The Hades Factor

  “That’s all he could tell you?” She was disappointed.

  “Yes. Except he’s sure Tremont’s caused this pandemic somehow.”

  The shout of rage echoed through the lab. “Useless! It’s all nothing!”

  Marty was glaring at Haldane and the conference room where they had locked up the technicians. “There’s nothing in the files of Tremont and Associates. It’s all routine junk about antibiotics and vitamins and hair spray! That technician lied to us.”

  “No,” Haldane realized. “That’s Victor. It’s a dummy company. These people are technicians. He used them but told them nothing. They think they’re working for Tremont and Associates. The Hades password is his idea of a joke on anyone accessing his computer.”

  Jon nodded. “That sounds like the kind of man who could run an experiment on humans in the Gulf War. But the real stuff has to be in there somewhere, Mart. Keep hacking. We’ve got to know.”

  Marty sounded discouraged. His meds had not worn off yet. “I’ll try, Jon. Only I really need my own—”

  They heard a sudden sound outside the windows of the secret laboratory. Like a seasoned team, Jon and Randi dashed to look out. A car was approaching on the mountain road, a cloud of dust spinning out from the tires.

  Adrenaline jolted Smith. “Mart! Haldane! Watch those technicians.”

  Jon and Randi tore across the laboratory, out through the door, and down to the landing. Side by side, they dropped flat where they could see anyone below who passed through the corridor from the living room or the side door. Randi looked over at Jon, at his blue eyes so intense, at his wide face with the hard chin, his swept-back black hair. His expression was granite.

  “Now what?”

  “We’ll know soon.” He did not look at her. He did not have to. He could feel her presence like a reassuring friend.

  Two car doors closed. Footsteps rapidly approached the house. A voice spoke low and urgent.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  3:32 P.M.

  Lake Magua, New York

  Rapid footsteps, soft and light, padded swiftly along the corridor from the back door.

  “What the—” Randi began.

  Before Jon could answer, the big Doberman, Samson, appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at the landing, bared his fangs, and bunched his powerful muscles to attack.

  Smith stood up, his Beretta behind his back. “Samson, sit!”

  Puzzled, the dog cocked his head. Jon repeated the command, and suddenly the animal seemed to identify him as one of the “friends” Bill Griffin had ordered him to sniff under the RV. Slowly he sank back on his haunches, still staring up.

  Jon raised his voice. His face was eager. “Peter?”

  The lean and leathery ex-SAS strolled into view, again wearing the trench coat buttoned over his black commando suit. “Who else? You don’t think Samson would go over to the enemy, do you?” He and the Doberman climbed the stairs.

  Randi jumped up. “Perish the thought. Good to see you, Peter.”

  Smith’s smile was broad. For a moment he looked ten years younger. “We’ve been worried.”

  “No sentries outside. That your handiwork?”

  Jon said, “Yes. Everyone else is at the ceremony, I expect.”

  Randi added, “Except for four lab techs we’ve got locked up. And the former head of Blanchard, who’s helping Marty at the computer.”

  Randi stopped, and she and Jon stared at Peter, whose left arm was dangling straight down, useless. Blood had dried on Peter’s left wrist and hand beneath the long trench-coat sleeve.

  “You’re wounded! How bad? Let me look at it,” Jon ordered.

  “Pinprick.”

  “Goddamn it, come up here and take off your coat.”

  He held the laboratory door open as Peter sighed and topped the stairs, Samson at his side.

  “Marty,” Randi called as they entered. “Peter’s here.”

  Marty spun in his chair as Peter walked in. A smile of welcome wreathed his round face. The Englishman allowed himself a return smile. He and Marty stared at each other a long moment.

  Finally Peter said, “Mustn’t worry about me, my boy. Remember the old man’s been through worse than this on more continents than he cares to name. Now get yourself back to work.” There was affection in his voice.

  Marty’s green eyes twinkled. He gave a short nod and returned to his chair. As he told Mercer Haldane about Peter, the Doberman appeared at Marty’s side. Marty patted him, and the dog sighed and laid tiredly at his feet.

