The Omega Terror

TEN

I wheeled the old van to a parking area near the front entrance of the building complex. A hundred things I didn’t know could cause suspicion at any moment. I wondered if the van should be parked out in front or if Hammadi was expected to enter the lab through some other entrance. There was no way of finding out these details, so I had to proceed on bluff, which was not exactly a new experience.

I didn’t even know what equipment the barber took into the building. When the van was parked, I climbed out, opened the rear doors and saw a sizable carrying case inside. It contained barber’s tools.

There were several people in sight. Two uniformed soldiers stood smoking cigarettes and talking together at the corner of the building, and a white-frocked technician moved quickly past me with a clipboard under his arm.

The front entrance stood wide open, but there was a guard just inside the door, sitting at a small table. He was a black African dressed in plain khaki pants and a shirt open at the neck. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses, and he had a precise, professorial air about him.

“Pass, please,” he said in perfect Arabic.

I handed the card to him. “I am cutting hair for Hammadi today,” I told him in an offhand manner.

He took the pass and stared at me. I wondered if he thought I did not look like an Arab. “He has been told, I’m sure, that passes to this facility are not transferable to other individuals.” He glanced at the pass as if he had seen it many times previously. “But you may have clearance this time. Next week, have Hammadi report directly to me before he goes to the cutting room.”

“Yes, sir.”

He handed the pass back to me. “And you had better be good, brother. The standards here are high.”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

He pointed to his clipboard. “Sign on the first empty space.”

My written Arabic was lousy. I signed Abdul Marbrouk and handed the clipboard back. He nodded for me to proceed into the building.

I thanked him and moved on down the corridor. The place was brightly lit inside, with no windows. The walls were painted a dazzling white.

I passed through double doors in the corridor into another section of the building. I had no idea where the “cutting room” was and cared less. But I could not let anybody catch me going in the wrong direction. There was an occasional white-coated staff member in the corridor, but there people hur-ried past me without a second glance. Some of the doors had glass windows in them, and I saw employees inside the offices doing administrative work. In one room there was a console computer, and several technicians moved about near it. That expensive piece of machinery would be there to help Zeno check his calculations.

I walked through another set of doors and found myself in the main section of the building complex. A sign above the doors stated, in three languages, Authorized Personnel Only. This wing would undoubtedly be where Zeno’s and Li Yuen’s offices were located and possibly the lab where Zeno conducted his experiments.

I had just passed a door marked Service when a white-coated man with a yellow badge on his chest came hurrying out of a room and almost knocked me down. He was a tall fellow, about my height, but with narrow shoulders. His long face showed mild surprise when he saw me.

“Who are you?” he asked in Arabic. He looked German or possibly French. I wondered whether he was one of the many on this project who, like André Delacroix, knew nothing of its real purpose.

“I am the hair-cutter,” I said to him. “I am…”

“What do you think you are doing in Section One?” he said irritably, interrupting me. “You must be aware that you do not belong here.”

“Is this Section One, sir?” I said, stalling.

“Yes, you idiot!” he replied. He turned partially away from me. “The cutting room is in the other wing. You go back through these….”

I brought the edge of my right hand down in a swift chop at the back of his neck, and he collapsed into my arms. I dragged him to the closet door and turned the handle. It was locked. I swore under my breath. Somebody else could appear in this corridor at any moment, and I would be stuck with the body. I fumbled in the djellaba I was wearing and came up with the lock-picker I had taken from my clothes along with Wilhelmina and Hugo. In a moment I had the door open. But another door opened twenty feet down the corridor while the lab man was still on the floor in the hallway. Another white-frocked man came out but turned the other way without seeing us and strode quickly down the hall. I let my breath out. I grabbed the unconscious body and pulled it into the closet after me, turning on the light inside after I closed the door.

