Noah Wolf Box Set 4

by David Archer

  With both knives held in her left hand, she took hold of his arm with her right and Noah followed as she marched him through the bedroom door. A laptop was laying on the bed, and Morton sat on the bed beside it, then pulled it close to him.

  “Like I said, he was on yesterday,” he said. “We were talking, and it shows his IP address. That’s kind of a safety feature, so we know exactly who we’re really talking to.”

  “Ah,” Jenny said. “So you know whether you’re talking to a cop or not, right?”

  Morton was using just his left hand to type on the keyboard, his right still trying to hold his cheek together. “Yeah, something like that,” he said. He watched the screen through his tear-filled eyes, then pointed. “There it is, see it? That’s the IP address of his phone. Now, give me a minute, and I can tell you exactly where that’s at.”

  He copied the IP address and then opened another browser. A website opened up that was designed to track the location of a specific IP address, and he pasted the numbers into the box waiting for it. When he hit the enter key, the screen suddenly displayed GPS coordinates, along with a street address.

  “See that?” Morton asked. “I know right where that is. That’s out near Thorpe Village, in the Business Park.”

  Noah memorized the address instantly. “And how long ago was this? How long since he was at that location?”

  “How long? No, this is real time. I just tracked the IP address of his phone, and if you look at the timestamp, his phone is active right now. That’s where he’s at, you can bet on it.”

  “You’ve done very well, Leonard,” Noah said. “And now we can do something about that pain.” He glanced at Jenny and nodded once, and she stepped up behind Morton…

  And froze. As Morton stared at Noah, waiting for the word to leave, to run away, to go and find a doctor, Jenny stood there and looked at the man with a pained expression on her face. Her eyes went over his shoulder to look into Noah’s, and she caught his imperceptible nod.

  She looked back at Morton, who still had his back to her, and raised her hand. She hesitated for a moment, then licked her lips and closed her eyes.

  Noah watched her with his peripheral vision, keeping his eyes apparently locked on Morton’s, to hold the man’s attention. Jenny appeared to take a deep breath, and then she let it out, opened her eyes, focused on Morton again and reached around in front of him. The knife flashed across his throat, and Morton spun his head around to look at her. He stared in silence for only a few seconds, and then the lack of blood to his brain put him to sleep for the last time.

  “See?” she asked the fallen corpse. “No more pain, just like I promised.”

  She raised her eyes to look at Noah.

  “You okay?” Noah asked.

  “Just peachy,” Jenny replied, smiling. “Just had to remember what kind of creature I was dealing with. This is why I’m like this, isn’t it? Because things like him need to be eliminated sometimes, right?”

  Noah nodded. “My grandfather used to tell me that God made each of us with a special gift,” he said. “I think that might be yours.”

  Jenny nodded thoughtfully, looking once more at Morton’s body. “You can stop worrying, now,” she said. “I’m back.”

  NINETEEN

  “Lingenfelter,” Albert answered his phone.

  “It’s Noah Wolf,” Noah said. “We have a location on Martin Embry.” He gave Albert the address. “Jenny, Sarah and I are headed there now, but I think some backup might be in order. If you could send Marco out to me, and perhaps Liam?”

  “I’ll get them on the road right now,” Albert said. “Hell, I’ll bring them, I’m coming along. I know where that is, and there’s a petrol station at the corner of Half Acre Lane and Thorpe Road. Meet us there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Noah said. He hung up the phone and told Sarah where to go as she wheeled the Land Rover out toward Egham. “Albert’s coming along, and bringing Marco and Liam with him. We’ll meet at the service station, then roll in together. We’ll leave it up to Albert whether we take Embry alive or not.”

  “He probably won’t be alone,” Jenny said. “This could get pretty ugly.”

  “Yeah, you hope so,” Sarah said. She looked sideways at Noah. “I told you so,” she said.

  Jenny, in the back seat, looked at her in the mirror. “You told him so about what?”

