R O G U E   S T R I K E

(A TROY STARK THRILLER—BOOK 6)

J A C K   M A R S

Jack Mars

Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising six books; of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising twelve books; of the TROY STARK thriller series, comprising seven books; of the SPY GAME thriller series, comprising ten books; of the JAKE MERCER thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting); and of the new TYLER WOLF thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting).

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (a Luke Stone Thriller—Book #1), AGENT ZERO (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #1), and PRIMARY TARGET (The Forging of Luke Stone—Book #1) are each available as free downloads on Amazon!

Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

Copyright © 2024 by Jack Mars. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Marco Barone, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY JACK MARS

TYLER WOLF THRILLER SERIES

DOUBLE AGENT (Book #1)

DOUBLE CROSS (Book #2)

DOUBLE ASSET (Book #3)

DOUBLE DOCTRINE (Book #4)

DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Book #5)

DOUBLE THREAT (Book #6)

DOUBLE TARGET (Book #7)

JAKE MERCER THRILLER SERIES

ABSOLUTE THREAT (Book #1)

ABSOLUTE DAMAGE (Book #2)

ABSOLUTE FORCE (Book #3)

ABSOLUTE PERIL (Book #4)

ABSOLUTE TREASON (Book #5)

ABSOLUTE VENGEANCE (Book #6)

ABSOLUTE TARGET (Book #7)

THE SPY GAME

TARGET ONE (Book #1)

TARGET TWO (Book #2)

TARGET THREE (Book #3)

TARGET FOUR (Book #4)

TARGET FIVE (Book #5)

TARGET SIX (Book #6)

TARGET SEVEN (Book #7)

TARGET EIGHT (Book #8)

TARGET NINE (Book #9)

TARGET TEN (Book #10)

TROY STARK THRILLER SERIES

ROGUE FORCE (Book #1)

ROGUE COMMAND (Book #2)

ROGUE TARGET (Book #3)

ROGUE MISSION (Book #4)

ROGUE SHOT (Book #5)

ROGUE STRIKE (Book #6)

ROGUE ORDER (Book #7)

LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)

OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)

SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)

OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)

PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)

OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)

HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)

FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES

PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)

PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)

PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)

PRIMARY GLORY (Book #4)

PRIMARY VALOR (Book #5)

PRIMARY DUTY (Book #6)

AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES

AGENT ZERO (Book #1)

TARGET ZERO (Book #2)

HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)

TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)

FILE ZERO (Book #5)

RECALL ZERO (Book #6)

ASSASSIN ZERO (Book #7)

DECOY ZERO (Book #8)

CHASING ZERO (Book #9)

VENGEANCE ZERO (Book #10)

ZERO ZERO (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE ZERO (Book #12)

CONTENTS

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

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

February 1

6:15 am Central European Time

A flat

Neighborhood of La Latina

Madrid, Spain

“Brisk,” Troy Stark said under his breath, on the morning his car exploded.

It was cold, and the heat hadn’t started coming up into the radiators yet, so the overnight chill was still inside his flat.

He was sitting in the little kitchen breakfast nook by the window, wearing blue boxer briefs and a t-shirt, slowly sipping a cup of hot coffee.  The edges of the window were white with frost, leaving a nearly circular patch in the middle which he could see through.  The chill in the apartment brought gooseflesh up on his legs and arms.  He liked that feeling. 

Below his window, the dark early morning streets were empty.  In the daytime, the narrow winding streets were lined with colorful buildings, painted in greens and blues and yellows and reds, that had intricate balconies and windows, each one unique from all the others.  But this time of day the vibrant colors were muted, and hard to see.

In a little while, he was leaving for the airport.  Miquel Castro-Ruiz had been reinstated as the Director of El Grupo Especial.  Indeed, El Grupo itself had been saved from the chopping block, perhaps because of the successful mission in Hong Kong, or maybe for some murky political reason.  There was no telling, and it didn’t matter.  What mattered is Troy had been given some time off, and he was going home to New York. 

He glanced around his small apartment.  Sitting at this small round table, you could practically see the whole place. 

From here, he could look through the doorway into his bedroom.  The bed was unmade and rumpled, the sheets and blanket twisted this way and that.  A pillow had fallen onto the polished hardwood floor.  He had gotten out of the old military habit of making his bed the minute he climbed out of it. 

“First win of the day,” he muttered.

He took a sip of his coffee.  It was very, very good.  The shops in this neighborhood sold excellent coffee.  Exceptional coffee.  Troy was becoming a coffee snob.

He stared at the bed.  In his mind’s eye, he saw the bed how it was several days ago, right around this time, before the sunrise, the morning after they came back from Hong Kong.  Agent Dubois had been tangled among those sheets, deep asleep, her giant head of curly hair sticking out, her beautiful body half-covered by Troy’s thick flannel blanket.

He grunted, only half-aware he was doing it. 

Dubois had gone to Paris later that day, worried for her mother’s safety.  Chatter among the intelligence agencies and the criminal networks suggested that at least Troy Stark, but possibly other agents of El Grupo as well, had been marked for revenge by elements of the Albanian, and much worse, the southern Italian Mafia.  If true, it was bad news indeed.

“Rumors,” Troy said.  “Whispers.”    

The image of Dubois faded, and the bed was empty again.  Quite a night they'd had.  He still didn't know what it meant or if there was going to be anything more.  Dubois should have been a professional poker player.  She held her cards close to the vest.

Coy was one thing.  Utterly inscrutable was something else.

Troy shook his head.  It was getting late.

“Better get ready,” he said.

He had decided to drive himself to the airport and park his car there.  It was a very American thing to do, completely unnecessary here in Madrid, where the Metro subway train ran an easy connection to the airport.  But he was going to do it anyway.  The Europeans could take trains everywhere, if they wanted.  He was an American.

Just across the street from his flat was a postage stamp-sized, fenced in parking lot.  It had exactly five spaces, and one of them belonged to Troy Stark.  His lime green Smart car was there, sandwiched between a tiny red Fiat on its left and an old motorcycle on its right.  That Smart car was the smallest vehicle Troy had ever owned, and nothing else came close.  People drove small cars around here.  Space was at a premium in this part of the city.

Troy had a little trick for mornings like this one.  The Smart car came with an electronic key fob that was also a remote starter.  The car was just close enough that if you opened the window a crack, and stuck your hand out, you could start it right from here.

Troy was all packed.  By the time he showered and was ready to go, the car would be running five or ten minutes and plenty warm inside.

It was lazy.  It was soft. 

Troy loved it.  He had lived rough most of his life.  This was a thin slice of luxury.

He forced the window open the slightest amount, took the fob and snaked his hand out into the sharp cold morning.  He clicked the button.

Across the way, the low front beams and the red taillights of the Smart popped on.  He could hear the gentle purr of its engine coming to life. 

“Beautiful.”

He pulled his hand in.  It was time to…

BOOOM!

Troy dropped to the floor as an explosion tore the silence outside.  He lay motionless on the cold kitchen hardwood, barely feeling it.  He scanned the room.  Nothing moved.  Everything was normal in here. 

His car had just blown up.

He waited, his heartbeat galloping, but his breathing steady.

In a moment, a smaller secondary explosion went up, the one he waiting for.  The first explosion was the bomb the would-be assassins had placed.  The second was the fire reaching the gas tank.

He climbed to his feet and peered out the window.

The Fiat was just catching fire now.  That gas tank would go in another minute or two.

The motorcycle would probably catch at some point.  If the fire department didn’t get here soon, everything in the parking lot might go.

A couple of people had appeared on the street in dark heavy jackets, staying well away from the rising flames and the black smoke.  In the distance, Troy could hear the wail of the approaching sirens.  From here, it seemed clear that no one had been hurt, and no one was going to be.  But Troy might have sat in that car and started it himself at 8:15 in the morning, when the streets were already full of people walking past. 

More than anything, this was a lucky break.

It was his car that exploded, and he supposed he would have to speak with someone about that.  But he also had a plane to catch.  Maybe he could do that interview over the phone.

“Looks like I’m taking the train to the airport after all,” he said.

Then he thought of Dubois, in the Paris flat where her mother lived.  He glanced at the clock.  6:25. He sighed heavily.  He’d better call her.

CHAPTER TWO

9:59 pm Central European Time

Texel Island, on the North Sea

North Holland

The Netherlands

The men were killers.

They went by the names of archangels, Michael and Uriel.

They stood outside the high outer walls of the big house, lingering among the dunes and sea grasses.  A cold, heavy rain beat down.  Down on the beach, giant surf battered the shoreline.  The men stood silent in this far-flung, wind-swept place.

Dressed in black, they looked like wraiths, dark ghosts in the shadows.  On this night, they wore hooded coats to protect themselves against both the rain, and anyone seeing their faces.  There was no one around.  The place sat on a low bluff more than a kilometer from the nearest empty houses. 

In the summer months, for the Dutch, this island was a popular holiday destination.  In the winter, it was as though the world had ended, and everyone who had ever lived was gone.

But there were always cameras. 

The resident here was known to be reclusive.  He was also known to be highly tech-savvy.  It wouldn’t surprise Michael if the man was already aware that they were here, and was watching them right now. 

That didn’t worry Michael.  He was broad and muscular, renowned for his bad temper and his quick reflexes.  A combat veteran of numerous wars, his body was scarred by battle.  Since his military days ended, he had murdered more than a dozen people in cold blood for money.  He was God's own warrior angel.

If the man inside that house did know the angels had come for him, his best hope would be to call the authorities.  In this place, it would take an hour or more for the police to come.  By the time they arrived, and in all likelihood “they” would be one man armed with a flashlight, the angels would be long gone.

Michael looked at his partner.

Uriel was tall and slim, with very fast hands.  His face was unremarkable.  He had a receding hairline.  He looked like he could be an accountant or a teacher.  You wouldn't remember seeing him, even if he didn't wear a hood.  He was logical and detail-oriented.  He was also cold-blooded and relentless.  Among the archangels, Uriel was the scholar, the angel of knowledge and learning.

The two of them stood outside a three-meter-high stone wall.

Uriel opened a green metal box at the base of the wall, the controls to the home security system, and quickly removed the digital user interface.  Behind it, there was a forest of wires and fuses mounted on a motherboard. 

Uriel held a small flashlight in his mouth, its beam shining into the box.  His gloved fingers ran across the board, pulling fuses and unclipping wires.  It seemed random, but Michael knew there was a method to it. 

Abruptly, Uriel took the light from his mouth and turned it off.  He closed the box.

“Done,” he said. 

Michael believed him.  If Uriel said he had just disabled the house’s alarm, sentry lights and camera system, then that’s exactly what had happened.

They were not the best of friends, Michael and Uriel.  Maybe they didn’t even like each other.  But they were partners, and Michael respected Uriel’s professionalism and his knack for the finer points of technology.  It was a beautiful thing.

“You opened the gate and the door?” Michael said.

“The wall and the house,” Uriel said.  “The gate and the door.  We are standing here, on the outside, but in a real sense, we are already in.”

Michael went to the reinforced steel gate set into a sort of tunnel through the wall.  He grabbed an upright rung and pulled.  The gate swung open easily.  It didn’t even make a sound.  He smiled to himself and, just like that, he slipped inside the wall.

A moment later, the two men walked across the low hills of the grounds toward the house.  Just past the edge of the concrete patio was the beach.  The North Sea winds howled across the rolling dunes, driving the rain, whitecaps visible against the darkness of the water and the sky. 

The house was to their left.  They were behind it now, closer to the ocean than to the road.  Michael gazed up at the house as they approached.  It was large and white, ultra-modern, shaped like a pillbox or a machine gun nest. 

They came in under the shadow of a stone overhang.  Michael knew the layout.  There was a porch or deck above their heads, where the resident here enjoyed his coffee when he awakened, and later, in the afternoons and evenings, his wine and his marijuana.  If the rumors were true, there were other drugs as well.

The rear door was under this overhang.  It was heavy steel, with a keypad and a card reader mounted next to it.  Both should be disabled now.  The two men paused by the door, the wind blowing the rain in on them.  The rain pattered on their coats, and ran down their faces.

“Heart attack,” Michael said.  “The man has terrible habits.  Obesity.  Lack of exercise.  Smoking.  Drinking.  Bad diet.”

Uriel nodded.  “No one knows or cares.”

“But if there’s any trouble, we shoot him,” Michael said. 

Uriel knew all of this, of course, but it was customary to make sure they were on the same page in the playbook one last time before doing the job.

“Too much resistance, attempts to contact outside parties…”

Uriel was still nodding.

“Just boom,” Michael said.  He patted the pistol hidden beneath his coat.  “Murder is murder.  The man was a criminal.”   

“Yes,” Uriel said.  “Boom.”

“No one will be surprised.”

“No,” Uriel said.  “No one will be surprised at all.  Why would they, with his acquaintances and affiliations?  After all, the man was a criminal.” 

Talking to Uriel sometimes was like trying to talk to a cardboard box.  You got nothing from him.  Other times, it was like talking to a parakeet.  He simply repeated your words back to you.  The man had precious little personality of his own.   

Michael grasped the silver handle of the door and pulled.  It opened easily.

“After you,” he said.

They went in.

***

“Be not a cancer on the Earth,” Prins Gekkenhuis said quietly. 

He took a sip of wine.  He was afraid, certainly more afraid than he had ever been.  He was so afraid that he could barely seem to move.  His hand could lift the glass to his lips, and he could swallow.  Automatic systems like his breathing and his heartbeat went on without any input from him, although he noticed they had both quickened.

In fact, his heart was thundering along like a horse at full gallop.

“Leave room for nature,” he said, and so his mouth and tongue were still working, and under his control.  But the words tasted like dust.

He knew this was coming.  It was only a matter of time.

He sat in the dark of his living room, listening to the heavy rain drum against the tall windows and watching the giant waves break at sea.

They had cut the lights, only a moment ago.  A person might think perhaps the storm knocked out the power.  That did happen sometimes.  But through his windows, down the beach to the far left, Prins could see the lights of the closest houses, still shimmering in the night. 

It was this house.  Just this house.  Everyone else still had power.

“Do something,” he said, and the dry croak of his own voice startled him. 

There was nothing left to do.  He had done it all.  He was finished.  Even if he tried to save himself, it was no use.  He weighed close to 150 kilos, what the English would call 24 stone.  The Americans would say he weighed 330 pounds.  He had “let himself go.”  It was work just to climb up off the sofa. 

He glanced at the opulence of his surroundings.  He had loved this house once.  This living room was wide open, the ceiling two stories above his head.  The floors were polished oak.  The floor to ceiling windows, in the day, gave views of the North Sea and the beach for more than a kilometer in each direction.  If you pushed through the sliders, you could walk onto the deck, which jutted out toward the water in a long triangle, almost like a dagger. 

To sit at the far edge of that dagger was a 360-degree immersive experience.  The sea and the sky surrounded you, the wind buffeted you, the sun could render you blind.  It was the power and the glory of the natural world in a way that most humans would never experience it.

Breathtaking?  Yes.  There were times when he sat out there at the edge and felt that he could not breathe.  As it should be. 

He nodded at the truth of that.  If humanity were to be culled, then let him be the first.

He raised his glass now to no one but himself and downed it.

But he was afraid.  Maybe all animals were afraid in their last moments, when every comfort, when everything reassuring, had finally been stripped away.

At one time, he had made a fortune in designer drugs.  Psychedelics, mostly, combined with a little amphetamine to keep the user up all night.  His cocktails were consumed at all night dance parties and days-long raves across Europe, as far as Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, and even into North Africa  

He changed the recipes to keep up with the times and stay ahead of the law.  When a crackdown on amphetamine came, he switched to caffeine.  He tried novel combinations of various ingredients - mescaline, LSD, ketamine, with tiny amounts of PCP. 

For a little while, he pushed perfectly legal pills made of high doses of kava, caffeine and B-vitamins.  It calmed you, made you wired, and gave you long-lasting energy, all at the same time.  He sold more than a million packets of these, distributed to young people at petrol stations across a broad sweep of the continent.

About a decade ago, he gave it all up.  He'd been arrested more times than he cared to count.  And he was a millionaire several times over.  There was no need to continue.  He was exhausted.  For six months, he did little more than sleep, eat, drink alcohol, and smoke pot.  Then he started to write his thoughts and post them on the internet for any interested parties to find.

His output began to focus on the need for humanity to decrease its population, to get its numbers down below 500 million people.  This was roughly the number of people on Earth in the year 1700, just before the beginning of the fossil fuel age and the coming of the industrial revolution.  It was a magic number - likely the upper limit of the planet’s carrying capacity for humans.  There were more than eight billion now - 16 times what the planet could handle.

Prins Gekkenhuis became his pen name, and a bit of a joke.  It meant PrinceMadhouse.

Old Prins made a name for himself, and built a following.  Prins had always been the smartest guy in the room, and his reasoning about the future of the planet, his logic, and the entertaining way in which he presented his ideas, were hard to argue against. 

His followers became passionate about his work.  In the fullness of time, they became more passionate than he was.

His heart skipped a beat when he thought about how passionate they were.  His argument had always been that humanity should voluntarily, peacefully, and gradually lower its numbers through birth control and attrition.  Basically, have fewer children and slowly die off.  As the climate crisis unfolded at a quickening pace, this point of view fell on increasingly deaf ears. 

Now there were people out in the world, and they called themselves his followers, who claimed to have developed the means to drastically reduce humanity’s numbers, and do it quickly.  If the human race as a whole could not or would not stop multiplying, then a small group of determined individuals would impose a limit.  They would reverse humanity’s growth by force.

Gekkenhuis knew a few of these people personally.  They were among his earliest fans, and they were very smart, sincere people.  He told them he found their approach misguided.  He reasoned with them, he cajoled them, and in the end, he threatened them.  He didn’t want to go to the authorities, but if they forced his hand, he would do so. 

What a silly idea.  Prins Gekkenhuis going to the authorities.

He was lying.  Of course he was.  He had been at loggerheads with the authorities his entire life.  He wasn’t going to tell them a thing.  But how could his followers know that?  How could they be certain?

Simple enough - they couldn’t.

Prins put the glass down on the coffee table in front of him.  Next to him on the long white sofa was a gun, an old Walther PPK, that the Nazi eugenicist Karl Astel was thought to have used to kill himself at the end of World War Two.  The gun was loaded and in excellent condition.  In his wealth-accumulation phase, Prins had also been a collector of unusual items, what another person might call memorabilia.

He picked up the gun, and felt the comforting weight of it in his hand.

In the darkness, he watched the door to the stairwell.  By now, his eyes had become accustomed to the lack of light in here.

“Let them come,” he said, his voice barely audible, even to himself.

***

“Well,” a voice said.  “There you are.  I’ve been waiting.”

Michael entered the room and was surprised to see the subject sitting directly across from them on a long white couch.

He and Uriel separated and spread out, as was second nature to them.  The further apart they were, the harder they were to hit.

“Gekkenhuis,” Michael said.  “Not missing many meals, I see.”

If anything, the man was more grotesquely overweight than in the photographs they’d been given before they came here.

“What do you want?” Gekkenhuis said, his voice seeming to tremble a bit.

Michael smiled.  “If you’ve been waiting for us, then you must know what we want.”  He paused, and decided that wasn’t clear enough.  “We want you.”

In the darkness, Gekkenhuis's larger form began to take shape.  Michael saw the empty wine bottle on the table in front of him.  He noticed Gekkenhuis's large bare feet.  He soaked in the epic bulk of the man's body.  They had him.  There was no sense in doing anything violent.

“I understand,” Gekkenhuis said.

He spoke quietly.  He seemed passive, even resigned to his fate.  This should be very easy.  Michael pulled two small packets from inside his coat.  They were syringes in plastic wrappers.

“I have here two shots for you,” he told Gekkenhuis.  “I will administer them between your toes, and they won’t hurt you a bit.  Just a tiny sting, like a pinprick.  The first is a strong sedative to help you sleep.  The second is potassium chloride, which will stop your heart.”

Michael shrugged.  “You’ll be dead in a couple of minutes, without pain.  It’s a very pleasant way to die.  Sleep, and then you wake up in heaven.”

“Heaven,” Gekkenhuis said.  He dismissed the idea with a wave of one hand.

“Or wherever you like,” Michael said.

“You believe the medical examiner won’t look between my toes?” Gekkenhuis said.  “You think they won’t know I was murdered?”

"I believe the medical examiner won't look at you at all," Michael said.  "You're morbidly obese, with drug and alcohol problems.  It was an obvious heart attack caused by an unhealthy lifestyle.  A bit young for a heart attack, but probably unavoidable given your weight."

“You think I won’t get a message out to the world?” Gekkenhuis said.  “Do you think I haven’t sent a message already?”

“Your world,” Michael said.  “This world you speak of is a few thousand people, most of whom have already moved on to other things.  No one will miss you.  No one will care.”

“No one will even care,” Uriel echoed, his voice emerging from the darkness on the other side of the room.

“Someone will care,” Gekkenhuis said.  “I started this movement.”

“Yes,” Michael said.  “And betrayed it.”

“I never betrayed it.  People like you strayed from the path.”

Michael shook his head.  "Don't misunderstand.  Your movement doesn't interest me.  I'm doing my job.  And I'm willing to make it easy for you, and painless.  I was told to grant you that much by people who once respected you."

“Grant this instead,” Gekkenhuis said.

Suddenly, his right hand appeared.  It had been behind him, or next to him, on the couch.  Metal glinted in the low light.  A gun.

Michael scrabbled inside his coat for his own gun.

Too late.

So foolish.  I underestimated this…

Gekkenhuis lifted the gun, pressed the muzzle of it up into the flesh under his own chin, perfectly vertical as if he had researched this method, and practiced this move many times.

The muzzle of the gun flashed.

BANG!

The shot was loud and echoed in the high-ceilinged room.  But it wasn't so loud that anyone else would hear it.  Not outside the house, and certainly not down the beach with the wind screaming and the rain pounding.

Gekkenhuis’s head snapped upwards, and then the heavy man sprawled backward on the couch.  In the darkness, Michael fancied that he could see a jet of blood and gore explode from the top of Gekkenhuis’s head, but maybe that wasn’t true. 

It had certainly happened, but maybe Michael hadn’t seen it.  It was quite dark in here, and maybe his mind had just filled in the blanks.

That was good.  Michael didn’t like to see nasty things. 

Then Uriel was standing at Michael’s left side.  The two men stared at the giant lump of a body on the couch, the head lolling back.  The couch was going to be badly stained, a total loss. 

“Clean might have been better,” Uriel said. 

Michael shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Maybe he did us a favor.”

“How so?”

“He was despondent,” Michael said.  “He was isolated, overweight, unhappy with everything.  It’s winter on a lonely island, and he was all by himself.  His health was not good.  Who could blame him for being this depressed?”

“He killed himself,” Uriel said. 

Michael nodded.  "Yes, he did.  No potassium chloride in his system, no mysterious needle marks for a bored and curious medical examiner to find.  No evidence of murder, because there was no murder."

“So he did do us a favor,” Uriel said. 

“Indeed, I think he did,” said Michael.  “He died alone, of depression.  Also, a man like this?  It could be days or weeks before anyone even comes out here and finds him.”

“And by then it will be too late.”

Michael nodded again.  “Yes.  Much too late.”

“What about the message he threatened?” Uriel said. 

Michael shrugged.  “He was probably bluffing.  Is he going to send a message after he’s already dead?  To whom?  Saying what?”

He gestured at the body on the couch.  “He didn’t even know anything.  Not really.  The names of a few scientists, all of them in hiding.  That’s all.”

Michael pulled a nondescript flip phone from his pocket.  He checked it for service.  Somewhere out here was a cell tower, because he did have a signal, however weak. 

He pressed the button for a pre-programmed number.  On the other end, the phone didn't ring.  There was simply a pause and then a long beep.  No message.  No identifying information of any kind.  Michael said two words on the phone.

“He’s gone.”

Then he hung up.  He turned and looked at Uriel in the dark.

“Shall we go?”

CHAPTER THREE

10:35 pm Central European Time

Outside the village of Karasjok

Norway

Near the border of Finland

“He’s gone,” a deep male voice said.

Then the phone went dead.

Amelia Pinter stood just outside the heavy, clear vinyl drapes that served as an airlock of sorts outside the doorway vestibule of the one-story corrugated building.

Her breath materialized into misty clouds as she surveyed the desolate expanse of ice and snow that stretched around the hidden laboratory.  The chill in the air was biting, seeping through her layers of thermal clothing as if they were paper. 

The frigid landscape was a natural fortress, keeping people away.  The stark whiteness was broken only by the bleak, gray structure that housed their clandestine operations.  Even in the deep darkness, the sky was a heavy blanket of overcast gloom.  There were no stars visible in the sky.  Here in this far-flung corner of Norway, Amelia felt the weight of isolation pressing down on her - a sensation both comforting and unnerving.

Across the way, on the outpost’s airstrip, a small gray cargo plane taxied down the runway, lifted off, then fought its way through the crosswinds and into the dark sky.  In a moment, there was nothing visible of the plane except its lights.

It’s started.  The planes are already leaving.

She powered down the phone.  She should probably destroy it, smash it into pieces and scatter the remnants across the snowy wasteland.  Instead, she folded it and slipped into the pocket of her heavy overcoat.

That was the call she’d been waiting for.  It told her all she needed to know about the fate of Prins Gekkenhuis.  Gekkenhuis was a good man in the most profound sense, and he was probably also a genius.  Certainly, his ideas had inspired a new generation of stewards for the Earth.  To no small degree, he had inspired the actions that Amelia herself was taking.

Now he was dead. 

She was sure he would see the humor in it.  The irony. 

He wouldn’t or couldn’t come all the way, so he had been left at the threshold.  Like Moses, he would never enter the Promised Land.  Maybe history would remember him.

“Most of us won’t make it,” Amelia said out loud, nearly startling herself.  A great gasp of breath escaped her, and rose swirling in a white plume.

As she turned towards the vinyl that hid the lab’s steel door, her blue eyes flickered with a steely resolve.  It was not just the cold that made this place foreboding; it was the knowledge of what lay within.

She slipped between the heavy drapes and pushed the door open.  A gust of heated air rushed out to greet her, carrying with it the strong scent of disinfecting chemicals.  Amelia stepped inside, her boots leaving traces of snow on the polished floor as the door slammed shut behind her, sealing off the icy world outside.

The interior of the lab contrasted sharply with the desolate scenery outside its walls.  Bright fluorescent lights hummed overhead, illuminating rows of high-tech equipment and sterile workstations. 

This was the new sorcery, Amelia realized.  There was less mystery to it than in medieval times, and in fact the mystery could almost be eliminated completely.  But the song remained much the same - children, not entirely innocent, were playing with things they didn’t really understand.  And they were conjuring magic just like in the days of old, with consequences that were not entirely predictable.

An image of the sorcerer’s apprentice appeared in her mind, enchanting a broom to fetch water for him, and then realizing too late that he cannot make it stop.

“Dr. Pinter,” Viktor Laskov’s voice cut through the quiet with authority.  He stood tall and imposing among the other scientists, his green eyes scanning the room with an intensity that demanded attention.  His presence was magnetic.  He moved across the room and stood before her, his height making him loom above her.

His glowing eyes, combined with his goatee, his prominent nose, and the deep lines in his face, made her think of Rasputin.  Laskov was charming, intelligent, and ruthless.  He had led them all to this place, and that made him the most important man on the planet.  Others might say it made him the most dangerous.

“What’s the news?” he said, speaking quietly now, his Russian accent coloring the words.

Amelia shrugged.  “He’s gone.”  Saying it now, to another person, made it more real, and suddenly it felt like an invisible hand was choking her.  A tear came to her eye.

Laskov nodded.  His gaze settled on her, a glint of approval in his eyes.  “Exceptional.  Then the final ties are cut.”

She nodded.  It was hard to get any words out.  “Yes.”

“We’re safe,” Laskov said.  “And no one can stop us now.”

She nodded again, but said nothing.

Laskov eyed her closely.  “Dr. Pinter?”

“Yes.”

“It had to be done.  It’s a shame that he couldn’t or wouldn’t join us, but that was his choice.  We gave him every opportunity.  The possibility that he might betray us…”

Now the tears were streaming down her face.

“…would have put the entire project in jeopardy.  We did the right thing.  It was the only path forward.  There was no margin for error.  There still isn’t.”

Amelia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  “I understand that.”  At least she was regaining control over her voice.

“Good,” Laskov said.  “But understand also that we have to be strong.  From now on, we’re free to proceed, and that means many more will die.”

There was a pause between them.  A thought came to her, swimming up from the deep recesses of her mind, where it had been lurking in darkness.

What have I done?

Laskov’s deep voice continued.  “In fact, nearly everyone will.”

Amelia waited another long moment and then opened her eyes again.  They felt raw and swollen, as though she had wept for hours. 

Laskov had already turned away from her.  He did that.  He focused his entire attention on you, as though you were being targeted by a powerful laser, then he moved on.  The removal of his attention was almost more forceful than the application of it.

“Everyone,” Laskov said, his voice carrying across the large room. 

Immediately, people in white lab coats and white gloves, people whose faces were covered in plastic shields turned to look at him.

“We are ready to begin the final phase.”

Across the room, Irina Decker was hunched over her computer, her black hair curling her face as her fingers danced across the keyboard.  The soft clicking was a constant reminder of the digital fortress that kept their operations hidden from prying eyes.  Irina rarely spoke, but when she did, her words carried the weight of her intellect.

Irina was a dark beauty, and her background was a mystery to Amelia.  Irina always moved forward with what seemed like total confidence, as though she was not bothered at all by the doubts that plagued Amelia, the insomnia, and then when sleep finally came, the nightmares that woke Amelia up with a start, her hand pressed to her mouth, a scream trapped behind her lips.

None of that for Irina, apparently.

“Everything’s airtight,” Irina said without looking up, her deep black eyes reflecting the screen’s glow.  “No external breaches.  No hacking attempts.  No satellite or drone surveillance that we can detect.  We are completely alone and secure.  No one even knows we’re here.”

“Then let’s proceed,” Amelia said, finding the confidence in her voice again.  This was her demonstration, after all.  She was the lead microbiologist on this project.  What they were about to witness was something for which she bore a great deal of the responsibility. 

Together, the group of scientists gathered around a long table against one wall, where a large flat screen monitor stood on sturdy metal legs.  Their faces were etched with determination, each one aware of the gravity of their actions.  They had all crossed lines from which there was no return - united by a shared conviction that drastic measures were necessary for drastic times.

None of them seemed to have any doubts.

How could that be?  Isn’t anyone else here human?

Amelia picked up the small black controller from the table, touched a button, and the screen came to life.  It showed the real laboratory, where the true work was done, deep inside this building, and walled off from it by layers of precautions.  In this remote place, at the frigid end of the Earth, they had secretly built a lab that mimicked in every way the BioSafety Level 4 facilities at some of the most high-security government installations in the world.

She knew the Russians had labs like this, as did the Chinese, and the Americans.  Perhaps the British and the Israelis had them, and the Iranians, possibly even the South Africans.  Labs like this one were built to handle and quarantine the most dangerous viruses, bacteria and chemicals known to the human race, often man-made or man-altered substances being studied for use as weapons.

This was Viktor Laskov’s genius, being able to build a facility like this in complete secrecy, and being able to assemble a high-level team here to work for nearly a year in pursuit of one goal, also in secrecy.  The man was both a monster, and a hero.

History might forget Prins Gekkenhuis. 

Viktor Laskov?  Never.

On the screen, a man moved slowly through the lab.  He wore a white, airtight containment suit, which restricted his movements.  His face was impossible to see behind his mask.  The suit was tethered to a yellow hose which descended from the ceiling.  The hose continually pumped clean air from outside the facility into the containment suit.  Even if the suit ruptured, the positive pressure from the hose ensured that none of the laboratory air could get inside.

Amelia thought about being inside that suit.  It was one of her least favorite environments.  The claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside that suit made her want to rip it to shreds, exposing herself to the air around her.  It was panic, raw panic, that sometimes gripped her in there, and she would have to fight to suppress it.

Better to have an assistant do the honors tonight, someone more comfortable inside the suit.

She picked up a small microphone from the table.

“Robert, can you hear me?”

On the screen, Robert Osgard raised a heavily gloved hand.  Robert was an accomplished biochemist, originally from Germany, who had worked in life sciences all over the world.  He had walked away from luxury apartments, high salaries, and his small ownership stakes in two start-up companies, to be here instead.

“Use your speaker, please,” Amelia said. 

Robert’s hand reached up and touched a small button on the side of his suit, just next to his face mask.

“Yes,” he said.  “I can hear you.”

His voice came across the airwaves with the sound of his breathing, and the sound of the air pump inside the lab.  He was fluent in several languages, and spoke with no accent at all.

“We’re ready to proceed with the demonstration,” Amelia said.  “You have an audience tonight, so let’s make it a good one.”

She was losing herself, she realized, losing herself in the character of Amelia Pinter.  In the minds of the people around her, she was just as confident, just as convinced, just as committed, as they were, perhaps even more so.  She was playing a role for them. 

She sounded calm, and because she sounded that way, she also felt it.  She glanced at Viktor Laskov.  He was watching her.  His eyes were like the eyes of a hawk or some other predator, but they were softer than usual tonight.

He’s proud of me.

A flood of sensation poured into her.  She couldn’t even begin to describe what she was feeling.  When they met, she had wanted desperately to impress him.  Later, she wanted his approval.  He had become a father figure to her, a lover, and a stern and demanding taskmaster.  He meant too much to her.  He could cut her with a word, or even just a look.  She was jealous of his other women, especially Irina.  She sometimes imagined a life for them together, knowing full well that if their project was successful…

On the screen, Robert removed a vial from a holder on the table in front of him, and held it up to the camera.  Amelia used the controller to zoom in on it.  There was a small amount of liquid in the vial, just a few milliliters.  The liquid was clear, innocuous-looking, and yet it harbored an unfathomable power. 

Viktor called it Shiva, after the Hindu god, the destroyer and creator of worlds.

