The Hades Factor

  Jon tried to hide a surge of fear as he remembered Jerzy Domalewski’s description of the six-story underground torture and execution complex. He exchanged a look with Randi, who sat close on his left. Her face was expressionless, but he saw her hand tremble. She knew about the detention center, too. That hellhole was not survivable.

  The canvas flap dropped, and they were cut off from the outside. The two guards sat back, their rifles pointed at the prisoners. There were sounds in front as the officer and other police climbed into the cab.

  As the truck lurched away, Jon was silent. Because of him, Randi had been caught. He had no illusions about what they would do to a CIA spy, especially a female one. And how was he going to get word to USAMRIID and the Pentagon to tell them what he had learned about the virus and cure?

  He said quietly, “We have to get out of here.”

  Randi nodded. “The detention center doesn’t thrill me either. But our guards are armed. Lousy odds.”

  He gazed through the inky shadows at the two Iraqis, whose faces were fixed in watchful stares. Besides assault rifles, they had holstered pistols on their hips.

  They bounced onto a street so narrow that the truck’s canvas sides scraped the stone walls.

  They had to act before it was too late. He turned to Randi.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Are you feeling ill?” he suggested.

  She pursed her lips. Then she understood: “As a matter of fact, I feel a terrible stomach cramp coming on.”

  “Groan loudly.”

  “Like this?” She moaned and grabbed her stomach.

  “Hey!” Smith called to the guards. “She’s sick. Come help her!”

  She doubled over and shouted in Arabic, “I’m dying! You’ve got to help!”

  The guards exchanged a look. One raised his eyebrows. The other laughed. They hurled words Jon did not understand. Randi groaned again.

  Jon stood, his back bent below the canvas top, and took a step toward the guards. “You’ve got to—”

  One shouted at him, while the other fired his rifle. The shot blasted so close past Smith’s ear that the sharp whine seemed to pierce his brain. As the bullet exited out the top of the canvas roof, the two guards motioned him roughly back.

  Randi sat up. “They don’t believe us.”

  “No kidding.” Jon fell onto the seat, his hand over the ear, his head ringing. “What were they saying?” He closed his eyes, willing the throbbing pain to go away.

  “That they’d done you the favor of missing. Next time, we’re both dead.”

  He nodded. “Figures.”

  “Sorry, Jon. It was worth a try.”

  The truck was turning from narrow street to narrow street, following a twisting route. Its sides continued to rasp occasionally against buildings. She could hear the cries of shopkeepers open long after they should have closed in the hope of one more sale, perhaps their only sale of the day. Sometimes there were the disembodied, scratchy sounds of prewar radios. Everything told her they were staying in the older parts of Baghdad.

  She whispered, “They’re driving too slowly and staying on the back streets. That’s not logical. The Baghdad police go wherever they want. Keeping a high profile is part of the job, but these men are avoiding major thoroughfares.”

  “You think they’re not police?” He dropped the hand from his ear. The pain was receding.

  “They have the uniforms and the high-powered Russian weapons. If they’re not police, they’ll be dead if they’re caught. I don’t know who else they could be.”

  “I do.”

  As he said that, the past week came rushing back, and something happened that he had been fighting: Randi disappeared, and Sophia took her place. His heart ached with every fiber at the sight of her again. Sophia’s beautiful black eyes shone out at him, surrounded by the smooth, pale skin and the long, cornsilk hair. Her full lips spread in a sweet smile, showing tiny white teeth. She had that indefinable beauty that was so much more than flesh and bones. It radiated from an inner core of decency and vitality and intellect that transformed mechanics into aesthetics. She was gloriously beautiful in every way.

  For one moment of madness, he truly believed she was alive. Just by reaching out, he could gather her into his arms, smell the scent of her hair, and feel the beat of her heart against his. Alive.

  He dug deep inside himself, searching for strength.

  And made himself blink.

  He shook his head to clear it. He had to quit lying to himself. He was looking at Randi.

  Not Sophia.

  They were in grave danger. He had to face the truth. His stomach felt hollow, like an elevator falling too fast. It was possible neither of them would survive. He could delay no longer.

  He had to tell her about Sophia. He had to say the words because if he did not, he was going to slip over into some other world where he could pretend forever Randi was Sophia. He could not allow his emotions to continue these cruel games.

  Because it was not just his future at risk. It was Randi’s, too, and tens of millions of people who could die from the virus. He could hear Sophia’s voice inside his mind: “Shape up, Smith. Just because you decide to live doesn’t mean you don’t love me. You’ve got a job to do. Love me enough to get on with it.”

  Randi was studying him. “You were going to say who you think the police are.”

  He inhaled again, pulling oxygen and sanity into his body. “At the time, I didn’t notice. But when they first attacked, their leader said my real name. Not the cover name I’d been going around Baghdad using. I don’t see how else he could’ve known I was Colonel Jon Smith except that he—all of them—were hired by the people with the virus. They’ve been trying to stop me from investigating ever since—”

  He made himself see her, not her sister. But as he did, her face tightened as if she realized he was going to tell her something terrible, something that affected her intimately. One more thing she might never forgive him for.

