Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

by Cuba (lit)

  to aim. Chance squeezed off a round anyway. Where

  the bullet went he never knew.

  Before he could fire again the man screamed in agony.

  All his muscles went rigid. He bent over

  backward, screaming in a high-pitched wail.

  "Let's goff"...Carmellini yelled.

  The man got control of an arm. He

  tore at his mask, trying to get it off, all the

  while screaming and thrashing around on the floor amid

  the broken glass.

  "Holy shit."

  The stricken man finally just ran out of air. All

  motion stopped. He was bent over backward, almost

  double, his head within a few inches of his heels.

  Careful not to step on the broken glass, Chance bent

  over the man. He carefully took off the gas

  mask.

  Eyes rolled back in his head, every muscle taut

  in a fierce rigor, the man seemed almost frozen.

  "He must have torn his suitea"...Chance muttered to himself.

  The Cubans must have vaccinated everyone with access.

  Why didn't the vaccination protect him?

  "Let's get our asses through the air lock and get

  the fuck outta hereea"...Carmellini said loudly.

  They stood in the vacuum room for the longest time,

  neither man willing to be the first to leave.

  "We must goea"...Carmellini said at last, after almost

  ten minutes of suction, after using a high-pressure

  jet of air from a hose to blast every nook and fold

  of the coverall.

  They hung the coveralls on the nails. Stood in

  the next air lock, were vacuumed again, then

  they were out, still wearing their gas masks.

  "We might kill everyone in Havanaea"...Chance said.

  "We'll never know itea"...Carmellini shot back.

  "We'll be in hell before they are."

  "Can't figure out why the vaccination didn't

  protect him."

  "Later. How the hell are we going to get out of

  here?"-

  "The easiest way is to just walk out the front

  door, shoot both the guards, and walk around the

  corner to the van."

  "They'll see us going up the stairs."

  "The elevator. We'rl use the elevator.

  Keep the pistols where they can't see them."

  "You are fucking-A crazy, man. One crazy

  motherfucker."

  The elevator was right there with the door open. Chance

  walked in. When Carmellini was aboard, he pushed

  the button to take it up.

  With their pistols down by their legs, they walked out

  of the elevator, straight for the guard shack at the

  front door.

  Only one man was there, reading something. He looked

  up as they approached. Now he stood.

  "Que

  pasa"..."...he began, and Chance shot him in the forehead from

  six feet away.

  The guard toppled over backward.

  Chance and Carmellini kept going, out the door at a

  walking pace, down the sidewalk under the

  streetlights looking like two refugees from a flying

  saucer, and around the corner. They jerked open the rear

  door of the van and jumped in.

  Chance ripped off the mask.

  "Let's get the hell outta hereea"...he roared at the

  driver, who was as surprised at their sudden

  appearance as the guard had been. "Drive, damn

  it, drive!"

  As the van jostled and swayed through the city streets,

  they sat in the back staring at each other, waiting for the

  disease to hammer them.

  Waited, and waited, and waited...

  Six hours after William Henry Chance and

  Tommy Carmellini walked out of the University of

  Havana science building, Dr. Bouchard was on his

  way to Washington via Mexico City with two of the

  culture samples in his diplomatic pouch.

  Three hours later one of the lowest-ranking mission

  employees with diplomatic status left on a

  plane to Freeport, there to transfer to a

  flight to Miami, and then on to Washington. This

  employee carried the other two samples in her

  diplomatic pouch.

  Chance and Carmellini were dropped at their hotel after

  changing clothes in the van. "Burn those clothes

  immediately, and don't touch them with your bare handsea"...Chance

  told the driver.

  At the hotel both men went straight to their rooms,

  stripped, and stood in the shower for as long as they could

  stand it.

  Standing under the shower head Chance waited for the first

  symptom to announce its arrival. Every now and then

  he shuddered, despite the hot water, as cold

  chills ran up and down his spine. He had a raging

  headache. When he got out of the shower he toweled himself

  dry, got in bed and arranged a wet, cool

  washcloth across his forehead.

  The lab worker writhing on the floor, the startled

  face of the guard the instant before he died^the scenes

  played over and over in his mind. The death throes of the

  lab worker were bad enough, but the face of the guard, when

  he saw the pistol rising, saw the silencer, knew

  Chance was going to shoot:

  that

  face Chance would carry to his grave.

  He shouldn't have had to kill the guard. The truth of the

  matter was that he panicked when the lab worker died

  horribly; he stood in the air locks thinking he

  or Carmellini would be next, any second. He

  had wanted out of that building so badly he had thrown

  caution to the wind and bolted blindly for the front door.

