Silent Assassin (18 page)

C
HAPTER
35

 

D
r. Gerhard Vogt looked up nervously from the document he was studying, an analysis of the proteins present in a sample of the organism he was to work with. It was impossible to work like this, under all this pressure. But he had to. He looked nervously at the two young lab assistants, just as nervous as he was. He had to.

Vogt was a mycologist at the University of Mainz—or perhaps it was more accurate to say that he had been. He studied fungal infections, with a specialization in the rare and the unusual. Two months before, the American had come to him with a proposition to come work for him, for less than a year, he had been told. It was an inordinate amount of money, but it was also a huge commitment, which had the potential to seriously sidetrack his career. When Vogt demurred, the American promptly doubled the amount, tripled if he went at once. The university wouldn’t give him a sabbatical, but for that kind of money, he could afford to start his own lab if he wanted to. He was told to choose his own lab assistants, so he extended an offer to two of his best and most promising students, Flora and Julian, to come work for him. They had jumped at the opportunity to do cutting-edge research for pay, both of them being ambitious researchers and completely broke, as students tend to be.

The location had been strange, and had made them slightly nervous. They did not know where they were, except that they were not in Europe anymore, but rather in a dry, rocky area. An advance deposit had been made to each of their bank accounts. Flora in particular had grown suspicious, and her conscience told her that there was something sinister about this. She was not alone in that, but she had expressed the greatest resistance. In the end, however, they had agreed that it was best not to ask too many questions. Such an opportunity did not come along every day, after all.

They had been greeted by the American and another man, the Russian, who himself spoke German to near perfection. The laboratory was something from a dream—state-of-the-art equipment, everything he could have asked for, and everything in pristine condition. It also turned out to be a prison. They had told the guards that they wanted to go home. The guards informed them that they had orders to shoot anyone who tried to leave. They tried their best to ignore the armed guards, but it wasn’t easy to set into a routine, knowing that they were ultimately there against their will. Then came the documents for them to read, all about the fungus they were to work with once a sample came in. It was horrible, and it made them sick. They would, of course, readily work to produce a cure for such a horror. But it was clear that a cure was not what their employers were after.

Flora had refused even to read more of the packets that had been brought. She had decided that she was done with the whole thing. At first she’d made a point of conspicuously staring at the wall, but after one of the guards threatened to hurt her if she continued, she at least pretended to read. Vogt was sure that results would be demanded of him, so he read. And it was while he was reading that the door to the lab opened, startling him.

It was the Russian. He was wearing the same kind of turtleneck he had worn before, and all black. But this time, half his face was covered in bandages, and blood was seeping through them. He did not look happy.

“Oh my God, what happened?”

“Shut up,” said the Russian. “It’s none of your concern. I have a sample for you to work with.” He placed an array of vials kept in a small steel and Plexiglas case. “But first,” the Russian said, “you will check me for infection.”

The information packets had described a test based on a protein that, according to the packet they had been given, was produced by the fungus in the body. Vogt had kept some test solution prepared, knowing that he would inevitably need it. He carefully took some blood from the Russian’s arm and mixed it into four test tubes with a prepared solution, as his two assistants looked on. The contents of each turned blue when the blood was added.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said nervously. “The test is positive.” He winced, not knowing what was coming when he found out.

The Russian responded by overturning the table with the test tubes, which cracked on the floor, tiny shards spreading across the room.

“I want a cure!” said the Russian. “And I want it to be made viable as a weapon.”

“When do you need it?” asked Vogt sheepishly.

“I have no time to waste,” said the Russian. “I want it in two weeks.”

“What?” said Vogt, baffled. “Impossible!”

“You will make it possible,” said the Russian. “If you value your lives.”

Flora stepped forward at that moment. “I will not make weapons,” she said defiantly, her chin up and her eyes holding an expression of righteous anger. “I will not release this abomination on the world.”

The Russian looked at her with eyes of pure fury. He backhanded her across the face. Vogt made a move as if to help, but checked himself, and then looked down in shame. It was hard to be pragmatic sometimes, but he must. Heroics could get them all killed.

“I will not,” said Flora, looking up with the same defiant expression, now sporting a bloody lip.

