The Hades Factor Part 19

Inwardly he sighed, frustrated. No way was he or even Peter Howell going to get past that.

Besides, the survivors would be the first place army intelligence, the FBI, and the murderers would expect him to go. They would be waiting. He inhaled and nodded. There was no choice. The only survivors he had a chance to reach were in Iraq. That locked-down country did not expect him, and they did not have the technological wizardry of the U.S. government. His best and fastest hope of finding out what was behind all this was to go there.

Marty was saying excitedly, "There! Almost got you! Just another minute."

Smith came out of his reverie to see him screaming at the console, hunched toward the screen like a hunter who sees his prey only a few feet ahead.

Fear tightened Smith's chest. Suddenly the mechanics of what Marty was doing made terrible sense. He snapped, "How long have you been connected to your computer in Was.h.i.+ngton?"

Howell appeared in the doorway. His wiry body went rigid. "He's been online through his own computer?"

"How long, Mart?" Smith repeated tensely.

Marty came out of his thrilled trance. He blinked and checked the time on the screen. "An hour, perhaps two. But it's fine. I'm using a series of relays all over the world, just as we're supposed to. Besides, it's my own computer. I---"

Smith swore. "They know where your computer is! They could be in your bungalow right now, inside your computer, teasing you on! Was the trail through the telephone company there the first time you cracked in?"

"Heck, no! I located a whole new path. I found a new one for Bill Griffin, too, but that led nowhere. This one in the phone company keeps opening up to new avenues. I know I can---"

Peter Howell's voice was crisp. "Do they have people in California?"

"I'd bet the farm on it," Smith told him.

"His meds are on the way." Howell spun on his heel. "Your killers can trace the phone line to Lee Vining and to me. Not my real name, of course. They'll have to locate the cabin, get out here, find the road, and reach us. I'd say an hour at worst. With luck two. We'd be wise to be away in less than one."

CHAPTER.

TWENTY THREE

6:51 P.M.

New York City Victor Tremont adjusted his dinner jacket and straightened his black tie in the mirror of his suite in the Waldorf-Astoria tower. Behind him, still stretched naked on the rumpled bed, was Mercedes O'Hara. She was beautiful--- all curves and lush, golden skin.

She fixed her dark eyes on him in the mirror. "I do not like to be hung in the bedroom closet with the suits until you decide I am to be used again, Victor."

Tremont scowled into the mirror. Neither patient nor reserved, the tall woman with the cascade of red hair falling across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been a mistake. Tremont rarely made that misjudgment. In fact, he could think of only one other time. That woman had killed herself when he had told her he would never marry her.

"I have a meeting, Mercedes. We'll go to dinner when I get back. The table is reserved at Le Cheval, your favorite. If that doesn't suit you, leave."

Mercedes would not kill herself. The Chilean woman owned extensive vineyards and a world-renowned winery in the Maipo Valley, sat on the boards of two mining companies and in the Chilean parliament, and had been a cabinet minister and would be again. But like all women, she demanded too much of his time and sooner or later would insist on marriage. None understood he did not need or want a companion.

"So?" She continued to observe from where she reclined on the bed. "No promises? One woman is the same as another. We are all a nuisance. Victor can love only Victor."

Tremont found himself annoyed. "I wouldn't say---"

"No," she interrupted, "that would require for you to understand." She sat up on the bed, swung her long legs over the edge, and stood. "I think I am tired of you, Dr. Tremont."

He stopped adjusting his black tie and watched in disbelief as she strode to her clothes and dressed without looking at him again. A surge of unexpected anger took hold of him. Who did she think she was? Such disgusting arrogance. With a powerful effort he repressed his rage. He returned to arranging his tie and smiled at her in the mirror.

"Don't be ridiculous, my dear. Go and have a c.o.c.ktail. Put on that green evening gown that makes you look so wonderful. I'll meet you at Le Cheval in an hour. Two at the most."

Dressed in the black Armani suit that made her red hair flame, she laughed. "You are such a sad man, Victor. And such a fool."

Before he could respond, she had walked out of the bedroom, still laughing.

He heard the outer suite door slam.

Rage swept down over him like a mountain avalanche, and he felt himself actually shake. He took two swift steps toward the open bedroom door. No one laughed at Victor Tremont. No one! A woman. He would... would--- His face burned as if he had a fever. His fists clenched at his sides as if he were still a schoolboy.

Then he gave a short laugh. What the h.e.l.l was he doing? The stupid woman.

She had saved him the tedium of correcting his mistake. He had thought this one was intelligent, but, in the end, none was. With relief, he saw now there would be no dramatic and tearful scenes of abandonment. He would not have to give her any expensive farewell gifts. She would walk away with nothing. Who was the fool now?