  It was a miracle that there weren't two or three

  guards standing by the main entrance, that they didn't have

  guns out as the two figures from biological hell

  stepped out of the elevator.

  Ah, the stink of Lady Luck. greater-than

  Lying there in the darkness he thought about

  microorganisms, wondered what was in the sample

  vials, wondered why the lab worker, who must have been

  immunized, died such a painful, horrible death.

  One thing was certain: The Cubans were well on their

  way to having biological weapons. And the only

  conceivable target was the United States.

  With his head pounding, unable to sleep, he turned on

  his small computer and typed an E-mail reporting

  the intrusion and his findings. After he encrypted the

  message, he used the telephone on the desk

  to get on the Web and fire the message

  into cyberspace.

  Then he went back to bed, and finally

  to sleep.

  The American stood amid the shards of glass

  looking at the body of the lab worker. He wore a

  protective garment that covered him head to toe and a

  mask that filtered the air he breathed. He looked

  at everything, taking his tune, then exited the

  laboratory through the air lock.

  Alejo Vargas was waiting for him. He said nothing,

  merely waited for the American to talk.

  "The virus has apparently mutatedea"...the

  American said finally. "I thought the strain was stable,

  but..."...He gave the tiniest shrug.

  "Mutated?". "Possibly."

 
"Come now, Professor. I have not asked for

  scientific proof. Tell me what you think."

  "A mutation. A few days with the electron

  microscope would give us some clues. We need

  to do more cultures to be sure. It would help if I

  could dissect the dead man, see how the disease affected

  him."

  "Like you did the others?"

  "You told me they were killers, condemned men. We

  had to

  knowl"

  "What if the disease gets away from you at

  the morgue? What if it spreads to the general

  population?"

  "With the proper precautions the danger is

  minuscule. Man, the advancement of human knowledge

  requires"

  "Noea"...Vargas said. He gestured to the lab. "If

  that gets away from us, for whatever reason, there won't

  be a human left alive on this island."

  "Then don't ask me for opinionsea"...the professor

  snapped. "You can guess as well as I."

  Alejo Vargas's eyes narrowed to slits. His

  voice was cold with fury. "I wanted to use an

  anthrax agent, but no, you insisted on

  poliomyelitis. Now you tell me it mutated, as

  I feared it might."

  The damned fool, the American thought. Of course

  he had insisted on a virusfor Christ's sake,

  bis life work was studying viruses, not bacteria.

  Vargas continued, pronouncing the sentence: "We

  spent all this money, built the warheads, installed

  them, and we took huge risks to do it Don't

  talk to me of acceptable

  risks."

  The professor was not the type to calmly submit

  to lectures from his intellectual

  inferiors. "Don't get wrathy with me, Vargas.

  You're a stupid, ignorant thug. I didn't

  design the universe and I can't take

  responsibility for it. I merely try to understand,

  to learn, to increase the store of man's knowledge."

  The American lost his temper at that point and

  splut-

  tered, "Biology isn't engineering, goddammit!

  Sometimes two plus two equals five."

  Vargas turned his back on the professor. He

  stared into the lab, which appeared cold and stark under the

  lights yet was full of poisonous life.

  "I don't understand what happened in thereea"...the

  American said. "He didn't just fall. It

  looks like there was a struggle."

  "Someone broke hiea"...Vargas said.

  The professor was horrified. "Broke in?

  Past the guards? Who would be so foolish?"

  "Someone who wanted to see what was in thereea"...Vargas

  said, and turned to look at the other man's face.

  A note of satisfaction crept into, his voice

  as he added, "Probably Americans, Perhaps

  C1A."

  The professor looked startled, as if the

  possibility had not crossed his mind.

  "Come, come, Professor, don't tell me you

  thought your work here hi Cuba would remain a secret

  forever."

  "I am a scientistea"...the American said. "Science

  is my life."

  Vargas snorted derisively. "Your lifeff"...he

  said softly, contemptuously.

  The professor lost it. "Foolff"...he shouted.

  "Idiot! You sit in this Third World cesspool and

  think this crap matters

  fooir

  "Perhapsea"...Vargas said coldly. He was used

  to Professor Svenson, an unrepentant

  intellectual snob, the very worst kind, and

  American to boot. "I would like to stay and trade

  curses with you today but there is no time. The workers are

  waiting outside. You are going to show them how to clean

  up the lab, then you will determine exactly what

  happened to the viruses. You will write down all that

  must be done to check the warheads. You will have the report

  handdelivered to me. If you fail to do exactly what

  J say, you will go into the crematorium with the lab

  worker. Do you understand me, Professor?"

