“Charlie, get to the good stuff.” Finn crossed her arms.
“Patience is a virtue, young lady.” He spread out a map of Israel across an empty workbench and indicated four red crosses. “These are the water plants. The hatch-marked areas are the service area for each plant. The plan for release is going to have to be airborne.”
“You’re going to conduct an airstrike against a friendly country? That’s an act of war.” Oz leaned on the table, incredulity etched deeply across her face.
“It would be if we were going to announce that it was us, and I didn’t say an airstrike. I said airborne.” He pointed to two areas in the West Bank and two in the Gaza Strip. “We’re going to set off masquerade rocket attacks from known Hamas strongholds. Attached to these rockets is going to be your compound, Finn.” He tossed her a stainless steel cylinder. “The irises at the top can be released by remote control and disperse as little as one microgram at a time. We’ll release them over the target sites in the air to get mass dispersal and then have the rockets detonate in unoccupied areas nearby to create plausible damage to cover our goal.”
“Jesus Christ, are you shitting me?”
“Serious as a heart attack, Ladyfish.”
Finn put the canister down. “Air dispersal at what height, Charlie?” Finn asked, her pencil and paper already in hand to make the notes she needed.
“You tell me. I’m going to use modified Hamas rockets equipped with drone guidance systems so that we can direct them exactly where we need them then destroy them once deployment is complete.”
“How on earth do you have Hamas rockets and stronghold locations?” Cassie asked.
“Hakim Qandri. He was Masood Mehalik’s second in command and a senior member of Hamas. He was also working for MI6 for months. He gave them locations of strongholds, outposts, and details of the rockets used. I’ve got my guys engineering the guidance systems to work with their rockets now. We’ll be able to direct them from here once those chips are in place.”
Finn nodded. “Fine, I’ll work that out once we have the final strength from this last test. How many people are in the target areas?”
“Estimates for these two areas,” he said as he pointed to the two areas closest to the Gaza Strip, “Are looking at twenty-five to thirty thousand people in each catchment area.” He pointed to the next cross. “Seventy to eighty thousand, and the water treatment plant on the edge of Tel Aviv serves around one hundred and forty-five thousand people.”
“Fuck.” Oz blanched, and Finn’s hands visibly shook as she wrote the numbers down.
“Do you have the result of that test yet?”
“Still five minutes to go,” Cassie said.
“As soon as we have that, I can work out the rest of the numbers. Charlie, I’ll get the data to you as soon as we have it. We’re going to need to set up more equipment.”
Cassie was already pulling racks of test tubes, beakers, and flasks from a cupboard. “I know, sweetheart.”
Cassie watched Finn hunched over her notepad as she set up line after line of equipment and started to mix liquids, gels, and powders together following the precise formula they had devised earlier. They were going to need a huge quantity of this powder, and they were lucky that each person would only need a tiny amount of the substance before their own body would take over and do the rest of the work.
“Who’s going in to prepare the missiles?” Oz asked.
“Junior’s taking one target, Evan is driving across Egypt to cross into Israel and take the southernmost site. Ari’s going to take care of the Tel Aviv site personally. His family are in the service area, Oz. He won’t let this shit get through.”
“And the final target?”
“Still working on it.”
“Can Ari not find someone to help?”
“Apparently not.” Charlie shook his head. “Looks like I’ll have to find someone off the base. Junior’s going to put together a list of people who can handle it.”
“I’ll do it.” AJ ran his hand through his hair. “I know what’s at stake. Send me over there.”
Charlie shook his head. “You’re not trained for a mission like this, AJ.”
“Junior can teach me what I need to do. You can trust me, Dad. I’ll get the job done.”
“It’s not about trust, Son. It’s about knowledge. You’ve never had to deal with this kind of ordinance, the situation on the ground is unfamiliar to you, you’re trained for a much, much different role.” Charlie put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Son, but sending you over there without the necessary training or backup would be a suicide run on a mission we can’t afford to fail.”
AJ’s face fell, and Oz knew that the rejection had seriously wounded his ego, but Charlie was right. Now was not the time to worry about egos and male pride. Now was the time to pull on all resources and get the job done. There was more at stake than any one of them.
“Send me in with him.” If it hadn’t been her own voice she heard, she would have looked around for the volunteer.
“No.” Finn looked up from her notepad. “You can’t go there. It’s too dangerous.”
“Baby, everyone is doing their bit for this mission. Everyone.” She grasped Finn’s hands and noted how cold they were. “You’re working so hard here to make this stuff it would be a real shame if it didn’t get deployed right and Balor spread.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to be the one to go there.”
“I’m no use to you here, and I need to help. I need to do something too.” She pointed to the door. “Out there, I can do something. I can make sure that everything you’ve done here pays off.” She wiped the tear from Finn’s cheek. “I’ll be fine. It’s an easy in and out mission.”
“If it was so easy Charlie would have let AJ go on his own.”
“I’ve had training AJ hasn’t. I know what I’m doing, Finn.”
