“Don’t make me ask again,” I said.
“They’ll kill me,” he said.
“So will I, and I’m right here.”
“So are they,” he said.
It was a jolt and made me want to turn and look over my shoulder. But if there had been someone hiding in a secret compartment in the wall, Ghost would have sniffed it and given me a signal.
“Is the room bugged?” I asked.
“I … don’t know,” said Mitrović. “They always seem to know.”
I used my free hand to tap into the team channel. “Outlaw to Pappy, report.”
“Donnie Darko and I just finished a sweep of the rest of this floor,” said Top. “All clear.”
“I’m in the master bedroom. Find me.”
“Copy that.”
And a moment later, the door opened and the two of them came in. Bunny lingered in the doorway to watch the hall. Top came over and looked down at the naked girl. Unlike me, Top is a father, and that makes him a different kind of person. He touched the small, raised lump on her hip where I’d darted her, nodded to himself, took a sheet, and pulled it over her. Then he removed one glove and pressed fingers into her carotid and nodded again.
When he raised his head, I could almost hear his neck muscles creak.
“What’s the play?” he asked in a totally arctic voice.
“Sweep the room for bugs.”
Top produced his device and carefully ran it over all the walls, cabinets, bedposts, and chairs. He flipped over a heavy leather recliner and pointed to a very small and sophisticated bug hidden behind a strut. He left it in place and finished his search, finding another in the wall nearest to an open laptop on a desk. He used a knife to gouge the device out of its hiding place. It had been placed in a tiny pocket of drywall and then lightly plastered and painted over. Wires trailed down to the baseboard, where they were threaded into the power cord for an ornate clock.
“Call it,” he said. “If they’re listening, then they already know we’re here.”
“No alarms going off,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean they don’t know.” He looked at the sleeping girl. “There is no part of this that doesn’t feel hinky. I think we ought to wrap this up and get gone sooner than later.”
“You got that shit right,” I muttered.
I bent over Mitrović. And then I froze. His eyes had changed. Before, they were dark and intense, filled with fear and calculations; now they were different. They seemed to be too wide, for one thing, and although he was looking directly at me, there was an unfocused quality about his stare.
And then he screamed.
To hell with my knife, to hell with a big dog ready to bite his junk off, Mitrović let loose with a massive, high-pitched shriek of total, blind, mad rage. Then he came up off the bed with such astounding speed and power it knocked my knife away and set Ghost tumbling to the floor. There was no preparatory tensing of muscles, no sign that he was going to move. He was suddenly and totally in motion. He leaped from the bed and flung himself at me, driving me backward with astonishing force.
His mouth lunged forward, and his teeth snapped shut on the corner of my Scout glasses, tearing them sideways, obscuring my vision.
I pivoted as he drove me backward and clopped him hard on the side of the head, sending him crashing into a bureau. He hit really hard, and although it had to be painful, he spun off the impact and dove at me again, this time trying to bite my throat.
Which was when Ghost hit him like a cruise missile, metal teeth clamping onto Mitrović’s thigh, high near the groin. Impossible to ever tell if it was a deliberate attack to the femoral artery or an unlucky accident, but suddenly blood geysered up. I grabbed Ghost and hauled him back, ordering him to release his bite. He did, but he took a chunk of meat with him.
Mitrović did not scream in pain. Instead, even with a mangled leg, he drove at me again, howling like a demon from the pit. My hand moved, and my knife moved with it, slapping across the man’s throat, opening a second fire hydrant of blood.
He dropped right there.
All of this happened in the time—call it a second?—that it took Top to run around the big bed and bring his Snellig up. He looked at me, and I shook my head.
“The fuck was that?” demanded Bunny, coming in from the hall.
But I think we all knew what it was.
And when we heard the wild screams from downstairs, it confirmed it. File it under worst-case scenario.
