Unacceptable Risk

by David Dun

  "I need to put on my special things," she said.

  "I don't care right now."

  "You always let me get ready for you. It makes me feel good."

  "I will let you play your game one more time if you promise me you will be your old self."

  "I promise. I swear it."

  "Then you can even have a bath. I know how you like them. I will wait, but don't be long. Be sure you get dressed after your bath." Benoit wondered if he was capable of sex without cutting off a woman's clothes and playing with his knife.

  Benoit went in the bath, turned on the water, then went through the bedroom into a library with a doorway onto the living area. She was ten feet from Gaudet and Trotsky.

  "Did you make sure they destroyed the computer?" Gaudet asked Trotsky. "I was very explicit."

  "Get the computer going. I do not like being cut off from the world. I want to make sure we are on schedule. Some of the atomizers were not working properly."

  "Buying more atomizers now would be dangerous. And keeping Benoit Moreau alive is dangerous."

  "The French may be pissed if we kill her. You never know who that woman is screwing."

  "With all respect, that is a rationalization. They wanted Chaperone. They got it."

  "I want to use both the cement trucks and the helicopters and we need some new atomizers to do both."

  "Why did you tell Benoit about the helicopters?" Trotsky was perplexed.

  "If somehow she can communicate with the outside, I want them to think that half the plan is the whole plan. The cement trucks by themselves would do enough damage. More than the helicopters."

  "It is crazy to keep this woman alive, even as you think she might betray you. We must kill her." "I thought that was my decision." True to form, Trotsky said nothing more. Benoit was convinced she knew enough and that she had to get out. Quickly she went back to the bathroom. Within seconds Gaudet was knocking on the door to make sure she was indeed taking a bath.

  Then she heard Trotsky's angry shouting at Gaudet. The tone was completely uncharacteristic of Trotsky. Immediately she sensed that he had opened the e-mail. True to his word, Sam had not stopped the transaction because she was not safe. By now the French had probably figured out at least part of the puzzle—the part where they get ripped off for two hundred million dollars.

  Sam was on a video conference in the New York office of the FBI and they were set up with Jill at Sam's LA office. They had downloaded the laptop C-drive to LA to Big Brain over the Internet. Both the CIA technicians and the FBI technicians would be present while Grogg worked his magic. Grogg went to a government facility and connected to Big Brain online. Sam wasn't going to have government people he didn't know anywhere near his company. Ernie, in New York, was petting Harry as Harry sat in the middle of the conference table and took in the big screen and watched every move that Sam made. Although Ernie tried, Harry didn't look all that happy with the attention.

  "Harry is worried you'll leave again. I don't make a good substitute dad," Ernie said.

  "Harry doesn't like police dogs. Maybe somehow that rubs off on you, Ernie. I don't know."

  Assistant Deputy Director Dennis Wagner, of the CIA, was seated next to Jill. He'd been to Sam's LA offices before and was one of the few on Sam's approved list. Dennis cleared his throat, undoubtedly certain that such banter in the face of national security risks was out of place. An anti-terrorist task force and Homeland Security were also on the call.

  "We're here to discuss the French government, Benoit, and the threat—the so-called Cordyceps plan," Dennis said. In true bureaucratic fashion Dennis went on to summarize what the government already knew. Although they were confused about some important details, and didn't have a clue as to what Benoit Moreau was up to, they seemed to have the rest of the big picture fairly well in hand. Someone had obviously made them eager about Chaperone. Sam was happy to see the government's high level of interest.

  "So far, we know that Gaudet tells Benoit that they are using police helicopters—that's of interest to the FBI and Homeland Security," Sam said.

  "We've got thousands of people literally from all law enforcement agencies checking out every conceivable means of delivering a vapor spray to a populated area," Ernie said.

  "Good. Of interest to the CIA: Benoit says that France has been told that Cordyceps will be unleashed in five days, but, in fact, it will be three. I have asked Figgy Meeks, the representative for France, if he has any new information and he says no," Sam said. "What does the SDECE say?"

  "Well, of course that's classified, but they are saying nothing," Dennis replied. "Simple stonewalling, if your Benoit Moreau is right."