Amelia, and her team in the lab, called it Cholera-like Substance F 7.0, or CF7, for short.  She called it that because it was their seventh iteration of an organism that was already weaponized when they acquired it. 

The original strain had caused the 2010 outbreak in Haiti that killed an estimated 10,000 people.  But this was so highly modified that it should probably have a different name altogether.  F stood for Frankenstein.

She spoke again.  “As you all know, the bacteria is highly virulent, extremely deadly, and fast acting.  It has few if any of the vulnerabilities of its original parent.  Boiling will not kill it.  The water will boil off before the bacteria dies, and the bacteria will simply become airborne and breathable in the vapor.  Extremes of cold will not kill it.  You can freeze it and it will live on inside the ice, dormant and waiting to be thawed.  It feeds on algae and other micro-organisms found in rivers, lakes and the ocean.  If no mitigation efforts are undertaken, or are taken too late, its feasting will cause a population explosion that appears to be irreversible, and will continue until food sources are exhausted.” 

A dark-haired, light brown man named Hydar spoke up.  “This is the first I’ve heard anyone speak of possible mitigation.  What mitigation efforts are you talking about that could stop it?”

Amelia shook her head.  "There are no mitigation efforts that we know of which are effective against it.  There are no existing antibiotics or combination of antibiotics that will kill this bacteria.  Existing vaccines are ineffective.  There is no way to build modern sanitation systems after a fast-moving outbreak has already begun.  That said, we have to assume technologically advanced societies will attempt to stop its spread with every means at their disposal.  However, at this moment, their ability to stop it is entirely theoretical."

“Containment,” someone else said. 

“Right,” Hydar said.  “Watertight booms designed to contain oil spills.  Dams.  Barriers.”

“Which is why we’ll hit repeatedly, in different locations,” a woman named Elena said.  “Time after time, we’ll be early and they’ll be too late.”

“The Americans will bomb infected populations,” a young woman said.  “They’ll simply kill the infected rather than let them spread the disease.”

“It doesn’t matter,” another man said.  “Eventually, one of the outbreaks will grow out of control.” 

In a moment, they were going to start playing the old university dorm What If… game.  Amelia needed to get a grip on them before their conversation grew out of control.  Most of these scientists were still quite young.  They could barely contain their enthusiasm.

“People,” Viktor said, and everyone quieted instantly.  His voice was enough to stop them in their tracks.  He looked at Amelia.  “Please continue, Dr. Pinter.”

"Thank you, Dr. Laskov," Amelia said.  "Just another minute to recap.  The organism causes death through a short-circuiting of electrical impulses resulting in a combination of cardiac and respiratory arrest, usually within seconds.  If a subject survives the initial onset of symptoms, perhaps because the exposure is minimal, a second wave of symptoms more consistent with traditional cholera - like diarrhea, vomiting, violent muscle spasms and cramps, and extreme dehydration - will kill the subject within a couple of hours.  Subjects are highly contagious and can pass on the illness easily through exchange of fluids, tiny amounts of fecal matter, and even fluid particles in the air.  This remains true even after the subject dies."

The room was silent.  It was beginning to sink in, the thing they had brought to life, which was here in this building with them.  This weapon was their answer to humanity’s heedlessness, yes, and it was terrifying.

“If for some reason, the substance was sprayed into this room right now, and we were exposed to it, most of us would be dead a few minutes later.  One or two of us might linger on, completely helpless to rescue ourselves, until early tomorrow morning.”

The people around her began to murmur quietly.

“Does it act too quickly?” Hydar said, his voice low.  “Will it burn itself out?  I mean, if it acts that rapidly, it seems to me it could be self-limiting.”

“Robert, whenever you’re ready,” Amelia said, ignoring Hydar.  She didn’t want to hear any more concerns.

The truth was none of them could know how this would play out.  Humanity had survived large-scale pandemics before.  Even in the 1300s, when understanding of pathogens was nonexistent, and medical treatments were crude to an extreme, the Black Plague killed off only 40 or 50 percent of Europe.  It would seem like it should have killed everyone, but as always, there were limiting factors standing in the way. 

Humans were ingenious, and fortune was impossible to predict. 

In the modern era, it was well understood that masking, especially with face shields, was an effective way to slow the spread of micro-organisms.  Rubber gloves.  Quarantines.  Travel restrictions.  Bottled water. 

Within days or weeks of the first outbreaks, the most advanced societies and corporations would have scientists working night and day on an effective antibiotic. 

There was no sense worrying about every possible scenario.

A lot of people were going to die.  She was certain of that much.  Absolutely everyone on Earth?  No.  Probably not.  Somewhere out in the world, there were probably even people who were naturally immune to this disease.

Prins Gekkenhuis always said that 500 million humans was the magic number.  When the total population rose above that, sometime in the 1700s, humanity fell out of balance with nature.  Returning to that number would restore the balance.  This disease could go a long way to reaching Prins’s target.

Amelia zoomed the camera out again.  On the screen, Robert opened the vial, and mounted it onto the release mechanism, the open top fitting into a green spray nozzle.  He then slowly turned the device upside down.  When he activated the mechanism, gravity would feed the liquid through the nozzle. 

On the other side of the mechanism was a large transparent chamber, like a terrarium, housing a group of white mice.  There were a lot of mice in there, a swarm of them.  The mice seemed to sense something was coming.  A moment ago, they had been docile, barely moving or interacting.  Now they began to stir.

Robert touched the START button.

The spray nozzle made a single, startling movement, like a piston, and the chamber was injected with a nearly invisible mist. 

Within seconds, everything changed.  The mice suddenly thrashed within their confines in a frenetic dance of agony.  They leapt and ran, and clawed at each other.  On the monitor it was a silent display, but Amelia knew that they were screeching in pain and terror.

“Symptoms manifesting within the expected timeframe,” she noted clinically, her voice betraying none of the turmoil that wracked the tiny bodies before her, or the doubts inside her own mind.  She could almost hear the ticking of the doomsday clock, counting down to zero.  It would bring ecological redemption - or annihilation - depending on your perspective.

To her left, Viktor Laskov stood solid as a rock, his intense green eyes reflecting a mind always at work, always calculating.  To her right, Irina Decker’s impassive gaze hid whatever storm might, or might not, rage beneath.  Neither of them showed any sign of revulsion or remorse.  No one in the room did.  They were all beyond human frailties, hardened by the conviction that their actions, however extreme, served a greater good.

Amelia alone was frail.  Amelia was the weak one.

“Time of death... now,” she said as the last mouse ceased its spasms, laying eerily still, a small life extinguished by human hands.  “Robert, how many mice was that?”

Robert’s voice came on again, along with the breathing and the air pump.

“Ninety-seven.”

Beautiful,” Viktor said, his voice a low rumble.  “The potency is confirmed.”  He looked around at the group.  “Good job everyone.  Good job, Dr. Osgard.  Excellent job, Dr. Pinter.”

“I have a question,” a man said. 

Amelia looked at the man.  He was a tall, blonde-haired man with a beard.  He was nearly as tall as Viktor, but broader and thicker.  His hands were very large.  He was an imposing man physically, but his eyes were wide in what Amelia could only take as alarm.

He had been at this outpost for just a few days.  Amelia didn’t know his name, but knew he wasn’t a scientist.  He was one of the commandos whose job would be to deploy the bacteria.

“Yes?” Amelia said.

The man gestured at the monitor.  “This bacteria is so deadly, am I to understand that we’re going to wipe out the animals as well as the people?  It seems to defeat the purpose, if the purpose is saving the planet.”

It was strange to Amelia that they could be so far along in this process, and an ignorant concern like this could arise.  Even so, it was a sincere question.

"Very few animals on Earth are vulnerable to cholera," she said.  "That's why we chose it.  It's primarily a disease that affects humans and certain domesticated animals.  You can introduce it in lab mice, but the billions of wild mice appear resistant to it.  Dogs can get it.  Cows.  Bison."

She shrugged.  There was a moment of quiet in the room. 

“There is almost zero chance that we will wipe out any other species besides humans, except maybe cows because they’re dependent on humans.  But modern cows, as I think everyone here knows, contribute mightily to the climate catastrophe.  There are 900 million dogs on Earth, including millions of wild dogs, and certainly enough of them will survive.  In all likelihood, the human race itself will also survive, just in drastically reduced numbers.”

The man nodded.  “Fair enough.”

Suddenly Viktor's large hands came together in a sort of thunderclap, which echoed through the large open room.  Then he clapped again.  Now, everyone began to follow suit, even the man who had questioned her.  In a few seconds, a wall of applause had begun.  They were clapping for her, yes, but also for themselves. 

They were the true believers.  They were the revolutionaries.  They had worked tirelessly and ceaselessly for this.  They had given up everything, in all likelihood including their lives.  And together, they were ushering in the dawn of a new era.

“We’re ready,” Viktor Laskov said.

His eyes found Amelia again.  They probed her.  She could almost imagine the question those eyes were asking. 

Are YOU ready?

CHAPTER FOUR

February 2

6:45 pm Eastern Standard Time

East 239th Street

Bronx, New York

USA

“Blew up your car, did they?” Donnie said.  “That’s what I heard.”

Troy shook his head.  Donnie was making it sound like a rumor that was going around.  Troy had told him the news himself. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.  I loved that car.”

That was not the real reason he didn’t want to talk about it.  They were all here in the living room of his mom’s house, and she was hovering around just out in the kitchen.  He didn’t want her listening in and getting involved.

“I thought it was one of those Smart cars,” Eddie said.  “Two seats, lawnmower engine, tops out around 40 miles per hour.”

“Yeah,” Troy said.  “It is.  It’s a perfect car for Madrid.  The streets are tight, there’s nowhere to park…”  He shrugged, and let that thought lie there. 

The clatter of dishes and the raucous laughter of children filtered in from nearby regions of the Stark family home.  The small house smelled of roast beef, garlic, and baking bread.  Troy had come in yesterday afternoon and had spent most of the past 24 hours dozing here on the living room couch.  Tonight, his brothers, their wives and children had all descended on the place like a storm of locusts.

“I always figured you as more of a classic Mustang or 1970 Chevelle kind of guy,” Donnie said.  “All-American muscle cars.  Huge engines.  Gas-guzzlers.  You could hold a family picnic on the hood.  Europe must be getting to you a little bit.  You’re probably eating tiny food now.”

Troy's older brothers, Donnie and Eddie, had commandeered the worn sofa, their hefty frames testing the resilience of the aged cushions.  Donnie, the eldest Stark brother, the tallest and by far the heaviest, waved a beer bottle in the air, his belly shaking with laughter under his dress shirt.  His dark red tie hung askew.  He was laughing at his own joke, which was pretty much Donnie in a nutshell.

Troy sat across from them in the La-Z-Boy chair.  They were all drinking beer, and they were four or five in by now.

“Garcon!” Donnie shouted, using an outdated French word for waiter.

“You know that’s considered rude in polite company, right?” Troy said.

Donnie looked at him.  “Is this polite company?”

“Good point.”

Tall and slim, third brother Pat stood in the doorway.  Pat was the outlier in this family, not counting Troy.  Pat was a paramedic for the New York Fire Department.  In fact, he was wearing a dark blue FDNY t-shirt at this moment.  He was probably the most handsome of the group.  At one time, people had implored him to head out to Hollywood, and at least give becoming a movie star a chance.  There was no evidence that Pat had even considered it. 

Both Donnie and Eddie were NYPD.  During a long career, Donnie had navigated his way to Inspector, a high-salary, high-responsibility job that put him and his family across the Hudson River in the quaint waterfront enclave of Piermont.  Eddie had spent a few years in Vice, then a decade undercover in Narcotics.  Nowadays, married with two young ones, he had retreated to the relative quiet and safety of Homicide.

Everyone could tell Eddie missed the adrenaline rush of his years undercover.  Missed it?  He practically pined for it, like an unrequited lover.

“Am I the waiter?” Pat said.

Eddie waved him over.  Pat went to his older brother and leaned in.  Eddie wore a mischievous grin as he whispered something to Pat.  Pat smiled and nodded, then went back into the kitchen without a word. 

“What I don’t understand,” a female voice said, “is why they wanted to blow up your car.”

Troy looked up and his mother stood there in the center of the room.  It was as if she had materialized out of nowhere.  She wore her hair in a short bob.  She had a sweatshirt on with a picture of a white chef’s hat, and which said, Kiss the Cook.  She stood every inch of 5’2”.

Everyone stared at her. 

“I mean, you told me you work for a medical charity.”

See?  This was why Troy didn’t want to go down this road. 

“I do,” he said.  “Well, it’s an arm of the federal government.  It’s like a charity.  They do good work.”

Did anyone in the room believe this story?  Troy tended to doubt it.  He realized he had just said “they” as if he was trying to distance himself from the scene of the crime.

“What’s that outfit called again?” Donnie said, going for the jugular.

Troy glanced at his brother. 

“You know what it’s called.”

Donnie seemed to bite the inside of his cheeks.  “Nah.  I forgot.  Can you remind me?” 

“Yes,” their mother said.  “I forgot, too.” 

She alone seemed serious, and concerned.

 “It’s called FOMAP,” Troy said, and nearly laughed out loud.  “FOMAP.  Okay?  The United States Foreign Medical Aid Program.  FOMAP for short.”

“Sounds like FUBAR,” Eddie said.

“Never heard of it,” their mother said. 

“How much do they pay you to work there?” Donnie said.  “Is it a charity, like you’re doing it for free?”

“No,” Troy said.  “They pay me money.  A lot of money.”

“And why would someone blow up your car because you work for… FOMAP?”  His mom said FOMAP as if it was milk that had spoiled.

Troy stared at Eddie and Donnie.

“I should never have mentioned this to either of you.  It was supposed to be in confidence.”

Donnie shrugged, utterly remorseless.  “Tell one person, or tell a hundred.  It’s the same.”

Their mother started in again.  “But why did they…”

“I work for what you might call a law enforcement arm of FOMAP.  A southern Italian mafia, out of Calabria, was illegally dumping hazardous waste in coastal waters, not just near Italy, but a bunch of countries.  That’s bad for people’s health.  We’re a medical organization.  See the connection?  I arrested a couple of guys, one of whom turned out to be…”

“This is the ‘Ndrangheta?” Donnie said.

Troy looked at him.  “What have you been doing, reading books?  I hear that’s bad for you when you’re a cop.  You don’t want to think too much.”

“So be it,” Donnie said.  “But that’s who you’re talking about?”

Troy nodded.  “In a word, yes.”

The ‘Ndrangheta was supposedly the group that was after him.  Everything else he had just said was pure fantasy.  If the mob wanted him dead, it was for killing Mateos Baruti, not for arresting anyone.  But this wasn’t the venue for sharing that piece of information.

“Is that bad?” their mother said. 

"They're one of the most powerful organized crime families in the world," Donnie said.  "They have a presence here in New York.  We have to deal with them sometimes.  All that said, they also have a code.  They don't hurt the families of their targets.  And Troy, here's a big boy war hero.  I'm sure he can handle his business.  I'd say they were just sending a message."

“Every criminal I’ve ever met claims to have a code,” Eddie said.  “And they’d all sell out their alleged code for a cheese steak sandwich.”

Troy shrugged and smiled.  That was what he liked to see.  A little sleight of hand, and then a little change of subject.  Let's get back on safe, solid ground by talking about random food items.  Maybe he could steer this toward the oldest baseball stadiums in America next.

“Well, if it’s an authentic Philadelphia cheese steak…”

Eddie shook his head.  “Steak-Um.  Cheese-Whiz.  Wonder Bread.  Not authentic.”

“You know what I always wondered about Wonder Bread?” Donnie said. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said.  “You wonder if it’s even bread.”

The Stark brothers were officially getting drunk. 

Just then, Pat came back into the living room, carrying a large tray loaded down with glasses.  Troy looked at the tray.  Four pint glasses half-filled with a dark liquid that looked quite a lot like Guinness beer.  Four shot glasses with a thick yellow liquid in it. 

“All right boyos,” Pat announced.  “This is in honor of the prodigal brother.”

He put the tray down on the scuffed and beaten coffee table. 

Eddie picked up a pint glass.  “Guinness,” he said.  Then he picked up a shot glass.  “Jameson and Bailey’s together.”

Troy smiled.  “Irish car bombs.”  Then he laughed. 

Silly, silly boys.

“Oh brother,” their mom said, and went back into the kitchen.

The four brothers gathered around the table, each taking a beer and a shot in hand.  They held the shots poised above the beer, waiting for the cue. 

“Bombs away,” Donnie said, and they dropped the shots into the beer glasses as one.  A second later, they were all chugging the drink, as God intended it to be done. 

***

“This is serious business, man,” Troy said.

Troy and Donnie stood in the narrow hallway down from the dining room.  The sheer size of the two men - Troy was big, but Donnie stood 6’6”, and had put on a lot of weight in recent years - made it seem like they were trapped in a narrow tube.

At the dining table lay a spread fit for royalty - or at least a very hungry Irish clan.  A mountain of mashed potatoes sat beside a moat of gravy, surrounded by an army of glazed carrots and green beans standing at attention.  The crowning glory was the roast beef, or the roast beast, as they tended to call it.

The dining room was crowded, and spilling back over into the living room.  Including all the nieces and nephews, the smallest of whom were still toddlers, there were 14 people in the house. 

Their mother stuck her head into the hall.

“It’s soup,” she said, her code word for saying that dinner was ready.  She might even be a little bit tipsy herself. 

“Did you make all that food yourself?” Troy said.

“Who else would make it, you big lout?” she said.  She swatted at him with a dish towel. “Now go on, get in there.  You both look like you haven’t had a good meal in ages.”

Troy gave Donnie the once over.

“I think she’s drunk.”

She shook her head.  “You.  You’re drunk.”

Then she was gone again.

The laughter and clamor of his nephews and nieces, a chaotic symphony of youth, echoed out to them.  In other circumstances, these could be joyful sounds. 

“I get that it’s serious,” Donnie said.  “How bad is it?”

Troy shook his head.  “I don’t know.  My car blew up.  I was lucky not to be in it.  I’d feel better if she wasn’t here by herself.”

“So would I,” Donnie said.  “But you know she’s never going to come to my place.  She just won’t do it.  She won’t even think about it.”

“She’s so stubborn.”

“Anyway,” Donnie said.  “You’re here right now.”

“I’m here for a few days, Donnie.  Maybe a week.  They gave me a little time off for good behavior.  But they’ll call me back.  It won’t be long.”

Just then, as if on cue, Troy's phone vibrated in his pocket, an insistent pulse.  He took it out and glanced at the screen, a familiar number blinking back at him.  It wasn’t work.  It was worse than that.

“I have to take this,” he said.  “I’m gonna go outside for a minute.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Donnie said.  “But you know she don’t listen to me.  Not really.”  He gestured at the phone.  “They’re not calling you back already, are they?”

Troy nearly laughed.  “Hope not.  I just got here.” 

He went out through the front door and onto the stoop, the cold of February hitting him instantly, a wall of cold.  There was no snow on the ground, but the air was frigid.  He was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and sneakers.  He stepped down into the street in front of the house, the phone still buzzing in his hand.  He pressed the button.

“Stark,” he said curtly.

It seemed, at times, like there was no rest and no respite from any of this.

“Well Troy Stark,” the former colonel Stuart “Missing” Persons said.  “How are you enjoying your holiday?”

“It was better a minute ago,” Troy said.  “Not gonna lie about that.”

There was a long pause between them.  The alcohol had gone to Troy’s head.  He wouldn’t normally talk to Missing Persons like this, at least not right away.

“Did you get that pizza I sent you?” Persons said.

Troy thought back to the pizza delivery.  Several days ago, a man had turned up at his door and brought him a pizza.  Troy hadn’t ordered a pizza, nor had he buzzed the man into the building.  Troy stood sideways with the apartment door opened a crack, the sliding bolt still across the gap, with a gun held along his leg.

“Friends of yours ordered it,” the man said.  “It’s already paid.”

“I’m not hungry,” Troy said.

The man laughed.  “Maybe you eat it later.”

“Does it come with a message?”

The man shook his head.  "No, but I found this envelope on the floor here.  It must be yours, I think."  He slid a fat envelope into the apartment through the crack.  Troy took it and glanced inside.  A thick stack of colorful bills - thousands of euros in random denominations. 

When he counted it later, the number was a little over fifteen thousand.

“Yeah.  It is mine.  I must have dropped it.”

“And the pizza?” the man said. 

Troy smiled, and slid the bolt open.  “Sure.  You want a piece?”

Now, on a cold New York street, the phone pressed to his ear, he said:

“I got it.  Thanks.  Very sweet of you.”

“China job,” Persons said.  “You saved us a lot of headaches, to put it mildly.”

That was one way of putting it, Troy supposed.

“How can I help you, Colonel?”

“We have a problem,” Persons said.  The Colonel’s one-eyed gaze seemed to bore into him through the line.  “Some years ago, we lost someone.”

“Do tell,” Troy said. 

Persons often spoke in mysteries, cryptic hints, statements that revealed little, and left a lot unsaid.  Troy didn’t even know who Persons worked for, so in a sense, he didn’t know who he himself worked for.  Yes, Troy was an investigator for a small sub-agency within Interpol.  But he also worked for Persons, and that meant…

“One of ours, a scientist, went off the plantation and over to the other side.”

The money - the second, secret salary, and these bursts of cash from time to time, were how they kept Troy on the plantation.  He knew that about himself, and about Missing Persons, and about whoever else was lurking in the background.

“Which side?” Troy said.

“Hard to say.  Basically, she disappeared.  Evaporated.  She didn’t like what we were doing, and she didn’t want to do it for us anymore.  So she left and dropped below radar.”

“What kind of science?” Troy said.

There was another brief pause, a hesitation.  Then, Persons must have decided it was okay to say the word out loud.

“Microbiology.”

Ah, God.  Bio-weapons.  Viruses.  Epidemics.  Nasty little bugs.

What a special someone to lose.

Even so, Troy wasn’t ready to play along.  He shrugged.  “Maybe she died.  Did you guys ever think of that?  Maybe she went into a different line of work, feeding the hungry.  Maybe she’s on a beach somewhere.”

“Nope,” Persons said.  “It’s not easy to disappear completely.  She has bubbled up from time to time.  What happened was she fell in with a bad crowd.  And one of them just killed himself.  But he didn’t actually do it, if you take my meaning.”

“No,” Troy said.  “I don’t.”  Maybe he was too drunk to understand.  Persons was making even less sense than usual.

"He's dead, and it sure looks like suicide.  He was a guru of sorts.  He sent a message from the grave to his followers.  He must have prepared it beforehand and set it on a timer in the event of his unfortunate demise.  We got the message.  We're followers of his, naturally."

“Naturally,” Troy said.

"And what he said was that if he kills himself, he wasn't the one who did it.  Until that message went out, no one even knew he was dead.  We sent the local cops to his home, and sure enough, there he was, a goner."

“But he didn’t do it,” Troy said, and now something seemed to click.  “She did.”

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  In any event, he went on to accuse someone who seems to be her of playing with dangerous toys and being up to something that we can only understand as no good.  Bear in mind that these are serious people."

“We know that it’s her he’s accusing?” Troy said. 

“We don’t know anything yet.”

Troy shook his head.  “So what are we even talking about?  I don’t know anything about this.  What am I supposed to be doing?”

Persons didn’t miss a beat.  “You’re going back to Madrid.”

Troy sighed.  “Why would I do that?  It doesn’t make sense.  I haven’t heard anything from anyone.  Miquel hasn’t called me.  No one has, except you.  And the words you’re saying aren’t exactly clear.”

“If we wait until he calls you, it will be too late.  You work for the European Rapid Response Investigation Unit, do you not?”

“You know where I work.”

“We know that if something happens, they’re going to be called in.  We want you there before that call happens.  You’re thousands of miles away at the moment.”

“But you don’t even know if…”

“There’s chatter everywhere, Stark.  Intelligence agencies on every side.  Criminal networks.  Radical groups.  People and materials are on the move.  We don’t where, or why.  But someone with access to a lot of money and resources has been trying to remain invisible, and they’ve been doing a very good job.  If we’re right, they’re about to break cover.  If our girl is among them, we’ve got big problems, as I indicated.  Very few people know what she knows.”

Troy paused before speaking.  He tried to think of a calm way to say this.

“You know, I got big problems, too.  I’ve done a lot.  You know the things I’ve done.  And I’ve stepped on some toes.  It’s coming back to bite me.”

Persons seemed nonchalant.  “I know.  I know you have a problem.  I’ve got you covered.  I told you I would.”

“They’re trying to kill me, or get to me, and my mother is here alone.”

"No, she isn't."

Troy shook his head.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

Persons seemed to cover the phone with his hand for a moment.  He said something to someone in the room with him, wherever he was.  That someone, a man, said something back.  Troy could hear the voices, but he couldn’t make out what they said.

Persons came back on the line.  “You’re on the street in front of the house, yes?”

Troy glanced up and down the empty street.  It was very cold out here.  His breath rose in white plumes.  Inside the house, his family was eating dinner without him. 

“Yes.”

“Look to the left, about twenty meters down on the other side of the street.  You see a dark car parked there under a tree?”

Troy looked.  “Yes.” 

The car was deep in shadow.  It was impossible to say if anyone was inside.

“They’re going to flash their high beams at you in a few seconds.”

Troy watched as the bright headlights came on, then turned off again.  They left flaming coronas of fire on his eyeballs.  He blinked, and then blinked again. 

“Thanks for that.  Who are they, undercover cops?”

He said it with a hint of sarcasm, but he would admit it did make him feel a bit better.

“No,” Persons said.  “Not cops.  Federales.  People quite a bit like yourself.  Dropped out of Charm School.  Failed at Negotiating 101.  Not much patience for troublemakers.  We’ve got them there, and watching all your brothers’ homes as well.”

And that was even better. 

Troy sighed again.  He looked up at the dark sky.

“Madrid,” he said.  “When?”

“Finish dinner with your family,” Persons said, as if he was offering a great gift.  “Enjoy your time with them, and see them all off.  We’ve got a plane fueled and ready to go at LaGuardia.  The car will pick you up at midnight.  That time of night, there’s no traffic.  Figure on wheels up a little after one am.”

“That’s very generous,” Troy said. 

“I aim to please,” Persons said.  “And I get that this is an inconvenience.  But it’s real, or I wouldn’t call.  If something does happen, I need you in position.”

“All right.”

“And Stark?  You don’t know anything about this.  When you get back to your comrades in Europe, you know what they know.  You learn as they learn.  You’re as in the dark as anybody.”

Troy smiled.  “That’s pretty well true, in any case.”

"If nothing happens, terrific.  False alarm.  If something does happen, we don't want any spillover.  And we want our girl back if we can get her."

Secrets.  Weapons systems.  They didn’t want their enemies, or their allies, or concerned third parties, to know what the Pentagon was working on.

"I understand…," Troy began to say, but then the line had already gone dead.  He stopped speaking, looked at his phone, and grunted. 

He glanced down the street at the car again.  It seemed crouched like a spider, ready to jump on its prey.  Silent watchers, dark guardian angels, were inside there.  At least, that’s what Persons would make them out to be.

Troy nodded.  He didn’t want to do this, but…

“Okay.”

He went back in the house to his loved ones.

CHAPTER FIVE

February 3

2:15 am Central European Time

Outside the village of Karasjok

Norway

Near the border of Finland

“You’re nervous,” Viktor Laskov said.  “You’re shaking.”

It was true.  Amelia could barely control the movements of her own body.  There was a tremor moving along her spine, radiating outward through her limbs.  Her hands were shoved deep into her pockets because they were obviously trembling. 

She and Viktor were inside her personal quarters - a small room with little more than a double bed on a steel frame, a single small dresser with a mirror mounted on top, a tiny wooden desk with numerous printouts piled on top, and a chair.  She had been living a Spartan lifestyle non-stop for months on end. 

Still, this was her sanctuary, her private place, the one place she could escape the proximity of the others, in the lab, in the research facility, in the dining hall, in the bathrooms and shower rooms.  This was the room where she and Viktor would share their most intimate moments.

Now, she couldn't even bring herself to face him.

Synapses fired in her brain, a cascade of thoughts crashing like waves upon the shore of her mind, one after the other, beating her with their ferocity. 

She had already decided.  As soon as she returned to civilization, she was going to contact the police.  She couldn’t risk it from here, because Irina monitored all outgoing and incoming messages.  But they were all leaving now.  The work here was done.  In fact, most of the computer equipment in the research facility had been removed. 

Most of the staff had already left.

The CF7 had been carefully divided, packed and sealed.  It was moving out on small cargo planes right now, headed for airstrips and airports across Eastern Europe, and ultimately arriving one shipment at a time at a secret staging facility in Belgrade.  From there, it would go around the world. 

In a very real way, Amelia’s role in this plot was coming to an end.  Anyone with a little bit of training could continue to grow and administer the CF7 in mobile labs anywhere.  The advanced Biosafety lab where she and her team developed it was slowly being scrubbed, disinfected, and would be broken down within the next day.

Forty-eight hours from now, it would be as though no one had ever been here.  If all went according to plan, a few days from now, the whole building was going to burn to the ground in a mysterious fire that would never be explained, and probably wouldn’t even be investigated.  By the time the place burned, humanity would have much larger issues to worry about.

She had made a terrible mistake.  It was too late to stop the first attack - the operatives had been sent two days ago, and they were impossible to call back.  The water was probably already contaminated.  But she could stop the subsequent attacks.  She would contact the European authorities, or Interpol, the FBI, an American military base, whatever was closest, and whatever was easiest.  She would tell them everything.

The process they had undertaken, the hiding places for the CF7, the people involved, the routes the materials were taking, cities and countries that were targeted - all of it.

They would believe her because of who she was.  After all, she was Amelia Pinter, Senior Bio-ethicist at the Pentagon, who had quit and then gone underground five years ago.  They would listen to her, and they would send troops out, commandos, to raid all of the hiding places before it was too late.  She would go to prison the rest of her life, but she was going to stop this.  The people who died in the first wave would forever be on her conscience, but if she lived long enough, perhaps she could find some way to make amends.

Of course, she couldn’t tell Viktor any of this.  She wasn’t about to volunteer the information that she was going to unravel all of their work, years in the making.  But she had to tell him something.  Her emotions were always laid bare to him.  It was as if she was made of clear glass, and he could see right through her.

“Romania,” she said.  “I’m nervous about Romania.”

She couldn’t even turn to face him.

Behind her, she heard him sigh.

“Of course you are,” he said.  “Who wouldn’t be?” 

They had chosen the region of Nord-Est in Romania as the site of the first attack.  It was remote and impoverished, and it bordered on Moldova, perhaps the poorest country in Europe.  The source of water for many people in that area was the Prut River, which served as the frontier between the two countries.  The drinking water there was always iffy, and the river probably hadn't been particularly clean since the Middle Ages, but was about to be more toxic than at any time in its history. 

The people of rural Romania and Moldova were the test case.  At least initially, no one would have any idea what was happening.  How would the local emergency services react?  How would the antiquated medical infrastructure of a long-neglected region handle the crush of dead and dying people?  How would a poor country like Romania, and an even poorer country like Moldova, respond to a crisis, a fast-spreading and deadly disease, within their own borders?  Could they coordinate their response?  Would more advanced organizations, such as the European Union or NATO, step in?  If so, how quickly? 

Would there be a quarantine imposed?  Would local people take ineffective precautions and pass the disease among themselves?  Would the disease break out into the larger world?  Would the cholera survive, multiply and flow downriver, striking more towns and cities?  What if the river carried it all the way to the sea? 

There were a million questions, and many would be answered with this attack.

It was unlikely, but within the realm of possibility, that the weaponized cholera would break out from this one isolated region, and travel around the world.

Much more likely, their organization would gain insights about how the advanced world might answer the challenge of a cholera pandemic.  Places like the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, China, even Russia, had exceptionally stringent water protections.  It would be difficult to cause widespread outbreaks in these places.

But what would those advanced countries do when devastating outbreaks occurred across India, Pakistan, the Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America?  Would they clamp down on dissent, on travel, on global trade?  The outbreaks would send millions of people on the move, attempting to escape.  How many would die in the migrant border crises?  What would India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed countries who hated each other, do when their societies began to collapse with terrifying speed?

It ate at her, how many people were going to die.  And it ate at her, how so many of them would be black and brown people, impoverished peoples of the global south.  The great world powers, with their modern systems in place, might find some way to survive this disaster.  The backwaters were going to be annihilated. 

“I’m worried,” Amelia said.  “A lot of people are going to die.”

“Yes,” Viktor said from behind her.

She didn’t want to say too much.  She wanted it to sound like she was concerned about the weight of all this on her conscience after it happened, not that she would try to put a stop to it before it happened.

She paused, took a deep breath, and stepped over the line.

“Everywhere on Earth, they’re all going to die.”

"I respect your concern for the world," Viktor said.  Now, he sounded cheerful.  "Humanity will rebound eventually, but at a much lower level.  And the balance will be restored."

Suddenly, his voice turned cold.

“In any event, it’s a little late to worry about all this now.”

Amelia felt a line of goosebumps go up her back.  Still, she didn’t dare face him, because she knew he would see the truth in her eyes.  He could read her mind.  If he saw her eyes, he would see what was in her heart. 

There was something almost supernatural about him. 

She had fallen for him, fallen hard.  At first, it was his body.  He was taller than everyone around him.  Many tall men gave the appearance of being stretched, as though they were plants who grew too high.  Viktor wasn’t like that.  He was perfectly proportioned.

Like a Greek god.

But his mind, and his laser eyes, are what came to own her.

"It's too late," he said again, his voice rising the smallest amount.  "Isn't it?"

***

Viktor had already removed his leather belt from the loops in his pants.

He had done it slowly, the entire time Amelia was talking.  He supposed he had known this was her fate all along.  She was a brilliant scientist, but fearful, perhaps even weak-kneed, and foolish in her own way. 

