Biowar

33

“They’re on A1, going in the direction of Vienna,” Rockman told Lia.

“God, can’t they make up their minds?” she snapped.

“Maybe you’ll get some sightseeing in,” said the runner.

Lia glanced at her watch. They’d been on the road now for nearly an hour, driving backward and forward. Dean was in the back of a black delivery truck, along with two guards who either didn’t understand English or were pretending not to. Thus far, there had been nothing to indicate where they were going. The outskirts of Vienna lay about five kilometers to the east. Lia was on the highway about a half-mile ahead of the truck; one of the vans was three cars behind it.

“Turning off.”

“What a surprise.”

“You see the feed from the Fokker?” asked Rockman.

“No, I have my eyes closed.” Lia zoomed out the display on her handheld computer. A black vehicle had joined the parade — a Mercedes that had been waiting by the roadside. A shadow arced nearby.

“Helicopter’s watching — don’t let the Fokker get too close,” said Lia.

“Right, we’re on it,” said Rockman.

“They’re slowing,” said the team in van one, which was closest to the delivery truck.

“Pass them by,” said Lia.

“Turning into an industrial park,” said Rockman. “Maybe our target.”

“Circle back,” Lia told the driver. “And find a place where you can take a leak.”

“I don’t have to go.”

“You will.”

Dean’s head felt as if it were about to explode. The package truck they’d put him in not only found every pothole or crack in the pavement, but the springs and shock absorbers seemed to have been removed. Sitting on a bare metal floor, he had a hard time maintaining his equilibrium. Now as the truck came to a stop he slammed against the panel so hard he felt his eyes smack against their sockets. Instead of the darkness of the back, he saw rivulets of yellow and white light.

“Out,” said one of the men who had met him. “Gehen.”

“Yeah, okay, out, go. Right,” said Dean, pushing upward. One of the men grabbed his arm and helped him toward the back. Except for his grip, he was very gentle.

The sunlight blinded Dean temporarily. He waited for them to blindfold him, but instead they prodded him toward a brick building that sat behind a macadam walkway on his right.

“No blindfold?” he asked his minders, hoping the Art Room was listening.

The minders didn’t respond. He walked ahead to the building as they trailed. The door opened just as he arrived, and a short, slightly overweight man of about sixty appeared, his thick glasses hanging off his nose and his oily black hair tousled as if he had left in a hurry. The man moved quickly, obviously anxious to get away — and then touched Charlie on the arm as he passed.

“You’re with me,” said the man. He spoke with what seemed like a British accent.

“Uh.”

“This way now,” said the man, already moving along the asphalt path.

Dean glanced at the two minders, but their faces were blank. Not knowing what else to do, he followed the man to a BMW. The man gestured toward the passenger seat. When they were inside, he said, “Dr. Dean, a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m a little confused.”

“I understand that your employer did not fill you in before he sent you overseas. That is unfortunate.” The man gestured with the ignition key, as if it were a piece of chalk and he was in the classroom. “Please put your seat belt on.”

Dean complied and the man put his key into the ignition. The accent wasn’t British exactly, but he had spent some time there, at least enough to wash the majority of the rest of his accent from his voice.

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.

“To get the antidote.”

“Draw him out,” whispered Rockman in Dean’s ear. “Ask him some questions about who he is.”

“How do I know you’re the person I’m supposed to talk to?” asked Dean.

The man chuckled. He had a squashed freckle the size of a ladybug on his right chin, a birthmark of some type and undoubtedly a good identifier. But Charlie wasn’t equipped with a video fly; they’d worried it might be detected.

“Do you really think, Doctor, that anyone else in Austria would know who you were?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “Maybe you’re with the CIA or something.”

“Hardly.”

“Who then?”

“I’m a friend. Call me Hercules.”

“Not too conceited, is he?” said Rockman. “Ask him, ‘Why?’”

Good God, shut up, thought Dean. I’m not stupid.

“You’re the second man I’ve met with that name. Knew a fellow named Hercules Jones, little guy, feisty. His mother had no idea what she was doing when she gave him that name. He fought all the time as a kid. Plays a cello in an orchestra now, I believe.”

“Please, Dr. Dean.”

“I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a Ph.D.”

“Oh, that’s a bit of ridiculous formality, isn’t it? You could have your degree anytime you choose — Kegan hold you back?”

“I owe him a lot.”

“Hardly.”

“You offering me a job?”

Hercules chuckled. The man was about as far from being a hero of Greek legend — or any legend — as could be imagined.

“The antidote is where?”

“I have a place to take you to,” said Dean. “But whether the antidote is there, I haven’t a clue.”

The man turned to him and smiled. “Tell me about the difficulty of cloning DNA that originates in bacteria.”

“Uh, what do you mean? The technical aspects? Mapping?”

“Good,” said a new voice in Charlie’s head. He recognized it as the voice of one of the biology experts.

“I mean cloning bacterial DNA,” said the man.

