God of War

by Jeff Rovin

  “They’re on the steps,” he said.

  “Waiting? Why?”

  “Coughing,” he replied flatly.

  “Sweet God—”

  Foster put the canister in a backpack with the other container then took a compact Ruger SP101 pistol and a burner phone from a desk drawer.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He unlocked the door and led the way, listening as he moved through the disarray of chairs and desks. He ignored Katinka’s tears and stumbling progress. He was too busy calculating his next move. There was no rush; the longer they took, the safer they would be.

  The door was open and he looked out.

  The two Special Task Force officers who had approached his office were sprawled on the staircase. The leader was lying with her head facing down, convulsions causing her to hop like a frog. Her companion was below her, facedown on the tiles. He was hacking hard and trying to get his arms under him to push up. He failed.

  “Help him,” Katinka blurted.

  “With what, a bullet? He’s already dead, you know that,” Foster replied.

  Foster eased around the leader as blood began to run from her mouth, spewed with each cough. They were careful to avoid the spray lest the bacteria get on their clothes.

  Reaching the front door, Foster looked into the street. It was already empty as the surviving STF members ordered people to leave. Most seemed all right; a few were coughing. He felt bad for the people in the car dealership. They had probably been overlooked in the quick retreat. That was where Foster was headed.

  Katinka grabbed his windbreaker and pulled her face close.

  “Shut it!” she implored.

  “Not until we’re away! People have to fall or they will come after us!”

  “No!”

  Katinka pulled at him and Foster spun with impatience. He thrust the gun to her cheek. “Stay if you want but do not interfere!”

  By the time Foster looked back at the street, a few officers and pedestrians were already on their knees, some doubled over. His van was out front but he did not want to go outside where police could gun him down. A basement connected the two businesses, and was used for storing spare parts and shared office supplies. Foster unlocked the keypad-controlled door and went down the concrete stairs, Katinka trailing.

  “Let me go up and warn them to leave,” she pleaded.

  “All right,” he said. “Hurry!”

  Katinka crossed the small area and ran up the opposite stairs. She stopped halfway up; a moment later, two salesmen stumbled down, blood on their hands and mouths.

  Foster ran forward and pulled them down the stairs, one after the other, then pushed Katinka ahead.

  “The van in back, move!” he shouted.

  It was a vehicle Foster kept in readiness for an escape. He always imagined he’d be fleeing one of his clients, not a ham-fisted STF team, but that did not matter now. The van was out back behind the showroom. Katinka was there, standing too late beside the manager. He was still at his desk, wearing a look of puzzlement, his bloodshot eyes staring. There was blood coursing over his chin and down his neat tie. Then he simply fell forward across his desk.

  “Come on!” Foster yelled.

  Katinka moved like a somnambulist. She followed Foster out the back door. The rows of cars offered them cover from any police who might be hiding in the distance.

  Foster slid the door back hard, placed the backpack inside, and ordered Katinka to go to the passenger’s side. She was droning about closing the sample but Foster had no intention of doing that until they were away. South Africa had always suffered under clouds of death in the streets.

  “This isn’t happening!” she moaned.

  Foster did not bother to tell her to shut up. She was too young and too inexperienced, too unworldly to understand.

  This was just one more blow to the naïve notion that a wall of any skin color could bring peace to this socially and financially corrupt nation.

  He turned on the police scanner and drove slowly through the rows of vehicles. The STF team had obviously not thought to bring hazmat masks. There were no police, no one at all in the car-filled area.

  Except for a boy who had been kicking a football against the dumpster in the back. He was faceup and dead. The ball was beside him, adhering to the blood in which he lay.

  Foster was sorry for that, and as he drove off he closed the container before passing into the residential area through which they would be driving. His move had a core of compassion but it was also practical. He had no idea how this germ worked. He did not know how much of it he had left. A payoff to stop killing had a top limit. The sale of a potential bioweapon did not.

  That done, and Katinka weeping like some Greek figure of tragedy behind her mask, Foster turned his mind to where he would go to make a deal … and warn the police about the price they would pay for any further interference.

  * * *

  “We are ordered to set down wherever we can!”

  The pilot’s update was not even a mild surprise. Breen already had a feeling something was wrong. Five minutes from the helipad at the East London Airport he had noticed red and blue police lights, all moving toward them. But they were not converging on a spot behind them. They appeared to be blocking traffic into a sector.

  According to the map on his open tablet, it was one that encompassed their destination.

  “You been watching—” Williams began.

  “They’re quarantining the target,” Breen interrupted. “No air traffic. He’s released the bug.”

  The helicopter set down in a small park just south of the Nahoon River. “Gents, we’re about a half mile due east of where you needed to be.”

  “Thank you,” Williams said. “Which way is the wind blowing?”

  “Southwest. Why?”

  “We’re okay,” Breen said privately to Williams.

  There was no need to break out the masks and frighten the pilot.

  “We’re going to step outside,” Williams told him. “We’ll be grounded for about an hour.”

  “How do you know that, then?”

  “History repeats,” he replied.