Wordlessly, the Russian walked to Julian, and motioned for the guard to come forward. The lab assistant drew back at the approach, but did not dare move his feet. The Russian told the guard to hold Julian. The lab assistant could offer little resistance as the much stronger man took his arms in a hold. The Russian took Julian’s hand and produced a knife.

“No!” cried Flora.

“You will do what I tell you, and you will not be a hero,” said Novokoff. “You will do that, or others will suffer.” He took Julian’s pinky, and in a flash, the knife had severed it at the joint. Julian screamed in pain.

The Russian walked out, leaving Julian on the floor, clutching his hand and howling. Next to him on the ground, Vogt saw the dead, bloody finger. Flora, meanwhile, just stared ahead, in blank horror.

C
HAPTER
36

 

M
organ’s interrogation at Zeta headquarters took hours, as he went over every tiny detail of what had happened, with the voice. He left the room with stiffness in his legs, which melted away as he walked down a long corridor and then upstairs back to the main level.

He took a shower in the locker room and changed into a fresh shirt and pants that he kept on hand for situations like this. He was going to stay inside, so he didn’t bother to dry his hair all the way—the heat would take care of it. He walked out feeling refreshed. On his way toward the war room, he ran into Shepard, who was escorting the scientist that they had extracted from the Montauk facility.

“Morgan!” said Shepard. “Good to see you up and about. I really thought you were a goner back there.”

“I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind too,” he said.

“It’s really terrible about Rogue,” he said. “Such a tragedy.”

“Yeah. It was terrible.” The mention of Rogue awoke some anger in Morgan. Bloch had withheld information from them. They’d gone into a deathtrap, and Rogue had paid the price.

“Hey, Morgan,” Shepard said, “this here’s Emmett Pope. You might remember him from the secret underground facility filled with demented monkeys.”

“Apes,” Pope quietly corrected. He reached his hand out sheepishly to shake with Morgan. “I, uh, I think I should say thank you.” Morgan could tell right away that this Pope wasn’t used to talking to people. He seemed to avoid eye contact as much as possible, and spoke like he was mumbling to himself rather than having a conversation. “You know. For saving my life and all.”

“Just doing my job,” said Morgan.

“I’ve never had my life endangered before. I don’t think I like it much.”

“You get used to it,” said Morgan.

He left them and made his way to the war room, then up the curved stairwell to Bloch’s office.

“Welcome back, Morgan,” she said as he walked in through the threshold.

“Why don’t you tell me what the hell that was?” said Morgan furiously.

“Do
not
take that tone with me, Morgan.”

“I’ll take whatever tone I damn well please. You sent us in there to die. You knew what we’d find down there.”

“I had no idea what the nature of the—”

“You knew they were running experiments with bioweapons, didn’t you?” She remained silent. “What was that place, Bloch?”

“That’s privileged information.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “That was a goddamn government installation. Are we working for the feds now?”

“Does it look like we’re working with the federal government?” Bloch asked pointedly.

“You’re certainly well integrated with government agencies.”

Bloch took a deep breath. “The government is not a monolithic entity, Morgan,” she said. “You know that. There are a thousand competing interests. Functionaries trying to avoid black eyes or public outrage, not to mention those who want to screw someone else. There are things certain agencies would not like known to others. Such rivalries run deep. And we fit into these rifts. By assisting in maintaining certain secrets, we have a privileged position with every agency that we so help.

“The Montauk Project is as top secret as they come. Only a handful of people even knew of its existence. I myself only found out about it when the call came.”

“And what’s it supposed to be?”

“Wasn’t it clear? Biological weapons research. Deadly funguses and bacteria that can be deployed against America’s enemies.”

“And who’s behind this project?” he insisted. “DARPA?”

“Morgan, you know that I can only relay a limited amount of information.”

“Oh, yeah? And what about the fact that they planned to blow the place up with us inside? Was that classified?”

“There was a hierarchy of priorities involved, including saving the facility and preventing Novokoff from escaping with what he’d come for.”

“And where in that hierarchy was keeping me and the tac team alive?”