There was no place on the Ark for people like this.  Viktor needed strong-willed people, people who were courageous, even fearless, who were looking forward to what was coming with a sense of adventure and possibility.

With someone like Amelia, you could never quite trust her.  There were bound to be hiccups on the road ahead, and someone who lost their courage might…

Do something foolish.

She stood in her white lab coat with her back to him, looking away.  Her posture was one of submission, her head down, her shoulders hunched.  This is how he liked her.  This was how he liked everyone.

He stepped toward her, moving silently. 

“I know it’s late,” she said.  “And I’m sorry to burden you with this.  I slept terribly last night, and I was awake thinking about these things…”

She would try to shift the blame for her worries on him.  That was par for the course.  He had slept in Irina’s quarters last night, celebrating with the wildcat, the actual one who had no fear, and so let him think Amelia had lain on her back all night, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, and wondering about their relationship.

“It’s fine,” Viktor said, although it wasn’t fine.  “And I completely understand,” he continued, and that part was true enough.

He made a loop with the belt, pulling it through the buckle.  He stepped very close to her, his body just touching hers.  She was tiny compared to him.  Her light brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and it pressed against his chest. 

With his left hand, he gently reached around and placed his palm against her throat.  She liked that.  She always had.  Gently, gently, he lifted her chin up. 

“Come on,” he cooed to her.  “It’s going to be all right.”

“I know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. 

He could feel how her entire body was trembling.  With a sudden move, he brought the loop of the belt down over her head to her throat.  He pulled it taut with his right hand and used his left hand to tighten the buckle against the back of her neck.

The effect on her was electric.  Her body thrummed, then began flopping like a fish.  Although she was small, in an instant, she became immensely strong - much stronger than she looked.  Viktor pulled the belt ever tighter against her throat. 

They crashed around the room, Amelia trying to shake him off.  She beat at his head with her small fists, and he rode her like she was a rodeo bull.  He redoubled his effort, then redoubled it again. 

For a second, he saw his own face in the mirror - it was a mask of effort and concentration, hovering above Amelia’s panicked, choking face, her eyes bulging out of their sockets.  Her face was bright red, then turned a deeper color.  Her hands came to her neck and pulled at the belt.

Now Viktor sank backwards to the stone floor.  He grunted and strained, choking Amelia with all his strength, choking the life out of her.  Her body lay across his chest, still fighting, still gasping, her legs kicking, her hands trying to find him and tear at him. 

A few moments later, she subsided, and her dead weight settled on top of him.

He released his grip on her throat, then pushed her body off.  He sat up, his back against the side of the bed, and relaxed for a little while.  His own breathing was labored, and his heart was galloping along.  It took quite an effort to kill her, more than he expected.

He watched her as his breathing and his pulse gradually slowed.

Her body was still.

“No one home,” he said.

He removed the belt from her throat, pushed himself to his feet, and checked his look in the mirror again as he looped the belt around his slacks again.  He looked normal, very much himself, a handsome middle-aged man with calm, but piercing eyes.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  He took a deep breath, his large shoulders rising and falling. 

He was the man people called a visionary.  He was the man the very smart scientists and activists here looked to for leadership.  And he would provide it to them.

He turned and left the room, locking it behind him with his own key.

Out in the main research hall, there was almost nothing left.  The electronics were gone.  Even most of the lighting had already been stripped out.  Equipment was being loaded, and trucks and planes were leaving in staggered intervals, so as not to attract attention. 

Before dawn, Viktor himself would be gone from here.  There was the lingering question of Amelia Pinter’s body, but how much of a question was it?  Every person here believed themselves complicit in the murder of billions of people.  Nearly every person here (not including Viktor) expected to be dead within a few weeks from now. 

What was one more body amidst all of that death?  In all likelihood, the last crews would either ignore the body or bury it.  They might not find it at all.  And it would burn with everything else in the fire. 

A small group of scientists were congregated around one of the few remaining tables.  The table had been cleared of everything except two bottles of vodka and some plastic cups.  The clear bottles were stark against the metallic surface of the table.

Viktor looked at them.  Irina was here, as was Robert Osgard, the man who had demonstrated the deadly effect of the bacteria’s final version on a group of mice.  There were also a couple of others.

“Dr. Laskov,” Osgard said, holding up an empty cup.  “Drink with us.”

“Thank you,” Viktor said.  “I certainly will.”

Osgard uncapped a bottle and poured the clear liquid into five of the plastic cups, each one catching the gleam of overhead lights.  In a moment, they all had cups half filled with vodka.

“To success,” Osgard toasted, lifting his glass.  The others followed suit, their flimsy cups making no sound as they clinked them together.

“And to a new world,” Viktor said. 

He could feel the gravity of the moment, and everything they had done, weighing heavily on his chest, but his resolve did not waver.  If anything, he was more committed than ever.  He was committed to something other than what they were, but so be it.  They were all comrades in this moment.

He looked at the beautiful Irina, with her long dark hair and the mystery in her eyes.  She was, if anything, the opposite of Amelia Pinter in nearly every way.  She was hot-blooded and passionate, for example, where Amelia could be cold and calculating. 

Irina wasn’t impulsive - they couldn’t afford to have anyone like that here - but her mind worked quickly and she made fast decisions.  Amelia’s mind solved deeply complicated problems, but did so at a nearly glacial pace. 

Irina was confident where Amelia was full of doubts.  Until a few moments ago, Amelia had been Viktor’s number two on this project.  But fortune favored the bold, and now Irina would step into that role.

The moment lingered, suspended in time.

“To a new world,” they all said in unison.

CHAPTER SIX

4:45 pm Central European Time

Headquarters of El Grupo Especial

Outskirts of Madrid

Spain

"Agent Stark," a voice rumbled from Troy's left. "Thank you for coming."

Miquel Castro-Ruiz stood like a sentinel at an open office door. He was impeccably dressed in a blue pinstriped suit. His hair was short and slicked back. His face was lined with years of chronic worry, and his goatee was nearly entirely white. But his eyes were sharp and alert.

Miquel was back on top, and he looked the part. After the China mission, El Grupo was probably untouchable. For a little while, anyway. 

Troy had touched down from New York City around noon and had gone to his flat. It was a hard flight with a lot of turbulence, and he barely slept. Across the street, they had removed the burned-out cars, but the small parking lot itself, and the walls of the surrounding buildings, were still smudged black with soot.

No one knew he was there. No one was expecting him back. There was no reason to go into the office. He could stay right here and sleep until tomorrow. He collapsed onto his bed and was out almost before his head hit the pillow.

Then his phone was buzzing. An hour might have passed. A minute might have passed. Troy had no idea. Eyes closed, his hand found the phone, pressed the answer button through muscle memory, and held it to his face. He didn't even try to see who was calling.

“Yeah.”

“Agent Stark?”

It was Miquel Castro-Ruiz.  Of course, it was. How could it be anyone else?

"Yes. Miquel, how are you?"

“Stark, where are you right now?”

Troy's eyes were still closed, and he couldn't see his surroundings. There was a sense of dislocation. He had to think about the question for a long second. Might as well ask him what planet he was on.

“At my flat.”

“I thought you went to New York,” Miquel said. 

 “I, uh… Didn’t happen.”

Miquel moved on without pursuing it. He wasn't interested.

“Can you come in?” he said.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Trouble?” Troy said. 

“Parece que si,” Miquel said, lapsing into Spanish for a second.

Seems like it.

“I don’t have a car at the moment,” Troy said.

Thank God for that. If he had a car, he'd be driving it with his eyes closed.

"I know," Miquel said. "We'll send one. Also, pack an overnight bag."

Now, an hour later and at El Grupo headquarters, Troy followed Miquel down the hall to the conference room. 

"Dubois just returned from Paris," Miquel said. "She's also on her way."

“Then it’s a party,” Troy said. 

His stomach did a little lazy flop at the mention of Dubois's name. An image of her body, sprawled in his bed, flashed in his mind, but he blinked that away. Dubois ran hot, so hot it would scald you, and then cold indeed. She was hard to figure. 

He very badly wanted to see her. Maybe he didn't realize how much until this moment. But he didn't want to hear a lot of impersonal, all-business "Agent Stark, we need to analyze this mountain of data." 

That's where she went to hide. He didn't want her hiding from him, not anymore. 

The conference room was dominated by a long, high-tech table, its surface alive with a series of five monitors, with a keyboard for each. The large monitor on the wall, at the far end of the room, sat quiet and ignored. A line of black CPUs were stuffed under the table.    

"Jan," Troy said, nodding to the hulking figure of Agent Jan Bakker, who sat hunched over the table, absorbed in the data in front of him. Jan lifted his bald head and turned to Troy, the thin, steel-rimmed glasses on his face as incongruous as ever. Jan wore an open throated blue dress shirt, with what looked like a faded coffee stain under the front pocket. 

Miquel would probably let Jan wear a bright red kimono if he wanted. Jan was thought to be one of the fastest and sharpest minds in Europe.

"Hello, Agent Stark," Jan said. "Good to have you back."

"Did you reconfigure this room?" Troy said. "I'm gone just a few days and everything's changed."

Jan shook his head. "There's so much happening, I need to keep track of multiple sources of information at once."  He gestured at the wall monitor. "The old system isn't enough."    

Troy glanced at the screens. A couple of them seemed to show satellite imagery. There was a dark river, some lights, maybe a small town. The other two screens showed walls of scrolling data. Troy couldn't make any sense of those.

Jan turned back to the monitors. His large hands moved deftly over one of the keyboards, zooming in on a dark image that Troy couldn't quite make out.

“What’s going on?” Troy said. 

Along one wall was the snack table and the coffee maker. There were no snacks, but someone had recently made a pot of coffee. Steam was still rising from the top. Troy dropped his bag and moved toward the table. He grabbed a white Styrofoam cup off the top of the stack.

“Why don’t we just get started?” Miquel said, his tone leaving no more room for pleasantries.

"Fine with me," Troy said, as he poured himself a cup of the black fuel. "You don't want to wait for Dubois?"

"She knows some of this already. She'll catch up."

Troy poured two yellow packets of fake sugar into his coffee and stirred the whole mess with a red plastic straw. 

"Okay. Get me up to speed. Something serious, I gather?"

“Have you seen the news?” Miquel said. 

Troy shook his head. "I've uh…  No. I really haven't."  What was he supposed to say? I've been on an airplane from New York?

"Cholera outbreak," Jan said, without turning around. "A bad one."

Troy looked over Jan's broad shoulder. On one screen, an abandoned car was parked askew along a dirt road in a village somewhere, doors ajar as if their inhabitants had fled mid-motion. A playground in front of what might be a school stood silent, several blackbirds perched atop a swing set. It was dusk there, and no one was around. The sky was a sort of red and purple.

“Where?”

"Romania," Jan said. "In the northeast, along the border with Moldova. It seems to have jumped the border into Moldova, but we think it started on the Romanian side."

Troy sipped the coffee, his brain trying to fire up and remind him what he once knew about cholera outbreaks. Deadly, for sure, but also containable.

There’s a missing microbiologist.

The voice of Missing Persons seemed to whisper in his ear.

“We lost one of ours.”

"Okay cholera," Troy said. "Third World disease, generally speaking. Contaminated water supply. What's the environment there like? It looks like backcountry from the images."

"It's one of the poorest regions in Europe," Miquel said. "Romania has been improving since they joined the EU, but these rural regions still have high levels of poverty. Moldova's economy collapsed when the Soviet Union collapsed, and has made little progress since. It may be the poorest country in all of Europe. In particular, the Romani on both sides of the border live in something like absolute poverty."

Troy looked at him. "Gypsies?"

Miquel didn't smile. "If you like. The rest of us say Romani now. The border between the two countries is the River Prut. Many people take their drinking and bathing water right out of the river."

On one of the screens, Jan pulled up another image of the river, dark land on either side, rising steeply from the banks. The river itself appeared to be frozen.

“It’s frozen,” Troy said.

"It's running underneath," Jan said. "The ice is just a few centimeters thick and very thin along the edges. It's been a warm winter there this year."

"Do we suspect this is a crime?" Troy said, already knowing the answer. "I mean, cholera is endemic in certain places, no?"

"Not in Romania," Jan said. "And certainly not in winter."

"It's spreading faster than a wildfire," Miquel said. Troy could detect both the anger and the dread in Miquel's voice. Miquel's approach to life was formed by the Atocha train station bombing nearly 20 years ago. Miquel had a visceral hatred for acts of terror - and terrorists - like no one Troy had known before.

"What seemed to start this morning in one village is moving through the countryside. It's exploding. There have been hundreds of cases. No one knows how many, and no one knows how many people have died. And night is coming in."

Jan's fingers zipped across a keyboard and zoomed in to an image showing red clusters that seemed to mark population centers. "The infrastructure there is poor. The facilities are small, old and antiquated. There is a lack of medical personnel and equipment. The hospitals were overwhelmed by early this afternoon. That's on the Romanian side. There isn't much information flowing out of Moldova."

He turned and faced them again. "Since communism fell, Moldova hasn't been entirely successful in making the transition to an open society."

From anyone else, this would have been said with sarcasm. Jan said it with a sincerity that almost made Troy laugh.

"Okay," Troy said instead. "So bio-weapons? An attack of some kind?"

"We don't know," Miquel said. "But we need to find out."

Troy stared at an image of an empty village. The houses appeared to be made of cement or cinderblock. Most of the roofs were a kind of steep-sloping tile, but a few were thatched. There was some kind of gas works or pipeline in the middle distance, steam rising from it, and low mountains in the background. Near the front, parked along the rutted and pitted road, was a green one-person tractor, empty.

“Who would do it?” he said.

“We don’t know that either.”

Troy flashed back to his conversation with Missing Persons.

“She went off the plantation and over to the other side,” Persons had said. 

“Which side?”

Persons's answer had been non-committal. "Hard to say."

Miquel paced a short stretch of the room, his footsteps muted by the carpet in here.

"We can't rule anything out. We only know it's cholera because the medics there have collected bacteria samples from the patients. The initial symptoms are not like cholera. People just started dying in minutes. Their systems seemed to seize up. Heart attacks and respiratory arrest, but caused by extreme involuntary muscle spasms."

"Some people have survived longer," Jan said. "They get traditional cholera symptoms, only much more severe. The fluid loss in these patients has been difficult for the systems there to manage. They are dumping buckets of vomit and diarrhea into the alleyways outside. I have footage, if you care to see it."

Troy didn't even want to think about that, never mind look at it. "Re-hydration therapy," he said. Now, it was all starting to come back to him. Cholera was very treatable, if caught early enough. Once an outbreak was under control, 95% of the patients could expect to survive.

"Antibiotics," he said. "Bottled water."

"Death comes too fast for that," Miquel said. "The disease seems impossible to treat. That's what we're hearing."

"If it's a naturally occurring outbreak," Troy said, "that's outside our wheelhouse. The United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, the EU, whoever."

FOMAP, if such a thing actually existed.

"It's their expertise, and their jurisdiction. Nothing for us to do."

“That’s right,” Miquel said.

Troy nodded. He figured he'd try one last time to pretend that this was something other than what it appeared to be. "In 2010, at least 10,000 people died from cholera in Haiti. It didn't happen naturally. It was an accident. UN peacekeepers were dumping their latrine waste into a river. Then, in Yemen, since the outbreak of the war with Saudi Arabia, cholera has killed probably twice that number."

“What do Yemen and Haiti have in common?” Miquel said.  

Troy shrugged. "I don't know. Poverty. Violence. Lack of modern sanitation."

"Heat," Miquel said. "They're both hot. Cholera likes warmth."

Troy glanced again at the photo of the iced-over River Prut.

“Ah.”

“This is cholera that is not acting like natural cholera.”

“Sorry I’m late,” came a deeply musical female voice.

Agent Dubois stepped into the room.

As usual, she wore a form-fitting black bodysuit. The bodysuit was several shades darker than her skin, which was like coffee with cream in it. There was a metallic belt around her waist that reminded Troy of intertwined handcuffs. She had chunky black combat boots on her feet. Her hair was up in a tall Afro, a bright yellow sash wrapped around it. 

She was, in a word, beautiful.

She carried a big leather satchel over one shoulder.

Troy met her dark eyes. Everything was there between them, unspoken. She stared at him, but she did not smile.

“Agent Stark, good to see you,” she said. 

Troy nodded. "Agent Dubois."

“Are you ready to go?”

Troy smiled. "Am I ready to go where?"

She glanced at Jan and Miquel.  Now, the three of them were all looking back and forth at each other.

"These guys didn't tell you? We're going to Romania."

“No one mentioned it,” Troy said. 

“We hadn’t gotten that far,” Miquel said. 

"Well, this is good news," Troy said. "I woke up today hoping that Agent Dubois and I could fly away somewhere special together."

“Few places are more special than cholera outbreaks,” Dubois said. 

“I like to call them hot zones.”

"I've prepared tablet computers for you both," Jan said. "Everything that we have so far is on them. I will continue sending you information as it comes in. There will be a blackout period on the plane, but you can use that time to catch up on the background. Everything new will download as soon as you land in the country. And Dubois, I've been tracking your chip and your mother's chip, very easily. We won't lose you again."

Troy looked at Dubois. "Chip?

She seemed sheepish, maybe she even blushed a bit. "After Albania, after being abducted and nearly sold into slavery, I did what the man who was searching for his missing sister in England, George Goddard did, and had myself, and my mom, micro-chipped with a GPS tracker. The chips are hard for outsiders to find, and Jan here can monitor our whereabouts."

Troy turned and looked at Jan. His glasses reflected the overhead light so that Troy couldn't see his eyes. He looked like a giant robot.

"How do the chips feel?" Jan said. "Any trouble, swelling?"

Dubois shook her head. "No trouble at all."

Jan looked at Troy. "You should consider it, Agent Stark. You're often in danger. There is the threat of you being captured or otherwise going missing."

Troy nearly laughed. "Ah… no thanks. I'm going to try to stay 100% human as long as possible. These new cyborg-human mixed breeds make me a little uncomfortable."

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Dubois said.

"Let's return to the real topic, shall we?" Miquel said. "Romania."

"What are we going to do there?" Troy said. He decided to shrug off Dubois's embedded robot circuitry. She hadn't mentioned it to him before now, and if Jan hadn't brought it up, she might never have. 

“The place will be crawling with incoming medical personnel, aid workers, logistics people, epidemiologists, not to mention gigantic amounts of material, starting with clean bottled water.”

“Treat it like a crime scene,” Miquel said. 

Troy shrugged. "I'm guessing there will be teams of forensic investigators with backgrounds in biological sciences. They're probably already arriving there. If the bacteria was introduced, they'll figure it out."

“That’s not what I meant,” Miquel said. 

Troy stared at him. 

Miquel's face was deeply lined. Had it always looked like that, or had he aged several years just this afternoon? His eyes were hard.

"You and Dubois will be able to move quickly, and you may get out ahead of everyone. You won't need to prepare your equipment and organize your people at the airport. Slip inside the quarantine as soon as you arrive. Look for bad guys. They must have come into the area at some point very recently. They must have staged somewhere. Someone local must have hid them, and helped them."

Miquel paused, but just for a second. "They might even still be there, and you might find them. If you happen to get that lucky, bring them in."

Troy glanced at Dubois. 

She was tiny. She was pretty. She was sexy. The closer he grew to her, the more he hated the idea of her in dangerous situations. And yet, he had seen her hold her own again and again, in gun battles, in karate-kicking brawls, in madcap car and boat and helicopter chases.

Troy nodded. "We can do that."

CHAPTER SEVEN

9:15 pm Eastern European Time (8:15 pm Central European Time)

The Skies Above Eastern Europe

Nearing Aeroportful International Stefan cel Mare - Suceava

Nord-Est

Romania

“I’m curious about something,” Agent Dubois said.

The six-seat Lear jet flew east across the night sky. Miquel Castro-Ruiz and El Grupo Especial really were coming up in the world.

It wasn't a big plane, but it was new and beautifully appointed. Deep leather executive chairs, two and two facing each other, and then another two just behind. In the back, next to the bathroom, was a small snack bar and refrigerator. There were bottles of water, soft drinks of choice, iced coffee, and even a few beers in the fridge.

Troy and Dubois sat facing each other, their bags on the seats behind them. Dubois had out the tablet Jan Bakker had given her, booted up, the screen glowing softly in her face. Troy's tablet was on the seat next to him. Dubois had kicked off her boots, and her small feet were up on the seat near his tablet. Troy fought the urge to take one of her feet in his hand.

His eyes followed the legs of her bodysuit up to the handcuff-style belt at her waist. Red alert. No looking that way.  

He shook his head and glanced out his window. The plane was flying east, so he was looking to the south. It didn't matter. It was full dark out there, nothing to see but the blinking lights of the plane itself. 

He had passed out within minutes of the plane taking off, and Dubois, kindly soul that she was, had let him sleep. 

Dubois being Dubois, she had probably read every word of the material Jan had provided, each document in its language of origin, to get the nuances that would otherwise be lost in translation. She had probably pored over every map and re-run the math on every statistical analysis. This was good. She could fill Troy in on the details.

She glanced over the top of her tablet, her dark eyes watching him.

Troy had just opened a bottle of iced coffee. It was time to wake up. He took a gulp. It tasted like milk and sugar, with a hint of coffee flavoring.

He looked at the bottle. 

“I’m curious if there’s any caffeine in this thing,” he said. 

"I'm curious how you came to be in Madrid when you were supposed to be in New York," Dubois said. 

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Troy said now. 

They stared at each other for a long moment. "I was never in New York. I canceled the trip after they blew up my car. I decided to stick around and see if I could…"

He trailed off and shrugged. "…figure things out a bit. I also didn't want whoever is trying to kill me to follow me to my mom's house."

Yes, he was lying to her. No, that was no way to begin a relationship, if that's what this was. But when push came to shove, they were spies. That's what spies did. They lied. Troy had no idea what Dubois was lying about, but there must be something.

Well, Dubois was more of a police officer, he supposed.

Cops lied too, though.

"You were on the passenger manifest," she said. "You got on the plane to New York, and you passed through US Customs when you arrived at JFK. Then, less than two days later, you were back in Madrid, with no record of you flying on any commercial carrier, or passing through any particular airport. You look exhausted, as if you've been traveling nonstop for days."

Troy said nothing for a long moment. He just stared and stared. 

"You keeping tabs on me, Agent Dubois?" he said finally. "I guess if I were micro-chipped, it would be easier to do that."

He didn't even bother to ask how she got her hands on this information. If Dubois wanted information, she was going to get it. Or Jan Bakker was going to get it for her. Troy thought of Miquel calling him and waking him up in the flat. They probably knew he had gone to New York and had just gotten back.

You’re not fooling anyone.

It was an uncomfortable thought.   

"I like you, Agent Stark," Dubois said. "But you present some mysteries that need to be resolved. When we were in Hong Kong, your friend Alex suddenly turned up in the role of hotel bellhop. Then he took me to the roof of the hotel, where we stole a helicopter."

Troy shook his head. "He's not my friend."

Now Dubois smiled. Her smile could light up a room.

No. It could light up the sky.

“That’s what he said.”

Troy blinked. "That's he not my friend?"

She shook her head. "No. He would be your friend if you let him. He said you're cold, emotionally distant, and hard to know."

Okay, so Dubois had him pegged. Alex had turned up in a pinch too many times. She was suspicious that Troy was working for someone else. He might as well try to nip that in the bud if such a thing were even possible.

Her eyes were the color of a stormy sea, dark and fathomless.

"The guy's a spook," he said. "He's a ghost. I don't know anything about him. He just keeps appearing. I don't even know his real name. How are you supposed to be friends with someone who won't even tell you their name?"

“Do you work for the CIA?” Dubois said.

Troy shook his head, answering her question seriously. "No. I work for Interpol, just like you. When Miquel hired me, when you met me, I was working for the NYPD. I used to be a Navy SEAL on loan to Pentagon special operations, which you probably already know. You saw the hearing on CSPAN. No, I was never in the Metal Shop. I never even heard of it until the politicians brought it up."

There he went, lying to her again. It was reflexive.

Maybe he was a liar. He didn't think of himself that way, but if you do a thing again and again, eventually you have to admit that to yourself. People who lied a lot were liars. Troy lied constantly, to his mother, to his brothers, to his co-workers, to his enemies and opponents, to random civilians he met. He'd probably lie to Missing Persons, but it would be to no avail. Persons would see right through it.

"Some of the stuff I did was deep cover, in very sensitive places and situations. But I'm not CIA. I'm not anything. That doesn't mean those people aren't following me. Alex could be one of them. I don't know what Alex is. But I don't mind him. He comes in handy sometimes. You have to admit that. There are worse things in this world than Alex."

"I'm willing to believe you," Dubois said. "Until it all turns out to be false."

"I hope you believe me," Troy said. "I'd like to believe that we have…"

She shook her head, her hair bouncing just a touch.

“That’s hard.”

“It didn’t seem that way the night we got back from Hong Kong.”

"I was drunk that night," she said. "I don't get drunk, but that night I did. I can get a little out of control when I drink."

Troy smiled. "Out of control? That's putting it mildly."

Dubois turned away, a dark flush rising under the skin of her face. 

Troy pointed behind her. "There are beers in the fridge back there, if you're interested. I think we've got a little time before we land."

He was treating it like a joke, but it wasn't funny. She kept hiding behind excuses. The night in the water off the coast of Albania, it was because the boat had exploded, and she was so relieved to see him. The night after they got back from Hong Kong, she was drunk, and hey, things happen when you're drunk.

Frustrating. 

Now they were headed right into the middle of another dangerous situation, this time a deadly disease outbreak, and there was no open discussion of feelings or concerns. There was nothing. If he tried to express his worries to her, his worries about her safety, she was bound to shut it down. He wasn't allowed to say things like that.

“Maybe we should talk about the job,” he said instead. 

She nodded. "I think that would be best."

“So what do we have?”

"Well," she said. "While you were asleep, I read the reports."

He smiled, but it was only a ghost of what it could be. "I love that about you."

"There's no way this disease is naturally occurring," she said, shrugging off the word love. The glow from the tablet screen cast a pale blue tint across her face. "That's Jan's assessment, and I agree with him. Cholera in winter is basically unheard of. The progression of the illness is rapid and violent - which is true of cholera in general, but this is much faster. Anecdotal, first-hand accounts suggest that people have been dying within minutes of exposure. Their hearts stop, entire organ systems seem to seize up, like there's sand in the gears. Those appear to be people who get a large dose, likely from ingesting infected water."

Troy sighed. "Bad."  They were flying right into this. 

She nodded. "Yes. Bad. Other people survive longer, and these may be people who catch it from exposure to droplets or maybe from touching an infected surface. It can take hours for them to die, and they die from explosive loss of fluids. I have photos here of people who look withered, like dried apples."

“I’ll pass,” Troy said.

"You're going to see them anyway when we get there."

He nodded. "I know."

"There are no accurate counts of the dead and dying," Dubois said. "Everything is moving too fast, and whoever did this picked a place with weak medical infrastructure. All we know is a lot of people are dying, and the disease is spreading quickly. Cholera outbreaks are usually somewhat localized to a place with ideal conditions, and they don't spread far from there. In this case, the conditions are the opposite of what you'd expect, and the outbreak seems like it's going to be difficult to contain."

Troy thought of the wayward Pentagon microbiologist. Missing Persons knew more about the woman than he was willing to say during that call. He might have changed his mind by now. 

"There's no information coming out of Moldova anymore, not that there was much to begin with. They've closed the border. It's probably complete chaos on that side. We probably won't even be able to get over there."

They anticipated that.

The thought hit him like a brick between the eyes. The bad guys knew the Moldovans would be helpless in the face of this. And the government there would do the one thing they were good at - clamping down, closing borders, and cutting off communication.

“Why attack Romania, and Moldova?” Troy said. 

Dubois shook her head. "Jan has a few ideas, but they don't even rise to the level of hypotheses. They're both former communist countries. Romania was in the Eastern Bloc, and Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. They're both backward by European standards. Infrastructure, including medical care, is poor in rural Romania, to nearly nonexistent in rural Moldova. Romanians and Moldovans are ethnically similar, and speak the same language. Maybe some kind of revenge is a motive. Maybe it's practice for a larger attack. Maybe the attack is really on Romania, and Moldova is collateral damage. Or vice versa." 

“It’s biological warfare in any case,” Troy said, the words tasting bitter on his tongue.

Dubois nodded. "Yes. Almost certainly."

"But why? There are plenty of places in this world with weak medical infrastructure, much weaker than Romania. Why would they do it there?"

“That is the question,” Dubois said.

***

“It’s going to kill everyone!” someone shouted. 

A split second of silence followed, and then:

“They’re trying to kill everyone on Earth!”

Havoc had taken over the small airfield. They called it an international airport, but that could mean puddle jumps across the border. Troy could see the terminal, a somewhat modern-looking three-story building, but there was no obvious way to get to it. Hundreds of people roamed the grounds between here and there. 

The control tower was a dark sentinel in the cold, foggy night, lit brightly on the top floor but nowhere else.

People were outside of the terminal, on the tarmac, crowding the two runways. Riot police with heavy plastic shields and clubs were there to beat them back. Two lines of squat trucks patrolled the edges of the runways, pummeling the crowds with water cannons.

They’re all trying to leave.

The shouter appeared. He was a haggard middle-aged man, and suddenly he was right in Troy's face, a dirty cloth bag slung over his shoulder, eyes dark and wild. 

"Take me with you," he said in perfect English. "They're going to kill everyone."

Troy shook his head. "We just got here, buddy. We're not going anywhere."

It occurred to Troy that he and Dubois should already be masked, and they weren't. They were completely exposed out here, and there was no way of knowing if these people had the disease or didn't. 

Their personal protective gear was in their bags. They needed to break it out, and pronto. It was an oversight getting off the plane without putting it on first. Airports in war zones tended to devolve into chaos. This was apparently a war zone.

"Dubois?" he called. "Hey, Dubois! We gotta get serious here."

Ten minutes ago, the pilots had come over the intercom, and told them that the plane was going to touch down, taxi, let them disembark, and then take off again. The airport wasn't letting nonessential aircraft park. The demand for airport space and resources was too great.

That sounded fine. But this? This wasn't fine. 

Now the man was pawing at Dubois. She was a few steps ahead, scanning the people on the grass, on the other side of the riot squad, for her local contact.

"Let me have your plane!" the man screamed. "I'll take it. I have to get away from here."

How did the guy even get over to this side? He should be over there, getting creamed by high-pressure water. 

Dubois tried to shrug the man off, but now he grabbed her by the backpack on her shoulders. Deftly, and with surprising strength, he spun her around. Now he was face to face with her. 

Troy didn't hesitate. He stepped up, dropped his rucksack on the ground, and clocked the guy in the back of the head, right where the spine met the skull. The man held his head with both hands and sank to his knees. Troy lifted a heavy work boot, kicked him in the back and knocked him onto his stomach.

“Stark!” Dubois shouted.

Troy raised a hand. "It's all right. I didn't hurt him."

The man was rolling side to side on the pavement. He was crying.

"Please. Please. They're trying to kill us all!"

"Buddy. Our plane is gone. Go bother someone else. Okay?"

As if to emphasize the truth of what he had just said, behind him a jet engine roared. He glanced back at it, and sure enough, the sleek, dark Interpol jet was zipping down the runway. He watched it get airborne and disappear into the fog.

The man stared up at Troy. His mouth hung open.

He’s gonna infect me.

The man was still holding both hands to his head. He spoke slowly now, as if Troy was a small child or a half-wit, someone who needed things explained to him in the simplest terms possible. 

"They are trying to kill everyone on Earth. I am going to die if I stay here." 

Troy nodded. "Yeah. I get it. But you see that pretty woman over there? Don't touch her again. If you do, it'll make me angry. I'm starting to lose my patience. Okay?"

Now, the man nodded. He was crazy, but there were some things he could grasp.

“Okay.”

Dubois was about ten meters away now, pacing the edge of the police line.  Fifty meters away, a truck unleashed an icy blast of water on a section of the crowd. A wall of screams and shrieks went up.

Behind them, another plane landed, a heavy one, a huge cargo plane with the red and white insignia of the International Red Cross on the side. Troy imagined it was full of personnel and supplies. They were going to find that one somewhere to park.

"Wait'll those guys get a load of this airport," Troy said under his breath. "They're gonna love it here."

He picked up his bag, slung it back over his shoulder and headed over to Dubois.

"Wait until you see it," the man called from the ground. His voice was perfectly confident. "Then you'll know. I'm not lying to you. They're going to kill everyone."

Troy raised a hand in salute, but didn’t turn around. 

As Troy caught up to Dubois, a man in a plastic face shield, and clad in some kind of police or soldier uniform approached her from the other side, his expression grim. A paper mask was down around his chin, like a chin strap a hockey player would wear. He had a hand-lettered sign in his hand, a piece of white cardboard.

DUBIOUS.

"Agent Dubious?" he said. "Interpol?"

Dubois nodded, ignoring the misspelled and mispronounced name. "Yes."

"I am Captain Zaharia.  Welcome to my country, such as it is right now. This is not our finest moment."

A smile broke across the man's face when he got a better look at Dubois. Dubois could make any man smile in any set of circumstances, if only for a second or two. 

"Thank you, Captain," Dubois said. "This is my partner, Agent Stark."

The captain nodded curtly to Troy.

"Mr. Stark," he said. "Welcome. I have masks, shields and gloves in the car. I suggest you wear them and keep them safe if you remove them for any reason. There are severe shortages. You will be lucky to find any again. The local people have no access to this equipment. If you take your eyes off them, they will be gone in an instant."

People were stealing used protective equipment, including masks that other people had worn on their mouths and noses. That wasn't necessarily a good sign.

As for Troy and Dubois, they could start by using this guy’s equipment, then move on to their own later, if need be.

“Agent Dubious and I are very thankful.”

Dubois looked at him, her eyes stern. But she said nothing.

They moved along the police line. At the far end, it was more secluded, and there appeared to be a checkpoint set up there. As they walked, a truck let off another water blast on the crowd.

