Soul of the Assassin (11 page)

“You could have called me at home.”

“Right,” said Lauren. She took the briefing paper. “I have to get back to the desk.”

~ * ~

4

BOLOGNA, ITALY

Artur Rostislawitch frowned at himself in the mirror, turning his chin slowly as he inspected the whiskers he’d just shaven. Even as a young man, he’d never had a particularly smooth face, but the worries of the past few years had dug deep lines around his chin, and pulled out his cheeks so that he looked like an emaciated walrus. That made it difficult to shave closely, and there were still a few lines of hair caught in the furrows. He turned on the water and refilled the basin, deciding to try again. He wanted to look good tonight, even though he wasn’t meeting the Iranian until tomorrow.

What if someone believed the story the Iranian had told him to tell, and really did offer him a job—a real job doing research?

He fantasized about it, thinking he might actually be offered a job. He saw himself leaving the city and immediately setting up somewhere—Switzerland, maybe, or even Taiwan, slightly away from the mainstream but still in a legitimate position. It could still happen, he told himself as he lathered on the foam; a scientist with his knowledge was a valuable commodity.

But Rostislawitch knew the truth. He was fifty, and Russian, and even the people who didn’t know the specifics of his past weren’t likely to take a chance on a scientist whose resume was nebulous—let alone knowingly hire a scientist who’d worked with weaponized bacteria. The public hysteria about genetic engineering would make him a positive liability to any big company that hired him, even as a janitor: he’d be proof positive that they were out to poison the food chain.

The world was an ironic place—very Russian, Rostislawitch thought. One’s past channeled him into a difficult future.

Twenty-five years ago, Artur Rostislawitch had been the equivalent of a superstar in his field, a young prodigy who had found a way to easily induce mutations in a select group of bacteria. His work for the Defense Ministry had earned him not just an apartment in Moscow and a dacha on the Black Sea but his own research lab about fifty miles outside of the capital. Two years later, his work had progressed to the point where a special bunker had been built to contain it; completely underground, the facility had elaborate protocols and security equipment not so much to keep people out but the bacteria being developed there in. The only unfortunate thing about the facility was its location in northeastern Chechnya, a vile place in Rostislawitch’s opinion, though the lack of any real possibility of culture or entertainment did help focus him on his work.

He’d celebrated his thirtieth birthday alone, toasting himself in his lab room with a large cake and a bottle of vodka. He’d felt a bit sorry for himself. His wife was at the dacha, but a pending visit by Gorbachev to the lab meant Rostislawitch couldn’t get away long enough to visit her. He’d gotten pretty drunk that night—so drunk in fact that he had spent the next day in bed, trying to overcome his hangover.

Little did he know that that would be the highlight of his career.

The discoveries that had come so easily in his twenties had already started to thin out. The strands of bacteria that he had produced— members of the same family as those that cause botulism—proved insufficiently hardy; slight variations in temperature killed them, making them unsuitable for use in weapons. And since his work was designed to produce bacteria that could be used as weapons in a war against the U.S., this was a major problem.

Still, he persevered. He found a family of bacteria that seemed promising—B
^589-A
. It was uncharacteristically difficult to replicate, unfortunately, because of a quirk in its genetic structure. That took even longer to solve.

In the meantime, the Soviet Union ceased being the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was replaced by Yeltsin—a boob who had Rostislawitch’s dacha and apartment taken away. Biological weapons, never as glamorous as nuclear bombs or energy rays, fell further out of favor.

The war in Chechnya was an utter disaster; at the end, Rostislawitch and his staff fled barely twelve hours ahead of a rebel assault. As a safety precaution, he had ordered that the bunker be blown up, along with all the stores of B
^589-A
. Tears came to his eyes as the ground reverberated with the first explosion; he watched as the earth rolled with the shock waves, dust rising like steam as the plastique did its work sixty feet below. By the time he boarded the canvas-topped UAZ jeep the military had sent to evacuate him, Rostislawitch was bawling like a baby.

For eight months, he did absolutely nothing. He and his wife had moved to St. Petersburg and lived with his brother and his family. Ironically, he looked on that period as now one of the happiest of his life. He and his wife had renewed not so much their marriage but their friendship; Olga went everywhere with him, to all of the ministries as he applied for funds to resume his research. She remained faithful and encouraging, supportive in a way that she’d had little chance to show in his years of success.

An image of her came to him now—Olga with his two nephews, minding them while his brother and sister-in-law went out to the store. The boys were three and four, a handful but in a good way. They called Rostislawitch “Uncle Baboon” because he could pretend to be one so well. Olga would hide her grin as they begged him to play.

It was only after Yeltsin died that Rostislawitch had found his way back to the research. The lab was a poor one, outside Saratov. The security was a joke, and the equipment was worse. He was lucky, however, to have two decent assistants, and slowly began re-creating his original research.

And then, five years ago, after a long, long struggle, they had made a breakthrough with B
^589-A
, creating a mutation that allowed the bacteria to breed five times as fast as other members of the family. This made it virtually impossible to stop. Anyone infected would begin to die within twelve hours; by the time the symptoms were seen, it would be far too late to treat.

