“Nice place.”
“It is,” Ben Wilson said. “You’re safe here. The computer’s for you. There’s plenty to eat and drink. Okay? You have nothing to do for a couple of days but write. Your brother wants you to tell the story as you know it. We will transmit it for you.”
“Where is my brother? Is he here?”
“No. But he arranged for your safe passage here, and for round-the-clock security. Your brother wants you to begin writing the story now. He will be in touch with you in a couple of days with more information. He wants you to know you are safe here. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jon sensed there was more behind his brother’s message, but he wasn’t sure what.
“Settle in for a few minutes. I’ve got to do something before I can leave.”
Jon unpacked. He was jotting notes on his laptop when Ben Wilson returned.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Your brother asked me to do this. It’s for your own safety. You’re going to have to trust us.”
With no further warning, Ben Wilson held his arm and stabbed a syringe needle into the palm of Jon Mallory’s right hand.
EUROAIRPORT BASEL MULHOUSE Freiburg is one of the few airports in the world operated jointly by two countries: France and Switzerland. It’s located over the border of France, four miles northwest of Basel. A city that, for many years, had been an international hub of the pharmaceuticals industry, home to one of the world’s largest bio-technology clusters.
The Rhine divided the city into two parts: Grossbasel on the south and west, with the medieval Old Town and Kleinbasel, or Little Basel, on the north bank. Horst Laboratories was in the Grossbasel district, south of the river. Charlie had studied the maps on the airplane and formulated a plan. First, he went shopping. In a department store he bought a pair of field glasses and a new change of clothes. Then he caught a streetcar to the Marketplatz square, where he made two additional purchases: a GSM disposable mobile phone for thirty-three Swiss francs, cash, and a telephone “smart” card.
Horst Laboratories was an old two-story brick building on the edge of a residential neighborhood. It took up half a city block, set behind a chain-link fence monitored with security cameras. Charlie lingered several blocks away, working out in his head how he was going to meet Ivan Vogel.
He walked up the street to the east of the building, scouting for a sheltered vantage point. Finally he chose a stone ledge along a tree-lined walkway, giving him an obstructed view of the entrance. Not perfect, but probably the best he’d find. It was 12:09.
At a glass-sided phone kiosk down the hill, Charlie inserted his smart card and called the number listed for Horst Laboratories. He listened to the recorded greeting, then pushed 2 for the automated directory. Pushed 1 for Stefan Drosky. The phone rang, once, twice.
A woman’s voice. “Hallo. Stefan Drosky’s büro.”
“Ja hier ist Ivan Vogel, das Herr Drosky fordert.”
There was silence on the other end. Most people in Basel spoke German and French, he knew. Charles Mallory spoke both passably.
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting. Can I ask what this is regarding?”
“Just give him my message, please.”
Charlie hung up. Twelve minutes later, he called back. “This is Ivan Vogel. For Mr. Drosky,” he said.
He waited four minutes before calling again. Received the same response. Then called five minutes later. On the fifth try, Drosky came on the line. “Hallo? Drosky.”
“Hello, Ivan. I’m glad you decided to take my call. That was smart.”
Charles Mallory listened to Ivan Vogel breathe.
“Who is this?” the voice at the other end said, in English.
“Someone who knows about you.”
“You have wrong number,” he said, speaking now with a slight Russian accent.
But he didn’t hang up. That was the interesting thing. He stayed on the line for a long time before Charlie finally heard the dial tone.
Seven minutes later, he called again; this time, the call went to voice mail.
Charles Mallory walked up the street, keeping his eyes on the entrance. Imagining what Vogel was thinking. At 12:53, a limousine with tinted windows stopped across the street from the building and parked. A thin, tall, stooped man in faded jeans, loafers and a gray overcoat came out of the building and walked toward the car, glancing nervously up and down the street. Vogel.