  “Do you know something about what all this is?”

  “Not enough. Not yet,” Williams said.

  Leaving the puzzled man behind, Williams and Breen removed the headphones and got out. There was an eerie silence. The distant sound of sirens made it seem even quieter than it was, in a strange way. Whoever was here had departed, and did so in a hurry. Blankets and even a baby stroller had been left behind, adding to the sense of desolation.

  “Be right back,” Breen said, stopping suddenly and turning back toward the helicopter. “I want to check something.”

  Williams got on the phone with General Krummeck. The South African wasted no time.

  “Commander, where are you?”

  “On the ground in an East London park.”

  “The target got away in a black SUV headed east, but that’s all we know. We have nothing airborne, no one trailing them.”

  “Deaths?”

  “Locally, so far—we think he did it to get away, nothing more.”

  “What is the response going to be?”

  “The Minister of Defence is conferencing the members of the secretariat now. I suspect the senior military advisors will push for a missile assault.”

  Williams saw the future unfold precipitously. China in the South Indian Sea and now—

  South Africa did not have a sophisticated missile defense and targeting system. No nation below Northern Africa did. The Southern African Development Community was organized in 2003 to promote mutual defense but the member states had been unable to fund the undertaking and it was largely on paper only. Fearing expansionism from Beijing, South Africa had secretly signed a pact with Russia for military support in exchange for limited diamond mining rights.

  And thus is born the next superpower battleground, Williams thought. Never mind that Foster might seek refuge in a hos
pital or church. Putin would take him and his bioweapon out. Then, of course, a Russian team would be sent in to make sure the area was fully decontaminated.

  And collect samples.

  “There has to be a way to stop him on the ground,” Williams said, searching the street for some sign of Breen. “Where might he go?”

  “Teams have been sent to his home, not that we expect him to return, but there may be clues to other residences. The two surviving STF members said there was a woman in the office with him and they apparently left together. She may have a place to go. We’re trying to determine who she was.”

  “Payroll records?”

  “We’re checking. She may not be staff—legitimate staff. The way they described her, young and attractive, she may have been one of his paid companions.”

  Williams was not surprised that Foster had more angles than a ziggurat. These smugglers and black marketers usually did. Just now, Williams missed his old Op-Center team. While he could call Berry, asking the deputy national security advisor to locate a nondescript black SUV somewhere in or near East London would take time.

  “Hold on,” Krummeck said. “Here’s the defence ministry order.” The call went silent for a moment. When Krummeck returned, he said gravely, “As soon as the SUV is located, it will be hit with a low-yield SLBM.”

  “General, the smallest submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Russian arsenal will still take out a half-dozen city blocks. I know. I prepared a lot of those reports.”

  “I agree with this decision, Commander. We also require help finding the SUV by satellite before he goes to ground and—air traffic, commerce, nothing is moving. It cannot go on.”

  “We can give you satellite support—”

  “And a Tomahawk strike?”

  “General, that may not be necessary. Give my partner and me a chance—a few hours. The collateral damage will be extreme.”

  “We call it ‘severe deployment’ and, unfortunately, our history is written in it.”

  “That doesn’t need to be—”

  “Are you telling me? I’m the man who tried and failed to bury this thing. The decision is made, Commander. Thank you for your assistance. I will let you know when it’s safe to depart.”

  The general hung up and Williams looked around for Breen. He was still in the helicopter, sitting next to the pilot. Williams walked over. Breen had the headset on and was playing with the dial.

  He removed the headset and stepped out as Williams approached.

  “What’s the latest?” Breen asked.

  “Russian missile launch as soon as they find the vehicle.”

  “Our pilot is former air force. He said they’d blast whoever did this.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to watch the good guys kill more people than the bad guys,” Williams said. “It’s insanity. Forty years under my belt and I’m helpless.”

  “Not necessarily,” Breen said.

  “Why? What were you doing?”

  “Did you know that civilian ownership of police scanners is illegal in South Africa?” Breen said.

  “No. How does that help us?”

  “I’ve been listening to the radio,” Breen said. “There’s no public information about police movements anywhere on the public spectrum. Given Foster’s business, he would need a scanner, don’t you think?”

  Williams brightened. “Those who track can be tracked.”

  Breen nodded. “Scan the area by sea or satellite, filter out the police, and all you have left are felons.”

  “What’s the frequency?”

  “Police dispatch is 407.94000,” Breen said.

  Williams punched Berry’s number and stepped away from the helicopter. The pilot leaned toward the open door.

  “Say, just who are you guys?” he asked.

  “I’m a lawyer and he’s a bureaucrat,” Breen answered. “Just the people you want to gum up any operation.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Prince Edward Island, South Africa

  November 12, 9:20 A.M.

  “Follow my lead” was as cloudy a guideline as Rivette had ever received, the language being Chinese with Grace’s expression fully hidden behind a mask.

  Just move when and where she does, he told himself.

  The good news: the language of “9mm” is universal.