The closet was tiny, with hardly enough room for two people. I quickly stripped off the barber’s clothing and dumped it into a pile in a corner with mops and pails. Then I moved to the small sink behind me, turned on the water and scrubbed the washable stain from my face and hands. I dried with a utility towel from a stack on a stand nearby. I took off the man’s coat, shirt and tie. I’d kept my own pants in the previous exchange. I put the new clothes on, removing and replacing the holster and stiletto sheath. In a moment I was a white-coated technician. I bound my man with the utility towels, gagged him, left the closet and locked it behind me.

Out in the hall I looked at my badge. My name was Heinz Kruger and I was assigned to Department F, whatever that meant. I wondered how close to Dr. Z and Li Yuen that would get me. I moved down the corridor toward the far end, where there were large swinging doors. A young woman with spectacles came out of a side corridor, glanced at me and spoke in English, which apparently was the second language of the facility.

“Good morning,” she said as she passed, giving me a second look, as if she wondered why my face was not familiar.

I snatched a glimpse at her badge. “Good morning to you, Miss Gomulka.”

The use of her name seemed to reassure her, and she smiled briefly as she moved on. I did not look after her. I walked quickly down to the end of the corridor and the double doors.

The long room I entered was a ward, the beds filled with Arabs and a few black Africans. They looked like the flotsam of their world or any world. And they all looked very sick.

I glanced down the aisle between the beds and saw a male nurse giving a shot of something to a patient. The nurse glanced at me and nodded but paid no further attention. I returned the nod and moved down the aisle in the other direction. What I saw made my stomach turn.

There was no attempt to keep the bedding clean in this ward or even to keep litter off the floor. And it was clear that the men in these beds were not being medically treated, since many of them had the open sores and malnutrition they had been brought here with. But there was something about them that was much more unnerving than these visual marks of neglect. These people were deathly ill. Their eyes had a dull, bloodshot look, their skin was flaccid and dry, and many of them were in obvious pain. They moaned constantly and asked for medication as I passed. One bony black man lay motionless on the bed, his soiled sheets kicked off. I walked over and looked at him. His eyes were open and glazed over. His tongue protruded halfway from his mouth and was swollen and dry. His face had been wracked with the marks of excruciating pain, and there was almost no flesh on his body. I touched his wrist. The man was dead.

So that was what was going on in there. These poor devils were being used as human guinea pigs. They had probably been picked off the streets of villages with the promise of clinical treatment and then brought to the lab to be experimented on. They had been injected with Omega and represented final proof of Zeno’s success.

My insides twisted up, thinking about what these wretched men had been put through. As I stood looking at the corpse, I thought of a large city in the United States after the Omega Mutation had struck. Gray-skinned men and women dying in the streets, unable to get help, writhing in agony, hollow eyes pleading for mercy, dry lips mumbling for some miracle to end the suffering. Hospitals clogged with groaning victims, the staff itself unable to function because of the attack of the disease. Government offices closed, transportation and news services inoperable. No trucks or planes moving to get precious medicines to the hospitals.

“Can I help you?”

The voice startled me, coming as it had from just over my left shoulder. I toned and saw the male nurse standing there. His voice was high-pitched, his manner saccharine.

“Oh. Just taking a look at results,” I said. “How is everything proceeding this morning?”

“Quite well,” he said in an effeminate tone. He was trying to remember me, like the girl in the hall. “We have several third stages now, and the symptoms are remarkable. It appears that the en-tire procedure requires only about four to five days to termination.”

This man had to know what was really happening. He wasn’t one of the dupes, so he was more dangerous to me. “That’s good,” I said authoritatively. “You have a terminal over here.” I pointed to the dead man.

“Yes, I know,” he said. He looked me over with cold appraisal.

“Well, have a good morning,” I said briskly. I turned to walk away. Then his voice stopped me again.

“Why are you wearing Ringer’s badge?”

My mouth went dry. I had hoped I could avoid this kind of confrontation. I let Hugo slip into my palm as I turned back to him. I looked at the badge.

