Noah Wolf Box Set 4

by David Archer

  Noah grinned at him. “Well, probably a little of both. Do you have any recommendations on where I should try?”

  “The back of this estate is heavily wooded, and quite well populated with red deer. However, I should point out that if you plan to shoot the deer, that is referred to as deer stalking, rather than hunting. Hunting is when one rides on horseback and follows the hounds. It does not involve shooting. As far as game birds, we are well endowed with pheasants and grouse, and there is a large population of rabbits on the grounds. I can arrange for the lads to act as beaters, if you wish.”

  Noah started to speak, but Marco cut him off. “Beaters? What does that mean?”

  “In traditional game shooting, beaters are employed to drive the game toward the shooters. Normally, the shooters all stand along a line on one side of the property, generally some meters apart, while the beaters drive the game toward them. As they break from cover, the shooters may take aim and fire.”

  Marco looked over at Noah and grinned. “Sounds like my kind of hunting,” he said. “Beats the dickens out of sitting in a blind and hoping something will come by.”

  “I’m sure we’ll give it a try,” Noah said. “Let’s see what the ladies have in mind before we make any decisions, shall we?”

  “Have in mind about what?” Sarah asked as she entered the room. Noah glanced around to see Neil and Jenny right behind her. Jenny was smiling from ear to ear, and Neil’s face was red.

  “John and I are thinking of doing some hunting,” he said. “Thomas says there are deer on the estate. He was just explaining to us about the way hunting is done here in England.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said. “Is it hunting season?”

  They all turned and looked at Thomas, who smiled. “Under the Regulations of the Wildlife Act, the previous owners registered the estate as a wildlife farm, which means that the owners of the estate and any person authorized by the owners are permitted to shoot any game or animals within the grounds, regardless of season. I take the liberty of seeing to the annual renewal of the license, myself. The lads occasionally stalk deer for the purpose of keeping venison in the larder, and we often stock up on duck, goose and pheasant in this way. Being the owners, you are therefore always authorized to hunt on your own property.”

  Jenny suddenly broke into a smile. “We’re going hunting? I’ve never been hunting, that sounds like fun.”

  Renée laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not hunting, Stacy,” she said, using Jenny’s cover name. “Over here, they call it stalking or shooting.”

  “Awesome. I’m in.” She turned to Neil. “Gary?”

  The tall, skinny young man grinned. “Might as well,” he said. “I could use some exercise.”

  Thomas beamed at the entire group. “Very well,” he said. “I shall inform the lads, and they can begin preparing. May I suggest we schedule this event for tomorrow morning?”

  Noah glanced around at the others, who all seemed pleased with the suggestion. “That sounds good,” he said. “At the moment, though, I think we all want to hunt down breakfast.”

  “Indeed. Caroline is making an American breakfast for you, eggs and bacon and sausage with potatoes and onion. I hope this will be to your liking?”

  “Sounds great to me,” Neil said, and the rest echoed him.

  Thomas clapped his hands twice, and the door from the kitchen opened. Caroline, Thomas’ wife, along with two young women, brought out the food and began serving it onto the plates in front of each chair. The third girl carried a large carafe of coffee, and poured for each of them.

  They thanked the servers and dug in. Breakfast was delicious, and provided the perfect setting for the amiable conversation that took place around the table, once the servants had returned to the kitchen and Thomas had gone his own way.

  “So,” Sarah said, “we’re going hunting tomorrow. Does that mean we can go shopping today?”

  “Oh, shopping,” Renée said, smiling. “This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to come to England, and I intend to get some shopping in.” She looked at Marco. “You can get by without me for a few hours, can’t you?”

  “It’ll be hard,” Marco said with a straight face, “but I’m sure I can find something to occupy myself.”

  “I know I can,” Neil said, and then lowered his voice. “I got an email from the Dragon Lady this morning. She wants me to set up a videoconferencing system over here. I’m going to need to make a trip into London to get everything it’ll take.”