  The Englishman said quietly to Jon, “Don’t fuss. I’ve stopped bleeding. I’ll be fine until I reach the docs.”

  “I am a doc, you crazy Brit. Everything else about you may be working, but your memory’s going south.”

  Peter gave a wry grimace and laid the H&K submachine gun on a lab bench. Jon helped him off with his trench coat. Underneath, he wore only his commando trousers and webbed belt. His chest was naked. Bullets had struck him in the side and arm. He had wrapped what looked like pieces of a torn sheet around the wounds.

  As Peter unwound the cloth, Randi got the older male technician from the conference room. He produced an extensive first-aid kit. The wound in the upper chest below the armpit had gone cleanly through the flesh around an upper rib. It appeared to have cracked the rib, but touched nothing vital. The arm injury was a shallow tunnel through muscle. The bleeding had all but stopped. Jon washed the wounds, applied antibiotic, rebandaged each one properly, and insisted Peter take at least aspirin.

  Smith told him, “You need a hospital, but that will hold you for now.

  “Good as new,” Peter declared. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

  “We’re pretty sure this is where Tremont and his associates did most of the actual work. Marty and Haldane are trying to bust into the records now. Tremont pushed Haldane out only last week. Blackmail, he says, but I suspect he settled for a big cut of the billions they’ll all make. Then his conscience started bothering him.”

  “It’d be pleasant if conscience bothered more people,” Peter observed. “Shall we see what progress they’ve achieved?”

  “Not a damn thing.” Randi shook her head with discouragement. “Marty’s still loosening up from his meds and having trouble figuring how the records are entered. This system’s unconnected to Blanchard’s mainframe, so Haldane’s stumped.”

  Randi was leaning over Marty and Mercer Haldane as Marty manipulated the keyboard and Haldane sat beside him, interpreting what he found.

  “Tell the boy,” Peter said, wincing as the simple act of speaking tweaked his wounds, “he had best hurry. Samson and I injured the enemy but we by no means put them out of action. That Arab we saw back in the Sierras appears to be the boss, just as Griffin said. He escaped unharmed with at least two of his men. The rest won’t be active anytime soon, if ever.”

  “Could they have followed you?” Randi wanted to know.

  “Think not. But it’s likely they’ll eventually decide Griffin or Marty informed us of this lodge and that we’re here. They could arrive with reinforcements any minute.”

  Jon said, “You hear that, Mart?”

  “I’ve tried everything I know,” Marty snapped testily. “Now I’m working to establish an untraceable link with my computer so I can use my own programs. Give me another few seconds.”

  Both the testiness and the quickening of his speech showed his meds were almost gone, and they waited as patiently as they could.

  “Someone better go down and watch,” Smith realized. “Not you, Peter.”

  “Samson can go. He’ll be a better lookout than any of us.”

  As Peter sent the dog off, Marty shouted, “I’m connected!”

  “Thank God,” Randi said fervently.

  “All right, let’s start a search for the company that operates this computer.” Marty worked the keyboard, and the screen began to flash permutations too fast for them to see. Finally on the screen appeared the logo and name of
Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

  “That means Victor registered the machine to us, and we pay for it,” Haldane said. “An unexplained extra computer system was one item the accountants found they couldn’t trace to any authorized research program.”

  Marty played across the keyboard. The screen continued to flicker through a series of computations. Finally a name flashed on: VAXHAM Corporation.

  “What the devil is VAXHAM?” Haldane wondered.

  Marty was leaning forward, concentrating. He clicked on VAXHAM, and it lit up with a long series of directories. One was “Laboratory Reports.” He punched in and scrolled rapidly through the dated entries all the way back to the very first one: January 15, 1989. Jon leaned over his shoulder.

  “Wow,” Jon breathed. “A report of the first restriction enzyme mapping of the monkey virus from Peru! Now we’re getting somewhere.” Smith pulled up a stool. He studied the restriction map of the virus and in his mind compared it to the same mapping of the one that had killed Sophia that he had studied at USAMRIID. He let out a long whistle and looked up. “No surprise, but at last we have confirmation. They’re almost identical—in fact, they may be identical. The monkey virus and the one killing people are the same.”

