Before leaving the mall, Antonio took one last look at the spot where he’d caught up with the girls as they were getting into their car. He strolled toward the parking spot where the Jag had been parked—what a stroke of luck that had been. The stupid bitches had actually believed him when he’d said he could fix the car on the spot.
Mindless cows, just as Beeman had predicted.
He wondered if the Jag would still be there, but he doubted it. Someone would have towed or stolen it by now.
As he approached the spot, he saw men taking pictures of the floor where the Jag had been parked.
He almost shit himself.
There were half a dozen people inspecting the scene—five men and a woman. They didn’t look like police. He wanted to stop and watch, to figure out who they were, but he kept walking. He didn’t want them to notice him.
He had a bus to catch.
Chapter 26
Kim reached over, gripped the wheel and carefully guided the Toyota onto the gravel shoulder of the road. Breathing hard, he yanked up the emergency brake with his other hand, then pushed the shift knob into neutral. The car came safely to a stop, clear of any traffic that might go by.
He sat for a moment, panting, scanning in every direction for cars, hikers or another state patrol. There was no one. After a few moments he began to feel calmer. “Crazy suicidal bastard,” Kim said in English, wishing he could simply cut Beeman’s throat and leave him.
He shoved the passenger door open and got out; then he dragged the unconscious man across the center console. He grunted with the exertion of hauling the man’s dead weight across to the passenger seat. It was an awkward, limb-at-a-time, exercise. Once he had the inert form in the passenger seat, he reclined it, hoping it would appear to any observer that Beeman was merely napping. He slammed the passenger door, stepped around to the driver’s side and got in behind the wheel. The engine was still idling. His eyes continued to scan the road, forward and rearward. A wave of fatigue washed over him, the aftereffect of the adrenaline burning off. He took several cleansing breaths to center himself.
He checked Beeman’s pulse and breathing to ensure that the hard blow to the base of his skull had not killed him and that he would not asphyxiate due to airway obstruction. Serious neurological trauma was unlikely. He suppressed the urge to punch Beeman several more times simply for satisfaction.
The plan was still in place, which was actually quite amazing in light of all that had happened.
The great luck he’d had thus far left Kim with a feeling of awe and humility. If he’d been forced to kill the policeman, it would have greatly reduced the likelihood of mission success. If Beeman had crashed the car, they both would have likely died. If Kim’s punch to the base of Beeman’s skull had killed him, it would have ruined the mission.
If, if, if … It was luck that had carried him this far.
Reliance on luck is the surest road to failure.
Stupid, tossing that cigarette butt from the car.
Stupider still to have become so distracted by Beeman that he’d lost his tactical awareness and missed seeing the police cruiser, which must have been sitting on the side of the road.
In spite of his incompetence, success was still attainable. So many risks, so many unexpected problems, yet the mission was still on track, though not because he had been particularly skilled or competent. He’d missed important warning signs, allowed his awareness to be disbursed and he’d failed to anticipate the extremity of Beeman’s mercurial insanity—even though he had preached impertinently to his own commander about how unpredictable Beeman could be.
Where was his backup? Had the highway patrol also pulled them over? Several more minutes went by before a brown Taurus pulled up behind him. Kim watched Chul and Pak through the rearview mirror as they sat for a moment, talking to one another before getting out. Curious, Kim thought. What are they discussing?
Kim put down his window and extended his arm, signaling impatiently for Chul to approach. “What happened?” Chul asked as he came up to Kim’s window. “The police stopped you.”
“No time to explain,” Kim snapped. “Follow me to the shed.” He put the Toyota in gear and pulled away. The Taurus followed. Three miles on, he turned onto a dirt road that wound up a heavily forested hillside. Half a mile from the highway, he turned off the gravel road, taking a rutted, unimproved dirt track. The Toyota followed close behind.