  The dinghy, with its four armed, masked seamen, seemed a little thin in the dozen-capacity boat. That was probably because the Chinese did not have enough masks to go around for more. If so, that was useful information.

  As the dinghy approached the open door, the QBZ-95 light rifles were raised by all but the man steering at the rear. He slowed when they were about two hundred feet away, the blue-ray boat swaying from side to side almost as much as it moved forward.

  Grace had angled the door so that the sun was reflected off the glass.

  She leaned out and spoke in Chinese, shouting through her mask.

  The men in the dinghy were restless, Rivette thought. They probably had not gotten a lot of sleep since becoming an invading force.

  One of the men shouted back.

  Grace turned to Rivette. “I told them I am the translator for a South African defector who can help them. They want us both to come out.”

  “They’re gonna see I’m armed.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be?” she said. “Just hold up your hands.”

  Grace held the edge of the doorway and dropped the four feet to the float. She held one of the forward aluminum struts that attached the pontoon to the aircraft. The only place Rivette could go was behind her—as she intended.

  “Sawubona!” the lance corporal shouted as he swung out.

  The dinghy bobbed nearer as the Americans held tight to keep from slipping on the sea-slick access panels atop the float. There were two planks for seats in the roughly eleven-foot-long vessel. Two of the Chinese were looking up at the aircraft, trying to see through the glare.

  Rivette’s pulse rate jumped, as it always did. Just as involuntary, his fingers wriggled beneath the thin, thermal gloves. In his mind, he was running through take-down options if the seamen suddenly decided to open fire. They shouldn’t. Grace would probably want to get to the patrol boat without incident, as the guests of these men. However, if something went wrong, Rivette knew, through drilling more than from their one previous mission together, how Grace would move faced with three adversaries at this specific distance with fierce firearms.

  The matter was decided when the propeller suddenly died. Blocked by the aircraft, so, for a moment, did the wind. The pilot howled behind his mask.

  The Chinese jerked their weapons to the right and Rivette looked inside the cabin. The heel of the pilot’s boot was pressed against a black knob on the instrument panel.

  “Shit,” he moaned.

  The Chinese would investigate. The pilot would blab. The matter was decided.

  Grace was already in motion as the Chinese were diverted. Her arms were open wide at her side in crane form as she literally flew onto the dinghy. She drove her stiff pinfeathers, her ridge hands, into the masks of the two seamen in front, knocking them back. Since she could not hope to retain her footing on the soft-bottomed boat, she went into a somersault.

  Rivette had clear shots at the remaining seamen. Only one of them was armed. First blood was always politically dicey. The rules of engagement had always embraced a shoot-second policy. That approach got GIs killed. The lance corporal put a bullet in the arm of the armed man then turned on the seaman in back. That man—showing training or smarts—had drawn a knife and was about to disable the dinghy with a downward thrust.

  Hold, Rivette cautioned, watching Grace.

  She had seen it too, and panther-leapt on all fours, putting her shoulder into the man and knocking him overboard. Her jump brought her halfway over the back of the dinghy. She came down, cat claws extended, and grabbed the seaman before the currents could carry him away. Her knees braced against the inflated aft edge, she hauled h
im back in.

  The first two seamen had recovered and Rivette shouted at them. They might not understand “Stop!” but he was sure they’d recognize his I’m-not-shitting tone.

  The men froze. Grace crept back to the forward part of the boat, collecting weapons. When she got onto the float, she threw the knife and all but one of the guns into the sea.

  “They’ll be looking for military issue,” Grace told Rivette. “You know how to handle it?”

  “Competed with the Type 97 civilian variant of—”

  “Good.”

  Grace returned to the seaplane and side-kicked the pilot in the cheek. The mask blunted the blow slightly but there was still an audible crack and a moan.

  “Your balance is restored,” she said to him. After lingering to unscrew the throttle and propeller knobs, Grace turned away.

  “I don’t know what that means, but next time we tie the feet,” Rivette said.

  “It means he hurt us with aggressive yang and will need yin to heal,” she said as she went back to the float.

  Rivette still did not understand, but he was accustomed to that with Grace. As long as she was happy.

  The woman went back to the dinghy and, in Chinese, told the men to file into the aircraft. One assisted the wounded man, pressing a glove to the wound. Once they were inside, crammed in the small space between the door and the seats, she took a radio from one. The patrol boat probably would not expect a report, given the difficulty of speaking behind the masks. But they might give orders. Then she ordered the two men nearest her to remove their parkas.

  The men hesitated. She doubled the nearest man over with a palm heel strike to the gut. He was straightened immediately courtesy of a knee to the chin.

  “I am growing impatient!” Grace yelled.

  The others undressed quickly. Rivette knew that she did not, in fact, ever lose her cool. But a blow was a blow and the seamen obeyed.

  “Put one of them on,” she told Rivette. Hers was a little large but it would have to do. After pulling the hood on, she walked up to the ranking seaman. “What is your ID?”

  “We haven’t one.”

  Grace drew the knife strapped to her hip. She hooked it under the strap of the mask. That was her way of asking a second time.