  Randi said angrily, “Victor Tremont knew it all along.”

  Each year listed a summary of the technical findings for virus and serum. They showed a steady lessening of the incubation time in victims before the final fatal outbreak and the steady increase in serum effectiveness on the virulent stage—at least in a petri dish and later in monkeys. Again it was confirmation of what they had guessed. But Marty could find no data about the Iraq experiments nor how the virus had suddenly spread like a contagion across the world from remote Peru—or from Victor Tremont and his VAXHAM Corporation.

  “The last directory is blocked by a password,” Marty announced. Then he sneered, “Complacent fools, they think they can keep out Zellerbach the Magician!”

  He raised his hands as if he were a concert pianist and attacked the keyboard. Using his own software, he sent the screen into a paroxysm of kaleidoscopic words, questions, commands, and images. It took a matter of seconds.

  “There!” Marty chortled. “How absurdly commonplace.”

  A single short phrase appeared on the screen: Lucifer at Home.

  “Hades,” Jon groaned.

  “People,” said Marty pompously, “are both unimaginative and predictable.”

  He entered the password. The first documents that appeared were a meticulous series of financial spreadsheets and summary reports covering every year from 1989 to the present. The corporate officers were listed: Victor Tremont, with some 35 percent of the stock, and George Hyem, Xavier Becker, Adam Cain, and Jack McGraw with 10 percent each.

  In his heightened state, Marty saw the connection instantly: “VAXHAM. With Tremont, an acronym of first and last names: Victor, Adam, Xavier, Hyem and McGraw, with an extra ‘A’ to make it look like a word.”

  “Those are some of the best people in the company.” Haldane was aghast. “All of them head departments, and McGraw’s security. No wonder they could get away with so much for so long.”

  Major stockholders were listed: Maj. Gen. Nelson Caspar and Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.). “There’s your army connection,” Randi told Jon. She shook her head with disgust.

  “Also the government,” Haldane said furiously. “Nancy Petrelli. She’s Health and Human Services. And there’s Congressman Ben Sloat.”

  Marty was still searching. “These seem to be year-by-year statistics of progress on the project. Reports of operations, I guess.” He paused. “Here are data about antibiotic shipments.”

  Jon and Haldane leaned closer.

  Haldane was surprised. “Those are Blanchard antibiotics. All of them. And the figures appear to be our total shipments for each year.”

  Puzzled, they read on until Smith suddenly inhaled sharply. He stood up, radiating rage. “That’s it!” His face was tight, his high cheekbones prominent under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights. His dark blue eyes had blackened into bottomless pits. He seemed to be fighting disbelief, violence, and grief.

  Mercer Haldane looked up, and Randi turned to stare.

  “What is it, my boy?” Peter had been sitting off to the side, weary and in pain, but the look on Jon’s face had snapped him out of his exhaustion.

  Jon’s voice was arctic. “Marty, print it out. All of it. Start with the corporate progress reports. And do it fast!”

  “Jon?” Randi was watching his drawn face and empty eyes. He was worrying her. “What does it mean?”

  Everyone focused on him. The lab was silent as his gaze slowly took in the test tubes, microscopes, and benches where so much despicable work had been done over the past decade. His chest burned, and his stomach felt as if a Mack truck had just slammed into it. He began to talk.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Jon’s voice was hoarse, and he spoke slowly, as if he had to make certain he was precise in each word. “Those antibiotic shipments of Blanchard’s tell the story. Remember when I explained that the virus isn’t very contagious? So that led me to the question of how so many millions of people could get so terribly sick and die at about the same time. The answer is what we guessed—Victor Tremont.” He hesitated. His hands balled into fists at his sides. He growled, “The bastard shipped the virus across the world in all of Blanchard’s antibiotics. Antibiotics that were meant to cure people were also infecting them with an untreatable, deadly illness.” His eyes were haunted. “Tremont and his gang set it all in motion ten years ago. The Hades Project. For a decade he’s been contaminating Blanchard’s antibiotics to infect millions even though he knew he might never have a cure when the virus went into its fatal stages!”