The two sedans bucked and jumped as they picked their way, slowly and gingerly, for another half mile, scraping undercarriages on protruding rocks, wheels spinning out occasionally. Eventually they reached an abandoned shed shepherds and miners had used many decades past. Kim had discovered this decrepit shack after days of searching the wilderness near Beeman’s isolated cabin to find a staging area with some shelter not visible from any nearby road or home.
Both drivers killed their engines. Chul and Pak jumped from the Taurus and trotted smartly to the driver’s-side door of the Toyota.
“Carry him inside,” Kim ordered as he stepped out of the car.
The two men obeyed, hoisting Beeman from his seat and carrying him to the shed. Once inside, Chul growled in his native tongue.
“It was wise of you to prepare this place.”
Kim nodded and ordered Pak to fetch a bag from the car. The man returned quickly with an interrogation kit. Kim ordered him to dig out some plastic tie wraps and secured Beeman’s arms behind his back, binding his wrists together, yanking hard on the plastic end, and then bound Beeman’s ankles securely together.
He sat back to survey his work. Swelling and bruising was becoming visible along Beeman’s jawline. It would take some explaining on Beeman’s part, assuming Kim let the scientist walk out of the shack alive, which he knew he would have to do.
Reaching into the kit, Kim withdrew a small length of surgical tubing and a zippered pouch containing two syringes and a several small vials of clear fluid labeled “insulin.” None of them actually contained insulin. The lot numbers on the labels ended in the digits -01 through -04, providing an identification code allowing Kim to distinguish which contained a particular drug he might need.
He selected one ending in -02, a combination of mild barbiturates and psychedelic hallucinogens, and peeled off the foil cap. He uncapped a syringe and stabbed the needle through the rubber stopper to draw fluid into the syringe. Dose amount was important. “How much would you estimate he weighs, Chul?”
Chul grinned and looked at Pak. “Were you helping me carry him?”
Kim frowned. “This is no time for humor.”
Chul’s grin vanished. “Very sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect. I would say he weighs about seventy-five or eighty kilos.”
Trained to think in American terms, Kim converted. About 170 pounds. He agreed. He drew 7 ml of fluid into the syringe. “Too much of this and he remains unconscious for hours—time we don’t have. Not enough and the maniac will be able to fight off the effects and try to confuse and deceive us, forcing us to waste even more time.”
The angle of Beeman’s arm, tied behind him as it was, made finding a protruding vein difficult, but eventually Kim slid the needle into the scientist’s cubital vein and compressed the plunger with his thumb. When he withdrew the needle, a small dribble of blood ran down Beeman’s forearm.
Kim handed the syringe to Chul and untied the rubber tubing.
“Now we rouse him,” said Kim. He cracked open a tubule of ammonium carbonate in solution—smelling salts—waving them beneath Beeman’s nose. “If I’ve gotten the dose right, the compound will strip away his higher cortical functions to render his mind pliable, and the psychoactive component will stimulate his speech centers and produce anxiety, prompting him to communicate while his inhibitory systems are suppressed.”
“Cardiorespiratory risk?” Pak asked.
Kim nodded. “Some, but he is healthy for his age, so we should get optimal results with a seven-milliliter dose.”
Beeman heard himself groa
n, wondering what was making such a discordant and irritating sound. His skin felt as if it were crawling with fire ants. He tried to brush them off, but his arms seemed to be missing from his torso.
He opened his eyes and stared into a face hovering before him. He’d seen the face before but could not remember where or when. His head, neck and jaw throbbed. He realized he’d been unconscious.
He wondered with a strange sense of detachment where he was.
A light blinded him. The man was shining a penlight into his eyes. The light was so terribly bright—it seemed to set his retinas on fire. He watched sparkles of color swarming, as though he were outside his skull looking in with the aid of a dozen spotlights to observe a pulsing bundle of fluorescent snakes writhing within.
