“Now what?”
“We’ll know soon.” He did not look at her. He did not have to. He could feel her presence like a reassuring friend.
Two car doors closed. Footsteps rapidly approached the house. A voice spoke low and urgent.
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CHAPTER
FORTY FIVE
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3:32 P.M.
Lake Magua, New York
Rapid footsteps, soft and light, padded swiftly along the corridor from the back door.
“What the—” Randi began.
Before Jon could answer, the big Doberman, Samson, appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at the landing, bared his fangs, and bunched his powerful muscles to attack.
Smith stood up, his Beretta behind his back. “Samson, sit!”
Puzzled, the dog cocked his head. Jon repeated the command, and suddenly the animal seemed to identify him as one of the “friends” Bill Griffin had ordered him to sniff under the RV. Slowly he sank back on his haunches, still staring up.
Jon raised his voice. His face was eager. “Peter?”
The lean and leathery ex-SAS strolled into view, again wearing the trench coat buttoned over his black commando suit. “Who else? You don’t think Samson would go over to the enemy, do you?” He and the Doberman climbed the stairs.
Randi jumped up. “Perish the thought. Good to see you, Peter.”
Smith’s smile was broad. For a moment he looked ten years younger. “We’ve been worried.”
“No sentries outside. That your handiwork?”
Jon said, “Yes. Everyone else is at the ceremony, I expect.”
Randi added, “Except for four lab techs we’ve got locked up. And the former head of Blanchard, who’s helping Marty at the computer.”
Randi stopped, and she and Jon stared at Peter, whose left arm was dangling straight down, useless. Blood had dried on Peter’s left wrist and hand beneath the long trench-coat sleeve.
“You’re wounded! How bad? Let me look at it,” Jon ordered.
“Pinprick.”
“Goddamn it, come up here and take off your coat.”
He held the laboratory door open as Peter sighed and topped the stairs, Samson at his side.
“Many,” Randi called as they entered. “Peter’s here.”
Marty spun in his chair as Peter walked in. A smile of welcome wreathed his round face. The Englishman allowed himself a return smile. He and Marty stared at each other a long moment.
Finally Peter said, “Mustn’t worry about me, my boy. Remember the old man’s been through worse than this on more continents than he cares to name. Now get yourself back to work.” There was affection in his voice.
Marty’s green eyes twinkled. He gave a short nod and returned to his chair. As he told Mercer Haldane about Peter, the Doberman appeared at Marty’s side. Marty patted him, and the dog sighed and laid tiredly at his feet.
The Englishman said quietly to Jon, “Don’t fuss. I’ve stopped bleeding. I’ll be fine until I reach the docs.”
“I am a doc, you crazy Brit. Everything else about you may be working, but your memory’s going south.”
Peter gave a wry grimace and laid the H&K submachine gun on a lab bench. Jon helped him off with his trench coat. Underneath, he wore only his commando trousers and webbed belt. His chest was naked. Bullets had struck him in the side and arm. He had wrapped what looked like pieces of a torn sheet around the wounds.
As Peter unwound the cloth, Randi got the older male technician from the conference room. He produced an extensive first-aid kit. The wound in the upper chest below the armpit had gone cleanly through the flesh around an upper rib. It appeared to have cracked the rib, but touched nothing vital. The arm injury was a shallow tunnel through muscle. The bleeding had all but stopped. Jon washed the wounds, applied antibiotic, rebandaged each one properly, and insisted Peter take at least aspirin.
Smith told him, “You need a hospital, but that will hold you for now.”
“Good as new,” Peter declared. “Tell me what you’ve found.”
“We’re pretty sure this is where Tremont and his associates did most of the actual work. Marty and Haldane are trying to bust into the records now. Tremont pushed Haldane out only last week. Blackmail, he says, but I suspect he settled for a big cut of the billions they’ll all make. Then his conscience started bothering him.”
“It’d be pleasant if conscience bothered more people,” Peter observed. “Shall we see what progress they’ve achieved?”
“Not a damn thing.” Randi shook her head with discouragement. “Marty’s still loosening up from his meds and having trouble figuring how the records are entered. This system’s unconnected to Blanchard’s mainframe, so Haldane’s stumped.”
