“They’re probably monitoring the house phone line. And yours, if it’s registered in your name.”
“It isn’t. But I’m going to chuck it anyway and get a new one. Can’t be too careful.”
She pushed the door open, watching her daughter, who shifted but didn’t wake up.
“Can you watch Hannah for an hour while she naps? Shouldn’t take much longer than that. I’ll be back before you know it. She sleeps like a rock, so it’s not rough duty.”
“Not a problem…but I have to warn you. I have no experience with kids.”
She smiled. “Join the club. Don’t worry. She won’t break. Just don’t get her angry.”
“Like her mom, huh?”
Jet looked at the tree-lined street and nodded.
“Exactly.”
Chapter 11
Magdalena dropped the plate she was cleaning when Jet suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the hall.
“Oh my…I’m sorry. You surprised me. I didn’t hear you come in…” the woman said, flustered, surveying the fragments with a frown.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll clean it up. Magdalena, I have a problem I need your help with. Come over here and sit with me. We need to talk.”
“A problem? Is Hannah all right?” she asked, alarmed.
“Yes, she’s fine. But I’m going to have to ask you to do something very important for me, and you need to follow my instructions to the letter, with no variation. Do you understand?” Jet asked, holding the older woman’s gaze.
“Of course. What’s the problem, and what do you need me to do?”
Jet told her a story, about an angry, jealous ex-boyfriend, violent, a criminal, who had suddenly appeared with his bully boys and had placed both Hannah and her in danger.
“I need you to move up the coast – I’m thinking Maldonado. I’ll meet you there and bring Hannah. You need to leave now. Leave everything here, but take your paperwork so there’s no trace of anything but your clothes. Here’s a cell phone I just bought. I’ll call you when I get there and we’ll rendezvous.” Jet handed her the phone.
“Señora Elyse, I’d do anything for Hannah, but there’s no work for me in Maldonado, and I don’t know anybody there, and, well…”
“I understand. In return for helping me, I’ll give you enough money that you’ll never need to work again.” She named a figure in pesos, and Magdalena’s eyes widened.
“Are you…are you serious?”
“Absolutely. But I need you to agree to rent a nice apartment there, and take care of Hannah like she’s your own child. That’s our bargain. If I leave my flesh and blood with you, I’m leaving the most valuable thing in the world in your care. There’s no way I would do that if I could think of another way, but there isn’t one. The money isn’t a problem. I’ll bring it with me. For right now, I have this.” She set a bundle of hundred dollar bills on the table, and Magdalena looked at it as if it were a poisonous snake. “Ten thousand American dollars. That should take care of an apartment and anything else you need for the foreseeable future. Go get your things, and don’t worry about your clothes. I need you to walk out the back door as if you were going to the market, no suitcase, just your purse, and then disappear. Do you understand? Take a taxi or a bus to Maldonado, get a place within the next twenty-four hours, and then I’ll come to you with Hannah. But Magdalena? You cannot tell anyone about this, or the money. It has to be secret. This man is very dangerous, and if you talk, he’ll hear about it, and then you, and Hannah, will be in extreme danger. He’s killed before…”
Magdalena shook her head.
“No, I won’t tell a soul. Nobody can know – I’d be robbed if anyone suspected I had that kind of money. Fortunately my kids live here, and my friends live in San Carlos – there isn’t a lot of work in Maldonado outside of the resort and hotel industry, so older people avoid it because the hotels won’t hire them. If I get an apartment close to the resort area it’s very safe, and I won’t run into anyone I know. How long do you think I’ll need to stay there?”
“Plan on it being for a long while. I don’t think this will take more than a few weeks to fix, but if it does, I don’t want to have to worry.”
“And you are completely serious…?” Magdalena still had a sense of disbelief. It was like Santa Claus landing on her roof and telling her that all of her financial problems had been solved.
“Completely. No matter how this turns out, you’ll get the money.”
“I’ll take care of her like she’s my own daughter, Señora Elyse. I raised three children by myself, so I have some experience at it.”
“I know, Magdalena, I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t trust you completely. Now go get your stuff. I’ll wait here.”
Magdalena was back in three minutes, dressed for shopping.
“Remember. I’ll call you. Within the next twenty-four hours or so,” Jet said, and Magdalena nodded and held up the phone.
They said their goodbyes, and then Magdalena left via the back door, pulling a small shopping cart. Jet watched the street, conscious of possible surveillance, as Magdalena trundled down the sidewalk and rounded a corner. Detecting no followers, Jet went upstairs and hurriedly packed her backpack with clothes for Hannah and a few items for herself, and then donned the baseball cap and sunglasses she’d arrived with, the oversized blue soccer shirt she’d bought a few minutes prior, and loose black cargo pants, giving her the look of a slacker teen from a distance.
