Black Rose (The Project Book 9)

by Alex Lukeman

  Nick opened his mouth to shout a warning when an explosion ripped the car apart and knocked him to the sidewalk. Windows shattered all along the street.

  The burning, twisted remains of Adam's armored car drifted to the curb and stopped. Nick got to his feet and looked at the wreckage. There was no chance anyone inside the car had survived.

  I could have been riding in that.

  He took out his phone and called Harker.

  CHAPTER 12

  Harker brought the team in for an emergency meeting.

  Ronnie was back and looked a lot better than the last time Nick had seen him. Ronnie was Navajo and he'd gone home to be healed in the old ways, after wounds he'd taken in the Philippines almost killed him. His uncle was a Navajo singer, one of a few left who still knew the healing songs and ceremonies that formed the traditional heart of Navajo culture.

  "Man, am I glad to see your ugly face," Nick said. "How are you feeling?"

  "Good."

  Ronnie was broad, stocky and muscular, with the kind of classic features seen in pictures of the Old West. He looked like he belonged on the back of a horse with a lever action Winchester in his hand and war paint on his face.

  "I don't know what you did but it worked," Nick said.

  "A sweat. Some singing, that's all. We have a ceremony for just about everything."

  "Well, I'm glad you're back." Nick didn't push him for details. He figured Ronnie would tell him about it or he wouldn't. The healing ceremonies were sacred in Navajo tradition, private.

  They went into Harker's office. It wasn't often Ronnie got embarrassed or ill at ease but when Selena and Stephanie hugged him, he managed it. Lamont just shook his hand.

  "Welcome back, Ronnie," Elizabeth said.

  "Thanks, Director." They all sat down.

  "You ready for the field again?" she said.

  "Yeah, I'm ready."

  "All right, then. We have a lot to talk about. First, it was the Russians who took the plague samples."

  "The Russians?" Selena said. "Who?"

  "General Vysotsky's group."

  The Russians, Selena thought. The ones who killed my father.

  "It turns out that the Russians are only part of the problem." Elizabeth turned to Nick. "Tell them about Adam."

  No one had ever met Adam except Nick, but they all knew about him. It was Adam who'd first warned them about AEON. Nick repeated what Adam had told him and described the attack on the car. When he finished, there was silence in the room.

  "These guys never quit, do they?" Lamont said.

  "If it wasn't them it would be someone else," Elizabeth said.

  "Adam said the leader is a banker named Gutenberg," Nick said. "That's a place to start."

  "Does he have a first name?" Stephanie asked.

  "Johannes."

  Stephanie entered the name on her laptop keyboard, linked to the enormous power of the Crays downstairs. The response was instant. A picture came up on the wall monitor. Gutenberg looked like what he was, a Swiss banker. He wore designer glasses with thin black rims. His face was unsmiling in the photograph, his lips pulled primly together. He was wearing an expensive suit and perfectly knotted tie. He looked to be about sixty years old. His eyes were watery green, cold and indifferent.

  "Johannes Gutenberg," she said. "Owns and operates an old line European bank based in Geneva. He lives in an eighteenth century château that's a favorite in the picture postcard industry, right on the Rhône."

  "Big bucks," Lamont said.

  "The biggest. Gutenberg is listed in the top 50 richest men in the world." Her fingers flew over the keys. "His bank has investments in everything from agriculture to arms manufacture."

  "Pharmaceuticals? Bio research?" Nick asked.

  "Those too." She entered another command. "Through his bank he owns shell corporations and companies all over the world. He's everywhere. He's protected by Swiss banking laws from most of the regulatory issues of other governments. His personal fortune is stashed in Andorra, where it can't be touched."

  "Where's Andorra?" Lamont asked. "I never heard of it."

  "It's in the Eastern Pyrenees, bordered by Spain and France," Elizabeth said.