  "She's right about Baptiste and Larive, that's for sure."

  "Those are serious charges she's making," Dennis observed.

  "She's a serious woman. She wants asylum in the United

  States."

  "Asylum from whom?"

  "France. She doesn't like the butter sauce and says it's hell over there."

  "I thought she wanted a pardon from the French government."

  "Woman is full of surprises. Actually, she thinks that Larive and agent Baptiste are eliciting her cooperation by lying about a possible pardon. At the same time they're stonewalling us and investing in the markets to take advantage of the coming disaster. I'd call that being accessories to attempted mass murder," Sam pronounced.

  "Let's pray it remains 'attempted.' "

  "Amen. Now it's Ernie's turn. I promised to put this right in your lap, Ernie. Are you ready? I want you to ask the president of the United States if Benoit Moreau can have protective asylum, if she is a major factor in successfully stopping Cordyceps."

  "Are you mad? I've met him once for two seconds."

  "Maybe, but the question is uncomplicated. Will you ask?"

  "The president?"

  "You can start with the vice president. He has a lot of suck. And I suppose you can go through your boss's boss, or whatever."

  "I don't know the law."

  "Damn the law. The president can pardon any U.S. crime; he can refuse to extradite. We could give her asylum."

  "We'd be flying blind. We don't know all of what she's done."

  "It's better than losing a few million Americans. If that happens and you don't prevent it, when you might have, you'll be having a reduced pension—goes with disgrace and early retirement."

  "Don't be an asshole."

  "Dennis, now it's your turn for some glory. Actually, the entire administration. Call Dr. Carl Fielding at Harvard University. Ask him how badly he wants Chaperone to be owned by a United States foundation, with Harvard on the board of directors?"

  "I can well imagine. But it's moot. Grace Technologies was the proper owner; now the technology belongs to France. The French are all over it."

  "You're not listening to me. Think about it. Would I be saying it if it wasn't possible?"

  "For me, 'possible' means 'legal.' What you're saying is contrary—"

  "To everything you thought. But it's only what you thought and it's only what the French government thought. You ask the vice president of the United States if hypothetically Benoit Moreau could deliver Chaperone... and be completely legal under international law ... to a U.S. foundation and deliver us from Cordyceps; then could she have asylum and a complete pardon?"

  "She can do all that?"

  "I'm betting the farm on it."

  "So, this is really about the redemption of Benoit Moreau."

  "And the beatification of the careers of Dennis and Ernie. Don't forget that."

  Benoit Moreau was losing her faith. We pac maw would not save her from an enraged Gaudet. Once the French discovered the truth, it would take Gaudet only minutes on the e-mail to find out that the French were after his ass and assume that she was up to something. Trotsky's suggestion that she be killed sounded appealing in comparison to what Gaudet was capable of.

  This bathroom had a window that was latched with rubber-handled, L-shaped
locks. Quickly she experimented—they opened enough for her to crawl out and jump, but it was twenty stories down and there were no ledges. She pressed her face to the glass and looked up for a ledge of some sort. What she saw shocked her. A rope led upward to a horizontal surface, apparently the aluminum carriage of a window cleaner's platform.

  "Is anybody up there?" she called.

  "Yeah. Sam's window washers."

  Oh, thank god, she thought. "Hurry!"

  After the video conference Sam walked out the door of the FBI building and took a cab. In the cab he placed three calls. One was to the vice president's staff to grease the skids and to get them reaching down the chain of command, even as Ernie and Dennis were crawling up. The second was to Dr. Carl Fielding. Although he was a Harvard applied mathematician whose expertise was modeling brain function, he was familiar with the technology in question and was Sam's go-between with the internal medicine people interested in Chaperone. Never in Sam's career had he so seriously risked his reputation. If this didn't work, he would be finished with big government contracts. And the world would have even greater concerns, he reminded himself.

  The third was to Jill.

  "Benoit and Gaudet have now moved to a Trump condominium complex. I had probably twenty men around the St. Regis."

  "Sam, you—"

  "In three minutes, call Whalen for all the details. He knows more than I do." He hung up.

  Sam dialed Whalen.