Randi was leaning over Marty and Mercer Haldane as Marty manipulated the keyboard and Haldane sat beside him, interpreting what he found.
“Tell the boy,” Peter said, wincing as the simple act of speaking tweaked his wounds, “he had best hurry. Samson and I injured the enemy but we by no means put them out of action. That Arab we saw back in the Sierras appears to be the boss, just as Griffin said. He escaped unharmed with at least two of his men. The rest won’t be active anytime soon, if ever.”
“Could they have followed you?” Randi wanted to know.
“Think not. But it’s likely they’ll eventually decide Griffin or Marty informed us of this lodge and that we’re here. They could arrive with reinforcements any minute.”
Jon said, “You hear that, Mart?”
“I’ve tried everything I know,” Marty snapped testily. “Now I’m working to establish an untraceable link with my computer so I can use my own programs. Give me another few seconds.”
Both the testiness and the quickening of his speech showed his meds were almost gone, and they waited as patiently as they could.
“Someone better go down and watch,” Smith realized. “Not you, Peter.”
“Samson can go. He’ll be a better lookout than any of us.”
As Peter sent the dog off, Marty shouted, “I’m connected!”
“Thank God,” Randi said fervently.
“All right, let’s start a search for the company that operates this computer.” Marty worked the keyboard, and the screen began to flash permutations too fast for them to see. Finally on the screen appeared the logo and name of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
“That means Victor registered the machine to us, and we pay for it,” Haldane said. “An unexplained extra computer system was one item the accountants found they couldn’t trace to any authorized research program.
Marty played across the keyboard. The screen continued to flicker through a series of computations. Finally a name flashed on: VAXHAM Corporation.
“What the devil is VAXHAM?” Haldane wondered.
Marty was leaning forward, concentrating. He clicked on VAXHAM, and it lit up with a long series of directories. One was “Laboratory Reports.” He punched in and scrolled rapidly through the dated entries all the way back to the very first one: January 15, 1989. Jon leaned over his shoulder.
“Wow,” Jon breathed. “A report of the first restriction enzyme mapping of the monkey virus from Peru! Now we’re getting somewhere.” Smith pulled up a stool. He studied the restriction map of the virus and in his mind compared it to the same mapping of the one that had killed Sophia that he had studied at USAMRIID. He let out a long whistle and looked up. “No surprise, but at last we have confirmation. They’re almost identical— in fact, they may be identical. The monkey virus and the one killing people are the same.”
Randi said angrily, “Victor Tremont knew it all along.”
Each year listed a summary of the technical findings for virus and serum. They showed a steady lessening of the incubation time in victims before the final fatal outbreak and the steady increase in serum effectiveness on the virulent stage— at least in a petri dish and later in monkeys. Again it was confirmation of what they had guessed. But Marty could find no data about the Iraq experiments nor how the virus had suddenly spread like a contagion across the world from remote Peru—- or from Victor Tremont and his VAXHAM Corporation.
“The last directory is blocked by a password,” Marty announced. Then he sneered, “Complacent fools, they think they can keep out Zellerbach the Magician!”
He raised his hands as if he were a concert pianist and attacked the keyboard. Using his own software, he sent the screen into a paroxysm of kaleidoscopic words, questions, commands, and images. It took a matter of seconds.
“There!” Marty chortled. “How absurdly commonplace.”
A single short phrase appeared on the screen: Lucifer at Home.
“Hades,” Jon groaned.
“People,” said Marty pompously, “are both unimaginative and predictable.”
He entered the password. The first documents that appeared were a meticulous series of financial spreadsheets and summary reports covering every year from 1989 to the present. The corporate officers were listed: Victor Tremont, with some 35 percent of the stock, and George Hyem, Xavier Becker, Adam Cain, and Jack McGraw with 10 percent each.
In his heightened state, Marty saw the connection instantly: “VAXHAM. With Tremont, an acronym of first and last names: Victor, Adam, Xavier, Hyem and McGraw, with an extra `A’ to make it look like a word.”