  "I went skiing there once," Selena said. "It's tiny, a principality. It's famous for being a tax haven. If you want to hide money or avoid taxes, it's a good bet. But you need quite a bit of money to open accounts there. It's old Europe, a remnant from the days of princes and kings. The scenery is beautiful and it's very popular with tourists."

  "What about Krivi?" Nick asked. "Adam said he's part of AEON's leadership, along with Gutenberg. What can you find out about him?"

  Stephanie entered another search. "Krivi Dass. He's almost as wealthy as Gutenberg. Runs Dass Pharmaceuticals, which is huge. Krivi is one of the big boys in drugs. He has research labs and manufacturing facilities in Zurich and Mumbai."

  "Adam thought the plague samples were in one of those labs," Nick said. "We need to find and destroy them."

  "That's easier said than done," Elizabeth said. "We don't know where they are. They could be in Switzerland or India."

  "Then that's the next step, get into the labs and look for them. We could start in Switzerland. That's Gutenberg's home base. If we don't find anything there, the samples will be in India."

  "We can't just go barging in. The Swiss are touchy about things like that. It would create a huge problem for the president if you got caught. He's not going to authorize it without hard evidence."

  "He doesn't have to know about it," Nick said. "How many times has he turned a blind eye to what we do? Isn't this what he pays us for?"

  "Adam never steered us wrong in the past," Selena said. "If AEON killed him, they're getting ready to act."

  Nick said, "Adam didn't think there was much time left before they let the plague loose. Director, send us in. We have to recover those samples."

  "I can pin down the lab locations," Stephanie said.

  They waited in silence while Elizabeth made up her mind. "All right," she said. "If we have a reasonable certainty of the location, you go in. Just don't get caught."

  CHAPTER 13

  Krivi Dass' office took up half of the top floor of Dass Pharmaceuticals' Zurich headquarters. The room featured a wall of windows overlooking the old city and the sprawling rail yards of the Zurich train station at the junction of the Sihl and Limmat Rivers. Beyond, Lake Zurich was a shimmering mirror of blue under the winter sky. The snow-capped Swiss Alps stretched across the horizon in the distance. It was an amazing view. For all its beauty, Krivi sometimes wished it was of his native city of Mumbai and its jumbled chaos and dirt and disorder, as different from the obsessively clean streets of the Swiss capitol as could be.

  Krivi was in his mid-seventies, a thin man, tall for an Indian. His skin was a medium dark brown. He wore a light brown suit of exquisite material, a dark silk tie and polished brown shoes. Gold cufflinks peeked out from the sleeves of a Turnbull and Asher shirt that was whiter than the snow on the distant Alpine peaks. His eyes were dark and impenetrable. He had taken to wearing prescription glasses with tinted lenses and round gold frames. He thought they leant a distinguished look, rather like a professor or doctor. In truth, the glasses made him look like a malevolent Ghandhi.

  Sitting across from Krivi was Karl Schmidt, his chief research scientist. Schmidt had classic Nordic looks, blue eyes and close-cropped blond hair. With his athletic build and broad chest, he looked like he'd stepped from an Olympic poster advertising the German games of 1936.

  Schmidt was old enough to head up Krivi's extensive research program but he was too young to remember the SS laboratories overseen by his grandfather in Germany during the Hitler years. After the war, his grandfather and then his father had worked for the Soviets in East Germany, looking for ways to make trouble for the West. If Schmidt's grandfather had still been alive, he would have been amazed at the technology and equipment Karl had at his disposal for research into the diseases that existe
d to savage the human body. And if he had still been alive, he would have been proud of the way in which his grandson was carrying on the family scientific tradition.

  Human subjects were not as easily persuaded to participate in experiments as in the days when his grandfather pursued Himmler's medical "research." Even so, there were always volunteers willing to risk their lives for the generous compensation and free medical care Schmidt offered. It always amazed him that people would willingly expose themselves to life threatening disease, but human nature was anything but rational. Greed or desperation often clouded people's better judgement. It wasn't his problem, after all.

  Up until now, participation in the tests had been a bad bet for the subject.