  "The guys were hanging just above the bathroom window like you said, about to put a mike on the window, and Benoit Moreau called to us. Then somebody grabbed her and that was that."

  "What do you mean somebody grabbed her?"

  "Someone inside the apartment. We couldn't get in touch with you, so we just took a chance and sent everybody out in the open and one team right through the front door."

  "What happened?"

  "They were gone."

  "Did you check for laundry chutes, under the floor, the walls? They gotta be there."

  "We're checking. I'll call and mention laundry chutes and the rest. Shall we rip up the floor and the walls?"

  "Tear the place apart."

  * * *

  "Who the heck is that?" Chandler, one of the guards, asked Michael on a handheld radio.

  Michael was looking through the binoculars.

  "A tourist?"

  "Who goes sightseeing in November?"

  "The way he moves, I'd say we're looking at a she," Michael observed.

  "Yeah, she looks like a kitten in a toilet. Never seen anything so miserable in my life."

  "How long you think she's been there?"

  "Not long, maybe ten minutes."

  "We'd better send the car over."

  "It would be a dumb-ass kind of trap, but just don't forget Mr. Gaudet."

  "How could I forget him?"

  "I'll see if I can make the satellite phone work," Yodo spoke up. "Before you move, we need to tell Sam."

  Yodo went out the door to a small fortification, where another man sat hidden, caressing a BAR .30-caliber machine gun. In seconds he had Sam on the phone. Sam advised that Grady was due to arrive, but they should trust nothing and take all due security measures in bringing her across.

  There were eight guards at the compound, all armed and trained. They had four outposts fortified with sandbags and rock, and each bunker contained handheld rockets, grenade launchers, and a BAR machine gun. They created a square around the cabins and they were the first line of defense. But they were not always occupied. The men moved around the perimeter and watched, keeping in mind the location of the nearest fortification. There was always one man within twenty yards of each outpost. Although the houses were used during the day, at night they were quietly abandoned for camouflage tents hidden in the dense forest against the mountain. Welcome to paradise.

  Chapter 22

  When the bear leaves its cave, the village hides its food.

  —Tilok proverb

  Trotsky nearly dislocated Benoit's shoulder when he dragged her out of the bathroom.

  "You've probably killed me," Gaudet said in an even tone that chilled her more than the most hysterical cry. "The French have held up fifty million dollars. Now they'll hunt you and me both, you fucking bitch."

  "We've got to go," said Trotsky. His pragmatism immediately affected Gaudet, who turned away without another word.

  Trotsky pushed a hidden button in the library and a panel opened. They entered a sizable room with vanity photos of the apartment's owner and all manner of memorabilia: books, wine, signed baseballs, various sabers, as well as cigar humidors by the dozen, each carefully labeled. Trotsky closed the panel just as they heard a crash at the front door of the apartment. In one corner of the room there was a solid wood panel. Trotsky pushed another hidden button and a spiral staircase appeared. On the floor below was a large wine cellar with wine in glass cases and adjoining the wine a

  large room full of old books. Obviously, the man who owned the place was a wealthy collector. Quickly the two put on white hazmat uniforms. There was a very large cart labeled hazardous materials. When they opened the bin, it was full of white material that had the appearance of old bandages. However, when they lifted up a wooden piece, the bin was actually empty, the bandagelike material having been affixed to the wood. Inside the small compartment Benoit recognized a scuba tank and regulator. They handcuffed her hands in front of her.

  "One word and I will kill you instantly." Gaudet showed her a pen. "It shoots a pellet of ricin that is instantly lethal. I promise you, Benoit, one small sound and I won't hesitate."

  They put the oxygen regulator in her mouth and closed the lid.

  Despite nearly overwhelming panic, Benoit felt the cart rolling forward and imagined they left the room and entered a hallway. After a minute or two they stopped; she supposed to wait for an elevator.

  "Hey, would you mind showing me your credentials?" a voice said.

  "Hey, why don't you show us yours?" Gaudet said with unflappable confidence.

  "We asked you first."

  There was silence and she couldn't discern what was happening. Perhaps Gaudet was showing them something.

  "Can we look in there?"

