The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  NEGATIVE. SORRY.

  She told the computer next to speculate on what such a formula might be utilized for.

  INSUFFICIENT DATA. SORRY AGAIN.

  A few keys later and she had instructed the machine to crossmatch this composition as closely as possible with any currently known or in production. She was trying to get a feel for what she was dealing with, perhaps uncover a clue as to how best to proceed. A few seconds passed. A good sign. At last the computer sprang to life again, its green message darting across the terminal screen.

  MATCH FOUND. LIKENESS 3.5%. CHEMICAL FORMULA COMPOSING HELON. NO OTHER LIKENESS MATCH FOUND OF MEASURABLE PERCENTAGE.

  Pam asked the computer to tell her what Helon was. The terminal spit out line after line, but only the last few were of interest to her.

  SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED FOR USE IN FOAM FORMS OF CHEMICAL FIRE FIGHTING AGENTS. NOTED FOR SUCCESSFULLY INTERRUPTING CHAIN OF BURNING PROCESS.

  Pam leaned back, confused. A match likeness so small as this meant little, in this case simply that both compositions had something to do with air and oxygen. It could have been anything, but the business about interrupting the chain of burning disturbed her. Clearly, though, easy identification by the computer had been denied. That meant it was time to identify the powder by characteristics instead of compositions. The battery of tests was standard, an order she had followed a thousand times.

  She started to turn back to the Hands when something else occurred to her. Drew had warned her that the powder might be dangerous to work with. Maybe the computer could help her yet. She swung again toward the terminal.

  REQUEST INFORMATION ON TOXICITY LEVEL OF COMPOSITION X.

  In her mind she could hear the computer tapes whirling. The answer came quickly.

  COMPOSITION UNKNOWN.

  SPECULATE.

  Pam knew the computer could respond only to specific commands.

  TOXICITY LEVEL OF COMPOSITION X 98%.

  Pam’s eyes widened. A chill crept up her spine. The powder was pure poison, incredibly potent. But how? It didn’t seem possible. With a toxicity level of ninety-eight percent, a cheap plastic bag could have done little to contain its properties. Unless …

  Pam went back to the terminal, fighting to still the slight trembling in her fingers.

  Wanting to know if the formula was toxic to the touch, taste, breath, or what, Pam told the machine:

  SPECIFY TOXICITY.

  INSUFFICIENT DATA.

  SPECULATE.

  INSUFFICIENT DATA.

  The lack of an answer actually provided one. If the powder’s toxicity could not be specified in its present state, then it had to be mixed with something else before the toxic properties were attained. Again, there was a procedure to follow, especially since the evidence already pointed to toxic transmission by air.

  Pam moved to the Hands once more after depositing the slide in an isolation drawer. She maneuvered them back to the main table, reaching under it with one for a glass case about the size of a shoe box. After placing it on the table, she manipulated the other Hand to a darkened wall where the strike of a light switch revealed a selection of laboratory animals. Using the right Hand, Ellie opened one of the cages and withdrew a glass case containing a rat. She rested the case atop the table and fitted a plastic tubing into it through a tailored slot, attaching the other side into the now empty “shoe box” glass case.

  She paused for a second to mop her brow and then extracted a small sample of the powder with the left Hand holding a scoop. She slid the glass cover into place and snapped a smaller plastic tube through a hole in its top. This tube connected to a vacuum tank the Hands were fitted for whereby substances could be induced through the tube into the glass case without releasing anything into the air. This was crucial, especially in experiments with potentially toxic or unknown substances, whose potency was unknown.

  Such was the case here and Pam could afford to take no chances. Again procedure. Her eyes found the rat scratching at his glass walls and sniffing furiously, obviously agitated. She used the left Hand to open the passageway into his home so that the air contained in the second glass case could travel into his. Then she hit the proper sequence on the computer terminal, so the screen would display exactly what the rat was feeling through a CAT scan-like monitor. The technology of it all never ceased to amaze her.

