by Larry Bond
“He will if he thinks he has to.”
“He’s very clever. He may realize it is a lie.”
“Got to give it a shot, no?”
Artur nodded. “Let us try.”
8
NAPLES, ITALY
The area around the Naples train station was filled with police and emergency vehicles by the time Kiska Babev arrived. She joined the line of commuters going into the station. She spoke almost no Italian, and the local Neapolitan dialect was lost to her, but through English she managed to puzzle out that there had been some sort of gas explosion nearby. But that explanation didn’t quite fit with the increased security at the train station, where a policeman insisted on going through Kiska’s purse and briefcase before allowing her inside. She asked him what was going on, but he pretended not to understand English and then shooed her inside.
The Russian FSB agent had put a watch on Rostislawitch’s bank accounts and was alerted to both of his cash withdrawals within a few minutes of their being made. While the first one had alerted her to the fact that he was here, it was the second one that troubled her. The cash would be enough to buy a train or airplane ticket to dozens of places, and while he’d have to show ID to get out of the country, the cash would allow him to avoid using his credit card, which they were also monitoring.
She’d searched the airport without finding him, but had to wait until a backup officer arrived from Rome to take her place before coming here. There had been two dozen flights between the time the second withdrawal was made and when she had arrived; the number of trains was three times that. There were simply too many places for them to check.
The delay between the withdrawals suggested a change in plans following a meeting of some sort. Maybe he’d decided to go to Iran. If so, she might never find him.
Few, if any, of the travelers in the station seemed bothered by the extra security outside. Kiska walked through the concourse swiftly, wanting a feel for the layout of the place before actually searching more carefully. She walked over to the platform area, scanning the knots of waiting people. Once or twice she thought she saw the scientist, but closer examination proved she was wrong. She made her way to waiting areas, then began drifting through the shops when her pager buzzed.
She walked over to the far side of the station, making sure she had no one around her, and called her Moscow office.
“This is Colonel Babev. Antov?”
“Colonel, the scientist has just sent a text message using his private account.”
“From where?”
“We’re trying to trace it now. I have the message for you.”
“Tell me.”
“It is in English, addressed to the same account as the one last week saying he would be in Bologna. But this is very explicit: ‘You have taken the suitcase. I was afraid you were not honest. As a precaution, I kept the phalange virus necessary to convert the DNA. The price is now twice, and two European Union passports, clean. I will be in Tripoli at the Alfonse Hotel this evening. I estimate that the virus will survive for another twenty-four hours. For technical references, check these sites.’ And then there is a list of Web sites. Our consultants have not yet gone through them. They involve DNA in some way.”
“The phalange is a type of virus that is used to introduce specific mutations,” she told her lieutenant. “Get me a reservation at that hotel. Get me people—I want Stefan in Tripoli. Have him bring a team, Petra or—who was the girl from St. Petersburg?”
“Neda—on such short notice, Colonel, I think it would be impossible to get her. She’s working with Demidas.”
“Then tell Stefan to put together the best people he can find. In Libya, things are much more open. And ample weapons.”
“I understand, Colonel.”
“Get me a flight there. A ticket for Kiril as well. He’s at the Naples airport now. Make them separate flights if possible. How long will it take you to trace the computer?”
“Another hour, maybe longer.”
“Was it in Naples?”
“We’re not sure.”
It would be easier to take him in Tripoli, Kiska thought. But he might be prepared as well. Surprise him here and be done with it.
“Call me directly when you find it,” she said.
“Yes, Colonel. I will.”
9
NORTHEASTERN SUDAN
Atha, tired from his travel, slept late. He rose just in time for the noonday prayers, then took a long walk around the camp. The buses and trucks he had hired were arriving from the Sudan. By nightfall, there would be seventy-three, enough to transport five thousand people. The buses would then drive three, four, five hundred miles, to Al Jaw in Libya; Dunquiah in Sudan; Aswan, Abu Simbel, Al Kharijab, in Egypt; to Chad and Darfur. From there, their passengers would fly to France, Italy, Denmark, Egypt, Great Britain, the U.S. Within a week, many would be in hospitals, a few in the grave.
The West would be at the start of an epidemic of a sort unseen since the Black Plague of Medieval times.
It was a beautiful thought.
And he would be rich, and finally truly powerful. An even more beautiful thought.
Most of the refugees in the camp were busy bidding one another good-bye and getting their things together for the journey. Atha nodded at the families as he passed. They smiled at him; a few even lowered their heads in silent tribute to his status as their savior.
When he returned from his walk, Atha found Dr. Hamid was squatting on the floor of the lab in front of a sealed glass work area. He was wearing gloves and a special protective suit, though not a hood.
“Doctor?”
“Please stay near the door. Do not touch anything,” said Hamid. “I will be with you in a moment.”
The bacterial colonies that Rostislawitch had provided had bloomed and then crashed before their arrival; only a few thousand had survived the transport. Had these been ordinary bacteria and the conditions here perfect, those few thousand would have been more than enough to seed thousands of new colonies. But the hybridization of the bacteria and Dr. Hamid’s relatively primitive lab complicated matters. The colonies were growing only about half as fast as his models suggested they would.