Grinning broadly, he returned to the mirror, finished adjusting his tie, smoothed his dinner jacket, took one last appraising glance at himself, and turned to leave the room for his meeting. Before he reached the door, his private cell phone rang. He hoped it was al-Ha.s.san with news of Jon Smith and Marty Zellerbach.

"Well?"

The Arab's voice was rea.s.suring. "Zellerbach connected to his own computer to continue searching for the Russell woman's phone call to you. Xavier held him on long enough for McGraw to trace him to Lee Vining, California." There was a pleased pause. "I am there now."

"Where in G.o.d's name is Lee Vining?"

"On the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas near Yosemite National Park."

"How did you know to go to such a place?"

"The FBI found the motel where they'd slept last night and then located where they'd rented a car. Smith had asked for a map of Northern California and if a certain road through Yosemite was open. We drove to the park, and when McGraw contacted us, we simply continued on to Lee Vining. They're at the phone number of a man named Nicholas Romanov, obviously a false name. We are on our way there."

Tremont inhaled, pleased. "Good. Anything else?" At last the annoyance of Lt. Col. Jon Smith was ending.

The Arab's voice dropped lower--- confidential. Pride radiated in his words. "Yes, I have other news. Very good news that you will like and not like. My investigation of Smith has shown that this Marty Zellerbach is an old friend from his school days--- and so is Bill Griffin."

Tremont growled, "So Griffin did warn Smith in Rock Creek park!"

"And undoubtedly has no intention of killing Smith. But he may not be overtly betraying us."

"You think he still wants the money?"

"I see no signs that say otherwise."

Tremont nodded, thinking. "Then we may be able to use him to our advantage. All right, you deal with Jon Smith and everyone with him." A plan was beginning to form in his mind. Yes, he knew exactly what to do. "I'll handle Griffin."

7:52 P.M.

Thurmont, Maryland Bill Griffin smiled thinly. The white pizza delivery truck had pa.s.sed Jon Smith's three-story, saltbox-style house three times in the last two hours. He was inside the dark house and had been since 6:00 P.M., after abandoning his all-day stakeout of Fort Detrick. The first time he had seen the pizza truck slow as it pa.s.sed the house, it had caught his attention. Could it have been Jon checking to be sure the house was safe and unwatched? The second time, he was prepared with his nightvision binoculars and saw that the driver was not Jon. By the third time, he knew: One of al-Ha.s.san's men was looking for Jon--- and perhaps for him, too.

Griffin knew the Arab had been suspicious ever since Rock Creek park, but al-Ha.s.san would not expect Griffin to be waiting inside the house. Griffin had been careful to leave no indications he was there. His car was hidden in the garage of an empty house three blocks away, and he had entered Jon's place by picking the lock on the back door. Since Jon had returned to neither Detrick nor Thurmont, Griffin was beginning to think he would not. Had al-Ha.s.san already killed him? No, otherwise al-Ha.s.san would not be sending men to look for either Jon or Griffin.

He moved swiftly through the dark shadows and into the study. Once the computer was up and running, he entered the pa.s.sword and encryption code for his secret Web site. He immediately saw the message from his old FBI partner, Lon Forbes: Colonel Jonathan Smith is trying to find you. He also contacted Marjorie for the same reason. FBI, police, and army are looking for Smith: AWOL and sought for questioning in two deaths. Let me know if you want to talk to him.

Griffin thought, and then he checked for anything else. This time he spotted the footprints of someone who had hacked into the site, which might mean a third person was searching for him. There was nothing on the Web site to tell a hacker where he was. Still, a third tracker made him uneasy.

He exited, shut down the computer, and returned to the rear door. When he was sure there was still no one surveilling the back of the house, he slipped away into the night.

8:06 P.M.

New York City The four people who were gathered in a private room at the Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street were nervous. They had known one another for years, occasionally on opposing sides and with conflicting interests, but now a shared attraction to money, power, and a view of the future they liked to call "clear-eyed" had brought them together in this room.

The youngest of the four, Maj. Gen. Nelson Caspar, executive officer to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, held a low conversation with Congressman Ben Sloat, who was a periodic visitor to Victor Tremont's hidden Adirondack estate. General Caspar glanced every few seconds at the door to the room. Nancy Petrelli, secretary of Health and Human Services, paced alone near the curtained windows in her cream-colored St. John's knit suit. Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.), major lobbyist for the American military-industrial complex, sat in an armchair holding a book but not really reading. Neither General Caspar nor General Salonen wore their uniforms, preferring simple but expensive business suits for this clandestine meeting.