  Pam waited, alternating her eyes between the rat and its outline dancing across the computer screen. Nothing. Her suspicions were confirmed. In its natural state, the white powder was harmless. The problem now became one of identifying what additive turned the powder hostile, a process that could take weeks or months, never mind a night.

  In the end it took hardly any time at all.

  The true scientist sticks to established procedure and when searching for the proper additive, established procedure was precise on where to start. Pam turned her attention to the right Hand, which was still inserted into the vacuum tank, and used it to pour an amount of a colorless liquid down the tubing. Almost immediately, the liquid joined with a portion of the white powder, diluting it.

  The inner lab’s microphone broadcast a slight hissing sound. Pam gazed at the video display on the monitor to her left, but she saw nothing where she expected to see a gas forming.

  The computer began to beep, alerting her to the action unfolding on the terminal screen. Pam looked at it, eyes incredulous, bulging at what the screen revealed. She shifted her stare to the rat, back to the terminal, then to the rat once more.

  The animal was dying horribly, eyes bulging as its nails scratched futilely at the glass encasing it. Seconds later it lay dead on its side.

  Shuddering, Pam made herself watch three different, graphically enhanced computer analyses of the rat’s death, each making her grow progressively colder. The third was the most terrifying because it visually depicted the exact process that had led to the rat’s death.

  No! Impossible! No substance could—

  She ran the analysis again. The rat had indeed suffocated, died for lack of oxygen to breathe within its glass tomb. The oxygen had been swallowed up by the white powder in gaseous form once she had dissolved it with the most common element of all: water.

  The computer had drawn a probability likeness to the chemical helon, used in fighting fires because of a chemical structure that interrupted the chain of the burning process. Now she knew why.

  What Drew had stumbled upon here was worse than anything he could have imagined. How much of this powder had his grandmother and the other women smuggled into the country? She tried to estimate the figure in her mind, gave up, and turned to the computer.

  SPECULATE ON PERIMETERS OF TOXICITY SPREAD OF CURRENT ACTIVE SAMPLE OF COMPOSITION X.

  A fifth of a gram, she reminded herself, as the computer searched for a response. At last it came, terrifying in its simplicity.

  26.5 SQUARE MILES.

  From only a fifth of a gram! Pam felt she might pass out. She had to call Drew. Yes, they would meet here and go straight to the FBI, State Department, even the White House if that’s what it took. She had the proof he needed to support his incredible story. And more.

  Pam reached for the phone, searching her mind for the number she was supposed to dial, and began pressing out the digits.

  The cold steel found her throat at the same time a huge hand stripped the receiver from her. She swung quickly, a scream starting in her throat only to be choked off by the steel against it, and looked up into the most hideous face she had ever seen.

  Teeg smiled.

  The pay phone rang finally just after two A.M. Drew grabbed it before the first ring was even complete.

  “Pam!”

  “It’s me.”

  “Are you finished? Did you find anything out?”

  “Yes. Plenty.”

  “Hang on. I’ll be right over.”

  “Hurry, Drew. I’m scared. Oh God, I’m scared.”

  “But you’re all right.”

  “I don’t w
ant to be here alone. Hurry, please hurry!”

  “I’m not far away. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Hurry,” Pam said and the line went dead.

  She had found the answer. The mystery of the white powder his grandmother had spent nearly five years smuggling was about to be solved.

  Drew felt relieved, elated. And then the elation vanished.

  Pam hadn’t said “I love you.”

  She thought at first that the giant was holding a strangely shaped knife at her throat. Then she realized it was actually his hand or, more accurately, what he wore in place of it.

  “You were very good,” Teeg told her.

  Two other men, both smaller and neither as ugly, had entered the lab and were carefully planting what must have been explosives.

  “After we’re finished with the two of you, it will look like an accident,” the giant told her, fingering a black detonator.

  Drew reached the door through which he planned to enter the building out of breath and far too noisily. It didn’t matter.

  Pam was all that mattered.