Bloch looked down, and for a moment, Morgan thought he saw
shame
. “I’m sorry about that. Truly sorry. I wasn’t informed of the precise nature of what went on in the Montauk facility until after the mission. But you know what the job is, Cobra. You do the mission you’re given, with the information you’re given.”

“That’s not how I work,” he said.

“The mission won’t turn on your whims. You may get a degree of latitude here, but you are not a free agent in this.”

Morgan fumed. She was right, but it wasn’t a fact he was entirely comfortable with. “I want to be there when the scientist is questioned.”

“Fine,” said Bloch.

Dr. Emmett Pope was sweating profusely, even with the air-conditioning in the debriefing room at full blast. Bloch had let him take a shower in the Zeta facilities, so he had gotten the blood and dirt from Novokoff’s attack off his body and he was wearing a shirt and pants that belonged to a member of the tac team. They fit him snugly, but rather than from muscle, as would be the case with their owner, it was from his soft pudge. He was still jumpy from the harrowing experience. Morgan sat down next to Bloch, who was across the table from Pope. Bloch adjusted a small digital video camera that was connected to a computer in the other room, where Shepard would be watching.

“Uh . . .” Pope said, motioning vaguely at the camera. He was wringing his hands, then tried to hold them still, but they were trembling. “Does that really need to be here? I’m not really supposed to ever record this stuff. They were pretty serious about that back at—”

“I can assure you that this video will never leave this facility,” said Bloch.

“Am I a prisoner here?” he asked sheepishly.

“No,” said Bloch. “We saved you, remember? We’re going to return you to your people in a few hours. Just as soon as we get a clear idea of just what exactly Novokoff was after.”

“Novokoff—that’s the man who led the invasion on the facility? Who killed everyone? The grey-haired one who was attacked by Abe?”

“Abe?” asked Morgan.

“Sorry. The chimp.”

“That’s him,” said Bloch. “What do you think he was after?”

“Oh, I know what he was after,” said Pope. “The Fury.”

“Come again?” said Morgan.

“A human-engineered fungus. Its official name is BFN04, but we all called it the Fury. We worked on some other projects before, but a few months ago we were diverted to working with this pathogen exclusively. And it’s a real bastard.”

“What does it do?” asked Morgan.

“It acts on both the limbic system, which regulates primal emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for impulse control. When infected, a person becomes increasingly aggressive and violent.”

“How is that even possible?” asked Bloch. “I mean, how can a fungus
change a person’s behavior
?”

“There were some species that did so before,” said Pope. “Like the fungi of genus Cordyceps. They infect mostly insects, and change their behaviors in specific ways that help the fungus reproduce. For example, they make the insect walk to higher ground so that the fungus has the optimal conditions to spread its spores.”

“Thanks for the science lesson, but I’ve seen it in action, and I know what it does to chimps. But I’d like to know what happens to people. What exactly did you mean by ‘aggressive’?” Morgan asked. “How aggressive are we talking here?”

“Animals,” said Pope. “Worse. Machines bent on destruction. Completely without humanity.”

“The monkeys were infected with this fungus?”

“The apes were, yes.”

“It’s the same fungus as the one that affects people?”

“Yes, the same fungus can infect humans as other ape hosts.”

“Novokoff was mauled by one,” said Morgan. “Do you think he might have caught it?”

“It’s likely that transmission did occur,” said Pope. It’s not airborne, so it won’t be transmitted by sharing a room with an infected person. But with open wounds like that . . . I think it’s likely that the man has been infected.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” said Morgan, “but how do you know so much about how this fungus affects humans?”

“We didn’t intentionally infect anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Pope. “Most of it we extrapolated from our animal models.”

“Most of it?” said Bloch, raising an eyebrow.

“One of our lab technicians, George—good lord, I only just realized I never knew his last name!—was attacked by an infected chimp, much like this Novokoff, and contracted the fungus. It . . . wasn’t pretty. The effect of the fungus is quick. We knew it was so in animals and we confirmed it in humans. In a few hours, he went from an introverted, gentle man to a beast. We had him restrained, and did our best to treat him. I won’t lie, we also collected what data we could. Tragic as it was, we weren’t going to squander the opportunity of testing the fungus’s effects on humans.”

“What happened to the infected technician?” asked Bloch.

