Black Rose (The Project Book 9)

by Alex Lukeman

  "How do they know what happened if everything was destroyed?"

  "Video records of the whole thing. Security cameras recorded images from the containment labs in a separate building."

  Nick waited.

  "I met with the President and DCI Hood this morning," Elizabeth said. "They want us to handle a delicate mission."

  "We don't usually do delicate," Nick said.

  "It's a political bomb. Rice doesn't want to use Langley or any of the regular JSOC units, in case it doesn't work out."

  Nick sighed. "What does he want us to do?"

  "We need to know exactly what the North Koreans had. The chief scientist of Pyongyang's biological warfare program is a man named Kim Jung-Hun. He almost never leaves North Korea but he's attending an international conference in Hong Kong this weekend. He wants to defect. In return for asylum he's willing to give us details about their program."

  "Whoa," Nick said, "that's a big fish."

  "That's exactly what he is and the President wants to land him," Elizabeth said.

  Nick said, "You want us to go pick him up."

  Elizabeth nodded. "It's not going to be easy. I'm sending you and Lamont. Kim will be well guarded at all times. We only have a two day window and then he'll be back in North Korea. You'll have support for the extraction. But if something goes wrong before that, you're on your own. I can't protect you."

  "How are we supposed to get him out?"

  "A boat will be available for you courtesy of MI-6, once you have Kim."

  "And how are we supposed to scoop him up?"

  Elizabeth smiled. "That's up to you, Nick. Use your imagination."

  CHAPTER 3

  The black chop of the East China Sea slapped against the hull of boat. Nick braced himself against the constant, unpleasant motion. A black wool watch cap and thick jacket kept out some of the dank, night chill. Thick fog muffled the sound of their engine. Droplets of moisture lay like the touch of an obsessive lover over every surface of the boat.

  The boat was old and slow. A tall, open wheelhouse did nothing to protect from the tendrils of fog reaching everywhere. Tiny streams of water trickled down the glass faces of the dimly lit gauges on the control console. The old style helm was slick and his left hand ached from gripping the wheel. The last two fingers had been broken by a sadistic Cuban policeman and continued to give him trouble. Nick tried to see through the fog and hoped they didn't run into one of the Chinese patrol boats that moved in these waters.

  They had succeeded in grabbing Kim Jung-Hun in Hong Kong but it had been messy, with three of Kim's minders dead. By now all of China's security services were looking for the mouse-like man shivering in the cabin below. The Chinese and North Koreans would do everything they could to get Kim back. If they couldn't get him back, Nick was certain they'd settle for killing him.

  Lamont came up from below deck and joined Nick in the wheelhouse. He scanned the impenetrable fog with night vision binoculars.

  "Can't see a damn thing," Lamont said. The fog sucked up the sound of his voice. He put the binoculars down.

  "How's our guest?" Nick said.

  "Seasick. Barfing in a bucket. It stinks down there. I had to get some fresh air."

  "They'll have figured it out by now," Nick said. "Someone will be out here looking for us."

  Lamont grunted. There wasn't any point in worrying about all the things that could go wrong.

  "Better get the RPG ready just in case," Nick said. The grenade launcher lay in an open box on the floor of the wheelhouse.

  Lamont pulled it out of the box, loaded a round.

  "All set," Lamont said. "Let's hope we don't need it. Not a lot of use against a patrol boat."

  "Better than nothing."

  "Yeah."

  For a few minutes both men were silent, the only sound the muffled rhythm of the engine and the water against the hull.

  "The fog is starting to thin," Nick said. "I don't think we'll have cover much longer."

  "How far to the extraction point?" Lamont asked. They were headed for a rendezvous with a helicopter from an American Wasp class amphibious assault carrier.

  "Another ten minutes," Nick said.

  The fog clung to the gauges. Nick wiped droplets away with his right hand.

  "Still plenty of fuel."

  They both heard the sound at the same time.

  "Engines. Big ones," Lamont said.