  He had met her enough in this building to be familiar with its layout, right up to the location of the main lab within. The problem was entry into that lab. There must be just one door and no windows. Almost certainly there were ventilation shafts he could use, but he didn’t have the time to search for them, and neither did Pam.

  The rear service entrance to the building was just as he had left it that morning. They had taught him how to pick most any lock during his stays at the mercenary camp, neither a complicated nor difficult practice if one had the right tools. The darkness lengthened it a bit, but he was inside within two minutes, making a rapid pace down the long angular corridors in the dim light, stopping only once at the door with the familiar logo denoting hazardous materials etched on it.

  Pam was their bait. They couldn’t risk killing her until they had him. This gave Drew reason for hope, although not much. His only weapon now was a glass bottle gripped in his right hand. It would work nicely on one man, but he fully expected to find more than that within the lab.

  He swung onto the corridor leading to the main lab. He had to know she was all right, had to be sure. A little farther on, he stopped.

  “Pam,” he called out softly. “I’m lost. Am I getting close?”

  “Three doors down on the right. I left the door open for you.”

  Drew swallowed hard. He was almost surely walking to his death unless he could find more than just a single glass jar to use as a weapon. His eyes swept the corridor and locked with something on the wall. Taking as much air in as he could force down, he moved toward it.

  With the giant’s hook pressed firmly against her throat, Pam could hear the echo of Drew’s steps growing louder. She wanted to shout a warning, but reason kept her words down. She had given him the proper signal over the phone. He knew what he was walking into and even if he didn’t, to scream now would be to guarantee her own death and his as well. She had to trust him, biting her lip to make sure she stayed silent.

  His footsteps slowed, almost to the door.

  “God, I had an awful night,” she heard him sigh. If only she could warn him about the giant’s two henchmen poised on opposite sides of the lab with their guns drawn.

  Drew’s shadow crossed into the room. Pam opened her mouth to scream with all her restraint gone.

  Then suddenly she was blinded by a white haze that filled the room and blotted out all vision.

  Drew had pictured her exact location from her voice and aimed the ultrapowerful fire extinguisher in that direction because that was where he expected her captors to be. Because chemical fires are the most difficult to put out, the building was equipped with a number of extinguishers that produced white foamy jets of incredible range and scope.

  Teeg was blinded by the first assault as Drew continued his sweep. He knew immediately that Pam’s other captors were spaced apart and swung the extinguisher around, hoping its jets would move faster than their bullets. A barrage of automatic fire from the right was wild and Drew knew the foam had done its job there. He felt its last spurt emerge as he swung to the left and felt something hot burn into his side and spin him around. The spin was fortunate in a way, for it saved him from the bullet that otherwise would have struck him squarely in the forehead. He felt a graze that singed his side, desperation the only thing that kept him from losing consciousness.

  His assailant charged at him, angling his pistol for a better shot. The empty extinguisher rolled awkwardly across the floor, and Drew yanked the bottle of clear liquid from his belt and popped the cork top off, flinging the contents forward as the man steadied his gun.

  The bullet flew hopelessly errant as the acid compound burned into the man’s face and eyes. He staggered backward, wailing horribly and clutching his burning face.

  But the issue seemed only delayed, because a giant whom Drew recognized as the man with the hook in Nassau was charging him, and out of the corner of his eye Drew saw the foam-covered man steadying his machine gun once more.

  There was a flash of motion and Drew realized it was Pam charging into the gun-wielding man just as he was about to fire. His burst cut a jagged line across the room, punching holes in the computer data banks, smoke and sparks rising with the smell of burnt wires.

  The man tried to right his aim, but Pam was all over him. She was big for a girl and always a great athlete. She screamed as she tore at him, clubbing, striking, and scratching, forgetting about the machine gun for now.

  Teeg rushed at Drew with his hook raised. Drew saw it start into its descent and twisted sideways from its path. He then came in under the giant, trying to knock him off balance with as much of a blow as he could muster. The best he was able to manage was to send both of them reeling headlong toward the heavy door leading into the inner lab.

