Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(27)
“Otto!” Schaefer interjected. “You’re not helping.”
He frowned and went back to spinning his stick.
“They aren’t going to be satisfied with making movies and they’re not going to give us a choice,” Bertrand said. “How long can we hold out? They’ll starve us. Freeze us. Torture us. And finally, they’ll kill us.”
In truth, none of that would be necessary, Schaefer knew. It wouldn’t take much more than a mild rash to get Bertrand pumping out every dangerous pathogen he knew how to create. Trying to get him to grow a backbone was a waste of time. As she saw it, there were two paths ahead of them. The first was to throw the man out the window and let his incredible knowledge of microbiology die with him. Undoubtedly, Otto would enthusiastically sign on to that strategy, but to her it was just an abstraction. She’d never knowingly harmed anyone in her life.
That left only one option: convincing him to focus that magnificent brain on something other than the hopelessness of their situation.
She sat next to the Frenchman and motioned Vogel over.
“Listen,” she said, speaking quietly in case there were listening devices. “We’re scientists, right? There’s a lot of equipment in that room, and we can probably ask for more if we play our cards right. All we need to do is figure out how we can use it to get ourselves out of here.”
“Agreed,” the German whispered.
“Agreed?” Bertrand said, the volume of his voice high enough that Victoria clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t talk, Gabriel. Think. Gas? Poison? Explosives? You keep telling everyone you’re a genius. Prove it.”
? ? ?
Sayid Halabi climbed the stairs with Muhammad Attia hovering directly behind. The voices of his prisoners had dipped to below what his microphones could pick up, suggesting that it was time to pay them a visit.
Undoubtedly, they’d begun plotting. They would pretend to cooperate and use the equipment he gave them to create some kind of weapon. Perhaps a disease that they inoculated themselves against. Perhaps a poison. Perhaps even a way to contact the outside world. It was to be expected.
He pulled back the bolt and opened the door, watching the three Westerners leap to their feet as he entered.
“How long will it take to make weaponized anthrax in a quantity sufficient for multiple large-scale attacks?” he said.
They looked at each for a moment before the woman answered. “None of us have ever made anthrax. We have nothing to do with bioweapons research. Do you have an Internet connection? You can look it up and see that I’m telling the truth.”
The Frenchman kept glancing over at her, drawing strength from his unwillingness to look weaker than a woman.
“Dr. Bertrand?” Halabi prompted.
He drew back at the sound of his name. “It’s . . . It’s not as easy as you think. That’s why no one uses those kinds of weapons. It’s not just that you could infect your own troops, it’s that nature tends to take its own path. It’s impossible to control and impossible to predict. And anthrax has its own unique problems that make it hard to weaponize. It—”
“I can assure you that I’m not stupid,” Halabi said, cutting the man off. “We know that anthrax can be weaponized because it’s been done before. By the Russians on a large scale and in 2001 by an American scientist with a background similar to yours. Now tell me how long and what additional equipment you will need.”
None answered.
“Muhammad . . .” Halabi said.
Attia pulled a pistol from the holster on his hip and fired a single round into the German nurse’s chest.
Victoria Schaefer managed to catch him before he hit the floor and Halabi watched a scene play out that was identical to the one with her translator. She tore open Vogel’s shirt, looked at the wound over his heart, and realized that she was powerless.
This time, instead of running, she lunged with surprising force and speed. It wasn’t enough, though. Attia caught her and dragged her toward the door at the back of the room. She screamed obscenities and fought violently enough that Attia was struggling to keep hold of her as he slid an ancient key into the lock. She actually managed to inflict a superficial wound on his neck before they disappeared across the threshold.
Her shouts and the sound of her beating futilely against Attia continued and Halabi examined Bertrand’s reaction. The Frenchman’s eyes flicked back and forth from the body on the floor to the open door the woman had been forced through. He was a surprisingly simple and transparent man. He showed no more empathy for his comrades than he had for patients. Instead, he seemed entirely focused on calculating how this affected his own situation.
The sounds of struggling faded and finally went silent. The woman, just out of sight in the room, would now be secured to the table at its edge. She managed to shout a few more epithets, but then her words became screams. Within a minute, there seemed to be nothing but her terror, pain, and hopelessness bouncing off the stone walls.
“How can you stand there and do nothing to stop this?” Halabi asked Bertrand. “What was it you said earlier? Anthrax isn’t even dangerous. And, as you suspected, I’ve released videos with my plans. The Americans will know what’s coming and be vigilant.”
Bertrand didn’t respond. He seemed to be slipping into shock as the screams of the woman echoed around them.