The Hades Factor

Randi returned. “No one up front.”

  “No one anywhere,” Jon said. “But Marty was here not long ago.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it. He hates to go out in public or to risk contact with strangers. Where could he have gone? And why?”

  “What about your other friend? The MI6 person?”

  “Peter Howell. No sign of him either.”

  They studied the silence and emptiness. There was a sense of abandonment. Jon was at a loss and very worried about Marty and Peter.

  Randi was peering at the interior, at the bullet holes that had eaten up sections of the walls and destroyed some of the hanging maps. “There was one hell of a battle, from the looks of it.”

  He nodded. “My guess is Peter must have had armor sheeting built in under the RV’s metal skin. Look at where the shots landed. The only way the bullets got inside was through the windows.”

  “And the fire fight obviously wasn’t here. We’d have seen signs outside.”

  “Agreed. Marty, Peter, or both escaped in the RV and were hiding out here.”

  “We’d better search more thoroughly.”

  Jon sat at the computer to look for what Marty had been working on, but Marty had applied some kind of password that blocked him. For a half hour he tried to break through. He keyed in the name of Marty’s street in Washington, his birth date, the names of his parents, the name of the street where he had grown up, their elementary school. They were all traditional sources for passwords, and Marty had probably used them in the past. But not now.

  Smith was shaking his head in discouragement when Randi called out. He turned quickly.

  “Look! Now we know who has the serum!”

  She was sitting on the small sofa, all long legs and blond dishevelment. As she leaned forward, her blond curls fell toward her eyes, and her pink lips were pursed in thought. He could see her long dark lashes even across the room. Her twill trousers had pulled up a little, and her slender ankles showed above her tennis shoes. Her breasts were outlined high and round under her tight white turtleneck. She was beautiful. With the intense expression on her face, she looked so like Sophia, and for a moment he regretted agreeing to work with her.

  Then he pushed it all away. He knew he had made the right decision, and they had to get on with it. “What have you got?”

  She had been going through the piles on the coffee table. She held up a copy of The New York Times so he could see the front-page banner headline:

  BLANCHARD PHARMACEUTICALS HAS CURE

  He crossed the room in three long steps. “I recognize the company name. What does the article say?”

  She read aloud:

  At a special press conference last night, President Castilla announced that preliminary tests showed a new serum had cured a dozen victims of the unknown virus that is sweeping the world.

  Originally developed to cure a monkey virus found in a remote area of Peru, the serum was the result of a decade-long research-and-development program into little-known viruses at Blanchard Pharmaceuticals that was initiated by its CEO and chairman, Victor Tremont.

  “We are grateful for the foresight Dr. Tremont and Blanchard showed in investigating unknown viruses,” the president said last night. “With their serum, we are optimistic we will be able to save many lives and stop this terrible epidemic.”

  Twelve nations have placed orders for the serum and others are expected to make formal requests shortly.

  President Castilla said he would attend a ceremony at 5:00 P.M. today honoring Tremont and Blanchard at the company’s headquarters in Long Lake. The ceremony will be broadcast around the world … .

  Jon and Randi stared at each other.

  “The article says it was a decade-long project,” he said.

  “You’re thinking about Desert Storm.”

  “You bet I am,” he said angrily. “Nineteen ninety-one. Maybe they had nothing to do with infecting the twelve victims. This is a monkey virus, and we can’t be sure it’s the same virus that we’ve been working on, even though the serum apparently cures it. But I’ve got to wonder. Now they come forward with a serum? Very convenient.”

  “Too convenient,” she agreed. “Especially since we know three were cured last year in Iraq and three here just last week. But as far as we know, it’s a different virus.”

  “Suspicious as hell.”

  She said, “You don’t believe it’s a different virus.”

  “As a scientist, it’s such a remote possibility that the only alternative that comes to mind is some madman from the company stole it and decided to play God. Or Satan, if you will.”