Mallory followed the car once it pulled away from the curb, trotting along the sidewalk half a block behind. Traffic was heavy, and it wasn’t difficult to stay with him for a while. But then Vogel got a block ahead and Charlie lost him. He tried a shortcut, jogging through an alley and across another block, and saw the car again, several blocks ahead, in the left lane. He hailed a taxi, asked to be taken downtown. Saw the car again a block ahead, preparing to turn left. “Left lane,” he told the cab driver.
A dozen blocks on, the traffic jammed again. Mallory paid the driver and got out. They were in the Gundeldinger District, near the central train station. He began to jog in the direction he had seen the limousine going.
The car was right on the next block, parked illegally at the curb. Charlie crossed the street. Saw Vogel emerge and walk into the Gundeldingerhof restaurant.
Mallory crossed the road as the car eased back into motion. He pretended to study the menu, watching Vogel through the glass as he settled at a table. It was a simple-looking, airy bistro with white tablecloths and flower arrangements at the larger tables. Vogel sat near the wall across from a busty young woman with deliberately unkempt blond hair and heavy make-up. Her fingers were playing with a flute of champagne, which she had nearly finished.
Charlie entered the restaurant and asked for a table behind theirs. He sat, lifted his menu.
He was in the woman’s line of vision, but she was absorbed with her lunch date. She was in her mid-twenties, he guessed, with a toothy, inviting smile and wide cheekbones. She smiled easily, every time Vogel spoke.
Charlie ordered a bowl of cucumber soup and a bottle of mineral water. He opened his newspaper and continued to watch. They were speaking in German, but not loud enough for him to understand.
Ivan Vogel seemed pale and a little sickly, his gray hair patchy. His smile was uneven and kind of scary, the lower lip a strange shade of red, as if he were wearing lipstick. The woman several times adjusted the neckline of her dress as they talked, apparently to give Vogel a better look, glancing around the restaurant first each time to make sure no one was watching. Charles Mallory began to sense that this was what Vogel was paying her to do.
Vogel ordered salmon with bok choy and noodles. He drank a bottle of Kolsch beer, then a second. The woman had saffron seafood risotto and two more flutes of champagne. Charlie slowly sipped at his cucumber soup, watching them.
Throughout the meal, she continued to pull open her dress, allowing him to see increasingly generous amounts of cleavage as they seemed to engage in serious conversation. Vogel peered at her like a scientist studying a specimen. Occasionally, he set paper money on the table and the woman placed it in her purse. It was some sort of game that Vogel was paying her to play. Human aberrations didn’t surprise Charles Mallory much anymore, although he had never seen this particular variety before.
As they prepared to go, the woman allowed him to quickly grope her breasts by the doorway. Then Vogel pushed open the door and walked to his car, which was parked illegally again at the curb.
The woman checked her watch and pulled a cell phone from her purse. Charlie watched her step to the curb to flag down a cab.
He paid his bill, tipping the waiter generously. The waiter graciously bowed.
“Die Frau, die dort mit Herrn Drosky saß?” Charlie said.
The woman who was dining with Mr. Drosky?
“Ja?”
He frowned at Charles Mallory and shook his head, but his expression changed when Charlie pulled out a hundred-franc note.
“Adele. Sie ist ein arbeitsmä
dchen.”
A working girl.
THIRTY-NINE
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE limousine returned Vogel to his office, Charlie called him on the disposable cell phone.
“Ivan Vogel calling for Stefan Drosky,” he said.
The fourth time, Vogel took it. “Look here. What’s this about? Who is this?”
“I just wanted you to know, Ivan: I was right behind you as you walked into the Gundeldingerhof. I watched you as you ordered the salmon. Adele is very attractive, by the way. Now, you don’t want her hurt, do you?” He listened to Vogel breathe. “Ivan?”
“Who is this?”
“Whatever I was going to do to you, I could have done then. To Adele, also,” he added. “I could have walked up behind you and shot you in the back of the head. Both of you. I don’t plan to hurt you, though, unless you make it necessary. It’s your choice.”
“What do you want?”
