Ken was too weak to move the primitive car along the cable himself. He used only his left arm. Hannah helped him pull, hand over hand. She was thankful for the dead man’s gloves as she gripped the cold metal, hauling the car forward in slow, jerky movements over the unseen maw below. She could hear the whitewater raging, gurgling, hungry beneath them.
It was easier going down to the spa enclosure. They hugged the electrified fence line, as closely as possible, moving slowly along the rough road toward the gate. Hannah knew the cameras Rex had pointed out earlier would be capturing their movements. She was glad. Ken Mitchell frightened her. He didn’t seem rational. Someone would see them and come and find them. Soon.
She was surprised to see the back gates to the spa property hanging open. Lights mounted on poles burned harsh and white several yards inside the enclosure, throwing the concrete buildings she’d seen on her earlier hike with Rex into stark relief. It looked institutional.
“They’re open. Strange.” Ken muttered before he was besieged by another coughing fit. Hannah didn’t like the sound of it. There was a moist burble in his lungs. He hunched over, racked by the coughs.
She stared at the open gates.
Should she make a run for it? She could call the police from that building. They must have a phone.
As if in answer, Dr. Gunter Schmidt stepped out from under the shadows of a large, heavy fir. Hannah ran forward. “Gunter! Am I glad to see you. I—” She saw the gun held level with her belly. It was trained on her. She stopped dead.
“His name is not Gunter, Hannah.” Mitchell coughed. “He is Dr. Ivan Rostov, the Plague Doctor.”
“Mitchell. Drop your weapon or I kill the woman. Now!” Gunter’s familiar rasp had taken a menacing tone. It shot frost up Hannah’s spine. Her head spun. She realized she was shaking, her teeth chattering, from the wet cold, from sheer fear and exhaustion.
Ken Mitchell raised his head to look at Gunter, but he was still hunched over, drained. He threw his gun to the ground.
Gunter shot a look at Hannah. “So, Vasilev failed. Again. Come. This way.” Gunter stepped forward, prodded her sharply in the waist with the barrel of his weapon. He marched the two of them toward the bright building. “Vasilev is brilliant with the surgery but useless for this other business.”
Hannah stopped and tried to turn to face him. “My son—”
“Keep moving.”
The building seemed empty. Clinical. He marched them into a wide tiled corridor. It was like a hospital. It smelled of disinfectant. The sound of their wet feet played loud through the passage. Gunter walked behind them. He forced them into an elevator.
“Don’t try to be heroes. The boy will die.”
Hannah whirled around. The sight of Gunter’s face in the harsh light winded her.
It was Gunter—but it wasn’t. He’d taken off his cap. Gone was the thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. He was close to bald with a rim of brush-cut gray spikes running around the back of his skull. His eyes—they were not the warm hazel she knew, but a stone-cold green.
She looked from those unfamiliar eyes to the glint of the weapon in his hand. “Who the hell are you? Where is Danny?” Her words were whispered, her voice low and threatening. She was in the middle of something she did not understand, but she knew one thing. She would do anything to get her boy.
“Move.” The steel elevator door opened. She didn’t know how far down into the earth they had gone.
She saw three doors leading off the underground corridor. Cut into each door was a small, thick glass window. Under the windows were Biosafety Level 4 signs along with the interlocking rings of the universal biohazard image. Black on red.
The implications of what she was seeing swept over her in a nauseating wave. She felt as if she was drowning under it. How long had this evil secret been buried under the White River earth? Was this what Amy had discovered? Is this what Rex was after?
Gunter used a card to open a door without the biohazard logo. It was dark as pitch inside. “Get in.”
He pushed Ken Mitchell, who stumbled coughing into the dark. Hannah turned to face him. “You won’t get away with this.”
Gunter laughed in her face, gun at her belly. She recoiled at the warm rankness of his breath. “I’ve gotten away with it for years. The only real thorn in my side has been agent Logan and his Bellona group. And that idiot Mitchell in there.” He gestured at the dark room with his head. “The agent will come for you. You are his big weakness. His only weakness. How does it feel, my dear, to know you will be responsible for the death of the man you love?”
