Immortal

60

Colonel Donald Wolfe stood in full military uniform amidst almost a thousand dignitaries milling about near the entrance to the General Assembly Hall as he glanced at his watch for the fifth time in ten minutes. World leaders surrounded him, talking through translators and to a small number of television crews allowed access to the United Nations complex. He stood for another five minutes, fielding questions from the British Prime Minister, before he finally slipped away into an annex and pulled a cell phone from his pocket that he’d bought for cash two days previously. He would dispose of it as soon as he’d finished.

He punched in a number from memory and listened to the ring tone warbling in his ear for several long seconds before finally a man’s voice answered.

‘Donald?’

Wolfe spoke slowly and clearly, aware that the line was most likely protected by levels of encryption far more advanced that even his own at Fort Detrick: Bilderberg’s most powerful attendees took no chances with their anonymity.

‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Oppenheimer is in position and ready to strike, as are my men. I only need you to give me the go-ahead and assurance of my security.’

The voice replied, calm and in control. ‘Everything is in place, Donald. As soon as you order your men in, your role in this will be unidentifiable. We will contact you directly at the next Bilderberg meeting once everything has been achieved and the dust has settled. By then, everyone will have forgotten about Jeb Oppenheimer and his crusade.’

The line went dead in Wolfe’s ear. He immediately punched in a second number and waited for the line to pick up.

‘Hoffman.’

Red Hoffman was breathing heavily, as though he were slogging his way up a hill.

‘What’s your status?’ Wolfe asked without preamble.

‘We’re within two miles of them,’ Hoffman said under his breath. Wolfe could hear other footfalls around him, the sound of troops marching. ‘We’ll have everything under control within the hour.’

Wolfe breathed a sigh of relief.

‘As soon as you do,’ he said with finality, ‘obtain a live subject and leave the area. There must be absolutely no witnesses. Do you understand?’

Hoffman’s reply was brisk and uncompromising.

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Bring the subject back to me as soon as you have them, in person.’

‘Will do. Hoffman out.’

The line went dead. Wolfe shut the phone off, unclipped its rear panel and slipped the SIM card out from within. He tossed it onto the floor and smashed one heel down on the delicate card. Then, he slipped the untraceable cell phone into his pocket and turned, striding across the chamber toward the exit.

He was almost there when he saw two security guards flanking the doors, talking to an old man in a smart blue suit. Wolfe froze on the spot as he recognized Douglas Jarvis, gasping for breath, his face flushed with urgency, gesturing wildly at the two guards.

Wolfe turned and hurried away to take a different exit from the hall, walking across the connection between the General Assembly Hall and the Conference Building, cantilevered over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. He then took an elevator to the fourth floor. He weaved his way to the Delegates’ Dining Room and just beyond it, to a kitchen that served VIPs in the dining room and was often used as a short cut by delegates between the Conference Building’s dining rooms and the General Assembly Hall. Wolfe strode into the kitchens, one hand in his pocket as several members of staff within glanced at him.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

Wolfe smiled at the head chef, gesturing to the kitchens beyond.

‘Just a routine search of the premises before the assembly convenes,’ he said, flashing his USAMRIID identity card. ‘Ask your staff to give me the room, if you will. I’ll walk through here, then exit the same way I came in and report to you there. Is there anything out of order today in here that I need to know about?’

‘No, sir.’ The man shook his head and headed for the kitchen door, instantly recognizing Wolfe’s identity and rank. ‘All’s running smoothly.’

Donald Wolfe waited until the staff had all left the kitchen, keeping his head up and his eyes alert as he turned to stride between the endless worktops, steel vats, pans and ovens. As he walked he saw two rows of approximately fifty large glass jugs filled with water. Each would be taken down to the Assembly Hall and used to fill the glasses of hundreds of world leaders as they sat listening to the lectures and speeches that were part of the General Assembly’s convention.

Wolfe lifted his hand from his pocket, a large plastic syringe concealed beneath his sleeve. As he walked casually past the huge jugs, he lifted his hand and squirted brief jets of clear fluid, one for each jug, one after another. He then turned at the end of the row and repeated the action down the second row on the other side, dumping jets of infected water into the jugs until his syringe was empty. Wolfe slipped the syringe back into his pocket and walked toward the exit, leaving the kitchens and nodding to the chef by the door as he departed.

By his best estimate, given the travels of world leaders, the handshakes, the hordes of staff, the telephones and faxes and interviews, cars, aircraft and beds, from the United Nation’s General Assembly Building to a world pandemic would take less than two weeks.

And the best of it was, nobody would show symptoms for at least four days after infection. Within ten, they would be dead.

Doug Jarvis ran across the connection between the General Assembly Hall and the Conference Building, staggering into the elevator and punching the button for the fourth floor. He sucked in air with ragged gasps as he leaned on the aluminum walls and watched the digital floor counter change agonizingly slowly. The elevator alarm pinged, and the doors slid open.

Jarvis took a step out, and stared straight into the eyes of Donald Wolfe.

The colonel filled the corridor before him, resplendent in his uniform. Before Jarvis could react, Wolfe rushed forward and slammed his shoulder into Jarvis’s chest, plunging them both back into the elevator with a crash of bodies against metal. Wolfe thumped down on top of Jarvis and the impact forced the air from the older man’s lungs. Jarvis saw him punch a fist out at the buttons beside them and the elevator doors closed behind them before he reached down and drew a small ceremonial silver pistol from a holster at his waist.

Jarvis struggled against Wolfe’s iron grip, but the younger man was too strong for him.

‘You’re finished, Colonel,’ Jarvis growled up at him. ‘Doesn’t matter what happens here now. We know everything: Brevig Mission, the flu corpse, SkinGen’s involvement. It’s over.’

Wolfe nodded, jabbing the pistol against Jarvis’s cheek.

‘Yes, it is indeed over. Or at least it is for the majority of the world’s population. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now, Mister Jarvis. This is more important than my survival, or yours. This is about the survival of our species. One way or another, by the end of today one hundred ninety-two world leaders and their staff will walk out of the United Nations plaza carrying the most virulent influenza virus ever to have existed. They will contaminate each other, pass the infection on at a trimetric rate throughout the global population. Hundreds of millions will meet an early grave, for the benefit of those remaining.’ Wolfe grinned a hawkish smile. ‘Cruel to be kind, as they say.’

Jarvis shook his head.

‘You’ll never get that far,’ he said. ‘SkinGen’s already being raided as we speak, and Jeb Oppenheimer’s little experiments in New Mexico have unraveled already. The police will be here any moment.’

Wolfe chuckled as he glared down at Jarvis with his piercing gray eyes.

‘Not soon enough,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’m due on stage in ten minutes. This will all be over by then, if not before. As for you, your time’s already done.’

Wolfe raised the pistol above his head and brought it crashing down on Jarvis’s temple with a sickening crack. Jarvis felt an instant of skull-piercing pain, and then everything turned black.