“It is slower than we hoped,” said the scientist finally. “But it will do.”
He turned around and faced Atha. “I should be ready to give the first doses this evening. We’ll have to start slower than planned—just four hundred people. By tomorrow evening, we will be ready for the rest.”
Atha nodded. The delay meant that some of the transports would sit here overnight, but otherwise it was a trivial matter, not worth bothering the minister about. In all but a few cases, the airplanes waiting for them were chartered, and would wait indefinitely. For the others, new tickets would not be a problem. The travel documents, visas, medical certificates, had been prepared weeks ago.
“From now on, you should take proper precautions in here,” said Dr. Hamid. “A full suit. You must decontaminate carefully, wash very thoroughly. Remember, the material is very dangerous.”
“I thought you said as long as I wash I am all right.”
“If the bacteria gets into your mouth, it will enter your digestive tract. From that point, there is no stopping it.”
“I will be careful,” said Atha, deciding that he would simply not visit the laboratory again.
“Once we are ready, I would advise you not to eat or drink anything, either. Bottled water that you yourself handle, nothing else. The juice should be an incredible medium for the bacteria to grow, and I do not doubt that infection will be very easy. Remember, it is more potent than common E. coli. There waste is the main means of transmission. Here any fluid, even sweat, may make the transmission. A swimming pool, food, a washcloth, can become a medium of transfer. The bacteria is extremely virile. The professor was quite a genius.”
“I have no doubt,” said Atha.
“We should leave as soon as the distribution is complete,” said the scientist. “The
longer we stay, the greater the risk of infection.”
Atha nodded. The final phase of the plan called for them to travel to northern Iran, where Navid would prepare additional cultures for storage and possible future use. Atha would look after his financial affairs, and take a vacation, assuming the minister did not have other plans.
The Revolutionary Guards were not universally appreciated in Iran, and Atha realized that the minister’s overt power play might elict a strong response. Atha was unsure exactly what the minister was planning, whether it would be a real coup or simply a putsch behind the scenes. Either way, Atha would be prepared, with money in several overseas accounts as well as Iranian banks.
Assuming the minister paid. Like anyone with power, he was not entirely to be trusted.
Atha took his leave of Dr. Hamid and went back to the hut that served as his quarters. He turned on his laptop computer to see that the minister had forwarded the payment to his accounts.
The money had not yet gone through.
Atha rose from his desk. He tried not to jump to conclusions—there must be an explanation.
And if there wasn’t?
Then he would send his hordes to Tehran rather than Europe and America. There the devastation would be considerably greater, as the sanitary conditions in the poorest areas were terrible.
Atha sat back down, calming himself. It must be an error, he decided. He considered whether it would be wiser to talk to the minister by phone or to send him an instant message. Messaging him had the advantage of letting Atha craft what he would say. But the phone would bring an instant response.
Could he hold his temper on the phone? Perhaps not.
Still debating, Atha signed into the message service. There were several unread messages—including one that claimed to be from Dark Bear: Rostislawitch’s code name.
An old one, Atha thought, scrolling through the others in queue. But then he realized that it had been sent only a few minutes before.
Most likely he’s wondering what happened to me, thought Atha, selecting it to read:
You have taken the suitcse. I was afraid you were not honest. As a precaution, I kept the phalange vrs necessary to convert DNA. The price is now twice, and two EU psprts. In Tripoli at the Alfonse Hotel this evening. I est virus will survive for another 24 hs. . . .
The message was so long it spilled into two screens. A second text message added Web sites explaining the science.
Atha jumped out of his chair to get Dr. Hamid.
10
NAPLES, ITALY
As soon as the text message was sent, Ferguson had Corrigan send two more cars of Marines to the computer café.
“Go to the navy base. Get over to Tripoli,” Ferguson told Thera as he pushed her into the car after Rostislawitch. “Wait for me.”
“What about you?”
“I have an errand to run here.”
“Ferg—”
“I’ll see you in Tripoli.” He hesitated, then leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he banged on the top of the car. “Get going; go,” he said, backing away.
The narrow street went straight up the side of a hill so steep that much of the sidewalk had been laid as steps. A worn metal pipe rail protected the street side. A good number of the storefronts had been converted into cheap apartments; the rest sold mostly secondhand items: books, clothing, even used plumbing. Above the stores were more apartments, their inhabitants a mixture of poor immigrants and young people who styled themselves bohemians and frequented the basement cafés that lined the block and the nearby avenue.
Ferguson crossed the street and forced the door on one of the buildings, trotting upstairs to the top floor. Seeing that there was no door up to the roof, he opened the window on the landing and found a fire escape ladder; it ran up as well as down. In a few seconds, he was walking across the roof’s sticky tar to the front of the building, where he had a good view of most of the block.
Someone had brought a beach chair up. It was weather-beaten, but it was better than sitting on the tar. Ferguson carried it to the edge of the roof and sat down, feeling a little like he was at a baseball game.