Beeman thought the light might burn his brain or at least give him a brain tan, and he laughed softly. It doesn’t matter, I really need to get out more. A little sunlight promotes health and vitality. I’ll look younger with a nicely tanned brain. I’ll have a burnished intellect. After all, his was such a fine brain—muscular and pulsing with intelligence—but pale and gray. He smiled, or at least he tried to, but something had paralyzed his mouth. Had they frozen his face?
He chuckled. His frozen face felt so funny.
And the light that had become his home so many whatever ago was the cause of the humor. It was radiant humor. Light-hearted stuff.
Maybe it had burned his face off. Funnier still!
He tried to squint, but someone was holding his eyelids open. No squinting allowed. No squinting and definitely no smiling.
What’s happening?
The light went out, leaving many blue and green globes floating in front of him. He was now having trouble remembering what had been so funny. Confusion began to permeate his thoughts—layers and layers of confusion. He felt sick to his stomach. Why did the man look familiar? He struggled to remember how he had gotten here. And where was here?
The last thing he remembered was … driving, in the Toyota, with …
Ah, yes. Kim.
Now he remembered. He’d released the wheel and floored the gas pedal.
Then nothing.
We must have crashed.
Behind him, a voice spoke in Korean, a voice deeper than Kim’s.
Lowering the penlight, Kim responded in the same language. Beeman detected a note of concerned relief.
“What happened?” Beeman’s voice came out as a croak. His jaw and neck ached, but he didn’t think he was seriously injured. He was regaining clarity. His eyes roamed back and forth, soaking up information, absorbing his surroundings.
As his mind sharpened somewhat, he discerned that he was sitting on a dirt floor within some kind of a shed or shack, resting against a box. He’d been drugged. This explained the giddiness and confusion he felt.
The walls were close, made of rough-hewn lumber.
No, wait—they weren’t close after all. They were very far away. But not that far. In fact, they were quite close after all, and getting closer. Beeman sensed that the walls were angry. Very angry, threatening him, swooping closer and backing up, threatening to crush him. Terrified now, he pulled his knees up to his chest. No, the walls were not moving. Or were they?
The drug, he realized. It’s a hallucinogen.
Waves of fear washed over him.
He wondered whether he might cry, and then he realized he was crying.
Blades of light stabbed into the darkness of the shed from between rotting wooden planks. The light. What was it about the light? It had attacked him before, hadn’t it? It had tried to climb into his skull. He forced himself to focus, just as the blades of light focused.
They were checking my pupils. They are concerned about my condition.
I am important to them, but I can’t remember why. They’re very dangerous. And they do not tolerate facial expressions. He had to keep that in mind. No facial expressions! No laughing! No squinting! They are dangerous men!
A remote part of Beeman’s mind registered that he was losing his capacity for rational thought. He was slipping into a place from which he could not protect himself with his intellect. He would not be able to censor what came out of his mouth. Clarity waxed and waned, pulsing in steadily diminishing cycles.
Some kind of truth serum?
Of course. It would be … but he couldn’t remember the names of the drugs that would cause this kind of effect. For that matter, he couldn’t remember his own name.
Oh, yes. I am Beeman. Beam-Man, so they shot me in the brain with light. It is the only way to kill me.
Or was it radiation?
“What happened?” Beeman heard himself repeat, his voice that of a stranger.
“You’ll be fine,” the voice of Kim said, “as long as you cooperate.”
He felt his head snap backward, and he literally saw stars where the globes had been, but he felt very little pain. His eyes watered, and he tried to reach up to touch his face but found that something sharp secured his hands behind his back.
His warm blood ran down his face and dripped from his chin onto his shirt.
He could taste it. The flavor was not entirely unpleasant.
With his head down, he chuckled softly, and then he resumed crying. They knew his secrets, didn’t they? They knew that he’d been a very bad boy. They knew about Antonio, about Dove and Kitten. They know about the virus. Yes, that was it! They want my Black Sunrise. A part of his mind snapped to clarity for a moment and told him to be very careful. He was in great danger now. Oh, great danger, great danger. A fierce battle was raging in his mind. He fought the fog that infused his thoughts, systematically ruining his analytical powers, planting pockets of insanity, breaking the links that anchored the structure of his mental networks to … to what?
