VIRULENT TERROR

Attacked by a horde of feral, rampaging villagers infected by a synthetic virus, Mack Bolan barely escapes the isolated mountain town in time to witness a mysterious black ops team as they raze the place and kill all its inhabitants.

Determined to find the source of this powerful bioweapon, Bolan tracks the virus to a secret facility, where scientists are working to make the infected victims stronger, swifter and more deadly. But the wealthy industrialist who turns out to be funding this research has his sights set on all-out toxic warfare. Now that it’s ready, the germ will be unleashed on a mass scale across the European Union, targeting specific ethnic groups for destruction. With millions of lives at stake, Bolan has no choice but to embark on a seek-and-destroy mission.

Tentatively he sniffed the air.

It was redolent of decaying plants, fresh bark, a hint of blood—and sweat, coming from the corner to his right.

Bolan took his hand away from his face to find it clenched into a fist, just like the one at his side. What the hell is happening to me? he thought. Every sense was preternaturally aware. Every inch of his body overflowed with energy, as if he could run a dozen marathons back-to-back.

But above all, his mind was filled with the overwhelming basic instinct of fight-or-flight. But it was difficult to consider flight as a viable option anymore. Instead, there was only the burning need for combat, to dominate his opponent—any opponent—and leave the person bleeding and defeated in the dirt.

Almost unaware that his lips had peeled back from his teeth in a feral grin, Bolan stepped farther into the room, his eyes wide and searching.

Hunting for his prey.

Nightmare Army

Don Pendleton

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

—Buddha

The evil ways of evil men will eventually bring them down. And if it takes too long, I’ll step forward to hurry things up.

—Mack Bolan

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quotes

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Labored breath loud in his ears, bare feet shuffling down the dark path, Motumbo staggered through the dark jungle. His side, red and sticky with blood, pulsed with pain at each step, but he didn’t stop. Instead he kept scanning around, nose flared to scent possible prey, red-rimmed, watery eyes staring wide into the darkness.

Time held no meaning for him anymore—he couldn’t say whether it had been twenty minutes or two hours since he had broken free of his captors. Now all that was left in his mind was the relentless desire to move, to hunt.

Normally the Congolese jungle held no fear for him, even at night. Although there were creatures in the dense forest that should be avoided, such as the stealthy leopards, the territorial gorillas and the wide variety of poisonous snakes, spiders and insects inhabiting the lush underbrush, Motumbo knew them all and how to avoid them. Growing up in the isolated northern region, the twenty-year-old had been fortunate to avoid the violence that had swept much of his country for the past decade. But he hadn’t been so lucky avoiding the silver ghosts haunting the deep tropical forest.

They had appeared about six months ago, mysterious, gleaming beings appearing seemingly out of nowhere to snatch whomever they could find: men, women and children. Appeals to local law enforcement had been ineffective; the men who had tried to find the elusive beings had either come back empty-handed—or disappeared, as well. The populations of the scattered villages in the area, still on edge from the violence of the simmering civil war that had been slowly cooling for the past few years, didn’t enter the jungle unless they absolutely had to. But they had to eat.

That was how Motumbo had been captured one day, hunting in the jungle against his father’s wishes. The ghosts had appeared like magic around him, one of them tossing a small canister at his feet that had spewed a noxious yellow gas. One whiff had made him pass out in seconds.

When he’d awakened, he had been in a place unlike anywhere he had ever seen before. Bare, bright rooms with hard, white walls. Strange currents of cool air came from square holes in the ceiling. And he’d been surrounded by quiet, pale men and women, all dressed in long, white coats with paper masks over their faces, their dark brown or bright blue eyes measuring and cold.

And the screaming. From the moment he woke to the night he was able to escape, Motumbo always heard someone screaming. Sometimes it was a man, the voice hoarse and low, sometimes a woman, the shrill shrieks lancing through his head. But it was constant, unrelenting, endless.

The men and women poked and prodded him, weighed him, made him do physical tests that he didn’t understand. Failure to comply was met with shocking force, administered by large men with devices that shot strange darts with wires attached to their handles that made Motumbo’s entire body feel as if it was on fire. He’d only needed to experience that once and afterward he had complied with their demands as quickly as possible.

In some respects, it wasn’t so bad. He was dressed and well-fed. He was even allowed to watch television for an hour each day, but sometimes the programs gave him headaches. The tests weren’t hard—at least, not in the beginning. Then one day he had been given an injection of a thick, black liquid and brought into a room with another person, a woman. Motumbo had just stared at her for a moment, as she had looked back at him. Then he had felt a strange sort of pressure in his head, as though his skull was about to split open if he didn’t do something right now, and a funny kind of warmness in his arms and legs, and the only thought in his mind was to—

No! He banished the rising memory before that terrible nightmare replayed behind his eyes again. Instead he concentrated on how he had escaped, catching a scientist by surprise when he had come in to check on the teen’s progress after the latest round of injections of the black stuff that made his limbs pulse with a warm, drowsy fire. The man hadn’t even had time to shout before Motumbo had leaped on him, bearing him to the ground and smashing his skull until it leaked blood. He had taken the man’s lab coat, identification and mask, and headed out a maintenance door he’d noticed was often left unguarded. Outside, he’d thought he was free, but had encountered another guard, who’d seen through his flimsy disguise. Motumbo hadn’t hesitated then, either. He had grabbed the man and battered his face until he had slumped to the ground. It was only afterward that he realized the guard had stabbed him in the side. He’d left the strange place, running at first, trying to put as much distance between himself and it.

The wound in his side throbbed now, but Motumbo’s pace never slowed. One hand pressed to his right side, the other held out to block low branches or to fend off a predator, he kept moving forward. Occasionally he glanced around the unfamiliar terrain, having no idea where he was or which direction his village might be. But always, always there was the insistence demand to hunt, to find...

A rustle in the trees to his right made the teenager freeze, cocking his head to pinpoint the source of the noise. He turned in time to see a blur of fur and fangs leap straight at his face The mouth of the leopard was opened wide to sink into his cheeks while the jungle cat’s front claws reached out to pierce his arms or shoulders and the rear claws raked across his abdomen to disembowel him. All of that would normally happen in the next half second as the jungle predator efficiently killed him.

But the moment Motumbo’s vision locked on to the leaping predator, time seemed to slow. The pupils of his eyes dilated even farther, taking in every detail of the large cat, from the snarl on its face to the scrap of rotting meat wedged near its upper left canine to its left paw extended a few inches ahead of the right one to hook into him first. The soaring cat turned sluggish, floating through the air instead of flying at him in the blink of an eye.

Along with the time slowdown, Motumbo was immediately filled with an insensate, killing, red rage.

Reaching out with his right hand, he gripped the left paw, heedless of the extended claws, and grabbed the right paw with his left hand. As soon as his fingers closed on both limbs, he wrenched them sideways, as far apart as he could with all of his strength, which now seemed limitless.

The crack and tear of snapping bones and ripping flesh sounded in the night. The leopard’s ferocious expression turned to agony as its forelegs were almost ripped off its body. Using the momentum of the cat’s leap, Motumbo whirled and threw the sixty-kilogram animal ten meters away. The crippled animal landed against a moss-covered tree with a sickening thud. Unable to rise, it let out a shocked yowl, as if unable to comprehend how it had gone from supreme hunter to mortally wounded in two heartbeats.

As soon as the overwhelming urge to kill had come over him, it abated, and Motumbo regained control of himself as though coming out of a daydream. He hadn’t suffered a scratch from the beast’s attempted attack, but his head felt thick and sluggish, and his muscles burned from the effort to protect himself.

A low mewling came from the base of the tree where the leopard had landed, and Motumbo walked over to it, seeing the animal writhing in pain, its front legs twisted and useless, its back legs limp and unmoving. Broke its back when it hit the tree, he thought. Careful to avoid the sharp teeth, he grabbed it behind the scruff and, with an amazing burst of strength, snapped its neck.

As he did so, bright lights popped on all around the small clearing. Motumbo looked up to see the three of the silver ghosts appear at the far end. The red rage fell over his vision again and he sprang at them, fingers outstretched to tear them apart, if he could only get his hands on one...

A loud hiss of compressed air sounded from his left and Motumbo felt the bite of the darts again, followed by searing agony that locked his limbs and sent him crashing to the ground, his face twisted in pain, a choked cry forcing its way from between his gritted teeth.

The silver ghosts looked at him from behind the strange masks they wore, and one of them held a small vial of something under his nose that made him dizzy and sleepy.

His last conscious thought before the blackness took him was what one of the ghosts said to the others. “Killed a full-grown, healthy leopard while unarmed. The company will be very pleased with our results so far, don’t you think?”

CHAPTER ONE

Fingers clenching the grip of his silenced SIG-Sauer P-229 pistol, Mack Bolan listened to the two men as they walked closer to his hiding spot. Talking in rapid-fire Armenian, they were close enough now that he could smell the harsh smoke from their Turkish cigarettes as it mixed with the tang of the gun oil on the hunting rifles slung over their shoulders.

Normally he wouldn’t hesitate to take them out if they got too close. The two men weren’t taking any security precautions. He could easily hear them, even over the constant wind at this altitude. Their steps were slow on the goat trail, their conversation casual, unhurried. At the moment they had no idea where he was.

When they reached the ideal position, he would stand from cover and put both men down with double taps to the chest in under two seconds. The .40-caliber bullets would smash through their woolen sweaters, crack their sternums and plow into their hearts, mangling them before exiting their backs in a spray of blood. Two quick steps forward, along with a third shot into each man’s forehead, and all he would be left with would be to make sure these men were never found.

But this situation was anything but ordinary.

Bolan had spent the past four days surveilling the mountaintop headquarters of Aleksandr Sevan, the leader of the Jadur clan, currently at the top of the Armenian mafia hierarchy. Tightly knit and bound by a strict code of honor and ethics, as well as family ties, the Armenians had resisted all attempts at agents infiltrating their ranks, with even local agents with impeccable jackets either found dead or simply vanishing, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile, over the past few decades, the Armenians had extended their tentacles from their small landlocked country to encircle both Europe and America in a stranglehold of crime and fear. With a well-deserved reputation for savage brutality and the use of violence in response to even minor threats against them, they had made inroads into every type of crime on both continents, from street crimes such as kidnapping, bank robbery, drug smuggling and sex slavery to white collar offenses such as wire fraud, bank fraud, racketeering and embezzlement. Along the way, the Armenians were willing to work with local, established mafias, such as the Russians or Mexicans, to get what they wanted, but also had no qualms about going toe-to-toe with larger mobs to get in on the action, wherever it might happen.

All that was why Bolan was here. When INTERPOL intelligence had managed to get a line on Sevan’s movements, they’d expected him to end up back at the walled town of Artakar, twenty miles east of Tumyanan, where the Jadur clan ruled it and the surrounding mountainous countryside with a heavy hand. Every village and farm in ten kilometers had been co-opted by the syndicate, with large rewards for reporting any suspicious behavior, and illegal shipments of contraband ranging from heroin to guns to women often stored in farms before being moved on to their final destination.