  “Videoconferencing?” Noah asked. “Did she say why? Is there something going on?”

  “No clue. She just told me to get it set up as soon as I could, so I figure that means getting on it today.”

  “Then I suppose the best idea would be for all of us to head into London. I was thinking of buying a car, something to tinker with when we’re over here. The girls could take the Bentley, and we’ll take the Land Rover.”

  “Oh, I get to drive the Bentley?” Sarah asked with a smile. “Eat up, girls, I’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of that beauty.”

  They all finished eating a few minutes later and went upstairs to get ready for the day. Sarah, Jenny and Renée changed into dresses, while the men decided to simply go casual. A half-hour later, they walked out to the garage and started toward London, with Sarah leading in the beautiful, old Bentley T2.

  TWO

  “Albert,” said Victor St. John. “You’re here over the poisonings?”

  Albert Lingenfelter settled into the chair in front of St. John’s desk. “C told us to take over,” he said. “Was up to me, I’d leave it in your lap. What can you tell me about it so far?”

  “I can tell you it’s a bloody nightmare,” St. John replied. “Eight different laboratories in the city are trying to determine just what the agent is, but so far they’ve come up with nothing. We know that it kills quickly, usually within thirty minutes. The only symptoms are fever and discoloration of the skin wherever the victim came in contact with it. There are absolutely no clues as to how it’s being vectored, no witnesses have reported seeing anything strange around the victims, and the victims so far are from such diverse portions of society that we can’t come up with anything to connect them. Without some way to tie this all together, we can’t even speculate as to a motive. Your guess is every bit as good as mine, at this point.”

  “What about volume? How much of this stuff does it take to kill?”

  “That’s another bloody problem. Each of the victims has only the slightest trace amounts of this unknown substance in the blood. We know that it’s contacted through the skin, but unless it naturally breaks down in the body, we have to assume that it takes very little. The latest speculation is perhaps half a milligram. Simply get it on your skin, and you’ll be dead before you even know what’s happening.”

  “Through the skin, eh? But there’s no sort of patch or anything, like they use to help people stop smoking? That absorbs through the skin, right?”

  St. John shook his head. “Again, we got nothing but speculation,” he said, “but it appears there’s nothing involved in transmitting this poison, or at least nothing we can find. One of the lab techs speculated that it might be a swab, just a little bit on a cotton-tipped stick. Touch somebody with it, and there’s absolutely no hope of saving them.”

  “Terrible. Do we know anything on the mechanism? What it does to the body that causes death?”

  “Now, there is a consensus, but it’s not definite. It appears that the substance renders blood cells incapable of carrying oxygen in sufficient quantities to sustain life. That’s based on blood tests taken after the very first secondary victims began to show symptoms. Blood oxygen levels were down to 75%, which is far too low, and got even lower at the point of death. Good chance that’s how it actually kills, and it could be a factor in the discoloration of the skin.”

  Albert nodded. “Yes, if the blood that first comes in contact with it suddenly becomes deprived of oxygen, the skin would discol
or, wouldn’t it? I’ll need a copy of everything, your entire file. Also, I want a sample sent to our own laboratory. Not saying ours is any better than yours, but the more eyes we have looking at this, the better.”

  “Don’t apologize, I’m happy to be rid of it. Just do me the favor of letting me know what you find, will you? This may be terrorism, but right now I’m leaning toward a simple madman. The last thing I need is a serial killer who doesn’t leave a trace behind.”

  Albert got to his feet. “You have my word,” he said. “Let’s gather it up quickly, so I can get back and get started. I’ve been ordered to set up a team to begin the investigation, and I need to brief them as soon as I can.”

  St. John picked up the phone on his desk and pushed a button. “Genevieve? I’m sending Albert Lingenfelter down. Give him the entire file on Touch of Death. Yes, everything. Good lass, he’s on his way.”