  The black detonator slid across the floor of the outer lab.

  The force of Teeg’s bulk snapped the latch from its grasp and the door pounded inward. Teeg and Drew stumbled inside, Drew holding on with both his hands to the giant’s hook.

  Pam continued to struggle with the other man, but he found her face with an elbow and pummeled it twice. Pam had never been struck violently before and the sudden pain and flow of blood from her nostrils nearly stripped her consciousness away. But the man she was battling had neglected his machine gun just as she had, and now Pam was able to gain control over it an instant ahead of him. She twisted the barrel around so it was square on his midsection as her finger closed on the trigger.

  The machine gun clicked on an empty chamber. Pam freed one hand and did one of the few moves she recalled from her limited martial arts training, pounding the heel of her hand with all her might into the man’s throat.

  She wasn’t sure if she killed him or not, but suddenly his face went purple and he was gasping for air. His grip on the empty rifle let go and both hands clutched for his throat.

  Pam lunged to her feet.

  In the inner lab, the struggle had taken to the floor with Teeg hovering on top, the final death bite of his steel hook stopped only by Drew’s hands locked on the base. He was aware of his own screaming and the pain within him that seemed everywhere at once.

  Pam rushed to the door and tried the latch. It was jammed from the inside where the hook was just inches away from Drew’s throat.

  Driven to despair, Pam realized Drew’s last hope lay with her, and she rushed back to the console. Wasting no time, she jammed both her hands into the gloves controlling the Hands and went to work.

  Teeg smiled as he readied the hook for its final plunge.

  Drew wailed in agony, the last of his strength ebbing.

  And with that, one of the pincers suddenly descended and latched onto Teeg’s hook. The giant felt a jolt and was powerless to stop the pressure from pulling him to his feet.

  Pam worked the mechanism feverishly, joining the second Hand to the giant’s opposite shoulder and rotating the joystick so that th
e Hands worked together to yank him away from Drew. Free, Drew rolled once, then tried unsuccessfully to climb back to his feet.

  The giant struggled against the hold of the Hands, tearing his shoulder free of the grasp and the flesh with it, held only by the lock on his hook now.

  Pam struggled to bring the now free Hand back down for purchase, shouting into the microphone at the same time.

  “Drew, get out! Get out!”

  Drew gazed up at the window and pushed himself on, crawling for the door. At last he reached up for the knob. Even that proved an enormous effort. His body was racked with pain, the feeling of burning coals singeing his flesh in the areas where he’d been wounded.

  Teeg flailed at him with a bloodied but freed arm, still fighting to loosen his hook from the grasp of the left Hand. Finally, with an ear-wrenching scream, he tore it free and rushed forward.

  Drew made it into the outer lab just in time and slammed the door behind him.

  It wouldn’t catch. Somehow the crash of bodies into it had knocked out the alignment. From the inside, Teeg began to pull. Drew kept it shut, but it took all his strength, which was failing rapidly.

  Pam had started to lunge from her chair to help when her eyes fell back on the glass case containing the undissolved powder and still holding the gas that had killed the rat. It would have remained active; it could wipe out 26.5 square miles the computer had told her.

  Drew grimaced in pain, hands locked on the door handle to hold firm. The door began to buckle.

  Now, Pam realized, it had to be now!

  And she twisted the right Hand back over the experiment table directly in line above the glass case. Without hesitating she brought the pincer down hard. The glass shattered.

  The gas escaped.

  “Seal the door, Drew!” she screamed. “For God’s sake, seal it!”

  Drew could feel the slackening in the giant’s efforts as he did. Teeg staggered backward into his line of vision through the observation glass. He reeled about the inner lab, crashing into one wall and then another, clutching for his throat. Bottles and jars fell to the floor. The giant’s features were scarlet, his face that of a drowning man with no hope of reaching the surface in time. Saliva frothed at the corners of his mouth.