  “But how did the epidemic break out? Awfully good timing that Blanchard happens to have a serum that works on monkeys and apparently on people. How could Blanchard or anyone know it’d break out now, or ever?”

  He grimaced. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

  They stared at each other in silence.

  That was when they heard a faint sound behind the RV. A twig snapped.

  Randi swept up her Uzi, and Jon pulled the big Beretta from his waistband. In the cramped RV, they listened intently. No more twigs broke, but there was a light rustle of something moving among fallen leaves.

  It could have been the wind or an animal, but Randi did not believe it. Her chest tightened. “One,” she estimated. “No more.”

  Jon agreed, but: “It could be a scout sent ahead, the rest watching. Maybe from the trees back there.”

  “Or a diversion, and the others out front.”

  The sound ceased. There was nothing but the distant traffic.

  “You take the back,” he said. “I’ll take the front.”

  He flattened against the wall next to a front window, inched to the edge, and looked out toward the door and studied the row of used RVs. He saw no movement.

  “Quiet back here,” Randi whispered as she scrutinized the woods that formed the back perimeter of the lot.

  “There’re too many blind spots,” he decided. “We’ll have to go out.”

  Randi nodded. “You go left. I’ll go right. I’ll lead.”

  “I’ll lead.” He raised the Beretta and reached to fling open the door.

  Suddenly there was a loud click and a scraping of wood on wood behind them.

  They whirled like a pair of synchronous swimmers at the Olympics, their weapons ready.

  Surprised, they watched four squares of the large geometric pattern on the vinyl floor swing up, instantly followed by a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.

  Jon instantly recognized the weapon. “Peter!” He forced himself to relax the finger on his trigger. “It’s okay, Randi.”

  She frowned and stared suspiciously as the lined, leathery face of Peter Howell emerged as far as his shoulders. He wore a trench coat over his black commando clothes.

  Instantly he pointed the H&K at Randi. “Who?”

  Jon said, “Randi Russell. Sophia’s sister. She’s CIA. It’s a long story.”

  “Tell me later,” Peter said. “They’ve got Marty.”

  Chapter Forty

  10:32 A.M.

  Lake Magua, New York

  Marty’s head rotated as he gazed around the windowless room with its dank basement smell and single cot. He concentrated hard to see it. Where he sat tied to a chair with thin nylon rope, his mind was floating in a luminescent cloud above everyone’s heads, dazzling and airy and all-knowing. He loved the feeling of floating, his heavy body so light he seemed effervescent. Part of him knew he had been too long between doses of Mideral, but the rest of him did not care.

  He was annoyed. “You must realize all this is absolutely ridiculous at your ages. Cops and robbers! Really! I assure you I have much more important matters to attend to than sitting here answering your stupid questions. I demand you take me back to the pharmacy instantly!”

  His voice was firm, even arrogant, and in the chair in the basement room of Victor Tremont’s grand lodge he drew himself up defiantly. These people would not intimidat
e him! With whom did they think they were dealing? Zounds, the rascals and poltroons would soon know that it was unwise, even dangerous, to attempt to do battle with him!

  “We do not play games, Mr. Zellerbach,” Nadal al-Hassan said coldly. “We will know where Smith is, and we will know at this moment.”

  “No one can know where Jon Smith is! The world cannot contain him or me. We fly through a different time, in another universe. Your puny world does not have enough gravity to hold us. We are infinite! Infinite!” Marty blinked up at the pockmarked Arab. “My goodness, your face. How terrible. Smallpox, I should guess. You’re lucky to have survived. Do you know how many died over the centuries from that dreadful scourge? How long and at what cost it has taken the world to eradicate the disease? There are still two or three test tubes of it in deep freezers. Why—”

  Marty rambled on as if sitting at his ease in some armchair and discoursing with a group of students on the history of viral diseases. “There’s a new virus breaking out right now. It’s deadly, Jon tells me. He says he thinks someone actually has it and is killing people with it. Can you imagine?”