Not the Sox. No one ever got a quiet seat like this at Fenway.
He peered over the side, watching the street. He shouldn’t have kissed Thera, he thought. It was a distraction and a mistake.
But now that he had, what was he going to do next? What was he going to tell her? That he loved her?
The truth was, he played the rogue so much that being honest felt strange. He wasn’t even sure how to phrase it.
I love you.
He didn’t need anything else.
What he couldn’t say was, I have cancer. Maybe I’m going to die.
Maybe not. The doctor seems pretty positive. Most people with thyroid cancer live.
Of course, usually it was caught a bit sooner. Usually it didn’t come back. You could read the statistics any way you wanted.
Ferguson remembered he’d forgotten to take his pills that morning.
He reached into his pocket for his pillbox. A cab was just driving up the street. He slipped down near the edge of the roof, lying flat. A woman got out of the taxi, a blonde.
Kiska.
Ferguson rose and began trotting back to the fire escape.
Kiska brushed past the attendant and walked through the long, narrow room, surveying the patrons at the computers lined against both walls. Rostislawitch wasn’t among them.
An alcove sat at the very end of the room. Kiska leaned forward, poking her head across its threshold and spotting a staircase. The steps were blocked off by a folding gate, the kind used to protect toddlers and infants from a fall.
She walked to it and pulled it out of her way.
“Signora! Scusi,” said the attendant. “Ma’am, excuse me. You cannot go up there.”
Kiska was already on the stairs, which turned after five steps. She heard something scraping above, then a yap—a little dog appeared at the top when Kiska turned the corner. It was kept there by a gate similar to the one below. The room was a kitchen—one that didn’t appear to have been cleaned in months.
“Nice puppy,” she said, looking around.
“Signora!” The attendant had followed her up the stairs. “There are no computers up there. It is my apartment. Please.”
The attendant was a young man in his early twenties who looked the perfect computer geek; Kiska sized him up in an instant and decided she would have no trouble tossing him down the steps.
“I’m looking for someone,” she said, and she pushed aside the fence holding the dog in. Freed, the animal scampered past her, and past the swooping grab of its master.
“Madonna,” said the man, adding more serious curses as he followed the dog.
Kiska walked into the kitchen, turned the corner, and surveyed the apartment’s two rooms. Clearly Rostislawitch wasn’t here.
By this time, Ferguson had come down from the roof and crossed the street. He was just opening the door to the Internet café when he was met by a speeding ball of fur, which propelled itself through the open space and out into the street. The attendant, cursing at him for letting the animal escape, tried to pass as well. But the store was so narrow that there was room in the aisle for only one person at a time; he bounced into Ferguson, who threw him out of his way.
“Kiska!” yelled Ferguson. “We have to talk.”
He drew the Glock from his belt, holding it behind his back.
“Jesus!” yelled the attendant, scrambling to his feet and running outside. One of the three people in the café using the computers threw himself to the floor; the other two, not entirely sure what was going on, stared at Ferguson as he walked past.
Upstairs, Kiska heard Ferguson yelling. As much as she liked the American, his interference tended to be annoying, and she didn’t care to discuss anything with him right now.
“Kiska!” Ferguson yelled as he reached the archway. He glanced back at the people in the store
, staring at him in unbelief. “Good time to run,” he told them. “Remember to save your work.”
He waited until they were in the street, then put two hands on the Glock and threw himself across the space in front to the stairs, rolling over and expecting to be ambushed.
Nothing.
Jumping to his feet, Ferguson yelled for Kiska again, then took the steps two at a time, right shoulder against the wall, gun ready to fire.
“Kiska, we really have to talk,” he said in Russian. “Tell me what you know about dinosaurs. T Rex, in particular.”
The landing was clear. He started up, knowing she had to be close.
“T Rex, Kiska. How familiar are you with T Rex?”
Ferguson paused at the entrance to the kitchen. He couldn’t hear anything, but from the layout he gathered that the rest of the apartment was around the bend in the wall. He tiptoed toward it, then saw a small metal toaster on the counter back near the door. Retreating, he grabbed the toaster, holding the gun toward the passage to the rest of the apartment.
“I have some questions about where you were at certain times. One of those has to do with a CIA officer named Dalton. If it weren’t for him, honestly, I could blow this all off. You know, bigger fish to fry.”
He put the toaster down and slid it across the floor. The other rooms were reflected on its side.
“Kiska? Would it be easier if I spoke English?”
He saw something moving in the reflection. Ferguson threw himself on the floor, rolling across the space, gun up, ready—and aimed right at a curtain at the far side of the apartment, fluttering in the breeze.
He ran to it and looked down. There was a fire escape that led to an alley, no trace of Kiska.
Ferguson climbed out, then jumped down into the alley. It took a second before he saw the low fence that led to the street behind the building. He ran to it and hopped over, just in time to see a blonde getting into a cab a block and a half away.
It was too far to tell for sure if it was Kiska, but Ferguson had no doubt it was. He watched as the car drove off.