Sienna’s car arrived first. As Malone got out of his, three men were already taking her through the double-doored entrance to the house. She had a chance to look back only briefly, her unhappy gaze fixed on him, reminding him of an anxious animal being put in a cage, and then she was gone. Jeb was nowhere to be seen. Without anyone in authority to object to, Malone allowed himself to be taken inside.
The house had slate floors and beamed ceilings. There were corridors to the right, left, and straight ahead. Malone had no way of telling where Sienna had been put, but he himself was taken to the left, to a bedroom at the far end. The room was spacious, with institutional furnishings. But what Malone paid most attention to was the large single window, which couldn’t be opened and which was unusually thick, suggesting it was bullet-resistant. He looked out toward a swimming pool that still had its winter cover on, leafless treed hills beyond it. He saw a tennis court, a stable, and a riding area, all of which looked as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. He doubted that they’d be used while he and Sienna were there, either. He saw a “gardener” peering up at him. Turning, he studied what might have been a hole for a needle-nose camera lens in the opposite top corner of the room.
His legs ached from having been on too many aircraft. His head pounded from jet lag. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Sienna in two days. Where was she? What were they doing to her? He kept feeling he was back on Bellasar’s estate. “This is bullshit,” he said, directing his remark to where he assumed the hidden camera and microphone were.
He walked to the door through which he had entered, tried to open it, and found it locked. A number pad on the right seemed the only way to disengage the lock.
“Hey!” He pounded on the door. “Whoever’s out there, open up.”
No response.
He pounded louder. “Open the damn door!”
Nothing.
“Fine.” He picked up a bedside lamp and hurled it against the window, shattering the lamp but having no effect on the glass. He grabbed the lamp on the other side of the bed and threw it against the mirror above the bureau, protecting his face as chunks of glass flew. He pulled out a dresser drawer and heaved it down through a glass-topped table in a corner. He hurled a second drawer toward an overhead light fixture, disintegrating it. He yanked out a third drawer and was about to head toward the mirror in the bathroom when a metallic sound directed his attention toward the door.
Someone was turning the knob.
The door swung open.
Jeb stepped into view, shaking his head in displeasure. His suit seemed to constrict his large frame. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Where’s Sienna?”
“When we’re finished, you can see her.”
“No, I’ll see her now.” Malone started past him.
Jeb put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t the time.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Look, we have procedures that need to be followed.”
“Not anymore. Where is she?”
“Chase, you’re making a —”
Malone pushed him aside.
“Stop!”
Malone stalked from the bedroom.
An armed man appeared before him, holding up his hand. “Sir, you’re going to have to go back to —”
“Go to hell.” Malone shoved past him. “Sienna!”
“Stop!” Jeb repeated.
At the foyer, a guard blocked Malone’s way, shoving him back. Malone pretended to lose his balance. When the overconfident guard came forward to shove him again, Malone stiffened the fingers of his right hand and drove them into the man’s diaphragm. Wheezing, suddenly pale, the man sank to his knees. Malone whirled and used the heel of his palm to stiff-arm the other guard, who rushed toward him. Struck in the chest, the man jerked back as if yanked by a rope, then slammed onto the floor.
Malone braced himself, raising his hands offensively against Jeb. “You want some of this?”
“Mr. Malone.”
Malone turned toward a bureaucratic-looking man in his late fifties.
“I think we should talk,” the man said.
9
The man had thinning gray hair and was of average height and weight, but his rigidly straight posture and commanding eyes, seemingly magnified by his metal-rimmed spectacles, gave him a presence out of proportion to his size. Accompanied by two assistants, he had just emerged from a room farther along the hallway. The door remained open.
“Is Sienna in there?”
The man spread his hands. “See for yourself.”
Malone passed the first guard, ignoring the injured man’s attempt to stand. Rapidly, he also passed the bureaucrat and entered the room, which was an office with glass bookshelves, a computer on a desk, and several closed-circuit TV monitors, one of which showed the wreckage in Malone’s room. He didn’t find Sienna in the office, and he didn’t see her on any of the screens.
“I’ve told you what I know,” Malone said as the man entered with his assistants, followed by Jeb, who shut the door. “I didn’t get involved in this to be treated like a prisoner. Where’s Sienna? I want to see her.”
“Yes, your file made clear you have a problem dealing with authority.”
“You want to see a problem?” Malone picked up the computer’s monitor and hurled it onto the floor. The screen shattered. “You want to see another problem?”
“You’re a problem. You’ve made your point. Now let me make mine.”
“Why do I get the feeling we’re still not communicating?”
“Ten minutes.”
“What?”
“You need to understand some things.”
Malone tensed, studying the man, suspicious.
“You’ve had a long journey. Take a seat. Would you like something to eat or drink?”
“You’re wasting your ten minutes.”
“My name is Jeremy Laster.”