The mission had been straightforward: Bolan would go in, alone, infiltrate the headquarters, kidnap Sevan and extract him to an airfield near Tumyanan, where Jack Grimaldi waited to fly them both to Washington, D.C. No one in European law enforcement would know he was in-country—the Armenians were as free with their bribes with law enforcement as with anyone else, and rumors ran rampant of corrupted police officers and administrators in a half-dozen countries. In and out, no muss, no fuss, the whole operation had been scheduled to take no more than thirty-six hours.

That deadline had passed two days ago. When Sevan hadn’t showed up, Stony Man Farm had put out cautious feelers about what was behind the deviation. A change in plans, or was the entire mission some kind of smokescreen or diversion? Careful intel-gathering and analysis by Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman and Akira Tokaido, members of Stony Man’s cyber team, revealed that the criminal ringleader had been held up by a supposedly minor matter involving a meeting with Salvatore Gambini, one of the heads of the Italian Mafia with whom the Armenians were very close. The meeting had run long, with the two crime family heads celebrating their partnership. When he’d heard about the change in plans, Bolan had cursed not being able to try to get to that one. There were few things he liked better than capturing two scumbag mobsters for the price of one. Gambini would simply have to wait until another day.

Instead he had sat and watched and waited, preferring to take the chance of staying to capture the mob leader rather than leaving and attempting to pick up his trail another day. The longer he stayed in place, however—even with moving his base camp once already to obscure traces of his being here—the odds were greater that he would be detected sooner or later.

Although the Jadur patrols didn’t come out this far, Bolan couldn’t take a chance on a shepherd or farmer stumbling across his base of operations. His low-slung, camouflaged tent was covered by the native grasses so artfully so that an intruder would have had to step on it to discover it. When the flap was closed, it was just another grass-covered hillock among a cluster of them scattered on the mountainside. Bolan had been living on cold MREs—meals ready to eat—and doing anything outside the tent under the cover of darkness, using night-vision goggles to see if the moon was obscured. He hadn’t lit a fire, awakening on the brisk autumn morning to heavy frost and a chilly tent, nor showered in the past two days, as well.

Despite the uncertainly and rough conditions, Bolan lived for situations like this, pitting himself against both the elements and his enemy. Unlike just about anyone else who found themselves in this situation, he thrived on the challenges of remaining undetected while completing his mission, no matter what obstacles might be thrown in his path.

All of which brought him back to the moment at hand, and the two men walking just a few paces away from his hidden lair. The odds were good that they might be part of Aleksandr Sevan’s mob. On the other hand, they might be two farmers, perhaps a father and his eldest son from a nearby farm, out hunting game birds. Either way, if they found Bolan, the odds were very good that they were both going to die. While he tried to avoid civilian casualties—that was the kindest term he could use to refer to any of the population of the area—these tough, hardy mountain people had compromised themselves by accepting deals with the devil that lived in the walled city.

Sevan’s control of the region was ironclad, and Bolan couldn’t take the chance of anyone seeing him and telling the mobsters. His mission was too important to risk because of a chance encounter. Therefore, he waited; every sense locked on what he could hear and smell of the two men, and stood ready to execute both of them, even while hoping they would simply keep walking.

“Doesn’t look like they’ve spotted you, Striker,” a voice said in his ear. Bolan didn’t reply. The voice came from Akira Tokaido, about six thousand miles away in the Stony Man Farm Computer Room, watching the two men through the 1.8 gigapixel eye of an ARGUS camera mounted on the underbelly of a Predator Hawk drone flying overhead at 15,000 feet. “Hunting rifles are confirmed. I think they’re old Mosin-Nagants. Anyway, they’ve passed your site, and are moving south-southeast, still walking and talking. Looks like they’re headed down the mountain. We’ll keep tabs on them in case they come back your way.”

Even with the all-clear sounded, Bolan waited until the men’s conversation faded from hearing before he uncurled his fingers from his pistol and replied. “Copy that.”

“That was way too close for my comfort,” Kurtzman grumbled. Bolan imagined him watching several monitors at once from his wheelchair while drinking from a cup of his abominable coffee that was always brewed 24/7 at the Farm. “Far be it from me to second-guess you, Striker. We’ve backed you on a lot of high-risk missions before, but even before the delay, this one seems a bit, well—”

“Suicidal?” Akira offered.

“I was going to say high-risk, but if the combat boot fits...” Kurtzman’s voice trailed off

Slowly, cautiously, Bolan unzipped his observation port and stuck out his camouflaged high-powered binoculars. First he spotted the two hunters, watching them for a few seconds as they trudged away from him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Tokaido or the incredible technology watching over him; it was just that, when out in the field, Bolan preferred to always verify what information came his way with his own eyes whenever possible.

“Duly noted, Bear.” After the hunters had disappeared from view, Bolan turned his attention to the walled city below him.

There was a pause from Stony Man and Bolan imagined the two men, Kurtzman grizzled and older, Tokaido younger, with his ever-present earbuds pressed into his ears, exchanging puzzled glances. “You’ve seen the plans,” Tokaido said. “It’s a fortress, and I’m not talking about one from the Middle Ages, either.”

As he studied the high stone walls, with lookout towers cleverly built in so they seemed to be a part of the medieval defenses, not to mention the small army of alert guards and attack dogs backing up a twenty-first-century web of high-tech surveillance equipment, Bolan had to admit that Tokaido was correct. Even so, his mouth curved into a sardonic grin.

“Yeah, but if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be any fun sneaking in, now would it?” he replied. “Look, I appreciate the concern, but we’ve been over all this before.” Bolan didn’t drop his field glasses while talking, just continued scanning the city on the plateau beneath him. “It’s a complete stealth op. Infiltrate, acquire the target, exfiltrate, all without anyone being the wiser.”

“Yes, and that all sounds great,” Kurtzman replied. “The part that concerns me is our intelligence showing that more than sixty percent of the town’s inhabitants are members of the Jadur clan mafia. It’s one thing if you were sneaking into a village of civilians, but about two-thirds of the people in this place are some kind of criminal, and we know the Armenians don’t mess around. It’d be one thing if we had Phoenix Force on hand to back you up—”

“But they’re busy in Australia right now, so, I’ll just have to do it real quiet...” Bolan trailed off as he spotted a caravan of black SUVs coming up the lone dirt road to the main gates of the village. Sleek and squat, they boasted tinted windows and were undoubtedly armored.

“Akira, you see what I see?”

“The small fleet of sport-utes at the gate? Roger that.” Bolan heard the faint click of keys as the whiz kid accessed information. He kept his eyes glued to the four-vehicle procession, which was swept underneath with mirrors for bombs, as well as what looked like electronic sniffers.

After a minute Tokaido came back on. “They originated from Erebuni Airport, south of the capital city of Yerevan. Left there at 10:30 a.m. and traveled straight through until they reached their destination.”

“Aleksandr Sevan is in one of those SUVs.” Bolan watched as the caravan was allowed inside the walled village, then lowered his binoculars. “And tonight, I’m going in and bringing him back out with me.”

CHAPTER TWO

Seventy-two hours earlier

Dennis Kuhn struggled out of unconsciousness to find his head pounding, his dry mouth tasting like sandpaper, and his arms and legs feeling like he was moving them through thick syrup.

Raising his head from the cot he was laying on, he looked around in confusion. The white walls of the bare, windowless room were completely unfamiliar. Kuhn pushed himself up onto his elbows and paused, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up...

After a minute his queasiness subsided enough for him to carefully sit up and look around. Other than a white table on the other side of the room and a sturdy-looking white door to his right, the room was empty. Blinking in confusion, Kuhn looked down to find himself wearing the same clothes—an indigo Hugo Boss button-down and gray slacks, both wrinkled from being slept in—that he had worn to the office...yesterday? Patting his pockets, he found that his smartphone and wallet were both missing.

Where the hell am I? Mind whirling, Kuhn pushed himself to his stockinged feet, swayed unsteadily, and glanced over to find his wingtip shoes set neatly at the foot of the bed. He walked to the table, which was stocked with bottles of spring water in an ice bucket and a variety of energy bars. Removing the bottles, he opened one, swished a huge gulp of ice-cold water around in his mouth, then spit it out in the bucket. After draining the rest of the bottle, he found himself ravenously hungry and tore one of the bars open and devoured it. Selecting a second, he was peeling it open when he was interrupted by a click near the door and a familiar voice emanating from a concealed speaker somewhere over there.

“Greetings, Mr. Kuhn. I am glad to see that you are awake and recovered from your recent journey.”

Kuhn looked up from his protein bar in surprise. “Mr. Stengrave?” The water he’d just drank seemed to coalesce into a ball of ice in his stomach. He doesn’t know—he can’t know— “What’s going on here? Where am I?”

“You are a guest at my winter home, Stengrave Castle, on the north end of the Gulf of Bothnia.”

Kuhn knew the place his boss was talking about: a modern update of a medieval castle, built to Kristian Stengrave’s exacting specifications. He’d even visited the place once before, three years ago, a reward for certain top-level executives for surpassing their lofty sales goals, even during the recession that had been sweeping Europe at the time. But last night, he had been in Stuttgart—more than 1,500 miles away. Not only had he been kidnapped by the very company he worked for, but someone had brought him to this forlorn place near the top of the world—all without anyone being the wiser.

“Where is my family?”

“They are safe and sound at your home. They have been told that you were called away to a top-level emergency conference, so suddenly that you didn’t have time to contact them.”

“Okay... Why am I here?”

“You have been brought here to discuss a very serious matter—your attempted theft of proprietary research and materials for one of our rivals.”

Kuhn’s stomach lurched so hard he thought he was going to throw up, but he maintained his poker face while opening another bottle of water. “Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But of course he did; in fact, Kuhn was as guilty as hell. He worked as a computer programmer and analyst at one of Stengrave Industries’ facilities in Germany, producing top-of-the-line medical equipment for sale throughout the rest of the world. Hired straight from graduation at the top of his class at Heidelberg University, with a double major in computer science and business, he’d spent the past decade with the company, rising steadily through the ranks.

And yet it had never seemed to be enough. Although he was paid well, his wife had expensive tastes combined with a desire to keep up with their well-to-do neighbors, and when their children had arrived, the pressure to maintain their lifestyle had only increased.

So when a rival bio-manufacturing firm had offered him ten years’ salary to deliver test data on one of Stengrave’s most propriety lines of gene research, he had agreed, seeing a way out of his increasingly pressure-filled life. What he hadn’t counted on was how much more pressure he was under now; not only from his wife, but also from both masters, keeping appearances normal at his regular job while satisfying the increasingly strident demands of his new boss.

“Do not bother protesting your innocence, Mr. Kuhn, it will not help you. All of the evidence has been collected and presented to me, and I have already made my decision.”

Even though the room was perfectly comfortable, sweat appeared on Kuhn’s brow and the back of his neck. He gulped more water even as his gaze flicked to the door, which he knew was locked. “Okay, then why have you brought me here?”

“To offer you a chance to reclaim your lost honor.”

Of all the things his boss might have said, that was the last thing he expected. “Wha—what are you talking about?”

“Finish eating and we will discuss what will happen next,” Stengrave replied.

Kuhn tossed the bar on the table—there was no way he could stomach any more. “I’m ready now.”