Mitrović—and maybe everyone else on the staff—had been dosed with a designer bioweapon Kuga had used on civilians in both North and South Korea and on a mass of dignitaries, security people, politicians, and the press at the D9 denuclearization summit in Oslo, Norway. A bioengineered neurotoxin made from the Loligo beta-microseminoprotein found in the longfin inshore squid. Once dosed, it drove everyone exposed to it into a state of total murderous fury.
We called it Rage.
There was no cure except time. No way to manage it except Sandman, and it was too late for that. Mitrović was bleeding out, and even if I’d wanted to save his life, that ship had sailed right off the edge of the planet.
I whirled.
“The lab!” I yelled, and we ran from the room and thundered down the stairs, following the shrieks. They were coming from the same mudroom we’d used, except they stabbed outward through the very walls. I knew that it meant there was a hidden entrance, but damn if it didn’t make me feel like we were in a haunted house. Or a haunted asylum.
INTERLUDE 4
SALES PRESENTATION VIA SHOWROOM
SIX MONTHS AGO
“Please pardon the odd nature of this conference,” said Mr. Sunday. “With the global pandemic, we’re all forced to make adjustments. But also, let me assure you that our proprietary ShowRoom video conferencing technology is bleeding edge. No one can participate without codes, such as those sent to you. Anyone who tries will discover how disheartening malware, ransomware, and computer tapeworms can be.”
The man was smiling as he said it. He even exuded warmth. A charm that twinkled in his green eyes, sparkled from his white teeth, and glowed from his palpable and potent persona.
Mr. Sunday wore a Brioni suit, dark blue with the faintest hint of a plaid in varying shades of thread on similar blues. A cream-white shirt and exceptional Stefano Ricci formal crystal silk tie. His shoes were Louis Vuitton Manhattan Richelieu made from waxed alligator leather. He wore a Richard Mille RM 022 Carbon Tourbillon Aerodyne Dual Time Zone Watch that retailed at just under $700,000. The diamond in his pinkie ring was 2.7 carats set into white gold with sixty-six tiny emerald chips orbiting the great central stone.
It was difficult to gauge his age on the video screen—he could have been forty or sixty, depending on the angle and where the colored lights hit him as he moved across the improvised stage. In blue light, he looked cadaverous, like a movie vampire. In green light, he became sinister, and those tones seemed to make his irises swirl with different shades of green and brown. But in the other shades, he was handsome and affable and looked like a monied entrepreneur and salesman. It was clear from this—and previous ShowRoom events—that Mr. Sunday seemed to be enjoying the effect, and he often moved into unflattering or distortive lights when making certain points.
The audience—sixteen men and women scattered around the world on six continents—were riveted.
“For the benefit of the two newbies to our little chat, I’d like to remind you that everyone can see me,” said Mr. Sunday, “but for the sake of privacy—and, well, security and discretion—none of you can see one another. I can hear you all, but when you speak, the others will only see your questions or comments as text. Is everyone comfortable? No need for a fresh cup of coffee or a bathroom break? No? Excellent. Let’s begin, shall we? Are you with me? Good.”
He paused to smile at each of the sixteen faces on the high-def screens. It amused him that they were about as racially mixed as was likely in a meeting of high-roller ind
ustrialists and military buyers. It was all one big happy world to him. The more the merrier. Life was a goddamned peach if you knew how to pick the right fruit from the right tree.
Instead of a standard clicker, Mr. Sunday had two tiny sensors on the thumb and ring fingers of his left hand. He tapped the sensors to send a video file to each of the participants. The same video played on a big screen behind him.
“Our first item today is a little crowd-pleaser of a bioweapon intended for strategic population control,” he said. “It is volatile but, used correctly, is self-limiting. Unlike viral or bacterial bioweapons, this does not spread. There is no risk of a resulting pandemic because, let’s face it, we’re not trying to destroy the world.” His laugh was rich and warm and knowing. “There is a very specific delivery system for this, and after a certain amount of time, the substance itself becomes inert. Let’s see how this works, shall we? It’s highly entertaining.”