“I doubt you’d give me your real name, but if that’s how you want it, fine, you’re Jeremy Laster.”
Laster sighed. “Considering your relationship with Mrs. Bellasar” — he put a slight emphasis on Mrs., as if he felt Malone needed to be reminded — “I can understand why you’re impatient to see her, but that can’t be permitted for a while.”
“How long?”
“It’s impossible to say.”
“That’s what you think.” Malone started toward the door.
Laster’s two assistants blocked it.
“I still have nine minutes,” Laster said.
Malone debated whether to try to force his way out, then told Laster, “Use them.”
“You’ve insisted you’re not associated with us. That makes it difficult to confide in you. Within the Agency, we operate on a need-to-know basis. But someone on the outside …” Laster made a gesture of futility.
“Join the Agency and you’ll tell me what’s going on, is that it?”
“Hardly. I’ve seen enough to be sure we don’t want you.”
“I’m glad we agree about something.”
“What I’m trying to do is make clear how unusual the circumstances are that would lead me to explain anything to you.” Laster went over to the desk and picked up a one-page document. “This is a confidentiality statement. It forbids you to disclose what I’m about to tell you. The penalty for violating it is severe.”
“Like an unmarked grave in the woods?”
“Be serious.”
“Who’s joking?” Malone took the document and read it. “So I’m supposed to sign this, and then you’ll tell me what’s going on?”
Laster handed him a pen.
Malone impatiently used it. “Fine. Now talk.”
“At last we’re making progress.” Laster put the document in his briefcase and pulled out a black-and-white photograph of the man Sienna had met in Istanbul. It was similar to Malone’s sketch. “As Mr. Wainright told you, he recognized this man. Tariq Ahmed
. Another black-market arms dealer. We’re extremely curious about the purpose for their meeting. And we think the answer involves the two men you saw at Bellasar’s estate.” Laster pulled out two other black-and-white photographs. “Thanks to your accurate sketches, a team from our Russian desk was able to identify them as Vasili Gribanov and Sergei Bulganin.” Laster paused. “They’re specialists in biowar-fare.”
“Bio … ”
“In 1973, the Soviets established a biological weapons research and production system called Bio-preparat. Gribanov and Bulganin came on board in 1983. Various scientists had their specialties. Marburg, anthrax, pneumonic plague. Gribanov and Bulganin chose smallpox.”
Malone felt cold. “But I thought smallpox had been destroyed.”
“Eradicated from the general population, yes. The last known case was in 1977. But if it ever came back, the World Health Organization decided that a small amount of the virus ought to be kept frozen for research purposes. The United States has some. So do the Russians. Scientists being what they are, they love to tinker. Gribanov and Bulganin decided that smallpox in its natural form wasn’t deadly enough. They altered its genetic makeup to make it more aggressive.”
“But that’s insane.” Malone’s skin itched as if he’d been infected.
“For eight years, Gribanov and Bulganin worked happily, running their experiments and performing tests. But in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the research money stopped. They found themselves out of a job. So they offered their skills to another employer.”
“Bellasar.”
Laster nodded. “As it turns out, Ahmed is less thorough in his security arrangements than Bellasar. By intensifying our electronic surveillance on his associates, we’ve been able to learn about the meeting in Istanbul. It seems Bellasar has no qualms about selling a biological weapon to anyone prepared to meet his price, but he doesn’t want to be linked directly to the weapon. What he’d prefer is to sell it to Ahmed and then let Ahmed dispose of it as he wishes. That’s why the meeting didn’t go as smoothly as Bellasar hoped. Ahmed figures that if he’s going to take the heat for making the weapon available, he wants better financial terms than Bellasar is offering. Bellasar’s argument is that Ahmed shouldn’t be greedy, that Ahmed’s already guaranteed a hefty profit when he sells it.”
“To whom?”
“That’s one of various things we’re hoping Mrs. Bellasar will tell us.”
“She doesn’t know.”
Laster only stared at him.
Malone shook his head in disgust. “What’s the weapon’s delivery system?”
“Microscopic powder released via aerosol containers. The best method is to have an aircraft open the containers while flying over a city. Our experts calculate that a half dozen aerosol containers opened on a windy day could contaminate several square miles.”
“But the thing’s uncontrollable,” Malone said. “Before victims start showing symptoms, some of them could get on planes and fly to major cities all over the world. It could cause a global epidemic.”
“Not in this case,” Laster said. “The weapon has a fail-safe feature that prevents it from spreading beyond its target.”
“Fail-safe?”
“What makes the weapon so unique is that Gribanov and Bulganin genetically engineered the smallpox virus so it can’t infect anyone unless it combines with another virus, a benign but rare one.”
“Why? What purpose would that serve?”
“You release the benign virus first. As soon as the target population is infected, the lethal virus is then released. But anyone who hasn’t been infected with the benign virus can’t be infected by the lethal one, which means that even if someone who’s infected with the lethal virus gets on a plane before the symptoms show up, that person isn’t going to start an epidemic in another country, because that other population hasn’t previously been exposed to the companion virus.”
