The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Forty-Seven

He knew what was happening. He was in quarantine, being kept under observation to see if he collapsed dead of whatever had afflicted Torben Roth and the other guy at the safe house in Lausanne. He supposed the same was being done with Silvie. Maybe she was just next door, in an identical room the other side of the tiled wall.

But knowing what was happening didn’t make it easier to bear. Hours dragged torturously by. The lights stayed on brightly the entire time, making it impossible to tell day from night, and before too long it became hard to preserve his outwardly cool attitude. Ben was no Zen master. And this place lacked the serenity of Chartreuse de la Sainte Vierge de Pelvoux that had taught him to quieten his thoughts. Frustration and anger began to gnaw increasingly at him. Anxiety about Silvie. Impatience at being cooped up helplessly in here while Streicher was still out there somewhere, getting harder to find by the minute and the hour.

He slept, tossing and turning a while, then sat a while, then paced and banged on the window and demanded a response, then got none and went back to pacing and doing press-ups and sit-ups, until he was tired out and sweaty and had a wash and went back to bed with his back defiantly turned to the two-way mirror.

He was sleeping when the doctors came into his room. He woke with a start to see three of them standing around the bed, accompanied by a nurse. They weren’t wearing protective suits.

‘Either you people are being really careless about exposure, or I’m in the clear,’ he challenged them. ‘Which is it?’

They said nothing. Just studied him curiously for a few moments, then nodded to one another and left the room. The nurse stayed behind, produced a syringe and drew blood from him.

‘Can I smoke in here?’ he asked her.

No response.

‘How about something to eat?’ he said.

Three hours later, the nurse returned with a tray. Coffee, fruit juice, a tasteless bit of brioche and a banana.

Three hours after that, Ben was given a fresh set of clothes and released from the observation room. He might be in the clear, but they still didn’t trust him without an armed escort as he was taken down a series of corridors to a room. A guard knocked once on the door, then showed him in.

Two men were sitting at a circular office table inside the room.

‘Hello, Ben,’ said Luc Simon. He looked weary and drawn and his tie was loosened and crooked, which for Luc Simon was the equivalent of a ripped jacket sleeve or a sole flapping off his shoe. He was making inroads into the large pot of coffee that stood on a tray in the middle of the table. His companion hadn’t touched any. He was an older man with thinning black hair, tall and gaunt in a dark suit. He was peering curiously at Ben.

For a moment or two, Ben considered kicking the table over. But he didn’t want to spill the coffee. It smelled like the good stuff. He sat in one of the two empty chairs at the round table, grabbed one of the two spare cups from the tray and poured it full to the brim from the pot. Black, no sugar. It was the good stuff, strong and hot. He drank it greedily and felt better right away.

‘I suppose you have a lot of questions, don’t you?’ Luc Simon said. ‘That’s understandable. For instance, I’m sure you’d like to know where you are and why you were subjected to all these medical indignities. All very necessary, I’m afraid. But before we start getting into it, I’d like to thank you for leading us to Streicher’s safe house.’ He smiled. ‘You’re the best unpaid agent I could have wished for,’ he added, as if he couldn’t resist saying it.

‘Careful, you might upset me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m a loose cannon, remember.’

‘I apologise,’ Luc Simon said with a gracious nod.

‘So how did you do it?’

‘Trace your movements? By knowing how you think, Ben.’

‘Am I that predictable?’

‘No,’ Luc Simon said. ‘I’m just that good. Recalling your fondness for the prehistoric Grande Puissance 1935 Model Browning pistol — you once carjacked me with one — and knowing, naturally, that you’d easily get the better of them, I arranged for one of our agents who intercepted your train journey to be carrying one fitted with a miniature GPS tracking device. You’d have to take the grips off to find it.’

Crafty bastard, Ben thought. ‘And the helicopter chase. That was just a decoy, wasn’t it?’

‘I couldn’t let you think you’d got away too easily,’ Luc Simon said. ‘I wanted you to feel like you’d earned your freedom. The pilot was under orders to back off and make it appear as if you’d given him the slip. Meanwhile we were tracking you all the way to Lausanne, knowing you’d waste no time finding Streicher’s people.’

‘I only found two of them.’

‘But you uncovered so much more. I’m relieved that Agent Valois didn’t find an opportunity to arrest you sooner.’

Ben smiled inwardly at that, but showed nothing on his face. He finished his cup of coffee and refilled it from the pot without offering any to anybody else. The older man with the thinning dark hair still hadn’t said a word, or been introduced. Ben didn’t much care for the way the guy was sitting watching him. He had beady dark little eyes, like a crow.

‘If you’re wondering where she is, by the way,’ Luc Simon said, ‘like you she’s come through the twenty-four-hour observation period with no problems and her blood tests negative. Although you were both exposed, you were lucky. Luckier still that we brought you here for assessment. It might have gone very differently.’

‘You’ll have to pardon me for not turning cartwheels of joy and gratitude,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what any of this is about. I don’t even know if it’s day or night, because they junked my watch. I liked that watch. I had it a long time.’

‘We’ll get you a new one just like it,’ Luc Simon reassured him. ‘For the record, it’s two-thirty-seven a.m. and our present location is a government science facility a few kilometres from our Interpol HQ in Lyon, one whose existence is not exactly secret but not exactly widely publicised either. As for the rest, I told you I’d fill you in when we were face to face. And I was being honest. I’ve been rethinking your offer. Whether we like it or not, right now you’re possibly our best asset in this investigation. And my superiors now think likewise. Thanks to you, in the last twenty-four hours our worst fears about Streicher have been confirmed. I’m afraid the stakes are very high. It’s time you knew a few things.’

‘So fill me in,’ Ben said.

‘Better you hear it from my colleague here,’ Simon said, motioning at the older man. ‘Allow me to introduce Professor Jean-Pierre Oppenheim.’

‘Professor of what?’ Ben said, looking at him suspiciously.

Oppenheim made no reply and only gave a thin, frosty smile.

‘Oh, of many things,’ Luc Simon said. ‘Take it from me, his experience and credentials are second to none. But the less you know about his exact professional role, the better. Let’s just say he’s our foremost authority on this matter.’

‘Then let’s hear it,’ Ben said.

Oppenheim pursed his lips and shifted in his chair. He looked down at his long, bony hands and very carefully laced his fingers together over his knee. His dark crow’s eyes regarded Ben for a moment and then he spoke for the first time. His voice was dry and crackling.

‘The contingency we’re dealing with here can easily be summed up in a single word,’ he said. ‘But first, I feel it necessary to provide you with the relevant background information.’ Oppenheim paused for a few moments, as if weighing his words, chewing over what he was about to divulge. His eyes bored deep into Ben.

‘How much do you know about bioterrorism?’ he asked.