She slipped out the bedroom window and stood on the sill, feeling for holds on the brick façade. Her hand found a good grip and she dug in, then pulled herself up. Her toes found another ridge, and then another, and within a few seconds she was hoisting herself onto the flat roof. She leapt to her feet, and after glancing at the neighboring roof, took a running jump, landing easily, and repeated the process until she had traversed the block and was one home away from the far side street. Peeking over the edge to confirm that she wasn’t being watched, she lowered herself onto a second-story window sill and swung out into open air, catching a tree branch at the last second before dropping in a controlled fall onto the lawn. With a final look back, Jet disappeared into the neighbor’s yard, then slipped over the wall and landed on her feet, an apparently bored youth shuffling down the street on a typically dull day.
~ ~ ~
When Jet reappeared at the car Alan didn’t recognize her, and had to do a double take. “That’s quite a transformation. You look like a boy.”
“That’s the idea. It helps that kids these days look like bag people.”
“Did you get your situation taken care of?”
“Yes. We’re going to go for a drive tomorrow, up the coast. How’s Hannah?”
“Still asleep. Hasn’t budged since you left.”
“Good. She needs the rest after a day like today.”
“That’s what I figured.”
Jet tenderly roused Hannah, who was still punchy from her sleep, then took her to a café on the corner for a potty break before returning and slipping into the back seat again.
“The ten million is compromised, but I need to go to another bank and arrange for a transfer from a different account, and then find an attorney to draft a will and set up a trust to pay out to Magdalena so she has a steady annual income,” Jet announced. “Once this is over I’ll bounce the ten all over the world and sanitize it. But for today, I need an attorney.”
“Think you’ll be able to find someone competent on short notice?” he asked.
She studied her watch. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll ask the bank manager.”
He started the engine. “Back downtown?”
“You guessed it.”
The errand wound up taking two hours. She was introduced to an attorney, Enrique Gomez, a block from the bank, and he assured her he could have the documents drafted and an account set up for the trust by the following day. They agreed to meet again at eleven the following morning, and then she would transfer the funds.
Magdalena would contact him to arrange for monthly deposits to the branch in Maldonado, where she could make withdrawals without restrictions. The bank would pay a reasonable rate on the entire deposit, so the interest alone would fund a comfortable lifestyle for her in perpetuity, ensuring that the trust would outlive Magdalena before running dry.
The next item on the agenda was to find someplace to stay the night. Jet suggested one of the hotels on the eastern side of town, near the beach, where there would be plenty of tourists, so they would easily blend in. They found a boutique inn, and Alan booked a two-bed suite for them under one of his aliases, paying cash. Jet marched Hannah up to the room, where she immediately set about exploring the wondrous new environment as Jet unpacked the backpack and took stock of their meager possessions.
“So this is it, huh?” Alan asked, looking around.
“For tonight, anyway. Tomorrow’s a whole new day.”
“Could be worse.”
“I think we’ve both seen worse,” she agreed.
“How long do you think it will take to get to Maldonado tomorrow?”
“I’ve never been there, but I’m thinking worst case, couple of hours,” she guessed.
“Have you given any thought to what happens once Hannah is settled there?”
She watched her daughter playing in the corner and dropped the tiny shirt she was folding. “No, Alan, I haven’t. I’m barely keeping up with things right now. I figure I’ll cross that bridge later.”
“We should talk about it.”
“I know. But give me a little breathing room. This is a big change. Actually, a lot of big changes in just a few hours.”
Alan let it go. Perhaps now wasn’t the best time to broach the topic. Jet was obviously preoccupied with the ramifications of having to leave her daughter with Magdalena. He could relate – even though she was highly trusted, the fact was Magdalena was not her mother, and after spending years without her daughter, Jet was torn between her maternal instinct to keep Hannah close, and the logical choice – to move her to safety while she dealt with their predicament.
“No problem. All I’m asking is that you think about it. We’re going to need to take some big steps over the next few days, and I want to make sure we’re on the same page,” Alan said.
Her tone softened. “Noted. I just need a little time.”
He understood.
Although the truth was, time had run out.
Chapter 12
Voskresensk, Russian Federation
Doctor Ivan Radovich stood in the dank green hall, smoking a cheap Russian cigarette, the pungent aroma of the black tobacco hovering over him like a toxic cloud. The Soviet-era air-conditioning did little to mitigate the stench, but on a day like today, when it was raining outside, there was no chance that he would be climbing the two flights of stairs to the ground level, where he’d have to deal with the security men stationed there. Better to pollute the lower levels and put up with griping from his small staff than risk being seen out in the open – not that anyone would be watching. The old industrial complex on the outer edge of Voskresensk was just another in a seemingly endless string of eyesores left over from the Cold War, and the residents had long ago learned not to question anything too closely – especially the comings and goings of men rumored to be organized criminals, part of the Russian Mafia that was the de facto governor of the nation.
“Come now, why the long face, my friend?” Vladimir, his boss, approached from down the hall, puffing away on his own cigarette – imported, of course, Ivan noted. The man was a sponge for all things American and had never said no to anything, as evidenced by his waddle and his cane, in spite of his being a few years Ivan’s junior.
“I'm not making any progress on developing a vaccine. There's insufficient time to do it right, and I won’t rush it. This is far too dangerous.”
“I understand. We’re all aware of the stakes. But it’s also an imperfect world, and the truth is that what the man upstairs wants, he gets. After all, he’s paying the bills.”