“Once it’s properly sequenced,” said Charlie, “I don’t know that there’s more of a problem with bacteria than with anything else. I’m not an expert and I’m not saying the process is easy, but in theory, DNA is DNA. The literature — I guess I’m not entirely sure what you want to know.”

Hercules’ face clouded.

“We use a dye process generally at the first stage to do the mapping,” said Charlie. “Is that what you mean? Um, do you want me to walk through the lab process?”

“MegaBACE 4000:384 capillary DNA sequencer,” said Chaucer. “They call it ‘Marvin’ at the Hudson Valley lab. There’s a smaller set, too — Little Mo.”

“You want Mo’s blueprint or Marvin’s or what?” asked Dean. “What are you looking for?”

Hercules put the car into reverse without answering.

“That didn’t go well,” said Lia, sitting in the car a mile and a half south of the industrial complex.

“It’s all right,” said Chaucer, one of the bio experts. “It’s not clear what Hercules wants. He’s got to be more specific. Dean is answering exactly the way I would.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

“Lia, we have a tentative ID on Hercules,” said Telach. “I’m going to beam some of the information down to you. He’s a Greek national, a scientist who’s had some trouble with the government and his university — he’s been working with a group of Georgians. The Soviet variety, not the Atlanta.”

“Not SVR?” The Russian foreign intelligence service — the initials came from the Russian words — was a successor to the KGB’s foreign spying operations. Among its important duties was the study of scientific breakthroughs; Lia had fenced with them before.

“I don’t know. We’re still sorting it out,” said Rockman.

Lia keyed the handheld so she could get the photo, which had been taken by the Fokker at long-range. They’d obviously used the birthmark on the man’s chin, to help cinch the ID.

“All right, they’re pulling out of the lot,” said Rockman. “Everybody get into position and we’ll trail them again. Hang on — helicopter is coming around.”

Lia heard Rockman tell the Fokker pilot to maintain his position in an orbit southwest of the city. She flipped back to her situational overview and saw that Dean was starting to move.

“Another helicopter,” warned Telach. “Good, more lease data to get through — I need some registration numbers.”

“Okay, everybody, keep doing exactly what you were just doing. Don’t stop; don’t react,” Lia told her ground team. “They’re going to spin around the block a few times and see if anybody moves. That’s why there’s another helicopter.”

Lia got out of the car and went to the trunk. The driver started to get out, but she waved him back in. “I can handle this myself. Just wait. Keep track of where they’re driving around.”

“Lia, they’re back out on the highway, going toward the city,” said Rockman.

“That’s nice.” She could hear the helicopter well to the north.

“Aren’t you going to follow?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Woman’s intuition.”

She popped the trunk and took out a large golf bag. Unzipping the top, she pulled out what looked like the body of a good-sized crow. The wings were contained in a small case; she slotted them into the indents and added the stabilizer, which looked like a fanned tail at the end. The robot airplane was powered by a battery-operated fan engine that fit on the top; it could only do about twelve knots, but it was difficult to tell from a real bird from anything over ten yards away.

Lia booted up the diagnostic program on her handheld, waiting for the aircraft’s tiny computer to finish its own boot checks. Finally she got a green flash. Programming the Crow was simple — she designated the target and then punched one of the preprogrammed flight patterns, in this case an overlaid double-eight. Then she picked up the Crow, put her right thumb on the launch button — actually a detent on the right side of the bird’s body — and took a two-step away from the car, throwing it into the air as she did. The Crow swooped downward, then began to soar.

“Why did you launch the Crow?” hissed Telach.

“They’re coming back to the industrial park.”

“How do you know that?”

Lia ignored her and got back in the car.

“Lia, this time you’ve gone too far. Lia!”

“Drive up the highway to this point here,” she told her driver, showing him the map on the handheld. “See this fence here? I think I can get over it.”

“That car in the comer there — we saw that in the briefing, right?” asked the driver.

“Right. That’s one of the vehicles they used to shadow Dean after he was dropped off,” said Lia. “It’s covering the south entrance to the industrial park and it hasn’t moved at all. The geniuses back in the Art Room missed it.”

“Well, you could have told us that earlier,” said Telach in her ear.

“I accept your apology,” said Lia.

“Tell me about your days as an undergraduate, Dr. Dean.”

“A lot of partying,” said Dean.

“You’re the same age as Dr. Kegan.”

“Yes, I am. I lost a few years.”

“So I’ve heard. Where did they go?”

“You want my life story?”

“After a fashion.”

Dean’s phony life story tracked his real one to a point, substituting the twenty years he’d spent in the Marine Corps for a gig as a high school biology teacher with a drinking problem. That allowed for the perfect intersection of his youth, which couldn’t be conveniently altered, and gave him just enough of a sordid past to suggest he might be interesting. His phony teaching record, college transcripts, a few academic papers, and even two DWI convictions had been sprinkled surreptitiously into the official records by Desk Three.