“I suggest you be careful about what you say right now. Okay?” Charles Mallory felt his anger shifting into higher gear and he took a breath. This was the man his father had been chasing. Who had been a key figure in the Lifeboat Inquiry. His father’s last project.
“I’m afraid you have me confused for someone,” Vogel said.
“No. You’re not paying attention, Ivan. If you say that again, it’s going to cost you. Your choice. The first thing you need to do is go to another phone. Go to the phone kiosk at the intersection with Liestal Street and I’ll talk to you there.”
“When?”
“Right now. And don’t tell anyone, or your friend Adele is killed.”
Vogel hung up. Mallory walked back to the space up on the hill and sat on the stone ledge among the trees. He didn’t know if threatening to kill Adele would make any difference with a man like Vogel, but it couldn’t hurt. Mallory watched the entrance to the building through the field glasses. Less than two minutes later, Vogel stepped out the front doors again, taking long, determined strides, cutting across traffic. At the phone kiosk, he stood and turned in a semi-circle, looking up at the windows of buildings as smoke rose from the street grates in front of him.
Charlie dialed the pay phone number. Vogel answered.
“Did you tell anyone, Ivan?”
“No.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. Sure.”
“Okay. Now,” he said, “place your cell phone on the kiosk counter. Set it down and leave it there. If you have a weapon, leave it there, also.” Mallory watched him as he set his cell phone on the metal counter. “Okay. Now, hang up the phone and walk to the street car stop on Zwingli. Two blocks from there. Get on board the next car and take it across the river. Okay?”
Vogel looked around again.
“Okay?”
Charlie watched him walk up Zwingli Street toward the riverfront, then he began to walk toward it, too, taking a different route.
There were two ways of boarding the streetcar, by the front doors or the back. Vogel went in the front doors, along with five other passengers. Mallory boarded through the back, along with two teenage boys full of tattoos and nose and eyebrow jewelry. Most of the seats were taken. Vogel found one in the front. Charlie stood midway back and watched him as they began to move. The breeze was cooler along the river, the afternoon sun flickering above the horizon. Vogel looked in Mallory’s direction as the streetcar crossed the water.
When a seat opened beside Vogel, Charlie moved up in the car and took it. Vogel seemed to tense, turning his eyes slightly but without looking directly. Charlie studied him, saying nothing: sallow skin, lots of white nose hairs, a loose, fleshy neck. A slight bulge under his overcoat near his heart that was probably a handgun in a shoulder holster. At the next stop, Charles Mallory gripped Vogel’s right arm. “We’ll get out here,” he said.
Vogel stood like a robot. Mallory exited with him, keeping a hand on his arm. They emerged onto a busy street a couple of blocks from the river. Mallory guided them toward the first café he saw, taking charge as if he had the weapon. He wanted to stay in the open until Vogel had told him what he needed to know.
“Right here. Have a seat, Ivan.”
They sat beside each other at a small round table. Charlie smiled. He was counting on Vogel wanting to avoid a scene. He stared at his strange red lower lip, making Vogel look away.
“My interest—our interest—is strictly business, Ivan. All I want is information. I presume that both the Russians and the Americans would like to find you at this point, wouldn’t they?”
Vogel watched him with hooded eyes, breathing heavily. “Look, I’m just consultant these days,” he said. “I have no big secrets to tell anybody.”
“You’re more than a consultant.”
“I run a small business.”
“Yes.”
“How did you find out about me?”
Charles Mallory shrugged.
“I’m research scientist, not politician,” he said, speaking suddenly with a more pronounced Russian accent. “I’m biologist. I do contract work. I don’t set policy.”
“Based on your curriculum vitae, I would venture a guess that you don’t keep particularly strong loyalties either, or use a great deal of discrimination in determining who you work for.”
“I work for myself.”
The waiter came and Charlie ordered them two Coca-Colas.
“You’ve also recruited scientists who were part of Biopreparat, haven’t you?”