Several problems remained to be solved before the bacteria could be actually used as a weapon, but they were mechanical things, in Rostislawitch’s opinion. He stood on the brink of a great success, one that would revolutionize warfare.

And then the roof caved in.

One afternoon, Rostislawitch was summoned to Moscow without explanation. He was driven to the Kremlin, and surprised—stunned, really—to be brought into the presence of the Premier, Mikal Fradkov, the second most important man in the Russian government after the President. Rostislawitch felt flattered, and stood trembling. When Fradkov began to speak, Rostislawitch was so nervous that he didn’t comprehend the Premier’s few sentences.

Suddenly Rostislawitch realized that Fradkov was very angry.

“What kind of man are you?” Fradkov demanded.

Rostislawitch looked at him in amazement. “Just a Russian.”

“A Russian who wishes to doom mankind.”

Rostislawitch had long considered the consequences of his work; he knew very well that his creation was designed to kill indiscriminately and in great numbers. But he considered it nothing more than what a nuclear bomb would do. The Americans, he was sure, were working along much the same lines. Russia needed its own weapon as a defense.

Unsure what to say, Rostislawitch began to explain that he was only following orders.

“Whose orders? What member of the government told you to do this work? The minister of defense? When did you last meet with him?”

Only then did Rostislawitch realize that he had somehow gotten himself into the middle of a political fight. He’d become a pawn in a struggle between Fradkov and the army.

Fradkov did not lose many battles at this stage of his career, and he did not lose this one. Rostislawitch’s work had played a minuscule role in the trial used by Fradkov and his allies to punish the defense minister, but it was enough to effectively end Rostislawitch’s career.

Worse, Olga became ill shortly after her husband’s “audience” with the Russian Premier. Sick with the flu, she was taken to the local hospital in Saratov, where they were living practically under house arrest. At the hospital, she caught a much worse infection—a strain of streptococcus resistant to antibiotics. She died within a week.

In a final irony, the strain was one Rostislawitch had considered but rejected for use as a weapon some twenty years before.

Fradkov’s campaign against the defense minister complete, the lab’s funding was restored. Rostislawitch’s project, however, was given short shrift. Supposedly newer ideas—one involved the bubonic plague, so how could that be new?—were in vogue, and researchers familiar with them received top priority. Rostislawitch, tainted forever by his political troubles, was shunted to the side. He was forced to take a job teaching introductory biology at a nearby college to earn money. The director of the lab was a friend of his, and so allowed him lab access, but only during off-hours. He had continued his work with E. coli B
^589-A
, keeping the strain alive, though by now no one else seemed to be much interested in it.

Except for the hour or two he spent in the lab each day, Dr. Rostislawitch hated life. Sometimes he thought of killing himself; other times he thought of killing a large number of people. He fantasized about killing Fradkov especially, until an airplane accident deprived him of the pleasure.

Then came the Iranian, with his offer. The Iranian didn’t know exactly what he was asking for; apparently he had heard of Rostislawitch’s work through Chechnyan friends who were fools and dullards. But to give the devil his credit, the Iranian sent a man to speak to him who did know what he was looking for, and who was intelligent enough to know that Rostislawitch could supply it.

And now he was here.

A new beginning. More like an old ending, a final gesture of payback to a world that had treated him so poorly. He had no doubt the material would be used. He wanted it to be.

He wished that weren’t true. He wished he could feel something, anything. Then he might have something to live for.

Shaving done, Rostislawitch retrieved his white shirt and began buttoning it slowly, rehearsing his English so that he could make his job pitch. For just one night, he decided, he would make himself believe that it wasn’t a cover story, or a fantasy, that he really did hope to get a legitimate job to put his skills to use. For just one night, for his dead wife’s sake, he would believe in himself and a future that did not involve destruction and terrible agony, let alone revenge.

~ * ~

5

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Even though the State Department had emphasized that the meeting was not only important but time sensitive, the Italian ambassador’s secretary claimed the earliest he could meet with Corrine was one p.m., and then only for ten minutes.

“Typical with the Italians,” said Undersecretary of State Gene Lashley as they drove up to the ambassador’s residence in suburban Washington. “My bet is that he doesn’t get out of bed until then.”

“I see.”

“Mention that we’re planning a reception at the embassy with free booze and women, they’ll be all over it,” Lashley said sarcastically as the State Department limo stopped at the front door. “They have a different set of priorities.”

Corrine kept her thoughts, not particularly charitable, to herself as she followed Lashley into the residence.

“Burn giorno, signor ambasciatore
,” said an Italian, gliding across the tiled foyer as Lashley entered. “The ambassador is just finishing up his business.”

The Italian’s eyes found Corrine.

“Ms. Alston?
Si?
Such a beautiful woman to be working as counsel to the President,” continued the aide, who swept his hand to the side and bowed slightly at the waist. “Beauty and intelligence—America is a wonderful country.”

“The ambassador’s aide, Luigi Prima,” said Lashley.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Corrine, holding out her hand to shake.

Prima took it and raised it to his lips as he bowed still lower, kissing it. “So wonderful to meet you.”