“Very good.” The door clicked. Kuhn walked over to it and tried the handle. The door swung open easily under his touch, and he walked into the next room.

Lights came on as he did, revealing a long hallway lined on both sides with full suits of armor. As the door to the other room closed behind him, Kuhn blinked and stared at the at least two-dozen suits standing silently in the hall, ten on either side, each one on its own small dais; a warrior’s uniform from another time.

In the middle of the room was a rack of swords, containing various blades from a typical medieval long sword to what looked like a Scottish claymore. Other than the armor and the swords, the room appeared to be empty. There was a door at the end of the room, but it had no knob or handle.

“Mr. Stengrave?” Kuhn asked. “What is all this?”

“As I said...” His boss’s voice came from somewhere in the room. “It is a place for you to reclaim your honor.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“Choose your weapon.”

Kuhn frowned. “What?”

“Choose your weapon. There are twenty suits of armor in this room. I am in one of them. If you select the correct one and strike me, you will be free to go. If you do not select the correct one, then we will fight to the death.”

Kuhn’s blood pounded in his ears as he heard the terms of his “exit interview.” He shook his head. “This is insane! You can’t just kidnap me and hold me hostage and set up this ridiculous contest like some James Bond villain!”

“Yet you are here, and I am here. So it would seem that is exactly what is happening,” Stengrave replied in the same calm, measured voice.

“I refuse— I refuse to participate in this madness,” Kuhn said. “Have me arrested, tried, thrown in jail, whatever, I’ll deal with it. But this...this is madness.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you chose to steal from my company—and me.”

Kuhn squinted as Stengrave spoke, trying to figure out where his voice was coming from. He studied the metal suits of armor closest to him, thinking it would be easy to figure out which one his boss was wearing, but each one looked as if it held a mannequin filling out the clothes underneath the polished steel plates. Even as he did this, a part of his mind screamed that all this had to be in some kind of nightmare, and that if he could just wake up, he’d find himself back at home, in bed next to his sleeping wife, and all of this would simply be a bad dream...

Except he felt his sweaty palms and his increased heartbeat, and the blood pounding in his ears, and knew—absolutely knew—that this was real, that it was happening to him right now.

“Surely you are not such a craven man that you would prefer the ignominy of a public trial,” Stengrave continued. “With your name dragged through the mud as you are found guilty—and you will be—and sentenced to a very lengthy prison term. Your wife and children will be forced to fend for themselves, and they will probably have to sell their home and move out of that wonderful neighborhood you’ve been living in for the past three years.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Kuhn asked while edging closer to the rack of swords. He had fenced in college, even done some reenactment fighting of the German sword techniques, but all that had been more than a decade ago. Plus, he wasn’t in the best shape after ten years of sitting at a computer behind a desk. His wife, Helene, had been hounding him to take better care of himself, but he had always said there’d be time for that later. Now he found himself desperately wishing he had listened to her.

“I am telling you this because if you face me and win, all record of your transgression will be erased. You will, of course, have to leave our employ, but no doubt a stellar recommendation from your immediate superiors will allow you to find employment elsewhere with ease...perhaps even with the company you’ve been moonlighting for.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for finding it hard to believe that you would simply let me go after all this.”

“Make no mistake, if you defeat me, you will have earned your freedom.”

“Okay...” Kuhn nodded. “And if I lose?”

“If you lose, you will be dead. Your family, however, will not suffer in your absence. As I said, they are not complicit in your crime, and I bear them no ill will. As a matter of fact, they would be eligible to receive the life insurance payout on your untimely death.”

“Sure—while you go to prison for murder.” Kuhn regarded the nearest few suits of armor, noticing that none had a weapon sheathed at its side. If he is truly in here somewhere, he’s unarmed right now...

“Mr. Kuhn, do you really think that I have not planned this down to the last detail?” his boss asked. “Officially, you will have died in an unfortunate car accident. And yes, there will be a scenario created that will explain the injuries on your body. Stengrave Industries will mourn the loss of one of its own, and due to the life insurance policy, including double indemnity for your tragic but accidental death, your widow and children will be able to live lives of comfort, rather than being forced to fend for themselves— She does have a degree, I recall, but has not worked since your children were born, yes?”

Kuhn’s head spun at the casual yet definitive way Stengrave has defined the two paths he faced, as if there were no other options at this point. He listened as Stengrave continued. “You have sullied the honor of your family name with your deception and insulted me, as well. All I am offering to you is a chance to make it right, for you to reclaim your honor and perhaps die with your integrity restored. And who knows, you may even win.”

“And what if I sit on the floor and refuse to participate in your crazy game?”

“Then eventually I will grow tired of waiting and come to kill you. But surely that is not how you wish to die, is it, Mr. Kuhn? Sitting passively on the floor, meekly accepting your fate? Your family forced to continue their lives knowing their father was a criminal—for I will definitely have to let them know of your misdeeds—”

Kuhn’s brow furrowed. “So now you’re trying to blackmail me into playing, fighting for my life?”

“I am offering something you will not find anywhere else—a chance to redeem yourself, to pass from this world to the next with your head held high.”

Kuhn looked back at the door leading to the room in which he had awakened, then at the hall of armor in front of him. As he stood there, he realized with a strange frisson of combined horror and honesty that Stengrave was right—there was only one way out.

“All right.” Striding to the rack of bladed weapons, he selected the long sword—the only one that even came close to the fencing blades he’d used in college, and tested its heft and reach. He couldn’t explain it, but it somehow felt...right in his hand. “I’m ready.”

“Good. You may begin at your leisure.”

Gripping the hilt in both hands, Kuhn slowly began walking down the rest of the hallway, searching for that one suit of armor that had the telltale sign of a real person inside it.

That one? Or maybe that one? He stared at each one, trying to discern something, anything that would give him the edge.

There! Spotting what he thought was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, Kuhn whirled and drove the tip of the blade as hard as he could into the lower abdomen of a spectacular suit of fluted armor that was engraved everywhere with delicate golden filigree.

The armor suit tipped backward and crashed to the ground. On impact, the helmet flew off, revealing a mannequin’s featureless face.

Sword held high, Kuhn turned, looking for one of the suits to come at him. None of them moved. Come on...come on!

He lashed out at another suit nearest to him, this one a simpler, unadorned collection of steel armor. It, too, went over in a clatter of metal and mannequin limbs. Kuhn turned to the next one, only to find it had stepped off its dais and was coming right at him.

Stengrave rushed him like a striker charging for a loose ball—a striker sheathed in sixty pounds of metal.

Kuhn didn’t even think about trying to get his sword up—he just leaped out of the way. Stengrave didn’t change course or attempt to stop, however, he just kept going, only slowing once he’d reached the sword rack. Grabbing a heavy-bladed Walloon sword by its basket hilt, he whirled, slashing out with it in a move that would have sliced Kuhn’s chest open if it had connected.

The younger man, however, wasn’t there anymore. He’d gotten up and backed away, sword held out in front of him. Now armed, the six-foot-five Stengrave regarded him for a moment from inside a visored basinet that covered his entire head. Stengrave raised his sword in front of him in a brief but sincere salute, then began advancing on the smaller man.

Kuhn stepped back and then did so again. His foot brushed against a helmet that had fallen off one of the other suits, and he reached down, groping blindly for it, as he dared not take his eyes off his attacker. Stengrave kept coming, and just when Kuhn thought he’d have to abandon the piece, his fingers gripped an edge and he grabbed the helmet and whipped it up at Stengrave.

He’d thrown it in his opponent’s general direction, so the programmer was surprised to see his improvised missile clang into Stengrave’s helmet, throwing the man off course for a moment. Seizing the opportunity, Kuhn didn’t follow up with an attack, but instead darted off deeper into the hallway, trying to find a place to hide and hopefully figure out some way to take the armored man by surprise.

Despite the odds against him, Kuhn hadn’t felt this alive in years. Also, from what he had seen, he thought he might actually have a chance to take the other man. Stengrave’s closed-face helmet protected him, but it also limited his vision to a tiny strip right in front of his eyes. Plus, as the helmet was attached to the rest of the armor, it didn’t allow him to turn his head! Finally, there were many places where he wasn’t nearly as heavily armored, like his neck, elbow and knee joints.

If I can just take him by surprise, I might be able to pull this off, Kuhn thought. And I think I know exactly how...

Hiding behind the last suit of armor near the far door, he tried to get his breathing under control as he peeked out just enough to locate Stengrave. The bigger man had returned to the middle of the hallway, standing a few steps away from the rack of swords. Although he was looking around, Kuhn’s evaluation of his helmet was correct—Stengrave couldn’t turn his head. He ran through his plan one more time in his mind. Here goes...

He shoved the armor he was hiding behind over as hard as he could, counting on the movement to attract his boss’s attention. The moment he felt it tip, he ducked and ran, keeping low, down the row to the suit of armor closest to Stengrave.

The falling suit hit the floor with a clatter. Kuhn didn’t wait for Stengrave’s reaction, but shoved the suit he was standing behind over, as well, straight at the big man. His plan was to follow that up with an attack, hoping to injure the other man as he dodged the falling armor.

It wasn’t a bad plan, and went off more or less as he had planned it. The only trouble was that Stengrave ended up facing Kuhn to fend off the falling armor, and as such, saw the smaller man coming at him. Already committed, Kuhn kept going, even as Stengrave sidestepped the second distraction. Kuhn angled over to the other man’s left side, where his sword wasn’t, already raising his sword to swing down at the armored man’s left knee, hoping to chop into the joint and maim him.

Kuhn wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. As he started bringing his sword down he caught a blur of movement from Stengrave out of the corner of his eye, then it felt as though he had run into a horizontal railing with such force it knocked the breath out of him. He kept moving forward, his sword forgotten in his hand, even as he felt a strange pressure on his chest, which was gone as soon as he’d sensed it. He stumbled a bit, falling to one knee. Sensing that something wasn’t right here... Where did all this...blood come from? he wondered as he stared down at the pattering of droplets on the floor in front of him. With a gasp, he realized the front of his shirt wasn’t indigo anymore, but black...black with wet, fresh blood.

Oh, my God... A long, horizontal tear had cut his shirt in two. Kuhn moved numbing fingers up to pull the top part away, revealing a long slash across his stomach, through the abdominal wall lining and into his abdomen. With mounting horror, he thought he saw the pinkish-gray of his own intestines as he fell backward to sit on the ground. Blood was everywhere, on his hand, in his pants, covering his shoes. Oddly, there was no pain, which surprised him, as he would have thought being sliced open this way would have hurt like a son of a bitch.

Kuhn’s sword dropped from his other hand as a wave of weakness crashed over him. Dumbly, he looked up to see Stengrave looming over him. The owner of Stengrave Industries had raised his visor and now stared down at Kuhn with cold, slate-gray eyes. His face looked as if it might as well have been carved from granite. Again, he raised the sword, its edge now covered in blood, to salute him.

“You lasted longer than I expected. Farväl.”

Drawing the sword back, he swung it forward and down, the heavy blade slicing through Kuhn’s neck and spinal cord, and cutting off his head. It rolled to the ground while the jet of blood that spurted from the stump was already subsiding as the body fell backward to the floor.