  “What else does Jon say about this virus?” Victor Tremont asked, smiling and friendly.

  “Oh, a great deal. He’s a scientist, you know.”

  “Perhaps he knows who has it? What they plan to do with it?”

  “Well, I assure you, we—” Marty stopped and his eyes narrowed. “Ah, you are trying to trick me! Me! You fools, you cannot outwit The Paladin! I will speak no more.” He clamped his lips tightly together.

  Exasperated, al-Hassan muttered an Arabic curse and raised his fist.

  Victor Tremont put out a hand. “No. Not yet. The medicine he got at the pharmacy where Maddux found him is Mideral, one of a new family of central nervous system stimulants. With what you learned from his doctor, we know he has a type of autism. From his behavior, I’d say he’s off the medicine and irrational.”

  “Then can we learn nothing about where Jonathan Smith is?” al-Hassan asked.

  “On the contrary. Administer his Mideral. Within twenty minutes, he will calm and come crashing back to reality. If his condition is Asperger’s syndrome, he may be exceptionally intelligent. But the Mideral will slow him down and make him a little dull. At the same time, he’ll be able to recognize he’s in danger. We should be able to get what we need from him then.”

  Marty sang loudly. He barely noticed when al-Hassan untied one of his hands and gave him a pill and a glass of water. He stopped to swallow the pill then resumed singing as al-Hassan tied him again.

  Victor Tremont and the Arab watched as his vocalizing slowly faded, his arrogant pose slumped against the ropes, and his feverishly bright eyes turned quiet.

  “I think you can question him now,” Tremont said.

  Al-Hassan smiled his wolf smile and walked around to face Marty. “So, let us begin again, Mr. Zellerbach, eh?”

  Marty looked up at the lean, dour Arab. He cowered on the chair. The man was too close, and he looked evil. The other man—the tall one—stood on Marty’s other side. He was too close as well, and too menacing. Marty could smell them. Strangers. He could barely breathe. He wanted to make them go away. Leave him alone.

  “Where is your friend Jon Smith?”

  Marty quavered in the chair. “Ir-Iraq.”

  “Good. He was in Iraq. But he is now back in America. Where will he go now?”

  Marty blinked up at them as they leaned closer, eager. He remembered posting the message to Jon on the Web site. Maybe Jon had already found it and was heading toward the RV. He fervently hoped so.

  He felt his teeth grind. No! No, he would not tell them. “I—I don’t know.”

  The Arab muttered another curse and swung his fist. Marty screamed with fear.

  Pain exploded in his head, and a great wave of black rolled over him.

  “Damn.” Victor Tremont knotted his fists. “He’s unconscious.”

  “But I did not strike him with that much force,” al-Hassan protested.

  Tremont scowled with disgust. “We’ll have to wait until he comes to and try something less physical.”

  “There are ways.”

  “But with him, it will be tricky not to kill him. You saw how excitable he is.”

  They stared in frustration at the silent Marty, whose head hung limply forward, his body lashed to the chair.

  “Or,” Victor Tremont began to smile. He paused as his shrewd mind worked on an idea. “I have a much better way to find what we need to know.” He nodded. “Yes, a much better idea.”

  10:35 A.M.

  Syracuse, New York

  Peter Howell peeled off his trench coat to reveal his black commando suit. His pale gaze surveyed the bullet-spattered interior of his high-tech RV. Brief sadness showed on his lined face, and then it was gone, overtaken by complete concentration as he walked rapidly through it, checking.

  “What happened to Marty?” Jon stared at the Englishman’s back as he turned from the driver’s seat. “Do you know where they’ve taken him?”

  “Spotted him at a chemist’s a few blocks from here. Pharmacy to you Yanks. There were three.” Peter’s wiry body bristled with energy as he strode toward them. “The leader was that short, heavy fellow we saw back at the ambush on the dirt road in the Sierras.”

  Randi said, “That means the people with the virus have him?”

  Jon grimaced. “That’s what it means. Poor Mart.”

