Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

  Bellasar doesn’t matter! I have to find Sienna!

  He moved along the corridor, checking each room.

  Empty.

  He reached stairs that rose toward the gas-filled entrance.

  Other stairs led down. Malone followed them.

  The temperature cooled. The rocks that formed the walls became larger, the construction cruder, older, as if from a thousand years ago.

  He came to the brightly lit bottom, where a shiny metal door blocked his way. Silently praying that it wasn’t locked, he pulled, exhaled when it budged, and stepped carefully to the side as it swung open.

  Was Bellasar hiding on the other side, waiting to shoot him?

  Malone took off his gas mask, held it at head level, and inched it around the doorjamb as if peering beyond the door. No bullet struck the mask from his hand. He readied himself, lunged through the doorway, and dropped to a crouch, aiming.

  No target presented itself.

  Instead, he saw the bright corridor of a laboratory. Along each side, windows showed research rooms. He hurried along, not seeing anyone.

  “Sienna!”

  She didn’t shout back.

  “Sienna!”

  He came to another steel door. It, too, was unlocked, but this time when he lunged through, aiming, he found the two Russian bioweapons experts, their faces ashen.

  As he straightened, they stared from him toward a window, beyond which was another window.

  “Sienna!”

  She didn’t react. Past the first window, a corridor, and a second window, she sat at a table, looking dismally at her hands. Her face was battered.

  “Sienna!”

  “She can’t hear you,” said the stoop-shouldered Russian whom Malone had seen arrive by helicopter so long ago. His English was thickly accented, his tone heavy with discouragement. “She can’t see you, either. The glass on her window works only one way.”

  Malone rushed toward a door, tugged, but couldn’t budge it. He pulled with all his strength.

  “It won’t do any good,” the Russian said. “Even if you had a key. Not for six hours.”

  “Six hours?”

  Malone pounded the butt of his rifle against the glass. The window trembled. He pounded harder, but the glass wouldn’t yield.

  “You’re wasting your time,” the Russian said. “You can’t get through that glass with a sledgehammer or a bullet. To be doubly sure, she’s in a chamber within a chamber. Anything to prevent a leak.”

  “Leak?” Malone felt dizzy.

  “I never believed he’d do it.” The Russian looked dazed. “Bellasar said he was going to make an example to the man he was negotiating with, but I never dreamed … ”

  “An example? Jesus, what did he —”

  A phone rang in an office behind him.

  Malone stared at it. As it rang again, he suddenly knew whose voice he would hear. Rushing in, he answered it. “You bastard, how do I get her out of there?”

  “You can’t,” Bellasar said. “Not for six hours.”

  “Six hours?” Again that time limit. Malone vaguely remembered having been told about its significance. When? Who had told him? “What’s so damned important about —” His skin turned cold when his memory cleared. Laster. At the Virginia safe house.

  “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,” Laster had said. “You release the benign virus first. As soon as the target population is infected, the lethal virus is then released.” The benign virus had a six-hour life span, Laster had continued. After that, even if you had smallpox, you couldn’t spread it to anyone who hadn’t come in contact with the benign virus within the previous six hours. The time limit was a way of controlling the weapon and keeping it from spreading beyond the target area.

  “I promised I’d give her to you,” Bellasar said, “but I didn’t guarantee in what condition.”

  “You released both viruses at once?” Malone’s legs felt weak.

  “Tell anyone anything you want about me. It won’t make a difference. When my enemies understand what I’m capable of, they’ll be twice as afraid of me.”

  “You exposed her to smallpox?” Malone screamed.

  10

  Raging, he charged up the stairs. I’ll catch him! I’ll get my hands on his throat! I’ll — But as Malone neared the top, he heard gunfire, not just the rattle of assault rifles but the roar of the chopper’s machine guns. The whoosh of a rocket was followed by an explosion. At the top, the gas had dissipated. Rushing from the Cloister, Malone stared to the left, toward where he had last seen Jeb and his men. Dust, flames, and smoke obscured his vision.