* * *

KRISTIAN STENGRAVE REGARDED the body of his former employee as dispassionately as he did most of his investments. The strongest feeling he would admit to at the moment was annoyance—annoyance that someone in his employ, whom he had spent considerable resources to retain and improve—would have turned on him for such a base reason as money. It was only through the most fortunate circumstance that the hapless programmer hadn’t realized the true value of what he was stealing. If he had, then anyone he would have come in contact with, from his minders at the other company, to his family, would have had to have been killed, as well. Secrecy was simply that vital for his largest project, one that would irrevocably alter the world as humanity knew it.

Stengrave cleaned his sword and set it back on the rack before unstrapping his helmet and removing it, revealing sweaty, white-blond hair that fell to his shoulders. He tapped his wireless earpiece. “It’s done.”

The door at the far end of the hallway opened and a whip-thin man with a shaved head entered. Dressed in an impeccable three-piece dark gray suit, he walked to Stengrave, careful not to get any blood on his handmade shoes. “I sure hope that isn’t the severance package you have planned for me.” His voice held the smooth, supple tones of a top-class British education.

“Do not betray me, Mr. Firke, and you will never have to find out,” Stengrave replied, not taking his eyes off the body. “Have this hallway restored, and set up the accident as we had discussed.”

“Of course, sir.” The second man eyed the head with pursed lips. “I suppose there wasn’t any way you could have avoided beheading him, perhaps? That will make it more difficult to, uh, disguise his condition.”

“He deserved an honorable death. Just make it happen.”

“Of course, sir. Don’t forget that you have the update call in an hour. The lab in the Congo says it has news.”

That tore Stengrave’s gaze from the body, and he began divesting himself of the rest of the armor. “Excellent. I look forward to hearing about their progress. I suggest that you keep a travel bag prepared. If all goes well, you may be overseeing a field test shortly.”

“Of course, sir, I’ll prepare that just as soon as I’ve had this—” Firke nodded at the mess “—cleaned up.”

CHAPTER THREE

Sixty hours earlier

Dr. Gerhardt Richter sighed as he leaned back in his chair, trying to avoid the chill breeze blowing on the back of his neck. Shaking his head, he walked over to his single upright dresser, pulled out a black, silk scarf and draped it around his neck. Although the laboratory needed the air conditioning to maintain the temperature throughout the complex, it was difficult for him to get re-acclimated, particularly after two days in the field. Now, he always felt cold, no matter where in the complex he was, and that damnable breeze seemed to follow him around the room. Richter walked to the thermostat mounted next to the door and tapped it, not sure if the damn thing was regulating anything anymore.

This is not how groundbreaking science is achieved, he thought, activating the VOIP—voice over internet protocol—program on his machine. “The thermostat in my office is malfunctioning again, Sharene. Please get someone in maintenance to take a look at it as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir. Yours is the third complaint I’ve received, and maintenance is already looking into it. I’ll pass on the status update as soon they get back to me. Also, I just received word from the lab that they’re ready to begin the next round of tests.”

“Good, I’ll be there shortly.” Richter closed his computer and tucked it under his arm. With a grimace, he glanced at the roof above him one last time, as if willing it to stay up long enough for him to get out of the room. Rising from his desk, he left his cramped office and walked into the even more cramped hallway.

His backers had built the complex to be sturdy—at least, that’s what they had told him—but the German was forced to stoop as he walked, so that his balding head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. He was slightly concerned that he would develop a permanent hunch from the past five months of work.

After this, I’m due a long vacation, he thought, maybe somewhere sunny and bright instead of humid and hot all the time.

The idea cheered him a bit and he nodded to the other white-lab-coated men and women he passed as he headed for the main laboratory.

He stopped only once before passing two security men half carrying one of the test subjects—a quivering young African male—between them, with another technician trailing them.

“Hold it.” Richter thumbed back the sagging youth’s eyelid, revealing an eye that had rolled back into his head. “Where’d he come from?”

“He’s the security breach we recaptured at 2100 last night,” the tech said. “Filmed him killing a full-grown leopard out in the jungle. Emailed you the video this morning.”

“Right.” Richter pressed fingers to the young man’s neck. “Erratic heartbeat. I don’t like that. Place him in the guarded ICU and monitor his condition for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, sir.” The three men left with their prisoner, and Richter continued on his way.

Arriving at his destination, Richter entered the airlock, waiting for the doors to close. He walked to the center of the small corridor, where a powerful stream of antiseptic air washed over him, removing any small biological organisms that might contaminate the lab. When the tone sounded, indicating his cleansing cycle was completed, he stepped into the next room.

The laboratory was state-of-the-art, with a half dozen of the current shift’s white-coated scientists working at computer stations and lab tables. One of them, a tall, Nordic-looking blond woman, noticed his entrance and walked over.

“Good afternoon, Doctor. Here to witness the next test?”

“Correct.”

“Good, we’re about to start. Follow me, please.” She led him to the other side of the laboratory, where a large, thick pane of laminated glass separated them from the occupants in the other room.

Richter watched as the first creature in the room roamed around. It was a chimpanzee, about three years old, circling the perimeter of the bare, five-meter by five-meter room with apprehension in its eyes.

“This is a young male, captured two weeks ago, weighing ninety-three pounds and measuring forty-five inches tall. We’ve limited its calorie intake and have taken steps to ensure a suitable aggressive reaction to the second test subject.”

A door slid open on the right side and a slender black man wearing a pair of white shorts and a T-shirt was prodded through the door, which slid closed behind him. The chimp’s head swiveled to stare at the newcomer, whose eyes also locked on the animal. The chimpanzee rose, standing on its back legs and supporting its front body on its knuckles. It bared its teeth at the man, who looked confused for a moment.

The blond woman spoke, not taking her eyes off the window. “The primate senses that something isn’t right with the human subject.”

“When does the reaction start, Dr. Estvaan?”

“Any moment n—”

She hadn’t even completed her sentence when the two creatures in the room exploded into action. The man’s face turned into a rictus of rage that suffused his features, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a savage snarl, his fingers outstretched into curled talons as he rushed at the chimpanzee. The animal stood on its hind legs and charged, screaming in rage, its fangs also bared.

“Normally the chimpanzee has the advantage, since it is five times as strong as the average human, despite being outweighed by fifty pounds.” Dr. Estvaan sounded as though she might be discussing two Olympic wrestlers. “But watch.”

The two combatants clashed in the middle of the room. The chimp established early dominance with its opposable hands on the lower legs clamping onto the man’s torso while its upper set of hands grabbed the head of its soon-to-be victim as it zoomed in to bite at the vulnerable face.

Usually that would have been the end of it. However before the chimp could attack, the man’s hand swiped down with inhuman speed, raking the animal across the eyes and causing it to screech in pain. The man continued his attack, curling his hand into a fist and battering it against the monkey’s skull again and again, his hand blurring with the effort. The chimpanzee rocked back with each punch.

“Subjects have been observed to break their fingers and dislocate their wrists and elbows from repeated forceful blows against their targets,” Dr. Estvaan stated, jotting notes on her tablet.

The chimpanzee’s hands tore at the man, scoring a hit on his genitals and twisting hard, but the man didn’t stop his frenzied assault. He lunged forward, sinking his teeth into the side of the chimpanzee’s neck and savaging it with all his might.

The chimpanzee screamed in agony and redoubled its efforts, grabbing one of the man’s ears and tearing it off his head. But its struggles grew weaker as bright red blood spurted from the terrible wound in its neck. It brought around its right fist, the fingers covered in blood, trying to smash the man’s temple. Without stopping his attack on the chimp’s throat, the man’s left hand rose to block the attack, his open palm meeting the monkey’s arm whistling through the air and stopping it cold.

The chimpanzee struggled to extricate its hand, the muscles shaking with strain as it tried to free itself, while the man’s hand closed around the chimp’s fist, squeezing it tighter and tighter. The chimp now shook all over, its ropy muscles spasming as it went into shock. It moaned once, then its head flopped back.

The man shoved the chimpanzee’s body off him and stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving as he sucked air in through his gore-caked mouth, his own blood mingling with his victim’s to spatter on the floor.

“First assault to critical wound in eight point nine seconds.” Dr. Estvaan noted that data on her tablet. “Impressive.”

“Yes, yes, the lethality results of the compound have been noted a dozen times. It is the next phase that is critical. Are your men ready?”

Estvaan tapped her earpiece. “Send them in.”

The door the man had come through slid open again and a man dressed in heavy padding and ballistic protection, with a riot helmet and visor on his head, appeared in the doorway. The test subject whirled, his dilated eyes locking on the new person. His nostrils flared as he scented the air, a low growl building in his throat, then he crouched and leaped to attack. The new man fired a pair of darts into his assailant’s chest, then ducked back behind the door, which began to close. The subject hit the barrier and forced his arm through the shrinking hole to block it. Bracing himself against the wall, he began levering the door open.

“Do we have a problem?” Richter asked, setting down his laptop.

Estvaan pointed. “No, look—the energy is draining out of him even now. However, he does not pass out as the early subjects did. The drug is containing him, for lack of a better term.”

Their test subject’s efforts grew more labored and he sank to the floor, still trying to shove the door open, but failing as the tranquilizer coursed through his body. With one final growl that sounded more like an anguished groan toward the end, he slumped over, chest rising and falling rapidly as he sank into unconsciousness.

“Restrain and stabilize him. After-team, run the standard battery of tests and send me the results.”

Richter ran his hands over his head, resisting the urge to clench them into fists and hammer the wall. “I thought this variant had so much promise, but we are no closer to arresting the effects once the cycle begins. What good is true superhuman strength and reflexes without the control to stop using them when the immediate threat has been neutralized? And if the subject cannot remain active once the surge is done, that is another problem.”

Dr. Estvaan nodded. “Perhaps. We are close. Another few modifications and we’ll be able to turn this on and off in subjects at will, either by neuro feedback or by remote control.”

“Yes, but I’ve got to tell Stengrave that we haven’t gotten any closer to controlling the virus’s effects.”

Estvaan nodded again. “Keep in mind the potential this compound also has as a weapon by introducing it into unknowing or unwilling subjects.”

Her last words sparked something in Richter’s mind. “What about the transfer vectors you’ve been working on?”

“Well, you would have seen it if the chimpanzee had survived. Within six to eight hours, it would have been exhibiting the same pretest symptoms as the human subject. Currently the virus is best transmitted via blood or saliva.”

“And the genetic safeguards we’ve tailored it with have been effective?”

“One hundred percent so far.” Dr. Estvaan glanced at him. “As I have stated before, we cannot guarantee that a mutated form wouldn’t be able to cross genetic types, but the self-destruct safeguard should prevent that, as well.”

“Lastly, you have confirmed that the virus cannot survive independently outside of a host body?”

“Correct, Doctor. If exposed to open air, it begins breaking down at the cellular level immediately. There is no chance of an active strain using an airborne or fluid-borne vector to contaminate others. Of course, the infectious strain can be introduced into food or water in its dormant state and, once ingested, begin affecting its victims within two hours.”

“Good, I’m glad to see that parameter has been maintained. Prepare a dormant sample large enough to affect...oh, say thirty to fifty people. I’ll need to update our superiors, but I see no reason to halt our tests on a limited public group. It’s time to begin phase two.” Dr. Richter smiled. “After all, if this cannot be used as a controllable weapon yet, perhaps its application lies in using it as a less-controlled one.”