Droplets were carried by the breeze into their faces.

“The water is clean, I can assure you,” Captain Zaharia said. 

That was easy for him to say. The droplets were pooling on and running down his face shield, but not his face. This was an outbreak of a water-borne disease, and they were spraying desperate, terrified people with water. Not even spraying - clobbering them.

“There is widespread panic,” he said now. 

“I believe it,” Troy said. 

"Everywhere in the countryside. There are so many dead, we lost count." 

They were approaching the checkpoint. It was two long folding tables, uniformed men sitting at each one, surrounded by other men toting rifles. There was a line of new arrivals, several already in hospital scrubs, or carrying heavy kit bags, waiting at each table. 

About a dozen soldiers were down on one knee, or prone on their stomachs, their rifles pointed into the crowd perhaps fifty meters away. If anyone tried to rush the checkpoint, there was going to be a massacre.

"There is no count of the dead," the captain repeated, saying it another way, in case the gravity of it hadn't hit them the first time. They joined the end of the line to the left table.

“I understand,” Dubois said.

"Everything is locked down," Zaharia said. "We have tried to quarantine the entire region. The reports coming out of the quarantine zones are troubling. Some are impossible to believe. Rumors are spreading. The people here can be very superstitious. Some people believe the Devil himself is here, walking the village lanes. Some believe the End of Days has come."

Troy looked into the man's eyes. It was possible, Troy realized, that Captain Zaharia also believed these things.

“Any leads on the original source of the outbreak?” Troy said.

Zaharia shook his head. "None. It's as if the Earth itself has turned against us."

“We’re going to need full access to the quarantine zones,” Dubois said.

"Of course," Zaharia said, though his eyes betrayed a sense of unease. "We will provide all the support you need."

“We don’t have any weapons,” Troy said. 

"I cannot help you with that," Zaharia said. "It's better this way. Foreign personnel cannot carry weapons into sensitive areas. We don't want any unfortunate incidents."

"All right," Troy said. He imagined that inside the quarantine zones, unfortunate incidents were happening by the truckload.

Captain Zaharia turned to face them both. 

"I am empowered to help you gain access to restricted areas - the quarantine zones, the hospitals and clinics, the local water sources. But my orders are to also advise you that it would be in your best interest to remain here at the airport until the situation stabilizes. It is safe here, relatively speaking. There are three hotels in this vicinity, and a few rooms are still available. I can obtain for you a room you both can share. In an hour, that will no longer be true."

He paused.

“If you leave this area, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

He looked deeply into Dubois’s eyes. 

"Many, many people are dying. We have lost count."

“Stark?” Dubois said. 

It seemed that Zaharia was getting to her a little bit.

"Agent Dubious," Troy said. "There's nothing I'd rather do than hide out in a hotel room with you until the plane returns, or Doomsday arrives, whichever comes first. But I don't think we're going to make any discoveries in a hotel room - at least none that pertain to this case."

She nodded. "Right."

“I’ll leave it up to you,” Troy said. 

In fact, he'd prefer if she stayed here. They were about to leap into the jaws of death yet again, and the prospect frightened him. Not for himself, but for her. 

“We thank you for your concern,” she said to Zaharia.  “But we’ll go in.”

Zaharia nodded. "Very well, then."

They reached the front of the line. A man at the desk wore a plastic face shield pointed a laser thermometer at Troy's forehead. He checked the reading and shrugged. He barked something at Troy in another language, which must be Romanian.

“I don’t understand,” Troy said. 

"He asked you if you've been feeling sick," Dubois said. "Chills, cough, anything at all?"

Troy thought back through the past 60 hours or so. Someone had blown up his car. He flew to New York and napped on his mother's couch. He got drunk with his brothers and flew back to Madrid, barely sleeping at all. He attended a brief meeting, then flew here to ground zero of a deadly cholera outbreak, dozing a tiny amount on yet another airplane.

He shrugged. "I've never felt better in my life."

"Passport," a second man said. Troy handed it to him.

This man wore no protective gear. Nothing had been standardized. Some people were wearing face shields and gloves, some were wearing N-95 type masks, and some were wearing paper carpenter's masks. Some, like this man, wasn't using anything at all.

They were taking the laissez faire approach to disease mitigation here. 

The guard pored through Troy's passport, looking at the pages with a penlight. After a moment, he found an empty page and placed it face up on the desk.

He didn't use a scanner on the passport. He didn't photocopy it. He didn't write anything down in a ledger. He simply stamped the blank page and handed it back to Troy.

The man's eyes were flat and blank.

“Enjoy your stay,” he said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

9:45 pm Central European Time

The Skies Above the Arctic Circle

The Barents Sea

South of the island of Svalbard

“Bitterly cold,” the man said.

The small Gulfstream jet crossed the night sky.

His name was Goran. He was the co-pilot of the last personnel flight away from the secret research station at Karasjok. The plane had taken off and headed north, deep into the Arctic, instead of the direction the people on board had expected, which was south.

Goran stood in the open doorway between the cockpit and the 10-seat passenger cabin. The cabin was full, the overhead lights on, all of the passengers slumped in their seats. Emergency oxygen masks had deployed, and they hung down from the overhead compartments like weird rubber snakes. 

A few of the people were slumped forward, but most had sunk down into their seats, their heads lolling to one side or another. They all looked like they were sleeping.

Goran breathed pure oxygen through a mask affixed to his face and attached to a portable tank strapped to his back. He also wore a black ski mask, with cut-outs where the mouth and nostrils were, and goggles over his eyes.

His goggles tended to fog over from the cold in here. The sound of his own breathing was almost the only thing that he could hear. 

He checked the altimeter on his wristwatch. They were flying at over 44,000 feet, not far south of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. He tried to check the temperature reading on his watch. It was difficult to toggle between features because of the thick wool mittens he wore on his hands. He was dressed in a polypropylene bodysuit, covered with thick wool pants and shirt, and covered again by a heavy winter parka. And he was still cold.

After a few tries, he got the temperature reading in the passenger. It was about minus 51 degrees Celsius, which made it about minus 60 Fahrenheit.

He moved slowly through the small passenger cabin, five seats on either side. On the right side, except for the lights of the airplane itself, the windows showed full darkness as far as the eye could see. On the left side, the northwest, there was a very faint glow of light on the ground somewhere in the distance. Goran knew there was a town on Svalbard, though he had forgotten the name of it. The light was probably from there. 

A couple of people had booted up laptop computers before they died, as if they were going to do some work during the flight. Both of the laptop screens were frozen to pages with dense blocks of writing on them.

Goran smiled at that. He had come to know the people on this plane over recent months. They were always working on something. 

What work was there to do at the moment of your death?

It was hard to say what most of the people had died of, lack of oxygen, or hypothermia. About 20 minutes after takeoff, once they had reached their current altitude, the pilot, a man named Leon, had depressurized the entire plane. 

Leon and Goran were already geared for the resulting oxygen and temperature loss. At more than 40,000 feet, and with no warning, the passengers would have only had five or ten seconds of useful consciousness in which to respond. The oxygen loss would have been that rapid.

Goran reached the man named Hydar.  Hydar was a man with skin the color of rich coffee and cream. Goran knew him a little, and had chatted with him in the food service room. Hydar was highly-intelligent, a biologist of some kind, who never stopped talking.

Hydar was the only passenger who managed, in the brief time allotted to him, to reach up, grab the emergency oxygen mask above his head, and affix it to his face. He might have saved himself, if he was dressed for the cold. Alas for Hydar, he was wearing only a pair of blue jeans, a light sweater, and stylish leather boots.

"Froze to death," Goran said. "I guess they all did."

Goran reached over with one heavy glove, removed the mask from Hydar's face, and let it go. The mask snapped upward and bounced on the end of its tether above Hydar's head. Hydar didn't move or make any sign. He was as dead as a chunk of wood. 

Slowly, Goran turned around and worked his way back through the cabin to the cockpit. He passed through the open door and then squeezed his way back into his seat. The sky was dark in front of him. Controls and readouts were lit up before him. 

He looked over at Leon. Leon turned to him.  

Through the oxygen mask and goggles, Goran could barely see Leon's face. The only things visible were his eyes.

“Status?” Leon said.

Goran nodded. "All clear."

"Good," Leon said, already working the controls to turn the plane around. In a moment, they would begin to pressurize the cabin and cockpit again. 

“Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER NINE

11:05 pm Eastern European Time (10:05 pm Central European Time)

Hospital San Francesco

Village of Ceaucescupol

Nord-Est

Romania

This was a city of the dead.

The hard rubber heels of Dubois's boots squeaked against the floor of the local hospital. The floor was badly streaked with dark smears, as though it had been washed and washed again, and would not come clean.

She and Stark were wearing heavy medical gowns made of a material similar to vinyl. They wore face shields and masks, and heavy rubber gloves. It was hot inside this outfit. She was sweating through her base layer of clothes, and already she wanted to leave. 

It was a mistake to come here. Zaharia had given them the option to simply stay in a hotel. They should have accepted the offer.

What message would that have sent Stark? The obvious one, of course. And if they had spent more than a few hours, or really any time at all, in that hotel room, the obvious would have happened again. 

Would that have been so bad? No. It would have been fine.

Much better than fine, if history was any guide.   

And no matter what happened, nothing could be as bad as this.

The road from the airport had been rutted with pot holes, and empty except for military vehicles. Zaharia had simply given them a car, gotten them through the first checkpoint, then sent them on their way. He had no interest in accompanying them, and anyway, he had more incoming VIPs to greet on the runway. 

So they had continued on by themselves, barely speaking. A light rain was falling, and the car's windshield wipers slapped out a slow tempo. In the dark, they passed a convoy of troop carriers going the other way. Stark was driving. 

Dubois drifted into a dreamlike state. She saw the light of flames from the bonfire behind her eyelids and thought she must still be asleep.

She snapped awake, her eyes popping open. They were in a parking lot full of old cars and trucks. The hospital loomed on a low hill above them, the fire off to their left. 

"We're here," Stark said. "Doesn't look like anyone is around."

“Did you reach Jan?” she said, as she blinked her eyes. 

Stark shook his head. "No. Satellites are probably overwhelmed. Cell communications are completely down. I thought I caught a signal for a few seconds, but then it fizzled."

“So we’re alone,” Dubois said.

Stark smiled, but there wasn't much enthusiasm in it. "You and me, baby." 

Now, inside the hospital, Dubois sighed. 

It was too quiet in here. From down the hall, there came the sound of groans and beeping machines, but much less sound than she would have expected. She glanced over her shoulder at Stark, who trailed behind her - his broad frame ill-suited for the narrow corridors lined with gurneys. Each gurney carried a corpse covered head to toe in a white blanket. 

Some of the blankets were saturated and stained, as though even in death the bodies were still expelling fluids. The harsh fluorescent lighting cast a yellow pallor over everything.

"Keep close," she murmured to Stark. "I don't want to get separated in here."

He nodded, his jaw set tight as they navigated through the maze of hallways. Dubois's training had prepared her for many things, but not this. Nothing was moving on these gurneys. Nothing was moving in the open rooms. No one appeared to be alive.

Through the windows came the flickering of a giant bonfire outside on the dark grounds of the hospital, perhaps two hundred meters from the building. Shadows cast by the flames danced on the walls.

A few medical staff, outfitted in gowns, face shields, masks, gloves and rubber boots, moved like specters among the dead. What little Dubois could see of their facial expressions suggested they were numb with shock and exhaustion. 

Dubois caught the eye of one nurse, a woman whose youth was belied by the fatigue in her posture - she looked like she might fold to the floor at any moment, and never get up again. Behind her face shield, the young woman was weeping silently.

“Agent Dubois,” a deep voice said.

She turned and a man approached, his white gown smeared and streaked. Behind his face shield and his mask, all that showed her his dark eyes. Even they were obscured by the sickly yellow overhead lights and the reflection of the fire.

"I'm Dr. Petrescu. I was told to expect you. You've come from Interpol?"

"That's right," Dubois said. She and the doctor kept some distance between themselves. Neither offered a hand to shake.

“And I understand you are investigating this as a crime?”

"Yes," Stark said beside her. "Can you describe what happened here?"

The man turned his entire body. 

“Stark, is it?”

“Yes.”

“I could describe it, but no one will believe me.”

“We will,” Dubois said. 

Dr. Petrescu led them down a hall that dead-ended in a secluded corner. There were two frosted glass doors here. He opened one, and they followed him inside. It was an office - little more than a desk, a couple of wooden chairs facing the desk, and a couple of filing cabinets. There were no electronics. 

There were two windows, which looked over the raging fire across the grounds from here. The fire was about three stories high. Dubois reflected that if it were an autumn bonfire as part of a celebration, it would be quite lovely.

Petrescu gestured at the windows. 

"We're burning the dead. There are so many bodies that we have no other way of safely disposing of them."

He sank into the chair behind the desk. He pointed at the two chairs facing him.

“Won’t you sit down?”

Dubois and Stark sat down. 

“Why don’t you hold onto the bodies for later burial?” Stark said. 

Petrescu shook his head. "We can't. The infection lives on even after the host dies. Those bodies out there are contagious. We've had people become infected by corpses. We have no choice but to destroy them as soon as possible."

Dubois thought of all the corpses lined up in the halls.

“Are you tracking the identities of the deceased?” she said. 

He nodded. "As well as we can. But I'll admit we've lost track. Entire families were wiped out. People brought their loved ones here, only to watch them die moments later. Then those people, the caregivers who brought their own family in, would suddenly become sick. And they would die, in some cases hours later, after suffering in the most horrible ways."

His words were punctuated by a distant cry echoing in the hallways outside. Maybe it was one of the afflicted. Maybe it was a person who had just watched a loved one die. It was amazing that anyone was still alive out there.

"We were fortunate here," Petrescu said. "We were well-stocked in protective gear from a previous epidemic. When the first wave of the sick began to appear…"

“When was that?” Stark said. 

Petrescu shook his head. "I don't know. Early this afternoon, maybe. It could have been late morning. But rumors of something happening preceded all of that. I instructed everyone to don the gear immediately. Some obeyed, some didn't. The ones who didn't are dead now. We lost about a third of our staff in the first couple of hours."

He paused and stared into space, as though watching it happen again.

"What about the rest of your staff?" Dubois said. "I mean, there's hardly anyone here."

Petrescu made a sound, almost like a groan. "Within a short time, so many sick and dying came there was nothing we could do. It was unlike anything our staff had ever seen before. People were dying in minutes - first dozens, and then hundreds of people. People would just spasm, and seize up, and die. Children, elders, their families shrieking, screaming at us to do something, do something, do something."

He paused again.

"We were fortunate again because we are not far from Suceava. The people here are more cosmopolitan, let's say, than those further out. We've heard stories that hospital staff in other places were slaughtered by outraged community members, who were accusing the staff of witchcraft, or being in league with Satan, or of deliberately introducing the disease through recent inoculations."

Dubois stared at him. She couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"The villages around this area have been emptied out. I know this because I took a drive a few hours ago. Conditions became so bad this afternoon that many of the staff here abandoned their posts. I have no idea what became of them. I understand that the entire region is enclosed in a quarantine, so I doubt they got very far."

Stark leaned forward, his eyes sharp. "Did you recognize any patterns?"

“Patterns?” Petrescu said.

"Yeah.  Trajectory to the illness. Commonalities. You saw this happen. Was there a pattern?"

"Everyone died," Petrescu said. His eyes focused on Stark. They were big brown eyes, and very tired. They seemed to indicate that they didn't quite understand what they were looking at. "Everyone who became infected died. That's the pattern."

“Some people are still alive.”

Petrescu nodded. "They'll all be dead soon. I believe those are people who either had very robust immune systems or people who received a small dose of the initial infection. I'm told this is the work of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, and I believe it, though I haven't had time to confirm it under the microscope myself. I believe it because the people who last the longest die of an illness very much like cholera. The major difference is the fluid loss is staggering, even greater than what cholera does."

“Hydration therapy,” Stark said. 

Petrescu flapped his hands. "Of course. It might not look like it to you, but this is a modern hospital. We know what we're doing. Hydration therapy does not work. The fluid loss is too rapid. I've had experienced staff pass out at the sight of all the fluid. There are rivers of it all over the floors. Antibiotics also do not work. Death comes too quickly, and I'm told by my staff that the bacterium appears resistant to the antibiotics anyway." 

He pointed out the door.

"There are a handful of patients still alive in the far wing, and my staff are caring for them relentlessly. If any of those patients survive, I will be surprised and delighted. I have never seen anything like this in my life before, and I will never be able to forget it, no matter how hard I might try."

It seemed to Dubois that tears were welling up in Petrescu’s eyes.

"Have you ever treated cholera?" Stark said quietly. "Before today?"

Petrescu nodded. "I was an advanced student, and the Romanian state paid for and oversaw my education. When I was young, just out of medical school, I was sent as part of a goodwill expedition to sub-Saharan Africa."

He took a long breath. 

"We spent a year traveling from country to country, carrying out routine care in some places, dealing with acute situations in others. We were sent to the city of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during a cholera outbreak there. It's a tropical location. The region is hot. The river waters are warm, and breed numerous infectious diseases. The people use the surface water for drinking, cooking and bathing, not to mention dumping human excrement. The denizens live packed into close quarters, in unsanitary conditions, in shanties that barely qualify as housing. Some of the slums there are unspeakable."

"Did you notice any patterns that time?" Stark said. "Any differences?"

"Conditions there were perfect for a cholera outbreak," Petrescu said. "What do you Americans say - the perfect storm? That's what it was. I was there for three months during the outbreak, and approximately 2,000 people died of cholera in the city during that time. Ten times that many became ill, but lived." 

He waved his hand, indicating their surroundings. 

"This hospital has 200 beds. At least five times that many died here today, during one long afternoon and evening. No one who became ill, as far as I can tell, will survive the night."

***

“It’s like time stopped.”

The landscape outside the old car's windows melted into a deep darkness, shadows stretching across the road like grasping fingers. The headlights of their vehicle sliced through the night and the fog, but there wasn't much to see.

Stark was driving. Dubois studied the passing scenery.

“Anything?” Stark said.

She shook her head. "Nothing but empty fields."

The isolation of the Romanian countryside was like a heavy weight around their necks. Here and there they passed an old farmhouse or cabin, set back from the road, no lights on anywhere. To hear Petrescu tell it, everyone out this way was probably dead.

The car moved along a narrow, winding, poorly paved motorway lined with dense undergrowth on either side. In the glow from their headlights, the grasses glimmered with frost. They were the only car on the road.

Every few minutes, they rattled over some rough road, or Stark slowed to a crawl to pick his way across a monster pothole. Road maintenance wasn't much of a priority here. 

To the right, across more undergrowth, Dubois caught a glimpse of a long, dilapidated green fence. On the other side of it, she saw cement homes and thatched-roof shanties painted in what looked like once bright, but fading colors.

She gestured in that direction. "There's a village over there."

“See any lights?” Stark said.

She shook her head. "Not yet."

Stark shrugged. "Maybe people are hiding."

High above the roofs and etched against the black sky, she noticed another shadow looming. She stared at it for a long moment - a sort of three-legged monstrosity with a bulbous head perched at the top. It was a large water tower. 

“There’s a water tower here,” she said. 

He glanced up at it. "Want to take a look?"

“We probably should.”

Stark turned suddenly, driving the car down a barely visible dirt road that branched off the main route. The car bounced over the uneven terrain as they rolled downhill toward the town. They passed a few outlying houses, the car's headlights revealing abandoned homes and desolate dirt streets - the place was a ghost town.

“It’s like driving through a graveyard,” Stark said, his voice low and tense.

In one yard, clothes hung out on a line to dry. Dubois reflect that the woman of the house probably put them there, hoping the cold midday sun would take some of the damp out of them. Then, she probably died before she could return for them.

She washed the clothes. In infected water. 

Stark grunted, as if reading Dubois’s thoughts. 

“Lovely,” he said. 

"Stay sharp," Dubois whispered, as though she needed to tell Stark that. It was really, for her, a mantra to steel herself against the foreboding silence of this night, what she had already seen at the hospital, and what yet might come.

"Good idea," Stark said. "I'm going to try."

They rattled through the tiny village toward the tower at the far end of the road. There was an iron fence around it. Stark pulled the car close to the fence, his headlights on it as fog rolled around them. The tower rose above them like a prehistoric creature. 

"Masks, shields, and gloves," Dubois said. If there was a science officer on this trip, she was it. Stark's expertise tended to lie in other areas. "I wouldn't touch anything, especially not anything wet."

Stark nodded, reaching behind him for his personal protection gear.

“Got it.”

They climbed out of the car, the engine still running, headlights on. The fence was rusted, padlocked and topped with old razor wire. There was an old metal sign, the message in Romanian, affixed to the chain links.

“What does it say?” Stark said.

"Keep out," Dubois said. "Danger of collapse."

They stared at the tower. It was built of wood, sometime in the distant past. A staircase zigged and zagged up the side of it, probably for long ago maintenance men to climb. She recognized the technology. The water would have been pump driven up from a local reservoir, or underground well, or maybe even from the river. The pumps were probably powered by a large diesel engine, or series of them. The water pressure in people's homes would have been created by gravity as the water came down from the tower.

"This thing is out of commission," Stark said. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Dubois said. "It's old. It probably stopped in the years before communism collapsed, and no one tried to fix it. If it was working, we'd hear the engine and the pumps. It would make a fair bit of noise."

They were quiet for a long moment. 

Everything, the entire world, was silent around them.

“This isn’t how they did it,” Stark said. 

"No," Dubois said. "Practically speaking, if the local water towers still worked, it would be inefficient, difficult and possibly dangerous to try to introduce the bacteria into each one, across an entire region. The chance of detection would be too high."

She could hear Stark’s breathing.

"All right," he said. "Let's move on."

They got back in the car and moved through the empty village the way they had just come. Dubois got the sense of eyes peering out at them from inside dark houses. A line of gooseflesh rose along her back and her arms at the thought of it.

At the top of the hill, Stark turned back onto the main road. He was just speeding up when she caught a glimpse of something, a moving blur, out of the corner of her eye. 

Up ahead, three small figures darted out from the grasses on the right. She could barely make them out. They were children, boys, maybe. They hurled something at the car, throwing their projectiles ahead of the car's path, timing it perfectly, nailing the spot where the car would be in another second. 

“Watch it!” she shouted. 

The first one hit somewhere at the front of the car – maybe the grill. 

THUNK.

The second one crashed into the window next to Dubois's head. She shrieked, despite herself. The projectile made a loud THUMP, and the glass cracked into a spider web.

The third one hit somewhere in the back of the car, near the taillights.

Beside her, Stark was ducked low, peering out over the dashboard. He gunned the engine, and the car sped up. Dubois turned around and caught sight of the figures running back through the grasses toward the village. Her heart was thumping. 

Stark looked over at her and grinned. "Somebody's alive out here."

“Kids,” Dubois said. 

“Yeah.  And they have pretty good aim.”

“Shouldn’t we go back and find them?”

Stark's eyes were narrow. "And do what?"

"I don't know," Dubois said. "Rescue them? Bring them out of the quarantine zone?"

“How do you propose we do that?”

Behind them, the kids were gone, disappeared into the gloom. Dubois thought of passing through there again, that empty nightmare place, everything dark, this time knowing full well they were being watched. To find those kids or anyone else, she and Stark would have to get out of the car and walk through the village. Maybe in the light of day, but now?

"Anyone still alive in there doesn't want to be found," Stark said. "And there's a pretty good chance they think we're to blame for all this."

Stark faced the road ahead, and drove on through the night.

A long time seemed to pass. Dubois entered a sort of fugue state, between awake and asleep. She was in shock, she realized. She had seen too much in too short a period of time. She thought of the doctor saying he would never recover from this day. How could he? She wasn't even here when this happened, and she might never recover.

Her eyes were open, but they were looking at a line of hospital gurneys, along a narrow hallway, each gurney taken by a body covered in a tainted white sheet.

As Stark guided the vehicle around a serpentine bend in the road, the eerie glow of artificial light pierced the darkness.

The once-hushed murmurings of the countryside were abruptly pushed aside by the sound of generators, the hiss of some sort of machinery, and muffled directives over a loudspeaker, but issued through layers of protective gear.

“Dubois?” Stark said. 

She nodded. "I'm awake."

"Looks like the welcoming committee," Stark said, his gaze fixed on the figures clad in hazmat suits, their movements slow and deliberate against the backdrop of bright lights. Behind them, in the middle distance, was a large field where another bonfire was burning. 

Several troop carrier trucks were parked here. The ghostly figures went to the trucks two by two, each duo grabbing a body wrapped in a sheet off the back of a truck, and then carrying it toward the flames. Each truck was laden with dozens of corpses. The workers seemed otherworldly, performing a task that seemed better suited to a charismatic preacher's vision of hell.

“Creepy,” Stark said. 

"Should they be doing this?" Dubois said. A sense of outrage bubbled up from within her. "Shouldn't these deaths be catalogued somewhere?"

"Petrescu's people were doing the same thing," Stark said. "The bodies are infectious. You have to get rid of them somehow."

"It seems like a cover-up," Dubois said. 

"It might be," Stark said. "But I doubt it. What are they covering up? That thousands of people died here? I suspect the whole world knows by now."

The car crawled past the trucks and into the town just beyond them. Stark navigated the darkened streets. The signs of desolation were everywhere. Doors of houses and buildings were ajar, flapping in the breeze. Someone had gone through the town, pasting up large posters with biohazard symbols on them. 

"Look there," Stark said and pointed. Ahead of them, at a curve in the road, was a white cinderblock building, a blank canvas. Someone had sprayed a message there in red paint. 

“What do the words mean?”

Whoever wrote it meant the message to be humorous. But it was too grim for that.

“Welcome to Paradise,” Dubois said.

CHAPTER TEN

February 4

8:05 am Eastern European Time

A small town

Nord-Est

Romania

“It’s a beautiful morning.”

Troy spoke out loud, surprised at the sound of his own voice. But he nodded at the truth of what he had just said. It was lovely here. The world may have ended, but what remained was gorgeous to look upon. 

He and Dubois had spent the night in an abandoned elementary school in this no-name Romanian village. They had bunked down on the floor of a darkened classroom, using their bags as pillows, and keeping their jackets, gloves, masks, and face shields on the entire night. 

Now, he sat on top of an old metal picnic table on a cement plaza in front of the school. Maybe fifty meters behind him, there was a dubious water source - a rusted public fountain that had once been the centerpiece of a now-deserted square. The fountain was still running just a bit, the water splashing into a cement pool.

Besides that, it was quiet, desolate, a silence that went beyond absence of sound.

There was no sign of life anywhere.

The town was in the foothills of some low mountains, brown against the pale blue sky, with a bit of snow in their highest reaches. A dark river, which Troy believed to be the Prut River, flowed past the town, and in fact right behind the school. The river was sunk into a ravine, so the town sat high above it. He could see a broad sweep of it from here.

If it was the Prut, then that was Moldova on the far side of it. There was no obvious way to cross. Given everything that had happened here, a person would have to be insane to so much as dip a toe in that water. 

It was a cold morning, and there was frost on the grass field of the school. Troy had removed his jacket and his shirt. The feeling of the morning chill against the skin of his chest and back and shoulders was deeply pleasant. 

The digital readout on Troy Stark's rugged watch showed just past eight in the morning. His satellite phone was on the table with him, scanning the skies for a connection. Knowing Jan Bakker, he had probably stayed awake most of the night. Troy figured getting a call through was a better bet by now, and Jan was probably at the office, in the conference room with three or four computers set up, scanning data and waiting to hear from them.

Troy would try that call soon, but right now it was time for breakfast. 

Next to the phone was a meal fit for a king, and a queen, whenever she got around to waking up. He had broken into the pantry of the school cafeteria, and found three sealed cases of tushonka, Russian canned meat, basically an Eastern European version of SPAM. He loved the stuff. He had eaten it in war zones many times over. 

In places where food supplies had been cut off, tushonka always seemed to turn up. The meat was mixed with generous amounts of lard, and was both salty and sweet. It had protein, fat, and was loaded with salt and calories. You could go all day on a couple of tins of it.  

He had also found a case of Coca-Cola, small cans sealed in plastic, and several boxes of what were more or less saltine crackers. This is what they fed the kids here? Coke, crackers and canned meat. Troy would have loved to attend this school.

His face shield also sat on the table, and he had just removed his cloth mask. It was still fixed to his head with the strap, but right now he was wearing it more as a helmet. 

He cast an eye at the frost on the grass. When it melted, would the leftover dew itself be toxic? Was it dangerous to breathe the humidity in the air?

How did everyone out here get sick and die?

His mind flashed back to the kids who threw rocks at the car last night. As far as he could tell, those kids hadn't been wearing protective gear of any kind. 

"Good enough," he said, and nodded. "The air didn't kill them."

He reached down and pulled the tab on his first tin of tushonka. It was a generic non-brand, and had the word govyadina stenciled in the Latin alphabet along the side. Govyadina meant beef. There was also svinina here, which was pork.

He cracked open one of the tiny Coke cans and pulled a packet of saltines out from a cardboard box. He was hungry, sure, but he almost couldn't believe how eager he was to eat this meal. These kinds of rations would put a smile on anybody's face. The Red Army had won World War II on the Eastern Front with this kind of food in their stomachs. In fact, they ate mostly SPAM, sent to them by their American allies, but the lesson still held.

"What are you posing for?" a female voice said. "The cover of Greek god magazine?"

He looked up, and Dubois was coming down the low front steps of the school. She was still fully outfitted - jacket, mask, face shield and heavy gloves.

Troy gestured at the food.

“Have some breakfast.”

She made a face, not so much of disgust, but of apprehension. "That's what you're eating?"

Troy shrugged. "Breakfast of the gods."

“Where did you get it?”

"I looted it from the school. They won't be needing it anymore."

There was a long pause between them as the impact of that hit home for both of them. The only sound here was the splashing of the fountain. Everyone, or nearly everyone, had died. Anyone who survived seemed to have left, and were now refugees, likely fenced in somewhere, quarantined, traumatized, and surrounded by armed men. 

"Sorry. That was insensitive."

Dubois picked up a can of Coke and examined it. "No bottled water in there?"

"No. It doesn't matter. Soda is plenty hydrating. Plus, it has sugar and caffeine. People give soda a bad rep, but it'll keep you alive and moving for a while."

“And the meat?”

Troy nodded. "Great stuff. It's like SPAM, only better. We've got beef," he said, as he held up the can he was eating from. "And pork."  He held up an as-yet-unopened can for her inspection.

She sighed. "This is what we're having, eh?"

He shrugged. "Unless you can find an open diner."

She sat next to him on the table, removed her personal protection gear, and took a few of the saltine crackers from the pouch. She picked up one of the Coke cans. She made no move to eat or drink any of it. 

They were both facing the river. Near the shore, the surface shimmered with the early daylight. Further out, the water was wedged with ice. The view was deceptively serene.  

“Something's not right,” Dubois said.

“Besides the obvious?” Troy said.

Dubois shook her head. "It's too quiet. I understand that all the people are gone. But where are the birds? Isn't there any wildlife here? None at all?"

There were no wild birds calling - no crows, no hawks, no owls - nothing. There wasn't a single dog barking, not right here, and not in the distance. There were no roosters. There were no rodents or rabbits rustling through the undergrowth.

The only sound, anywhere, was that decrepit fountain. 

“I doubt all the animals are dead,” Troy said. 

But he couldn't be sure about that. The silence was a testament to the scope of the disaster, a warning sign not easily ignored.

“Then where are they?”

Troy dipped a cracker into the last of his greasy, fatty meat. The thought of all the animals, in an entire region, dead of cholera sent a shiver down his spine. It couldn't be. 

“I don’t know.”

It was time to try Jan.  There wasn't much evidence to compile here. There weren't any townspeople to interview about strangers lurking around just before the disease hit. If this was an attack, and it almost certainly was, then the attackers probably left immediately. They would have known what was coming and would have wanted to get far away from it. 

The only way they would have stayed here was if they became trapped. If that happened, they were probably dead, their bodies burnt on a pile. Troy supposed it was just barely possible that they were holed up inside a cabin somewhere in this vast region, trying to wait for the crisis to pass. Finding them would be next to impossible. 

Maybe Jan had some news. 

Troy picked up the satellite phone. "I'm going to call the office."

***

The phone made several beeps as it looked for a connection, shook hands with a passing satellite, then bounced a signal across Europe to Spain.

A voice came on the line. "Agent Stark?"

"Good morning, Jan," Troy said. "How are you doing?"

“A better question is how are you and Agent Dubois?”

Troy glanced at Dubois, focused on her food, eating daintily with her tiny hands.

“We’re alive.”

“What is it like there?” Jan said. 

"We're in Romania, inside the restricted zone. Not exactly sure where, but I can tell you we're in a village that appears to be on the River Prut."

"I have your location," Jan said. "Or something close to it. I show you very near the border, within a hundred meters of it."  

"Oh, that's right," Troy said. "My partner is half-robot now. You're probably tracking her."

"Yes, I am," Jan said. "I've been tracking Agent Dubois all night. Can you tell me what you're seeing? There's very little news coming out of the quarantined zones in Romania, and none at all coming from Moldova. Satellite imagery overnight was showing almost no one on the roads except military and aid convoys. Anecdotally, we know that thousands of people are moving overland, away from the roads, but it can be difficult to get that level of detail. Now they're jamming the satellites. We're probably lucky to even complete this call."

Troy took a few seconds to gather his thoughts and think of a way to express them.

"Uh… Everyone's dead, Jan. The reason there were only military and aid convoys is because no one else seems to have survived. Also, the bodies of the dead are infectious, so both military and medical personnel have been burning them in large bonfires."

"I saw the fires," Jan said. "I was concerned about that."