  "Hell no. Can't you read? It's asbestos shavings. You wanna die?" That was Trotsky, his accentless voice sounding absolutely authoritative.

  More silence.

  "I think we'll just take a look."

  The board didn't move, so they were obviously deterred by the white stuff.

  "You are breaking the law." Trotsky paused and clicked open a cell phone. "We are a hazmat team, contractor's license number 9859432d, and we need a squad car at the Trump International. We are being accosted by civilians who are endangering themselves and everyone in the vicinity...."

  "Keep your shirt on and hang up the phone. You can go. We just had to check."

  They clicked over the metal threshold of an elevator. She heard the doors close and they were going down. When the elevator opened, there were more men. The same procedure was repeated, only this time Trotsky was even more indignant and she didn't hear him purporting to call the police. With a heavy sigh she resigned herself to the fact that they were leaving the building. She felt and heard the lift on the back of a truck and soon she felt the vehicle moving slowly ahead in New York traffic.

  Desperate, she pushed up on the lid. It wouldn't move. They had somehow locked it. In a way that was good. They obviously didn't expect her to get out, so they might leave her alone. The container was heavy plastic. She lay on her back and used her feet to push on the lid, but even with all her strength she couldn't budge it.

  "Only a few people have left the building. We found one room off the library hidden behind a panel, but it goes no place. One way in and one way out. On the floor below there was a hazmat team with asbestos. We saw credentials and looked in their hamper and it was full of asbestos. They left in a truck. Just to make sure we have somebody on their tail."

  "How do
you know the hamper was full of asbestos?"

  "I see what you mean. The guys said they took off the lid. But I don't know if they reached down inside."

  "After being told it's hazardous? Give me a break. They're not gonna put their hand in that stuff if it looks official. They wouldn't know that it's not that easy to get mesothelioma."

  "I'll check already."

  "Fine. Get me to that truck. I think they're in it."

  "But it was the floor below."

  "Tear the walls apart."

  "We pretty much have."

  "The walls of the secret room?"

  "Jeez, it's got display cases."

  "Keep looking. You'll find a way to the lower floor. How about windows?"

  "Shit, Sam. You can imagine anything... but okay."

  "Have the guys on the truck's ass call me."

  It wasn't a minute until Sam's phone rang. It was nearly dark.

  "They're headed down Wall Street toward the water."

  "I'm Jack. I'll be with you as fast as I can."

  "Roger that, you with Whalen?"

  "No. Whalen sent me to assist."

  "We're doing fine."

  "Talk to Whalen. I just follow orders." Sam stayed on the line and moved through traffic as fast as he could.

  "Hey, Jack. You're not gonna believe this. They just drove onto State Street down to the new construction at the ferry terminal, crashed the barricades, and then went plunging into the river."

  "I believe it."

  "What do we do?"

  "Watch me."

  Sam drove up to the smashed barricades, then followed the course of the truck on foot, stopping at the end. The truck was a bit downstream, sixty or seventy feet out from the pier—sinking fast. A boat was coming up the river. Taking off his shoes and overcoat, Sam dived in and felt the full force of 50 degree Fahrenheit water. The shock was so great it was a clamp on his chest and it stung his face and put an ache in his bones. When he surfaced, he swam hard toward the truck. Just as he arrived, the truck went under with a large burst of bubbles. He descended and could see nothing in the murk. When he surfaced, he found a trail of scuba bubbles headed downstream. Swimming just ahead of the bubbles, he dived and swam down hard. The boat was approaching. After dropping, perhaps twenty feet, he hit bodies. One of them erupted in a flurry of activity, grabbing for his throat. To even the odds, he reached about the person's head and grabbed for the regulator hose, ripping it from the diver's mouth. Sam's foe made for the surface and Sam followed, but not before he yanked on the regulator hose. It broke free in an incredible stream of bubbles. Just as he broke the surface, Sam saw the gun. The man was ten feet away and coughing badly. As the first shot went wild, Sam went under. The boat propellers screamed. If the shooter hadn't been half drowned, Sam knew he would be dead. Swimming toward the man, but deep, he made a guess as to his exact location. When he came up, he was behind and to the left. With two strokes he managed to grab the gun.