Biowar

17

Dean’s years in the Marine Corps had convinced him that patience was the most important innate skill a sniper could have. A steady hand, good eyes, perseverance, guts, instinctual knowledge of the way people behaved — Dean didn’t know a sniper who made it through training without these qualities. But the real diamond, the most difficult gem to find in the deep mine of human consciousness, was the ability to wait. You couldn’t just sit — you had to sit with your eyes and ears and nose open. You sat ready, and you sat like that for hours and hours and days and days.

It had been a long time since Dean was in the Marine Corps — four or five lifetimes, it seemed. But he was still very patient, or could be when the circumstance required it. As it did now.

They had landed in Hamburg, taken a taxi to a house where he’d been fed and blindfolded, then driven around for a while longer before arriving back at the airport, where they’d boarded a flight apparently for Austria. Dean assumed the elaborate arrangements were meant to give his escorts a chance to see if they were being followed, but it was also possible they were trying to skimp on plane fare — the thugs hadn’t bothered to enlighten him.

The airplane they were flying in was an Airbus A320, a two-engined commercial airliner that in this case accommodated 150 passengers, though only three-fourths of the seats on the flight were filled. The CFM International turbofans had a throaty hum that reminded Dean of the sound a dentist’s drool sucker made as it pulled saliva from a mouth during drilling — assuming that sound was amplified a hundred times.

Most of the people on the plane were businessmen and — women, though there was a mix of students and a few tourists as well. Dean didn’t recognize any of the accents as American, nor did he spot anyone whose face looked familiar and who might be part of a trail team.

After they landed, the men prodded Dean to move quickly through the terminal; one handed him a passport that claimed he was Canadian. Dean adjusted his glasses, clicking the alert on, though by now he realized the com device had been broken. He considered taking out his sunglasses as they came outside, but the afternoon sky was overcast and threatening to rain and he thought it would be too suspicious. The Art Room would be tracking him and Lia would be behind him somewhere; it was best to just be patient and see how it played out.

It always came down to patience.

A blue Mercedes met them outside the terminal. As the driver reached over to open the door, Dean caught a glimpse of a holster inside his jacket. Dean slid in between his two minders. They spoke in German to the driver, whose tone sounded somewhat dismissive, though Dean had no way of knowing precisely what they were all talking about.

Five miles from the airport, the Mercedes pulled over. Another car, this one a station wagon, stopped behind them.

“Out,” said the man on Dean’s left as the other one opened the door.

“What’s going on?” asked Dean.

“We want to search you.”

“In the middle of the road?”

“Just get out,” said the man, adding something in German before pushing him toward the door.

Two men from the other car patted him down, looking for a weapon. When the search was over, one of the men went back to the station wagon and returned with a small suitcase.

He opened the case, producing what looked like a long, thin microphone. After adjusting a knob on a control panel in the suitcase, he began running the wand over Dean’s body, looking for a transmitter.

The NSA techies had assured Dean that the com system couldn’t be detected. Its transmission circuits shut off in the presence of magnetic fields produced by devices such as the one that was being used now to scan him, and the extremely low current used in the device mimicked the current inherent in a human body. But all the assurances in the world didn’t make Dean’s stomach rest any easier as he waited for the men to finish.

“Very good,” said the man back by the suitcase.

Dean waited as they packed up the equipment. One of the two men who had met him in London went and spoke to a man in the front seat of the station wagon. He nodded and took an envelope before going back to the Mercedes. Dean began to follow, but the man who had wanded him put out his hand.

“Professor, no. Your ride is on its way.”

“I’m not a professor,” said Dean. “I work in a lab.”

The man smiled but otherwise remained silent. A few minutes later, a second Mercedes drove up. A short man in khaki pants and a gray T-shirt got out and walked over, holding a folder in his hand. He spoke English with an accent that sounded German to Dean.

“You’re not Dr. Kegan,” said the man.

“Dr. Kegan is busy.”

“Where?”

“I work for him, not the other way around,” said Dean.

“Where?”

“Drumund University, Hudson Valley Division, primarily,” said Dean. That was the lab Lia had visited; Dean’s name was now listed on the security files as that of a visiting fellow with all access privileges. “Actually I’m paid by him directly under one of his grants; I’m not exactly sure which.”

The man frowned and opened his folder. “The University of Albany?”

“What about it?”

“The name means nothing?”

“Of course it does. I did my undergrad work there. I lived in Indian Quad.”

“A state school.”

Dean shrugged. “So? Some of us weren’t born rich.”

“Your grades were not impressive.”

“I didn’t realize I was being interviewed for a job,” said Dean.

The man smirked and closed the file. “E. coli one-three-five-six — E.”

Dean stared at the man. It was obviously some sort of test, but what?

He touched his glasses, trying to make it look like a nervous tic — eminently believable.

Now he wished he had the sunglasses on. But maybe they wouldn’t have worked, either.

“One-three-five-six-E.”

“I’m not really sure I know what you’re getting at,” said Dean. “There are many strands of E. coli. Are we talking about protein synthesis or hamburgers?”