  Nick cut the throttle and they drifted on the black water. Wisps of fog swirled around them. The sound seemed close.

  "Maybe it's a fishing boat," Lamont said.

  Nick pointed. "I don't think so," he said.

  The sharp prow of a patrol vessel emerged from the gray as both boats entered a clear patch in the fog bank. The Chinese boat was long and lethal looking and bristling with guns. Nick rammed the throttles forward. A bright searchlight found them as they fled back into fog.

  "Just our luck," Lamont said.

  "That's a Shanghai II class," Nick said. "Obsolete, but she can do thirty knots. Dual 37s and 25s for the big stuff and heavy machine guns. They decide to start shooting, they can turn this tub into toothpicks in about ten seconds."

  Nick steered deeper into the fog and throttled down.

  Behind them they could hear shouts and alarms blaring, then silence.

  The two vessels drifted in the fog.

  "I never did like playing hide and seek," Lamont said.

  "Get our guest up here. We may have to get off fast. I'll see if our ride is here yet, " Nick said. He adjusted his headpiece and turned on the transponder that identified him as friendly. Now that they'd been spotted, there was no need to stay dark.

  "Raven One, this is Tango. Do you copy? Over."

  His headpiece crackled.

  "Tango, this is Raven One. We've got you. Looks like you've got company. What is your status?"

  "Raven One, we've got a Chinese patrol on our ass. They've got anti-aircraft guns. Watch yourself."

  "Copy, Tango. No problemo. Stay alive for five."

  "Copy that."

  Lamont went down to the tiny cabin and emerged a moment later with their charge. He was a small man, dressed in a shapeless brown suit. He clutched a briefcase in his hands and looked frightened. Nick couldn't blame him. If the North Koreans managed to get their hands on him, they would feed him alive to a pack of hungry dogs.

  They drifted out of the thinning fog. Ahead, the sea was clear and dark. Stars shone overhead. Seconds later the Chinese boat emerged from the fog bank a bare thirty yards away. Their engines throttled up. A searchlight swung across the black water and pinned them in a bright, white glare. Nick watched the guns coming to bear.

  "Lamont."

  "I'm on it."

  Lamont lifted the launcher and fired. The round struck the bridge and detonated in a bright, orange burst of flame. The Chinese craft slewed to port. Nick pushed the throttles ahead and spun the wheel to turn back toward the fog bank. Maneuverability was the only advantage he had. They churned to the right as cannon fire found the spot they'd just been. The patrol boat was burning where the grenade had hit. Lamont loaded another round and fired again, striking forward of the gun crews. Two bodies hurled into the air. The 25mm cannon on the foredeck hammered away at them, sending gouts of water into the air.

  The Chinese machine guns opened up. Nick and Lamont hit the deck. Bullets stitched across the boat, smashed the control console and marched across the chest of Kim Jung-Hun. His briefcase slid across the deck as he fell. Nick reached up and spun the wheel. Shells from the 25mm gun struck aft and pieces of the trawler flew into the air. The engine screamed and shook itself apart and died with a final sound of tortured metal. The boat began to settle fast by the stern.

  Nick heard the sound of rotors through the heavy explosions of the Chinese guns. An SH-60B Seahawk appeared, coming in low and hot a hundred feet off the water. The Chinese gunners swung around and began to fire, rows of bright tracers streaming toward the chopper. As Nick wat
ched, two hellfire missiles shot from the aircraft.

  The missiles lifted the Chinese ship partway out of the water and broke it in two. A thick column of water shot into the night sky. Nick grasped the railing of their sinking vessel as water rained down on him. The wave from the blast washed over the trawler. The patrol boat was gone from sight in less than a minute.

  Kim lay dead on deck, his chest shredded and bloody from the bullets. His eyes were open. His face looked as though he'd seen something that had shocked him. Nick picked up the briefcase.

  The stern was underwater, the boat listing to the side. Lamont stepped over the edge into the sea and began swimming away. Nick dove in after him. The boat turned bow up and slid under the roiling surface, trying to pull them in after it.