Just then his smartphone beeped. Richter glanced at it and saw the reminder he’d been waiting for. “Prepare your after-test reports and forward them to me once they are finished. I’ll be in my office, but am not to be disturbed for the next hour.”

* * *

AS HE STRODE through the halls toward his office, Richter dictated his notes.

“Although the virus appears to have potential practical applications on the battlefield, there will need to be more tests done to refine a more controllable variant. This is not to say that the research here has been in vain, on the contrary, we have done more here in six months that has been possible in the past three years. With additional time and experimentation with the various strains we have cultivated, I am sure that we can create a version that will give us the abilities we’re looking for, along with the necessary control.”

His laptop chimed and Richter frowned at the interruption to his train of thought. He reached over and paused the computer recorder, then hit the answer button. “Ja?”

The voice on the other end of the satellite connection was smooth and cordial but hard underneath—like silk over a steel glove. “Dr. Richter, I hope I’m not interrupting you.”

Richter recognized the voice instantly. “Of course not, Mr. Stengrave. I am ready to present our status to the board, as directed.”

“What can you tell me about your recent progress?”

“We are making progress, but it has slowed considerably.” Verifying their channel was secure, he summarized the recent tests. “We cannot seem to strike the balance between the advantages the drug gives the recipients and the negative effects afterward.”

“I see. How do you intend to mitigate this situation?”

“One of our potential uses for the virus in its current form would be as an inflammatory agent, which could be tailored to fit a specified population. Spiking the water would introduce it into their systems, and chaos would follow. I had wanted to discuss a possible test of this scenario—”

“I already have something in mind for that—a geographically-isolated test on genetically-limited population. I’m sending Mr. Firke down with the necessary genetic sample. He will stay until the batch is ready, and will escort it to our on-site team within thirty-six hours.” He chuckled. “Sometimes it’s easier to make a point with a little bloodshed. Spun properly, I think this could be just as effective as our first projected use of the virus.”

“I’ll have the samples ready for splicing the moment he arrives. If you do not mind my asking, how will you handle the meeting today?”

“I’ll put them off for now, saying you are in the middle of a delicate series of tests and cannot be disturbed. Make it happen, Doctor. If the results are good enough, I may have you conference in to a later meeting to field questions. I’ll let you know once we know how the field test has gone.” Stengrave broke the connection with a click.

Richter stabbed his intercom button. “Sharene, please ready the guest quarters. We’re going to have company soon.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Fifty hours earlier

Dr. Richter stood at the main doors of the lab, watching as a man dressed in jungle fatigues rappelled from a helicopter to the small clearing in front of their concealed facility. The moment his feet hit the ground, he unclipped himself from the rope, which was swiftly drawn back up as the helicopter was already flying away from the area. It had hovered over the site for maybe a minute at the most.

“Dr. Richter,” the man said as he walked up to him. “I’m Reginald Firke. Interesting place you have here.”

Well, at least he didn’t try any sort of “I presume” crap, Richter thought with a disdainful glance at the man’s crisp new fatigues and polished combat boots. “Come inside.”

The two men headed across the small vehicle bay to the outer airlock, past the half-dozen mud-splattered Range Rovers, and stood in front of an industrial glass-and-stainless steel door as the large outer doors closed behind them, throwing the large room into semi-shadow. “I assume your cargo is intact?”

Firke shrugged off a small backpack and held it out. “In here are all the samples you will need. I’m sure our mutual boss has informed you that time is of the essence.”

“Of course he has.” Richter didn’t move to take the pack, nor did he spare the shorter man a glance as the outer airlock door opened. “The emphasis was unnecessary, however. You’ll have the tailored viruses and be on your way soon enough.”

If the slender man was insulted by Richter’s annoyed tone, he didn’t visibly react as they headed into the airlock. “No need to insult the messenger, Doctor. I’m simply passing on the message, that’s all.”

“Humph.” Richter stared straight ahead as compressed air jets containing a powerful disinfectant covered their clothes and exposed skin. He didn’t think much of Stengrave’s hired goon. He’d had the man researched and learned he was ex-SAS, the British special forces arm of the military. That information did not faze him in the least. In Richter’s opinion, a gun was only used to accomplish a goal when those involved neglected to use their brains to find a more elegant and much less obvious solution. “I assume that Mr. Stengrave has also let you know of my requirements for this experiment?”

The safe tone sounded and the inner airlock door opened, revealing the cool tile and sterile-white hallway. Richter stalked forward through the corridors, brushing past men and women who knew to get out of his way when they saw the tall man walking with such purpose.

“Yes, that is not a problem. You’ll have all the eyes on-site you requested.”

“Good.” Richter turned a corner and lengthened his stride, making the shorter man hasten to catch up. It was a faint jab at the other man, but the doctor took his pleasure where he could find it.

“You realize, of course, that observing is all you will be doing.”

Now Richter did turn to the other man and let a small, mirthless smile appear on his face. “Of course, Mr. Firke. Just as you would never presume to tell me how to do my job, I would not feign to know the slightest bit of knowledge about how to carry out yours.”

The ex-military man’s only physical response was a raised eyebrow. “So glad we understand each other.”

Richter didn’t reply until they reached the culture room. White biohazard-suited figures, their faces obscured by full hoods, worked on various trays and at various lab machines and microscopes. The doctor stopped by a drawer set into the wall and hit the switch on an intercom.

“Dr. Estvaan to the transfer drawer, please.” A lithe figure on the far side of the room approached. Richter pulled the drawer out of the wall, then turned to the other man and held out his hand. Firke unzipped the backpack, pulled out a small metal case that was cold to the touch and handed it to the scientist.

After placing the metal case in the drawer, Richter closed it, sending it into the room as he activated the intercom again. “This is the package you were briefed on. You have the entire lab at your disposal to create as many strains using the DNA in here as possible over the next sixteen hours. This assignment takes priority over all others.”

With a curt nod, Estvaan took the case and pulled the rest of the suited workers to her as she began assigning tasks.

“Why Armenia?” Richter asked as he watched the group begin its work.

“Stengrave told you about the final destination, then,” Firke replied.

“Of course.” Richter glanced sidelong at the ex-soldier. “That is the one thing I don’t understand about this experiment. There are plenty of isolated places with a limited population around here. I could find several villages that would suit his needs within a half-day’s travel.” He turned to the other man. “So, why Armenia?”

“You know, I asked him the very same question.” Firke’s mouth curved into a grim smile. “Apparently, about fifteen years ago, a shipment of medical equipment was hijacked and its contents sold on the black market. Don’t ask me who bought it. I didn’t even know there was a black market for plasmapheresis machines, but apparently there is. Anyway, the thieves stole from our boss, at a time when his company had invested everything in this new technology. That shipment was not only worth several millions dollars, it was supposed to open up an entire new world of sales opportunities for Stengrave Industries. When the shipment was lost, insurance didn’t cover nearly enough to make up for the loss. The company almost went under.”

Richter blinked. “And you’re telling me that Mr. Stengrave is now about to exact his revenge on the Armenian thugs who did this to him?”

“Well, over the past fifteen years, that small family of Armenians that took that shipment has grown into one of the largest crime families in the country. The file that my predecessor was required to keep on them is almost 20 gigabytes of data and pictures. Their leader has a vacation place in the mountains, inside a walled city.”

Richter held up a hand. “Just to be clear... Mr. Stengrave has been holding on to these DNA samples for all this time?”

“Well, you know the old saying ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’? Mr. Stengrave has quite a collection of both.”

“But to collect all of these various samples... It seems, I don’t know...”

“Obsessive?” Firke shrugged. “Perhaps. Let’s just say you’re not the only one who’s spent time in a lab coat over the years.” He cleared his throat. “Regarding what you and your people are about to do, one could say that Mr. Stengrave just wants to run a test in a controlled area, where there is the least likely possibility of your little tailored friends in there getting loose. The fact that he’s selected that particular place to do so—also delivering a particularly gruesome revenge on an old enemy who by now has most likely forgotten the reason why this biological death is about to rain down on him—could be a staggering coincidence...or you could chalk all of this up to simple Stengrave efficiency, and take out two birds with one carefully aimed stone.”

Firke turned to the other man. “Fortunately, down here in the Congo, you do not have to worry about such things. Just keep working on what Mr. Stengrave wishes you to work on, and all will be well.” He looked up and down the corridor. “Since I’m basically stuck here for the next several hours, I’ll be in my quarters. Notify me an hour before the batch is ready.”

He walked down the hall, leaving a silent Richter staring after him and trying to repress the shudder that quivered its way down his spine.

Thirty-three hours earlier

AT 0200 LOCAL TIME, Reginald Firke’s eyes popped open without the aid of an alarm.

Swinging his legs over the side of the cot he’d been sleeping on, he sat up and reached for his tablet. Logging in to the local network, he accessed the security cameras and saw that just about everyone was down for the night, except for Dr. Estvaan and her busy crew, still working hard in their lab. He brought up the camera in the main security room and recorded about three minutes of the lone sentry there, then got up and left his room.

Firke walked through the corridors until he came to a room marked Security. The door had no handle on this side, just a keypad and a card slot on the wall next to it. Firke pulled a black key card out of his pocket and swiped it through the reader. The door opened with a soft click.

“What are you doing back?” the guard at the monitors asked as he began turning in his swivel chair, a finger reaching for a large red button. “You’re not due for another thirty minutes...”

Firke held up the black key card. “Good reflexes. You know who I am, correct?”

The guard nodded dumbly, removing his finger from the alarm button.

“And you know who I work for?”

Another nod.

“Very good. I am conducting a surprise inspection of this facility’s security. I am pleased to see that you are at your post and alert. However, I must now ask you to step outside for a few minutes.”

Still nodding, the guard slowly got up from his chair and walked toward the door. He didn’t take his eyes off Firke, who watched him leave, not turning back to the main security console until the door was completely closed. Once it did, he casually glanced at the panel, which controlled every camera both inside and outside the complex, as well as doors that sealed off particular areas and even overrode controls for power, temperature and air intake. Firke didn’t bother with any of these; he just pushed the guard chair aside and sat on the floor.

Taking a screwdriver with an unusual, star-shaped tip from his pocket, he unscrewed six screws in a small panel under the console. Removing that panel revealed a small, unmarked console with another keypad next to five switches, each one underneath a small light and all in the down position.

Firke carefully punched in a long, memorized series of numbers. Then, taking a deep breath, he flipped each switch one by one from right to left. In each case, a green light came on. When they were all activated, he let out the breath he had been holding. If he had input the code wrong, activating the last switch would have been the end of him and the base—literally. Carefully, he replaced the panel and screwed it back into place.

Getting up, he checked the display on his tablet, which showed the camera’s view of the security room in what was supposed to be real time. Instead of him, however, the screen showed the footage of the guard Firke had recorded earlier. With a satisfied nod, he replaced the chair behind the console, then walked to the door and opened it to let the guard back inside.

“Is everything all right?” the man asked as he walked to his station.