“You’re a psychopath!” Hannah lunged at the monster. He’d deceived her, Al, the whole community for all these years. He had professed friendship to Al while orchestrating the murder of his niece.
Gunter intercepted her movement, bringing her up short, the muzzle of his gun up hard under her neck. She couldn’t swallow with the metal pressed into her throat. She started to choke.
“There is nothing you can do, Hannah McGuire. Go say your prayers. When I kill Logan, I will move my research, my treasures, out. Everything is packed and ready. The rest, what I haven’t already destroyed, will be ravaged by fire. You will be burned to a crisp. The place has been wired to go, just like Marumba. It will all look most unfortunate. But I will be long gone. My work here complete. What I have created will shift the balance of power in the world as we know it.”
He slammed the thick, reinforced door shut in her face. Darkness swallowed her. She heard Ken coughing. She groped her way toward the sound. “Where’s your flashlight, Ken, give it to me.”
She almost fell over Ken slumped on the floor. She reached down and felt the headlamp on his head. She worked it free and fumbled to find the switch. Light flooded the small room.
Her eyes adjusted, focused, fell on a small gray bundle.
“Oh my God!”
She flung herself into the corner where Danny lay curled in a dark-gray blanket. “Please, please be all right.” She shook his small body. “Danny! Danny, it’s Mommy. Wake up, Danny! Oh, God, wake up!”
His eyes fluttered open and then closed. Slowly he tried to open them again. The sharp blue of his eyes was darkened by enlarged pupils. He was woozy. His little voice thick.
“Mommy?”
“Oh, my sweetheart.” Hot tears spilled in relief. “Are you all right? Do you hurt?”
“No…just…tired.” He closed his eyes again.
Hannah realized Ken was at her side. He was devoid of color, pallid as death. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth and it came away stained red with blood. He leaned forward and felt Daniel’s pulse.
“He’s okay, Hannah. Good, strong and steady pulse. He’ll sleep it off, I’m sure, whatever they gave him.” He coughed and wiped the pink spittle from his mouth. “Just watch his breathing.” Ken slumped with his back to the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. “If his breathing goes irregular, try CPR.”
Hannah sat against the wall and pulled her son up to rest with his head in her lap. She stroked his sleek dark hair. It was just like his daddy’s.
She bent low and whispered as he slept. “I found your daddy, Danny.”
She felt Ken’s hand on her arm. He was losing strength as she watched by the light of the headlamp. “I’m sorry, Hannah…so sorry.”
“You tried to save us, Ken.”
“More than once.” He coughed. “I pulled you from the river. Rex shot me for it. Just nicked my leg, though.”
“I don’t understand.”
He coughed. “I don’t think I have much time…but I want you to know. Gunter Schmidt is the one who we call the Plague Doctor. I have been after him since his escape in Marumba. I think Logan holds me responsible for that. He’s right to do so. I moved in too early. After the fire I wanted more than anything to make it right. It consumed me.”
He spluttered. The blood from his mouth a darker red now. His chest was wet, black with it from where it oozed from his wound.
>
“The CIA got wind the Plague Doctor had survived the fire when a Bellona Agent, Scott Armstrong, received a threat against his family. It was believed to have come from the Plague Doctor. Rex Logan also received a threat…in Ralundi one night…against your life. He dumped you. At least, he wanted it to appear that way. It saved you. Scott wasn’t so lucky. Lost his family. No one could prove the connection.”
“They were killed?”
“Made to look like an accident. Like Grady, in a car. Vasilev was in Toronto when it happened.”
Ken’s breathing was irregular now. She could hear the air bubbling up through the liquid deep in his lungs. Hannah reached for his hand. It was cold, damp.
“Rex left you for your own good, Hannah. He’s a fine man. Must’ve been hard on both of you.”
Ken closed his eyes. She was losing him.