He observed Mallory with a new interest. “Maybe,” he said. “Thousands of scientists lose jobs. Victims of program. What you expect them to do? Sell flowers?”
“Sounds like you’re trying to justify something.”
“I have nothing to justify. I don’t know what you think, but it’s wrong. I’m doing nothing.”
“You’ve been producing viral properties in your labs, haven’t you? Genetic engineering projects. Bad things.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. We were presented with flu. Virulent strain of flu. Asked to produce vaccine and anti-virals. Medicines, for research projects.” He was acting defiant, but Mallory sensed, from the way his voice thickened, that he was scared, too.
“In huge volumes. Millions of doses, I understand.”
Vogel seemed momentarily surprised. “You misunderstand. We manufacture nothing here. This is research lab.”
“Maybe. Your lab has contracts with distributors, though, doesn’t it? You hold the license. It’s a tight circle.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You have contracts with half a dozen distributors, under different names. Your operation is deliberately non-descript, low key. But you’re being subsidized with enormous amounts of investment money. Not all of the deals, I suspect, are legal.”
“That is not true.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow your cover, Ivan, so long as you give me the information I ask for.”
“We’re an independent laboratory. I don’t reveal clients.”
Vogel’s eyes were nervous. He was considering his options, Mallory sensed, which weren’t very many at this point.
“The production of this vaccine suddenly increased dramatically over the past several months, I’m told.”
“That isn’t my business. I told you.”
“It is, though. You license the product. And you’ve also made it your side business, as well. Arnau Inc.? If your investors found out about that, you would be in trouble, I suspect.”
Now there was alarm in his eyes. So Keller had been correct.
“Your father did this, too,” Charlie said, keeping a conversational tone. “He worked for Vector. The largest illegal military bio-weapons operation in the Soviet Union. He was there when the anthrax leak occurred in 1979.”
“Yes,” Vogel said, and Mallory saw that he had hit a nerve. “I’m not a believer in the Soviet Union anymore. Or Russia. I won’t defend them.”
“Something
like that’s about to happen in Africa now, though, on a much larger scale. Not accidentally.”
“I know nothing about what you say. I’m just a researcher and businessman.”
“You were recruited some time back by a pharmaceuticals research lab in the United States, and from there you set up this business. You know exactly what’s going on, and you’re planning to benefit handsomely from it.”
“What do you want?”
Charles Mallory stood and motioned for them to go. He wanted to get away from people now, to see what Ivan Vogel would do when cornered. He was beginning to sense that Vogel was about to make a desperate move. That if they stayed at the table, Vogel would draw his weapon.
“Let’s go. I changed my mind about the sodas.”
They walked out into the street, Charlie steering Vogel by the arm. At the end of the block, they turned toward the river. It was breezy and cooler beside the water, and the air smelled of baking bread. They followed the concrete path above the bank to an empty wooden bench, where he nodded for Vogel to sit.
Charlie remained standing. He looked up and down the river, thinking for a moment about his father, holding back an anger roiling inside of him.
“Just pretend I’m a rival company,” he said. “Manufacturing a similar product. And say a small portion of our product was tampered with, holding up approval for distribution, and we suspect industrial espionage.”
“I would know nothing about it,” Vogel said, obviously confused.
“Maybe not. But we both know what’s going to happen in Africa. You do have a vulnerability, Vogel. I’m sure that’s occurred to you. You betrayed your country’s secrets to become involved with this thing. Not once, but twice. You have enemies who would like to see you go down. I suspect you see your side business as your ticket out of all that. Everyone has a dream. Right?”
“No. You have wrong information.”
Then Vogel made the mistake that Charlie had been waiting for. He lifted his right hand toward the inside of his jacket, and at the same time began to stand. Mallory lunged forward, grabbing his wrist as Vogel’s fingers prepared to grip his gun. He squeezed Vogel’s hand and bent it back. The gun fell to the bench. Vogel tried to resist. Charlie snapped his fingers with his right hand, breaking the smallest one at the joint.
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