The Hades Factor Part 15

CHAPTER.

NINETEEN.

Beretta ready, Smith climbed up to wait on the top rung of the metal ladder. He took a deep breath as the trapdoor unlocked. But it was still weighted in place by the tub. As he raised his Beretta, the tub swung up against the wall, the trap sprang open, and the entire bathroom plus a section of the hall and living room came into view. Smith repressed a grim smile. The situation was better than he had hoped.

Ahead was the back of the man at the toilet. The guy's jaw dropped. Staring into the mirror, he had seen the bathtub rise like a white apparition into the air behind. The guy was not only stunned, he was exposed. He did not even have time to zip.

But he was a professional. So, fly hanging open, he grabbed his weapon from where he had laid it on top of the toilet tank and spun around.

"Good. But not good enough." With a mighty swing, Smith slammed his Beretta into the man's knee. He heard bone crack. The man dropped to the floor, groaning and clutching the knee. His weapon skidded toward the door.

Smith leaped up through the trap, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun, and grabbed the walkie-talkie from the back of the toilet tank. Now the man could not shoot or call for help.

"Hey!" the man bellowed. Pain stretched his narrow face. He tried to get up, but the crushed knee shot disabling pain, and he fell back onto the floor.

"Oh, my," Marty said as he clambered out. He hurried past him and into the hallway.

Smith followed, locking the bathroom door.

Marty wondered, "You didn't shoot him?"

He pushed Marty forward. "I crippled him. That was enough. It'll take three or four operations to repair that knee. The way he is, he can't hurt us and he's not going anyplace. Come on, Mart. We've really got to move."

As they crossed Marty's computer-filled office, he stopped for a moment, his face forlorn. He sighed, then he followed Smith to the frontdoor cage, which had been shot open.

Smith cracked open the front door and peered out. The gray van still stood in the driveway. He was tempted to hot-wire it, a skill he had learned from Bill Griffin as a teenager, but the helicopter still swung back and forth over the bungalows.

"Mart, we're going to Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue and your car. Grab your meds."

"I don't like this." Marty stumbled back to his desk, picked up a small black leather case, and returned to Smith at the front door. "I don't like this at all." He shuddered. "The world is full of strangers!"

Smith ignored his complaints. Marty might fear people he did not know, but Jon figured he was far more afraid of dying. "Stay close to buildings, walk under trees, anything to hide. No running--- that'd attract attention. With luck, the chopper up there won't spot us. If it does, we'll have to lose it when we reach your car. To be safe, I'm going to try to disable the van out there."

Marty suddenly raised a finger. He grinned from ear to ear. "I can handle that!"

"From here? How?"

"I'll fry its computer."

Smith never doubted Marty where electronics were concerned. "Okay. Let's see you do it."

Marty hunted in his desk drawers and produced a leather case about the size of a large camera. He aimed an aperture through the front doorway at the side at the van. He opened the lid, twirled some dials, and punched a b.u.t.ton. "That should do it."

Smith stared suspiciously. "I didn't see anything happen."

"Of course you didn't. I used TED to destroy the on-board computer that controls engine functions."

"What the h.e.l.l is TED?"

"Transient electromagnetic device. It works on RF--- radio frequency. Think of static electricity, but stronger. I built this one myself and made it even more powerful than the usual. But the Russians will sell you an industrial-strength one. It comes in a briefcase and costs a hundred thousand dollars or so."

Jon was impressed. "Bring that thing along." He stepped outdoors. "Let's go."

Marty stood motionless just outside his doorway. He stared, stunned at the blue sky and green gra.s.s and moving traffic. He looked overwhelmed. "It's been a long time," he murmured and s.h.i.+vered.

"You can do it," Smith encouraged.

Marty swallowed and nodded. "Okay. I'm ready."

Smith in the lead, they ran from the porch and along the high hedge to where it joined the side hedge. Jon pushed through, and Marty followed. At the street, he stepped out and linked his arm with Marty's. They were just two convivial friends strolling along toward the avenue two blocks ahead.

Behind them the helicopter hung over the pair of bungalows. Busy Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue was ahead. Once there, Smith hoped they could disappear among the throng of pedestrians flocking to the magnificence of Emba.s.sy Row and the other historic buildings and inst.i.tutions between Dupont and Sheridan Circles.