  He hung up the phone and looked up at Albert. “Two floors down, first door to the left of the elevator. Genevieve Roth will have everything for you by the time you get there.”

  The two men shook hands and Albert left the office. He walked down the hall toward the elevator, rode it down two floors and found Genevieve just where St. John had said. The woman looked to be in her fifties, but the sheer terror in her eyes was enough to make Albert nervous. She handed him a thick file folder.

  “This frightens you?” Albert asked her.

  The gray-haired woman nodded. “More than anything else I’ve ever seen in this job,” she said. “We’re calling it the Touch of Death, because it leaves no kind of mark on the body. It’s literally like Death walked by and laid a finger on each of the victims, taking their souls without even slowing down.”

  Albert grinned. “Been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett lately? Death was one of his favorite characters, I believe.”

  “Not this one,” Genevieve said. “His Death was handicapped because he cared about people, but this one—this one only seems to care about causing more death.”

  Albert looked into her eyes for a moment. “Don’t worry, love,” he said. “We’ll find him, and if he’s thin and bony and wearing a black robe, I’ll use his own bloody scythe to take his head off.”

  Genevieve swallowed, but tried to smile. “I certainly do hope so.”

  With the file under his arm, Albert left the building and got into his car. He sat for a moment behind the wheel and simply flipped through the pages, taking note of a few passages that seemed to jump out at him.

  Victims seem unconnected. First victim was found in Croydon, then two more in Harrow, another in Battersea Park, then three in Hampstead Heath. The first victim, a young woman, resulted in the deaths of two paramedics who had tried to determine what happened to her. Both of them perished in the back of the ambulance before it ever got to the hospital. Another paramedic died after touching the Harrow victims. Prophylactic precautions have been ordered for all paramedics and medical staff since then, but there have been at least three other coincidental deaths among those who discovered the bodies…

  Thus far, all laboratories report detecting an unknown substance. The substance appears to be chemical in nature, but its chemical composition and molecular structure have never been seen before. It appears to act by breaking down hemoglobin in red blood cells, reducing their ability to transport oxygen to other parts of the body. This condition, known as hypoxemia, can lead to hypoxia which results quickly in coma followed by death. At this time, there is no survival rate.

  Albert closed the file and dropped it on the seat beside him, then started the car. He drove directly back to Vauxhall Cross and went to his office, where he began composing a list of agents for his team.

  Charles Wimbley was the first name on the list. Charles had been with the agency for more than thirty years, like Albert himself. Charles was a skilled agent, and had been of great service to the country on more than one occasion.

  Next was Liam Scott, a younger man who had been with the agency for only a couple of years. Despite being relatively new on the job, Liam was capable and very intelligent. He’d been instrumental in solving a number of difficult cases since coming aboard.

  His last choice was Angeline Portnoy. A little older than Liam Scott, Angeline was highly logical and had a talent for detecting patterns that others might not see. Between the three of them, Albert felt he would have a team that would be able to find the source of the strange poison and the person or persons behind it.

  List in hand, he got up and went back to Catherine’s office. She was sitting where he had seen her last, and looked up from whatever document she was perusing when he walked in and sat down.

  “Give me your first reactions,” she said quickly.

  “You handed me a puzzle,” Albert said. “The poison is an unknown, something new that we’ve never seen before. So far, none of the laboratories been able to identify it at all, and they say it’s something obviously new and original. Apparently, it causes death by making it impossible for the blood to carry oxygen properly. The victim lapses into hypoxia, a complete lack of oxygen, and becomes comatose shortly before dying. It appears there’s no kind of treatment or counter agent, and no one is going to survive it once exposed.”

  “So what are we looking at? Terrorism?”

  “St. John thinks it could be just a madman, someone out to enjoy killing indiscriminately. My instincts tell me otherwise, that we’re dealing with someone who has an agenda that we have yet to understand. I’m afraid that by the time we do, there will be a lot more victims on the slabs at the morgues.”