The man frowned, but something in the answer satisfied him, for he signaled to the other men. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to blindfold you. It’s a precaution. You won’t be harmed.”

“I’d like to get something to eat,” said Dean.

“You will be treated well once you arrive at your destination.”

“Let me take my glasses off first.”

“Go right ahead.”

One of the men slipped a hood over Dean’s head, holding the fabric gently to keep it from hurting his ears. Dean let himself be led to the car — he guessed from the distance that it was the Mercedes — and sat back as the driver got in and pulled away. An opera began to play gently in the background as they drove. Dean cleared his mind, trying to count and keep track of the time.

He estimated that they drove for fifteen minutes. As he got out of the car, he heard the sound of a helicopter approaching, then felt the wind whipped up from its rotors as it landed nearby.

“Keep the hood on, please,” said the driver. “And duck your head.”

Dean hunched over, trying to feel his way into the helicopter as the door was opened for him. The driver of the Mercedes came around the other side once Dean was in and helped him fasten his seat belt.

“Where are we going?” said Dean, shouting over the rush of the motor as the aircraft took over.

He asked twice more before realizing that he was alone in the back of the aircraft.

Lia had picked him up at the airport, hoping to find a way to bump into him and attach a fly so the Art Room could monitor what was going on. But they’d moved through too quickly, and she’d had to follow in her car. She drove past them after they pulled off; before she could backtrack she heard a helicopter in the distance.

“This is moving too fast,” she told Rockman. “We have to pull him out.”

“Relax.”

“He doesn’t have any backup,” said Lia. “If they start asking him questions, they’ll know he’s a phony.”

“Charlie can handle himself. Relax.”

“You’re out of your mind if you think they’re not dangerous.” Lia gunned the car back toward the spot where they had pulled off.

“These are just scientific types,” said Telach, coming on the line. “Dean’s resourceful. That’s why he’s there.”

“Damn easy for you to say,” said Lia.

The Mercedes pulled back onto the highway as she approached. There was another car — and the helicopter, its rotors spinning in the field to the left.

“Where is he?” demanded Lia, slowing down.

“Just take it easy, Lia,” said Rockman. “We’re going to trail him.”

“The car or the helicopter?”

The helicopter whipped upward. Lia slapped her hand on the wheel.

“You need to turn around,” said Rockman.

“Damn it.”

“Relax, Lia.”

“Tell me that one more time and I’m going to shove my fist down your throat.”

Dean remained motionless in the seat after they landed, not quite sure what he was supposed to do next. Finally the door on the right side opened and he was helped from the aircraft. He smelled perfume and realized that he was being guided by a woman, though she remained silent. There was at least one other person with her, another woman, he thought, though she didn’t come near enough for him to tell.

Inside another car — this was a much smaller vehicle than the others — Dean asked where he was.

“You are in Austria,” said a woman. “We’ll be at the castle soon.”

“Castle?”

But the woman said nothing else. Dean began counting to himself, more because he had nothing better to do than as part of any tangible plan to figure out where he was. After about ten minutes, the car began driving up a steep hill, leveled off, and then began climbing again, this time in a circle. He heard the sound of gravel popping between the tires, and then the car stopped.

“We are here, Professor,” said the woman as the door opened.

“Actually, I’m not a professor,” said Dean. “I really don’t like to teach.”

“No?”

“Some people just don’t like it.”

The woman helped him from the car, then removed the hood. The woman smelled nice, but her face could have stopped a tank.

“This way,” she said, gesturing toward a stone arch before them.

A concrete walkway began at the arch and led around a wall made of yellow-brown bricks. As he approached the wall, Dean looked up and saw a castle looming at his left, perched at the top of a considerable slope that seemed to be made of sheer rock. There were steps on the other side of the wall made of thick slabs of limestone, the centers worn down by millions of soles sliding along their surface.

Dean stayed a step behind the woman, who seemed nonchalant in her attitude toward him; she wore jeans and a knit top over a blouse. It was possible she was armed, but Dean thought that he would have had no trouble overcoming her if he had to. He didn’t spot any obvious cameras or other devices, though he knew from his short stint with Deep Black that this was no guarantee of anything.

“Are you tired already?” the woman asked. He had fallen several steps behind.

“A little,” Dean lied. “Long flight of steps.”

She smiled at him and, if anything, started walking faster.

“How old is the castle?” he asked.

“Oh, not as old as it looks,” she answered.

“My name’s Charlie.”

“Yes, I know who you are.”

“And who are you?”

“Just a friend.”

At the third landing, there was a large metal door off to the side. The woman went to it and opened it, swinging it back easily, though to Dean it looked ponderous.

“Good-bye, Dr. Dean,” she said, gesturing for him to enter.

“You’re not coming?”

“No. Good-bye now.”

Dean stepped into the narrow, dark passageway. The rock walls seemed sheer and solid; they were lit by a string of dim red lights about knee-high bolted to the stone and connected by a run of wire. Dean ran his hand along the stone as he walked. It seemed too smooth to have been cut by hand, and he remembered the woman’s comment that the castle itself was not as old as it looked. He came to a comer and turned; a large freight elevator gaped at him. He walked to it and got in. Before he could touch the control panel, the doors closed and it began to move upward.