  "Well?" Krivi said. "Is there any progress?"

  "Yes and no," Schmidt said. "The latest vaccine shows promise but I still haven't found a drug to cure the disease. It defeats everything I throw at it. The Koreans managed to make the bacteria more virulent and at the same time more resistant. I can slow it down and keep the septicemia at bay for a day or two but then it comes back stronger than before. Death follows within a day, two at the most. It's rather unpleasant."

  "Have there been any issues with the subjects?"

  "None. We choose only those with no families or relations we can locate. We are well protected, legally. They all thought they knew what they were getting into and signed the appropriate documents. One of the advantages of working here is the Swiss legal system and body of law. It's a thing of beauty, rock solid and binding. Their deaths would be seen as an unfortunate result of a gamble that didn't pay off for them. But no one will ever know about them."

  "Good. What is your projection on the vaccine?"

  "I really am encouraged by the latest results. We've advanced from primates to human subjects. There are three, two men and a woman, who were infected four days ago. So far they show no symptoms. It's too early to know if the vaccine will be effective in the long run, but I'm optimistic. If they're symptom free in a week, we'll be ready for the next phase."

  "Tell me about the disease."

  "Ah," Schmidt said, "the disease. It's not a good thing to contract, let me tell you."

  "What are the symptoms?"

  "Fever begins within two days of exposure, combined with nasal drainage that causes sneezing and coughing. The lungs begin to fill with fluid. At that point the subject becomes highly infectious to anyone coming near. The fever becomes quite high and is followed by diarrhea and vomiting, much like a viral infection. The progression from exposure to death takes about ten days. "

  "Fatality rate?"

  "It's always fatal," Schmidt said.

  "One hundred percent?"

  Schmidt nodded. "The septicemia appears on the fourth day and the fingers and toes become necrotic. Black blotches appear, usually on the torso. One of my lab workers said they look like flowers. It gave me an idea for a codename for the disease. I call it black rose."

  "How very poetic," Krivi said. "Plague is bacterial. Why haven't you been able to kill it with antibiotics?"

  "It's really very clever, what the Koreans did," Schmidt said, "even brilliant. They used genetic manipulation on samples of the plague recreated from the genomes of plague victims. The result is something that's never been seen before. Every time we hit it with something new, it mutates into a resistant form. So far we've found nothing that will kill it once the subject is infected. But I believe we have a vaccine that works to prevent infection."

  "Good," Krivi said.

  "It would help to have a larger test population."

  Krivi brushed a tiny speck of lint from the sleeve of his brown suit. "Perhaps it's time to initiate a wider trial."

  "I've been thinking about that," Schmidt said. "There is a free health clinic operating in Brazil as part of our Corporate PR campaign. It's perfect for our purpose. We could infect some subjects and inoculate others with the vaccine at the same time. No one would suspect anything. It would be put down to natural causes if there was an outbreak and it would provide an excellent field test. But without the cure, it could get out of control."

  "Is the test site isolated?"

  "Yes. It's a small village on the border of an Indian reservation in the far north of the country. It could be quarantined."

  Krivi thought about it. "Go ahead and begin."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good work, Karl. Keep me updated."

  After Schmidt was gone, Krivi swiveled his chair and looked out toward the mountains. A sudden twinge in his chest made him wince. The twinges were coming more frequently, these last few months. Odd pains, hints of mortality.

  It had been years since Krivi had given any serious thought about what might or might not await him in the afterlife. For one thing, he wasn't at all sure there was an afterlife and if there was, he had nothing to say about it. He'd been raised in a culture steeped in the concept of karma and rebirth and endless reverberations of the actions one took in one's lifetime. Krivi had decided long ago that since he couldn't possibly anticipate all the consequences of his actions, he might as well not worry about them.

  Since the day he'd come to that realization, he'd never looked back. All that mattered was the game of wealth and power, the heady addiction of control over the destiny of millions. With the others in AEON he was about to claim power that would make any of the great conquerors of history envious.