They did not make it. As they reached the second block, the chopper roared closer. Smith glanced over his shoulder. The helicopter was sweeping toward them.

"Oh, my." Marty saw it, too.

"Faster!" Smith ordered.

They ran down the side street, the helicopter following so low it was in danger of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the trees. The draft from the mighty blades blasted their backs. Then shots exploded from the chopper. Marty gave a little scream. Bullets kicked dirt and concrete around them and whined off into the air.

Smith grabbed his arm and shouted, "Keep running!"

They pounded on, Marty flailing like a combination of robot and rag doll. The helicopter pa.s.sed over and battled to bank and come back.

"Faster!" Smith was sweating. He pulled on Marty's arm.

The helicopter had completed its turn and started back.

But then Smith exulted. "It's going to be too late!" They tore onto Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue and plunged in among the crowds. It was Friday afternoon, and people were returning from long lunches, making plans for the weekend, and heading toward appointments.

"Oh, oh." Marty cringed against Smith, but he kept walking. His round head swiveled, and his eyes were huge as he took in the mult.i.tude.

"You're doing great," Smith a.s.sured him. "I know it's tough, but we're safe for a while here. Where's your car?"

Panting nervously, Marty told him, "Next side street."

Smith looked up at the helicopter that had made its turn and was now hovering over the crowds and moving ahead slowly, trying to single them out. He studied Marty in his customary tan windbreaker over a blue s.h.i.+rt and baggy chinos.

"Take off your windbreaker and tie it around your waist."

"Okay. But they still could spot us. Then they'll shoot us."

"We're going to be invisible." He was lying, but under the circ.u.mstances it seemed the wisest course. Hiding his worry, he unb.u.t.toned his uniform blouse and slipped out of it as they hurried along. He wrapped it around his garrison cap and tucked the bundle under his arm. It was not much of a disguise, but to eyes searching from a helicopter for two people in a crowd below, it might be enough.

They walked another block, the chopper closing in on them. Smith looked over at Marty, whose round face was miserable and sweating. But he offered a forced smile. Smith smiled back, even though he pulsed with tension.

The helicopter was closer. Suddenly it was almost above them.

Marty's voice was excited. "This is it! I recognize the street. Turn here!"

Smith watched the chopper. "Not yet. Pretend to tie your shoelace." Marty squatted and fussed at his tennis shoes. Smith bent and brushed at his trousers as if he had gotten dirt on them. People hurried past. A few threw annoyed glances at them for impeding the flow.

The helicopter pa.s.sed over.

"Now." Smith pushed through the crowd first, creating a path for Marty. In a dozen feet, they were on a narrow side street that resembled an alley. Marty led him to a three-story, yellow-brick building marked by a wide garage door. There was an attendant's kiosk, but no cars were going in or out. Smith did not like the flat roof. The chopper could land up there.

Marty presented his identification to a stunned attendant who had clearly never laid eyes on the owner of the vehicle in question. "How long you taking it out for, Mr. Zellerbach?"

"We don't know for sure," Smith told the man, saving Marty from having to talk to the stranger.

The attendant scoured the owners.h.i.+p papers once more and led them up to the second floor, where a row of stored cars waited under protective canvas covers.

When he whipped the cover off the next-to-the-last one, Smith stared. "A Rolls-Royce?"

"My father's." Marty grinned shyly.

It was a thirty-year-old Silver Cloud, as gleaming as the day it had cruised out from under the hands of the long-forgotten craftsmen who built it. When the attendant started it up and rolled it carefully out from the row, its original Rolls-Royce engine purred so softly Smith was not sure it was actually running. There was not a squeak, squeal, knock, or rattle.

"There you are, Mr. Zellerbach," the attendant said proudly. "She's our belle. Best car in the house. I'm glad to see she's going somewhere at last."

Smith took the keys and told Marty to sit in the backseat. He left his uniform blouse off but put on his cap so he would look more like a chauffeur. Behind the wheel, he studied the dashboard instruments and gauges on the whorled wood and examined the controls. With a sense of awe, he slid the clutch into gear and drove the elegant machine out of storage and onto the side street. Almost anywhere in the nation the Rolls would stand out as glaringly as his Triumph. But not in New York, Los Angeles, or Was.h.i.+ngton. Here it was just one more expensive car carrying an amba.s.sador, a foreign dignitary, an important official, or a CEO of some kind.

