The Hades Factor Part 25

Long Lake Village, New York The Adirondack mountain air was sweet and fresh, and the sun that morning cast long, damp shadows from the tall pines onto Blanchard Pharmaceuticals' sprawling complex. Inside the brick headquarters, Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard was impressed. He and HHS secretary Nancy Petrelli had finished a tour of Blanchard's labs and production facilities, conducted personally by Victor Tremont himself. The surgeon general had known of the company, of course, but it had always maintained a quiet profile, and he had had no idea of its great size or worldwide presence.

The two government officials met with senior staff over coffee and then rejoined Tremont in his grand, half-timbered office. A wall of windows overlooked the forested lake that gave the town its name. They settled into chairs beside Tremont's fireplace where wood burned in a comforting glow, and they listened attentively as Tremont enthusiastically described the origin of the promising experimental serum.

"...our microbiology people came to me with the proposal more than a decade ago, because at the time I was in charge of R&D. They predicted more and more diseases would emerge as Third World nations became more accessible and their populations burgeoned. In other words, fewer locations would be remote enough to confine deadly outbreaks. The industrial world would have no defenses against these plagues, which could be even more devastating than HIV-AIDS. My people hoped by working with some of the more obscure ones we'd learn not only valuable science but develop serums for hitherto incurable diseases. One of the viruses they concentrated on was fatal to a certain species of monkey that was an especially close genetic relative to humans. We developed a recombinant antiserum c.o.c.ktail against that virus, and developed the biotechnology to produce the antibodies in bulk as a feasibility study on ma.s.s production techniques for the future." He gazed earnestly at the pair. "It's the study I phoned you about, Secretary Petrelli. Now maybe that effort may help the world. At least, I certainly hope so."

Jesse Oxnard was not sure. He was a big, robust man with heavy jowls and a thick mustache. He frowned. "But this development... this serum... is still essentially in the research stage. Isn't that so?"

An understanding smile spread across Tremont's tanned, aristocratic face. The firelight reflected in his iron-gray hair as he shook his head. "We're past both the animal-testing and the primate-testing stages. In fact, we've shown the serum cures the virus in affected monkeys. And, as I said, purely as a scientific study, we developed the facilities and techniques to produce it in bulk. In fact we have millions of doses already on hand. That's what prompted us to get the patent and apply for FDA approval for veterinary use."

Nancy Petrelli watched the effect all this was having on the surgeon general, while at the same time she marveled at Victor Tremont's smooth telling of the concocted story. She almost believed it herself. Which reminded her to cover her back when dealing with Victor. She never let herself think he was her friend. At first he had needed her initial investment, and later he wanted her influence as a congresswoman and then as secretary of HHS. That was as warm and fuzzy as it got with Victor.

Nancy was a realist. She wore her silver hair short and efficient. She dressed in feminine but businesslike St. John's knits. And she never gambled unless she figured the odds were greatly in her favor. She was backing Victor Tremont and his high-cla.s.s, high-powered con game because she believed he would pull it off. She was also well aware his crimes would be compounded by ma.s.s murder if he was caught, so she had decided to distance herself from any hint that she might have known what he was actually doing. At the same time, she fully expected him to triumph and make her rich.

As much for her own benefit as Oxnard's, she said, "Monkeys aren't people, Dr. Tremont."

Victor glanced quizzically at her and agreed: "True. But in this case, they are very close genetically and physiologically."

"Let me make certain I understand this." Surgeon General Oxnard stroked his mustache. "You can't be sure the serum will cure people."

Tremont answered solemnly, "Of course not. We won't know until it's actually tested on humans. But considering the situation, I think we need to try."

The surgeon general frowned. "That's a huge obstacle. In fact, it's entirely possible we may discover the serum may cause harm."

Tremont knit his fingers together and stared down at his hands. When he looked up, he said earnestly, "Well, one thing seems almost certain--- millions will die if we don't find a cure for this horrible virus." He shook his head as if in an agony of indecision. "Don't you think I've wrestled with this exact problem? It's why I hesitated for two days to come forward. I had to be comfortable in my own mind I was doing the right thing. So the answer is yes, I'm convinced there's a very good chance our serum will cure this terrible epidemic. But how can I guarantee it won't create a greater suffering until it's tested?"

All three silently contemplated the dilemma. Jesse Oxnard knew he could not possibly recommend Tremont's serum for use without thorough testing, but at the same time he recognized he would look bold and decisive if it saved millions around the globe from certain death.

Nancy Petrelli continued to concern herself with herself. She knew the serum would work, but she had learned the hard way to never go out on the end of a political limb. She would position herself solidly on the side of caution and join the minority that would, in the end, she was sure, be overruled in Victor's favor.

