by Lyn Stone
This was all Jack needed, a moonstruck, jealous teenager who could blow their cover wide open on a whim.
Solange entered Chari's study with great trepidation. If Jacques was right, she would be ordered to the laboratory, where this man was perpetrating an evil she could scarcely imagine. She could comprehend the motives of ideological terrorists, if not their fanaticism. But who in his right mind would make and sell the means to endanger an as yet-unknown segment of the population? And could she possibly find a way to stop him before that happened?
Chari's narrow-eyed look measured her as she approached his desk. She had tried to make herself look as professional as possible under the circumstances. She wore the same blouse and pants she had arrived in. She had washed them in the sink the night before, but had found no iron to press them. Her hair was neat enough, slicked back and tied with a shoelace she had found in one of the drawers in René's room. The absence of makeup didn't bother her. She rarely wore much, if any, and had no desire now to look more than presentable and competent.
She met Chad's eyes, hoping to project more boldness than she felt. He blinked, then looked away and fastened his gaze on Jacques. Solange wondered if she disturbed him somehow or if he simply possessed a dislike of women in general.
"Have you spoken with her about the work in the laboratory?" he asked Jacques as if she were not even in the room.
"Only briefly, but she will do as I wish," Jacques said as he slid his arm around her shoulders and gave her a possessive squeeze. "Won't you, darling? If we are to marry, we must have the funds to leave this country and make a life together somewhere else. Perhaps the Caribbean? You would love Martinique."
Solange looked up at him—adoringly she hoped— and forced her lips to smile. "That would be wonderful."
Aware that she needed to pretend her greed equaled his, she turned the vacuous expression on Chari. "I understand we shall be well compensated for my services. Jacques has mentioned you are doing research?"
"Sit down, both of you," Chari said, gesturing at the two chairs flanking the front of his desk. He sat behind it, leaning back in his chair like the lord of the manor. "You realize, of course, that if you later decide to decline, doctor, I shall have to...send you away?"
There was no mistaking his meaning. He would get rid of her. And Jacques, as well. "I can hardly resume my former position," she said, "not after the escape. As you are aware, the police are looking for me, now that I have aided the escape of two prisoners. It would seem I must rely on your generosity."
"Just so," he replied smugly. "You are to assist in the laboratory. Our former auxiliary is no longer able to perform his duties, you see." He pursed his lips and tapped them with his finger, then continued. "He had...an unfortunate attack of conscience."
Her swift intake of breath had betrayed her shock at Chari's implied threat. Solange released it slowly and gave him a resigned nod to show she understood. "I assure you that is not a contagious condition," Solange told him.
He frowned. "Clever, aren't you? You would be wise to save that ingenuity and apply it to your lab chores. No one appreciates a woman who flaunts her intelligence."
Solange hung her head and slumped her shoulders, properly subdued. She wished she could shoot him. She, who had taken an oath to save lives. He had driven her to think this way.
At that point Chari rose from his chair and led the way to a door opposite the one they had entered. There he retrieved a key from his pocket and unlocked what appeared to be a newly installed dead bolt.
"Enter," he said as he stood to one side of the portal. When Jacques would have followed her to the staircase inside, Chari blocked him. "Join Piers in the kitchens, Mercier. I will meet you there in half an hour."
Jacques and she exchanged looks, his reassuring, hers probably terrified. So that Chari wouldn't see her fear, Solange quickly turned to face the escalier, its worn winding steps curving both up from the landing and spiraling down into the depths of what must be the cellars. "Which way?" she asked, placing her palm against the cold stone.
"Down," Chari replied, closing the door behind him and locking it.
He did not take her arm, as she feared he might. Instead he remained several steps behind her in the near darkness. Meager light sifted from the slit of a window at the landing they had just left, and she noted a weak yellow glow from the floor below that she thought must be incandescent. She took her time, braced with one hand and placed her feet carefully on the worn, ancient treads. A fall resulting in an injury could well end her chance at this. And her life.
They passed the next landing and the closed door that led off it and descended farther into the depths of the tower. The steps ended at another door, this one probably as old as the chateau itself, solid oak and banded with bolted iron strips. A dungeon? He reached around her and opened it.
Fluorescent light flooded the room. Solange squinted as her eyes adjusted, not surprised to find a fully outfitted laboratory.
Though not large, it appeared that no expense had been spared. The walls, floor and ceiling appeared to be insulated with a material that looked virtually seamless. A few small animal cages sat empty on shelves in one corner. There were two refrigerators, a metal centrifuge, machines for milling and drying, and what looked like a state-of-the-art microscope.
The lab came complete with a mad scientist. The man bent over the microscope was enormous, his girth spilling over the chair on which he sat.
"Dr. Belclair," Chari said softly. "I hate to interrupt you, but here is Dr. Solange Micheaux. She is to be your new assistant."
The fellow pushed back from the worktable and swiveled his chair around. He did not stand. Solange wondered if that was because his legs would not support his weight. She put his age at over thirty, less than forty. His lank brown hair hung in limp strands that looked like tired quotes around his red-rimmed pig-like eyes. The mouth that pursed in their direction had a liverish cast to the lips.