“I can make this work. We can use a BBC news chopper to get you into Israel and get you and AJ in as journalists. It’ll give you the perfect cover, and being together, you’ll be backup for each other to get the job done,” Charlie said as he punched a number into his phone.
“I won’t let anything happen to her, Finn,” AJ said from the stool he was perched on. “You have my word.”
Oz pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her close to her ear. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. It’ll be real quick, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Finn pulled back far enough to stare into her eyes. “I can’t lose you.”
Oz could see the panic in her eyes and wished she wasn’t the cause of it, but every fiber in her being told her this was the right thing to do. “You won’t, baby.”
“You can’t promise me that. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “You’re everything to me.”
“You are to me too. That’s why I have to do this. I know you’ll never forgive yourself if anyone dies from this thing. I can’t let that happen. I don’t want to see those shadows in your eyes for the rest of our lives, baby. You deserve more than that. I promised to give you everything you needed for the rest of our lives. You need this to work. I can make that happen. I really can.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to Finn’s, sampling the soft skin, wet and salty from her tears, warm and inviting as it always was, and Oz let herself get lost in the feel of her. She needed Finn to know how much she loved her and that she would do anything for her.
“You also promised that you’d never leave my side.”
Oz smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”
Finn nodded. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never, baby.” She cradled Finn against her, holding her head against her shoulder as she continued to weep. “Trust me. I’ll be back before you even have time to miss me.”
Finn’s voice was quiet and muffled against her shirt as she said, “I miss you already.”
“Chopper will be ready when you get there. Ari’s on the case. He said he’s
glad to have you on board again, Oz. He said there’s no one he’d rather entrust the safety of his homeland to than you.”
“We better get started then, Uncle Charlie.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control. You just finish helping Finn with anything she needs at this end for now and leave the rest to me. Junior will fill you in when Finn’s ready with the compound.” He looked at AJ. “We’re gonna have to go over some stuff, Son. You better come with me.” He squeezed Finn’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Finn. It’ll work.”
“I hope so, Charlie. I really fucking hope so.”
Chapter Fifty
Oz sat at one of the workbenches and watched the drips fall from a condenser into a conical flask. She still didn’t get how this was going to stop Balor from killing hundreds of thousands of people in Israel, and she didn’t want to take the time from Finn or Cassie to make them explain it to her again. They were continually in motion, refilling chemicals, mixing more compounds, evaporating solutions until they were left with a fine powder. Watching them work was incredible. A shorthand language had developed between them and a simple gesture or single word resulted in a flurry of motion.
AJ came barreling through the door pulling a cart loaded with boxes, Billy close behind him with an equally loaded cart, his filled with bags of fine concrete mix.
“We’ve got everything you put on the list, Finn.” He started unloading the boxes on an empty work surface. “I don’t get what you want with blenders and concrete, but they’re here.”
“Thanks, AJ. Can you get them all unpacked and set up on that bench there, please? We need to mix the concrete powder with the compound and another little ingredient that Charlie is getting hold of for us.”
“Concrete?” Oz asked as she helped AJ and Billy unpack forty blenders.
“Yeah. This compound is too white to be explained away and the quantity needed per person is really small. Distributing it evenly over the area is going to be a nightmare. I want to use this as an additive to make the quantities go further and resemble normal dust that would be around after an explosion. Even just in the air normally in a city.”
“You’re cutting it?” Oz stared at her.
Finn shrugged. “In the most simple terms, yes.”
“Won’t the concrete hurt people?”
Finn sliced open one of the bags and dipped her hand in. “The particles are so fine that it really isn’t any different than inhaling dust on the street. There are particles like this everywhere.” She let the powder slip between her fingers to demonstrate her point. “We’re also only talking about inhaling less than half a microgram of this stuff. Builders who open a bag and empty it to mix would inhale more than that per bag and it doesn’t seem to do them any harm.”
“Even if it did,” Cassie said, “it’s less harmful than Balor.”
“Good point.” Oz plugged in the blender. “Just didn’t expect to be adding that skill to my repertoire. Jesus, I really am starting to feel like some kind of drug dealer.”
Finn laughed. “Well, I guess in a way we are. But this isn’t about giving anyone a high.”
“I don’t know. If this works, sweetheart, you’re going to be scraping me off the ceiling.” Cassie put her hand on Finn’s shoulder. “This is a major breakthrough. Every single part of it. That definitely gives me a high.” She winked before she turned back to her workbench.
Finn sighed. “How are we doing on time?”
“We’ve got twenty-three hours left,” AJ said as he checked the timer.
“And how long will transit and delivery preparation require, Billy?”
“Charlie’s secured a couple of jets to take the canisters to an aircraft carrier that’s moving into position in the Mediterranean Sea. From there it will be transported via helicopter to the sites in Israel we’ve identified as the best places to launch from. Stephen Knight gave us contacts at Interpol and MI6 to get the information that Hakim Qandri gave them.”
“How is Stephen?” Finn asked.
“In surgery now. He’ll live.” Billy didn’t meet her eyes.
“But?”
