Black (38 page)

They had a large map of Thailand and the gulf countries on the conference table. Jacques insisted that he knew the region well enough, but Tom wanted a local. The bulky Thai guard who limped into the room was none other than one of Tom's security guard casualties.

Muta Wonashti was his name. Tom stretched out his hand. “Taga saan ka?”
Where are you from?

The man paused at Tom's use of his language. “Penang.”

“Welcome to the team. Sorry about the other day.”

The man seemed to straighten. He walked up to the map, limp now gone.

Jacques glared. “Satisfied?”

“Is Gains on the line?”

Nancy stepped forward with a phone. “He's waiting.”

“You have no idea how embarrassing this will be if you are wrong,” Jacques said. “I've expended considerable equity on you.”

“Not on me, Jacques. On your daughter.” Tom took the phone.

“Secretary Gains?”

“Speaking,” Gains's familiar voice said. “I understand that you have some new information.”

“That's correct,” Tom said. “I really can't keep trying to prove myself at every turn, Mr. Gains. It's slowing us down.”

There was a pause.

“You see? You still don't know whether or not to believe me. I'm not saying I blame you; it's not every day someone tells you a virus is about to wipe out the world, and they know so because they've dreamed it.”

“I will remind you that I did hear you out,” Gains said. “And I did mention the situation to the president. In this world, that's sticking my neck out for you, son. I'm sticking my neck out for a kidnapper who's having crazy dreams.”

“Which is why I'm calling. To the point: I've had a dream and in this dream, I've learned where they're keeping Monique de Raison. In front of me I have a map. I want you to begin to accept me on my terms if it turns out that I'm right about where Monique is. Fair enough?”

Gains thought about it.

“If I'm
right, Mr. Secretary, and there is a virus, we'll need a few believers. I need someone on the inside.”

“And that would be me.”

“No one else is volunteering at the moment.”

“You say you found out where they have Monique from your dreams. No other information?”

“Bona fide, 100 percent dream. Not a hint of any other intelligence.”

“So if you actually find her, you think it proves that your dreams are valid and should be taken seriously,” Gains said.

“It won't be the first time I'm right. I need an ally.”

“Okay, son, you have a deal. Put Mr. Raison on the line.”

“I don't suppose you could get me a team of Rangers or Navy SEALs?” Tom asked.

“Not a chance. But the Thai have good people. I'm sure they'll cooperate.”

“They still think I'm the kidnapper,” Tom said. “Cooperation isn't exactly flowing over here.”

“I'll see if I can't get them to ease up.”

“Thank you, sir, you won't regret this.” He handed the phone to an impatient Raison, who listened and ended the call with a polite salutation.

“Now, please tell me. I've done everything You've asked.”

Tom leaned over the map. “A great white cave full of bottles a day's walk to the east where a river and the forest meet,” he said. “Where is that?”

“What's that?”

Tom looked up. “That's where she is. We just have to figure out what that means.”

The man's face lightened a shade. “That's your . . . that's what this is all about? A white cave full of bottles?”

“Yes, but Rachelle wouldn't know what a laboratory looked like. A white cave full of bottles has to be a laboratory, right? They took her to an underground laboratory a day's walk to the east where a river meets the forest. That's about twenty miles.”

“How many kilometers?” the tracker asked.

“Roughly thirty.”

“The Phan Tu River cross plain here.” The squatty fighter drew his finger along a blue river line on the map. “It end here at the jungle. Thirty kilometer east. No lab. Concrete. No longer in use.”

Tom stared at the man. “A concrete plant? Right there?”

“Yes.”

Jacques de Raison ran both hands through his hair. “How do you know this is accurate? And how—”

“You have a helicopter, Mr. Raison,” Tom said. “Is your pilot here?”

“Yes, but surely this is a matter for the authorities. You can expect—”

“I can expect that whoever attacked us in that hotel room is smarter than any team the Thai military can throw together on a moment's notice. I can expect that
they
will expect a possible rescue mission by the Thai government and are thoroughly prepared. And I can expect you would do anything, Mr. Raison, anything at all to see your daughter alive again. Am I missing something here?”

He responded momentarily. “You're right.”

“Send me in with a radio and a guide, say Muta here, drop us off a few miles out, and we can at least locate her, maybe do more. At this point, we're operating on one of my dreams, not enough to bring out the U.S. Marines. But if we can get something on the ground, we have a whole new story.”

The man paced, squinting and scratching at his head. “And you think you're the one to go in?”

“I know a few new tricks.”

Kara raised her brow. “He does indeed.”

“And I practically grew up in the jungle.”

“You're under house arrest. This is just not feasible—”

Tom slapped the map. “Nothing is feasible, Mr. Raison. Nothing! Not my dreams, not the virus, not your daughter's kidnapping. We're running out of time here. If anyone can rescue your daughter, I can. Trust me. I'm
supposed
to rescue your daughter.”

27

C
arlos patiently led Svensson down the concrete steps. His bad leg made stairs nearly impossible. The Swiss had flown into Bangkok during the night and arrived at the old lab an hour earlier. Carlos had never seen the kind of rabid intensity that had emerged in him.

“Open it,” he said at the steel door.

Carlos slid the latch and shoved the door open. The white lab gleamed under two rows of bare fluorescent bulbs. Svensson had built or converted two dozen similar labs throughout the world for an eventuality like this one. The discovery of a possible virus. If a virus presented itself in South Africa, they needed to be in South Africa. Ultimately they would return to the much larger labs and production facilities of the Alps, of course, but only when they had what they needed firmly secured and the environment it came from thoroughly analyzed.

