The Armageddon Protocol

TWENTY

Harry fixed his eyes on Liška but the Czech scientist shifted uncomfortably in his chair and broke eye contact by rubbing his face. Body language like that told a thousand words. “So what’s this big game changer, professor?” he asked.

“It’s true that the Perses dust is utterly lethal — its deployment in any dense population would be catastrophic. That is its purpose. That is why it was created… but…”

Harry let a deep sigh of frustration and looked at his watch. “Spit it out, Andrej.”

Liška stared at both his visitors in silence for a few seconds. Harry saw in his eyes that he still didn’t know how much he could trust either of them. “When Gabriel and I fled the compound, we took more than the research files and activation codes.”

Lucia glanced at Harry, her eyes wide with anticipation and fear. “I’m not sure I want to hear what’s coming next.”

“Andrej?”

“We also took the dust.”

“You took the dust?” Harry said. “That explains the killing spree.”

Liška nodded. “We had no choice. Leaving it in the lab would make us accessories to the greatest genocide in history. How could I live with that? How could I look my grandchildren in the eye ever again?”

“Your bravery got Pablo murdered!” Lucia said.

“You don’t think I know that?” Liška said. “We both knew the risks when we fled with their precious weapon. That is why we broke up — to make it harder for them to hunt us down and take the dust back. Gabriel went to Madrid with the activation code and I came here to Paris with the dust and hid it. It is useless without the code, and the code is useless without the dust. It was the best we could do to give us some time to think it through.”

Harry sighed. “And does the Ministry have any more of this dust?”

“Not as far as I know, and not only would it take months to develop it, Gabriel and I are really the only people capable of doing it. There are others, of course, but without any of our research they would have to start from the beginning.”

“So your actions represent a significant delay to the Ministry’s depopulation plans?”

“Yes, but at a price,” he said, glancing with sad eyes at Lucia. “At a terrible price… and perhaps one that has not yet been fully paid.”

“I understand your fear, Andrej,” Harry said, “but we have to get the dust into safe hands.”

“I already told you — we have no way of knowing which government officials are controlled by the Ministry and which are not.”

Harry shook his head, refusing to believe everyone was corrupt. “There are people I trust.”

“This means nothing to me!” the Czech said. “We cannot know if…”

“Wait,” Harry said, raising his finger to stop Liška talking. “Something’s wrong — you hear that?”

Liška narrowed his eyes. “No, what?”

“I hear nothing,” Lucia said.

Harry looked at her. “Exactly.”

“I don’t understand.”

He returned to the window and glanced outside once again but this time leaving the voile in place. The woman with the Spitz was nowhere in sight, and neither was the BMW, but more than that, there was no traffic at all outside the apartment. No more passers-by, and not a car or Vespa in sight. The only movement was the winter breeze shaking the bare branches of the plane trees beyond Liška’s modest balcony. A sparrow landed on the center sleeve of the balcony’s rail and cocked its head at the former soldier for a few seconds before fluttering away into the cold sky.

“Something’s definitely up,” he said.

Lucia turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

“Yes,” Liška said, getting up from his chair and walking slowly backwards toward the door. “What do you mean?”

“The street’s gone very quiet all of a sudden — I noticed it just a few seconds ago when you were talking, professor. Since we’ve been here the ambient noise outside in the street has been consistent, but now it’s all gone quiet.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“And no traffic, either,” Harry said, staring up and down the street.

“It’s not a very busy street,” Liška said. “That’s why I live here.”

“No, it’s not busy — but it’s consistent, and now there’s been a change and I don’t like changes. They’ve sealed off the street.”

Liška walked back into a small table and knocked the carriage clock onto the floorboards. It landed with a heavy smack, shattering the bevelled glass facia to pieces. The Czech scientist stared at the shards with horror as he realized what Harry’s words meant. “Cordoned off the road? But who?”

“Relax, Andrej,” Harry said. “I’m sure your Ministry wouldn’t observe such niceties.”

“So you meant it’s the…”

Suddenly there was a thundering explosion and the front door smashed in to reveal several armed policemen. The anxious calm of the last few moments was gone and replaced with the shouts and screams of the police unit as they burst into the apartment.

When Harry saw the Remington 870 he knew how the front door had met its maker, but the rest of the squad were armed mostly with Heckler & Koch G36s and the lead man was holding a Glock 17. He didn’t get another chance to see them because a second later the team deployed several smoke grenades and the apartment was filled with acrid fog.

Harry dived to the floor and pulled Lucia down with him as he went. They crashed into the rug beside the coffee table, Harry on the floor and Lucia on top of him. He held the back of her head to his chest to protect her from flying debris as the men thundered into the room, their laser sights visible in the smoke.