  “Will he talk?” Randi asked.

  “If he had, I’d think they’d be here by now,” Peter said.

  “But he will?”

  “He’s not strong,” Smith admitted. He described Asperger’s syndrome.

  “That little fellow is a lot tougher and shrewder than one would imagine, Jon,” Peter decided. “He’ll find a way not to crack.”

  “Not forever. Not many can. We’ve got to get him out of there.”

  “Do we know where he is?” Randi asked Peter.

  Peter shook his head. “Unfortunately, I was on foot and unable to follow the car they took him away in.”

  “How did you figure out where to find him?” Jon asked.

  “Located the RV from his message about an hour ago.” Peter reported how he had found the RV empty, just as they had. But he had also found drafts of a fake doctor’s prescription printed out from the computer. “Marty must’ve forged a prescription for his Mideral. He was almost out of his pills last night when we separated.” He described the gunfight in the park.

  Jon shook his head. “How do you think they found you?”

  “I figure they must’ve been tailing us all the way from Detrick just looking for the most agreeable moment to attack. I thought I’d shaken any possible pursuit, but it would seem they’re quite good.” His gaze settled on bullet holes that had pocked a map of Third World countries and shook his head. “I went looking for the closest chemist’s shops. I got to the third one just as Marty came out and those three seized him.”

  “No indication on the car who they were?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  “Then the only way we’re going to find him is to find them.”

  “Right. A serious problem. I may have a solution, but first fill me in quickly about Iraq.”

  Smith hit the high points of his investigation in Baghdad until the Republican Guards’ attack in the tire shop.

  The Englishman’s wrinkles expanded in a wide grin at Randi. His gaze swept over her in appreciation. “The CIA is improving the quality of its agents, miss. You’re a welcome change over the usual sobersides in their three-piece suits. Just a garrulous old man’s opinion, mind you.”

  “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.” Randi smiled back. “I’ll be sure to pass on your recommendation to the director.”

  “You do that.” Peter turned to Jon. “What happened next?” His face went quickly sober again as he listened to what they had learned from Dr. Mahuk in the pediatric hospital, and how they had been captured by
the Baghdad police who had apparently been in the pay of whoever was behind the virus.

  “So three victims were cured in Iraq, too?” The Englishman swore. “A diabolical experiment. Don’t like to think about the money and power that can actually accomplish anything in that closed-off country. Of course your trip confirmed the virus’s roots in the Gulf War.” He paused. “My turn. Got a little piece of news that blows the lid off this whole nasty business. I believe I know what Sophia discovered that was so important in Giscours’s report from the Prince Leopold Institute.”

  Jon inhaled, excited. “What?”

  “Peru. It was Peru all along.” He described Sophia’s field trip there twelve years before as an anthropology student from Syracuse. With that small piece of information, he had contacted a former associate in Lima, who had secured a list of scientists who had trekked into the Peruvian Amazonia that same year.

  Smith asked instantly, “You have the list?”

  A grin of satisfaction spread across Peter’s brown, leathery face. “Does a fox find the heather? Come, children.”

  As he stalked to the kitchen table, he pulled out two folded sheets of paper from somewhere inside his black commando outfit. He lay them out, flicked on the overhead light, and the three of them bent over, quickly reading the names.

  Peter explained, “There were a lot more in Amazonia that year, but not at the same times as Sophia.”

  The fourteenth leaped out at both Jon and Randi.

  “That’s it!” Randi said. “Victor Tremont.”

  Smith nodded grimly. “CEO and chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceutical. The president’s going to give him a medal today for saving the world with his serum. The great humanitarian, working his company around the clock to produce it while he sells it only at cost.”

  “Bloody hell.” Peter shook his head. “Believe that, and you’ll believe we Brits acquired our empire to bring civilization to the natives.”

  “We already knew Blanchard had the serum,” Randi said, thinking about the newspaper story. “Now it seems Tremont himself brought the virus from Peru.”