“I am so sorry…I tried to track him down…Plague Doctor…set it all right. For years I followed false leads. When the young reporter…Amy Barnes…she kept calling the CIA offices last year. They eventually put me on to her. They thought she was another one of my crazy schemes. But I believed her…she told me her friend worked at the White River Spa…overheard a conversation between two doctors. Her friend, Grady Fisher, believed they were cooking up biological weapons. He followed them. Found this lab. He didn’t go to the police. He has a bad record…afraid he’d be deported from Canada. He told the reporter…she went after it. She wanted the story.” He coughed up a glob of blood. He didn’t have the strength to wipe it away.
“But I couldn’t get to White River. To help. They had me hospitalized. Figured I was nuts. Then I heard she was missing. Came as soon as I was released, just when they found her body. I didn’t make it in time…almost a year late…”
Ken’s head lolled forward over his chest. “He will…get away…again.”
Hannah stroked her son’s hair and held on to Ken’s clammy hand. She sat with them in the airless, empty room. So Rex had always loved her.
“I’ve been no help… Sorry…I’m so sorry.”
He was slipping away. She smoothed the wet hair from his cold forehead.
“You’ve been more help than you’ll ever know, Ken,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and lay still.
“Thank you.” Tears swam in her eyes as she cradled her son. They had to get through this. Rex had always loved her. She understood now. She wanted Danny to meet his father, no matter the cost.
Rex stood at the open gates at the back of the spa property. He lifted his face up to the cold rain. He closed his eyes, feeling its wetness against his cheeks, and he made a vow. “Get us through this and I will do whatever it takes to be with my family.” He spoke out softly into the darkness. Then he said the words again, “My family.” He hadn’t dreamed it possible.
He had to make it possible. He’d left unfinished business in Marumba. He would finish it here, in White River.
He slunk through the shadows of the trees, eyes trained on the door of the building.
He saw him come out.
He was moving quickly down the path. Rex saw it now, in the movement. He had recognized the stance of the Plague Doctor in Gunter Schmidt’s powerful movements, but his appearance had been so altered that Rex had been easily deceived. Damn, he should’ve seen it. Cosmetic surgery. Different hair. Different voice. Contacts for the eyes.
Rex followed, silent as a wolf closing in on his prey, eyes trained on his quarry.
Gunter headed for a truck parked in the trees. Rex watched. He had to get to him before he managed to get into the truck. He crouched low, running softly over the pine needles.
“Halt!”
Rex froze still as a statue. The Plague Doctor aimed his gun at the source of the sound—at Scott. Scott had his own weapon trained on the doctor, the man responsible for the death of his wife and child. Finally, Scott and Rex had both come face-to-face with their nemesis.
“Drop the gun, Doctor,” Scott ordered.
Gun still in his right hand, still trained on Scott, Gunter slowly raised his left hand. He had something in it. “See this? I press this button and it all goes up in smoke. It’s wired, just like Marumba. You lose Rex Logan’s woman, her son and the CIA agent, if he isn’t dead already.”
His voice. It was certainly not the voice Rex remembered from Marumba. The characteristic rasp must’ve been a surgical addition.
Rex, still undetected, raised his gun slowly, aimed for the doctor’s head. He let Scott speak.
“The cops are all over the place, Doctor. They should have their warrant by now. The highway is closed.”
From his vantage point, Rex could see that Scott had spotted him. He dipped his head slightly in silent acknowledgment.
“If I send this place up in flames, it’s not only my lab that goes. It’s the whole spa. Patients will die. Innocent people, Agent Armstrong, like your wife and child.”
Scott held his ground. “There’s nowhere for you to go, Doctor.”
The movement came suddenly. Gunter lifted his gun and fired. Scott dove as he saw the doctor start to move. Rex shot and the bullet hit Gunter in the torso. Rex wanted him alive but disabled. He shot again at his knees. The doctor buckled to the ground. As he went down he hit the button on the detonator in his hand.
Rex heard a muffled explosion. He saw Scott scramble up and head for the doctor.
Rex turned and sprinted for the gray concrete building, making for the door he’d seen the Plague Doctor come out of.