  The chopper wasn’t where he had left it. A rumble cramped his muscles. On his left, the haze dissipated as whirling blades and the chopper appeared. Like malignant growths, a new array of weapons emerged from its belly. It stopped a hundred feet up and a hundred yards away. Even at a distance, Bellasar’s stark features were vivid behind the Plexiglas. From a loudspeaker beneath the fuselage, his voice boomed. “I don’t sell equipment I can’t handle!”

  Before Malone could run back to the Cloister, a burst from a machine gun tore a crater behind him. The force of it threw him to the ground as dirt, stones, and redirected bullets flew around him. He rolled to get farther from the crater, only to see the chopper alter its angle of fire, a machine gun tearing up another crater, this one to the right of him, the chaos making his ears ring.

  He could have killed me! The son of a bitch is toying with me!

  Frantic, Malone pivoted as if to run to the left, but the moment Bellasar guided the chopper that way, Malone changed direction and raced to the right.

  Away from the Cloister.

  Away from Jeb and his men, if they were still alive.

  Toward the weapons-testing range.

  Behind him, he heard the chopper’s motors change pitch as Bellasar pursued him. Even with the ringing in his ears, he heard it come so close, he had to dive to the ground, the chopper speeding over him, wind from it ruffling his hair. Before Bellasar could turn and come after him again, Malone scrambled to his feet and raced onward.

  This part of the estate hadn’t been damaged by Malone’s attack. He charged closer to the weapons-testing range, using hedges, trees, and bushes to provide cover. The trees to his left disappeared, the machine guns vaporizing them. He dove to the ground an instant before the hedges between which he’d been running burst into pieces, specks of leaves and branches filling the air, the chopper swooping over.

  Again, before Bellasar could turn, Malone sprang to his feet and ran. Beyond one last line of shrubs, he rushed into the open, reaching the wooden stalls of the testing area. To his right was the .50-caliber machine gun Bellasar had threatened him with. But as Malone tried to reach it, Bellasar fired, dirt and grass flying, a trough appearing between Malone and the weapon.

  Malone tried again, and again Bellasar’s bullets cut off his route. The bastard’s enjoying himself. Furious, Malone spun in another direction. Beyond the stalls was the mock village Bellasar and his clients used for target practice. It had been rebuilt since Malone had last seen it. He sprinted toward one of the stalls, flicked the switch Potter had used months earlier, and charged toward the suddenly animated village, realistic-looking soldiers, civilians, and vehicles now moving along the streets.

  A volley from a machine gun tore up grass on his right. Veering to the left but continuing to race toward the village, Malone tensed in dread of the volley that would be aimed in that direction. Trying to time it, he swung to the right an instant before the next volley devastated the grass to his left, but now the bullets hit closer to him. Bellasar was tiring of the game.

  The village loomed. Malone zigzagged across the final twenty yards, dove over a stone wall, landed hard, gasped from the pain in his ribs, then squirmed frantically toward the corner of a stone building, where he
pressed himself behind a pile of rubble. Both machine guns firing, the helicopter attacked the village. It blew a gap in the wall, destroyed the corner of the house, and heaved up the cobblestones in a street farther along.

  The moment the chopper sped over the tops of the buildings, Malone raced along the street. Before Bellasar could turn and see him, he darted left into a courtyard and sprawled behind another wall. His chest heaved. Sweat dripped from his face. When he wiped it, his hand came away bloody, and he realized the concussion of the near hits from the machine guns had made his nose bleed.

  Bellasar skimmed the village, searching. “Don’t think you can hide!” his voice boomed from the loudspeaker. “This chopper has night-vision and heat-sensor equipment! As soon as it gets dark, I’ll have no trouble picking up your heat signature!”

  Malone studied a military Jeep filled with mannequins dressed as soldiers. The Jeep was on a track that moved the vehicle along a street. Other mannequins dressed as villagers were on similar tracks that made them appear to walk.

  “And don’t think you can wait for me to run out of fuel!” Bellasar’s voice thundered. “Before that happens, I’ll level this place!”