  “Bloody hell,” Peter said, his voice unbelieving.

  Jon went on as if he had not heard. “They sent the virus out to create an epidemic that’d start ten years later, working to change the virus so that every year it would mutate into its lethal stage earlier and earlier. All so it would turn lethal to millions and millions this year, and they could cure it and make billions of dollars in profit. That was before they could know whether they’d ever have a serum, or that it’d be effective enough, or that it’d be stable and could be even shipped. They condemned millions of people to certain death on the gamble they could make them pay to save their lives.”

  Randi shook her head, shocked. “It was all so Blanchard and Tremont could make billions of dollars. Get rich. Live well.” Her voice broke. “That’s why Sophia died. She was in Peru and must’ve met Tremont there. That’s the missing phone call. When she started studying the unknown virus, she remembered something, and she called Tremont. No wonder he had to stop her investigation.”

  Jon looked at Randi as tears slid down her cheeks. His eyes grew moist and his throat thickened. She reached out and took his hand. He nodded and squeezed hers.

  Haldane stood up, trembling with the horror of it. “Great Lord. I never imagined anything so obscene. All those poor sick people who needed our antibiotics. Trusting science and medicine to ease their suffering. Trusting Blanchard.”

  Jon turned on the former CEO in fury. “How much were you going to make, Haldane, before your sudden change of heart?”

  “What?” Haldane blinked at him. His wrinkled face became as angry as Jon’s. “Victor forged my name. He tricked me! He made it look as if I’d approved everything. What was I supposed to do? He had me cornered, powerless. He was going to take my company. I deserved something! I—” He stopped as if hearing his own words, and he fell back down onto the stool. His voice dropped in shame. “I didn’t know then what he’d done, how horrible the consequences would be. When I saw what it meant, I couldn’t stay silent.” He laughed a derisive laugh at himself. “Too little, too late. That’s what they’ll say. As greedy as the rest, he found too little conscience, too late.”

  “Sounds about right,” Jon said in revulsion. He turned his ba
ck on Haldane to face Peter and Randi. “We’ve got to—”

  “Jon!” The cry was so loud and appalled that everyone whirled to its source. All but forgotten in the horror of the revelation, Marty had continued working the keyboard and peering at the screen. “They never stopped. Oh, no, no, no. They’ve not only put the virus in the antibiotics every year since, they’re still doing it! It says here a shipment of contaminated medicine will go out today at the same time as the first antiviral serum shipment!”

  A thunderous silence filled the room. They looked at one another—Jon, Randi, Marty, Peter, and Mercer Haldane—as if they had not heard correctly. Could not have.

  Jon’s voice was stunned. “He’s creating a pandemic that will go on and on.”

  Randi added, “And make a nuclear bomb seem like a child’s toy.”

  Peter’s pale blue eyes pierced the lab. He gripped his injured arm as if the pain had suddenly increased. “Then we must mess up the arsehole’s plans.”

  “We’d better hurry.” Marty was still reading from the computer screen. “Blanchard will have a little over two billion dollars in payments wired electronically from many countries as well as America the instant the first shipment leaves the plant.” He swiveled around. His eyes snapped with outrage. “And your Victor Tremont appears to have recently opened a bank account in the Bahamas. Probably in case of an unexpected emergency, wouldn’t you think?”

  “So if we don’t stop him today,” Randi said, “another shipment of the virus goes out, and Tremont probably flies the coop with a billion dollars or so.”

  “But how?” Mercer Haldane groaned, seeing any chance for redemption in the pages of history vanishing. “Victor gets the medal, and the shipment goes out in an hour! And the president will be at Blanchard with the secret service and FBI and every policeman the state and village can spare.”

  Jon nodded. “The president!” A plan was forming in his mind. “That’s how we stop Tremont. We show the president what he’s done.”

  “If we can get to him,” Randi said.