  “What about transmission? How is the poison being delivered to the victims?”

  “Five calls it the Touch of Death, because it seems to be delivered directly by a touch to the skin. Whatever it is, it is absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream, where it breaks down red blood cells. That’s what causes the blood to be unable to carry enough oxygen to the rest of the body.”

  Catherine stared at him for a moment, her lips pursed in concentration. “And yet we’ve only a few victims, so far. If it’s absorbed through the skin, it’s probably a liquid. That means it could be sprayed, or splattered. I’m imagining balloons filled with this stuff and thrown into crowds. Dozens, possibly even hundreds could die, and there’d be nothing we could do about it.”

  Albert nodded. “I’ve gone a step further,” he said. “Put some of this into a canister with an explosive inside. It could be dispersed over a wide area, and we don’t even know whether it can be carried on the wind. From what they are saying so far, the tiniest drop would be enough to ensure your death. I can fathom a hundred ways that large numbers of people could be affected, and it frankly frightens me half to death.”

  “Then whoever is behind this is obviously still in the testing phases. It certainly won’t be long before he decides to raise the stakes and go for a bigger kill.” She shook her head. “Albert, we’ve got to find this person and put a stop to this, and quickly.”

  “I agree.” He leaned forward and laid a slip of paper on her desk. “You told me to prepare a team. These are my selections.”

  “Charles, good. Liam? Probably a good choice, there. Angeline, however? She’s very good at analysis, but I don’t think she’s ever been out in the field.”

  “Neither were we, once. She’s got a knack for seeing things others don’t, Catherine. I’m going to need all the insight I can get on this case. I want her, unless you absolutely forbid it.”

  “Oh, posh, you know me better than that. There’s nobody in the entire agency I trust more than you, Albert.”

  “Which is why I get stuck with all the dirty jobs.” He took the list back from her and tucked it into his pocket. “With your permission, then?”

  “Granted,” Catherine said. “Bring me this bastard’s head, Albert.”

  “That, my dear, is exactly what I intend to do.”

  He rose from the chair and went back to his office, then got the file and gave it to his secretary. “I need
three copies,” he said. He waited until she had started making the copies, then went into his office, called all three of his choices and told them to meet him in the conference room down the hall. He stopped at the coffee urn and got another cup, then collected the copies from his secretary and wandered down to the conference room himself.

  Charles and Liam were already present, while Angeline showed up a moment after Albert. Once they were all seated, he folded his hands over the top of the stack of folders in front of him and let his eyes roam over each of theirs.

  “We’ve a new assignment,” he said. “Have you all heard about the mysterious poisonings around the city?”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “At least, I have.”

  “And I,” Liam added.

  “I’ve been following the story,” Angeline said. “It’s rather frightening, to be honest.”

  “I’m afraid it’s far more frightening than you have thought so far,” Albert said. “MI5 had the case until today, and they named it Touch of Death. I’m going to brief you on what we know so far, and I’ve taken the liberty of making you each a copy of the file I received from them. This poison is something that’s never been seen before, a chemical substance that can break down hemoglobin in the blood. It is absorbed through the skin, and it takes a very tiny amount to cause whatever reaction makes it impossible for the blood to carry oxygen throughout the body. Within minutes after coming into contact with the substance, your blood oxygen level is reduced to the point that you lose consciousness, followed by a coma and then death. In at least a couple of cases we know of, it took less than fifteen minutes from exposure to death.”

  “That’s horrifying,” Angeline said. “How many victims have there been so far?”

  “More than a dozen. Three of those were paramedics, and I believe there was also a nurse who died. They were exposed while examining the original victims, I’m afraid. Whatever this stuff is, enough of it remains on the surface of the skin to affect and kill more than one person.”

  “Do we know how it’s being introduced to the victims? The original victims, I mean?” Charles asked.