Meanwhile Victor Tremont was worrying about Jon Smith and his two friends. He had heard no news about them from al-Ha.s.san since the fiasco in the Sierras. As he thought that, he brought himself back to the present. He had a brave gesture in mind that he hoped would convince the surgeon general and, through him, President Castilla. But he had to time it just so.

As he looked up at Petrelli and Oxnard and their clouded faces deep in thought, he knew the time had come.

He must break the impa.s.se. If he could not convince Surgeon General Oxnard, it was possible everything he had striven for over the past dozen years would be lost.

Inwardly he nodded grimly. He would not lose. He could not. "The only way to be sure is to test it on a human." He leaned toward them, his voice commanding and grave. "We have isolated small quant.i.ties of the lethal monkey virus. It's unstable, but it can be preserved for a week or so." He hesitated as if wrestling with a great moral question. "There's only one way to proceed. And please don't try to stop me--- there's too much at stake. We must think of the greater good, not just what we as individuals risk." He paused again and inhaled. "I'll inject myself with the monkey virus---"

Surgeon General Oxnard flinched. "You know that's impossible."

Tremont raised a hand. "No, no. Please let me finish. I'll inject myself with the virus, and then I'll take the serum. The monkey virus may not be exactly the same as the one that's spreading, but I believe it's close enough that we'd see any adverse side effects when I self-administer the serum. Then we'll know."

"That's absurd!" Nancy Petrelli exclaimed, playing the devil's advocate. "You know we can't possibly allow you to do that."

Jesse Oxnard hesitated. "You'd actually do that?"

"Absolutely." Tremont nodded vigorously. "If it's the only way to convince everyone that our serum can stop what is rapidly becoming a horrible pandemic."

"But---" Nancy Petrelli began, playing out her opposition.

The surgeon general shook his head. "It's not for us to decide, Nancy. Tremont is making a magnificent humanitarian offer. The least we can do is respect that and put his suggestion before the president."

Petrelli frowned. "But, dammit, Jesse, we have no a.s.surance the two viruses and the serum will interact the same way in the human body." She saw Tremont again frown at her curiously, as if he doubted he had heard her accurately. "If Dr. Tremont is going to offer himself as our guinea pig, he should be infected with the real virus. Or, at least, we should test the two viruses to see if, perhaps, they are identical."

Inside, Tremont seethed with rage. What the h.e.l.l was she doing? She knew d.a.m.ned well the serum wasn't 100 percent effective--- no serum or vaccine was. He had this contingency covered, yes, but she didn't know that. Outwardly he continued to nod. "She's right, of course. That'd be best. But taking the time to compare viruses would be an unnecessary delay. I a.s.sure you I'm quite willing to be infected with the real virus. Our serum will cure it. I'm certain."

"No." The surgeon general slapped his knees in disagreement. "There's no way we can let you do that. But the families of the victims are already clamoring to be helped, so it makes more sense to ask them if they'd be willing to let their sick relatives try it. That way we'll find out what we need to know and maybe save a doomed life, too. Meanwhile, I'll have Detrick and the CDC compare the viruses."

Petrelli objected, "The FDA will never approve."

Oxnard countered, "They will if the president tells them to."

"The director would probably resign first."

"That's possible. But if the president wants the serum tested, it will be."

Nancy Petrelli appeared to think about this. "I'm still against using the serum without the usual series of thorough tests. However, if we're going to go ahead, then it does make more sense to try to save someone who's already sick."

The surgeon general stood up. "We'll call the president and present both suggestions. The sooner we start, the more lives we'll have a chance to save." He turned to Victor Tremont. "Where can we phone in private?"

"I have a line in the conference room. Through that door." Tremont nodded to a door in the right wall of his office.

"Nancy?" Jesse Oxnard asked.

"You make the call. No need for both of us. Tell him I concur in everything."

As the surgeon general hurried out and closed the door, Victor Tremont swiveled in his chair to bestow a cold smile on the Health and Human Services secretary. "Covering your a.s.s at my expense, Nancy?"

"Giving Jesse the negative to work against," Nancy Petrelli shot back. "We agreed I'd do the nay-saying, so he focuses on the positive, the advantages."

Tremont's tones gave no indication of his anger. "And a really good job it was, too. But, I think, more than a little self-protection, too."

Petrelli bowed to him. "I learned from a master."

"Thank you. But it does show a shocking lack of faith in me."

She allowed herself a curt smile. "No, only in the vagaries of chance, Victor. No one has ever found a way to outwit chance."