“They’re pretty sure they’re going to have to amputate just above each knee, and they don’t know about his left arm. They don’t know if they can repair the elbow joint. The damage to his hand was too extensive, they can’t save it.”
“Fuck.” Oz tried to pull Finn into her arms, and fought the sting of rejection as Finn refused the embrace.
“They can’t save them?” Finn whispered.
“The joints were pulverized. Nerves severed, blood supplies compromised for too long.” He shook his head. “I think the fact that so many of the nerves were severed was what stopped him from being in as much pain as we would have expected at the time. He’s a good man and he helped grease a lot of wheels before he let them take him into the operating room. Without him, we wouldn’t be able to get those canisters into Israel without detection.”
Oz knew they were all feeling guilty over the mistrust they had placed on Knight’s shoulders.
“We’ve got work to do. I won’t let his sacrifice be for nothing. How long?”
“We’ll need six hours, Finn. If you can give us seven, that would be great.”
“Fourteen hours. Okay.” She nodded tersely and strode away.
Billy put a hand on Oz’s shoulder. “Don’t take it personally. She’s got way too much going on to even think about letting the emotion out just now.”
“I know, Pops.”
“She’ll need you later.”
Oz nodded. She hoped so. She knew Finn was angry at her for volunteering to go to Israel, but she knew it was the right thing to do. She knew she had to. Part of that came from needing to give Finn the results she needed, but another part was seeing Finn in her lab. It made her realize exactly what she had given up and how much potential she had to do great things. Things that Oz didn’t want to get in the way of her accomplishing. Could Finn really be happy staying in the Keys with her? Diving in Florida was a lot less stressful, a lot more fun, but Finn had the chance to change the face of medical science here, and how could Oz let her pass that opportunity by? Statistically, she knew that one in three people were touched by cancer at some point in their lives. That meant probably three members of her family would likely develop it. Could she or Finn forgive themselves if Finn were able to develop a cure but didn’t, and one or more of them died? Putting faces to it made it real in a way she’d never considered before.
It also made her question herself. Everything Finn had put on the line to do this, and Oz felt as though she hadn’t done her share. She wanted Finn to be as proud of her as she was of Finn, and she knew that a good portion of her decision to volunteer for this mission stemmed from her desire to prove her worth to Finn. She needed to put her own past behind her and move on from the ghosts of her last disastrous mission to be the partner Finn deserved. This was her opportunity and one she might never have again. She knew that Finn would eventually forgive her, just as soon as Oz explained her reasoning. Even if she didn’t understand and still thought she was a fool for going. All she had to do was talk to Finn. About her feelings.
Later. We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we’ve got more than enough to deal with.
*
Finn poured the last of the powder into the stainless steel canister and closed the lid. The sixteen cylinders were lined up on the bench, each one looking like an innocuous thermos flask. The top of each one was sealed with an iris-type device that would open by remote control. Each iris could be opened a little or a lot, depending upon the need for distribution in the various areas. It was an ingenious little device, and Finn was fascinated by the spiral pattern as each one opened and closed as the remote triggers were tested.
“Any last instructions, Finn?” Oz asked as she and Junior started loading the canisters onto a cart.
“Don’t get dead.”
She smiled. “I won’t. I meant with this stuff though.” She pointed
to the cylinders.
“Charlie has the coordinates for release and the specific height required for optimum dispersal.” She shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else I can do.”
“You’ve done plenty,” Junior said.
She laughed derisively. “Yeah, I know. I created the apocalypse.”
“Hey…”
She waved his argument off. “I know, I know. Betrayed, used, et cetera. Good intentions, blah blah blah. Well, you know what they say about good intentions, don’t you, Junior?”
“What?”
“They paved the road to hell.”
“Finn, I could stand here all day and argue with you about this,” Oz said. “And in a couple of days, I will. But right now, we’ve got to get this to Israel to stop a lot of people from getting sick. You, my darling, are the creator of this miracle, and as such, do you have any more instructions that I should know about to release this thing for the best possible outcome?”
“Hit as many people as you can with it, and let Mother Nature do the rest. The wind will carry it, and the rain will help it absorb into the water table. Every surface that this lands on will be covered in live contagion for up to seven days.”
“That’s because you’ve put it in the cold virus again, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m never touching anything again.”
“You’ve survived this long. I don’t think you need to start worrying now. If you can get some over the treatment plant, that will be a great help. It’s the workers there who’ll likely be affected first.”
“Because it’s the source of the contamination?”
“Exactly.”
“We’ll see to it.”
“Just be careful, okay? Don’t drink the water, and don’t touch anyone who has.”
“I thought we were vaccinated.”
“You’re a work in progress. You aren’t fully vaccinated until you clear that cold. At least another couple of days.”
“Can this stuff kill us?” Junior asked.
She grinned a little, trying to lighten the oppressive mood that was closing in on her, but it was impossible. She wouldn’t be able to rest easy until this mission was completed and Oz was back home with her. “I don’t know for sure. I think it’s unlikely, but it can still make you pretty sick right now.”
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