Typhoon Fury

23

With a fresh tire on the PIG, Juan climbed back in with Eddie, and they continued toward Manila at a fast clip. Juan swiveled in his seat and saw Mel Ocampo looking at him with a mixture of weariness and curiosity, the torn sleeve of his lab coat replaced by a white gauze bandage expertly wrapped by Raven. The other four scientists, looking shell-shocked after the escape, sipped from water bottles and ate sandwiches Beth had given them. They chewed in silence.

“Thank you for saving us,” Ocampo said.

“We just happened to be there at the right time,” Juan replied.

“Actually, if you hadn’t been there, we might never have been able to make an escape attempt in the first place.”

Juan nodded in understanding. “When the Humvees took off after us, you took the opportunity to make a run for it.”

“I had been hoping for a distraction, and you and your people provided it for us.”

“And the grenades?” Eddie asked from the driver’s seat.

“Made from chemicals in our lab,” said Maria Santos, one of the other chemists. “Mel had us make them over a week ago. I’m just glad they worked. We didn’t have a chance to test them.”

“Why were you there in the first place?” Raven asked.

“Locsin brought us there,” Ocampo said. “We thought it was to do top secret research for a pharmaceutical company. When we weren’t allowed to leave, we soon realized that his goal was more sinister.”

Maria nodded. “He is an evil man.”

“What was the real purpose of your research?” Juan asked.

“He wanted us to replicate a drug,” Ocampo said. “It was a small white pill he called Typhoon. The image of a cyclone is embedded on its face.”

Juan imagined the buildings they just saw as a high-tech meth lab. “I’ve never heard of Typhoon. Is that a street name for a narcotic?”

Ocampo shook his head. “Nothing like that. After we were gathered together, it became clear that we all are experts in the development of steroids.”

Juan thought back to the guard who’d shrugged off two gunshot wounds to the chest. “Are Locsin’s men users of Typhoon?”

Ocampo nodded. “They showed many of the effects of prolonged steroid use: massive muscle growth, hair loss and severe acne in some of them, and wild mood swings. Locsin would be charming one moment, then lash out in rage the next. A Jekyll and Hyde.”

“They also had some side effects I’ve never seen before,” Maria said. “All of them smelled terrible. The rancid odor like garlic oozed out of their pores. I could barely stand being next to one of them.”

“The drug also seemed to have remarkable benefits besides muscle growth. Maria, tell them about the guard who cut himself.”

A look of profound confusion crossed Maria’s face as she recalled the memory. “It was the strangest thing. One of the guards was moving a crate of equipment into the lab and slashed himself on a nail sticking out of it. He didn’t even seem to notice until I pointed to the blood. He looked at the gash on his arm, shook his head, and wiped the blood on a towel like it was just a scratch. But the cut looked so deep that I thought he’d need stitches.”

“But it stopped bleeding almost instantly,” Juan said.

Maria gaped at him. “How did you know that?”

“Because the guy who was holding the knife to Beth’s throat should have been bleeding profusely from the shots I put into him. Instead, he had barely any blood on his uniform.”

“You’re right,” Ocampo said. “But that’s not all. I saw the wound myself. It was at least three inches long. The next day, I saw it again. Except for a thin scar, it had completely healed. Two days later, I couldn’t even tell that he’d been injured.”

“So these guys heal in less time than it takes to talk about it?” Eddie said.

“Nothing so fast,” Ocampo said. “The cut didn’t close itself instantly. But it does seem as if Typhoon speeds up the body’s natural healing process dramatically.”

“How is that possible?” Juan asked.

“That’s something I wish I knew. This kind of advanced healing isn’t unheard of in vertebrates. Dolphins can survive gaping wounds from shark attacks with little pain and no infection, and the missing flesh is completely replaced in a matter of weeks. We don’t know if the rapid healing process is stimulated by stem cells or proteins, but the Typhoon drug could be activating a similar mechanism in humans.”

“The problem is that the other side effects could be worse than the benefits,” Maria said. “I’ve noticed that the guards’ angry outbursts have become more frequent and violent during the last few weeks. There have even been fights between some of them. If they weren’t under orders by Locsin himself to leave us untouched, I have no doubt that we would have been attacked as well.”

“It may also be addictive,” Ocampo added. “Such profound effects may produce strong withdrawal symptoms if the user suddenly stops taking the drug.”