His naturally dark complexion appeared jaundiced even with abundant illumination of bluish white light. He merely grunted. Words seemed too great an effort for him.
"Dr. Belclair," she said acknowledging the introduction.
"If you would, please, show her what she is to do," Chari said. "She is only a physician, but if she can assist with the formula, perhaps you should allow it for expediency's sake. Otherwise, use her as you will."
Solange tried to conceal her shudder. She raised her chin and turned. "Thank you, M'sieu Chari. I am certain Dr. Belclair and I will get on famously."
His shoulders shook with a soundless little chuckle and he nodded once. "Then I shall leave you to him." He stepped out and closed the door, indeed leaving her alone with Belclair.
Solange shored up her courage and faced her co-worker. She figured she could outrun him if worse came to worst, and hope that he collapsed from the exertion.
Dr. Belclair released a sigh that was almost a whistle. Then he blinked owlishly and turned back to his microscope.
Her one objective now was to get the information Jacques and his people needed and get out of this cursed dungeon. "What is it we are doing?" Solange asked, moving closer to the table where he was working, but still keeping some distance between them.
"Manufacturing death," he muttered, his voice as laconic as his attitude toward her. "Replace those petri dishes in the freezer," he ordered. "Gloves and masks are just there." He inclined his head toward a cabinet that sat against the wall.
Solange decided not to give him the satisfaction of questioning his announcement of what they would be doing. Let him assume Chari had told her. She noted he wasn't wearing a mask. Either he must have a death wish or he really was as simple as he appeared at first glance.
She went for the supplies and outfitted herself, also picking up one of the folded white lab suits and putting it on. It hung on her small frame. The wine-red cadu-ceus embroidered on the pocket was underlined with the name of the hospital from which it had been stolen. Swiss hospi
tal, she thought, but wasn't sure. Was that a clue? She filed it away in her mind.
"I have some experience working with my father," she told Belclair. "He was involved with human growth hormone research. I know this is incredibly different area, but perhaps I could help. Are you having problems with the formula?"
She decided she might as well pretend she knew more than she did about what they were doing here. It wasn't as if Belclair would trouble himself to discuss her with Chari except in the most cursory of ways.
He nudged a notebook that lay next to him. "Have a look."
Solange gingerly lifted the book, found a clear spot on the worktable and took a seat some distance away from Belclair.
With mounting horror, she read the neat hand-printed research notes. They were copious and very detailed. Another's handwriting appeared first, then ceased on the page dated two weeks ago and was replaced by what she guessed was Belclair's.
When she had digested as much as she could, a comment escaped. "This is not ricin. Or abrin," she added.
"Similar," he grunted. "But easier to extract. Safer, too."
Easier? Solange knew that ricin was made from extract of the castor bean. Perhaps not so easy to obtain. She had read that abrin was approximately seventy times more toxic than ricin and it was extracted from the fairly common rosary pea. "How so?"
"Local field available. No need to order. I use the Genquist plant."
"Are you are a botanist?" She tried to sound impressed.
He replied with a nod to her question. "And chemist."
Solange read on. Apparently he had developed this himself. Had Belclair approached Chari with the idea of marketing this toxin or vice versa? Could he be the brains behind Chari's project? Chari was a greedy opportunist. Belclair looked like a man with a mission.
Perhaps the motive didn't matter so much as how long he had been working on it and how much success he'd had. That's what Jacques would need to know.
She skipped to the last few entries. The problem seemed to be stabilizing the substance's toxicity. It lost its viability when the temperature of the solution containing it rose above eighty degrees Fahrenheit. In this climate, it could be used much as ricin or abrin might. In hotter climes it would be useless.
"Why employ a solution at all?" she asked. "Have you found a way to use it aerially?"
Again he grunted, obviously impatient with her interruption of what he was studying under the scope. "No. Impractical. As for the solution, it needs moisture to incubate. Infant formula works for that, but any other liquid severely dilutes the efficacy. I am trying different viscous substances now."
She swallowed her terror and tried to sound curious. She was, but it was a horrified curiosity. She glanced at the empty animal cages. "How do you plan to test it?"
He said nothing but she could see his fleshy lips curve up in a secret smile as he bent over the microscope and adjusted the knobs.
She waited, but that secretive expression remained his only answer to her question.
Solange needed to get out of this place. It reeked of mildew mixed with Belclair's body odor and a faint hint of something that smelled like incense.
The quiet in the lab would have rivaled that of a tomb if not for the doctor's regular wheezing and the monotonous click of the minute hand on the wall clock. Panic had heightened her senses. She had to get it under control.
Scarcely twenty minutes had passed and it felt like hours. She replaced the petri dishes as ordered and waited for Belclair to give her something else to do.
If she bombarded him with questions, he might become suspicious, but the sooner she got the information needed, the sooner this would be over.
"I wonder why Chari has not provided you more help with this," she said, trying to make it seem simply a casual observation.
"It seems he has," Belclair mumbled.
"Yes. Well, I see you're too immersed in what you're doing to show me everything now. May I wander around and become acquainted with the area?" she asked politely.