Firke nodded. “Everything is exactly as it should be. You are doing a fine job. Keep up the good work and we may have a promotion for you once you’ve completed your duty here. And the best way you can do that is by never mentioning that you ever saw me here, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Firke nodded. “Excellent. As you were.”

The young man almost raised a hand to salute, but turned it into scratching an itch on his cheek. Smiling thinly, Firke stepped outside the security room and let the door close.

Retracing his steps, Firke was back in his room without a soul seeing him. Sitting on his cot again, he activated a control panel that showed a full blueprint of the base with small red Xs revealed in every room and ringing the outside perimeter of the complex. Below all of that was a simple sentence: BASE SELF-DESTRUCT SYSTEM PRIMED.

Satisfied, Firke cleared his tablet and set it aside, then lay down and was asleep within sixty seconds.

* * *

“YOU HAVE everything you need. Introduce it into the water supply, or even food will work. It can survive being boiled or cooked, so whatever way you find will get it into the target populace will be best. Of course, you and your men would be best advised to not eat or drink anything in the area once the contamination has been implemented.”

“Of course not.” Firke raised his voice over the sound of the approaching helicopter. “It has been a most interesting visit, Doctor. Thank you for your hospitality.” He reached behind him to check on the backpack strapped to his back.

Richter only nodded curtly as the helicopter stopped over the clearing and a line was dropped. Firke hooked his harness onto it and was drawn upward. The moment he was clear of the tree line, the helicopter rose higher into the air, carrying him, still on the line, with it.

Richter watched it shrink until it vanished into the sky, then turned and headed back into the lab complex.

CHAPTER FIVE

Seventeen hours earlier

“To Armenia!”

Josh Tyrell clinked his raised his bottle of beer against his friends’ glasses. He took a healthy swallow, his dark brown eyes roaming over the mix of tourists and locals mingled in the bar of the Pergomesh Hotel in Arkatar. His eyes settled on an olive-skinned, raven-haired beauty who gave him a friendly glance and smile as she walked by in a miniskirt and sleeveless blouse. “Bari yereko.” Stumbling over the unfamiliar Armenian, he grinned as she smiled wider but still kept going.

“Would you keep your voice down? Jesus, could you sound more like a tourist?” With a frown, William Scott raised his glass of pilsner and sipped it, then waved his other hand in front of his face to try to move some of the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in a cloud over the entire room. “Probably going to get us all mugged and killed before the trip is over.”

“Jeez, Billy, would you relax?” Tyrell replied. “This isn’t Slovakia, and we’re not in Hostel. These are my people, remember? They’re gonna get my money one way or another, so I might as well enjoy myself while I’m here, right? Hell, we all might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here, if you get my drift.” Waggling his thick eyebrows, he grinned conspiratorially at the other two men, earning an aggravated sigh from Scott and a nervous smile from the third member of their group.

Gary Alcaster sipped his own beer and watched the two friends bicker. He wasn’t sure what made him more uncomfortable: Tyrell’s outspoken swagger and brashness, Scott’s peevishness and worry over seemingly every minute of this weekend getaway, or the fact that he was ostensibly here to get his cherry popped.

I should get my brain scanned for agreeing to all this, he thought. Of course, it had all been Tyrell’s idea. The three had met while preparing to attend their second year at King’s College School of Medicine in London. Tyrell was a broad-shouldered former linebacker from Dublin, Texas, with a knee injury that had effectively ended his football career and left him with a slight limp when he walked. Blond-haired Alcaster was born and raised in the slightly larger city of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and this was his first time out of his hometown, not to mention Canada. Scott, rail-thin and bespectacled, hailed from the small town of Haltwhistle, in the northern part of England. Despite their differences, the three had quickly bonded over their status as outsiders in the sprawling, cosmopolitan city.

Over beers and a Texas Hold’em game with a couple other students one night, Alcaster had lost a side bet and, red-faced, admitted that he hadn’t yet slept with a girl. Ever since, Tyrell had talked about nothing else, not even their upcoming exams, but helping his friend lose his virginity.

That was how they had ended up here, during a bank holiday weekend when they probably should have been studying instead. After four days of persuasion, with Tyrell saying the three of them would have a story unlike anything else in their lives, he’d convinced Scott first and then the two of them had persuaded Alcaster to take the plunge, so to speak. The Canadian’s biggest concern had been to go somewhere where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone who might recognize him. Tyrell said he had the prefect place for them to go.

The three had taken the Chunnel to Paris, then a day on the train traveling to Bucharest. From there they had rented a car and driven north-northeast, with Tyrell saying his ancestors came from around the area. A few hours later they had checked into the hotel and had spent the afternoon seeing the small town’s sights, of which there were few.

Other than Scott’s increasingly worried demeanor, they’d only encountered one spot of potential trouble so far. While walking through the old, cobblestoned streets, they’d seen a large, modern house, surrounded by a high stone wall with unfriendly-looking iron bars, looming over the rest of the village. Oblivious to the two thickset men at the gate and his friends’ warnings, Tyrell had wanted to get a closer look and had crossed the street to look through the gate. He had been intercepted halfway across by one of the men, who’d had a quick, firm conversation with him, while opening his light jacket to reveal something inside.

While Scott and Alcaster watched with their hearts in their throats, trying to figure out whether they should grab Tyrell and run, or just take off themselves, the Texan pointed the other two students out, and the two men laughed about something. Then the gate guard pointed back the way they had come, said something with an emphatic nod, and sent the med student on his way with a smile that never came close to his pale blue eyes.

When he returned, Tyrell was ecstatic. “Dudes, that guy was in the mob! He showed me his pistol and everything!”

Scott had nearly lost it right there. “I swear to God, Josh, you’re going to get us killed!”

The taller American flipped black hair out of his eyes. “Would you relax? He knew exactly why we’re here. Tourists come from all over to sample the nightlife, so to speak. He said to stick around the bar in our hotel, especially after eight. That’s when the best girls start coming in for drinks.”

Although Alcaster had his misgivings about any truth in the information they had been given, that was how they all found themselves sitting in the hotel tavern, which could have been just about any older drinking establishment in Europe, with a long, dark wooden bar along one side of the room, surrounded by several round tables and a row of booths along the far wall.

They’d had a surprisingly good dinner, washed down with a variety of regional beers, ranging from pale golden pilsners to a weak, dark dunkel that all three had agreed was the worst of the lot. Now, with dinner behind them, Tyrell tapped his fingers restlessly on the tabletop, obviously anxious for the evening’s entertainment to begin. Scott looked uneasy, while Alcaster was engaged in his internal struggle—which he’d been waging with himself since the trip began—as to whether he was really going to go through with this. His mind churned with equal parts anticipation, nervousness and flat-out fear. He swallowed through a suddenly dry throat and his palms were sweating so much he nearly dropped his beer glass when he went for a drink. He could back out right now, say he wasn’t feeling well from dinner or something—

Having made up his mind to do just that, Alcaster was rehearsing what he was going to say before excusing himself and going back to their room when the cuckoo clock on the wall over the bar began chiming the hour. As if drawn on cue, the main doors of the small lobby next to the bar opened and a parade of young women in tight dresses, high-heeled shoes and a range of makeup entered the bar. Although most of them had game smiles on, it was relatively clear that none was here of her own free will. However, that really didn’t seem to matter to the men waiting in the bar.

All of the men there—many of whom had been furtively counting the minutes, much like Tyrell, Scott and Alcaster had—perked up, smiling and waving as they looked over the night’s offerings. The three students huddled together, eyeing the women as they made the rounds, with Tyrell urging the other two to make their selections quickly.

“We need to cull the ones we want out of the herd, or they’re gonna go elsewhere,” he insisted.

“For God’s sake, Josh, these are people, not cattle!” Scott hissed.

Tyrell rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, would you pull that stick out of your ass for just one night? Look, we all know why we’re here, and so do they. If we don’t take advantage of the situation, someone else will. Now—” Tyrell craned his head up as three women, a blonde, a brunette and a dark-haired woman somewhere in their twenties, all dressed in different varieties of brightly colored, skintight dresses, approached their table. The trio of younger women had headed off a pair of more mature-looking prostitutes who had glared at the interlopers but still retreated. “Uh...can we help you ladies?” Tyrell asked.

“You are Americans, yes?” the brunette asked in decent English. “We love Americans.”

“Well, I am, and my friends are from Canada and England, but don’t worry, they’re all right.” Tyrell’s weak joke made all three ladies laugh, however, and he nodded at the other two to push a table over to make more room as he waved them in. “Won’t you join us?”

“Thank you.” The brunette introduced herself as Anoush, the blonde as Lusine and the raven-haired young woman as Siranush. Once Scott and Alcaster had gotten another table and chairs, the three women sat among the suddenly tongue-tied young men.

“You are all here on vacation?” Lusine asked.

“Er, yes,” Scott said. “We’re medical students on holiday, that’s right.”

The three women exchanged glances. “You are going to be doctors, yes?” Siranush said, placing her hand on Alcaster’s thigh. “We love doctors.”

“Well, we’re not—” he began.

“Great!” Tyrell interrupted a bit too quickly. “We were just about to order a bottle. Is there anything you would recommend?” he asked, ignoring the sudden warning glance from Scott.

Again, the three girls glanced at each other. “You all seem like nice boys,” Aroush said, her voice low. “You should know to be careful about asking that sort of thing here. A lot of bars in the cities have arrangements with the girls, who get a kickback for steering tourists to higher-priced drinks.”

“Oh, they do?” Tyrell asked. “Well, thanks for the tip. I think you all deserve a drink just for telling us that.”

Siranush swept her long, dark hair back over her shoulder, exposing generous cleavage as she nodded at the beer bottles on the table. “You are all drinking beer. Perhaps you would care for something a bit stronger?”

The three students exchanged hesitant glances. “Perhaps...?” Tyrell said.

The blonde flagged down a server and rattled off an order in Armenian, then leaned back in and snuggled up to Scott. “He will bring us a bottle of Ararat cognac. It is very good, and not nearly as costly as other bottles.”

“All right...” Scott leaned over to Alcaster. “What about ‘beer before liquor, never sicker’? I don’t want to be ill for...you know, what comes later.”

Alcaster considered the adage for a moment. “Well, we’ve already eaten, so it shouldn’t be a problem—”

Tyrell cleared his throat. “Guys? Would you mind keeping your heads in the game here, please?”

Their server had returned with a squat bottle and six small glasses. With a flourish and a small bow, he presented the cognac to the group, then set it and the glasses on the table.

“Now, if I remember correctly—” Tyrell said as he distributed glasses to each person and began filling them with the dark amber liquid “—there’s supposed to be a toast with each round, right?”

“Very good, Josh,” Anoush said as she raised her glass. “What would you like to drink to?”

With a broad grin, Tyrell stood and raised his glass. “To a night we’ll never forget!”

CHAPTER SIX

Ten hours earlier

“We’re ready for you, Doctor.”

Richter took the offered headset with its attached microphone and slipped it on, adjusting it on his oblong head. “Testing, testing, one, two. Mr. Firke, can you hear me?”

“Yes, and that had better be all I hear from you until we’re finished, understand?”

“Unless I feel the situation warrants it, I will leave the execution of this mission entirely in your hands. On the ground, you are in charge.”