  A flatbed truck filled with mannequins dressed as workers was so realistic that Malone had the start of an idea, interrupted by an explosion as a rocket blew the truck apart. It heaved, chunks flying in all directions. Burning mannequins, many without arms and heads, flipped through the air. A fireball soared. As black smoke drifted over him, Malone’s nostrils contracted from the stench of cordite, scorched metal, and burning gasoline.

  Burning gasoline? Had Bellasar made the village that realistic?

  The chopper crisscrossed the village, continuing to search. As soon as Bellasar faced the opposite direction, Malone rushed from cover and hurried toward another Jeep. Wary of the chopper, he grabbed a rifle from one of the mannequin soldiers and raced back to the cover of a wall.

  Breathing heavily, he examined the weapon. An M16. Its magazine was fully loaded. Did that mean the grenades the mannequins carried were real also? Why would …

  So the sound effects and the visuals will be accurate, Malone understood with a chill. When Bellasar and his clients shoot at this village, it has to seem as realistic as possible. An explosion has to detonate gasoline in vehicles. It has to set off grenades and ammunition as it would when fire engulfed military corpses.

  The chopper pivoted, coming in Malone’s direction. He’ll fly right over me, Malone realized, his heart beating faster. He’ll see me behind this wall.

  Racing toward an alley, Malone heard the chopper increase speed. He saw me! Entering the alley, charging between houses, he cursed when he saw the alley end at a doorway.

  If that door’s a fake, if it’s jammed …

  He didn’t have an option. He knew what Bellasar would do next. Stretching his legs to their maximum, he reached the dead end. Slamming against the door, pawing at its latch, he thrust it open. His momentum carried him into a house, but instead of stopping, he kept running. He saw an open window, raced toward it, dove through it, and, even as he flew through the air, an explosion behind him thrust him farther, the rocket Bellasar had launched hitting the front of the house. The force of the blast sent walls toppling, rubble flying. When Malone landed in a stone courtyard, the pain in his ribs almost made him pass out. Chunks of rock fell over him. Dust and smoke overwhelmed him.

  Smoke. Despite his pain, a thought that had started forming earlier now insisted. Smoke. The fires in the ruined buildings had created so much smoke that this section of the village was blanketed with it. Bellasar couldn’t see where Malone was sprawled.

  Wrong. As the chopper approached, its spinning blades dispersed the smoke, allowing Bellasar a glimpse of the wreckage.

  The smoke will work, though, Malone decided. There just has to be enough of it.

  Wincing from the pain in his ribs, he forced himself across the courtyard. Gaining speed, he reached a street and saw another Jeep approaching. He took off his windbreaker and formed a sling with it. He darted out, jumped onto the Jeep, grabbed grenades from the equipment belts on the mannequins, stuffed them into the sling, heard the chopper approaching, grabbed two more grenades, and leapt off, taking cover in a doorway as Bellasar flew over.

  Straining to get enough air in his lungs, he pulled the pin from a grenade, heaved the grenade toward the receding Jeep, and raced the opposite way along the street. A truck came around a corner. He tossed a grenade into it as well and ran harder. The blast from the first grenade gutted the Jeep, set off a secondary explosion in the gas tank, and detonated the ammunition in the rifles. Pop, pop, pop, he heard, then winced from the louder explosion of the second grenade, the truck bursting into flames. Continuing to run, he hurled a third grenade at a pickup truck, a fourth at a bus, a fifth at a station wagon. The chain of explosions behind him was accompanied by rising columns of dense black smoke from burning gasoline and tires.

  Bellasar shot into the smoke, but Malone was already in a different sector, blowing up a half-track, another Jeep, and another pickup truck. The secondary explosions added to the chaos, more dense smoke billowing. The stench was so acrid Malone bent over, coughing. The flames spread to buildings. Mannequins dressed as civilians moved on their tracks, continuing to walk even though they were burning.

  The smoke drifted from the village, spreading across the field around it. Malone used it for cover, racing toward the weapons-testing stalls. The .50-caliber machine gun, he kept thinking. Bellasar had cut off his route to it earlier. If Malone had persisted, he was certain Bellasar would have decided the threat was sufficiently serious for him to quit toying with Malone and stop the game right then.