  Overhead, the blades of the Seahawk beat patterns in the water. A circle of light found them. A hatch opened and a rescue basket descended.

  Nick hoped they hadn't started a war.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Korean operation had put Major Igor Kaminsky in a good mood. Action always did. Kaminsky was a ranking field officer in Zaslon, a special ops unit so secret and ruthless that the Kremlin refused to admit it existed. He'd missed out on the Ukraine, though it was still possible his elite Spetsnaz unit would be sent there. Or they might send me to one of the Baltic territories, he thought. For Kaminsky and his masters, the Baltic states were only temporarily independent entities. They all had large ethnic Russian populations, with strong internal movements that wanted to be part of Novo Rossiya, the New Russia. His unit would be part of any future operations in the Baltics.

  In the meantime, he was enjoying the comfort of a first class railroad car in a special train. Kaminsky was on his way from Moscow to the Sverdlovsk-19 Military Laboratory outside of Yekaterinburg, on the Eastern side of the Urals. Six of his men rode in the car with him. An aluminum case containing the North Korean samples sat on the green plush of the seat next to him.

  The attack on the research complex had gone off without any problems. Security had been surprisingly lax. Kaminsky had expected at least twice as many guards but it seemed that the Great Leader thought the hidden facility safe by virtue of its secrecy and difficulty of access. The most complicated part of the operation had been getting himself and his men into the area and on site without being detected. All of the men he'd chosen for the mission had Asian features. Two spoke fluent Korean. Multiple language skills were part of the basic requirements for a Spetsnaz operative.

  Even scientists and guards had to eat. Kaminsky had driven right up to the gates in a produce delivery van, riding in back where his Western features could not be seen. Killing the sentries at the guardhouse wasn't hard. Once inside the gates, the rest was easy.

  It was too bad about the girl in the lab. She'd been pretty, until he'd cut her throat. There could be no trail back to her boyfriend and his Russian contact. Of course the boyfriend was dead as well. Perhaps they'd found each other in whatever Korean heaven they believed in, if they'd believed in anything except the illusion of the South.

  The train was still on the Western side of the Urals. Ahead, the mountains that separated European Russia from the rest of the country rose bleak and cold toward a winter sky filled with fast moving gray and black clouds. Snow lay thick along the railway embankment. A fresh storm was beginning, the wet flakes spattering against Kaminsky's window.

  Kaminsky didn't mind the train ride. It made a pleasant change from the helicopters and noisy troop transports he was used to. He was thankful to whatever faceless bureaucrat had decided the train was the best way to send him and his package of bugs to the laboratory. Kaminsky reached over and patted the case next to him.

  The train entered a long tunnel. The lights in the car flickered, then went dark. One of his men cursed.

  "Lenin strikes again," someone said.

  There was brief laughter, then silence in the car except for the rhythmic clacking of the wheels over the rails. In Russia, one accepted things like electrical failures as business as usual.

  The train slowed, then stopped. It was pitch black in the tunnel. Major Kaminsky reached over to touch the case. It hadn't moved. Still, the darkness was unnerving.

  Kaminsky heard the door at the end of the car open. Good, he thought, now I'll find out what's holding us up. There had better be a good reason.

  He had time to see a red dot appear on his chest before a bullet drilled through his tunic and ended his thoughts about the train and everything else.

  CHAPTER 5

  Snow covered the gardens outside Elizabeth's office windows at Project headquarters. The room had a gas fireplace that radiated pleasant heat from behind a glass front. It looked like the real thing. A large, aging, orange tom cat named Burps lay curled up on the tile hearth in front of the flames. He snored. A damp spot on the tile showed where he drooled in his sleep.

  "That cat makes a lot of noise," Lamont said.

  "At least he's not burping or passing gas," Nick said.

