her native language before finally sobbing brokenly.

  “You lied to me! You murdered my family!”

  He gave a sigh and removed his boot.

  Is it worth keeping up the pretense?” Verbeke asked the question and then answered it himself. “I suppose not. The test served its purpose.”

  “We need her…” began Axelle, but Verbeke shook his head.

  “No, we don’t. She’s done all we required, we are close enough.” He glared at the trembling woman, rubbing at the back of his head. His hand came away marked with streaks of crimson. “And she drew blood. That has to be paid in kind.”

  Verbeke grabbed Park by the hair and she howled again. He dragged her across the lab, and Marc took a step after her. Axelle jabbed him in the chest with the barrel of the shotgun and hard lines of pain rippled across his chest.

  There was a cube with walls of thick plastic built into another workbench, the clear box maybe a meter and a half square along all sides, lined inside with more metal racks. Yellow hazard warning triangles adorned it and condensation hung on the frame in wet patches. There were silver pipes entering from the top, and a drain grid on the bottom. Verbeke wrenched it open, tore out the racks, and then forcibly shoved the Korean woman inside. Her small frame was too big to fully fit, but he slammed the panel down on her legs anyway, confining her inside as best he could. Park fought weakly, pushing back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Marc demanded.

  “Industrial accidents happen more often that you might think.”

  Verbeke reached down for a control valve on the side of the cube. He gave it a savage twist and jets of hot steam gushed into the box from the vents at the top. Trapped inside, Park cried out as the scalding vapor touched her bare skin.

  “No!”

  Marc surged forward, and this time Axelle hit him in the chest with the butt of the shotgun, hard enough that the burst of agony made him stagger against the bench. Lucy moved and the gun swung in her direction.

  Verbeke shut the valve.

  “Run-off from the geothermal plant,” he explained, delighted by his own cruelty. “They use the heated steam to boil away any dangerous germs.”

  “You fucking animal!” spat Lucy.

  He quickly twisted the valve open and closed, blasting Park once again.

  “You are the fucking animals!” Verbeke roared back at her, his anger exploding into full display from out of nowhere. “You stinking mongrels from your shithole countries, all your filth and degeneracy pouring into our world! You are nothing, bitch! You and your kind need to be culled!” He shot a venomous glare at Marc. “And every race traitor collaborator along with you!” All the seething hatred Verbeke had been keeping in check burst its banks, and he thundered at them, spitting bile. “Tell me how you tracked us here! Do it now or I’ll kill her!”

  He cranked the valve again, slow and methodical, and Park began to moan in agony as the vapor streamed
in. Verbeke kept one hand on the latch, holding it shut. Marc could not tear his gaze away from the terrified woman banging helplessly on the inside of the thick plastic, her legs kicking in wretched panic.

  “He’s going to do it anyway,” said Lucy, in a dead voice.

  Verbeke turned the valve past the next increment and Park’s screaming turned ragged.

  “The money!” Marc shouted the words at him, unable to stay silent any longer. “Stop! Stop! We followed the money, you heartless bastard!”

  “I thought so,” said Verbeke.

  And then with a flourish, he opened the valve as far as it would go, flooding the plastic chamber with a torrent of superheated steam. Park’s agonized cries were drowned out in the hissing gush, and clouds of the boiling vapor spewed out around the half-closed panel. The woman stopped thrashing and Verbeke finally cut the feed, allowing the steam to dissipate. He let go of the door and Park’s ruined, heat-bloated corpse tumbled out, crashing to the floor in a puddle of bloody fluids.

  The appalling, sick horror of the brutal murder shocked Marc rigid, but Verbeke looked on at the dead woman with what appeared to be idle curiosity.

  “Such a tragedy,” he allowed.

  A second ago, he had been caught in a towering rage, but now Verbeke was calm. It was as if a switch had been tripped, swinging him instantly from one mood’s extreme to another. With revulsion, Marc realized that the man was quite pleased by what he had done.

  “The money,” Verbeke repeated, turning his back on his victim. “That’s always a weak link. We will have to take steps.”

  “You … You didn’t need to do that.”

  Marc met Verbeke’s gaze and in that moment he was filled with such raw hate for the man that all he wanted was to throw himself at him, grab him by the throat, rip and tear until one of them was dead. The emotion was powerful, primal, and he wanted to give in to it.

  Verbeke saw that in his eyes and smiled. He pointed at Marc’s face.

  “You feel it? That’s what strength is, English. Hate. It’s just another word for the same thing.”