With that thought, Tremont nodded. "True. We do our best, don't we? Cover all possible contingencies. For example, I would insist we conduct the tests, and I a.s.sure you the virus would be harmless before it reached me. But there's always that little residue of chance left, isn't there. A risk for me."

"There's risk for all of us in this project, Victor."

Where the discussion would have taken them, Nancy Petrelli never found out. At that moment the door from the conference room opened, and Surgeon General Oxnard reentered the room, a great bear of a man with a relieved smile.

He said, "The president says he'll talk to FDA, but meanwhile we're to start looking for volunteers among the victims. The president is optimistic. One way or the other, we're going to test this serum and beat back this G.o.dawful virus."

Victor Tremont laughed long and loud. Yes! He had done it. They were all going to be rich, and it was only the beginning. At his desk, he smoked his Cuban cigar, drank his single-malt scotch, and rocked with laughter in private celebration. Until his cell phone rang in the bottom drawer.

He yanked open the drawer and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone. "Nadal?"

There was a brief delay of wireless phoning from a long distance. Then there was the self-satisfied voice: "We have located Jon Smith."

This was proving to be his day. "Where?"

"Iraq."

Momentary doubt a.s.saulted Tremont. "How did he ever get inside Iraq?"

"Perhaps the Englishman from the Sierras. I have found it impossible to learn anything about him. There is no certainty Howell is his correct name any more than Romanov. That leads me to believe he has much he wishes to be unknown."

Tremont nodded angrily. "Probably MI6. How did you locate Smith?"

"One of my contacts--- a Dr. Kamil. I a.s.sumed Smith would be trying to find our test cases, so I alerted all the doctors I knew. Not that many are practicing now in Baghdad. Kamil reported Smith wants to know about the survivors as well."

"d.a.m.n! He can't be allowed to find that."

"If he does, it will not matter. He will never leave Iraq."

"He got in."

"He did not then have Saddam's police and the Republican Guards looking for him. Once they know the American intruder is there, they will seal their borders and hunt him down. If they do not kill him, we shall."

"Dammit, Nadal, make sure you do this time!" Tremont snarled, and remembered their other problem. "What about Bill Griffin? Where is he?"

Already humbled by Tremont's anger, al-Ha.s.san's face grew stonier. "We are watching everywhere Jon Smith has been, but Griffin appears to have vanished from the earth."

"That's just perfect!" In a rage he punched the cell phone's off b.u.t.ton and glared unseeing across the office.

Then the day's triumphs returned to make him smile. No matter what Jon Smith found in Iraq, and despite Griffin, the Hades Project was going forward according to plan. He sipped his whiskey and his smile broadened. Even the president was on board now.

10:02 A.M., Fort Irwin, Barstow, California The man had followed Bill Griffin's rented Toyota pickup from Fort Irwin. He stayed at a safe distance, never too close or too far back, on the two-lane road and then on Interstate 15. He was waiting for him to land somewhere relatively permanent. A place where Griffin would return and where he would sleep. Griffin knew the man would have followed him all the way to Los Angeles if necessary until he was certain Griffin would remain in one place long enough for backup to arrive.

Now from behind the curtains of the Barstow motel room, Griffin saw the man get out of his Land Rover and head toward the motel office. An ordinary man in a nondescript brown suit and open-necked s.h.i.+rt. Griffin had never seen him before. He would have been surprised if he had. Still, he recognized the almost imperceptible bulge of a pistol under the man's suit coat. The man would check whether Griffin--- or whatever name the customer in unit 107 was using--- was registered for the night. Then he would make his phone call.

Griffin grabbed one of the motel's bath towels. He raised the rear window, climbed out, and circled behind the units to where he could see into the office. His stalker was showing a fake badge or official ID to the motel clerk. The clerk studied the register, nodded, and turned the register so his questioner could view it.

Griffin trotted to the man's Land Rover and slipped into the backseat of the high vehicle, crouched down, and waited. Quick footsteps hurried to the Rover, and the front door jerked open.

As it slammed shut, Griffin raised up, a silenced Walther PPK 6.35mm in his right hand, the bath towel in the other.

The man was dialing his car phone.

In a single motion, Griffin dropped the towel around the man's head and fired once. The man's head snapped back. With the towel Griffin caught most of the blood and brain matter. He quietly lowered the slumped body. Sweating, he got out, pushed the body into the pa.s.senger seat, and climbed behind the wheel.