  Stephanie Willits was in the room with them. Harker's deputy handled the technology and communications end of Project operations. She was a legend among computer hackers, where she was known by her screen name; Butterfly. Stephanie used the big Crays in her computer room to tap into secure servers all over the world. Without her, Project operations would grind to a halt.

  Selena sat next to Nick on the couch. She wore a diamond ring that sparkled in the light of the gas fire. Since they'd made the engagement official, the tension between them that always seemed to be part of their relationship had eased. Elizabeth was grateful for that. She had enough to worry about without having to deal with their personal problems on top of everything else. They still hadn't set a wedding date. She hoped it didn't turn into another problem.

  "Let's get started." Elizabeth tapped her pen on her desk. "Selena has been translating the contents of Kim's briefcase. I've asked her to brief us on what she found."

  "Most of it was the kind of thing you'd expect," Selena said. "Office memos, bureaucratic busy work, even an invitation to a birthday party."

  "They have parties in North Korea?"

  "Lamont..." Elizabeth's voice had a warning note in it.

  "Sorry."

  "The rest of it was notes and research that confirm what we learned from that intercept. North Korea has recreated a disease that killed twenty million people in the sixth century. It was called the Plague of Justinian, after the Roman Emperor who ruled Constantinople at the time. He was one of the victims."

  "Twenty million is a lot of people," Lamont said.

  "That was only the first time around," Elizabeth said. "It reappeared several times after that until it finally died out sometime in the eighth century. By then it had killed over a hundred million."

  Lamont whistled.

  "What makes it so lethal?" Nick asked.

  "It's a variation of bubonic plague. The normal form is bad enough, but you can beat it with antibiotics if you catch it in time. This variation is one hundred percent fatal and it's airborne. That's the worst kind. Kim literally brought the disease back from the dead by manipulating genomes from victims dug up in Turkey. Then he tweaked it to make it resistant to all known drugs. There's no treatment, according to his notes. Apparently the Great Leader wasn't interested in finding one. Kim's lab was weaponizing it for use in an aerial spray, like they use in crop dusters. The thieves took live samples of the bacteria."

  "Ah, hell," Lamont said.

  "Yes."

  Elizabeth picked up her Mont Blanc and tapped it on the desk. "It was an inside job. The woman who let the thieves in is dead and so is her boyfriend. The raid has the feel of a military op by someone's Special Forces. We don't know who took the samples yet. When we find out, our job is to get them back."

  "You mind telling me how we're supposed to do that if it was taken by a government?" Nick asked. "We don't even know it was a government. It could have been terrorists."

  "I don't think so. Neither does DCI H
ood. The operation was too good, smooth as silk, in and out with everyone dead and they disappear. Terrorists aren't that sophisticated."

  "Not yet," Lamont said. "Give them time."

  "That's not a good thought," Selena said.

  "If someone decides to unleash this thing, millions will die," Elizabeth said. "Garden variety Spanish Flu killed millions in 1918. This is much worse."

  "So how do we find out who has it?" Nick asked.

  "That's where I come in," Stephanie said. "Freddie is working on it right now."

  Freddie was a maxed out Cray XT super computer that Stephanie had modified for greater power. This was the second one named Freddie. The first had been destroyed with the old Project headquarters. Steph had names for all of the computers, even her laptop. That one was named Lily. Nick had caught Steph talking to them, more than once.

  "I'm analyzing all the satellite and communications intelligence from the period leading up to the raid and after. When the program finishes running we'll know more."

  "In the meantime there's something else I want to bring up," Elizabeth said. "The last year was rough. Lamont was out for a good part of it. Ronnie almost got killed and he's still not back. Lamont, you've been talking about retiring."

  "I said I was thinking about it, I didn't say I was definitely going to do it. That dive shop I was looking at down in Florida got bought out from under me. I'm not ready for a rocking chair, not yet."

  "I'm sorry about the shop, but I'm glad to know you're not leaving. My point is that we've been hampered by injuries and time down. I've been wondering if we should add a new member to the team. We could use more strength."