“Unless someone exposed to the benign virus has already traveled to that country.”
“Can’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“The benign virus has a six-hour life span when it isn’t combined with the lethal one. It doesn’t travel well. By the time someone flew from Tel Aviv to Rome, Paris, or New York, say, it would have died. Anyone arriving with the lethal virus couldn’t pass it on.”
“Jesus.”
“This is a quantum leap in the notion of what a weapon can be,” Laster said. “Controlled massive destruction of human life without any destruction to property.”
“Why would anybody want to develop a weapon like that?” Jeb interrupted. “How the hell rich does Bellasar need to be?”
“It’s not about money. It’s about power,” Malone said.
Laster nodded. “So our profilers suggested, but their conclusion is theoretical. We’ve never had access to anyone who spent as much time with him as you did. Except for —”
“Sienna.”
“She knows the mechanisms that trigger his emotions. In our efforts to put him out of business, no observation from his wife is too small not to be of value to us.”
“So basically the debriefing could go on forever?”
Laster spread his hands fatalistically.
“You prick.”
“Millions of lives are at stake.”
“That doesn’t mean she has to be a prisoner.”
“Bellasar’s never going to stop searching for her. Do you honestly believe if we let her out of here — I don’t care under what new identity — that he won’t eventually find her? This is the safest place in the world for her.”
“Then why won’t you let me see her?”
“Because, if she feels as powerfully about you as you do about her, the longer she’s away from you, the more frustrated she’ll become. That’ll give us leverage. We’re not sure we can trust her. Maybe she’s having second thoughts about betraying her husband. Maybe she’s withholding crucial information. But if she knows she can’t see you until she convinces us she doesn’t have anything more to tell us, she’ll have greater motivation to confide in us.”
“To call you a prick is being generous,” Malone said. “You want to put Bellasar out of business? Send in a black-ops team and assassinate him. Bomb the hell out of the place. Scorch it to the ground and pour salt all over it.”
“We’d love to.”
“So why don’t —”
“Because we have to make sure the biological weapon is secure. When our team moves in, it’s going to be at the proper time and with the proper information.”
“Sienna and I gave you all the information we have.”
“That remains to be determined.”
“I want to see her.”
“By all means.” Laster pointed toward one of the closed-circuit television monitors.
Malone walked to it and felt his pulse increase. Seen from the back, Sienna peered out a large window similar to the one in his room. The image was black and white and grainy, from an angle that looked down and across the room at her. The lens had a fish-eye distortion. But nothing could obscure her beauty.
“This evening, we’re going to question her again about Bellasar’s sister,” Laster said. “None of us knew about her. We’re eager for more details.”
“Knock yourself out.”
10
When Malone returned to his room, it had been restored, the light fixture, table, and mirror replaced, the broken glass removed. Noticing that the closet door was ajar, he pulled it open and found clothes on hangers: a sport coat, two shirts, a pair of jeans, and a pair of slacks, all of them in his size and all of them new. Yeah, just like at Bellasar’s, he thought.
Through the window, the sky was becoming bleak, a shower approaching, leafless branches wavering in the breeze. He went over and watched specks of rain hit the glass. The room light was off. As the sky became grayer, the late afternoon felt like evening.
I should have made another attempt to reach her. With those two guards waiting
for an excuse to get even? he thought. One of Laster’s assistants had been holding something that looked suspiciously like the kind of flat black case doctors kept syringes in. Malone was certain that if he’d made another attempt to get to Sienna, he’d have been sedated.
The way Bellasar had jabbed him with his ring at Sotheby’s.
Calm down, he thought. Get control. Think this through.
Right, he thought. Even if he and Sienna had the freedom to leave this place, what were they going to do about it? Malone had counted on the Agency to solve the problem for them, but Laster had as much as admitted that the Agency didn’t have a solution. Bellasar would keep coming and coming, and a man with his resources would eventually find a lead. In the meantime, every shadow would make them flinch. Even on the most basic level, they needed the Agency to supply them with new identities and documentation. How were they going to keep on the move without new credit cards, driver’s licenses, and passports?
The rain pelted the window. It was gloomy enough outside that Malone could see his troubled reflection in the glass.
Someone knocked on his door. Turning, he saw it opening and noted that the hand coming into view didn’t have a key. He couldn’t help concluding that even though a combination of numbers had to be pressed on the pad next to the door to unlock it from the inside, the door could be unlocked from the outside merely by turning the knob.
Jeb appeared, looking sheepish, holding a six-pack of Budweiser in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other. “Peace offering?”
“You really let me down.”
“The assignment was taken from my control.”
“Was it ever in your control?”
“I thought so. I was wrong. Can I come in?”
“Since when does anybody around here ask permission of the prisoners?”
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