“St. James?” asked Hercules.

It sounded familiar — was it a school Keys had gone to?

“Bluff,” said the voice in Dean’s head.

“Um, a church?” asked Dean.

“Chester High School,” said Hercules.

Charlie laughed. His head pounded harder.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember much of my time at good ol’ Chester Central School District,” he said. “Eventually I was informed that my services were redundant.”

“Too much of the grape.”

“Vodka, actually. Though for a bit there I wasn’t all that particular.”

“You don’t look well.”

“I don’t feel that well,” said Dean. “I think I ate something bad last night.”

“Where did you eat?”

Was that part of the test?

“A restaurant, uh, Kingel or Kindel or something along those lines.”

“If you’re in Vienna again, I would recommend Zum Kuckuck,” said Hercules. “Very nice. Expensive.”

“Maybe you’ll foot the bill, huh?”

Hercules leaned over in the seat as they drove, and tugged at Dean’s sleeve.

“What?”

“Show me your arm.”

Dean rolled up his sleeve.

“No bruises?”

“Bruises?”

“Welts anywhere?”

“He thinks you have it,” whispered Rockman.

Have what? Charlie wondered.

“Not that you know,” said Chaucer.

Charlie pulled his hand back. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to get a physical.”

“You may be feeling the aftereffects of the Demerol,” said Hercules, sitting back upright. “Okay, let’s go back.”

“Back where?”

“I’m afraid that my associates don’t quite believe you’re who you claim to be, and so we have a little quiz for you to pass before we can proceed. Given the amount of money at stake, I’m sure you understand that we want to protect our investment fully.”

“I don’t know anything about money,” offered Dean.

Hercules laughed. “You really are naive, aren’t you, Dr. Dean?”

“I’m not a doctor,” said Dean.

The complex consisted of two identical buildings covered with elaborate masonry designs, along with a smaller garage at the left end and a number of trailers in the back. Only one of the two buildings seemed to be occupied, at least if the Crow’s sensors could be believed; it was possible that there was a basement level with activity the Crow couldn’t see. A satellite was being directed overhead to provide a view.

The trailers were more interesting. Two appeared to have been set up as roving laboratories. The infrared images were being studied by the scientific teams; there were autoclaves, a fermenter, refrigerators, incubators, microscopes, computers — enough gear to keep a mad scientist happy for years.

“That’s where we want to go, huh?” said Lia, looking at the images on the handheld.

“Dangerous, very dangerous,” said Telach. “Let’s let this play out a bit.”

“I want to get inside the complex before they get back,” Lia said.

“All right, but hurry. They’re less than ten minutes away,” said Rockman.

The infrared camera on the Crow gave Lia a good view of the complex. A pair of security cams observed the rear fence; they were static but had good coverage. One could be approached from the west without being observed. It had been situated in a recessed box in a stone pillar to prevent tampering — a not unreasonable approach, unless the person doing the tampering was a member of Deep Black.

Lia slid up to the box, holding what looked like a large tumbler in her right hand.

“They’re coming,” said Rockman. “Five minutes.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“Guards on foot can see you from that angle.”

“You know what? You’re making me nervous. Did you take control of the Crow?”

“We have it.”

“Then come on yourself.”

“It wasn’t built for precision flying and we’re controlling it from here, rather than Space Command.”

Lia waited until the Crow fluttered toward the camera, heading directly for the lens. Just as it seemed as if it would poke into the box, Lia moved the glasslike device quickly over the opening. The pseudo-tumbler was actually a sophisticated video screen, at the moment transparently projecting the fence. In twelve seconds Rockman would flick a switch that would substitute a loop of that image for a real feed.

“We still have the Crow,” said Telach.

Lia trotted down the fence line. Once on the other side, she had to cross about twenty feet of open area before reaching the two vehicles parked at the side of the garage; this was by far the best spot to use to get inside the complex, but there was no cover from the fence to the buildings.

She tucked her gear into the small ruck attached to her belly. Except for her small hideaway pistols, her only weapons were a pair of tear gas grenades, flash-bangs, and a heavily customized Ingram Mac 11. The gun, which was loaded with 9mm slugs, had a carbon-fiber stock in place of the standard metal, and some of the metal in the body had been replaced with plastic or titanium for extra strength as well as lightness; a good number of water pistols were heavier. The modified Mac 11 retained the original’s excellent balance and light kick; it could be fired adequately with one hand. Lia had several magazines in her bag, as well as a noise suppressor that worked considerably better than the standard “muffler,” a scope, and a standard stock. The gun slipped as she started to climb; she nearly lost it and had to pull the strap awkwardly over her neck to get over.

She had just gotten down on the other side and pulled her computer back out for an update on where everyone was when Rockman hissed a warning in her ear.

“Two guards, with guns, coming from around the comer on your left.”

As Lia turned to look, she saw a gun barrel and boot turning the comer and realized she’d never bring her own weapon to bear in time.