Far out in the desert, he buried his stalker. Then he drove back into Barstow and left the car locked on a side street. Tired and angry, he walked to his motel, checked out, and drove toward Interstate 15. At Fort Irwin he had learned that Jon Smith had been interested in Tremont's "government scientists" and Major Anderson's service in Iraq during Desert Storm. When he reached Interstate 15, he turned the pickup toward Los Angeles and its international airport. He had decisions to make, and the best place to do that was on the East Coast.

CHAPTER.

THIRTY ONE

8:02 P.M.

Baghdad The bent woman in the black abaya was a block away from the used-tire shop when she heard the first fusillade. She paused next to an old man who sat cross-legged on the street, his palm outstretched as he begged. She gazed down at him with empty eyes, while her brain a.s.sured her she was not required to return to the shop to find out what the shooting meant.

But then she heard the explosive blasts of gunfire again.

When she had left the shop, her mission was over. She had made certain the undercover American doctor had made contact. At that point, she left, as she was supposed to. An armed attack had not been part of the plan. Nor had the man who had turned out to be the undercover doctor. She tensed. She might be many things, but one thing she was not was cavalier with her orders. She took tremendous pride in her work. She was thorough, responsible, and utterly reliable.

She looked down at the Iraqi beggar once more. She dropped dinars onto his palm. Her long abaya flapping around her legs, she moved as swiftly as her bent shape allowed back toward the tire shop.

In the Baghdad alley, the dark shadows were the only protection for Smith, the woman, and the baby. He pulled them close against the shack, which prevented them from being seen easily. The gunfire inside drowned out normal city sounds, but still Jon listened and watched. Through the gloom, he studied both ends of the alley. He could just make out what appeared to be a dozen Republican Guards. They were approaching carefully, their weapons first. They moved with certainty and stealth, Saddam Hussein's prized killers.

Still, he gave the woman a rea.s.suring smile as she gazed anxiously up at him in the moonlight. "Be right back," he whispered. He knew she would not understand, but perhaps the sound of a human voice would help her to maintain her equilibrium as she cradled the baby protectively to her chest.

His pulse throbbing at his temples, Jon rolled to the left and pulled on the first door latch. Locked. Then the second. Locked again.

The Republican Guards drew closer.

He reversed course and slid past the woman. He tried a third door. Also locked.

Frustrated and worried, he drew her away from the tire shop to the building next door and tugged on her arm until she crouched beside him, low against the wall where it met the old stones of the alley. He wanted them to be small targets. He could see nothing else he could do--- he was going to have to fight their way out.

His chest tight, he gripped his Beretta and continued to watch the stealthy shadows draw closer. Sweat gathered under his clothes despite the cool night air. The gunfire inside the tire shop had stopped. For a moment he thought about Gha.s.san and hoped he had survived; then he wiped away all thoughts of anything but the danger in the alley.

He concentrated. The only sound was the rhythmic pad of the soldiers' feet as they approached. He breathed deeply, keeping himself calm. He remembered Jerzy Domalewski's warning that it was better to shoot and risk death than be caught alive with the gun. He had to make every shot count, because it was not only his life at risk but the woman and child's, too. He would open fire as soon as the killers were close enough to make it impossible to miss. He needed to hit as many as possible, as quickly as possible.

He wished fervently he had more than his pistol as they closed in. He raised the Beretta. At just that moment, the baby let out a wail, instantly followed by a series of piercing cries. The sounds reverberated along the alley as the woman tried vainly to quiet the child.

Now the Guardsmen knew where they were. Smith's chest tightened into a knot. Instantly bullets bit into the wall. Wood splinters shot out, sharp as needles. The woman lifted her head, her eyes white with fear. As the baby screamed, Smith slid in front of them, firing left and right at the soldiers in the shadowy night alley.

Suddenly a voice snarled, "Get ready. Don't move until I tell you!" It was a woman's voice speaking in American English, and it came from the tire shop's rear entrance, where the bullet-riddled door hung half open on one hinge.

Before Jon could react, a long black abaya flowed out the doorway and into the gloom, immediately followed by two pale hands with short, blunt fingernails expertly clutching an Uzi submachine gun. The featureless woman balanced the weapon back against her bent body with impressive ease. She squeezed the trigger and sprayed the Republican Guardsmen in both directions.

As the woman turned left to concentrate fire, Jon stayed low on his heels so he was beneath her bullets and still protecting the Iraqi woman and baby. While she was left, he wheeled right and picked off two of the thugs with his Beretta as they raced across the alley. When she turned right, he aimed left. By rotating their fire from one end of the alley to the other, in five minutes all the attackers had gone to ground--- dead, wounded, or just saving their hides. Shocked grunts and cries echoed along the dark pa.s.sage. But there was no more sound of feet and no significant movement.