The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Sixty-One

‘Lindquist!’ Streicher yelled as he flung open the laboratory door. In his hand was the nine-millimetre Beretta he’d personally used to execute the suspected spy in their midst, Dexter Nicholls. He fully intended to do the same to Anton Lindquist, if the man let him down. He could be replaced. Anyone could be, except Udo Streicher.

The inner containment chamber was empty. No sign of Lindquist. ‘Fine,’ Streicher said. He racked the slide on the Beretta, clicked off the safety and went looking for him.

Lindquist wasn’t far away. Streicher found him next door, in the adjacent lab where the test animals were housed. Still wearing his PPPS suit, the Swede was standing watching a black-and-white monkey in a cage. The animal was resting on its haunches, munching on a slice of apple. At the sight of Streicher, it threw down the food and gripped the bars of its cage, screeching loudly. Lindquist turned in surprise. He was pale with exhaustion, both from lack of sleep and the prolonged terror of his ordeal, but he was suddenly very much awake and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the gun in Streicher’s hand.

‘A man’s trust is a precious thing, Anton,’ Streicher said. ‘Especially mine, as your life happens to depend on it. You promised to deliver. Your time is up.’

‘Jesus Christ, you can’t come in here without protection,’ Lindquist rasped behind the suit visor. ‘The monkey — it’s infected.’

Streicher took a step back, whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over his nose and mouth. He gazed at the table near the cage, on which was a small amber-coloured bottle and a pack of disposable syringes. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘The antitoxin,’ Lindquist said. ‘I finished it sooner than expected. But the test isn’t complete. I only administered the drug to the monkey ninety minutes ago, alongside the live bacteria.’

The monkey was still screeching wildly inside the cage. Streicher hated monkeys, mainly because they were too similar to humans. He pointed the gun at it. ‘Make it shut the hell up.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘Is it sick?’

‘It’s just afraid of you,’ Lindquist said. ‘These aren’t disease symptoms.’

A surge of elation stabbed through Streicher’s heart. ‘Then the antitoxin’s working. It’s been ninety minutes. You said the first symptoms appear within an hour.’

‘Generally. But ninety minutes isn’t long enough to be certain.’

Streicher considered, but only for a second. Triumph was blazing through him like a river of fire. He couldn’t wait any longer. ‘It’s good enough,’ he said, grabbing the bottle and syringes from the table. ‘Will this provide doses for everyone?’

‘Plenty,’ Lindquist said. ‘But—’

Streicher pointed the pistol at him. ‘Take off your suit.’

‘What?’

Streicher aimed the gun carefully at Lindquist’s side, where the silvery material hung loose and baggy. He squeezed the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the hard-surfaced lab. A nine-millimetre hole appeared in the loose folds of the PPPS suit. Passing straight through with no resistance, the bullet smashed a computer screen on a bench behind where Lindquist was standing. The monkey screamed even louder, and shook hysterically at its bars. Streicher swung the gun and fired again, and the monkey was blown against the back of the cage, crumpled and silenced, its fur bloody.

‘Take off your suit,’ Streicher repeated. ‘It’s useless to you now, anyway.’

Lindquist gaped at the hole in the material where the bullet had passed within two inches of his flesh, then turned and gaped again at the dead monkey. He clawed at the neck fastening of his headgear and removed it, pale and shaking. Then undid the fastenings of the rest of the suit and let it slip to the floor. He was mouthing the words he didn’t dare speak out loud. ‘You’re fucking insane.’

Streicher tossed him the antitoxin bottle, then the syringes. ‘Do you trust it?’ he said.

‘I–I did everything right. I know I did.’

‘Then take a shot. The test is over. The operation starts here.’

Lindquist’s hands were fluttering so badly that he could barely get the needle into his arm. He winced as he pressed the plunger.

‘Good,’ Streicher said. ‘Now my turn.’ Drawing a fresh needle from the pack, he administered his own dose without a flinch. Lindquist was staring at him, unable to speak. ‘You did good work, Anton,’ Streicher told him with a smile. He sounded like a benevolent schoolteacher after scoring a breakthrough with a recalcitrant pupil. ‘Your contribution will go down in history. It won’t be forgotten.’

Streicher left the lab and went striding rapidly down the corridor. Suddenly remembering what the Swede had said about the nausea and headaches that might come on as side effects of the antitoxin, he took a detour through the bunker and went to his personal office. He knew what would fix the side effects. Couldn’t be seen throwing up and acting all weak and pathetic in front of the others. Not even in front of Hannah. It wouldn’t become a man of his stature.

The office was a large room, with an oriental rug and leather chairs and a fine teak desk at which he often sat to gaze at the bank of security monitors mounted in a double row on the wall above a control panel, showing constantly switching high-definition images from inside the bunker and various points along the perimeter. He ignored them at this moment, because he had more pressing business on his mind.

Laying the antitoxin and needles on the desk, he opened a drawer and took out a plastic sachet of cocaine, a credit card and a short straw. Scattered fine white powder on the desktop, shaped it into three generous lines with the credit card, then bent over the desk and snorted them up in quick succession.

He straightened up, gasping at the sudden heady rush and dropping the straw. Coloured lights spangled in front of his eyes. His whole being tingled with a champagne fizz and a grin wider than a piano keyboard spread over his face. He breathed out with deep satisfaction and felt as if he was already king of the world. Which he already was, of course. His destiny was assured now. Nothing was going to—

That was when he happened to glance at the security monitors and something caught his eye that wiped the grin off his face.

The pair of intruders were standing at the fence and peering through the wire into the compound, filmed from above and to the side, clearly unaware of the miniature camera concealed overhead in the branches of a tree. Both carried automatic weapons. The man was blond and lean, about forty. Looked tough and able to handle himself. Streicher had never seen him before, but he knew the woman, all right. He’d have known her anywhere.

Michelle Faban.

Fury rose up inside Udo Streicher with volcanic intensity, fuelled by the cocaine rush.

The bitch.

The traitorous, treacherous, lying piece of shit bitch!

He stared enraged at the monitor for nearly two full minutes. The intruders were talking to one another, making him wish he’d installed microphones into his surveillance system. They seemed to be conferring. They seemed to be alone. As he watched, they drew back from the fence, but he could still see them lingering among the trees, on the edge of his screen. He reached to the control panel and nudged a stubby lever below the monitor that looked like a miniature joystick. The hidden camera panned a few degrees, bringing the concealed figures back to the centre of the screen. The bastards were obviously planning something.

Streicher tore at his pocket and snatched out the radio handset. He barked into it in a furious gabble.

‘Wolf, we have a security breach in progress near Perimeter Gate Seventeen. The Faban woman is out there with some guy. I know why they’re here, and they have to be stopped. Do you hear me, Wolf? I want you to take a four-man team out there and deal with it, right this very minute. I’ll be watching from the monitors. I want them dead. I want that bitch’s head personally delivered to me on a plate, five minutes from now. Understand? Over and out.’