“He died within a day from self-inflicted wounds.”

“Suicide?” asked Bloch.

“No,” said Pope. “Head trauma. From slamming his body into the door trying to get out of the containment room.”

There was a moment of silence, then Morgan broke in. “This could be good news. It might be Novokoff kills himself without us having to lift another finger.”

“Is there a cure?” asked Bloch.

“We developed a serum. The leader—Novokoff, you called him?—he took a sample of it when he left.”

“Will that prevent or cure the disease?” asked Bloch.

“No,” said Pope. “It will deter the effects of the infection. At least it did in the chimps. We developed it after George died. It should keep the disease from progressing as quickly as it usually does. We were in the process of studying the fungus. Our work was still unfinished.”

“So Novokoff will be suffering from partial effects of the disease?” asked Bloch. “What can we expect?”

“Diminished impulse control, risk-taking behavior, intermittent bouts of aggression. In addition to bodily pain and splitting headaches.”

“So he’ll be impulsive and aggressive,” said Bloch. “That can be a blessing or a curse. He’s likely to get sloppy, and attract attention to himself. But I can’t help fearing what he’ll do to catch our attention.”

“Is this thing infectious?” asked Morgan.

“Moderately,” said Pope. “Not airborne, I can say that for certain. Bodily fluids seem to be able to transmit it. And the fungus can survive outside the body, in dry media.”

“So if it were released in the general population . . .” began Morgan.

“I wouldn’t expect a global epidemic,” said Pope. “But if enough people were infected . . . it would be carnage. Blood running in the streets. It would spread enough to cause panic and kill a lot of people.”

“High impact, high visibility,” said Bloch. “A familiar style.”

“Do you think he’ll use it?” asked Pope. “Against the general population, I mean. Is he the kind of person that would really do such a thing?”

“That’s a definite yes,” said Morgan.

“Which brings me to the next order of business,” said Bloch. “We need to find Novokoff, and we need it done
yesterday
.”

“What about Novokoff’s goon, the one we took at the yacht?” asked Morgan.

“We got him talking, but he didn’t tell us anything that we can use. Looks like Novokoff was careful about the information he shared with the people that work for him. Pope, tell me exactly what he would need to deal with this fungus,” Bloch said.

“We’re assuming this guy has a lot of money behind him, right? He’s not some two-bit criminal, right?”

“We know that for a fact,” said Bloch. “After the operation he ran on the Montauk Project, we know that he knows precisely what he’s doing.”

“Well then,” said Pope. “He’s going to need a lab. You know, if he intends to produce the fungus.”

“What’s he going to need?”

“Well, some space to start with,” he said. “Airtight, with negative pressure capability. There are relatively few companies that can do stuff like that. Also a HEPA air filter—that’s High-Efficiency Particulate Air. Keeps stray funguses from getting out.”

“Can’t find those in your corner store,” said Shepard.

“What else?” asked Bloch.

“Lots of equipment. Centrifuge, PCR instruments, serology supplies . . .” He threw up his hands. “The list goes on.”

“Okay,” said Bloch. “I’m going to need a list of everything. Rare and expensive items at the top. Get it to Shepard as soon as you can. Anything else?”

“Well, he’d need at least one more thing. A team. One seriously qualified mycologist, plus a group of reasonably qualified assistants. You’re going to find a limited number of those in the world.”

“Shepard, I want a list,” said Bloch.

Lincoln Shepard, who had already started typing as Pope was talking, said, “Already working on it, boss. Putting together mailing lists and lists of conference attendees for working mycologists.”

“Good,” said Bloch. “Is that it, Pope?”

“That’s all I can think of right now.”

“Okay, get to work on that list,” she said. “One more thing: can the fungus be weaponized?”

“Well, sure,” he said. “The fungus can survive outside the body, but small infections don’t do much. You need to get a decent dose of the fungus to really develop the disease. Otherwise, your antibodies take care of the infection pretty quickly.”

“Give me the short version,” she said.

“The short version is yes, theoretically, but I’m not exactly sure how,” he said.

“All right,” said Bloch. “It sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us. Shepard, how soon can you get results?”

“This isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “No guarantees. I’m just one guy.”