Their heads rotated almost in unison as the door opened.

Victor Tremont hurried in. "Sorry, gentlemen and lady"--- a slight bow to the HHS secretary--- "but I was held up by some business relating to our problem with Colonel Smith, which, I'm happy to say, is about to be settled."

A murmur of relief spread across the room.

"How did the meeting with Blanchard's board of directors go?" General Caspar rumbled. It was the question on everyone's minds.

Tremont perched on the arm of a leather couch, elegant in his dinner jacket and black tie. a.s.surance radiated from him, and he seemed to draw his four distinguished guests toward him like a magnet. He lifted his patrician chin and laughed. "I'm now in firm control of the entire company.

General Salonen's voice was loudest. "Congratulations!"

"Great news, Victor," Congressman Sloat agreed. "This puts us in the power position."

Secretary Petrelli admitted, "I wasn't sure you could pull it off."

"I had no doubt." General Caspar smiled. "Victor always wins."

Tremont laughed again. "Thank you. Thank you very much for your vote of confidence. But I must say I agree with General Caspar."

Now everyone laughed, even Nancy Petrelli. But her laughter had little humor in it. She went right to the critical point: "You told the board? The details?"

"Chapter and verse." Tremont crossed his arms, smiled, and waited. Teasing them.

The tension in the room grew electric. Their gazes were riveted on him.

"And?" Nancy Petrelli demanded at last.

"What did the G.o.dd.a.m.ned board say?" General Salonen wanted to know.

Victor Tremont smiled broadly. "They jumped on the Hades Project like a dog on a bone." He gazed around the room at the relieved faces. "You could see the dollar signs flash in their eyes. I thought I was in Las Vegas, and they were slot machines."

"No qualms?" Congressman Sloat asked. "We don't have to worry about second thoughts? Bad consciences?"

Tremont shook his head. "Remember, we hand-picked all of them. We pooled our sources so we could choose for background, interest, and risk tolerance." His biggest problem had been getting the names past Haldane so they could be proposed and voted onto the board while old members retired or their terms expired. "Of course, now the question is whether we judged them accurately."

"Obviously we did," Congressman Sloat said with satisfaction.

"Exactly," Tremont said. "Oh, they were a little green around the gills when I laid out the possible deaths without our serum, and all the deaths that will unavoidably occur before it is approved for use on humans. But I explained that on the other hand the virus wasn't a hundred percent fatal without treatment, and they realized the deaths would extrapolate into not much more than a million or so worldwide if the government accepts our serum quickly."

Nancy Petrelli, ever the pessimist, said, "And if the government won't pay our price at all?"

A heavy silence dropped like a dark shroud over the small room. They looked uneasily away from the HHS secretary. It was a question that had been on all their minds.

"Ah, well," Tremont said, "we knew that risk from the start. It was the gamble we took to make the billions we're going to. But I doubt our government or any other government will see another choice. If they don't buy the serum, an awful lot of their people are going to die everywhere. That's the simple answer."

General Caspar nodded appreciatively. "Who dares, wins."

"Ah, yes. The motto of the SAS." Tremont nodded recognition to the general and added drily, "But I'd like to think we take our risks for much larger and more realistic rewards than a few medals and a pat on the back from the queen, eh?"

Tremont swung his leg as he watched the four wrestle with the enormity of it. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Shakespeare's words, or close enough, echoed through his mind. But screw your courage to the sticking point, we shall not fail. But it was not courage or Shakespeare that had made them accept the risk of the potential slaughter. Not at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It was power and wealth.

General Salonen said bluntly, "But none of us or our families will die. We have the serum."

They had all thought it, but only Salonen had the bravery or perhaps the insensitivity to say it. Tremont continued to wait.

"How long until it begins?" Nancy Petrelli asked.

Tremont considered. "I'd say in three or four days the reality of a pandemic will strike the global conscience like a bolt of lightning."

There was a murmur. Whether it was pity or greed it was hard to tell.

"When it does," Tremont continued, "I want each of you to emphasize the danger to humanity. Hit the panic b.u.t.tons. Then we make our announcement of the serum."

"And ride to the rescue." General Caspar gave a coa.r.s.e laugh.

All their doubts vanished as the four conspirators united in their vision of the goal they had dreamed of for so long. It was close. Very close. Just on the other side of the horizon. For the moment, any fear of an opposition, of Bill Griffin's potential treachery, or of Jonathan Smith's determined investigation flew from their minds.

"Beautiful," someone breathed.

CHAPTER.

TWENTY FOUR