Here, in Southeast Asia, they had six labs. Raison Pharmaceutical's move from France to Thailand precipitated the building of this particular one. And now it was paying its dividends.

The lab was equipped with all the equipment expected of any medium-sized industrial lab, including refrigeration and heating capabilities. Monique sat in the corner, gagged with duct tape and bound to a gray chair. Carlos hadn't hurt her. Yet. But he'd talked to her at length. The fact that she refused to engage him with more than a grunt convinced him he would have to hurt her soon.

“So, this is the woman the world is screaming about,” Svensson said, moving slowly over the white tile floor. He stopped three feet from Monique. “The one who's chosen not to see the light yet?”

Carlos stood with his hands clasped in front of him. He didn't answer. Wasn't expected to answer. Wouldn't have anyway. He'd done his part; now it was time for Svensson to do his part.

The Swiss's big bony hand flashed out and slapped loudly against Monique's cheek. The woman's head jerked to the side and her face flushed red, but she didn't breathe a sound.

Svensson smiled. “You've seen me. And you obviously recognize me. I believe we even met once, at the Hong Kong drug symposium two years ago. Your father and I are practically bosom buddies, if you stretch things a bit. Do you see the problem in this?”

She didn't respond. She couldn't .

“Remove it, Carlos.”

Carlos stepped forward, ripped the gray duct tape from her mouth.

“The problem is that I've committed myself to you,” Svensson said. “You can now finger me. Until the time comes when I no longer care if I'm identified by you, I have to keep you under lock and key. Then, depending on how you treat me now, I will either let you live or have you killed. Does this make any sense to you?”

She drilled his face with a stare and said nothing.

“A strong woman. I may be able to use you when this is over. Soon, very soon.” Svensson stroked his mustache and paced in front of her. “Do you know what happens to your Raison Vaccine when it's heated to 179.47 degrees and held at that temperature for two hours?”

Her eyes narrowed for a brief moment. Carlos didn't think she knew. In fact,
they
didn't know for sure.

“No, of course you don't ,” Svensson said. “You've
never tested the vaccine under such adverse conditions; there'd be no need to. So let me make a suggestion: When you apply this specific heat to your miraculous drug, it mutates. You do know it's capable of mutating, because according to our internal sources, it also mutates at a lower heat, but the mutations never could sustain themselves for more than a generation or two.”

Monique's eyes widened briefly. She'd just learned there was a spy in her own lab. Perhaps now she would take them seriously. Carlos was surprised that Svensson told her so much. Clearly he didn't expect her to live to tell.

“Yes, that's right, we are quite resourceful. We know about the mutations and we also know that other, much more dangerous mutations hold under more intense heat. Your Raison Vaccine becomes my Raison Strain, a highly infectious, airborne virus with a three-week incubation period.” He smiled. “The whole world could have the disease before the first person showed any symptoms. Imagine the possibilities for the man who controlled the antivirus.”

A tremble took Monique's face. It was the kind of response that undoubtedly had Svensson's heart pounding like a fist. He'd called her bluff, suggested an incredible possibility they'd only just pieced together themselves. And she was responding with terror.

Monique de Raison's face was screaming her answer. And no other answer could have been better. She, too, knew all of this. Or at least suspected it with enough conviction to drain the blood from her face. She'd spent a few hours alone with Thomas Hunter, the dreamer, and she'd come away somehow convinced that her vaccine did indeed pose a real risk.

“Yes, the vaccine to the AIDS virus has 375,200 base pairs . . . isn't that what this Hunter told you? And he was right. So much information for a simpleton from America. It's too bad we don't have him as well. Unfortunately, he's dead.”

Svensson turned and started to walk toward the door.

“I hope Daddy loves his daughter, Monique. I really do. We're going to do some wonderful things in the days to come, and we would like you to help us.”

He limped slowly, right foot clacking on the concrete. Svensson was in his game.

Carlos pulled out the transmitter. “Don't forget the explosive in your belly,” he said. “I can detonate it by pressing this button, as I've told you. But it will detonate on its own if it loses a signal past fifty meters. Think of it as your ball and chain. Don't think anyone will come for you. If they do, they will only kill you.”

She closed her eyes.

Perhaps he wouldn't have to hurt her after all. Better that way.

The helicopter was a standby, an old bubble job that held four and ran on pistons. Tom and the guide dropped into a rice paddy three miles south of the concrete plant and angled for the jungle to their right. The banger lifted and banked for home. They were now dependent on the radios, Muta's nose, and Tom's tricks.

They slogged through the water to high ground, then followed the tree line at an easy jog. Both carried machetes, and Muta carried a 9-millimeter on his hip. The foliage slowed them down, forcing them to hack their way through vines and underbrush. Three miles took them a full hour.

“There!” Muta thrust his machete out at the clearing ahead. Half a dozen concrete buildings in various degrees of deterioration. An overgrown parking lot with large tufts of grass growing between the concrete slabs. A rusted conveyor nosing into thin air.

Only one building was large enough to conceal any underground work. If they had Monique there, underground, the first building on their left looked like the best bet. Although, at the moment, all bets looked pretty weak.

He'd made bold statements and fired off thundering salvos, but standing here on the edge of the jungle, with cicadas screeching all around and the hot afternoon sun beating on his shoulders, the notion that the genesis of a worldwide virus attack lay hidden in this abandoned concrete plant struck him as ludicrous.