"We interviewed a Romanian doctor who ran a small local hospital. By last night, nearly all the patients he had seen were dead. He estimated about a thousand dead at his facility, which only has 200 beds. Any of his staff who were exposed also died. About a third of his staff, by his count, abandoned their posts and left. When we saw him, he was operating with a skeleton crew. There were a handful of patients left alive, all of whom he suspected would be dead by morning. There was a bonfire on the hospital grounds, burning the corpses. There were dozens more bodies lined up in the halls, waiting to be cast onto the fire."

“Terrible,” Jan said.

"It was chaos at the airport when we came in. Hundreds of refugees had managed to arrive there and were attempting to rush the tarmac. The police were firing water cannons."

"The airport was overrun in the night," Jan said. "Several thousand people walked overland, away from the roads and the checkpoints. They came in from a direction the police and military weren't expecting. There's also been a disease outbreak there, by several accounts. No one seems to know the severity. But the airport is closed. Local people appear to be in control there now, and have looted the aid that had come."

Troy looked at Dubois. "Good thing we didn't take that hotel room."

"I'm sorry?" Jan said. "The connection…"

“Where is the plane?” Troy said, almost shouting.

"It's in Bucharest," Jan said. "Not far at all by air. The outbreak and unrest haven't reached there, at least not yet. I can give you directions to a different airport, and the plane can meet you. Given the circumstances, it might just be best to use a local airfield if it seems safe enough to you. There are massive delays getting out of the restricted zones. Camps have been set up at the frontiers, and thousands of people are stuck in them. It looks like it will take days or weeks for all the people to be processed."

"We're the police," Dubois said. "We can't leave?"

"You can leave, just not by the normal avenues. They'll want to hold you to see if you develop symptoms, and we need you out of there. They're burning everyone's clothes and belongings at the checkpoints. People are living in tents and wearing smocks."

"Jan, the symptoms appear in minutes or hours. People are dead before medical personnel even get a chance to look at them."

"Even so. This is what's happening."

“Jan, you said you need us out of here,” Dubois said. 

For a moment, Jan seemed to be talking to someone in the room with him. Then he came back on. "Yes. We may have had a break. I was awake all night, scanning communications worldwide, arrests, deaths, rumors, everything. I built an algorithm to scan massive amounts of information, searching for certain criteria and combinations of criteria. I stumbled on a very obscure piece of data, which Miquel believes is worth following up."

“What is it?”

"About seven months ago, a Frenchman died in Belgrade, Serbia. He was a petty criminal, a thief, and a break-in man, but over a period of years he had aligned himself with radical environmentalists. The Serbian Security Intelligence Agency arrested him for the arson of an animal experiment research facility, which is considered an act of terrorism, and which killed perhaps 200 rhesus monkeys. Rather than put the man in prison for 20 years, the Serbians turned him - probably through torture - and set him loose among his former comrades as an informer."

“How did he die?” Troy said.

"He just seemed to seize up. He was found in an alleyway, not far from the Danube River, based on an anonymous tip. He was very stiff, but not from rigor mortis. At first, it was a suspected heart attack, possibly drug-related. But the policeman who arrived first on the scene became sick within a few hours. He had touched the corpse without taking any precautions. He was immediately quarantined, and died violently the next morning, of cholera, with all the typical symptoms, only more extreme. When they checked the Frenchman's corpse, it was still brimming with live cholera bacteria, 12 hours after his death."

Troy and Dubois just listened. Neither said anything.

"They were fortunate there was no wider outbreak in Belgrade at that time. Or perhaps the disease wasn't as virulent then. Maybe it wasn't fully developed yet. This was more than half a year ago. The very interesting thing was that in the day before he died, the Frenchman sent a message to his Serbian handlers."

“Which was?” Dubois said. 

“He said, ‘I think they suspect me.’”

There was a pause over the line.

"His friends killed him," Troy said. "To test what they had."

Troy flashed to the madman who had infiltrated the runway last night.

“They’re going to kill everyone on Earth.”

"Possible," Jan said. "At the time, there was an unusual heat wave across Europe, and it was hot in Belgrade, the hottest since the 1800s, when somewhat accurate records began being kept. There were heavy rains, and the aging sewer system backed up into the drinking water. The citizens were told to boil water before use. The medical examiner determined that the Frenchman caught an especially deadly dose of cholera from contaminated water. An aberration, but not completely unheard of. These things happen. Then, as the months moved on, he and the policeman were largely forgotten."

“What do people think about it now?” Dubois said. 

"I doubt many people are thinking about it. As I indicated, the algorithm picked it up. It's an obscure piece of information."

“Do you think this is environmentalists?” Troy said. 

“It appears so, but it’s not guaranteed.” 

Troy didn't love that about Jan.  He often equivocated about what the information at his fingertips meant. Jan was a guy who did not go with his gut. 

“So a man was sent undercover to spy on radical environmentalists,” Troy said.

“Yes.”

"And he died of a virulent, possibly weaponized form of cholera. The same or similar to the one that is killing thousands of people here in Romania and Moldova."

“That’s right.”

“His handlers were Serbian intelligence.”

"Yes. Which is why Miquel would like you to go to Serbia and investigate."

“What are we investigating, exactly?” Dubois said.

“The group, and their headquarters.”

“I guess it wouldn’t make sense to contact the police in Belgrade?” Troy said, already knowing the answer. 

"No," Jan said. "Certainly not. There's somewhat more to this than I've told you. Interpol has had a surveillance presence in Belgrade for at least a decade. There is a flat, a safe house of sorts, in a very old residential building. Agents have been stationed there from time to time. As far as I can determine, the reason for an Interpol presence has been to watch the office building where this organization is located. It's three blocks away."

“You don’t know for a fact?”

"I know it's the same building. I just don't know why they've been watching it. I need a higher level security clearance to know. That's the reason Miquel isn't here with me right now. He is contacting his superiors, trying to obtain that clearance."

Troy smiled. "Waking them up, huh?"  It was about 7:30 in Western Europe.

“Believe me when I say everyone he’s calling is awake.”

“Anyway, we’re going in secret?” Dubois said.

“Miquel would like our interest in this building, and the companies there, to come as a surprise to everyone.”

“We’ve just been talking about it on a satellite call.”

"End-to-end encryption," Jan said. "My mouth to your ears."

“So we’re going to monitor a building that’s already been monitored?”

"Yes," Jan said. "I hope to know more by the time you get there." 

Troy looked at Dubois. She nodded.

"And guys?" Jan said. "I just want to tell you I'm very glad you survived the night."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

3:35 pm Central European Time

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport

Belgrade

Serbia

“Looks cold,” Troy said.

The wheels of the small Interpol jet scraped the tarmac. The plane bounced, then came down a second time and slowed on the long runway, the engines winding down.

Outside the window, there was a sheen of ice or snow along the side of the runway. After a few moments, he and Dubois stepped out into the stinging air of winter in Belgrade. Troy's breath formed ghostly trails as he surveyed the airport. There were two modern terminals, glass and steel buildings. The closest, their arrival terminal, was 50 meters away.

“No welcome party,” Dubois said.

Troy shrugged. "I'm sure there's one inside."

Inside the terminal, security was tight. Soldiers in bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns or shotguns lingered in groups of three and four. In a few cases, they had dogs with them, the handlers walking large German Shepherds through long lines of waiting travelers.

“Bomb dogs, probably,” Troy said.

Drugs were no longer important at this moment. A major terrorist attack had taken place one country away, and thousands were dead. TV screens above their heads silently showed scenes of empty Romanian villages, and tent camps full of refugees waiting to exit the quarantine zones.

They reached an Immigration desk.

The officer behind the desk glanced up at Troy and Dubois, his face covered in a paper mask, his expression unreadable. He pointed a laser thermometer at both of their heads, checked the readouts, and then gestured for their passports with a curt motion. Troy handed them over without a word. 

The officer scrutinized the documents, flipping through the pages with gloved fingers.

“You’ve just come from Romania?” he said in a thick accent.

“Yeah.”

“Where is the exit stamp?”

Troy shook his head. "There was a problem at the airport. They ran out of supplies, so they just sent us through. Everything is out of control over there."

Nothing was true except the last sentence. After waiting hours for the plane, he and Dubois had taken off from an abandoned airstrip Jan Bakker had found in the Romanian hinterlands. They had left the country, and the quarantine zone, without talking to anyone. They didn't wait in a quarantine camp at all. For they knew, they could have a slow motion version of the disease, and be vectors, infecting everyone they met.

Troy figured probably not, but on the other hand, anything was possible. They had just witnessed a warm weather disease wipe out a cold weather countryside.

“Why are you here?” the officer said.

“Business.”

“Occupation?” the man said.

Troy hesitated for a brief moment before answering. "Medical consultant."

"Symptoms? Headache? Chills? Fever? Vomiting? Diarrhea?"

“Buddy, if we had symptoms, we’d already be dead. We would have died on the plane.”

The man stared at Troy, eyes hard.

“Symptoms?” he said again.

“None. We’re fine.”

The officer stared at Troy for another long moment, then nodded curtly and stamped the two passports without another word. Dubois followed close behind Troy, the man saying nothing to her at all.

As they made their way through the terminal, Troy couldn't shake off the feeling of unease that lingered in the air. The place was electric, packed with people, everyone on edge. The tension was palpable.

A group of armed men in dark suits entered the terminal, their expressions grim and determined. The crowd parted before them like a wave, whispers rippling through the air.

Troy's hand instinctively went to the concealed weapon inside his jacket, which of course was not there. This job as an Interpol investigator required him to go far too many places without a gun. It wasn't natural, and he was tired of it.

“Do you see the driver?”

Their contact was supposed to meet them near the currency exchange counter, but as Troy scanned the area, he saw no one who fit the description they were given.

Dubois nudged him subtly and nodded towards a man in a dark overcoat standing alone by a pillar, away from the swarms of greeters and drivers holding up signs with hand-lettered names on them. The man's eyes were hidden behind sunglasses despite his being indoors.

They approached him, and he produced a sign like it was a magic trick. It simply appeared in his hands.

DUBOIS.

“Well, someone spelled it right,” Dubois said.

The man smiled.

"People are watching you," he said, by way of a greeting. His accent was lower-class English. The guy was maybe 30 years old, unshaven, his hair scruffy and shoulder length.

“Everyone knows you came in on that small jet, and everyone knows you’re Interpol, or maybe some kind of intelligence operation.”

Troy glanced around at the throngs of people, the heavily-armed soldiers standing around, and slowly working their way through the crowds.

“Everyone knows that?”

The man shrugged. "Everyone who matters. You guys should have hung signs around your necks. That would have made it more obvious. But only a little bit."

“Why do they care?” Dubois said.

"Why does anyone care about anything?" the man said. "Maybe they have something to hide. Or they think you do."

He glanced at the bags Troy and Dubois had over their shoulders. He gave an especially long look at Troy's green rucksack. The man made no move to help with the luggage.

“Let’s go,” he said, and turned toward the terminal exit.

Just outside, there was a short-term parking lot. He led them to a black mid-sized sedan. Troy didn't recognize the make. Posted in the windshield, there was a sign in Cyrillic lettering.

“It says I’m a rideshare.”

They climbed into the car, the driver in front, Troy and Dubois in back. The man didn't bother to pop the trunk for them. He pulled out into traffic.

Troy glanced at Dubois. She stared out the window at the passing airport terminals, and the control tower. In the distance, a fat yellow passenger jet lifted into the air like the world's largest bumblebee.

Dubois's face was blank. There didn't seem to be any emotion in it at all.

It’s hitting her.

It was beginning to hit him, too. There was a delayed effect to what they had seen. Thousands of people were dead, possibly tens of thousands, possibly many more than that. The enormity of it was just beginning to settle in. It was too horrible to think about. The mind reeled from it. In Dubois, it seemed to be causing a sort of quiet shock. 

She had lapsed into complete silence.

Troy looked at the driver. "Do you have a name?"

The man shook his head. "No. I don't have a name and it's better that way. Better for you, and better for me. This is not a rideshare car. It's not affiliated with any company, and it's not tracked by any computer. There is no GPS unit on board. The whole thing has been swept for chips. We don't want them watching us from the sky."

Troy nearly laughed. Dubois was carrying a chip inside her body.

The man looked into his rearview mirror and seemed to meet Troy's eyes. It was hard to say because the man still wore those dark sunglasses.

"You were there? Inside the hot zone?"

Troy nodded. "Yeah."

“What’s it like?”

"Almost everyone was dead, or just gone. It seemed like all the animals were dead, too. There was no one around."

The man grimaced and shook his head. "I was afraid of that. Listen mate. I told your bosses, or whoever they are. I sent it up the line. There's a sort of mass hysteria unfolding here. Rumors everywhere. Bad things could happen. People are saying that NATO went in to block the Prut River, but the booms or whatever didn't work. It was too late, or they just… didn't work. The disease has made it into the Black Sea and is going to go around the world now."

“I haven’t heard that,” Troy said.

Beside him, Dubois shook her head. She hadn't heard it, either. The truth was they had both just spent a couple hours on an airplane, after a night if near total isolation. They hadn't heard much of anything, other than what Jan had told them.

"Don't matter what you heard," the man said. "The point is these people they sent you to watch, they're dangerous people. They're serious people. There's no way they would be involved in spreading a disease like this. They make too much money. They have too much power and control. They don't want the world to end. They're enjoying the world the way it is."

Troy stared at the man. "We were told they're environmentalists."

"These are not environmentalists. And they don't like to be interfered with. If they kill you, no one here is going to mind. The police won't even investigate. Your friends will have to come discover what happened, but no one will help them find your bodies. No one has forgiven the West for the NATO bombing. No one has forgiven them for the partition of Kosovo. No one has forgiven them for seizing and jailing Milosevic. If anyone says they have, they're playing you for a fool. You have no friends here."

The man clearly had some experience with these things.

“Who are you?” Troy said.

The man shook his head. "I'm no one. Forget about me. I'm going to forget about you. I'm dropping you off at your destination, and then you can't reach me after that. I'm going to try to leave the country tomorrow. I'm not from here."

"Oh?" Troy said. "I couldn't tell."

"You're very clever, mate. But I want out. I have family too, you know."

Troy knew what it was like to have family. He knew what it was like to be worried. He knew what it was like to just want to go home. He knew about all of these things, more than he would ever share with a complete stranger like this.

They drove on in silence.

The tall buildings at the center of Belgrade appeared ahead of them. Their architecture was a mix of different styles and time periods. Some were modern and sleek, shining glass and metal, legitimate skyscrapers, while others were smaller and made of brick and stone.

They passed a long line of gray communist era apartment blocks. They were much larger than the old Soviet style apartment blocks, which came in either five or nine stories, and could be found in many parts of the former communist world.

These were twenty stories at least, in rows a quarter mile long. The Yugoslavians had been allies with the Russians, but had resisted Soviet domination, and insisted on their independence. They had done what they wanted. They had marketed their lousy cheap car - the Yugo - to consumers in the Western nations, even the United States. They had built ugly, drab housing for the masses just like the Soviets did, but they did it in their own way.

Troy had never been here before. He vaguely remembered the time of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Civil Wars, and the long NATO bombing campaign. There were human rights violations on all sides during those wars, and accusations of genocide by the Serbs against the Bosnian Muslims. He remembered the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in hiding, and then being brought before the World Criminal Court. Troy was a child when all of this happened. As he recalled it, the NATO bombing was particularly bad. People used to say that NATO had "bombed Serbia back to the Stone Age."

Well, clearly they had rebuilt since then. But according to this guy, they were not letting bygones be bygones.

"Ah, great news," the driver said. "We got a bogey."

Troy was about to look behind them.

"Don't turn around, mate. Just trust me."

“Which car?” Troy said.

"About four cars back, on our left. Silver Mercedes sedan. He's been hovering there since we entered the expressway. Looks like a couple of state sponsored goons in the front seat."

They drove on another minute. Traffic was light, a few cars up ahead, one or two nearly even with them, and behind them there was apparently…

“You ever been that?” the driver said.

“Been what?” Troy said.

Dubois was still silent, just watching the city pass, the gunmetal sky heavy above their heads. It was mid-afternoon in winter. The daylight was already fading.

The man smiled. "A state-sponsored goon. You sure look like one."

Troy didn’t say anything to that.

"Here's what I'm going to do for you. Your building is in the Zeleni Venac neighborhood. It's one of these old dreary buildings the commies built, and it's mostly abandoned now. I'm going to drive past there and not stop. A few minutes on, in Stari Grad proper, there's a large camp of Gyppos along the waterfront."

“Roma?” Dubois said suddenly.

It was the first thing she’d said since they got in the car.

The driver shrugged. "If you like. I'm going to pull in there. If these bastards follow, they're going to reveal themselves and then they'll have to talk to us. So they're probably not going to follow. Once they're gone, we'll come out the other side, and wind back to your building. I'll pull up to a side door, you get out in ten seconds or less, I drive away, and we all pretend none of this ever happened. Sound good to you?"

Troy nodded. "Sounds fine."

After a few moments, the man exited the highway. Troy glanced sideways, caught the Mercedes in the corner of his eye. The Mercedes followed them. There appeared to be two guys in there, both wearing sunglasses, even though the day was gray and the light was disappearing fast. Maybe everyone here wore sunglasses, indoors, outdoors, any time of day.

They drove two or three quiet streets, then the driver made a sudden left. Half a block ahead, the Gypsy camp spread out before them, and into the distance. The road was paved and plowed to the beginning of the camp. From there, it instantly turned to snowy, muddy potholes.

The settlement was a chaotic jumble of makeshift tents and tarps, patched together with scraps of fabric and tarps, and held up with sticks and poles. There were a few one-story cement, clay and mud buildings. The ground was littered with trash and debris, and a thick cloud of smoke hung over the camp from various fires that were burning. 

There were dark, icy puddles and small ponds everywhere. Children ran around, some barefoot despite the cold and snow, their clothes dirty and torn, while adults huddled in small groups, some cooking over open flames in what looked like steel drums.

The car bucked and jolted over the rutted road. Troy took the opportunity to look back. There was no one behind them. After a time, the driver simply pulled over, turned off his lights and waited. Darkness was coming in now. The people were becoming nothing more than dark shadows in the orange glow of the flames.

The man gestured with his head. "The Danube is right over there. You can't see it in this light. If the disease makes its way this far upriver, these people will be the first to go. They're the canaries in the coal mine. They wash their clothes in the river, they fish, I'm sure they drink it and cook with it. There's no sanitation here. They call this place Deponija, which in Serbian means dump. It's built on an old landfill." 

He paused for a moment.

"The powers that be wouldn't mind seeing these people gone, as long as everyone else didn't have to go with them. There are at least 30 of these camps in this city, maybe more. A couple of them are in flood plains along the riverbanks. The water comes up right over their homes sometimes. The Gyps are going to spread this disease far and wide, my friends."

“Roma,” Dubois said again.

"Call them whatever you want. You think the Serbians don't want them dead? Think again. To their credit, they're hard to kill off. The Nazis found that out. But this disease…  Maybe it'll kill everyone."

It was full dark now. Night had dropped in like a rock from a great height. Some distance away, perhaps on the far bank of the river, the lights of modern buildings glittered.

“They cast spells, you know.”

"Who?" Troy said. "The Nazis?"

"No. The Gypsies."

Dubois didn’t even try to correct him this time.

The man's voice droned in the darkness. "I was in Bucharest one time, for reasons I won't get into. I was in a public park, just sitting on a bench. Gyp walks up to me, she's got three kids with her. She's like a matronly type, middle-aged, not what I'd call sexy, okay?"

“Okay.”

Troy nearly laughed. If Dubois wasn't in a fog, there was no way she would let this conversation continue. She'd probably fight the guy, and kick him into a mud hole.

"Before I know it, she puts her hand on my wrist. Her fingers raced up and down on my arm like spiders. It was the strangest sensation. You know what she said?"

Troy was glancing around outside now. Wherever that Mercedes had gone, it was no longer with them. "No."

"Give me ten euros. That's what she said. And I reached into my pocket, pulled out a tenner, and handed it to her. Just like that. I'm not in the business of handing out money to people. But I had no choice. I was under her spell. After she left, I came back to my senses."

It was quiet now. There was the sound of crackling flames, but not much else.

"Gypsies are magic, mate. That's the truth."

Troy shook his head. He looked at Dubois, but her eyes were large and sad. 

“I think those guys in the Mercedes are gone,” Troy said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

6:05 pm Central European Time

Aboard the freighter Voivode

The Sava River

Belgrade, Serbia

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Robert Osgard stood on the top deck of a small river freighter, Voivode, making its way out of Belgrade on the Sava River. It was very cold out, and night had already fallen.

The freighter was a hulking mass of metal, moving slowly upriver, leaving the city on a journey to Croatia. The boat's once vibrant green paint was now chipped and faded, with patches of rust eating away at parts of the hull. The edges of the metal were jagged and sharp, in the daytime giving the old ship a menacing appearance. The name of the ship itself was so faded it could barely be read in any light.

The air around the old freighter was thick with the stench of diesel fuel. There was a creaking and groaning sound coming from the freighter as it rocked with the gentle movements of the river. The deck itself was uneven and splintered, and the iron railing in his bare hands was rough and freezing to the touch. 

The cargo hold was filled with a load of gravel, as the freighter's cover story. Just an old ship, which had been plying these routes for decades, and was bringing gravel upstream to Zagreb. Nothing to see here.

The words Robert spoke were a quote from the ancient Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, which occurred to him often these days. It was supposedly the very thing J. Robert Oppenheimer said when the first atomic bomb proved to work. Suddenly, a power was unleashed that could kill everyone on Earth.

The Bhagavad Gita called on believers to do their duty in the face of a strife-torn world, and to take legitimate actions in the face of all doubts, without regard for the fruits of those actions. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. Success and failure were to be regarded as equals.

Robert sighed. This was hard. And he wasn't a believer.

The city lights of Belgrade flowed past all around him. Just behind the ship were the lights of Belgrade Fortress, with its stone ramparts, bridges and gates walling in the original ancient city. Six months ago, when he first came to this city to see the docks the materials would pass through, he had visited the fortress. 

It was an astonishing historical monument, on the one hand. People had built permanent settlements at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers, starting thousands of years ago, before the dawn of record-keeping. The first written reference to a fort here was in 279 BC, but it was describing a place understood to have been built centuries before.

On the other hand, the fortress was also a living history of the ugliness of humanity. The hillside above the rivers had changed hands dozens of times across the millennia, as each new wave of invaders came in, grasping and clawing to seize and hold that piece of high ground. The Romans had held it as the frontier of their collapsing empire, as they tried to keep out the rampaging Huns and Goths. Legend had it that Attila the Hun was buried beneath the fort. 

In 1738, a massive outbreak of the Black Plague hit the city, during the Austro-Turkish War. As the Austrian army retreated in front of the advancing Turks, disease spread like wildfire. Thousands of civilians crammed into the fortress, along with the Austrian soldiers. So many died inside the garrison, there was no one to bury them. There were reports of starving dogs eating infected corpses in the streets and alleyways. Eventually, bonfires were started and the dead were burned with all of their belongings.

This.  This was the human race in a nut shell. That story was particularly apt given current events, but it was hardly unique. Self-inflicted disasters were as common as yellow dandelions.

“Human exceptionalism,” he said now. 

It was a favorite concept of his. Humans thought that they were somehow better or higher than the other creatures who inhabited this planet. They thought there was a God or gods who somehow favored humans, worried about them, and intervened in their affairs. Even sillier, they often believed this God or gods favored certain tribes of humans over others. 

It was a form of blindness.

Noah's Ark.  Another favorite of his. The story was absurd on its face, and didn't stand up to 30 seconds of logical scrutiny. It was a fairytale for children, yet countless millions, probably billions of people, believed in it without any sense of irony.

Had any of them ever seen a male southern African elephant? Was there a ship in the ancient world that could pen and house even one of these gigantic, immensely heavy, wild creatures, without anything else on board? Probably not.

But logic was of no use. Most humans had the maturity and intellect of children, so it was nearly impossible to explain anything more than the simplest ideas to them. And as children will do, they had run amok and wrecked their only home, and the home of many other living things. 

Robert felt nothing about the ethics of destroying the human race, or most of it. 

No. That wasn't true. 

He felt good about it. It was for the best. He was convinced of that. If it was possible to do, there was no better idea out there.

Up ahead were the glittering lights of skyscrapers that were part of the new development here. The buildings walled the river in, like a canyon. 

Serbia was rising in the world, or was trying to. Belgrade was an international city again, with billions of euros in investment flowing from the Arab Gulf States, China and Malaysia, sticking a finger in the eye of Western Europe. 

Robert sighed.

Is this possible? Is it even what we're trying to do?

He was no longer certain of anything.

The boat was going to Croatia, to Zagreb. During the journey, Robert was tasked with culturing and growing more of the bacteria. It was freeze-dried but still alive. It had been transported here in crates marked Tea from China.

Robert smiled at the absurdity of that. The Vibrio cholerae would multiply very quickly, as it was engineered to do. In about a day, if he worked diligently, and the facility was good enough, he could have a truly alarming amount of it.

The plan was to release a dose into the Sava River, which would flow downstream affecting the countryside of both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. They would also release massive doses into the underwater aquifer, natural springs, and filtration plants that supplied Zagreb and the surrounding area. By design, Robert knew little about these plans, except that the doses should cause catastrophe in Zagreb, a city of nearly a million people, and widespread disaster in the rural areas of both countries. The river formed part of the border between the two countries, and many people on either side used it for their water needs. 

But the plan didn’t make sense. 

Robert had signed on for an effort that would wipe out more than 90% of the human race. The goal was a grand reset to the human population of the year 1700, just before the industrial revolution began. Five hundred million people, about 1/16th of the current population.

The benefits of this couldn't be overstated. There would be sudden, giant drops in greenhouse gases, in plastics production, in deforestation, in smog release. Mindless materialism and reckless consumption would stop overnight. Cities would become overgrown and wildlife would return. The oceans, so overfished that many species were on the verge of extinction, would have a chance to regenerate.

The Earth could carry five hundred million people.

Eight billion? Not so much.

But these… attacks… in Eastern Europe couldn’t accomplish that goal. 

The attack on Romania and Moldova made some sense as a test, he supposed. It was becoming clear that it had only killed thousands, or possibly tens of thousands of people, and would probably be contained. Millions had been displaced, but powerful outside parties - the EU, the UN, NATO, the United States, and dozens of charitable organizations - had rushed in to rescue them. Giant refugee camps had been set up, which were already becoming squalid centers of misery. It was good to know these things.

If it went as planned, this coming attack on Croatia and Bosnia was going to be much larger, more involved, more sophisticated, and would probably kill many more people. It was going to be an utter disaster. Almost certainly, it would destabilize those two countries, possibly bring about their collapse, and cause another refugee crisis. 

But to what end?

The cholera was hardy, certainly. It was virulent and deadly. It was resistant to cold, but it wasn't cold-proof. It would grow more slowly and spread less efficiently in cold weather. It was resistant to water filtration, but there was no doubt in Robert's mind that there were combinations of chemicals and filtration that would weed it out and kill it. Advanced societies would race to discover these combinations. You couldn't boil it away, but if you had modern infrastructure, you could truck in millions of gallons of bottled water from elsewhere.

Yes, many people would die while you were attempting to do these things, but not everyone. And it might not spread very far.

It would be much better to introduce this disease where sanitation had ceased, or had never existed in the first place. It would be much better to introduce it in warm waters that were not treated in any way, and where massive amounts of people were totally dependent on these waters. It would be much better to introduce it where medical infrastructure was weak, or nonexistent, and where people lived packed into substandard housing like sardines in a can.

Kolkata and Mumbai, and many cities in India. Goma in the Congo. Lagos in Nigeria. The shantytowns of Cape Town and Johannesburg. Certain cities in North Africa.  The favelas of Rio de Janeiro.  The giant, polluted and teeming cities of eastern China.

Get the disease started in these places, and it was possible the advanced powers would not be able to keep up. They couldn't rescue everyone, everywhere. Warm summer weather would come to the Northern Hemisphere, they would have their hands full in their own countries, and the bacteria might well spread across the Earth.

Viktor Laskov had told Robert that other freighters would be leaving south out of Belgrade on the Danube. They would enter the Black Sea, then cross the Mediterranean, headed to Africa and India. Robert himself was supposed to fly to Mumbai in several days, and meet a freighter when it arrived there.

But the freighters were going to run into trouble in the Black Sea. Security had been tightened because of the outbreaks in Romania and Moldova. All ships headed in that direction were being boarded and searched. River traffic had slowed to a crawl.

It was dangerous to send the freighters that way, carrying such precious cargo. Better to fly the bacteria out of Belgrade again.

But airport security had tightened as well, all across the world. How were they going to get the materials to the places that would make a real difference?

Laskov couldn't be this stupid. It wasn't possible that he didn't anticipate any of this.

Right?

Also, where was Dr. Pinter? When Robert left Norway, he was on the same plane as Laskov.  Irina Decker was also on that plane, and several of the inner circle. Robert asked Laskov about Dr. Pinter. Amelia Pinter was as inner circle as a person could get. The cholera was her innovation. Laskov shrugged and said she had caught an earlier flight.

She wasn't in Belgrade when they arrived. She hadn't joined them on this freighter.

No one mentioned her anymore. She was just gone. You were supposed to assume that she was somewhere else, working on another task, maybe an attack in another place. 

But Robert was starting to wonder.

He would consider asking Irina Decker, who was here on the ship, but you couldn't trust Irina. She was Laskov's minion, and enforcer, and probably his lover. Her task in Norway, as far as Robert had understood it, was to mask their communications and activities so no outside parties would detect the research station. 

She had done that, and clearly had delivered excellent results. She had also spent a lot of her efforts on monitoring the internal communications of the people who lived and worked there. She watched everything, which meant Laskov watched everything. 

At times, being in Norway had taken on the tone of living inside the totalitarian dystopia of the novel 1984. Except your captors smiled and commended you on the work you were doing, instead of berating and torturing you.

"Robert," a female voice said. "There you are."

As though Robert's thoughts conjured her like a dark spirit, Irina Decker appeared on the deck, walking toward him. She was as beautiful as people said. It wasn't clear where she was from, or what her background was. Everything about her was a mystery.

"Robert, Robert, Robert," she said, as if he were a wayward child who had wandered off, and had to be found again by the adults. She was smiling, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. She wore a tall white fuzzy hat, and a puffy white winter coat, shaped like bubbles, and made of polyester and other synthetic materials. 

Robert himself wore an old naval pea coat made of wool. The coat was probably 30 years old. Very soon, if things worked out, wool production would drop off to a tiny fraction of current levels. Synthetic materials would cease production entirely, at least for a time.

But how were things supposed to work out?

Robert had been recruited by Amelia Pinter. He didn't trust Laskov, and he didn't trust Irina. Maybe he never had, but the feeling was stronger now than ever.

"I want to show you the lab where you'll be working," Irina said. "It's downstairs, hidden deep inside the ship. I think you're going to love it."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

6:35 pm Central European Time

Sasha Pechersky Building

Zeleni Venac

Belgrade

Serbia

“What’s the story with that driver?”

Troy and Dubois were sitting at the old kitchen table in the safehouse flat. The satellite phone sat on the scarred wooden surface, the speakerphone option engaged, volume on low.

It was unlikely that anyone would overhear, unless there were bugs in the apartment itself. The building was huge, with dark empty hallways, the stone floors wet and slippery from water leaks, graffiti on the walls, and many of the apartment doors open, showing nothing inside. Somewhere in the building, TV sets were playing. A few people still lived here. 

The main stairwell was in an astonishing ten-story atrium, following along the outer edges of it. At the very top had once been a glass skylight in five panels, all shattered now, and open to the cold night. Ambient light from the cityscape filtered down. There was an elevator, in an ornate metal cage, but it didn't seem to be working.

The flat had high ceilings, with embedded light fixtures shaped like flowers. The kitchen floor was stone tile, as was the bathroom. The other rooms had wood floors, the wood old and weathered. They were the kind of floors that would give your feet splinters. 

The sink fixture in the kitchen, and both the sink and toilet in the bathroom, were made of heavy white stone. The kitchen stove was gas powered, and needed to be lit with a match. There was a large box of wooden matches in a drawer. Incredibly, the gas lines to this building, or at least to this apartment, were still operational.

Troy had put some coffee in an old aluminum percolator. It was cooking on the stove, the coffee making blurp, blurp sounds as it hit the heavy glass at the top. There was abundant food in this flat - the refrigerator was stocked with meats and cheeses, even eggs. There were crackers of various kinds in cardboard boxes on top of the counter.

Miquel Castro-Ruiz's voice came out of the phone. It sounded tiny and far away. 

“What was wrong with him?”

"Well, for one thing, he seems a bit high strung for his job. For another, he thought this place was built by communists. It looks like it was built long before the communists took over."

"That building went up in 1897," Jan said, somewhere behind Miquel. "It was once known as the Bradbury, after the Englishman who developed it, but it was renamed in the 1960s for a Soviet hero of World War II. It was a luxury apartment house in the early 20th century. German officers stayed there during the Nazi occupation."

"See what I mean?" Troy said. "The guy is nuts. He thinks Gypsies have magical powers."

He grinned at Dubois. 

She returned a wan smile. 

Romani. Right. Get it right next time.

Dubois still had hardly spoken. She wasn't really looking at him. She must be tired, he understood that. Troy was tired, too. It had been a long day yesterday, followed by a horrible night, and another very long day just getting here. But her state seemed to go beyond mere tiredness. Troy was starting to worry about her.

“He’s a little paranoid.”

"It's a good time to be paranoid," Miquel said. "I don't blame him."

“He said the people we’re here to monitor are not environmentalists.”

“He might be right,” Jan said.

Troy shook his head, and looked up at the ceiling. "All right," he said. "In that case, I take it all back. Never mind the driver. What is the situation?"

The apartment was a shrine to austerity, its furnishings Spartan and devoid of personality. Tall windows, veiled by dark heavy drapes, offered a vantage point over the street outside. 

There was an innocuous brick office building a few blocks down. That was the building they were here to watch. It was two stories tall, and commanded the corner of the main street, and a narrow side street. The front door of the building opened right at the corner. 