Richter was pleased he’d gotten Stengrave to go along with wiring the infiltration team for video and sound. He’d pushed hard for it, saying he wanted a record of the entire experiment, and that the data they collected on the Armenian village before the test began would be vital for their results. He figured Firke wouldn’t be pleased about it, but as Richter had suspected, he had gone along when he realized there was no getting around his boss’s orders.

Now he watched as the squad of six armed men drove down the deserted mountain road, their vehicle’s headlights barely illuminating a few yards through the foggy night. Cresting a hill, they spotted the lights of the target village a mile away. Firke killed the lights and the engine, and the men got out and checked their gear one last time. Slipping a pair of night-vision goggles on his forehead, he made sure his team was ready to go and led them into the night.

Although the distance wasn’t that great as the crow flies, the steep mountainside varied from passable to almost vertical, and the men had their work cut out for them on some of the rougher sections. Halfway there, two of the men, each carrying a long, hard-shell case slung across his back, split off and began climbing an escarpment overlooking the village. Covering the rest of the mile while making sure they weren’t detected on the way took just over an hour, about as long as Richter had estimated.

He made sure the digital recorders, a primary and two backups, were all running perfectly, then turned his attention back to the over-the-shoulder view he had of the men as they cut their trail, as though he was walking right behind them. After a few minutes of quick, silent movement to get as close to the wall as they dared, Firke held up a fisted hand. All of the men stopped immediately.

Richter checked on the pair that had split off. They had reached the top of their hill and had a great view of the darkened valley, lit only by the lights of the walled village below. Both men unslung their cases and began removing equipment. One uncased a long sniper rifle, uncapped his scope and turned it on, then lay down. After adjusting his position one last time, the second man covered him with camouflage netting, then lay down behind a spotting scope and covered himself. When both men were ready, they radioed in to the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, Firke had reached what looked like a four-foot-high water outflow pipe buried between two hills. An ankle-deep rivulet of water splashed out and trickled down the hillside. The opening of the pipe was covered by a latticework of what looked like rebar. Checking to make sure he couldn’t be seen by anyone on the walls, Firke took a small cutting torch from a pocket, turned it on and began cutting through the bars. Within five minutes he had burned through enough of the latticework to bend back a large portion of it.

He signaled the rest of his men forward to the entrance. Turning on their night-vision goggles, they entered the sewer pipe, the tunnel lit only by the eerie, bright green of the NVGs. Occasionally, Richter saw the fleeting shape and heard a squeak of a rat in the pipe, but Firke and his men didn’t seem bothered in the least.

They progressed deeper into the pipe, until Richter estimated they had gone at least one hundred yards. At an intersection Firke pushed his goggles back onto his forehead and peeked around a corner to see a dim shaft of light and a trickle of water coming down into the sewer from above. He waved his men forward again. When they reached the light and water, Firke took a hand-held screen attached to a small cable and fed the cable up through the sewer grate. A picture flickered into life on the screen and he studied it for a few minutes before stepping past the grate and waving two of his men forward.

They pushed the grate up and turned it sideways to fit it down the hole with them. Carrying it back, the other three hunkered down a few meters away and watched as Firke carefully stuck his head above the hole and looked around.

His camera took in cobblestoned streets and a neighborhood that could have come right out of anywhere in nineteenth-century Europe. Sturdy, wattle-and-daub buildings that had probably been built sometime in the last century lined the street, their tiled roofs two stories above the street. At this hour, the entire place was deserted. The camera caught the glow of the wall lights above, but none was turned to look inside the perimeter.

“What are they doing, Doctor?” The scientist monitoring the recordings, a callow youth of twenty-five—a near genius when it came to breeding virus stock, but relatively untutored in much of the outside world, including this sort of operation—blinked in confusion.

“They’re taking stock of the situation, making sure there will be no surprises when they make their move on the water supply.”

“But there’s no one there now. They could be in and out in just a few minutes.”

“I am sure Mr. Firke knows exactly what he is doing. I suggest that you concentrate on your duties and leave him to concentrate on his.”

“Yes, sir.” The scientist bent over his monitors again, while Richter and the rest of the watching scientists also waited. Five minutes passed, then ten. The other lab-coated men and women fidgeted or grew distracted as the time stretched out. Only Richter did not move a muscle, waiting for the operation to truly commence.

Finally, Firke rose out of the pipe and signaled his men to take their positions. Two men fanned out, one going left, one going right to flank. Kepler and the fourth man waited until the first pair were both ready to cover, then they quietly replaced the drain grate. Pulling their silenced pistols, the two men moved into the village square, staying low.

Like most Armenian villages fortunate enough to have one, the water tank was mounted on top of a tall building that looked to be some kind of hotel. This would be the trickiest part of the op, getting to the tower without being detected. Richter had stressed the importance of planting the compound in the tank itself, not in any kind of well. He didn’t know what if any effects it might have on the groundwater table, and they weren’t ready for any sort of test on that scale—at least, not yet.

With the two flanking men covering the intersection, Firke and his partner headed down a narrow alley that would give them access to the roof where the water tower was located. At the end was an industrial garbage bin, with bags of garbage piled next to it. Taking a folding grappling hook from his harness, he set the rubber-coated tines, then twirled the rope and let it fly up onto the roof. It didn’t connect the first time and came tumbling back down, smacking the team member’s hand when he tried to catch it. The second time was the charm, and soon both men had climbed the rope and were on the roof.

They reached the water tower without incident. Kepler stood guard at the base while the other man climbed a strut hand-over-hand until he reached the top. This was the crucial point—the man would have to drill a small hole into the pipe to insert the compound. Kepler alternated his glances up with a slow scan around the perimeter walls, watching for any potential trouble.

It came in the form of a door creaking open down the street. Two people slipped out of a building at the far end of the village. A young man and woman, both giggling, snuck through the silent streets, holding hands as they flitted from shadow to shadow.

The four-man squad froze. Richter listened to the conversation between them.

“Leader, I have visual on both approaching targets. Permission to fire?”

“Negative, keep them covered, but let them approach. We’ll take them out only if necessary. Tank, hold your position.” Firke melted into the shadows on the roof, holding his pistol in front of him with both hands as he disappeared.

The couple came closer, and Richter saw that they were tourists, maybe two students hooking up on a trip across Europe. They both took shelter in a darkened doorway, the man tilting the woman’s head up for a long kiss, his hand stealing down to cup her breast. She moaned and pressed her body against him, her mouth opening to his. Ordinarily, Firke wouldn’t have cared about them, but they were now blocking the escape route, and their noises might eventually attract the wall guards, which could not happen.

“Three, take them.”

Lost in each other, they didn’t notice the urban-camouflaged man emerge from the shadows and slowly creep toward them. When he was a few steps away, he aimed his silenced pistol and fired two carefully placed shots, one into the head of each. The couple, still locked in each other’s arms, collapsed to the ground. The man strode over and put one more bullet into each unmoving form. “They’re down.”

“You and Four remove the bodies. Put them in the large garbage bin at the back of the alley. Longshot, keep your eyes open for others, and sing out the moment you see anyone. Tank, resume your mission.”

Richter watched as the woman’s body was picked up and slung over the man’s shoulder as he began walking down the alleyway. Over Firke’s microphone, the faint whine of a small cordless drill could be heard in the background. At the garbage bin, he dumped the limp form inside and waited for his partner to dump the other body. The two men covered both of them with bags of garbage before returning to their original positions.

Waiting for the cry of alarm that could come at any moment, Richter scarcely remembered to breathe while Tank finished his job, dumping the viscous, black liquid into the water tank, then sealing the hole with a bit of fast-drying putty. He affixed a small, wireless camera to the top of the tank, aiming it down so that the entire street could be seen, then descended just in time to rejoin Firke. The two men tied off their rope and climbed down, then retrieved the rope at the bottom by untying the slipknot and coiling it up. They picked up their flankers and were on the way back to the sewer grate at the spot where they had first come out of the jungle.

“Mr. Firke.” Richter’s words froze the Englishman in his steps. “I want you and your other men to place at least two more cameras in other areas, so that we can get different views of the experiment. There is no need to acknowledge my orders, just do it.”

Firke didn’t say a word, but Richter sensed the fury coiled in the man, ready to be unleashed on any available target. Without a sound, he gave the commands to his other two men by hand, sending them off to place the cameras in the best vantage points they could find. Each man completed his task in less than three minutes, giving Richter three lines of sight on the main roads of the small village. It was better than he could have hoped for.

The two men retraced their steps back to their leader, who led them all to the grate and down into the pipe. They left the area without incident, re-bent the grate into place and snuck away from the village. At a rendezvous point, they waited for the sniper team to rejoin them. The six-man team jogged back to their vehicle and drove down the road a few kilometers until they came to a telephone pole that led to the village. One of the men put on climbing spikes and a tree strap, ascended the pole and cut the wires. Once that was done, the vehicle disappeared into the night.

“Mission accomplished, Doctor.” Firke had to have switched off the camera on his shoulder, for that monitor went dark right afterward.

“Don’t forget to launch the drone over the property, Mr. Firke.” Richter straightened, easing his kinked back muscles while around him the men and women drifted away, having either lost interest in what was happening or moving on to other tasks.

The doctor pulled up a chair and checked his watch: 1140. In several hours the townspeople would be up and about. He pulled his notebook closer to him and rechecked that the camera on the water tower was transmitting properly.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the experiment to begin.

CHAPTER SEVEN

At 0545, Mack Bolan was almost finished preparing for his insertion into Alexsandr Sevan’s walled fortress city.

The breeze was blowing even harder in the early morning hours, making him smile as he unfolded what looked like an oblong, matte-black parachute that was rounded off at both ends. Four lines led from his loose harness to the odd-shaped canopy, splitting up three times along the way to attach at equidistant points along its edge to give the pilot maximum control. The stiff wind gusted even harder, making one side of the sail flap in the night.

Of all the things they’d planned about this operation at Stony Man, the insertion had been the most discussed, argued about and refined. They had simulated just about every possible method of entry, from a HALO—high altitude low opening—drop, insertion by the sewer system, posing as a tourist and entering through the front gate, and scaling the wall. In the end, they had gone with Bolan’s suggestion, initially thrown out as an off-the-cuff remark, but which gained more converts as the planning progressed. It wasn’t the surest insertion method, but because he would already be on the ground, and given the pros and cons of the other methods, it was the best way for him to reach Sevan’s house with the least chance of detection. The final deciding factor was that the majority of the security measures at the village were directed at the ground around the perimeter, with no radar or any obvious air-detection capability. Of course, it has also necessitated him taking a crash course in paragliding forty-eight hours before he left the U.S., but after ten practice runs, Bolan thought he’d gotten the hang of it, so to speak.

“How’s the weather?” Tokaido, monitoring his insertion, asked.

“Overcast and breezy,” Bolan replied. “At least I’ll have no problem getting there.”

“So, you’re still green?” The hint of doubt in the hacker’s voice was clear.

“When I’m back, you’ll have to come up with me—you’ll love it.”

“Uh, yeah, we’ll see about that.”

Bolan grinned again. Tokaido often talked a good game, but the few times he’d called the younger man on it, he had preferred to stick with what he knew best—hacking and computer infiltration. And he was among the very best, no doubt, but it was obvious that his skill set lay in a completely different direction.