  He said gently, “Randi, I have terrible news. Sophia’s dead. They murdered her. The people behind all this did it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Randi jerked erect. For a moment Jon had the sensation she had heard something else … not his voice or words. Her face was frozen. The muscles seemed to atrophy. But she gave no other outward sign she had received the devastating news that her sister had been murdered.

  In the shocked silence, he felt the truck’s every bump and lurch. Their lives depended on it, so he forced himself to pay attention. The truck’s speed was increasing. Buildings seemed farther away, and the sounds of voices and radios receded. They must be on a wider street. He noted traffic sounds and bits of conversation from the truck’s cab, but that was all.

  His pulse throbbed guiltily at his temples. “Randi?”

  Suddenly her face collapsed. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she remained erect and motionless. She had heard the words, but she could not understand the meaning. Pain seared through her. Sophia? Dead? Murdered? She rejected them. Impossible. How could Sophia be dead?

  Her voice was wooden through her tears. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. I’m sorry. I know how much you loved her, and she loved you.”

  Guilt overwhelmed her. His words were hammer blows. I know how much you loved her.

  She had not seen Sophia in months. She had been too busy, too involved in her job. Other people needed her more. She had thought there would be plenty of time later to be close and really enjoy each other again. When they had both done what they had to do.

  When Jon Smith no longer took up so much of Sophia’s life.

  It felt as if her heart were shattering. Angrily she used the fingers of both hands to wipe away her tears.

  “Randi?”

  She heard his voice. Heard the truck … with a sudden hollowness below the wheels. Her mind quickly shifted, and as if from a great distance she realized they were crossing a bridge. A long bridge with
the sound of the truck echoing off water beneath. She heard the rush of open air around them. The far-off cries of men who were night fishing. The bray of a donkey.

  And then with an aching rush, she remembered. Sophia. She crossed her arms, trying to hold herself together, and she looked at Jon. There was devastation in his face. His grief looked so deep it could never be erased.

  That face was not lying: Sophia was dead.

  Sophia was dead.

  She inhaled sharply, trying to control herself. Her sister’s face kept flashing into her mind. At the same time, she was looking at Jon Smith. She had just begun to think she could trust him. She wanted to believe he had nothing to do with it, but she could not help her suspicions.

  His blind arrogance back when he had been treating Mike had led to Mike’s death. Had he killed her sister just as he had killed Mike?

  “How?” she demanded. “What did you do to her?”

  “I wasn’t there, not when it happened. I was in London.” He told her everything, from the time he met Bill Griffin to his discovery of the missing page and the needle mark in Sophia’s ankle. “It was the virus Sophia was trying to identify, classify, and trace to its source. The same virus I followed here to Iraq. But her death was no accident. The virus isn’t that contagious. She would have had to have made a very careless mistake. No, they infected her with it because she had uncovered something. They murdered her, Randi, and I’m going to find out who they are and stop them. They won’t get away with it … .”

  As he talked on, she closed her eyes, thinking about how much Sophia must have suffered before she had died. She fought back a sob.

  Jon continued, his voice low and earnest, “ … They murdered our director and his secretary, too, because I’d told them someone had the live virus and was using it on people. Now we have a global epidemic. How the new victims contracted the virus I don’t know, or how someone cured a few. But I’ve got to find out … .”

  He was still talking over the rumble of the truck, which was driving faster. The noises of the city had been left behind, and now it seemed as if they were in open country. There was only the occasional roar of a vehicle passing in the other lane.

  Another surge of tears overcame her. He put an arm around her shoulder, and she pushed him away. She wiped her face with her sleeve.

  She would not cry anymore. Not here. Not now.

  “ … They’re powerful,” he was saying. “Obviously, they’ve been here in Iraq. Maybe they still are. Which is one more reason to think they sent these ‘police.’ The people behind the virus seem to reach everywhere. Even into our government and the army itself. High up into the Pentagon.”

  “The army? The Pentagon?” She stared at him in disbelief.

  “There’s no other explanation for USAMRIID’s being taken out of the loop, shut down, and the lid clamped on. And then all the records that were erased through the NIH’s FRMC terminal. I was getting too close, and they had to stop me. It’s the only explanation for Kielburger’s death. He was calling the Pentagon to tell them what I’d discovered when he vanished. He and his secretary disappeared and were found dead hours later. Now they’re looking for me, too. I’m officially AWOL, plus I’m wanted for questioning in the deaths of General Kielburger and his secretary.”

  Randi repressed a bitter comment. Jon Smith, the man who had killed her great love, was telling her the U.S. Army was somehow involved in her sister’s death and he had run from them in the noble cause of pursuing his investigation. How could she believe him? Trust him? His whole story sounded like some kind of enormous fabrication.

  Yet any American who came to Iraq now risked his life. She had seen his courage as he had tried to protect Dr. Mahuk from the Republican Guards before he had even known she was Dr. Mahuk. Then there was the virus itself. If he had been the only one to tell her about it, she would be doubtful. But Dr. Mahuk was also a source, and she trusted Radah Mahuk.

  As she was contemplating all this, she heard the truck cross another long bridge. Again there was the familiar hollow sound below, echoing from water.