In a sense, the building almost seemed to have a pyramid or wedge shape. It was long, with a warehouse and loading dock along the main street. By any definition, even the main street was quiet. There was little or no traffic along it. It was early evening, but to judge by the streets around here, it could be late at night. This was a forgotten part of the city.

“We have more information,” Jan said.

“Are we free to talk about it over this connection?”

“Yes.”

Troy nodded. "In that case, do tell."

"Before we start on the building, I have another piece of data," Jan said. "It's relevant." 

“All right.”

"A man calling himself Prins Gekkenhuis committed suicide three nights ago, in a remote house on Texel Island, off the north coast of the Netherlands. If you were Dutch, you would see the humor in that name. It means Prince Madhouse. His real name was Paul Bauer, which is much more mundane. Among other things, he was a popular online writer, sometimes referred to as the Poet of the Apocalypse. He had a passionate following. He was reclusive, a bit mysterious, and among his followers, he rose almost to the level of a cult leader."

But he didn’t really kill himself.

Troy knew this story already.

It occurred to him that he should have come clean about what Missing Persons said as soon as he got back to Madrid. Would it have saved anyone in Romania or Moldova? Probably not. The attack had already taken place before Troy even arrived in Madrid. 

But it might have saved Jan some research time, and that might have…

"His message was that the human race needed to die out, or at least drastically decrease its numbers, to save the planet. Before he died himself, or possibly timed to happen afterwards, he sent out a message, telling his followers that if he appeared to die of suicide, he was in fact murdered. In that message, there was also…"

"There was a woman," Troy said, interrupting him. He launched into a plausible lie, which might send Jan down the right path. 

"She was a microbiologist developing weapons for the Pentagon, possibly Joint Special Operations Command. Or, if she wasn't developing them herself, she had access to the information. There were rumors about her. This was years ago."

“She disappeared,” Jan said. 

Troy nodded. "That's right."

“Amelia Pinter,” Jan said. 

Troy had no idea what the woman’s name was. 

"She had high level security clearances, then simply walked away and went underground. She became an acolyte of Gekkenhuis for years. I've uncovered direct communications between them. They spoke cryptically, in a sort of code, but it's clear they became less enamored of each other during the past year, and fell out completely in recent months. Part of his last message seems to be directed toward her."

“What does it say?” Dubois said. 

Troy looked at her. He resisted the urge to say something funny. Like:

“She’s alive.”

That wouldn't go over too well. At least she was paying attention.

Jan went on. "He addresses her as mon amour, or my love. He called her that many times in their direct communications. His message is presented as a sort of poem. And he says:

‘You cannot save the world by destroying it.

You cannot overcome the savagery of the human race by embracing that savagery.

You cannot defeat the forces you hate by killing everything you love.’”

Jan paused. 

"That's it. That's all of it. I believe that they shared a broad agreement on the goal of reducing the human population. And I suspect that they came to a disagreement about how to achieve that goal. Gekkenhuis seemed to believe his friend had decided to use her expertise to force the reduction. There are many opportunities to do so." 

“In what sense?” Troy said.

"Since this outbreak started, I've been running a second algorithm, one which is searching the Earth for ideal settings in which cholera attacks would cause widespread death and disruption. We're talking about cities without modern water treatment, without modern sanitation systems, often situated along rivers or on stagnant bodies of water, that the people take water from directly, or dump human waste into, or both. Places where people are poor and live in close quarters, without many doctors, and with failing or nonexistent medical or other infrastructure. There are more than 300 cities which are very good candidates, and about a dozen large cities which are perfectly ripe for disaster. Those dirty dozen are all in India and Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa."

Troy breathed. He stared at the coffee percolating on the stovetop. It looked ready.

"All right," he said. "A cryptic online message from a dead guy, that could mean almost anything, and could have been sent to anyone."

"Agreed," Jan said. "But here's how it ties together. Around the time of Gekkenhuis's death, the electric power went off at his home. Someone made a call from there moments later. They called from a cheap cell phone that was purchased anonymously for cash in the slums of Brussels months before, had never been used, and hasn't been used since. The call went to a voicemail drop associated with a shell company based in Belgrade. The company headquarters is that building down the street from you. The same building the French informer gave as his home address when he died of cholera."

“What’s the name of the company?” Dubois said. 

“Living Sciences, SA.”

“Owned by?”

"It doesn't matter who owns that company," Jan said. "It's an opaque ownership structure, which I tracked as far as a corporation in the Cayman Islands, before I let it go. The important thing is at least 14 companies and organizations give their headquarters as that building. An organization known as Green Future is based there. Those are the environmentalists the French informer was undercover with. There's another organization there called Football Kids. A real estate company called Belgrade Riverfront Development. Another organization, known as Free Republic. Several others."

“Is there a chance these are real companies?” Troy said. 

"They're all real, in a sense," Jan said. "Belgrade Riverfront Development has interests and investments in the waterfront developments happening along the Danube and Sava Rivers, and strategic partnerships with companies in Dubai and China. Living Sciences is supposedly a biochemistry start-up, exploring novel cancer treatments. Football Kids promotes interest in the game you would call soccer, as if the most popular sport on Earth needs someone to promote it. Free Republic is an advocacy group calling for the Republika Srpska, or Serbian Republic region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to secede from that country and become part of Serbia."

"They want to start that war over again," Dubois said. Her voice was flat.

"Which brings me to my point," Jan said. "When everything is stripped away, a man named Dragen Bogovic owns the building, and likely controls the organizations residing with in it."

“Who is he?” Troy said. 

"He's a former agent of the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency, with ties to the Serbian mafia, in particular the Zemun Clan, and was involved in funding paramilitary organizations like the former Arkan's Tigers. He was close friends with the former Prime Minister and war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. He was implicated in the 2003 assassination of the former Serbian Prime Minister Ivan Stambolic, but was never arrested or charged. It was later determined that Milosevic ordered that hit. Milosevic ran a gangster state, and Bogovic was one of the gangsters. Numerous mobsters and intelligence officers were tried and convicted in Stambolic's death. At that time, and well before then, the Serbian mafia, the intelligence agencies, and special operations units of the military were practically indistinguishable from each other.”

“Where is Bogovic now?” Troy said. 

"No one knows," Jan said. "He's in his 80s, and some people believe that he has dementia. He hasn't been seen in public in a decade. But it's probably safe to assume that his associates and underlings still operate that building."

"Let me see if I have this straight," Troy said. "An environmentalist was calling for a massive reduction in the human population. He built a following. He might have been friends with a missing microbiologist who might have been developing bio-weapons for the Pentagon. They might have had a falling out. And then he might have been killed by Serbian gangsters with ties to Serbian intelligence? Both of whom might have ties to radical environmentalists?"

“Yes.”

“It’s a lot, Jan.  It sounds a little flimsy.”

"That's why you're there," Miquel said. "To determine if it has any merit."

“By watching that building?”

"Yes. It's also why that flat is there. Interpol has been monitoring Dragen Bogovic, and his criminal organization, for years."

“And you think his organization runs the environmentalists?”

"I wish we knew that for a fact," Jan said. "Even if he doesn't run them, he gives them shelter. He may fund them, or Serbian intelligence might. Green Future the radicals, and Living Sciences the cancer researchers, supposedly occupy offices on the same hallway in a small building. They might be partners. They might be the same people."

The scenario was beginning to come together in Troy's mind. Okay. What would it take to find out? Watch that building. See who came and went. Maybe walk down there, pop his head in, and say hello to everyone.

If they kill you, the police won’t even investigate.

Jan was still talking.

"If someone improved a bacterium to this degree, they didn't do it in their home, and likely not in the building we're discussing. They did it in a facility that would have been expensive to set up and keep hidden, using the resources of a military, or an intelligence agency, or large corporation, or possibly a vastly wealthy individual like an oligarch. Most environmental groups don't have those contacts. Most organizations of any kind don't have them either. But Bogovic does, or did when he was younger."

Troy was starting to buy it. He really was. Except:

"Why would the Serbian mafia attack Romania? Or poor Moldova, of all places?"

“If it really happened that way, the reason is clear,” Jan said. 

"Not to me," Troy said. "But there are no stupid questions."

"Agreed," Jan said. "Serbian intelligence and Russian intelligence are closely aligned. Serbian criminal networks and Russian criminal networks are nearly intertwined. All of those groups are like tentacles of the same octopus. Serbs and Russians have affinities dating back centuries. Meanwhile, Romania was an Eastern bloc communist country that has now fully embraced the West. They are a member of both the EU and NATO. Moldova is a former member state of the Soviet Union. They've applied for the EU, but haven't reached the basic economic standards for acceptance. In the meantime, they've participated in joint military exercises with the United States."

“They’re being punished for their betrayal,” Dubois said.

Tears began to stream down her face.

"Yes," Jan said. "It's possible."

Dubois was trembling.

"Guys?" Troy said. "We're a little hungry and tired on this end. Thanks for the food, and the coffee. We're going to ring off for a little while, digest all this, and catch up with you later."

“You found the surveillance equipment?” Miquel said. 

If by surveillance equipment, he meant the two pairs of binoculars, the high-powered telescopic lens with plastic tripod, and the comfortable reclining chair to place by the window, then Troy had indeed found them. 

“Yes.”

"Okay. Stay in touch. Communicate. Over-communicate.  Check in before taking any action. Do not engage without a check-in."

Troy sighed quietly. "Will do."

He hung up. He looked at Dubois. 

She sat in a wooden chair, her body shaking uncontrollably now. The tears ran down her face like two rivers. Her face turned a dark, deep shade of red. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. 

Troy shook his head. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

“All those dead.”

“You didn’t do it,” he said. 

"I didn't stop it."  She closed her eyes and her body just shook. It looked almost as if she was being electrocuted. "Please," she said. "Please hold me."

He went to her then, kneeled, and put his arms around her. She was rigid for a long moment, still resisting, and then she slowly melted into his embrace.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

February 5

1:55 am Central European Time

Aboard the freighter Voivode

The Sava River

Serbia

“Amelia Pinter was a genius.”

Robert Osgard spoke the words out loud, to himself, and then realized that in all probability, they were listening to him. There was no such thing as privacy in this organization.

After he spoke, he also realized that he had referred to Amelia in the past tense. Things like this happened with him all the time. His subconscious became aware of information in the environment before his conscious, waking mind did. Often this occurred when he was exhausted, nearly at his physical limit, like he was now. He had used this facet of himself in his work many times.

He had been working nearly nonstop for the past nearly eight hours, since Irina had come and found him on the top deck, and then introduced him to this hidden lab. He hadn't slept in days, had flown down here from Norway, boarded this boat, and was working again.  

Amelia Pinter was dead. They had killed her. 

He experienced a long moment of sadness about this, then immediately began to move on. Amelia was a beautiful, intelligent woman, possibly one of the smartest people on Earth, and Robert had become infatuated with her. She was a bit older than him, and certainly a mentor. And this bacterium, what she called Cholera-like Substance F 7.0, or CF7 in a sort of shorthand, was her innovation.

Everyone else calls it Shiva.

Even Robert himself had adopted Viktor Laskov's nickname for the bacterium. It was indeed the destroyer and creator of worlds. The more Robert worked with it, the more he respected its inventor and feared the organism itself. The thing was a monster.

Amelia had built this entity, and so she must have known the risks. They were trying to cull more than 90% of the human race. This wasn't really about saving the planet, and preserving it the way it was at this moment. It was about resetting it to an earlier century. Dangerous people were involved. No other kind of people could participate in something like this. She must have crossed them, or had some fundamental disagreement with them. 

Or maybe she just outlived her usefulness.

These thoughts made Robert wary, but he knew he was okay for the moment. He hadn't outlived his usefulness yet. He was tasked with growing and multiplying the bacteria colonies safely in secret mobile labs built for the purpose, just like this one. He didn't need Amelia for that. But they couldn’t do it without him.

He wore a white coverall, with doubled-up rubber gloves, rubber boots, a hooded respirator with a full face shield, and a helmet. It was a Level A hazardous materials suit, and it was made of solid vinyl. It was hot inside, and he was sweating a lot.

If anyone came in here, the respirator would make it hard to speak to them. The helmet and mask would make it hard to hear. Fortunately, no one had come in. 

It was unlikely that anyone would. This laboratory was deep inside the boat, at the bottom of a two story ladder covered by a sort of manhole, which itself was covered by a sliding sheet of decking made to look exactly like the decking around it. If you didn't know that the ladder was there, it would be very difficult to stumble across it.

At the bottom of the ladder was a stark, green and orange steel anteroom where a person could prepare before entering the lab itself. The lab and its anteroom must be tucked behind a thick wall at the back of the cargo hold. On the other side of the wall were thousands of kilograms of gravel. It was just there to obscure the true purpose of the boat.

Robert was beginning to understand Laskov's logic, and to feel more confident about the future of the project. If all the freighters were outfitted like this, then they might make it into the Black Sea without the presence of the labs, or the cholera, being detected. How would anyone find it? The authorities would have to seize every ship entering the Danube River delta, and be willing to take them all apart, piece by piece.

They weren’t going to do that.

Robert turned back to the task at hand. Just thinking about it brought him alive. The dream was real. He smiled at the ruthlessness of Amelia's mind, wherever she might be now. Robert's job was to culture and grow the colonies, so there would be a great deal of live bacteria when the time came to infect the water supply of Zagreb and the areas downriver from there. He pictured the narrow alleys of Zagreb, corpses lying uncollected, and then he shook the thought away.

Amelia's job had been to create an organism that was almost impossible to defeat, and she had done that. Shiva's virulence was more than ten times higher than normal. A person usually needed to ingest about a million individual organisms of cholera to reliably get the disease. With Shiva, it might take less than a hundred thousand. 

Normally, most of the bacteria got killed off by the acids in a person's stomach. But Shiva was resistant to human stomach acids. When people knew of a local cholera outbreak, a lot of times they avoided getting it by boiling the drinking water, and killing off the cholera that way. Shiva was resistant to heat to an almost unspeakable degree.

When he and Amelia first talked about that in Norway, he was skeptical. 

She had smiled. "So boil it."

Robert took some of the small early colonies and boiled them. He boiled the first one for five minutes, timing it from the moment the roiling boil started. No good. The colony was still alive. He boiled the next one for seven minutes. Then he went to ten, and twelve, and finally fifteen minutes. At fifteen minutes, the water had more or less boiled off. In the bit remaining, he still found a few organisms alive. 

It was resistant to cold in the same way it was resistant to heat, only more so. Freeze it and the organisms simply went dormant, waiting to be awakened again. The bacteria did slow down their spread in the presence of cold, and their multiplication slowed. But even so, normal cholera bacteria died in the presence of cold. 

And the bacterium was so deadly that it would kill between ninety-five and one hundred percent of the people infected with it, usually within twenty-four hours. The people of rural Romania and Moldova had been discovering that over the past day.

Possibly even more amazing than any of the other characteristics was how fast the bacteria were multiplying. Eight hours into this, and he was once again astounded at how quickly the organism was replicating itself. He'd never seen anything like it. How could it happen so fast? 

Robert felt a weird mixture of emotions. On the one hand, he was a little uneasy. No, it was more than that. He was afraid. The bacteria were multiplying so fast, so explosively, that there almost seemed to be a personality to it - aggressive, murderous, raging. He knew it wasn't true. Bacteria had no personality. Ascribing human traits to other animals was a common fallacy of people who knew little or nothing about biology. But in this one case, it seemed real. Watching them under the microscope sent a tingle along Robert's spine. It wasn't natural, what was happening in these colonies. 

As the colonies multiplied, there was going to be a lot of bacteria in the lab - thousands of liters of infected water. Moving it and delivering it to the target wouldn't be easy - even getting it back up the ladder was going to be difficult - but that was Laskov's problem, not Robert's. 

Robert took a deep breath. Robert didn't like Laskov.  If Laskov had something to do with Amelia Pinter's disappearance and probable death, he would like him even less. But Robert had to admit that Laskov was probably a genius, as well.

He had built this lab inside this ship. 

The place was larger than a person would imagine when climbing down the ladder or waiting in the anteroom. 

In here, Robert had room to move around. He had already opened several of the crates marked Tea from China, used the contents, and discarded the crates in a pile. Even so, there was still plenty of space.

He had a large, well-lit work table against one wall with two workstations and a splash guard running the length of it. He had a high-powered microscope, two incubators, a refrigerator and an autoclave. He had an electric agitator, a microwave oven, a digital timer, and a sink with a dedicated water supply. He had two Bunsen burners, a fire extinguisher, some liquid droppers with digital readouts for measuring precise amounts, digital thermometers, and stacks and stacks of consumable supplies – Petri dishes, rubber gloves, masks, beakers, and everything else. 

There was a walk-in storeroom with hundreds of liters of alkaline peptone water, the perfect medium to promote the growth of the cholera, while killing off any unwanted bacteria. That's where the massive colonies would live. The culturing media were also in the storeroom - blood agar, TCBS - as well as thirty or forty hundred-liter carboys. The whole lab was run on a huge, dedicated battery behind a panel in one of the walls.

When it came down to it, the boat existed to support this lab. 

There were men aboard here who were clearly environmental commandos. They had easy camaraderie among themselves. They wore the long beards, and the long hair in ponytails, and the necklaces with various pagan totems, of people who occupied forests against the so-called "developers," who were more aptly called "destroyers," and were a cancer on the Earth.

It was Laskov’s peculiar brand of genius to interact with and understand scientists like Amelia, Robert, even Irina Decker, but also to recruit and command the powerful ruffian types who had loaded the boat, and the fearless activists who would deliver the cholera to the targets.

Laskov had built the research station in the frozen wastes. He had commissioned a top-flight microbiologist to create a disease that resembled a nightmare of the apocalypse. He had cajoled her into making the disease portable, and replicable in mobile labs. He had gathered teams who were willing and able to release the disease on an unsuspecting world. 

He had already organized one release, with a high degree of success. Now the second release was about to happen, one which would likely be ten times larger than the first.  

“Did I hear you talking to yourself in here?” a voice said. 

Robert looked up from his work and turned slowly around, as much as his hazmat suit would allow. Irina Decker stood behind him, in a normal lab coat, gloves, a plastic face shield, and paper mask. 

He had been so focused on his work that he hadn’t heard her come in. 

"Irina!" he said. He practically shouted at her, so she could hear him. "You shouldn't come in here dressed like that. These are dangerous materials."

“I called you from upstairs, but it seemed you didn’t hear me.”

"Did you just hear me?" he said. "It's deadly in here."   

She nodded, but ignored the substance of what he was saying. "I heard from Viktor. He is wondering how the work is progressing."

"Quickly," Robert said. "Faster than anything I've ever seen."

"Good," she said. "Can it ready for large-scale missions late this coming night, or very early the next morning?"

“Are we already that close to Zagreb?”

“We will be.”

Robert thought about it. He did a couple of simple calculations in his head.

"Yes. It can be ready."

Even through all of the personal protection gear, he could see her malevolent smile.

"Excellent. Romania was just practice. The first real test is coming." 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

4:15 am Central European Time

Sasha Pechersky Building

Zeleni Venac

Belgrade

Serbia

“I never want to get out of this bed again.”

It was late at night. Dubois lay nude in a wide double bed, low to the floor, under some heavy, scratchy wool covers. Her head rested on a stack of flat, hard pillows. She could feel that it was quite cold in the flat. All the same, she had slept, and right now this bed felt as luxurious as one in a five-star hotel in some Mediterranean resort.

There was a tall window across from the bed. No sound came from the streets below. 

She had spoken to herself. Stark had gone out of the room a few moments ago.

She remembered everything they had done tonight, and the last time. Being with Stark was electric, amazing, incredibly satisfying. More, there was no safer feeling than lying in his arms. How could there be? Who could threaten you when Troy Stark was your protector?

She knew that while she slept, he had gone in and out of the room. He was probably doing the surveillance that had brought them here. But when she woke from a doze, mostly he was here. She thought of running her hands gently along his strong back. She thought of how they moved together, and how they lay for a long time afterwards, Stark's face pressed to the pillow beside her. At some point, Stark had lifted his head and they made eye contact.

Then they giggled like children.

Now he came back into the room, limping slightly. He was nude except for a pair of very small boxer briefs. His body was very good. He was imposing, large, incredibly strong. Yet there was something graceful about him. He moved like a dancer - a dancer who was limping. 

He was not really a young man anymore, she supposed, four or five years older than she was herself. He was covered in scars and bullet holes, and his handsome face was lined and weather beaten from years of exposure to the elements. 

He carried a tablet computer in one hand, and was tapping its face. 

“How old are you?” Dubois said.

Now he looked up. He smiled. "Old enough to know better."

He paused. 

“But young enough to do it anyway.”

She shook her head and smiled. 

He climbed onto the bed and looked at her closely.

“How are you?” he said. 

"Better. I think I was just tired. Exhausted. It made me emotional."

It was true. The horrors of Romania still lingered with her, but they weren't as bad as before. All of those empty villages…  A lot of people were dead, she knew that, but maybe not everyone. It was possible that many people had simply fled the region. She knew that countless refugees had piled up at the quarantine borders. It's possible that accounted for most of the people. Her over-tired mind wouldn't let her consider the optimistic possibilities before.

Stark's smile broadened. "It's okay if you're emotional."

He was having fun.

"Not on the job I can't," she said, and killed it for him. She didn't know why she did things like that.  Serious Maryem Dubois.  She was too much sometimes, even for herself. Poor girl. She could bleed the joy out of a children's party.

Stark eyed her closely, but said nothing.

“Why are you limping?” she said. 

He shrugged. "Riding in airplanes, driving around in cars, sleeping on a concrete floor. I've been injured a lot in the past. But it's nothing. I'm just a little sore."

She stared into his blue eyes a moment longer, but the fun was over. She couldn't blame him for that. 

“I want to show you a couple of things,” he said. 

She nodded. "Show me."

He threw the covers off of her, and his eyes roamed her body.

She covered herself, both for modesty reasons, and because it was freezing in here.

“Stark!”

“Put some clothes on.”

“What about you?” she said.

He shook his head and his smile reappeared. "I'm not cold like you are."

She jumped out of the bed and crossed the room in a few strides. She found the clothes she had been wearing earlier on the floor - a black bodysuit, heavy boots, yellow belt and sash. It was good enough. She wasn't trying to win a fashion award.

She pulled the clothes on, already feeling a slight relief from the chill in the flat, and followed Stark out into the main room. 

He had evidently set up shop out here while she was sleeping. The room was dark. There was a fat, decades-old armchair, with torn upholstery and stuffing coming from ripped seams, facing the window. On a small round table next to the chair were some crumbs from whatever food he had been eating and an empty white mug - knowing Stark, he'd been out here drinking coffee in the middle of the night.

The heavy dark window drapes were pulled back a very slight amount, creating a crack that gave a view down the block.

“Sit in the chair,” Stark said. 

Dubois slid into the chair. It was saggy but sort of comfortable.

She watched the street through the crack. There was a nondescript work van down there, on the warehouse side of their target building, but she couldn't say much about it.

A pair of binoculars appeared in front of her.

“Use these,” Stark said. 

He placed them in her hands. They were large and heavy. She put them to her eyes, and her delicate fingers adjusted the focus, honing in on the building. A whole world opened up for her, new details emerging as if out of a fog.

The van was white, or maybe gray, the kind that blended into the urban tapestry with ease. It was a little bit beaten and rusted, the truck of a solo tradesman perhaps. Its only defining feature was a faded logo along the side, nearly scrubbed away by time and neglect, and which she could not make out. 

Steam rose from the tailpipe, but there were no lights showing. The van almost seemed to sag on its axles, as if there was something heavy inside.

It was parked next to a rusted corrugated door, like a garage door. To the left of that door, was a heavy steel entry door of an indeterminate color. The color of rust, perhaps.

“This has been going on all night,” Stark said.

The heavy side door opened, and several figures emerged. They wore dark clothing, with work boots, wool hats and hoods on their heads. A couple of them wore black bandanas or balaclavas, making it impossibly to see their face. The cold gave them an easy excuse for obscuring their features. 

The men opened the back of the van, and now they pulled equipment of some kind out of there. They were green or black metal boxes, apparently heavy, which gleamed just a bit under a nearby streetlight.

“This is probably more than just a late night office redecoration.”

“It’s way past their bedtime, and ours,” Stark said from behind her.

Suddenly, the corrugated door slid upwards. It rattled on its tracks, a sound she could easily hear from here.

“They’re not even trying to keep it quiet,” she said.

“No.”

When the door was fully open, the van lurched into motion, made a hard left turn, and disappeared into the shadowy confines of that warehouse. Instantly, the door began to lower again with an eerie creak, before hitting the ground with a resounding clang.

One figure was left on the street. He knelt at the bottom of the door and fastened something.  Dubois homed in on it.  He had just placed two heavy padlocks on iron rungs where the door met the street, one on each side, and clasped them shut. They looked like the kind of giant industrial locks someone might put on shipping chains.

Dubois was a very good lock picker. Not world class, but good enough. These would be hard to crack. Each one would take a long time, while she and Stark stood exposed on the street.

As she watched, the man who had placed the locks went in the side door and disappeared. That door slammed shut behind him.

"Gone," Dubois said. "Like they were never there."  

"Give them another minute," Stark said. "Look to your left, in the alleyway."

From this vantage point, she would expect someone to emerge from the same door they went into, or maybe from the front glass doors of the building, though there were no lights on there. Instead, a side door opened far to the left, down the narrow side street.  Three men came out, possibly a few of the same men who were just unloading the van. 

It must have snowed a bit while she was asleep - the side street had some of the white stuff on the ground. Either it had snowed, or the street was too narrow to ever receive sunlight, and snow from days ago was still frozen in there.

The men moved back up the street, slipping a bit on the snow, and came almost to the front doors. Then they stopped. A man crouched down, and there was a trap door embedded in the sidewalk. Dubois hadn't noticed it at all until the men stopped there.

The crouching man produced a silver key of sorts, but something very basic, almost like a skeleton key or what an American might called an Allen wrench. He slipped it into a locking mechanism, turned, and unlatched that trap door. He stood, pulled a heavy ring tab, and yanked the door up and opened. 

One at a time, the men went down into whatever hole had opened. Then they were gone, and the door slowly settled back to the sidewalk on top of them.

Stark was watching behind her.

"That's the fourth time I've seen them do that," he said. "Looks like the rats are tunneling."

"We can get in there," Dubois said, and the thought of it raised some goosebumps on her skin. It was true. From where she was sitting, that looked like a simple lock. The last man in had probably just reached up and turned the locking mechanism with his fingers as he went down whatever stairway or ladder was under there.

She had tools with her that could mimic the key the man had used to open it. It would take a little bit of playing around, but maybe not too much.

"We don't have authorization, though. And it's probably too late at night to get it."

Stark spoke from behind her.

"It's going to be morning soon," Stark said. "We can't go in there in daylight, and we can't wait another full day for night to come around again. Whatever they're doing in there could be finished by then. What do you suppose Miquel would say we should do, if we asked him?"

"He'd say go in," Dubois said, knowing the truth of it instantly. "But he'd also say be very, very careful."

“You don’t have to come,” Stark said.

Dubois chose to ignore that remark.

"Any misstep could spook them, and we've only got one shot at this," she said. "So we'll have to be quiet. Stealthy, like mice."

"Spook them?" Stark said. "These men are probably killers. I don't think they spook very easily."

“Neither do we,” Dubois said.

She took a deep breath. It was clear to both of them that she had been spooked badly by what they saw in Romania. She had been shaken to her core. As the seconds ticked by, she hoped that Stark refrained from pointing this out. 

Stark's muscular form appeared before her, still in his underwear. He closed the heavy drapes, turned and squatted down low in front of her. He looked deeply into her eyes. His own eyes seemed pained, and maybe even afraid. She had never seen Troy Stark look afraid before.

"You don't have to come," he said again. "You can wait here for a message from me, and then relay it to headquarters."

"My dear Agent Stark," Dubois said. "But who is going to open that door for you?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

5:30 am Central European Time

Zeleni Venac

Belgrade

Serbia

“This is your last chance,” Troy said.

Inside the wide open atrium, the air was cold, and a white plume escaped from his mouth. They were at the far end of the hall from their room. The skylight soared above their heads. The light streaming down was in various colors - blue and red and orange - almost a psychedelic experience.

In modern Belgrade, the new buildings insisted on making a light show in the sky. For a moment, Troy flashed back to the buildings of Central Hong Kong. Is that what Belgrade wanted?

Here, inside the building, the designs along the railings of the old stairwell were intricate and ornate. The lights reflected off the metallic surfaces. Water from somewhere was running down the wall in a gentle trickle. It ran along a narrow seam of ice that had formed in a crack.

"Last chance to do what?" Dubois said. Her voice was low, but even so it almost seemed to echo through the cavernous space.

"Last chance to stay home," Troy said, hating how this sounded, but having no choice except to say it. "I can do this alone."

He didn't know if that last remark was even true or not. He had survived many an operation alone. And in some of those situations, having a partner to worry about would have made everything harder. Also, he had survived many group and two-person operations where he would have died on his own. Either way, he didn't want her coming with him.

"No thank you," Dubois said, her voice even. "I wouldn't miss this for anything."

Troy shrugged. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"Anyway, it's unprofessional for you to suggest it. We're a team, and I'm your partner. I've been doing this a long time."

"Yeah," Troy said. He didn't want to say another word. 

They reached the ground floor.

With practiced stealth, they exited the building, blending into the night outside. The street was empty, with a few scraggly trees, dormant for winter, in circular rings along the sidewalk. Across the street was an old warehouse, perfectly dark, the doorways and windows on the ground floor covered over with plywood panels.

Dubois's small frame moved ahead, ghost-like, while Stark followed, his larger form a looming shadow just out of sight. Ahead was the office building, almost perfectly nondescript.

A few ghostly lights shone from inside, especially in upstairs windows, but they looked like night lights that were always left on, and not evidence of any human activity.

Not for the first time, Troy silently cursed their lack of weaponry. For 14 years of his life, there probably wasn't a mission, or even a simple assignment, that he went on without a gun, or multiple guns, or multiple guns, knives and explosives.

Since he joined Interpol, he was expected to go nearly everywhere without a weapon of any kind. He had spent the bulk of his time in Hong Kong trying and failing to acquire a gun.

He grunted quietly at the thought.

“Yes?” Dubois said.

"A gun," Troy said. "My kingdom for a gun."

The door embedded in the sidewalk, the entryway to whatever was below the building, was up ahead and to the left. It was maybe 20 meters down the narrow side street. That street was dark, almost unlighted.

They moved toward it, like shadows.

As they approached the hidden doorway, a sense of foreboding washed over Troy. The darkness seemed to thicken around them, suffocating and heavy. His walking slowed.

The door was there on the ground, faded green, metallic and easily visible. It was rectangular in shape, with what looked like a simple lock mechanism, and a heavy ring with which to pull it open and up.

There was some snow on the sidewalk here, as though the sun didn't penetrate between these buildings. The door was clear of snow, and flush against the side of the building. They weren't even trying to hide it.

Dubois reached the door first and crouched down to inspect the lock. Troy watched her for a moment, then scanned the streets in both directions, looking for cameras or motion detectors. It was impossible. They could be anywhere nowadays, hidden behind or within anything. The street was maybe five meters wide, and no vehicles were parked along it.

Nothing moved out here.

No. That wasn't true. A small white and yellow stray cat darted out from the shadows in front of one building. It ran down the block, then disappeared under a wooden fence.

Dubois pulled out a small silver tool from her pocket and began manipulating the lock. After a few moments, there was a soft click.

“I think that did it,” she said.

Troy stepped up, hooked his forefinger into the metal ring, and pulled the door up. It was heavy, but the hinges were well greased, and it came without too much effort. It barely made a sound.

He was careful not to let it fall to the sidewalk.

He and Dubois exchanged a quick glance before descending into the hidden depths below the building. The staircase was a spiral, and it disappeared down into darkness.

"Well, it's real," Troy said, his heart sinking a little bit. "They're doing something down there."

Her dark eyes were staring at him.

“Dubois…” he began.

She shook her head. "No. I'm coming. You were wrong. You couldn't have done this without me. You're not a lockpicker. I am."

“Yeah, but I don’t need you anymore.”

"The next lock?" she said. "And the next one after that? Are you going to break them open with your rock hard head?"

He shook his head, but he smiled. A burst of air escaped him, almost a laugh, but not quite.

“All right,” he said. “But I lead.”

She made a sweeping gesture with her hand.

“Age before beauty, darling.”

They descended into the darkness below, their footsteps barely making a sound on the metal stairs. The air was musty and cold, sending a shiver along Troy's spine. They reached the bottom, and waited in pure darkness for several seconds. The only sound was their breathing.

Troy flicked on a small flashlight, illuminating an underground chamber.

It was a large room filled with wooden crates and old steel barrels, stacked haphazardly around them. There were layers of dust and cobwebs on everything. It looked like no one had used this place in ages, but he had watched half a dozen guys come down here during the night, including just a couple of hours ago.

Dubois’s voice was barely a whisper.

“There’s a doorway at the far side.”

The doorway was a sort of black hole, darkness against darkness. She moved silently through the shadows toward it, her eyes keen and alert. She gestured for Troy to follow her.

He caught her quickly and grabbed her by the arm, maybe a little harder than he intended.

“I’m supposed to lead.”

“You’re the man,” she said.    She stepped out of his way.

“Keep your head on a swivel,” he said as he passed her, receiving nothing but a curt nod from Dubois in response.

Troy moved ahead and stepped up to the black hole. It was impenetrable darkness in there. He swept his penlight into it, but it illuminated nothing. A musty smell of disuse wafted out. Troy listened. There was something else, a distant sound of machinery.

“You with me?” he whispered to Dubois. 

“If it was up to me, we would already be in there.”

Troy smiled, and stepped into complete blackness.

He went one slow step at a time, his feet probing the floor below him for holes or other traps, giving his eyes a chance to adjust. The chill of the underground passage seeped into his bones. His senses were on high alert. The narrow corridor echoed with that sound, which was beginning to become clearer as they went forward.