Thin fingers of smoke seeped and curled under the door into their windowless prison. Hannah could smell fire. Mitchell no longer had any pulse. Her son was still sleeping.
She covered Danny’s head with the blanket, rushed over to the door and pulled. She kicked at it. It was solid, unyielding. She screamed. She banged with both hands. She was banging them into a pulp. She knew they would soon be overcome with smoke. This airless room would be their coffin.
He ran low through the smoke-filled corridors. He could hear her screaming, muffled by walls. He saw the biohazard signs. So this was where the Plague Doctor was doing his work. Small but efficient. He heard the banging.
“Hannah!”
“Over here! In here! Help!”
“Hannah, can you hear me?”
“Rex! Yes. Oh, God, Rex. Yes, I can hear you.”
“Stand well back from the door, all of you. I’m going to fire at the lock. Got it?”
“Yes. Got it.”
“I’m going to count to five, then fire…one, two, three, four, five…”
The bullet hit the lock square. He had to fire twice more before he could crash the door open.
He burst into the room.
She crouched there, huddled over her son. His son. Mitchell lay lifeless on the floor.
The smoke was growing dense. He had to hurry. He felt Mitchell’s pulse.
“He’s dead, Rex. Shot. Vasilev did it.”
He shifted his attention to the bundle in the gray blanket. “Hannah, I’m going to take Daniel. You follow me. Stay close. Real low. Hold on to me. We’re going up the stairs.”
He scooped the small boy in the blanket up into his arms. He was light. Limp. The sensation overwhelmed him. He cradled his son to his chest. Hunkering over him, he ran, Hannah at his heels.
They burst coughing and choking into the cold damp night air. It was still spitting rain. Sirens. Alarms. Fire crews from the village were responding. The clinic building situated at the low end of the property was being evacuated. He saw Scott with a RCMP officer. The wounded doctor was in handcuffs.
Rex ran toward Scott, his bundle still limp in his arms. “I need to get him to a hospital. Now.”
“Take my truck. Here’re the keys.”
Hannah held Daniel in the passenger seat as they bumped over the rough track to the low end of the property where dirt gave way to paved road and wild brush and trees gave way to the manicured grounds of the spa. They drove out through the spa gates against a
wave of incoming emergency personnel responding to the fire. Red and blue police lights pulsed against the night sky.
Chapter 16
H e could see why she hadn’t wanted him inside her home. There were photographs of her and Daniel everywhere. Next to her bed, where she lay now, sleeping with their son, was a picture of Hannah and Danny in the snow with a snowman twice Danny’s size.
The little boy was laughing out at the photographer, baby white teeth against olive skin, his eyes a crystal blue, thrown into stark relief against dark hair and thick dark lashes.
Rex picked up the gold frame. He had seen another boy like that once, in photographs his mother had left him. Except, that little boy had not laughed at the photographer like this one did. He traced the lines of him with his finger. “You’ve done a fine job, Hannah,” he whispered to the woman sleeping next to his boy. “You have raised our son so that he finds joy and love in the world.”
He looked down at her where she lay. Her hair was spun gold, fanned out on the pillow, her face in repose, beautiful, pale. She still had dark smudges under her eyes. She’d been sleeping since early that morning.
“And you’ve touched me so that I, too, can see the joy, the love.” He gently replaced the frame on the bedside table and bent to brush his lips over hers. “I’m not going to let you go this time. Whatever it takes. We will work through it. All three of us.”
Daniel stirred in the bed beside her. There had been minimal traces of GHB in his system, but otherwise he was fine. The doctors at the White River Health Care Center had given Hannah a sedative to help her sleep. She was in a state of exhaustion and shock. Rex had brought them here, back to her house, in the early hours of the dark morning to make room for casualties coming into the small health care center from the spa fire.
He stroked Daniel’s head. He couldn’t get over the wonder of it. This child. His.
Rex could hear Hannah’s mother knocking about in the kitchen downstairs. He’d told her to relax, but she said she needed to keep busy. The poor woman felt responsible for Daniel’s kidnapping.
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