Through the fog he could see the squad as they fanned out and cleared the apartment room by room. They had already grabbed Andrej Liška and dragged him from the room and now they were pounding over the floorboards toward him and Lucia. One of them grabbed her by her shoulders and started to pull her off Harry. He saw that she wanted to scream but he told her to stay quiet. The next thing he knew two other men in the squad were hauling him over and pinning his hands behind his back.

One of them put his boot on his face to quell any thoughts of resistance but the former soldier knew there was no fight here. He was unarmed and so was Lucia, and something told him Andrej Liška wasn’t the type to have a gun hidden in his desk drawer. Worse, these men were obviously an elite anti-terror group and that meant two things. First, resistance was futile, and second, just why the hell did Andrej Liška merit such a high-level takedown? Yet more evidence that this Ministry was real, he considered.

Looking at the way they were dressed, Harry knew at once this was a RAID squad. It stood for Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion, or Search, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence in English. They were headquartered a few miles outside of Paris and one of the main anti-terror forces in the French arsenal. Their silent approach and lightning raid of Liška’s apartment had impressed him and he was cursing himself for letting them get so close unobserved, but he was a long time out of MI6 and even longer out of the Army, and there was no time for regret when a size 12 anti-riot boot was pushing down on the side of your face.

When the apartment was under control, a man in a grey suit walked casually into the room with a cigarette burning in his hand. He had brown hair, thinning slightly and parted on the right.

As the RAID squad held their new prisoners in place, covered by the array of submachine guns, the man with the cigarette opened the window to clear the fog and sauntered toward Harry. He crouched down on his haunches so his face was closer.

“Bonjour,” he said, and took a long drag on the cigarette.

Harry tried to smile. “How do you do?”

“You have a boot mark on your face,” the man said.

“A necessary consequence of being used as a doormat by a two hundred pound gorilla… wouldn’t you say?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “You’re coming with us.”

“But we haven’t even been introduced.”

“I am Petit of the Gendarmerie, and you are all under arrest. Give me your passports.”

Lucia handed hers over first and after a casual flick through the pages he stopped and compared the photo inside to the woman standing opposite him. “Seems okay,” he mumbled and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Petit turned his frowning face to Andrej. “And yours?”

The Czech scientist glanced from Harry and Lucia back over to Petit. “It’s in the bedroom.”

Petit nodded and ordered a young police officer to retrieve it and he returned a few moments later with a Czech passport. He handed it to the superior officer who flicked through the pages and once again paused when he landed on the photo ID page. “Anton Zeman?”

“Yes,” Andrej said anxiously.

Harry realized the Czech had gone to the same lengths as Pablo by getting a fake passport, and he also knew it was only a matter of time before the French authorities got to the truth. His thoughts were interrupted by Petit’s brusque demand to see his own passport. He produced the document from the inside pocket of his own suit jacket and handed it over to Petit. “All yours.”

The Frenchman took the passport and thumbed through the pages in the same way, only this time he stopped halfway and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “I see you are a well-travelled man, Monsieur Bane.”

“I’m just trying to find myself.”

“Very amusing,” Petit said, shuffling through the pages more slowly now. “France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Russia, China, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Bahamas, India, Malta, Singapore… the list goes on.”

“What can I say?” Harry said. “Turns out I’m not very good at finding things.”

Petit’s stern frown didn’t move as his eyes locked onto Harry’s. “Why do you travel so much?” As he asked the question, he gestured for an officer to place the three of them in handcuffs.

“That’s between me and my psychotherapist,” Harry said, and turned to the man who was locking the cuffs on him. “Aren’t these more of a third date thing?”

Petit sighed as he rolled the cigarette in his fingers. “So this is how you want to do things?” As he spoke, he slipped Harry’s passport into the same inside pocket. “You will see this again when I have my answers.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“The training of the French police is…” he paused as he searched for the correct English, giving Harry the time to interrupt him.

“Sadly lacking in both finesse and strategic flare?”

Petit’s eyes flicked up and locked on the Englishman. “I was going to say very comprehensive and prepares us well for interrogations. I see you are not taking this seriously. Never mind. I have here a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Madrid Police. It enables me to arrest you both for the murders of Pablo Reyes, Mariana Vidal and two police officers and deport you to Spain to face charges. Take him too,” Petit said, pointing his chin dismissively at Liška who was being held in the doorway. “He could be a conspirator.”

“I am no such thing!”

“Save it for someone who cares,” Petit said.