He merely shrugged, busy with an eyedropper, adding a minuscule amount of something to one of the dishes left in front of him. She watched him prepare another slide.
She kept on the latex gloves as she opened the first of two doors, the one that was obviously new and made of thick metal. It was unlocked. Inside on a stainless steel table were six small drums that would hold about two liters each. "What is this?" she asked.
He spared her a glance. "Incubation," he mumbled. "Close that door. That room's temperature controlled."
Before she complied, she noted the thermostat just inside, set at forty degrees Fahrenheit. The room looked even more heavily insulated and appeared to have a separate ventilation and cooling system.
"I suppose you have ricin and abrin, as well?" she asked. "For comparison?"
"Minuscule amounts," he said with a shrug of one shoulder. "Just you try buying rosary pea plants or a batch of castor these days. I had to purchase it already prepared. Damned difficult to do."
God in heaven, she hoped so. There should be a careful eye kept on that sort of product. It made a certain sort of sick sense that someone with an eye to profit would come up with something that would not be as suspect for making protein toxins like these. In this case, the plant he had mentioned.
But Belclair spoke as if he had done the purchasing himself, Solange thought. Jacques would need to know that. It could be very significant. It appeared more and more as if Chari were only the host here.
"Where are those samples?" she asked. "I would not want to cause a mix-up."
"Only on the slides. Carefully marked."
"Very efficient." She opened the other door, the wooden one. This room only contained a none-too-clean toilet and a rust-stained sink. Elsewhere she had not observed even a speck of dust. Apparently Belclair's penchant for absolute cleanliness did not extend to the toilet facilities.
Eventually, he abandoned his current testing and put her to work recording his findings. Thankfully, he showed no more interest in her than he did the rest of the equipment in the room. A means to an end, a recording device.
Why was he doing this? She burned to ask, to find out how anyone in his right mind could be so coldblooded and engage in such deadly work.
His dictation was slow and laborious. Solange grew more hopeful as she recorded his failure and had plenty of time to think how she might exacerbate it indefinitely. Only she did not want to drag out the resolution to his experiments. She wanted to end them completely. Now.
Self-preservation urged her to race headlong up those stairs, find Jacques and demand that he get her out of this place and away from these people by any means necessary. But a more logical and responsible part of herself realized it was her responsibility to do everything she could to put an end to the madness here.
Jacques trusted her to help him. She had to do something. But what?
Chapter 8
Jack finished his supper and pushed away from the table. He looked over at Piers. "I'll take the midnight watch."
"You will take the eight o'clock," Piers responded, looking at the kitchen clock. "You are on in five minutes."
It would do no good to argue. Though Jack needed to see that Solange was all right after her day in the lab, he exercised all the patience he possessed and went to the roof to stand lookout.
Tonight they had furnished him with a loaded weapon, a late-model fully automatic hand machine gun. Lightweight, effective and probably loaded with hollow-point ammo. He could sweep the roof with it right now and take out half of Chari's force. But then he'd be stuck up here until he starved or jumped, and Solange would still be in the tower. And Chari's plan would still go forward. He abandoned the urge.
In addition to the weapon, he had a simple walkie-talkie to communicate with the other guards. If he spied anything moving, he was to alert them.
But he also noted that, unlike on previous watches, there was no one monitoring the same area he was covering. They were no
w trusting him enough to keep watch alone on the territory he had been assigned.
Chari needed someone he could trust and talk openly to about what he was doing. The taciturn Piers must not be filling the bill. Jack was cultivating that need in hopes of getting the full inside story on the development of the toxin, who else was involved and how it had been, or was to be, employed.
For the next three hours he alternately paced the narrow ledge of the roof's overhang and rested against the dormer. That second tree taunted him, its branches beckoning in the moonlight, daring him to scale down the stone exterior of the chateau and retrieve his communication gear from the place where Eric had left it concealed.
The team must be wondering what had happened to him and Solange. Since he had not contacted them, would they mount an invasion? No. Eric would probably try to connect psychically first. The trouble was, Jack had no power to send or receive telepathically. None.
The best he could hope for was that either Eric or Joe would "see" him in one of their peculiar visions and know he was still kicking.
Out of sheer boredom and just in case they were really tuned in, he gave it his best shot. He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could.
Okay, guys, I'm here. Still waiting on the information. Check on Solange, will you ? If anything's wrong with her, let's get her out of it. Now!
The night remained still. Jack had an hour to go on his shift. With a sigh, he paced some more, trying his best not to imagine Solange's workday and what she might have been exposed to.
The hour crawled by. Jack was just about to reenter the door that led off the roof when something thunked solidly against the roof not three feet from him. He dropped and rolled, concealing himself in the corner between the dormer window and the tiles. That threw the object into relief against the sky.
An arrow? Jack almost laughed at the rudimentary means of communication. Must be Eric's idea. He had a quirky sense of humor.
After a brief glance around to see whether anyone else had observed it, he crawled over and yanked the missile out of the crumbling tiles. It looked like a bolt from a crossbow. A small paper cylinder was wrapped around it.