  “I told him you didn’t lose your killer instinct,” Sarah said. “Everybody’s been a little worried that you might have lost a bit of it with that incident a couple months ago.”

  “She settled that earlier,” Noah said, “with Morton.”

  Jenny bit her bottom lip for a moment. “Look, I couldn’t kill Allison,” she said. “That wasn’t because of any weakness, though. It was because she just means too much to me. I may be a sociopath, but I’m still human. It just made me — I don’t know, I just sort of lost a little bit of focus, but I’ve got it back.”

  “And that’s why we love you,” Sarah said with a smile. “Don’t worry, I had faith in you. I knew you wouldn’t lose your edge for long.”

  Jenny looked at Noah. “But you were actually worried about it?” she asked.

  “I don’t worry,” Noah said. “I simply considered the logical possibility that your inability to kill Allison might have caused you to see your victims differently. I was pleased to see that it did not.”

  Jenny stuck her tongue out at him, and he sought her out of the corner of his eye. “That’s for doubting me,” she said. “But that’s all over now, so let’s get back to work.”

  They arrived at the service station a short time later and waited another ten minutes for Albert and the other men to arrive. When they pulled in, Noah was not terribly surprised to see Neil in the back seat of the car. All seven of them climbed out and stood behind Albert’s car as Neil opened the case he was carrying.

  Inside, there was a small but powerful drone. Neil picked up the controller from its place inside the case, then lifted out the drone and set it on top of the car.

  “We’re going to do a little aerial surveillance,” he said, “before anybody goes rushing in there. This is something the MI6 people showed me, and it’s awesome. Allison is going to have to get some of these, that’s just all there is to it.”

  A video screen in the lid of the case lit up as the drone came to life, and they saw themselves receding as the little machine lifted into the air. The view changed as it turned and started toward its destination, and they saw a number of commercial buildings in the distance. The drone made quick time and was over one of those buildings less than two minutes later.

  “Now, watch this,” Neil said. He touched a button on the controller and the image changed to thermal. “Now, that’s the building Embry is supposed to be in. I count one, two, three—okay, four heat signatures. One of them is moving around, but three of them are stationary. My guess is that the one moving around is probably Embry, and the others might be his bodyguards or jailers.”

  “I agree,” Albert said. “All right, there are three entrances to the building. Noah, why don’t you and the young lady take the front, Liam and I shall go in the back entrance, while your men can enter from the side.” He pointed at the video screen, indicating the entrances as he named them. “When we go in, the orders are shoot to kill. Just be careful not to strike any container holding the poison, but we are not interested in taking prisoners.”

  “That sounds fine,” Noah said. “Are we ready?”

  “Let me get the drone back,” Neil said. “It will only take a minute, but this baby needs to be put away properly.” They waited a couple of minutes more, then got back into the vehicles and drove the last half mile toward the building. The two cars pulled in separately, with Sarah parking the Land Rover in front of the building while Albert drove around to the back.

  “You wait here,” Noah said to Sarah. “Jenny and I will go in first and hopefully distract the soldiers inside while Albert and the others come in. Jenny, take any target
of opportunity, but don’t put yourself at risk. You and I are unfortunately the two most valuable operatives in this mission, and Neverland would not want to lose us over something this mundane.”

  “Don’t worry, boss,” Jenny said with a grin. “I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in weeks. Trust me when I say I plan on enjoying myself the rest of the day, including tonight when I get Neil alone in our room.”

  Noah nodded once. “Activate all,” he said, turning on the subcom units. Marco, Neil, Jenny and Sarah all acknowledged that they were on the channel with him. “All right, Jenny and I will go now. Neil and Marco, you follow Albert’s lead.”

  Noah and Jenny got out of the car and jogged toward the front entrance, both of them with pistol in hand. They flanked the door when they got there, and then Noah kicked it open. They went in quickly and cleared the first room they entered within seconds.