He cried some more, then made himself stop.
“I’m so sorry,” Beeman said in a throaty whisper. “I just find this a bit ironic.” A swollen, numb feeling started creeping down his chest. He turned his head to one side and gazed at the shafts of light that cut through the dusty darkness of the shed.
“As well you might,” Kim said. He was standing beside the coffin, looking down on Beeman from above.
Beeman had never realized how tall Kim really was. He might be several miles tall. How did he fit into a car? After all, hadn’t he been in the car with Beeman? Was he one of those weird Orientals who could be tall or short depending on what mood he was in?
I’m hallucinating. He clamped his eyes shut for a few seconds and then opened them again.
Kim descended several thousand feet and crouched beside him. “You appreciate the irony. The captor has become the captive.”
“What’s the difference?” Beeman heard himself ask. He watched as Kim retrieved a pack of cigarettes from somewhere and lit one.
Beeman was smiling up at him like an expectant schoolboy. “Smoking again?” he slurred. “I thought we decided it’s a bad idea.”
Kim was fascinated. He would soon be able to peer directly into this most bizarre of minds. He’d memorized Beeman’s dossiers: Born October 23, 1951, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Witnessing the death of a schoolmate mauled to death by a vicious dog had traumatized Beeman at age ten. Beeman’s father, Williston Beeman, had been an accountant employed by a mining company until his suicide by overdose of barbiturates and alcohol when Beeman was fourteen. Beeman had been the one to find his father’s body. One of his schoolteachers had insisted that Beeman had talked his father into doing it.
Kim believed this was possible, if not likely.
Despite these traumas, Beeman had graduated with top grades from Coeur d’Alene High School in 1968. Soon after that, his mother had also taken her own life, leaving her car running in a closed garage shortly after Beeman had left for college.
Five years after that, he’d received a BS in chemistry from MIT, graduating magna cum laude in 1973. He’d earned a master’s degree, also from MIT, in molecular biology in 1976, following a brief withdrawal from the acade
mic program for reasons unknown. He’d received a PhD in molecular biology from the California Institute of Technology in 1981. His doctoral thesis was entitled Electrostatic transport phenomena influencing transmission of airborne pathogens: aerobiological and epidemiological effects of infused negative ions. The thesis described Beeman’s laboratory studies proving that electronic means could enhance or suppress the contagiousness of certain diseases. It landed Beeman a place in the spotlight of germ warfare research.
Beeman subsequently published papers on many aspects of genetic engineering, but this much was obvious: Beeman had dedicated his professional career to researching and developing new and deadly contagious diseases.
In 2007, Beeman had gone to work for DataHelix, Inc. an extremely advanced research corporation with but a single customer: the DOD. During his first seven years with the company, Beeman had worked at a small clinical research facility in Irvine. Then four years ago they’d transferred him to the ultra-secure underground research facility hidden beneath the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge a few miles northeast of downtown Denver. The Black Sunrise project was just starting up then. Most of what Kim and his colleagues knew about the Black Sunrise virus came from the world-class DPRK cyber-warriors—the best hackers in the world.
The Black Sunrise viral weapon system was Beeman’s brainchild, his ultimate achievement. The innovations and discoveries attributable to Beeman’s work could revolutionize the study of medicine, yet they were locked away on air-gapped computers that had no connections of any kind to the outside world. They were therefore unreachable by even the most sophisticated crypto-pirates. So Beeman had come under North Korean surveillance, which had produced a startling revelation: the brilliant mind that had brought deadly new life-forms into existence spent leisure time plotting with a lowlife limo driver various means of kidnapping and torturing young women.
And that mind lay open to probing and suggestion, practically in the palm of Kim’s hand.
Black Sunrise Page 17