“If Locsin already had this drug,” Raven said, “why did he want you to figure out how to make more of it?”

“I got the impression that he only had a limited supply and was desperate to make more. When I told him that it would take at least three months to decipher the formula, he went crazy and demanded that we find it in two months.”

“Even the three-month time line was insane,” Maria said.

“Why?” Juan asked.

“Because we couldn’t figure out the key component without the formula itself. The main ingredient of the drug seems to be an organic compound, most likely from a plant. If we knew which plant the compound was from — which we don’t — it would likely take mere weeks to get production up and running.”

“So where did he get the drug in the first place?”

“We don’t know. We did a radiometric analysis on one of the samples to see if we could determine its age. There was no evidence of radioactive decay, which means they had to be created before the use of atomic weapons, which have left a radioactive signature on all organic compounds since they were first detonated.”

Raven leaned forward. For the first time in the short span that Juan had known her, she seemed genuinely surprised. “Are you saying these pills date from before 1945?”

“Yes. It means the pills were developed just before or during World War Two,” Ocampo said. “They had to be well preserved to survive intact for over seventy years, probably vacuum-sealed. And I know he’s looking for more of them. He threatened us by saying he had a backup plan if we failed.”

“I don’t suppose he told you exactly where he was looking,” Juan said.

“If you have a map with a nice big X on it,” Eddie said, “that would be even better.”

Ocampo smiled. “Why? Are you going after him?”

Juan nodded. “It seems like that would be in the interest of my biggest client.” As soon as he could, Juan planned to call Langston Overholt at the CIA and brief him on the situation. He had no doubt that Overholt would want him to go after Locsin.

“Your client? Who is that?”

“I’m afraid that the less you know about that, the better.”

Ocampo narrowed his eyes at Juan. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but just who are you people?”

Up to this point, Juan had only used their first names. Revealing who they really were would just raise a lot of inconvenient questions when Ocampo and his people talked to the Philippine authorities.

“Let’s just say we’re on the side that doesn’t want a supersoldier drug in the hands of a communist madman.”

Ocampo stared at Juan for a moment, then looked at each person in his group. They all returned his look with a silent nod.

“All right,” he said, turning back to Juan. “We owe you our trust after you put your lives on the line for us. I have some other information that might help you.”

“About where Locsin is looking for the drug?”

“Not really. All I know about that is he’s got a dig going on somewhere on a small island in the Philippines. Since there are well over a hundred languages spoken in our country, the guards thought I didn’t know what they were saying. But apparently my mother was from the same area they were from, so I could understand snippets of their conversation. They said they’re expecting a shipment to arrive tomorrow night from China.”

“A shipment of what?” Eddie asked.

“They didn’t say. But it’s coming in on a cargo ship called the Magellan Sun, the same ship they used to deliver equipment for the dig. The guards were expecting to rendezvous with it off the west coast of Negros Island. Maybe you can have the Philippine Coast Guard intercept it.”

“That’s one possibility,” Juan said. He wouldn’t reveal that he had the Oregon, a better solution than trying to convince a foreign nation’s coast guard to stop a ship at sea.

Beth, who’d been silently watching up until now, said, “This might seem like a strange question, but did you see any artwork while you were held captive?”

Ocampo gave her a confused look. “What kind of artwork?”

“Paintings.”

Ocampo shook his head slowly. She looked hopefully at the other chemists, but none of them had seen any, either.

“What are you going to do with us?” Maria asked. “Locsin will kill us if he finds us.”

Juan had been considering that question during the discussion. If they simply dropped Ocampo and his people at a hospital, it was possible that Locsin and his men might track them down to keep them from talking to the authorities.

In return for the information Ocampo had given them, Juan thought he could convince Overholt to put them up in a CIA safe house until Locsin was captured or killed. They might also be able to think of additional info that would help them further.

“I think I have somewhere you can stay safely until we can find out what Locsin is up to. And I have a friend who can sew up that arm.” He’d have Julia Huxley, the Oregon’s doctor, meet them and tend to Ocampo’s wound before they were taken to the safe house.

It was still a few hours before they would get back to Manila, and Juan wanted to be ready to go as soon as they arrived. He texted Max to prepare the Oregon for sailing and had him tell Murph and Eric to search for anything they could find out about the Magellan Sun.