  A shot rang out a moment later as one of the soldiers apparently reacted to the sound of the door crashing. The bullet zinged past them and struck the wall, and Jenny returned fire instantly. The man who had shot at them fell, and Jenny quickly put the second round through his forehead.

  “One down,” she called out.

  “Good job, baby,” she heard Neil say through the subcom, and she grinned.

  “All clear back here,” Marco said, also via subcom. “We’re moving your way.”

  Gunshots rang in the back of the building and Noah and Jenny started toward the sound. By the time they got there, the shooting had stopped and everything was quiet. They found the door and opened it, then looked carefully into the room.

  Two men lay dead, each of them with a pistol close to his hand, while another man they recognized as Martin Embry was cowering behind some boxes. He was crying out, begging everyone not to shoot him, and Albert held up a hand. “Everyone, hold fire,” Albert shouted. He and Liam stepped into the room, and then Marco and Neil came from another direction. Noah and Jenny entered last, and Jenny pointed her gun at Martin’s head.

  “Please, please don’t shoot me,” he begged. “I didn’t have a choice, I was forced to do this.”

  “Bribed is what I heard,” Jenny said, her voice dripping with venom. “You were bragging to Leonard Morton yesterday that Tushar was going to let you have your little teenage girlfriend. Is that right?”

  Embry blinked. “It—it’s not quite the way it sounds,” he said. “He—he actually said he would kill her if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

  All three of the men who had been left to guard Martin were dead, and Albert and Liam were quickly searching through the building. A few moments later, they came back to Martin.

  “All right, where is it?” Albert asked. “The poison, Touch of Death. Where is it hidden?”

  Martin blinked. “Well, it’s not here,” he said. “It’s all gone, sent out to wherever Tushar wanted to use it. It wouldn’t do him any good if it was here, would it?”

  All six operatives simply looked at him.

  “Then where the bloody hell is it?” Albert shouted. “Just where does he plan to use it?”

  Martin shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know that,” he said. “I didn’t need to know that, so he never told me. He simply wanted me to make it for him, so that he could put it to work in the special operation.”

  “What special operation is that?” Albert asked. “The one where he murders half the bloody population?”

  “Oh, no,” Martin said. “You misunderstand. Tushar is working for the United Nations. He was given the contract to reduce the overpopulation problem.” He sneered at them. “Of course, all the little nations don’t understand just how necessary it is, but the UN does. It’s only logical, the only way to avoid letting people starve to death in misery. With over a billion people gone, there will be enough food to go around for everyone. Your minds are just too small to grasp the necessity.”

  “Overpopulation problem?” Albert looked around the building. “How much of it did you make? How much does he have? Is there truly none of it left here?”

  Martin smiled. “Oh, I did very well. I made a total of almost 16 gallons, nearly enough to eliminate a third of the people in the whole world. Of course, he won’t need that much, but he wanted to be certain he had plenty, just in case something happened to some of it.”

  “A third of the people?” Neil asked, incredulous. “There’s no way he could get it to that many people. It has to be applied directly to the skin, doesn’t it? How could he get it on to that many people?”

  Martin turned it to him and gave him a look that suggested Neil was merely a child. “Of course he couldn’t,” he said. “But that method was only for the testing phase. We spent all of yesterday just dehydrating it, making a powder. Delivery is so incredibly simple when it’s a powder, all he has to do is put it in a pressurized container, and ship it by air. Once the aircraft reaches significant altitude, the canister will rupture on its own and the protein powder will escape the plane through the pressure relief vents as it begins to descend. It will drift in the air for a while, of course, but eventually it will settle toward the surface, and the people will breathe it in. As soon as it comes into contact with the lungs, the protein will enter the bloodstream and begin to replicate. It’s really quite ingenious.”

  “Ship it by air?” Noah asked. “Has he already begun?”

  “Why, I believe so. We put it into sixty containers, and they were all picked up for shipping yesterday afternoon. I would imagine they are already in the air.”