The video showed a group of four people—three men and a woman—seated on wooden chairs at a metal table in a room with very little furniture. There was a framed painting on the wall of a banal seascape, a generic sofa, and a small table with a coffee maker and fixings. The people were busy filling out forms using yellow Number 2 pencils.
One of them suddenly looked up at a vent set high into the wall above them. He frowned at it, and over the speakers, there was a faint hissing sound.
“Inch’ e da?” he said, and the video provided translation from Armenian. What is that?
The others looked up. There was no obvious cause for alarm. No gas poured out of the vent, nothing but cool air with a few droplets of what appeared to be condensation.
When nothing appeared to be amiss, they lost interest and returned to filling out what they believed were job applications.
The man who’d first looked up was actually sitting farthest from the vent and was now fully engrossed in the form. The woman was almost directly under the vent, and she had stopped writing. None of the three men seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn’t much care. People often paused when filling out forms—deciding on what to say, how to phrase it, or fishing for information. The image shifted, proof that there were several cameras in the room. It showed the woman’s face. Her eyes seemed to become gradually glazed, as if she were daydreaming and lost deep in thought. One eye twitched, though. As did her fingers. She looked down at her pencil and studied it as if it were something she’d never seen before. The woman turned it over, apparently fascinated by the graphite point.
Then she turned and drove the pencil deep into the eye socket of the man closest to her. It was a very fast and very powerful blow, and the point exploded the man’s eyeball. The man shrieked in absolute agony and absolute surprise.
The other two men leaped up and back, staring in horror.
“Astvats im!” cried one man. “Inch’ yes arel?”
My god! What have you done?
Those were the words that came out of his mouth, but as he spoke them, he grabbed the other uninjured man by the ears and slammed him face-forward onto the table. Once. Twice. Again and again and again. He did not stop, even as the other man’s face broke apart and blood splattered everywhere. He did not stop as the front of the man’s skull cracked like an egg. He did not stop even when one of the man’s ears tore off. He did not stop even as the woman got up and rushed around to his side of the table and drove her pencil into his thighs and buttocks and lower back.
He only stopped when she stabbed him in the back of the neck, and then he released the dying man and whirled, grabbed her by the throat, and strangled her. Her last act before his fingers crushed her windpipe was to drive the now broken point of the pencil into his throat just below the Adam’s apple, punching a hole through the hyoid bone.
The man drowned in his own blood, but he dragged the woman’s corpse down to the floor with him.
The first man, whose eye was destroyed and who should have been incapacitated by the sheer pain and trauma, got sloppily to his feet and began stomping the two figures on the floor. He stomped and stomped and stomped until they no longer resembled human beings. Then he spun toward the door and tried to jerk open the handle, which was locked. The man howled with inhuman fury and began pounding on the door. With his fists—which disintegrated into pulp—with his feet and knees, and with his own face. He smashed his face repeatedly against the reinforced safety glass. He continued with unrelenting intensity until there was not enough left of his skull and brains. His knees buckled, and he sank down to the floor and flopped over. Dead. Ruined.
The door opened, and a guard had to shove hard to move the slumped body. Then two men with AK-47 machine guns entered and carefully shot all four of the people in the head. Even the dead ones.
The video file ended.
Mr. Sunday was smiling as he looked down at his watch.
“From the first onset of symptoms,” he said, “to the elimination of all infected … fifty-one seconds. And, in case anyone still has a lingering doubt—yes, this is the party favor used on the island of Gaeguli Seom in North Korea, on Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea, and at the D9 conference in Oslo. It has a 100 percent effectiveness. No possible immunity. In practical application, this can be delivered via microdrones, introduced to drinking water, or sprayed in water vapor. Because it’s not a bacterium or virus, it doesn’t require special storage and can’t infect the user. Are you with me still?”
He watched the faces on all the screens. Saw the interest and the repulsion. He was fine with either because it helped him select the best potential customers.