“Oh. I borrowed a coat of his and forgot to take the badge off. I’m glad you saw it.”

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” he asked.

“That’s right. I’m Derek Beaumont. Brought to the project under Dr. Zeno’s orders just last week.”

“Yes. Of course.”

He didn’t believe me. I sensed he was just waiting for me to leave, so he could get on the inter-com. I had no choice. I stepped a bit closer. “Well. See you around.” I clapped him on the shoulder heartily and moved my right hand forward in a quick thrust to his rib cage. His eyes saucered as the cold steel entered, then he fell heavily against me.

I replaced Hugo and dragged the limp figure to a nearby empty bed. There were at least a dozen pairs of eyes on me as I threw him on the bed, but nobody made any attempt to cry out or move in my direction. I threw a sheet over the limp figure and strode hastily from the ward.

I moved down a side corridor to the left. There were few doorways there. When I got down to the end, there was a closed door with a simple sign on it: DIRECTOR. No admission.

This had to be Li Yuen’s office. I hesitated a moment, wondering what my next move should be. I could run into so much trouble there that I’d never find the lab or Zeno. But I decided to take that chance.

I opened the door and stepped into a reception room. A secretary sat at a desk, a Chinese woman in her forties, and a big, husky black African stood guard just inside the door. Another door, to my right, led into the private office of Li Yuen.

The guard looked at my badge but made no comment. The woman looked up, smiled uncertainly and spoke. “May I help you?” Her English was excellent.

“I must see Li Yuen,” I said.

She scrutinized my face. “I don’t believe I know you.”

“I’ve just joined the research team. Kruger. Perhaps the director has mentioned me to you.” I was going on pure bluff again. I had to use Kruger’s name because the black man had already seen the badge. I could only hope that this woman was not too sure who Kruger was.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “But I’m afraid Mr. Li is in conference with Dr. Zeno at the moment. May I ask what you wish to see him about?”

I searched for a plausible answer. “The computer found a small discrepancy in data. Li Yuen asked me to come directly to him in such a situation.” I was implying that Zeno was being by-passed.

“Yes, I see,” she said, her face impassive. “Well, Mr. Li will be finished shortly, I believe. You may wait if you wish to.”

“Yes, thank you.”

I sat down on a hard chair, planning my next move. The first problem was removed without any action on my part.

“Bomboko,” the Chinese secretary said, “would you please deliver this file to Department C? Mr. Kruger and I shall guard the inner sanctum during your brief absence.” She gave me a small smile.

The big black man glanced sourly at me and took the manila folder she handed him. “Yes, memsahib.”

He gave me another look as he passed, and disappeared out the door. As soon as the door closed behind him, I pulled out Wilhelmina and aimed it at the woman’s head.

“I’m sorry to take advantage of your misplaced trust,” I said. “But let me assure you that if you make the slightest sound or attempt a warning of any kind I will shoot you.”

She sat rigid at the desk as I walked quickly around in back of her to be sure she had no warning buzzer. I noticed a large metal cabinet with full doors on it. I opened it, and there was little in it except for a first aid kit on a high shelf. I got it out, put it on the desk and opened it. There was a roll of tape inside.

“Tear a six-inch length off and place it over your mouth,” I told her.

She followed orders carefully. In a moment she had the tape across her mouth. “Now get into the cabinet.”

She got in, and I turned her back to me, grabbed her wrists and wrapped some tape around them, binding them together. “Try to stay quiet in there,” I said. I closed the door as she squatted on the cabinet floor.

I moved over to the door to Li Yuen’s office. I put my ear against it and could hear the two voices inside quite distinctly. The first voice was American; it obviously belonged to Damon Zeno.

“You don’t seem to understand, colonel; my work is not yet complete.” There was undisguised irritation in the voice, which had a nasal tone to it.

“But you have accomplished what we brought you here for, surely,” the high, slightly metallic voice of Li Yuen came through. “You have created the Omega Mutation.”