  A change in the sound of the chopper’s motors warned Malone that Bellasar had seen him running across the smoke-obscured field.

  No!

  He raced as hard as he could.

  The chopper sped toward him.

  What if the machine gun doesn’t have ammunition? What if —

  Run!

  Bellasar fired, narrowly missing him.

  Faster!

  Malone’s makeshift sling still held a few grenades. His legs pumping, his chest heaving, he grabbed a grenade, pulled its pin, reached the machine gun, then whirled and threw the grenade as far and as high as he could in the chopper’s direction. He was too desperate to worry about shrapnel as he swung toward the machine gun on its tripod and shouted in triumph when he saw that an ammunition belt was attached to it.

  The grenade exploded in front of the chopper, its shock wave jolting the fuselage, shrapnel whacking against the Plexiglas, the distraction enough to keep Bellasar from firing again.

  For an intense moment, Malone saw Bellasar’s fury-contorted features. In the back, desperate and frenzied, Potter and Ahmed tugged at the bars to which they were handcuffed. Then Malone yanked back the arming mechanism on the machine gun, tilted the weapon upward, and pulled the trigger. The awesome rate of fire threatened to twist the weapon out of his control. But although he had found the recoil daunting when Bellasar had made him fire the weapon months earlier, he now felt angrily at ease with it. Its repeated shudder, reminiscent of the speed and power of a locomotive, aggravated the pain in his body, but his body transcended his pain. In the next pure timeless moment, he and the weapon were one as he steadied his aim and kept squeezing the trigger. The rounds had extrapowerful loads. The tips were explosive. Bellasar had been so proud of them. Now a steady spray of them struck the chopper, blowing it, along with Bellasar, Potter, and Ahmed, to hell.

  The blast was so powerful, it slammed Malone to the ground, and this time he did pass out — but not before he saw the flaming wreckage cascade, slamming, onto the field. How long he was unconscious, a minute or five minutes, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that when he came to, the wreckage was still burning across from him. But he didn’t have time to rejoice in his victory. He had no thought of celebration. He hadn’t been victorious. There was nothing to celebrat
e. He was alive, and he had gotten his revenge, but he hadn’t won. Wavering to his feet, he stumbled past mutilated trees and hedges toward the Cloister. Sienna! he kept thinking, and then, as he broke from a stumble to a run, he wailed it.

  “SIENNA!”

  11

  Time had deceived him. What had seemed like fifteen minutes had taken an hour. When he reached the Cloister, he found Jeb passed out on its front steps, a pool of blood around him, a bullet hole in his arm. “Now I owe you,” Malone said. A policeman and a doctor, alarmed by the rumble of the distant explosions, had arrived from the nearest village twenty kilometers away. While the doctor worked on Jeb, the policeman and townspeople summoned by phone were searching the grounds, trying to help the survivors. Three of Jeb’s men, including Dillon, had been wounded. Two were dead. Sickened, Malone rushed down the basement stairs to the corridor outside Sienna’s chamber.

  The Russians had remained, still devastated by the reality that Bellasar had actually used the weapon. Pale, they continued to stare through both windows toward Sienna. After having waited so long, she was pacing, her eyes panicky. Through the one-way glass, Malone watched her tug frantically at the door, then study the ceiling, trying to calculate a way out. The bruises on her face were more pronounced. It broke his heart to see them. But they were the least thing that would mar her beauty.

  “How long does the disease take to develop?” he asked the stoop-shouldered Russian.

  Downcast, the man replied, “Normally, seven to ten days.”

  “Normally?”

  “We engineered it so the effects are accelerated. But it was all a research experiment. We never dreamed Bellasar would actually use it.”

  “How long?”

  “Three days.”

  “Does she know she’s been exposed?”

  Looking more dejected, the Russian shook his head from side to side.

  Malone swallowed bile. His ordeal had left him so weak, he could barely stand. But how he felt didn’t matter. He went into an office behind him, picked up its phone, and pressed the numbers Bellasar had earlier given him.