Always with the intimidation. Old habits died hard, Ivan mused. “This will take at least a year, minimum. And even then, there are no guarantees. I think you need to tell him the truth rather than allowing him to believe there’s going to be a breakthrough. Not on this one. Not this time.”
Vladimir took a drag on his Marlboro and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. “We have two weeks.”
Ivan spat on the floor. “Impossible.”
“I know. I’m just trying to figure out how to tell him without...without triggering his notorious temper. We all have a lot riding on this, my friend. I, for one, don’t want to have to disappoint him.”
“Maybe if you’d just told him form the beginning that what he was contemplating was out of the question, then we could have put this behind us by now and been spending our time on more productive pursuits. Like creating enough of the toxin to fulfill the order. We simply do not have the equipment or the time to make it contagious.”
“But I thought we agreed it wasn’t that hard.”
“Well, it isn’t difficult to make it contagious if you don’t care about wiping out all life on the planet. That would be a piece of cake. It’s the part where you develop a foolproof vaccine or antidote that’s the niggling detail. A year is nothing. There’s no guarantee that we could even get it done that soon. The truth is that nobody should ever be trying to weaponize an agent like this that has no antidote. This is a doomsday scenario waiting to happen. And Vladimir, I’m telling you, I want no part of it.”
“All right. Don’t worry. He’s not insane. Just greedy. As are we all.” Vladimir finished his smoke and crushed it under the sole of his shoe. Even from a few feet away Ivan could smell the telltale odor of vodka emanating from Vladimir after a long lunch. “I’ll let him know that it’ll be everything we can do to stabilize enough to affect, what...ten thousand people?”
“Maybe as many as twenty, depending upon the ventilation system. Ideally it would be released in a contained area to assure maximum exposure.”
“Yes, yes. We’ve had this discussion before. The more concentrated the area, the better the result.”
“If they’re thinking, for instance, in a subway station, that could work, but it would have diminishing effectiveness over time. First ten to fifteen minutes of exposure, you’ll be at near a hundred percent. But after half an hour, allowing for decay and disbursement, that will drop to more like sixty percent. Don’t get me wrong; it’ll still be devastating. But by the second hour, it will have done what it’s going to do. Ideally you’d have a scenario where the largest number of people inhale it within the first ten minutes.” Ivan studied his smoldering cigarette and took a final puff before dropping it into a pool of murky water by the wall. “The trick is to modify it just enough so that we don’t reduce its efficacy too much, but so that it can never be traced back here.”
“Understood. I’ll relay that.” Vladimir hesitated. “Is there anything else?”
“We can have enough stabilized within ten days on the outside. But making it contagious is off the table. At least while I’m running this show.”
Vladimir nodded. “I’ll go pass on the news. Just keep focused. In the end, these ragheads will be happy to get whatever we give them, so don’t give the contagion part too much thought. They asked, we did some research, end of story. Not in the cards.” He sighed. “It’s a shame we couldn’t get into one of the old labs. G-6 is only an hour from here.”
Ivan studied the man’s face, wondering if he was joking. “Vladimir. Besides that fact that the army guards those installations with orders to shoot any intruders without asking questions, you don’t want to open that can of worms. There’s shit in there that should never have been attempted. We both know that. Even this little horror is child’s play compared to some of the other stuff in those bunkers.”
“Of course. Thank goodness for all of our fortunes we were able to make this one vial of agent go missing. But I
suppose it’s too much to wish for a repeat performance.”
“Those were the old days. They’ve tightened up everything now. This is enough, with some tinkering, to make us all richer than we have any right to be. Enough for ten lifetimes. So let’s just be glad we’ve got something marketable, stabilize it so it can be field-deployed, and call it a day. We’ll all want to be long gone when this hits the news.”
“I’m thinking Dubrovnik. I hear that you can live like a king there. Indulge any appetites you can imagine,” Vladimir mused, then shook his head. “This will all be over soon, and years of work will have paid off. We’ll all collect big fat paychecks and be done.”
Ivan remembered the last decade – the constant fits and starts, the illusory progress, and the devastating disappointments before he’d finally been able to modify the agent so that it was controllable outside of a lab, with a short enough lifespan that it wouldn’t wipe out whole nations. As part of the top secret and hotly denied post-Soviet biological weapons program, both Vladimir and he had been guaranteed positions and prosperity for life. But then, like so much in the brave new modern Russian world, things had changed, and their career positions had been abruptly terminated, their skills no longer required. It had only been because of Vladimir’s contacts with the underworld that they had found a niche – setting up meth labs – and then later, had been the go-to resource when a vial had gone missing from one of the forbidden laboratories.
Vladimir had convinced his patron that it was worth the effort to convert the precious agent into something that could be sold. Nobody needed to voice the question of who would be buying agents of death like this one. There was always a ready market for certain items, and their role wasn’t to question the political or ethical motivations of the groups who were willing to pay top dollar for the most specialized of weapons. Weapons that would inspire terror – of the beast waiting to be unleashed; of what the morrow would bring.
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