"Do you like it, Jon?" Marty asked from the backseat.

"It's like riding a magic carpet," Smith said. "Beautiful."

"That's why I kept it." Marty gave a satisfied smile and leaned back like an overweight cat against the seat, comforted by the close walls of the car. He set his papers and his black medicine case beside him and gave a little chortle. "You know, Jon, that guy in the bathroom's going to tell the others about my escape route, but they're never going to figure out how to make it work." He held up the remote control with a flourish. "Zounds! They're screwed!"

Smith laughed and glanced at the rearview mirror. The chopper circled helplessly a block away. He turned the grand machine onto Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue. Inside the Silver Cloud, there was hardly a sound despite the heavy traffic.

He asked, "Are those papers printouts of what you were able to download?"

"Yes. I have good news, and I have bad news."

Marty described his cybersearch as they pa.s.sed Dupont Circle and glided north, through the city to I-95 and onto the Beltway. As Marty talked, Smith remained tense and alert for anyone following. He had the constant sense they could be attacked again from any point at any time.

Then he looked into the rearview mirror at Marty with amazement. "You really were able to find the report from the Prince Leopold?"

Marty nodded. "And virus reports from Iraq."

"Amazing. Thank you. What about Bill Griffin and Sophia's phone records?"

"No. Sorry, Jon. I really tried."

"I know you did. I'd better read what you've got."

They were approaching the Connecticut Avenue exit at the extension of Rock Creek park in Maryland. Smith took the exit, drove into the park, and stopped the Rolls at a secluded meadow surrounded by a stand of thick trees. As Marty handed him the two printouts, he said, "They'd been deleted by the director of NIH's Federal Resource Medical Clearing House."

"The government!" Smith swore. "d.a.m.n. Either someone in the government or army's behind what's happening, or the people who are have even more power than I'd thought."

"That scares me, Jon," Marty said.

"It scares me, and we better find out which it is soon."

Muttering, he read the Prince Leopold report first.

Dr. Renee Giscours described a field report he had seen while doing a stint at a jungle hospital far upriver in Bolivian Amazonia years ago. He had been battling what appeared to be a new outbreak of Machupo fever and had no time to think about an unconfirmed rumor from far-off Peru. But the new virus jogged his memory, so he checked his papers and found his original note--- but not the actual report. His jottings to himself back then emphasized an unusual combination of hantavirus and hemorrhagic fever symptoms and some connection to monkeys.

Smith thought about it. What had caught Sophia's interest in this? There were few facts, nothing but the vague memory of an anecdote from the field. Was it the mention of Machupo? But Giscours made no special connection, did not suggest any link, and Machupo antibodies had shown no effect on the unknown virus. It did suggest the new unknown virus actually existed in nature, but researchers would a.s.sume that. Perhaps it was the mention of Bolivia. Maybe Peru. But why?

"Is it important?" Marty wanted to know, eager to help.

"I don't know yet. Let me read the rest."

There were three more reports--- all from the Iraqi Minister of Health's office. The first two concerned three ARDS deaths a year ago in the Baghdad area that were unexplained but finally attributed to a hantavirus carried by desert mice drawn into the city by lack of food in the fields. The third reported three more ARDS cases in Basra who had survived. All three in Basra. Smith felt a chill. The exact same numbers had died and survived. Like a controlled experiment. Was that what the three American victims were, too, part of some experiment?

Plus there was the connection of the first three American victims to Desert Storm.

He felt a settling in his chest, as if now at last he had a clearer sense of direction. He had to go to Iraq. He needed to find out who had died and who had survived... and why.

"Marty, we're going to California. There's a man there who'll help us."

"I don't fly."

"You do now."

"But, Jon---" Marty protested.

"Forget it, Marty. You're stuck with me. Besides, you know deep down you like doing crazy things. Consider this one of your craziest."

"I don't believe thinking positively is enough in this case. I might freak out. Not that I'd want to, you understand. But even Alexander the Great had fits."