Now, as he prepared for a reverse launch, facing the canopy to make sure his lines were clear, Bolan felt a mix of adrenaline and anticipation, mixed with a healthy respect for what he was about to do. The wind up here was stronger than what he’d trained in, and he was already recalculating his speed toward his target, and most importantly, controlling his descent and sticking the landing once he got there. He’d be dead if he fractured an ankle or got hung up on power lines.

Bolan snugged his night-vision goggles over his eyes and checked his pistol, spare magazines and equipment in their various holsters and pouches. He took one more look at everything, weighing the pros and cons of the current conditions. His insertion window—the time just before daybreak, when guards would be tired and their perception and reaction times would be slower—was still open. But he had to go right now, before the first rays of sunlight lit the still-black horizon.

“Beginning insertion,” Bolan said. “Affirmative.”

Tokaido’s tone was all business, as well. “Good luck, Striker. Stony Man standing by.”

Taking up the slack lines, Bolan twitched them to make the sail lift into the air. The second the edge caught the steady breeze, the whole canopy inflated and shot up with a snap, making him brace himself to not get pulled off his feet. He glanced at the dim lights of the city below, the auto gating adjusting to prevent him from being blinded. When the next gust came along, he walked with it down the hill, letting the wing begin carrying him along until, with one more stop, he floated off the ground and into the night sky.

The wind off the mountains swiftly carried him high into the air. Bolan concentrated on getting enough altitude to ensure he was far enough above the sentries to avoid being spotted. Below his dangling feet, the valley was swathed in darkness, broken only by the eerie green circles of light coming from the wall. Toward the rear of the enclosure, the large villa they’d identified as Sevan’s loomed above every other building, almost topping the wall. Its large, tiled roof was Bolan’s target, and he steered toward it while keeping an eye on his variometer, which would tell him if he was leaving a strong wind current.

Maintaining his elevation wasn’t turning out to be a problem, but Bolan was a bit concerned about his forward speed. Even allowing for the stiff wind, he was approaching the village faster than he preferred and was concerned about bleeding enough off to land safely. They’d discussed aborting if the conditions weren’t right, but having gone this far, he was even more loath to come so close, only have to leave with nothing to show for his efforts.

About a kilometer out, Bolan pulled on both outer A-lines, bending the ends of the sail down in a formation called “big-ears.” This made the paraglider begin to slowly lose altitude while still heading toward the roof of the villa, exactly as he had planned.

The large, black canopy, with Bolan dangling underneath, passed silently over the rear of the village and the bored pair of thugs on that wall, close enough that he heard a brief snatch of their conversation. His auto-translator picked up the words and told him that one was complaining about not feeling well. The two men were both in the roofed guardhouse—as they had been every evening at this time—instead of patrolling. The hole in the security and the pattern of the prevailing winds across the valley were two reasons Bolan had used this approach.

Alternating his attention between the approaching roof and his variometer, he kept his approach steady, trying to bring himself down as gently as possible. Less than ten meters from the roof, the wind gusted hard, making the paraglider suddenly rise again. He tugged on his B-lines to bleed more air from his canopy, dipping down twice as fast as when he had used the “big ears” method.

Unfortunately he was also gliding right past the villa. Even though he shifted his weight hard right to bring himself around, Bolan skimmed past the edge of the rooftop, missing it by less than a meter.

“Striker?” Tokaido said. “GPS shows you’ve missed the primary landing zone. Is there a problem?”

“Let you know in a second—” Bolan whispered as he fought for control. He had lost too much altitude now and was in danger of either getting entangled in power lines or gliding into the side of a building. Releasing the B-lines, he pushed hard on his speed bar with his foot, decreasing the angle of attack on the wing’s leading edge in a desperate attempt to gain height.

It worked—sort of. Entering the airspace of what looked like a wide, main road that ran through the village, Bolan felt the wind channeled here shove him up—straight toward the wall of a house. Easing up on the speed bar, he lifted his legs as high as he could, narrowly avoiding smacking the top of the roof. He missed, but now out of the air channel, he began losing altitude again.

“Striker? You’re still moving. What’s your sitrep?” Tokaido asked.

A pancake, if I don’t find a place to set down soon, Bolan thought but didn’t say. Instead he was looking for any place he could set down without injuring himself in the next few seconds. The village sloped down from here, and Bolan saw what looked like a small, three-story hotel coming up. A large water tank took up a third of the flat roof, but it was his best chance—hell, his only chance—to land, and he took it, aiming for the flat expanse and pulling on his B-lines again to begin coming down.

The induced stall averaged a drop rate of about 5 meters per second, but as he got closer, it seemed the roof was rushing up even faster at Bolan. At the same time, he was sailing over the building and there was a very real danger he was going to overshoot his landing zone again.

Gritting his teeth, Bolan pulled even harder on the B-lines, spilling that extra bit of air and causing him to come down with a thump on the rooftop. The moment he landed, Bolan hit the ground in a forward shoulder roll, heedless of entangling himself in the lines. The canopy snapped and fluttered around him, but the moment he stopped moving, he quickly gathered in the paraglider before a guard happened to catch sight of the mass of flapping black cloth.

“Striker, are you all right?” Kurtzman was on the line now. “What is your sitrep, over?”

Entangled in a shroud of canopy and lines, Bolan was still listening for shouts or any sign that his entry had been detected. Only when he didn’t hear any sort of alarm or doors opening did he whisper, “Striker is down. Overshot primary landing zone, had to go for secondary. No injuries.” He began to stuff the paraglider into his backpack.

“You’re a good half klick from your target and you have to improvise a way past his house guards. And the sun’s about to come up.”

Bolan glanced east and confirmed Kurtzman’s biggest concern—the sky on the horizon was already shaded with pink and orange from the oncoming daybreak. “Then I better move out.”

“Striker, you don’t think we should abort?”

“Absolutely not, Bear. Look, I’m here now. Even if we called it off, I’d have to get out somehow anyway, so I might as well get what I came for before I do.” Bolan shrugged out of his harness and added it to the backpack, which he hid beneath one of the water tower’s steel legs.

“Well, watch your ass,” Kurtzman said. “The way this op started, it wouldn’t surprise me if you tripped, fell off the roof and broke your neck.”

Despite the circumstances, Bolan couldn’t help grinning at the very real concern he heard under Kurtzman’s grumbling. “Have I ever told you how much I love your optimistic attitude, Bear?”

“No, ’cause you know better.”

“Exactly. Striker out.” Trotting to the side of the building, Bolan tested the seemingly sturdy ceramic drainpipe that went all the way to the ground. When it didn’t move under his weight, he swung a leg over, braced his feet on the wall and gripped the pipe with both hands as he descended to the ground. Halfway down, the pipe shifted enough to make him stop and wait in case it was coming loose. It didn’t move again, and Bolan reached the alleyway without further incident.

At this hour the town was still quiet, although Bolan saw lights coming on in various windows as the populace began to wake up. There were still plenty of shadows to hide in, and Bolan made the best of it, flitting from darkness to darkness, all the while keeping an eye on the walls overhead.

He covered the distance to Sevan’s villa in less than ten minutes and took a position in a narrow alley between what appeared to be a bakery—the smell of bread baking filled his nostrils—and what looked to be either an abandoned or holiday house for someone, with tightly shuttered windows and a securely locked door.

Bolan’s attention, however, was on the front gate made from thick, black iron bars that guarded the entrance to Sevan’s estate. The rest of the perimeter was enclosed by an eight-foot-high stone fence that had matching vertical iron bars at the top, which were themselves topped by welded spikes sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle. Two guards paced back and forth in front of the gate. Unlike the slackers on the wall, both these guys looked alert and ready. He studied the pair for a few minutes, noticing that although they were definitely on guard, they also seemed oddly distracted. One shook his head every few seconds, as if trying to clear it. The other kept wiping his forehead and cheeks with his sleeve. Viewing them in the monochromatic night vision, Bolan couldn’t tell if either man was flushed or showed any other signs of incapacitation.

“Striker to Stony Man, I’m going to need that security window and camera break, after all,” he muttered as he melted back into the shadows. “West wall, corner.”

“Roger that, Striker,” Tokaido replied. “What is your position?”

By the time the hacker finished replying, Bolan was at the rear corner of the empty house. As he knew from the overhead view, the road cornered at the fence and followed the perimeter. “Ten meters away.”

“All right...bringing security camera online...”

Bolan divided his attention between the two guards who had paused by the gate and the steadily lightening eastern sky. “Let’s go, Akira, the sun isn’t going to stop rising.”

“Just making sure the inside is clear. Won’t help much if you drop down into the arms of a couple goons, now, would it? Okay, go on my mark... Three, two, one, mark.”

Still mindful of the two guards, Bolan stepped out from cover and walked casually across the street to the corner of the fence, slightly stooped over, even muffling a yawn. Just another early riser heading to work. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw one of the guards look in his direction, but he didn’t turn or quicken his pace in any way as he reached the stone wall.

The second he was around the corner and out of view, Bolan leaped for the top of the fence, grabbing the rough stone with his gloved hands. Pulling himself up, he threw a leg over, grabbed the row of iron spikes and held there for a few seconds while scoping the inside. True to Tokaido’s word, the immaculate lawn was deserted, with the villa increasingly lit from behind as the sun kept rising. Bolan gave it another five count, then climbed over the spikes and jumped to the ground, staying in the shadows formed by the inside wall corner. The area here was calm, with no breeze.

“I’m on the grounds,” Bolan reported. “Keep that camera looped for another minute. I’ll contact once I’m inside the building.”

“Roger that.”

Drawing an odd weapon that looked like a small paint gun, Bolan removed a plastic vial from a waist pouch and screwed it on to the receiver just ahead of the trigger. Taking his SIG-Sauer in his right hand, he checked right and left one last time, then started down the wall on his left, wanting to be sure he was out of sight of the gate guards before entering the main building.

He had only taken a few steps when two black-brown shapes trotted around the corner. Upon seeing him, the two Doberman-Rottweiler mixes didn’t snarl or bark, just accelerated into a silent run, muscular legs churning the grass as they sped toward their target.

Waiting until they were only a few steps away, Bolan squeezed the trigger of the strange pistol in his left hand twice. The gun spit a fine mist into the dogs’ path as they leaped at him. The second they jumped, Bolan dropped to the ground and rolled out of their path. After two turns, he rolled onto his back, brought the real pistol up and aimed at the dogs behind him.

Deprived of their target, the dogs landed on the ground and turned to come at him again. However they weren’t moving as quickly as before; in fact, both dogs stumbled as they tried to charge at him and ended up sinking back to the ground, whining in confusion as they struggled to get back on their feet. Within a few seconds, both dogs were out cold.

Bolan got up, careful to stay several feet away from the dissipating cloud of a fast-acting, powerful tranquilizer. With a silenced pistol not all that silent, and dart guns, blowguns or crossbows only able to shoot one projectile at a time, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, Stony Man Farm’s chief armorer, had come up with the best way to silently eliminate multiple guard animals with minimal risk of injury to the defender. The spray pistol had been extensively tested, and other than wind dispersal, performed excellently in the field.

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