  The phone on his desk rang, with a peculiar, old-world sound that had vanished from modern instruments. This particular phone had once graced the study of Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia. Krivi enjoyed using the antique. It seemed fitting.

  "Yes."

  "Krivi, my friend. How are you?"

  The phone was old, but the quality of voice was quite good. Gutenberg's voice was clear and sharp.

  "Well, Johannes. And you?"

  "Excellent, especially today. One of the obstacles to our success has been removed."

  "Oh?"

  "We will no longer be troubled by the annoying Adam."

  "That's good news. Tell me what happened," Krivi said.

  "He had a car accident," Gutenberg said. "I had hoped to eliminate one of the Project people also, but the timing didn't quite work out. It doesn't matter, there's plenty of time to take care of them."

  "You're certain Adam is out of the way?"

  "Oh, yes, there's no way he could have survived. His organization will be in disarray. Tell me, how are you progressing? Will we be ready soon?"

  "We're about to begin field testing." Krivi told him about Brazil. "The test will give us good data on how fast the disease spreads in a human population and the effectiveness of the vaccine. After that, the only thing is to find the right combination of drugs to combat it."

  "As long as the vaccine works and can be produced in enough quantity to protect our personnel, a cure is not essential at this point."

  "Schmidt seems confident it will work," Krivi said.

  "Herr Schmidt is one of our greatest assets. We are lucky to have him."

  "Have you decided on the initial target for wider dispersal yet?"

  "I'm leaning toward Brazil. Now that the Russians are busy wrecking their own economy, eliminating Brazil might be enough to accomplish our goal."

  "There's still China to deal with. And New Delhi."

  "Yes. Well. Let's see what happens in Brazil. If successful, we'll move on to China. Depending on results there, we'll let Beijing know it could easily happen to them."

  "They might not believe it."

  "That would be a mistake," Gutenberg said.

  CHAPTER 14

  The team gathered in Harker's office. It was Sunday. Days off were no longer on the schedule.

  "What have you found, Steph?" Elizabeth said.

  "Krivi has biohazard labs in Zurich and Mumbai. I can't say with certainty which one we should target."

  "We could go after the guy who runs things," Ronnie said. "What's his name, Gutenberg. Grab him and make him tell us wher
e those samples are."

  "We can't, not yet," Elizabeth said. "Same with Krivi."

  "The Koreans didn't have a vaccine or a cure, is that right?" Selena asked.

  "That's right."

  "Then Krivi must have a team of people working on it. Whatever AEON has in mind for that bug, they'll want to protect themselves. Who's Krivi's best medical researcher? Maybe we could find out where the samples are by watching him. See where he goes to work in the morning."

  Elizabeth looked at her. "That's so simple, it's brilliant. I should have thought of that."

  "It should be easy to find out who it is," Stephanie said.

  She tapped on the keyboard of the laptop she always seemed to have with her.

  "Krivi's company has a corporate website with all the typical blurbs. It's got photos of top personnel."

  They waited. Stephanie entered a command and the monitor on the wall lit with a picture of a blond man in a white lab coat. He was smiling for the camera but the smile failed to reach his eyes.

  "Guy looks like he needs a fancy black uniform and a few flags," Lamont said.

  "He does have that look, doesn't he," Stephanie said. "This is Karl Schmidt, the chief research scientist for Krivi's company. He's got quite a list of credentials. The man's a genius. He'd be the one Krivi would use."

  "Where does he live?" Nick asked.

  "It doesn't say. It does say that the main research lab is in Zurich. I imagine he lives there."

  "I like Selena's idea," Nick said. "We find out where he lives, go to Zurich, stake out his house and see where he goes. He has to be working on the samples."

  "Then what?" Elizabeth asked.

  "If we think we know where they've got the samples, we break in and steal them back."

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

  "Why not?"

  "If this thing is as bad as it's made out to be, we can't handle it. What are we going to do, put on hazmat suits and raid the facility? Put the samples in a baggie?"