  What water? She came totally alert. “How many bridges have we crossed?”

  “Two, as I recall. About fifteen, twenty miles apart. This is the second one.”

  “Two.” Randi nodded. “That’s what I counted. There should be a third soon.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. And another. They were all gone—her father, mother, and now her sister. First her parents in a boating accident off Santa Barbara ten years ago. And now Sophia. She wiped her eyes again as they waited, silent in their shared grief.

  The truck drove onto a third bridge, and instantly she was back in the present. In the moment. At work. Right now it was her only balm.

  In a charged whisper, she told him, “We must’ve crossed the Tigris in the middle of Baghdad. Then the second bridge had to be over the Euphrates. The third must be the Euphrates again. We’re not going south. We’re going west. If the land goes into a slow climb, we’ll know we’re heading into the Syrian Desert and eventually to Jordan.”

  Impressed, Jon stared past Randi at the two policemen, who were talking quietly. Their rifles rested in their arms, the muzzles pointed casually toward their prisoners. It had been a long time since he had tried to break away.

  He said, “Tell them I’m stiff. That I’m just going to stretch.”

  She frowned, puzzled. “Why?”

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  She seemed to study him again. At last she nodded. “Okay.” She spoke humbly in Arabic to the two heavily armed men.

  One responded in a bark, and she uttered more words.

  At last she told Jon, “He says it’s all right, but only you can stand. Not me.” She gave a grim smile.

  “Figures.”

  He got up to his feet and arched his back as if his limbs had gone to sleep. He could feel the policemen’s intense gazes from the tailgate area. When they turned away, bored again and half asleep, he put his right eye to a long tear in the slope of the canvas roof. He looked out and up.

  Suddenly the harsh voice of one of the policemen snarled.

  Randi translated. “Sit, Jon. You’ve just been busted.”

  Smith fell back to the bench, but he had seen what he wanted: “The north star. We are going west.”

  “The Justice Detention Center is south.”

  “So I was told. Besides, that had to be miles back. They’re not taking us to jail, and they’re not taking us to the center. You have any weapons they didn’t find?”

  Her brows raised. “A small knife inside my thigh.”

  He looked down at her sedate gray skirt and nodded. She would be able to reach it quickly.

  With an abrupt lurch, the Russian truck slowed and threw them forward. Another lurch sent them against the cab in front. It slammed Randi into Jon. She quickly pushed away. The vehicle stopped. Voices talked roughly. Suddenly there were noises of men climbing from the cab and walking forward, talking.

  In the truck’s rear, the two policemen went into a crouch, AK-47s at the ready.

  She cocked her head, listening to the Arabic words. “I think the officer and one of his men got out of the cab.”

  Jon shook his shoulders to relieve the strain. “Is it a checkpoint?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence. Then laughter. More laughter, a slapping of backs, some boot clicking, and the two policemen climbed back into the front of the truck. The engine ground gears and bumped forward, gathering speed.

  Randi’s voice was low and thoughtful, “From what I could hear, the Republican Guard stopped them, and they had no trouble convincing them they’re legitimate police. The Guards even seemed to know the officer by name.”

  “Then they are the police?”

  “I’d say so, and that means they’re probably moonlighting for your American friends. If we’re both right, then whoever’s behind all this has not only power but big money. The only good thing about our situation is we’re not in
the detention center. Still, there are six of them, all highly armed.”

  The corners of Jon’s mouth turned up in a half smile, but his blue eyes were cold. “They haven’t got a chance.”

  She frowned. “What do you have in mind?”

  He whispered, “The pair who’re guarding us were close to dozing off before the Republican Guard stopped the truck. With luck, the motion and monotony will lull them again and put them into a kind of trance. Let’s pretend to nap. It could make them sleepy, too.”

  “We can’t wait long. They haven’t brought us out here to enjoy the desert air.”

  They sat in silence, eyes closed, heads drooping as they simulated sleep. They shifted positions from time to time the way sleeping people did. As his head nodded and he let out an occasional low snore, Jon watched the guards with his peripheral vision.

  Miles passed. The guards’ desultory conversation quieted and slowed as the truck rocked on into the night. Smith and Randi grew drowsy themselves. Then they heard a light snore that was not one of Jon’s.

  “Randi.” His voice was husky.

  One of the policemen had slumped back against the canvas side. The other’s head had fallen forward, and he was nodding, fighting sleep.

  Soon they would have the chance for which they had hoped—prayed, to be precise.

  Jon pressed his index finger to his lips then pointed for Randi to crawl along the left side of the truck bed while he would crawl along the right. Randi nodded. They turned over onto their stomachs and rose to their knees. As the truck continued to rock, they slipped forward in the dim light.

  Abruptly the truck made a sharp turn. Everyone was thrown hard to the right as it left the road for what felt like a rutted trail. The heavy vehicle jounced and shook with teeth-rattling vibrations. Disappointed, Smith resumed his slumped position against the wall, and Randi settled quickly back into her old spot as the two Iraqis, instantly awake, complained to one another.

  “Damn,” she muttered.

  The truck slowed, but the damage was done. There was no way they could jump these alert guards and survive.