“This bioweapon is available in limited quantities,” he continued. “Introduce it to any contained target—a village of an inconvenient ethnic group, a military base, the offices of a corporate rival, even on an individual basis. It’s much better than, say, a polonium pellet whose radiation and gas chromatograph signatures allow it to be traced. Better than the clumsy neurotoxins used by some of our colleagues. This weapon is unique and is tied to no specific country of origin. We call it Rage for obvious reasons.” He paused and dialed up the wattage on his smile. “Now … who would like to start the bidding at one billion euros?”
CHAPTER 8
TRSTENIK ISLAND
CROATIA
Top placed his palm flat on the wall through which we could hear the screams most clearly.
“Sounds like inside and maybe down,” he said. “I’m thinking basement here.”
I called Andrea in from outside but told Belle to hold position. Then I tapped into the TOC channel and very quickly explained the situation. About Mitrović, the bugs we’d found, the girl, and the Rage.
“We’re going to need evac for the girl,” I said. “Maybe other friendlies here.”
“Chopper is inbound,” said Wilson. “ETA fourteen minutes.”
“Tell them not to stop for coffee.”
Andrea came in through the back door, his rifle ready, but he shifted the barrel away from us and pointed it at the wall. Fists were pounding on it with savage intensity.
“Dimmi che questo non è quello che penso che sia,” he breathed.
Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.
“Rage,” said Bunny. “Freaking Rage. I thought we were done with that shit.”
“Why’s that, Farm Boy?” asked Top in his voice-of-reason tone. “Just ’cause we spanked them in Oslo doesn’t mean they threw away all their toys. We’ve got to always be ready for them to use this.”
“Which means,” I said, “if any of us gets dosed, then someone else darts us. And if you get dosed and there’s no one around, try to dart yourself before you lose your shit.”
“Hooah,” they said, though without enthusiasm. Oslo—and the horrors we’d encountered on Gaeguli Seom and Yeonpyeong Island in Korea—were still recent and vivid in our minds.
I punched the wall with the side of my fist. “We need to get in. Rage or not, we need to know what’s down there. No need to keep it quiet.”
“
If we don’t need to stay quiet,” said Andrea, “then let me get out some toys.” He unslung his pack and began pulling stuff out. Bunny knelt to help him.
Andrea Bianchi was on loan to RTI from the Gruppo di Intervento Speciale, an elite division of Italy’s Carabinieri, which was a branch of their armed forces responsible for both military and civil policing. He was able to rig a bomb, cut a throat, or pick a lock with equal nonchalance. A lean man who looked like he worked in an office somewhere doing something unimportant but who had become a critical part of Havoc Team.
He took a blaster-plaster from the bag and unrolled it. It looked like one of those gel packs used to ice a strained back, except that it was clear and thin. There was a network of wires through it, and tiny little blisters of chemicals. He scanned the wall and found the probable doorway, then tore the adhesive off one side and pressed it in place.
“Sta per diventare rumoroso qui!” he shouted as he backpedaled and then ran into the kitchen. It’s about to get loud in here.
We ducked down behind the big island as Andrea thumbed a small device.
The explosion was massive, shaking the entire building. We crept back in and discovered that the entire wall was gone—obliterated by the blast. The heavy steel security door had been punched inward and lay drunkenly on the top steps of a metal stairway. Parts of the mudroom ceiling had come down, and the blast had blown the door to the outside and all the windows out.
“Holy monkey balls!” gasped Andrea.
“Think you used enough?” asked Bunny.
Andrea shrugged. “Didn’t want to have to ask twice.”
I had my Snellig in my hands and leaned into the stairway. There were three bodies on the steps, each badly mangled by the blast. One was dressed in the same nondescript clothes as the guards outside. One was in a lab coat. The third was a woman wearing white capri pants and a scarlet blouse. Except the blouse wasn’t supposed to be that color. The blast had torn her arm and head off.
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