  Neil gasped. “Oh my God,” he said. “A plane coming in for landing at a major airport could release a massive cloud of this stuff. If it landed at one of the big ones, like O’Hare or LaGuardia, the winds could easily carry it right into Chicago or New York City. Everybody there could be wiped out.”

  Everyone stared at Neil for a moment, and then Albert grabbed for his phone. He tapped a speed dial icon that contacted the director immediately. “Mr. Lambril? We need to ground all commercial flights originating in the U.K. Yes, sir, immediately, and I can explain when I get back to HQ.” He listened for a moment, then nodded his head. “Yes, sir, I’m certain. We’re talking about a potential global disaster that could cost billions of lives.”

  He held the phone to his ear for a moment longer, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Now, we need only hope that we have acted in time.”

  He ended the call, then dialed again. “Angeline? A number of packages were picked up at this address yesterday. We need to find out who picked them up, how they are being shipped and to what destinations. Get with the computer people, and get started on this immediately. Those packages must be found, and they must be stopped from being shipped anywhere if at all possible.”

  He ended the call and turned to Noah. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep Mr. Embry with us for a bit longer. I’m certain the director is going to have many more questions for him before this day is over.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Noah said, “but I have one right now. Embry? Is there any kind of antidote or cure for this stuff?”

  “Well, of course not. Once someone is infected, there’s certainly no cure. The rate of replication is far too high, death occurs before any action can be taken. Of course, once it is in powder form, you need only protect your mouth, nose and eyes, or any open wounds. Those would be the only way that the protein could enter the body. The simplest type of safety mask could probably work, as long as it covered the eyes.”

  “What about destroying the powder? How can it be destroyed, so that it’s no longer dangerous?”

  Martin grinned. “Oh, that’s so simple,” he said. “Just immerse it into salt water. The salt bonds directly to the protein, altering its three-dimensional structure and making it benign.”

  Noah turned to Albert. “We have to find the stuff,” he said. “And we need to find it fast.”

  Local police, signaled by Albert, were arriving on the scene to take charge. Albert and
Liam gave them brief instructions, then took Martin into custody. He and Liam would drive back with the prisoner while Marco and Neil chose to ride back in the Land Rover with Noah, Jenny and Sarah.

  Oh, God, Noah,” Sarah said, her voice coming through the subcom. “What can we do?”

  “We got Embry,” Noah said. “Unfortunately, as you heard, the situation has gotten much worse. The protein has been powderized, which makes it far more deadly than it was in its liquid form. Apparently, it’s being shipped by air in pressurized containers that will burst, so that the powder will be blown all over the place as the plane descends for landing. It will float in the air for a little while, but when it comes down, people are going to die.”

  Sarah stared at him. “Oh, my God, Noah,” she said. “Where…”

  “We don’t know yet. Albert has people trying to figure that out now. For the moment, we just need to get back to SIS headquarters.”

  Noah, Jenny, Marco and Neil came out of the building and got quickly into the car. Sarah looked at Noah for a moment, glanced at the three in the back seat, and then put the car in gear.

  “Subcoms off,” Noah said.

  TWENTY

  “According to the courier company,” Angeline said as soon as they returned to the conference room, “a total of fifty-four packages were picked up at that location yesterday, at around 4 PM. Each was labeled for shipment to different parts of the United States, Canada, Australia, the U.K. and Europe. We’ve managed to ascertain that forty-nine of them are still waiting to be loaded onto aircraft, but the other five were already shipped. I’m waiting for a call now to tell me which aircraft they are on. Unfortunately, that leaves another six unaccounted for.”

  Albert ran a hand through his hair, then spotted Catherine Potts sitting at the table. She looked tired and bedraggled, and he suddenly understood exactly how she felt.

  They all sat at the table, and Catherine pointed at the speaker that sat on the table in front of her. “Mr. Lambril, Albert is back with his people.”