  "You can't threaten me. I'm"

  Alejo Vargas flicked his fingers across the

  professor's cheek, merely a sting. He stared

  into his eyes. "You suffer from a regrettable

  delusion that you are irreplaceablest can cure that. If

  you wish, you can go to the crematorium right now. Two

  body bags are not much more trouble than one."

  ,

  When Vargas left, Olaf Svenson sat and hid

  his face in his hands.

  He had never thought past the scientific problems to the

  ones he now faced. Oh, he should have, of course:

  he knew that Vargas intended to put the virus

  into warheads. He shut his mind to the horrorhe

  wanted to see if the mutation could be controlled. No,

  he wanted to see if

  he

  could control the mutation of the viruses. The

  scientific challenges consumed him. Vargas had the

  money and the facilities Olaf Svenson wanted

  to do the research.

  He was going to have to get out of Cuba, and as soon as

  possible. The university thought he was in

  Europethat was where he would go. The CIA

  probably had no evidence, or not enough to prosecute

  him in an American court. If he went to the

  airport and took a plane now they

  probably would never get enoughVargas certainly

  wasn't going to be a willing witness.

  He waited a few minutes, long enough for Vargas

  to clear off upstairs, then stood and took a last

  fleeting look at the lab. With a sigh he turned his

  back on what might have been and walked to the

  elevator. In the lobby he took the time to give

  detailed instructions to the workers who would clean up the

  lab, answered the foreman's questions, then watched as they

  boarded the elevator. When the elevator door

  closed behind the workers, Professor Svenson nodded

  to the guards at the entrance of the building, set off

  down the street and never looked back.

  The P-3 Orion antisubmarine patrol

  plane flew over a sparkling- sea. The morning

  cumulus clouds would form in the

  STEPHEN COONTS

  trade winds in a few hours, but right now the sky was

  empty except for wisps of high stratus.

  The glory of the morning held no interest for the

  P-3's crew, which was examining an old freighter

  anchored in the lee of an l-shaped cay. A few

  palm trees and some thick brush covered the

  backbone of the little island, which had wide, white,

  empty beaches on all sides.

  "Whaddya think"..."...the pilot asked his copilot and the

  TACCO, the tactical coordinator, who was standing

  behind the center console.

  "Go lower and we'll get picturesea"...the TACCO

  suggested. He passed a video camera to the

  copilot.

  The pilot retarded the throttles and brought the

  plane around in a wide, sweeping turn to pass

  down the side of the freighter at an altitude of

  about two hundred feet. The copilot kept the

  video camera on the freighter, which was fairly

  small, about ten thousand tons, with peeling paint a
nd a

  rusty waterline. A few sailors could be seen on

  deck, but no flags were visible.

  "I'll get on the hornea"...the TACCO told the

  pilot, "see if the folks in Norfolk can

  identify that ship. But first let's fly over the

  ship, get the planform from directly overhead."

  The TACCO knew that the computer sorted ship

  images by silhouettes and planforms, so having both

  views would speed up the identification process.

  Professor Olaf Svenson was standing in line at

  Havana airport to buy a ticket to Mexico

  City when he saw Colonel Santana arrive out

  front in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

  Through the giant windows he could clearly see

  Santana get out of the car, see the uniformed

  security guards salute, see the plainclothes

  security men with Santana move tourists out of the

  way.

  Svenson turned and rushed away in the other

  direction. He dove into the first men's room he

  saw and took refuge in an empty stall.

  Was Santana after him?

  The acrid smell of a public rest room filled

  his nostrils, permeated his clothing, made him feel

  unclean. He sat listening to the sounds: the door

  opening and closing as men came and went, feet

  scraping, water running, piss tinkling into urinals,

  muttered comments. Sweat trickled down his neck,

  soaking his shirt.

  Slam!

  Someone aggressively pushed the rest room door

  open until it smashed against the wall.

  The minutes crawled.

  Santana was an animal, Svenson thought, a

  sadist, a foul, filthy creature who loved to see

  fellow human beings in pain. Svenson had seen it

  in his eyes. Even the smallest of bad tidings was

  delivered with a malicious gleam. Svenson

  suspected that as a boy Santana had enjoyed

  torturing pets.

  What would Santana do to an overweight,

  middle-aged scientist from Colorado who tried

  to escape the country?

  The door slammed into the wall again, and Svenson

  jumped.

  Torture? Of course. Santana would want

  to inflict pain. Svenson felt his bowels get

  watery as he thought about the pain that Santana could

  dish out.

  Every sound caused him to move, to jump.

  He consulted his watch again. Just a few minutes had

  passed.

  O God, if you really exist, have mercy on me!

  Don't let Santana find me. Please!

  Home. He wanted to go home so badly. To his

  apartment and cats and flowers in planters. To his

  neat, safe little haven, where he could shut out the evil