The light from Troy’s penlight danced across the walls, casting eerie shadows.

The passage twisted and turned, a labyrinth beneath the city, leading them deeper under the building. Neither he nor Dubois said a word. The sound was a little louder here, a clanking and hum of machinery. There was dim light up ahead.

The passageway widened here.

A sort of ramp appeared above their heads and to the right. It came down gradually to their level. It was a conveyor belt, and it was moving. That's what was making the noise.

Troy moved even slower than before. He and Dubois were like cats, stepping silently.

Just ahead on the ceiling, there was a yellow light bulb in a small cage. Low wooden crates, wrapped in thick clear plastic, were coming down the long smooth decline of the conveyor belt, and then continuing along this corridor toward some unknown destination. Troy turned and looked behind him and upwards.

At the top of the belt, there were heavy vinyl drapes. The crates pushed through the vinyl and came down the chute. Troy could just see the hands of someone up there, placing one crate after another on the belt, feeding the machine.

He glanced at Dubois. Her eyes were large in the gloom.

Troy pointed ahead, the way the crates were going. Dubois nodded. 

The system was efficient. The slope of the belt was gradual enough that when the crates reached the bottom, they simply trundled along, navigating the change from a slope to a flat surface easily. The belt had metal walls a few centimeters high, like guardrails, to keep the moving packages on track.

Troy and Dubois moved along the side of the beltway, walking faster now. There were overhead light bulbs every 20 or 30 meters, so it was easy to see everything. The passageway was long, cold, and humid, with concrete walls and floors, a subterranean tunnel that appeared to have been here a long time.

Finally, the narrow confines opened into a larger space, the sound of the machinery met by new sounds here. Troy paused in the doorway. The industrial site's dank corridor gave way to the open air. The chill was biting.

The crates rode the conveyor belt out into a warehouse, and ended up sliding off the belt into a semi-circular collection point, like a baggage claim at an airport. A couple of men in heavy coats and wool hats were lifting each new crate as it arrived, and piling them onto a forklift. 

Beyond there, in the middle distance, the warehouse had a giant bay door that opened onto a loading dock. A ship was moored there, an old freighter. In the half-light, it was hard to make out what color it was, its size, or really much about it at all. 

A group of five or six men stood by the bay door, smoking cigarettes and talking. A few were laughing. Steam rose from their mouths.

There was a stack of wooden pallets to Troy's left, maybe ten or fifteen meters into the warehouse. There was no question of turning back. They had come this far. Troy's satellite phone could take photos, but he needed a better angle on what was happening. He needed a name or registry number for that ship. He needed a name or identifying features for this loading dock. He needed clear photos of those men. Jan Bakker's facial recognition software might hit on an identity, someone with a prior record and known associates.

They had stumbled on a goldmine. It seemed clear that the vans unloaded in the office building warehouse, then sent the cargo down the conveyor belt to here, where it was loaded on ships. This dock was probably two or three city blocks from the warehouse. 

It was a simple ruse. Unload the vans in one place, load the ship somewhere else. To the naked eye, the two places were not connected. The cops almost certainly knew, but you paid them off, threatened them, or both. No prying eyes in the sky could see what you were doing.   

"Found the nest," Troy said, his gaze sweeping the open space. He felt the danger of their position acutely. Even if they did turn back, they could run into more men coming along the hallway. Hiding spaces were few and far between. It looked like the stack of pallets was the best they were going to get.

Troy gestured with his head. "Those pallets to the left. There's some cover behind there."

“Okay,” Dubois said.

Troy looked back at her. "Make this seem natural. We're going to be out in the open for a little while. Just hide in plain sight."

Dubois nodded. "Of course. I'll wear the cloak of invisibility."

Troy almost laughed again. She had spunk. He liked that about her.

You love her.

Troy stepped into the open space and walked across to the stack of pallets. Just a guy, out for a walk, in a warehouse. It took several seconds to get there, and then he slipped in behind the pile. It came up to his chin, so he ducked down a bit. Two seconds later, Dubois joined him. They weren't completely hidden, but someone over by the ship would have to look hard to spot them. They crouched back there, taking in the sights laid out before them.

Troy's gaze skimming the perimeter of the warehouse. Dubois was a shadow at his side. The place was a labyrinth of concrete and steel, rusted, cast off machines parked in corners, cement pillars connected to each other with shipping chains.

“Two armed guards on the right, near the entrance,” Dubois whispered. 

Troy glanced over there. Sure enough, down the wharf to the right was a fence crowned with barbed wire, and two men with rifles standing at the open gate. 

“To the left seems clear, but I’d bet there are cameras tucked away somewhere.”

Now Troy looked that way. The wharf extended far to the left, a long approach that seemed wide open. He focused his eyes on a barely perceptible glint in the distance - either a camera, or a motion detector, just as Dubois predicted. Then he saw another one. For some reason, these guys hadn't erected a fence over there - probably because they didn't control the entire dock. But an intruder wouldn't get far coming in that way. 

Out above the water, the first light of dawn began to creep across the snowy Belgrade skyline. 

We need to get out of here.

Troy took out his phone. He opened the camera feature and zoomed in on the men on the dock. One man was taller than the others, by a nearly a full head. He was dressed differently as well. The other men wore the dark and heavy wool coats and caps of dockworkers. This man wore a stylish green winter jacket, black gloves, khaki pants and ankle-high boots. He looked like he was going to a dinner party, or a cocktail bar at a ski resort. 

Troy snapped several photos, in fast succession. He zoomed in on the tall man's face. The man had dark hair streaked with gray. Troy guessed he was about 50 years old. The man was smiling at something one of the smaller men had just said.

As Troy watched, the forklift drove past the knot of men, directly into the open hold of the small freighter and then disappeared in the shadows.

“They are loading that ship with whatever those vans brought in.”

Dubois pushed his shoulder.

“We have a problem.”

Troy turned back to her. Two broad men were emerging from the corridor he and Dubois had just exited. More crates were flowing out of there. 

The men saw Troy and Dubois - of course they did. They had a perfect, clear view from that direction. One man, the stockier of the two, wasn't wearing a cap. His head was bald, his face pockmarked and scarred, his eyes hard. He turned and headed straight for them.

Troy did the math. There were five men standing on the dock, two armed guards at the gate, two workers loading crates, and now these two. Eleven against two. The numbers were bad. Troy and Dubois had no weapons, and there were probably more of these men lurking around here somewhere.

“We better go,” Troy said. 

He slid the phone into his pocket, and zipped the pocket closed.

“Left, out that long wharf,” Dubois said. 

Troy shrugged. "Unless you have a better idea." 

The man barked something at them in a language Troy didn’t understand.

Dubois said something back to him.

A door was open to the outside on the far left of the warehouse. Troy and Dubois walked quickly toward it.

“What did he say?” Troy said.

“He wants to know who we are.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him we were tourists, out for a morning walk.”

Troy shook his head. "Oh God."

They were nearly out the door and onto the wharf.

Suddenly, the man behind them began screaming. It was very loud. To Troy, it seemed he could understand what the man was saying.

It sounded like:

"Hey! Hey!"

Troy took Dubois's small hand. In a moment, they were out on the snow- and ice-covered wharf. At the far end, the wharf opened to the city streets.

“Hey!”

“We better run,” Dubois said. 

An instant later, they were slipping and sliding, and sprinting for the safety of a public place.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

7:15 am Central European Time

A cafe

The docks on the Sava River

Belgrade

Serbia

“This is no good,” Troy said.

Six men were coming the other way.

Troy and Dubois slowed to a stop. Maybe a hundred meters further down the long wharf was a city street with light morning traffic. Except half a dozen men blocked their passage. The men were dressed in similar manner to the dock workers - heavy wool coats and caps. 

The group had just come around the corner from the left, as if someone had given them a quick phone call. Incredibly, a couple of them were carrying what looked from here like hurling or cricket bats. They looked like they were in a scene from a black-and-white movie about mob violence on the loading docks. 

"That's old school," Troy said. "Bats."

To Troy and Dubois's right, there was a long canal which must lead out to the river proper. There was a fine crust of snow along the edge of the wharf. The water had large chunks of ice floating in it. They looked like they'd punch a hole in a wooden hull. Troy was an exceptional swimmer and resistant to temperature extremes, but that water would put him in hypothermia in about 30 seconds. Never mind skinny girl Dubois. 

Troy glanced back toward the warehouse and loading dock they had just left. Seven men were coming from that direction. One of them was an armed guard from the gate, openly carrying a rifle. 

Thirteen men were closing in now, at least some of whom were armed. 

"Oh boy," Dubois said. "This is…"

She trailed off, nothing more worth saying.

Troy nodded. "Yeah. It is."

He looked along the wharf to their left. The buildings were narrow and packed together. There was a series of storefronts on the bottom floors. One, about ten meters in front of them, had an image of a steaming coffee cup in the front, plate-glass window. Troy read aloud the words on the awning above the window. 

“Dobro Jutro,” he said.  “What does that mean?”

“It means good morning,” Dubois said. 

"It's a coffee shop," Troy said. "Let's stop in there."       

“Right,” Dubois said.  “A cup of coffee sounds nice right now.”

They pushed open the door and passed inside. The door made a loud "ding!" as they entered, possibly the day's first customers. The café's air was tinged with the scent of rich espresso and baking bread. The smells were so pleasant that Troy longed to stay here and eat. 

“Holy moly, that smells good.”

“It probably tastes even better,” Dubois said.

A middle-aged woman came to the other side of the counter. There was a blur of pastries and breads inside the glass. She said something in Serbian. She sounded casual, relaxed. Her eyes were half-open as if she had just awakened a minute ago. The morning was just starting, and it was going slowly.

There was a dim, narrow hallway to the right of the counter. It looked like maybe a bathroom was along there. A broom leaned against the wall next to a bright yellow mop bucket. There was a door at the far end of the hall. 

Troy pointed. "What's down that hallway?"

The woman stared at him, eyes completely blank. 

Dubois said something to her. She practically shouted it.

The woman looked from face to face, shrugged, and spoke again.

“Alleyway,” she said in English. 

Troy scanned the street outside the café's window. No one had appeared there yet, but they were running out of time.

“Don’t be here now,” he said to the woman. 

He looked at Dubois. "Tell her not to be here. Go somewhere else."

"Where? Where should she go?"

"I don't care. Upstairs. Can she go upstairs? Does she live here?"

Dubois shouted something at her.

The woman spoke sharply in return.

Now they were shouting at each other.

The hairs on the back of Stark’s neck stood up as he spotted a shadow flit across the reflection of the glass. 

"Run!" he screamed at the woman. "Run!"

Before he could say another word, the morning calm was shattered by the crack of gunfire. The front window exploded, showering the interior with shards of glass. Troy felt tiny stinging needles hit his face and hands.

The woman was gone. She had disappeared as if there was a trapdoor below her feet. Belgrade woman, not a kid, running a coffee shop along the docks. She was probably used to this kind of thing.

There was a table along the length of what had been the window. It had some kind of Formica or metallic top. Maybe it would stop a bullet, maybe it wouldn't. 

"Down!" Troy shouted, flipping the table to provide cover. He crouched behind it, his mind shifting into overdrive. Dubois was already rolling into a crouch.

Stark peeked over the edge of their makeshift barrier.  

There were two gunmen out there, a man with a pistol to Troy's left, near the door to the café. The man with the rifle was to the right. They were going to triangulate their fire. That was bad. They had some idea what they were doing. 

The other men were clustered out there, on either side of the café, waiting to come in once the shooters hit their targets.

"Dubois, this is not going to work. It's time to leave."

“Door to the back alley,” Dubois said.

Troy nodded. "Yeah.  Ready?"

“More than ready to get out of here.”

"Don't hesitate," Troy said. "They're going to fire. We just need to push through that."

Dubois nodded. "Okay."

“On my go,” Troy said.

“Don’t wait much longer.”

Troy took a breath. Those guys were moving slowly in. The only thing holding them back was they probably weren't sure if he and Dubois were armed or not.

“Go!”

Troy darted backwards, turned and ran down the short hallway. He could feel Dubois on his heels. A blast of gunfire erupted behind them. 

BANG! BANG!

Single fire, semiautomatic, a repeater. 

It was a good sign. At least no one out there had a machine gun. 

He hit the door at full speed, pressing down on the metal bar across it.

And bounced off. 

“Locked!”

He took a step back, lifted his leg, and kicked the thing as hard as he could. The door splintered at the lock, but didn't break open. He took two steps back now, and lurched forward, lowering his shoulder.

CRASH!

He burst through the door, off balance, and out into the icy alleyway. He kept his feet, pinwheeling for balance, and made a sharp left turn. He hit the far brick wall, pushed off it, and was running now, feet sliding.

He was ten meters down the alley when he glanced back. Dubois had made a right turn when she came out the door.

“Dubois!” he screamed. 

She turned and looked at him for just a second.

"Split up!" she said. "They can't catch us both!"

"No! Dubois! Don't split up!"

Then she was running again, running away from him.

A man came sailing through the doorway, crashed into the wall like Troy had done, then turned to face him. A second later, another man came through, and then another. 

They turned right and raced after Dubois.

There were three men between Troy and Dubois now. 

The first man approached Troy. He held a pistol in his hand. He was one of the triangulators from outside. He smiled and said something. Behind him, two more men piled out of the café, turned right, and ran.

Troy ran at the gunman. The man pointed the gun.

Troy sidestepped, still coming. He slid along the man's arm.

BANG!

The gunshot was loud in the alleyway. Troy's ears were instantly ringing.

The shot missed. Troy delivered a punch to the man's throat, reared back a few inches, and chopped the blade of his hand right where he had just punched the guy.

The man gagged, and Troy took his gun away with his left hand. Another man came into the alley, a big guy, very broad. He saw they were fighting, and decided to join in.

BANG!

Troy shot him in the face. The recoil was a lot for a gun this size. It was a surprise, and Troy's arm popped up. The shit hit the man between the eyes, and he sank to the snow like a forgotten rag doll. 

The gagging man, the former gunman, launched himself at Troy, bulling him backwards into a rusted garbage dumpster. Troy's feel slipped, he fell backwards, and the man crashed down on top of him. 

Dubois!

The gun was gone.

The man was trying to strangle Troy. His meaty hands were around Troy's throat. The man was strong. STRONG.

Troy's left hand snaked out. He plunged two fingers into the man's eyes.

He drove them deep.

“AHHHHHH !!!!”

The man screamed. 

Troy punched him in the throat with his right. 

It was a crushing blow, all adrenaline rush. 

The man released Troy's throat. His hands went to his own throat.

Troy punched him again, all open targets now. 

The man rolled away, and Troy released his eyes. The man writhed on the snowy ground. Troy pulled himself to his feet, using the dumpster for leverage. This guy was going to die. His throat was crushed. His breathing was bad. He was gasping for air. 

His eyes were…

BANG!

Another shot rang out. It punched a hole in the dumpster bare inches from Troy's side. Troy dove to the ground, catching a glimpse of the man with the rifle. He was just up the alleyway, drawing a bead on Troy.

BANG!

He fired again.

The pistol was here on the ground. Okay, it was a shootout now. 

Troy picked up the gun. 

The man fired again. 

BANG!

He was pumping holes into the dumpster. 

Troy held the gun up and fired straight into the air. He wanted to let that guy out there know he was armed, too.

BLAM!

It was loud. Troy's ears were really ringing now. 

He peeked over the dumpster. The man was backing down the alley, leaving his dead and dying comrades behind. Two other men ran past him, heading down the alley. The gunman saw Troy and raised the rifle again. 

Troy hit the ground.

BANG!

It was further away now. Troy barely heard that one. He couldn't tell where the shot went. 

Dubois. They're going after Dubois.

The rifleman was the rear guard. If Troy wanted to catch them, he had to shoot his way past that guy. It wasn't going to happen. There had to be another way. 

He peeked again. Up ahead, well down there now, the rifleman backed into an alley to Troy's left. Now, that guy held all the cards. He could hide there and pop Troy as soon as he came close. Troy would have no cover.

Troy's lungs burned. He could still feel the other man's phantom fingers around his throat. At Troy's feet, that man lay still now.

Far away, he thought he could hear a chorus of angry voices, shouting to each other in a language he couldn't understand. Dubois was in danger. 

The narrow alley, lined with aged buildings and trash cans and the occasional flash of graffiti, seemed to constrict around him. Troy searched for an out - a side alley, a rooftop, any advantage. 

Back the other way, he spotted a fire escape ladder dangling within reach. It had the benefit that it was further away from the man hiding around that corner. The guy would have to expose himself, and then take an uncertain distant shot. He probably wasn't going to do that.

Troy ran down to the fire escape and leapt, catching it in his strong grip. The structure groaned under his weight, creaking as though it might rip from the brick wall and send him crashing back down to the concrete.

He scaled the rusted rungs, the white paint flaking off against his fingers. His muscles coiled and sprang, propelling him up to the first landing. He rolled over the railing and landed on the old ironwork. The entire framework creaked and groaned again and shook all the way up. For a second he thought his weight would collapse the whole thing.

He groped his way to his feet. He needed to move fast. There were stairs here now, no more ladder. He climbed, his breathing ragged, dragging himself upward. 

“Dubois,” he said.

Another gear kicked in at the thought of her name and her face. A surge of adrenaline went through him, and he began to take the stairs two at a time. It wasn't over, not by a long shot. He reached the top landing, three floors above the street.

There was a view of the city skyline, tall modern skyscrapers, old stone buildings, here and there the minarets and spires of Eastern Orthodox churches, all of it blanketed in snow. To his right was the meeting of the Sava and Danube Rivers. It looked dark green in the morning light.

There was no time to look at this. 

He took off in the direction Dubois had gone, heavy boots pounding across the snow and ice. A line of roofs were ahead of him, satellite dishes mounted here, there, and everywhere.

This roof ended with a low wall. Troy slowed, then came to the wall and stopped. The next building was lower and two meters across an air passage. Troy jumped onto the icy wall, held his balance, paused for a second, then leapt out into nothing. 

He took the gap easily. He touched down on the next roof, covered in tarpaper that someone had shoveled. Troy was on a row of packed-together narrow buildings now.

He ran across them, leaping from one to the next without even slowing. His feet slid in the snow and ice. He reached the edge of one roof, where the gap to the next was quite wide. He barreled towards it, and leapt, feeling the chasm open and close below him.

He reached the end of the block and turned left. 

Another gap coming. Troy burst off the building's edge. There was a moment, out over nothing, arms and legs pumping like a man falling from a great height. The alley seemed far below him.

Now he could hear the shouts. He looked to his left and down.

In the alley below him, Dubois was running. She was fast, men falling behind her. But looking ahead, another group had managed to outflank her.

Troy swore under his breath.

There had to be a way to get down there. An airshaft was to his right. 

He went to it. It was piled high with all manner of garbage. There was no one down there, and it led out to the alleyways. But the garbage didn't mean anything. It wouldn't break his fall. If he dropped that distance, he would die. There was no fire escape and no ladder.

“Dammit!”

Troy gazed across the rooftops.

No help anywhere.

He began his pursuit again. He leapt to another rooftop. Below him, a deadly drop-down, Dubois had come out into an open courtyard between buildings. 

The men surrounded her on all sides. 

Shoot them! Shoot them!

A man approached Dubois. He raised his hands. Her foot shot out, a front kick that caught the man in the groin. The men shouted, and a few of them laughed. 

Troy took the small pistol out. It was the color of sand, a gun he didn't recognize, some old make from the former communist world. He ejected the magazine. It held five shots, three of which were already gone.

Troy groaned. He checked the chamber. Nothing in there. There were two rounds left.     

He looked into the alley. There were eight guys down there, one of whom was the rifleman. Suddenly, four attacked Dubois at once. 

A surge of bodies swarmed over her, dragging her down like a pack of wolves overwhelming a lone deer. Stark's instincts screamed at him to fight, to shoot them with the two bullets left to him, throw the gun at them, then launch himself into the air, fly three stories down, land on top of them and tear them all apart.

It was impossible. He wasn't going to jump off the building, and if he killed any more of these guys, he was only going to make Dubois's fate worse.

As he watched, a man opened a red wooden door into one of the buildings, and within seconds everyone, including Dubois, had disappeared inside.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

7:45 am Central European Time

Sasha Pechersky Building

Zeleni Venac

Belgrade

Serbia

"You sent us here. What did you think we were going to do?"

Troy burst into the safe house apartment, on the phone with Miquel and Jan.  They were both in the office, early, but not early enough.

There was a good chance this apartment was compromised by now, but Troy came barreling in without hesitating. If bad guys were already inside, or if they followed him here, he would kill them with the last shots left in his gun. If that didn't work, he would tear them to pieces with his hands.

"I understand," Miquel said. "But when you self-authorize an operation like this, you put us all in a very difficult and dangerous…"

“Miquel!”

If Troy could reach through the phone and grab Miquel by the throat, he would do it.

Miquel was still talking. Troy wasn't listening. 

"What is this Miquel, cover your ass now? When have you ever NOT green-lighted an operation? Now you're concerned. Why, because this one went wrong? I know. You have to explain it to your superiors. I understand that. But I have to get Dubois back. I have bigger problems than you do right now."

Troy might be burning a bridge here with Miquel. That was okay. The person he needed was Jan.  Jan was tracking Dubois's location.

Miquel had gone silent. 

“Jan, is her chip still broadcasting?”

When Troy found out that Dubois had a GPS microchip embedded in her skin, he had been amused by that knowledge. Now, he wasn't amused at all. He wasn't relieved, either. That chip was the last, tenuous thread that attached them.

"Yes," Jan Bakker said.  "It's still broadcasting. I have the location."

“Where is it?”

“There’s no way you can go there now.”

"Jan," Troy said. "I need that location."

"It's daytime, Agent Stark. You will not get in and out of there alive."

Troy shook his head. He put the gun down on the wooden table. He paced the room like a caged tiger. There was a sense here of searing loss, of separation, of unbearable pain. He was in a state of terror that he had never known before. 

He tried to speak calmly. "Let me be the judge of that, please."

“You will put Dubois’s life at risk, as well as your own.”

Troy had nothing to say to that.

“The Belgrade Police…” Jan began.

"It's no good and you know that. These people are all connected to each other. If we reveal what we're doing here, and those guys are somehow involved, Dubois is as good as dead."

“Let’s do this,” Jan said calmly.

“DO NOT contact the police here, Jan.”

"I won't. But let's make a trade, okay?"

Troy could barely restrain himself from screaming.

“A trade?”

"Yes. You told me you took photographs at the dock, of the ship, and the people there. Send me those. I'll start the people running through the facial recognition software. It will only take a moment and can run in the background. I'll launch a program to try to match the ship to known river freighters working those waters. That will also only take a moment."

“Jan…”

"Both programs will run in the background and will require no more input from me. Then I will look for schematic drawings of the building, and the buildings surrounding where Dubois appears to be held. Once we have those, it will at least give you a fighting chance. But you should wait until nightfall."

Troy said nothing. Jan was either the most reasonable person on the planet or the one who was most utterly without emotion.

“Agent Stark?”

Troy nodded. "Okay. I'll do it."

He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down.

“I’m sending it right now.”

He hung up the phone, brought the photos up, and sent them into the ether.

“Special delivery,” a voice said from behind him. 

Troy spun around, half-expecting to get shot. The door to the flat was open. He had come in here in such a storm that he hadn't bothered to lock it, or maybe even to shut it. 

A man stood there in a blue uniform. He was a small man with light brown skin and a dark beard. He was good-looking, almost like a soap opera actor. He was carrying a large plastic bag with a brown paper bag inside of it. 

“You ordered breakfast?” he said. 

He looked down at a slip of paper in his free hand. 

"I've got a nice big Serbian breakfast here. Fresh bread, with butter and jam. Still warm out of the oven. I've got yogurt, cheese, sausage, and kajmak that's to die for."

It was Alex.

Alex was the emissary from Missing Persons. He was a man with a unique skill set, and he always seemed to turn up eventually, often at the exact moment Troy needed him.

“This is a lot of food, but breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

He came into the room and put the bag down on the table.

Troy felt like his head was floating somewhere above his body. His feet seemed far below him. "How did you know I was here?"

Alex shrugged. "Your friend got herself chipped. Do you think we didn't know that? We've been monitoring you guys the whole time. As a matter of fact, it's incredibly convenient when someone is chipped. Persons thinks you should probably get yourself done, too. It's the in thing, Stark."

A surge of rage passed through Troy again. He stepped up to Alex, towered over him, grabbed him by the lapels of his weird delivery boy uniform, and shoved him up against the wall. Alex was lighter than air, and it seemed like he left his feet. 

He deserved it and more than that. He deserved Troy's fist plunging through his face. His flippant attitude was too much. Thousands of people were dead. And Dubois was gone.

"I've just about had it. Persons knew all about this before it happened. What are you guys doing? I'm about to kill somebody."

Suddenly, a gun appeared in Alex's hand. Alex was like a magician, and he had just pulled a rabbit out of nowhere, not even a hat. He pressed the muzzle up under Troy's jaw. It wedged against the fleshy part, just beneath his tongue. 

"You need to relax," Alex said. "Something bad could happen here."

Troy felt nothing about that gun. No, that wasn't true. He felt he could kill Alex before Alex had a chance to pull the trigger.

“Tell me what he knew,” Troy said.

Alex shook his head. "Persons didn't know anything. He knew about the missing biologist. And he knew she had some kind of relationship with an online writer. He knew something might be coming, but he didn't know what. That's all. If he had known anything more, he would have told you. Or we would have stopped it some other way. What happened in Romania and Moldova, believe me, nobody in Persons's world wanted that."

"What were they loading on that freighter?" Troy said. "Was it the disease?"

"How should I know?" Alex said. "I just got here myself."

Troy's shoulders slumped. He took a breath and nodded.

“Okay.”

He let go of Alex's lapels. Alex's gun snaked away and returned to wherever it had come from. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Troy turned and went to the delivery bag. Down at the bottom, among all the cardboard food containers, was what he was really looking for and knew he would find.

He reached in and pulled out the can of Rock Star. It was still cold. 

He grunted and opened it.

“Can we stop it?” he said.

"The ship?" Alex said. "Yeah. I suppose. Those guys did not wait around. The ship left the dock ten minutes after you did. It's headed south on the Danube, toward Romania. We can watch it from the sky, and someone can interdict on the river. Probably not the Serbians. But there are about five thousand NATO troops over in Romania right now from half a dozen countries. There must be some special forces or SWAT types among them. Interpol can request that they storm the ship. Talk to your boss about that."

Troy shook his head. "Not you guys?"

"What, guys?" Alex said. "We don't have any guys. We don't make official requests. I think sometimes you overestimate who and what we are."

"Okay," Troy said. "I'll talk to him."

He turned and faced Alex again. 

“I have to get Dubois back.” 

Alex nodded. "I know."

"I don't want to wait for those guys to tell me her location. Do you know where she is?"

"Yeah," Alex said. "We know."

“Will you tell me?” Troy said.

"It'll be ugly. If you make it out, no matter what happens, if you have her or not, we're going to want to leave the country immediately."

“I need weapons.”

Alex shrugged. "I have some."

Troy gestured at the apartment around them. "What about this place?"

"I don't know for sure," Alex said. "But I'd assume it's cooked. You guys made a hell of a splash out there. The bad guys are probably on their way here."

Troy sighed. "We've got bags. A couple of tablet computers. Clothes. Things they can identify us with. We can't let them have that stuff."

"There's a chute in the hall that goes to the incinerator," Alex said. "It still works. I checked. Just burn everything. Torch it, and let's go."

He went to the table, picked up the food bag again, and tucked it against one arm. Troy stared at him.

Troy nearly laughed. "But not the food."

“An army runs on its stomach,” Alex said.

Troy shook his head. "I think I'll keep my tablet."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Time Unknown

Place Unknown

“Who are you?” a deep male voice said in heavily accented English.

She didn’t know the answer.

She woke up for a few seconds and then fell into a dream again. She wasimmersed in some other world - a world without pain or thoughts, without feelings or experiences. She drifted in darkness. 

Waves of oblivion flowed over her for long periods of time, entire lifetimes passed, an infinity of time, and then they were replaced by a fleeting surge of consciousness again, but only for a moment. She floated in a black eternity. She passed out of time and space, and she was forgotten. She had even forgotten herself.

The darkness was one where you realize that the worst is just moments or even seconds away. It was the kind of darkness the condemned man experiences when he is brought to the scaffold to be executed. It was that kind of darkness.

They had beaten her nearly unconscious, then covered her head with a black hood or sack.

One of the men had carried her. Her small body was slung over the man's shoulder like a sack of rice. He had dumped her here, wherever here was. 

Soon she would be killed. There would be no explanation of anything - just this darkness, perhaps a moment of confusion or struggle (perhaps not even that), and then death.

Tears flowed from her eyes, across her cheeks and slidall the way down on to her neck.

She lay where she was and could not move.

It was dark in here. It was cold. She was in pain.

And she was awake.

She had been unconscious for a period of time, but now she was awake. It hurt to be awake. Being unconscious was better, and she longed to return to that state. Though truth be told, she was aware of the pain even then.

"You! Who are you?"

Dubois didn't answer. The perfect answer was elusive. If she said she was Interpol, what would they do? Kill her, probably. She had seen too much. If she continued to claim she was a tourist, what would they do? Let her go?

Maybe. Maybe they would.

“Can you hear me?” the voice said.

She couldn't see the man who owned the voice, not because of the darkness itself, but because of the black hood over her head. It turned out she had been wrong before - the hood was not completely opaque. She could see shadows through it, but nothing else.   

She couldn't move her arms. They were fastened tightly behind her back. She thought they might be tied with rope at the elbows and wrists. She had no feeling in her hands. 

It seemed that she was lying on her side, her head resting against something hard, like a cement floor. Her head and neck ached. 

Her clothes were ripped and torn from the fight. She knew this because could feel the cold of the cement on her left shoulder and along her arm. Her jacket must be gone, but she couldn't tell for sure. She was still wearing pants, and boots. That was a good sign.

There was light somewhere, but it was very faint.

She had left the safehouse flat without any identification, in case something just like this happened. That was good, and it was good to remember. Complete thoughts were coming to her now. A way to respond might emerge, a plan, a strategy.

"My name is Adrienne," she said, haltingly, as if it were hard to get the words out. "Adrienne LePage." 

"French? You sound French."

She nodded. "Yes. I live in Lyon."

It was an easy cover story. The name was a simple alias she had used once or twice before. And she had lived in Lyon for years when she was with Interpol proper. She could describe the life of Adrienne Lepage to the smallest detail, and barely need to invent anything.

“What were you doing?” a man said. 

"Where? In the café?"

In fact, it did hurt to speak. During the struggle, she had been punched in the mouth more than once. The side of her face felt swollen, as did her lips and tongue. She could only hope that her teeth were still intact. 

The man laughed. "No, not in the café, my little fish. In the warehouse. On the boat dock. You and a man were watching a freighter load."

"He's my boyfriend. We were awake early and left the hotel to see Belgrade. We just arrived in the city. We were out for a stroll."

“A stroll?”  The voice was almost mocking. 

“Yes.”

“It was an odd place to be out strolling, wasn’t it?”

"Along the waterfront?" she said. "Why? It's pretty there."

"People don't stroll along the industry docks in Belgrade, certainly not in the middle of the night. And they don't enter warehouses where they are not invited."

“I wasn’t in a warehouse,” she said, though of course it was no use. 

There were cameras on the long public wharf. There had probably been a camera inside the warehouse, or more than one. There might have been cameras in that underground corridor. They almost certainly had footage of her and Stark. They might know that she and Stark opened the trapdoor from the street and entered that way. They might know Stark had taken photos of the loading dock and the people congregated there.

"Yes you were," the man said. "I know you were."

Dubois shook her head, rolling it on the hard surface. "No." 

"Lady, I know everything. You shouldn't lie to me. It will only make things worse for you."

“I’m sorry,” Dubois said now. 

She began to cry. She didn't hold back. Her body shook from it. Partly it was a trick to get some leniency from this man, but partly it was real. She had cried last night because so many people had been killed. She still felt that. It wasn't out of her yet, and might never be.

Then there was the cruelty of this man and his friends. Maybe they had something to do with the cholera attack, or maybe they were just gangsters. But no doubt they were cruel, and uncaring, and did terrible things as a matter of course.

"We made a mistake. We were just out for a walk. We were tired. We were curious."

“Who was that man you were with?”

"My boyfriend. We're just visiting. It's a city holiday."

“Who is your boyfriend?”

Dubois searched for something simple to remember. She had to tread carefully. If they had captured Stark, then…

They didn’t capture Stark.

"Trent," she said. "Trent Stafford. He's an American."

"Well, your boyfriend Trent killed two of our men, did you know that? It doesn't make us happy. It makes us aggravated. It makes us want to hurt people. He murdered one of our men with his bare hands, okay? He stole a pistol from the other one and shot him in the head. Trent is quite an accomplished killer for a tourist. We don't see a lot of American tourists here, but the ones we see don't usually murder anyone." 

The man paused, a delay that seemed to go on and on.

"Spies, though. That's a different story."

Dubois said nothing.

"A lot of Western countries send spies to Serbia. Are you a spy, Adrienne?"

“No.”

“Where did you learn martial arts?”

"It's just a hobby," Dubois said. "You can see that it didn't really work." 

There was a sound of rustling and a chair pushed back, metal legs on a concrete floor. The man had stood up. A shadow loomed over her, and then he was very close, squatting or kneeling right next to her face.

I'm chipped. I'm micro-chipped.

A wave of relief washed over her that was so profound her entire system seemed to overload for a long moment. The man was speaking, but she didn't hear him. There was a tiny microchip embedded in her right arm, just above the elbow. It plotted her location using the satellite Global Positioning System. It would be nearly impossible for these men to find that chip. It was dark in here, and she was wearing long sleeves. Her bodysuit seemed to be mostly intact. Why would they even look for a microchip? There was no reason.