“Going up,” said Dean.

By rights, it should be Keys being transported. Would he have been nervous?

No, because he’d undoubtedly have a better idea what was going on. Maybe he had a deal with these people.

A deal to do what?

Supply the bastards with a germ that could kill millions?

That wasn’t Keys, thought Dean. He wasn’t a traitor.

Then again, Dean didn’t think he was a killer, either.

Dean let his arms drop to his sides, relaxing his body. He’d bluffed his way past the E. coli question, but it was unlikely he’d get off that easy again.

Kegan had done some work with E. coli, but the answer Dean had supplied had come not from the briefing but a high school biology class about a billion years before. Dean smiled at the memory of his old teacher, Wayne Guernsey — Guernsey, like the cow. Rumor had it that you could judge the difficulty of the lab by how far his thick oily hair stood out from the sides of his head.

The door opened onto a dimly lit corridor. Dean took a breath of the dank air as he stepped out of the elevator onto a stone floor. Two men with Steyr Para 9 mm submachine guns stood across from him, their faces covered by hoods. Dean stepped forward and someone stopped him from behind, tugging gently for him to stand in place. He was searched for a weapon once again, quickly and efficiently. The hands then took hold of his shoulders — he guessed he was being held by a woman, though he had only the lightness of the touch to go by — and nudged him two steps forward, then held firm. A light flashed in his face as the entire space was lit by powerful floodlights. Blinded, Dean put up his hands, then remembered the sunglasses. He gestured with his thumb that he was going to take them out; when no one reacted, he did so. The lights were so powerful that he had to keep his hands near his eyes, continuing to shield them.

“Who are you?” asked a voice that sounded as if it were generated by a machine.

“My name is Dean. I work for Dr. Kegan as an assistant. He asked me to come to the conference for him.”

“Why are you here?”

“I was brought here.”

“Tell me about Baltic flu,” said the voice.

“A bluff,” said a voice in his head. “Kegan has never worked on flu viruses.”

The Art Room—finally.

Dean shrugged. “Flu viruses aren’t my thing.”

“What variety of smallpox did Dr. Kegan work with?”

“Aralsk,” said the voice. “It’s named after a city in the old Soviet Union where there was an outbreak.”

Dean sensed that there was more to the question than that. Someone who was trying to bluff his way in — as he was — would be expected to have detailed knowledge; he’d just memorize everything he could. An intelligent interviewer — and someone with a setup like this had to be intelligent — would be looking more at his behavior than his answers.

“Dr. Kegan doesn’t work outside the law, if that’s what you’re getting at,” said Dean.

The voice laughed. “Smallpox,” it repeated.

“Unpublished paper. Two of them,” the expert in the Art Room told him. “Nineteen-ninety-one and nineteen-ninety-three.”

“I haven’t been with Dr. Kegan that long,” said Dean. He took a step forward. “Truth is, he kind of adopted me as a project. He’s helping supervise my dissertation. It’s written.”

“You’re rather old to be working on your Ph.D.”

“I’m not that smart,” said Dean.

The lights shut off abruptly. Dean wanted to keep the glasses on, sensing that the interview was far from over, but he knew that would give him away. He folded them up slowly; his eyes had trouble adjusting to the darkness. The room was filled with shadows.

“What’s your dissertation on?”

Dean had memorized the dissertation topic, but he decided again that his behavior was what was in question. He was supposed to be a technical person — more drudge than scientist. He’d gotten to work with Kegan because he was useful, not a genius.

“It demonstrates the propagation of bacteria in mouse tissue,” said Dean. “It’s not particularly advanced.”

“No?”

“Frankly, Dr. Kegan is interested in the techniques I used to culture the cells. They’re not in the paper because he said we should keep that proprietary.”

“We^?”

“I owe him a great deal.”

“And how did you culture them?”

“Well, it wasn’t really that tricky.” Dean smiled. “But if it’s something that’s worth money…”

“Do you like money, Dr. Dean?”

“I don’t refuse it. By the way, I’m not a doctor.” He smiled. “Though everybody I meet seems to think I am.”

A man in a red ghoul’s mask stepped from the shadows at the left. He was dressed in black, and for a moment he looked as if he were a real ghoul, emerging from the depths of hell. Dean gathered that was the idea.

“Where is Kegan?” asked the man.

“He sent me to the conference in his place. He said something had come up. I assume he’s back in the States working.”

“Where’s the antidote?”

“First of all, I want to know exactly where I am,” said Dean.

“You have the mistaken impression that you have some influence on what happens next.”

“I’ll gladly admit I’m confused.”

“Your employer owes us the antidote. He has twenty-four hours. You have twenty-four hours. Tell him that.”

“Then what happens?”

The lights flooded on again. Before Dean could repeat his question, a dart shot into his back. His neck felt paralyzed for a second; his mind seemed to leave his body, and he saw himself falling to the floor. Then the lights slammed off and he lost consciousness completely.