“My experiments are not yet proved to my satisfaction,” Zeno argued. “When we send our report to Peking, I want to be sure of what we have done.”

“You do not accept the findings of your own difficult labor, doctor,” Li Yuen said in an unchanging, unmodulated voice. “One can be too great a perfectionist”

“The Omega Mutation will be the most effective biological weapon ever created,” Zeno said slowly.

“It will make the hydrogen bomb obsolete.” There was a short pause. “But I will not send unfinished work to Peking!”

“Peking thinks you go too carefully, Dr. Zeno,” Li Yuen said in a tougher voice. “There are those who wonder whether you are reluctant to deliver the weapon now that you have created it.”

“That is utter nonsense,” Zeno protested harshly.

“Laboratories are standing ready all over China to start work,” Li Yuen went on. “They will be able to culture a significant quantity in a matter of weeks, thanks to your change in the genetic structure that allows rapid reproduction.” There was a rattle of paper. “I have a message from my superiors, doctor, suggesting that you forward your findings and cultures immediately and allow our laboratories to begin the breeding while you continue to work on the final proofs here.”

“But that’s not the way it should be done!” Zeno protested loudly. “If I find a flaw in the present mutation, the work they do in the meantime will go for nothing.”

“Peking is willing to take the chance,” Li Yuen’s flat voice came through the door. “They ask, doctor, that you have your report ready to send to them within twenty-four hours. They will have Chinese biologists check your findings in Peking.” The last remark was said acidly and was intended as an insult.

There was a brief silence in the room. Then Zeno’s heavy voice resumed: “Very well I’ll get something ready for them.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Li Yuen’s tone was sugary.

I moved away from the door just in time. Zeno came out of the inner office stiff-backed and angry. He looked at me briefly, standing in the middle of the waiting room, and then strode through the outer door into the corridor. I moved after him and watched the direction he took, which I presumed was to the laboratory. I stepped back inside the waiting room. I had to decide whether to go directly after him, or make a stop in Li Yuen’s office. I decided on the latter because I figured that at least some of the papers that recorded Omega’s ugly development would be located with the L5 man. Perhaps he even had a copy of everything Zeno had written down.

I turned back to the partially open door to Li Yuen’s office. I took the Luger out and walked through the door just as Li Yuen was opening a wall safe. I let him open it, then spoke up:

“Your worries about Peking are over, Li.”

He whirled about quickly, surprise on his round face. He was young, in his thirties, I thought. He focused narrowly on the Luger just as I squeezed the trigger.

The gun barked out loudly in the room and Li Yuen spun back against the open safe door, smacking his face into its edge. As he slid downward, he grabbed at the door with both hands and left a dark red stain on it.

I kicked the body and it did not move. I hoped the sound of the gunshot had not carried far outside the room, but I had had little choice because of time. I reached into the safe and drew out a sheaf of papers and two black files with silver stripes across their covers. One was lettered in Chinese OMEGA PROJECT. The other, in English, read simply DAMON ZENO.

I glanced through the file on Zeno and threw it onto the floor. When I opened the other file, I knew it was part of what I was after. There were some early notes of Zeno’s on the project, communications between Li and Zeno, and charts of letters and digits tracing the development of the Omega bug. I closed the file, turned, and left the room.

In the waiting room there was a muffled noise and some feeble kicking from the cabinet where I had put the Chinese woman. It didn’t matter now. Just as I turned to leave, the outer door opened, and the big black man stood there.

He looked at the empty desk and then at the file under my arm. I started to walk past him.

“Where is Madame Ching?” he asked.

I pointed to the inner office where Li Yuen lay dead. “She’s in with Li Yuen,” I said. There was a sound from the cabinet, and he looked toward it.

I brought the gun out again and chopped down against the base of his skull. He groaned and hit the floor.

“Count your blessings,” I said to the unconscious figure. Then I moved through the doorway and down the corridor in the direction Damon Zeno had gone.