“Do you understand?” the man said.

She nodded. "Yes."

She had no idea what he had just said. She'd had herself, and her mother, micro-chipped. It was after she'd been held on the Albanian human trafficking boat. She'd been afraid that someone would seek revenge for the death of Mateos Baruti, his soldiers, the escape of the kidnapping victims, and the destruction of that boat.  

They are seeking revenge. They blew up Stark's car.

That was okay. She would worry about that later. Right now, she was chipped, and that meant they could find her location. Find it? They already knew where she was.

She breathed deeply. 

"I want to tell you something else," the man said. "Are you listening?"

She nodded. "Yes."

She had to pay close attention now. She had to listen and stay alert, because when the rescue came, she needed to be ready for it.

"We've been taking it easy on you. You might not feel that way, but it's true. The only reason you haven't been raped, and tortured, and then killed, is because we don't know who you are yet. Bodies turn up in the river all the time. But now that you say you're French, things make a little more sense. French you said, right?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Now we're getting somewhere. An incident between France and Serbia would never do. Neither of our bosses would be happy. So why don't you just tell us who you work for, and we'll negotiate a ransom with them?"

She didn't believe a word he said. If he found out that she worked for an intelligence agency or even a police organization like Interpol, he was going to kill her. To him, the police or the secret police, they'd probably be much the same thing. She was investigating the cholera attack. If this man was involved with that at all, even if he and his men were just paid minions, loading the cholera on a ship for a new destination…  There would be no reason to keep her alive and every reason to get rid of her.

"I don't work for anyone. I do modeling."

“A fashion model?” he said, his voice returning to its previous mocking tone.

“Yes.”

"How nice. But I assure you, it's going to be a little while before you're pretty enough to return to fashion modeling. I was there when they put that hood on you earlier, and your face didn't look very good. I think it's better to keep it on for now."

Dubois began to cry again. 

It was hard. This was so much harder than when she was a prisoner on the boat. She'd barely had a moment of doubt that time. She had always felt a sense of power, an ability to act. Here she was helpless. These men had beaten her senseless and treated her like an inanimate object, a piece of luggage, something not even alive. She had no doubt they would do what the man had just threatened.

"Okay. So you're a model and not an intelligence agent. That's your story, and you're going to stay with it. We're patient men. We'll wait a little bit and see if France or whoever asks for their missing agent back. We're not going to reach out to anyone because you won't tell us who you work for. But if they reach out, we'll see what they're willing to pay. For your sake, I hope it's a lot. And if they don't contact us by this evening, we'll assume you're expendable."

Another long pause drew out. It was a trap. He wanted her to blurt out the name of her employer. She wasn't going to do it.

There came a flicker of light as though the man had just lit a cigarette. A second or two later, Dubois smelled the sweet smoke coming from it.

“Then we’ll do whatever we want to you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

8:45 am Central European Time

Serbia - Croatia Border Crossing

European Route E70

Batrovci, Serbia

Security was tight at the border.

"It's okay," Viktor Laskov said. "We have time."

They were twenty cars back from the guard station. A trio of soldiers in combat fatigues, carrying automatic weapons, and wearing paper masks and face shields walked the line, not really doing anything except intimidating normal people.

Laskov sat in the back seat of a black Mercedes sedan. At the pace they were going, it would take another hour to reach the checkpoint. Croatia had made itself the far edge of Western Europe, where east met west. It was now a member of the so-called Schengen group of countries, who did not require passport control to travel between them. A man could drive from Hungary or Slovenia into Croatia, and back out again, without ever seeing a border guard. 

But this courtesy did not extend to Serbia.

As the soldiers approached, Laskov's driver, a man named Ivan, made eye contact with him in the rearview mirror. Ivan's gray eyes were sharp. He betrayed no emotion, but the mere act of looking was enough to tell Laskov the man was concerned.

"It's nothing," Laskov said. "They won't do anything. We don't have anything they might want. I'm a wealthy Croatian businessman, and you are my driver."

The remark wasn't exactly true. Yes, Laskov was traveling under the Croatian passport of Josip Novak, a trader in diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, and other precious metals. Novak was above reproach. He lived in a fantastic penthouse flat in Zagreb, 10 stories above the river, with sweeping views of the city. 

Yes, the car was clean of weapons, or drugs, or dangerous and deadly micro-organisms. In fact, there was barely even any luggage in the vehicle. Belgrade to Zagreb was a short four-hour trip by car. Josip Novak tended to go back and forth with nothing more than an overnight bag.

The only thing that might be of interest to the authorities was half a million euros in various denominations hidden within a false panel, under the spare tire, in the boot of the car. By law, the most you could leave Serbia with was ten thousand in cash. 

Ivan the driver didn't know the money was there. And they'd have to pull Viktor's teeth out for him to reveal its presence. 

The soldiers passed with barely a glance at the car.

Viktor looked into the rearview mirror again, but Ivan was looking ahead now, perhaps embarrassed that he had revealed his worry.

Viktor shifted in his seat the slightest amount, and his own reflection appeared in the mirror. His eyes were intense, maybe even startling. He had the habit of asserting his dominance over the people around him. He often thought it was his height, nearly two meters, but maybe it was the eyes instead. He smiled at himself. 

It was neither. It was his uncompromising will to power.

He prided himself on his foresight, on his planning ability, on the intricate web he had woven to conceal their actions. This visit they had received at the docks this morning should not have happened. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but he didn't believe it.

Two people had been inside the warehouse, watching the shipload. Now, two of his men were dead, and the man who killed them had disappeared. They had captured one of the intruders, a black woman, apparently from France, but she insisted she was a tourist. 

It was a nervous thing, and it needed to be resolved.

Viktor was no stranger to the capricious nature of fate. He understood the need for vigilance and the perpetual motion required to stay one step ahead of those who might seek to unravel their plans. Throughout his career, he had been constantly watchful, a sentinel ever wary of the shadows that might hide an unexpected threat. It was how he had survived this long and come this far.

“Beware the old man in a world where men die young.”

He was that old man. 

He picked up the cell telephone off the seat next to him. The car had barely moved. He wouldn't normally make this call, but it had to be done.

A sultry female voice answered.

“Darling.”

Irina Decker. It was a voice she put on only for him. In most interactions, her normal speaking voice was flat and businesslike.

“Where are you right now?” Viktor said. 

"Oh, wide open countryside here. Very pretty. Dubocac, I think. Near there. Croatia is a beautiful place. The boat smells bad, but otherwise, it's lovely and calming to ride on the river. Maybe you and I should have a little getaway like this one day on a real cruise ship. You know, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, like honeymooners do."

Viktor ignored that idea. He could never tell if she was serious or mocking him. It could be that Irina was in love with him, like Amelia clearly was. It could also be that Irina was a dangerous sociopath, a nihilist who loved no one and nothing. 

“Any trouble?”

"None," Irina said. "The police boarded at the frontier. Two men. They looked at the paperwork, glanced at the gravel load. It was a formality. I stayed below deck."

It was good. Of course, she hid from them. She was smart. A beautiful woman riding on an industrial freighter was bound to raise some eyebrows. 

Now the ship could move upriver without being impeded. It would cross back and forth between Croatia and Bosnia several times, but the controls along there were a joke. Viktor would join the ship this evening, south of Zagreb.

Now came the question he most wanted answered.

"Have we been compromised at any point?" he said. "Don't hold back. If we have been compromised, I will not be angry with you. But I need to know."

There was a long pause.

He was about to speak again when she answered.

"Impossible," she said. "We've monitored all possible communication channels. Nothing came in, or went out, at any point, that I didn't see personally. Everything has been encrypted from the first moment. The research station was invisible to satellites. The people in the remote towns suspected nothing. Right now, on official channels, there is a lot of worry about the trouble to the east. But nothing that concerns us."

Who were these intruders?

"Good," Viktor said, but his voice was flat and betrayed no emotion. Above all, it was non-committal. Good was a word that was so banal, it was completely meaningless. Her sensitive ears picked up on that right away.

“Has there been a breach?” Irina said. 

“Not that I know of.”

“The only weak links are these gangsters, of which you are so fond.”

A breath of air, almost a laugh, escaped him. The Serbian gangsters were the one part of this she felt she couldn't control. But she didn't understand the close ties to the Serbian underworld Viktor had enjoyed for many years, nor his affinity for them. They were totally reliable. The clans were tightly sealed against outsiders. There were no loose talkers in that world.

"I'll take that under advisement," he said. "And I'll see you soon."

"Goodbye, my sweet," she said. "I'll be happy to have you here at my side."

Viktor hung up, and immediately made another call. He had come to a decision. There was no sense in delaying.   

"Yes," a deep male voice said. The voice was rough, and reminded Viktor of the load of gravel on the freighter slowly making its way to Zagreb.

“It’s me,” Viktor said. 

“I know,” the man said.

“What does she say now?”

"She's still just a tourist. Her boyfriend is just a guy. No hotels in town have a record of either one of them."

“Anything else?”

"I looked at the cameras. They came in the back way."

Viktor felt his stomach drop, as if it were an elevator whose cable suddenly snapped. Controlling his emotions was important to him, another point of pride. But now his heart began to race. His breathing became shallow. 

“How did they do that?” he said, keeping his voice even.

“It turns out the girl is good at opening doors.”

Viktor forced a breath deep into his lungs. 

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

The couple was not just in the warehouse at the dock, watching the ship load. Somehow, they had entered from the city side, not the river side which the woman had first claimed. That meant they had come down a dark underground tunnel that was several blocks long. They must have seen the load coming along the belt from that side.

And they did all this by breaking into the building.

The girl is good at opening doors.

Worse than all of that, they must have known the tunnel and the conveyor belt were there. Why else would they come in that way?

Viktor took another deep breath.    

The whole project could be at risk. There were gigantic considerations to weigh here. On one side of the scale, it was crucial to know who these people were. On the other side of the scale, Viktor needed to get rid of this woman, and quickly. It had to be like she never existed in the first place.

"Ask her one more time," Viktor said slowly. "Make it very clear to her how important her response is."

He paused.

“Then…” 

He let that thought trail off.

“I understand,” the man said.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

9:05 am Central European Time

Headquarters of El Grupo Especial

Outskirts of Madrid

Spain

“You’re doing it again, Miquel,” Hans Jute said.

Miquel Castro-Ruiz stared into a computer screen in the conference room. He was taking this meeting in the conference room, instead of his office, so that Jan Bakker could participate if the need arose.

Miquel was dressed in a blue dress shirt and pale green tie. He was clean shaven, and his hair was slicked back. He was on his third mug of strong coffee. He felt it important that he look professional, and very, very alert.

He didn't feel that way. He felt sick, deep in the pit of his stomach. Maryem Dubois and Troy Stark had gone on an unauthorized operation last night, and now Dubois had been kidnapped by gangsters, or worse.

Dubois was Miquel's favorite agent.  He would never tell anyone that, he would never even say it out loud, but it was true. She was one of the first agents who came to work for him when she was still quite young. She was his protégé. He was her mentor. 

She was like a daughter to him. In fact, he loved her. 

You’re in love with her.

Miquel felt like he might vomit.

On the screen in front of him were three heads in a row. To the left was Hans Jute, Interpol's First Deputy for Global Intelligence. It seemed that recently, Hans had been the Second Deputy. Either someone had just retired, or Hans's constant maneuvering had borne some fruit.

Hans was thin and serious, with a perfectly bald head and wire-rimmed glasses. He was small and fit and very well-dressed, as always. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit that seemed perfectly tailored to his body. 

Hans was frowning deeply and staring directly into the screen. It seemed as if he was trying to meet Miquel's eyes. Miquel didn't think he'd ever seen the man smile.

In the middle square sat Maxim Davidoff, Director of Special Projects, who was technically Miquel's direct supervisor. Max had called this meeting because he didn't have the influence to do what Miquel was asking.

Max was a very broad man with another perfectly bald head, combined with a thick black beard, speckled in gray and white. He wore a rumpled dress shirt open at his fleshy throat. His hands were large and thick, like he had left a job in bricklaying to join Interpol. He was playing idly with a fat pencil on the desk in front of him. So far, he had barely said a word.

In the right square was Margaux Montgomery, Associate Director of Organizational Affairs at Interpol. People often referred to her as MM. She was maybe in her early- or mid-60s. She was dressed in a pink business suit. Her gray hair was styled in a modern fashion, like a younger woman might wear, but face looked tired and old at the moment. 

She looked like Miquel felt. Maybe she wasn't sleeping well.

All the same, her pale blue eyes were sharp and intelligent. She was watchful, like a hawk. Everyone on this call knew that whatever decision was made, Margaux would be the one to make it. She was the highest ranking person in the organization that ever stooped so low as to meet with Miquel Castro-Ruiz. 

“What am I doing, Hans?”

Jute’s eyes were calm and impassive behind his lenses.

“Withholding information, like you always do.”

Miquel shook his head. He wanted to laugh, but it would be inappropriate. Hans Jute had never been anything but an obstruction to him. Miquel had infamously held Hans at gunpoint once, so that Stark, Dubois and Jan Bakker could continue their work thwarting a slaughterbot attack on New York City.

“I asked for this call so I can share information.”

“After you’ve been sitting on it for how long?” Hans said. 

"Miquel, please proceed," Margaux said. "I assume you have something important to tell us, or we wouldn't be on this call. Something related to the cholera attack?"

Now Miquel nodded. "Yes, and I have something important to request. It is time-sensitive, to put it mildly. It is deeply pressing."

“What do you have?”

Miquel flashed back to his argument with Stark. 

He had been angry with Stark, horrified in fact, because Dubois was missing. In these meetings with his superiors, Miquel always took responsibility for the actions of his agents in the field. He always claimed that he was in communication with his team members, wherever they were in the world, and whatever they were doing.

It simply wasn’t true.

There were times when the team was out beyond the reach of communication. There were actions that were taken because of split-second decisions. Had Miquel put them in the position where these decisions needed to be made? Yes.

Had Miquel authorized the decisions beforehand?

No. 

Stark and Dubois, in Belgrade, in the middle of the night, made a decision without authorization, and without communicating their intentions beforehand. He could see why they had done that. Prior operations had indicated to them that they had wide latitude to do that sort of thing.

I was asleep.

That thought burned itself into Miquel's heart. He had been sleeping, however fitfully, when Dubois had made the decision to risk her life and infiltrate the docks.

“Miquel?” Margaux said. 

He nodded. "Yes, just gathering my thoughts."

"Take your time," Hans said. "We have nothing better to do."

I should have shot him.

"Two of my agents are undercover in Belgrade, Serbia."

“Thanks for telling us,” Hans said. 

The man really did resent him. If Hans ever climbed to a place of real authority at Intepol, Miquel's career would be over in a heartbeat. 

"They stayed last night in an Interpol safe house flat in the city. We made an official request for the use of this flat, and it was approved. Nothing has been done in secret here, Hans."

Jute said nothing in response to that.

"There was a small outbreak of extremely deadly cholera in Belgrade last year. Two people died. At the time, it was thought to be related to a sewage backup in the river because of torrential rains and an unprecedented heat wave. One of the individuals who died was a radical environmentalist with ties to an organization called Green Future. He was also an informer for Serbian intelligence."

“Okay,” Margaux said.

"The other person who died was a police officer who found the body. In other words, he caught the disease from an infected corpse. Green Future is largely a shell organization. It shares a second-floor hallway at an office building in Belgrade with a biotech company called Living Sciences. Living Sciences also appears to be a shell company with an opaque corporate structure spanning several countries. Both of them are headquartered in a building owned by the Serbian gangster Dragen Bogovic."

“And Bogovic may have killed Stambolic,” Max Davidoff said.

Miquel nodded. "That's right. Court testimony implicated Bogovic in Stambolic's assassination, but Bogovic was never even arrested. He's a former Serbian intelligence agent who had a close relationship with Slobodan Milosevic." 

Miquel stared into the screen. He looked directly at Hans Jute, who was no longer saying anything. He wasn't being snide, he wasn't being sarcastic, he was just silent. 

"There is a secret tunnel running under Bogovic's office building, which ends at the docks on the Sava River. Last night and early this morning, Bogovic's mean were loading a small freighter called Beli Labud, or White Swan. They were using the tunnel to move cargo from a warehouse that's part of the office building underground to the dock. In other words, they were hiding their activities."

"Sounds like contraband," Hans said now. "Not cholera."

"Our agents photographed the men at the dock," Miquel said, ignoring him. "Facial recognition software got hits on several of the men there, mostly known Serbian gangsters, some with ties to mafias in other countries. But one of the men was Viktor Laskov, thought to be an agent of both Serbian intelligence and the Russian FSB. Laskov goes by at least a dozen aliases, and has been the subject of numerous Interpol alerts over many years."

“What are you asking?” Margaux said. 

"The White Swan is heading downriver toward Romania," Miquel said. "We believe it may be carrying the same weaponized cholera that has caused devastation and widespread loss of life in Romania and Moldova. We want the vessel boarded, thoroughly searched, and impounded, before it reaches the border. But we don't want Serbian police or military involved, or even apprised of the operation. We believe they may be compromised by relationships with Serbian crime networks and intelligence agencies. We request this raid happen as soon as possible."

“Who would do it, if not the Serbians?” Margaux said. 

“There are thousands of NATO troops stationed in Romania, including special operations troops,” Miquel said.

Now Hans laughed out loud.

"Miquel, do you even know the history here? In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia for more than two and half months without interruption, killing thousands of people, destroying the infrastructure of Belgrade, and leading to the partition of Kosovo. The resentment of the Serbian people against NATO, against the countries of the European Union, and against the United States run very deep as a result."

“Duly noted,” Miquel said. 

"You're asking us to request NATO deploy troops inside Serbia and raid a Serbian freighter."

Miquel nodded. "Yes."

“Are you trying to cause an international incident?”

An image of the platform at the Atocha train station flashed through Miquel's mind. He would never escape it. An office lady's torso and upper body was severed completely from her legs. Her face was nearly unrecognizable as human.

"No," Miquel said. He shook his head to clear the image. "I'm trying to stop another cholera attack on the scale of the one we have already witnessed. I believe that ship may be smuggling weaponized cholera downriver into Romania. I am willing to risk some resentment, or even a lot of resentment, to accomplish this goal." 

“Are you willing to risk another war?” Jute said. 

Miquel shrugged. "In the end, the work of my people is my responsibility. The information we uncover, and the conclusions we come to, all stop with me. The actions that flow from there, and the consequences, are my fault."

Whatever was to become of Agent Dubois, Miquel was confessing his guilt now. He felt Jan Bakker's presence, hovering somewhere nearby, listening to him.

“You are one hundred percent comfortable asking for this raid?” Margaux said. 

“Yes, I am.”

She nodded. "Okay, I'm convinced. We'll do it."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

10:15 am Central European Time

A helipad

Outskirts of Belgrade

Serbia

"106.1 FM," Alex said. "All your favorite hits."

He pulled the tiny old Yugoslavian sedan along a high fence. The interior of the car smelled faintly of burning motor oil. The heater was on high, but it barely worked.

Alex rolled down his window about six inches. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then held it near the opening. Then he exhaled out the opening as well. The blue smoke was caught on the breeze and swirled out into the gray, heavy sky.

A light snow was falling.

Troy was carefully trying not to think about anything. He was trying not to think about what happened this morning, and about the helpless feeling of watching Dubois get tackled by a swarm of men, and then dragged into a building. Most of all, he was trying not to think about what could be happening to Dubois at this very moment.

Listening to Alex’s patter helped with that, but only a little.

Troy's gut churned with the grim possibilities of what Dubois might be enduring. The lock was ticking here, and they needed to MOVE.

They were stopped in a plowed dirt parking lot. Small mounds of snow were humped up along the edges. At the top, the fence was ringed with barbed wire. There was a gate in the fence, and a chain was looped in the gate with a heavy lock. 

They were outside the city. The urban area had surrendered quickly to open fields, fenced in wasteland, crumbling and forgotten concrete outbuildings, and roads to nowhere. An eerie silence blanketed the area 

Troy looked out his window. The fence seemed to be a perfect square. He guessed it was about 20 meters on a side. Inside the square, on an asphalt pad cleared of snow, was a small two-seat helicopter. The chopper was orange and blue, with the phrase 106.1: Super Top Pop painted across the side in white.

“Robinson R22?” Troy said.

"You wish," Alex said. "It's a Yoyo 222. The Robinson is dangerous enough. This is a crazy lightweight Italian knockoff of that. People who have seen the manufacturing specs claim it should crumple in high winds. Personally, I've never had a problem with it. Also, it's faster, and it has a longer range than the R22. Speed and range, we're going to need both things. I love this chopper."

“How do you even know it’s here?”

Alex shrugged. "Oh, I used to work for the radio station. It's an awful station. Have you ever listened to Serbian pop music? It's like rap, with folk instruments mixed in, and they talk about killing people a lot. But they mean it. They also play pop from Western Europe, a lot of this horrible techno-dance music. Plus stuff from America, like Carter Swift." 

He paused.

"The great masses of people have no taste, Stark. They're like a giant herd of lemmings racing toward certain doom. It's a little disappointing. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing in this world."

“But you worked here?”

"Part-time," Alex said. "They cover the Belgrade rush hour traffic in the early mornings and afternoons. In fact, they probably just got back a little while ago. I flew the chopper in those days. The reporter would sit next to me with this little portable broadcasting thing on his lap. There really isn't that much traffic. It's not like New York, say, or Miami. It was a pretty good job, and I had to be here anyway for other reasons, so..."

Alex got out of the car, and went around back to the trunk. Troy got out and followed him. The brutal overnight cold had faded into a wet daytime chill. 

Inside the trunk was a large pair of steel bolt cutters. Alex picked them up.

Still in the trunk were two bags, one a big gym bag like a hockey player might carry, the other a dun-colored canvas bag with the top folded over.

"The bags are for you," Alex said. "There are some toys in there. Bring them along. I don't know if they'll do you much good, but at least it's something."

Alex crossed to the gate with the bolt cutters. He put the teeth on the chain and cut it. He pulled the chain and it fell away to the snowy ground. Then he pulled the gate open a small amount, just enough for the two of them to fit through. 

Troy reached in and pulled out the gym bag. It was heavy. He unzipped it and looked inside. The first thing he saw was a gun box.He pulled it out and opened it. There was a MAC-10 submachine gun inside. There was a long sound suppressor to go with it. There were three box magazines, each fitting snug into its own compartment. Troy picked one out and inspected it. It was loaded with .45 ACP rounds. Thirty per magazine, as he recalled.

The stopping power of this thing was hard to beat.

Troy nodded. "This is a very nice gun."

There was also a Glock 19 in here, with another three magazines, all loaded.

There was a big serrated hunting knife, with pretty good heft to it, in a leather sheath. There was a roll of clear plastic tape he could use to mount it on his calf. There were two green hand grenades, probably old, probably a Soviet or Chinese make. 

"This is great stuff," Troy said. "You think these grenades still work?"

"You never know until you try," Alex said from the gate. "Check the other bag."

Troy balanced the heavy equipment bag on the lip of the trunk, reached in, and opened the canvas bag. There was a black ballistic vest in there.

"It'll stop light rounds," Alex said. "Hopefully, no one is walking around inside a building with a rocket launcher."

Troy felt the adrenaline begin to surge through him at the thought of what was coming. He rooted around in the equipment bag again and found what he suspected would be there, a can of Rock Star Zero. He cracked it open and took a long slug.

"God. That's good." 

Troy slung the heavy bag over his shoulder, picked up the canvas bag with his free hand, and slammed the trunk.

Alex was already in the helicopter, and the rotors were beginning to spin.

Troy walked to the chopper, ducking his head low. The door on his side was open. He slipped into the seat and pulled the door shut behind him. He shoved the bags into the back. The cockpit of the chopper was basically a glass bubble.

Alex was wearing a white helmet, and handed one to Troy. Troy pulled it onto his head. It was a little tight, but it would do.

Troy was barely settled in before Alex was off the ground. 

The chopper rose quickly into the air. Thirty feet up, fifty, one hundred. 

One hundred fifty feet, two hundred. 

Alex banked it hard left, and they took off toward the city. The sprawl of it was to their left, not too far. Already, Troy could see the new high-rises flanking the wide band of the river.

Dubois was being held in the came complex of buildings that the mobster Bogovic owned - the office, the warehouses, and the docks. They hadn't risked trying to move her. 

Alex had scoped out a good spot on a wide roof to bring the chopper down.

They’d be there in minutes.

The chopper flew high and fast. The landscape buzzed by far below them. Alex's plan was to follow the line of the river, cross it, come in well above the building, then drop down like a meteor. Troy would roll out, and then Alex would be gone again.

Troy pulled the bulletproof vest on. It had pockets in the front for the grenades. He pulled his right pants leg up and carefully taped the knife there. All the while, Alex was talking into his headset.

"Keep your helmet on, if you can. These things are walkie-talkies at least quarter of a mile out, possibly up to half a mile. I'm going to be circling a quarter of a mile."

“Got it,” Troy said.

"The GPS on that girl's chip is accurate within 15 meters. So there's a little bit of slack there, but not much. She's in the building where I'm dropping you. There are two stories and a basement. You've already been in the basement, so I'm guessing they're not hiding her there. The ground floor is a real floor - outside people actually come in there. With a little luck, she's on the top floor. Go in, hit hard, grab her, come right back up the stairs. If God is kind, that's what we're looking at."

Troy nodded. "Roger that."

“If not, all bets are off.”

Troy had the MAC-10, and was tightening the strap to his body. One magazine was mounted in the gun. The other two were in his left hand.

“What does that mean?” he said.

"I can't circle all day, Stark. There are police, military. Air traffic control has been calling us this whole time. We're just ignoring them. If you get in there, and you can't find her, or she's impossible to reach, come back up and let's go." 

Troy was silent. He found pockets for the magazines.

“Make it out alive, that’s what I’m saying.”

“I’ll think about it,” Troy said.

He wasn't coming out of there without Dubois. She was not going to be impossible to reach. Troy could kill every man in that building to get to her. He would cut them up into tiny pieces if necessary.

He glanced through the windshield. They were already above the city. The confluence of dark rivers was just below and to his right. 

"Ready?" Alex said. "Dropping in."

The helicopter fell downward like a fast elevator. Troy's stomach lurched upward into his throat. For a second, he thought Alex must have lost control. Then they were ten or fifteen feet above the roof, and hovering.

"Too high," Troy said. "Too high."

The chopper dropped again, kissed off the snowy rooftop, and bounced several feet.

"Out!" Alex shouted. "Go! Go! Get out!"

Troy pushed the door open and burst out. He dropped onto the roof, lost his balance, slipped and fell. He hit hard, the jolt going through his body. The snow was frozen, not soft.   

The chopper was already gone, rising into the air. Alex banked hard, using gravity to shut Troy's door again.

Then Troy was on his feet. 

The door to the stairwell was about twenty meters away. The doorway protruded from the roof. It was a steel door, silver or gray in color, with a horizontal handle and a lock plate embedded below the handle.

Troy could shoot out the lock. Or he could blow it. 

Shooting it would be quieter, especially with the suppressed MAC-10, but he might need the ammo later.

Who is really coming from this direction?

Troy walked up to the door, grabbed the handle, turned it, and pulled. The heavy door opened easily. They didn't even bother to lock it. They were gangsters, after all. Most people tried to stay away from them.

Inside, a concrete stairwell led down to the next level. 

Troy took the stairs two at a time, moving quietly, like a wraith. His senses were going crazy - sight, hearing, even smell - his body and mind were on fire.

"Stark?" Alex said through the headset in his helmet. "Testing. Stark?"

Troy hoped he was the only one who could hear him, but he didn’t know for sure.

"Shut up!" he hissed. "Don't speak again."

The stairs dead-ended at another metal door. He touched the knob and pulled it open the smallest amount. There were voices somewhere nearby. 

Troy poked his head out and looked both ways. 

The hallway was narrow and dim. It smelled of must. It hadn't seen a paint job in years. There was no one in the hall. The voices were coming from the right, around a corner.

Troy pulled the MAC down and stepped into the hall.

He was in. 

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Time Unknown

Place Unknown

"Wake up!" a man said. "Wake up, dummy!"

The man was slapping her. First on one side of the face, then on the other. Her head wrenched from side to side with each impact.

"Take her hood off," another man said. "I want her to see where she is."

Strong hands yanked her into a seated position against a wall. Fingers pulled her head forward and worked at some kind of straps or ties at the back of her neck. Then they pulled the hood, ripped it up and over her head.

Dubois blinked at the low light in the room. It wasn't much, but she had become accustomed to near-total darkness. 

Her situation was somehow worse than she had imagined. Her arms were bound behind her. She was on a hard wooden floor, inside a cage. The bars were made of some rusted metal, and the cage was welded together in a corner of the room. There was one window to the outside world, which was blacked out with either paint or some kind of tape. It was clear that they hadn't organized all this on her account. This room had been like this for a long time. It had been used for torture before. The thought was not reassuring.

There was a dim yellow lightbulb hanging from an electric wire in the ceiling.

A heavyset, unshaven, unkempt man stood near the open door of the cage.

A thin man sat on the only piece of furniture in the room, a metal folding chair. The man was bald with a neat black goatee. He looked like an artist's rendering of the Devil.

“Adrienne, are you ready to talk to me now?” the Devil said.

Dubois shook her head. "I've told you everything."

The Devil smiled. "Why do I doubt that?"

“I don’t know.”

"I've been given my final orders," the Devil said. "You either tell me who you really are, or I'm supposed to get rid of you. Though I think we'll enjoy each other's company first, if you understand my meaning."

"No. I don't understand."

"Love," the Devil said. "We're going to be in love."

Dubois glanced up at the overweight man standing at the opening. He must have been the one hitting her just now. His hands were big and meaty. His eyes were bloodshot. He grinned down at her. 

"Would you like to crawl on your stomach and face like a worm?" the Devil said. "I'll let you squirm out of there, and you can come to me and beg for your life. Would you like that?"

"I'm a tourist," Dubois said. "My name is Adrienne…"

"We have no use for tourists," the Devil said. "We might as well kill them."

Dubois stared into the space in front of her.

"If you were police, or a spy, we might find a use for you," the Devil said. "It would be very important for me to know that. My superiors might allow me to take pity on you. But you'd have to say it now. I'm running out of reasons to keep you alive."

It was a lie, Dubois realized. She could never tell this man who she was. If these people were involved in the cholera attack, it would alert them that law enforcement was close on their heels. And it would give them a very good reason to kill her.

“Please,” she said.

The Devil cupped his ear. "What? I didn't hear you."

“Please!”  Dubois nearly shouted it. 

The Devil had pulled a small pistol from somewhere. He checked it to see how many bullets there were.

"Please. That's what I like to hear. So this is what's going to happen. My friend here is going to untie your arms. You're going to be a good little girl and not try anything funny. He and I are both carrying guns, and we could both kill you with our bare hands anyway."

He paused, staring across and down at her for a moment. His eyes seemed to glitter in the semi-darkness.

"Once your arms are untied, you're going to crawl out of that cage on all fours, and you're going to crawl right here to me, and you're going to beg for your life. You're going to beg like a dog begs for a treat."

“And if I don’t?” Dubois said. 

The Devil shrugged. "Then my friend there will shoot you in the head."

Dubois felt the tears coming again. She worked to hold them in. She didn't want to give this man anything, least of all the satisfaction of making her cry. 

She was going to die now. She understood that. She wasn't going to crawl, and she wasn't going to beg. She wasn't going to identify herself. So they were just going to kill her.

She looked up at the heavyset man. He seemed old. His face had jowls, and his eyes were tired. But she saw no compassion in those eyes.

“You wouldn’t shoot a woman, would you?”

The man shrugged. "I was in the war."

“He was shooting women and children before you were born,” the Devil said.

Dubois said nothing. These men were too cruel. How did they become this cruel?

"Will you crawl? Will you beg?"

She shook her head. "No."

She would die with dignity instead.

The Devil glanced at his minion. The man pulled a gun from somewhere and stepped into the cage. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against her skull.

"Please," she heard herself say, tears streaming down her face. "I'm just a tourist. You have no reason to kill me."

His voice mocked her. "I'll kill you because you won't be my dog. It's reason enough."

Dubois’s breaths came shallowly, in harsh rasps.

“Will you be my dog?”

“No!”

The Devil glanced at the other man.

“Go ahead.”

I’ll be your dog!

She almost said it, but didn’t. 

An image of her mom flashed before her eyes. They had gone together to get micro-chipped. It was like a girls' day out. They had gone to a café for a glass of wine afterward to celebrate. Dubois had been glad. Her mom would be safe. 

“Goodbye lady tourist,” the fat man said. 

“No!” Dubois screamed.  “Wait!”

He pulled the trigger.  Dubois’s entire body convulsed.

Click.

She fell over sideways onto the floor. She was weeping now, her body shaking from the sobs. Her throat felt blocked. She could not swallow.   

“The next trigger pull finishes you,” the Devil said.

It took a moment for Dubois to gather her ability to speak.

“I hope you die,” she said. 

The two men both laughed. 

"What a sweet girl," the fat man said. "I like her spirit."

"Yes," the Devil said. "It's a shame that we have to part ways now." 

Dubois saw his glowing eyes staring at her. He smiled, as if delighted at what he saw, another person reduced to a sniveling wretch on the ground.

“Go ahead and kill her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

10:35 am Central European Time

Bogovic’s Building

Zeleni Venac

Belgrade, Serbia

Troy moved up the hall, toward the voices.

He scanned the walls and ceilings for cameras. He didn't see any. Up ahead, the hall turned a corner to the left. The floor was made of old wood. A symphony of creaks and groans seemed to accompany his every step.

Troy pressed forward, driven by the singular image of Dubois's face. He was going to tear apart the world to bring her back.

He leaned, back against the wall, and took a breath. The voices were RIGHT THERE. He could inhale the smoke from their cigarettes. He cradled the MAC.

Go.

He spun around the corner. The men looked his way. They were standing in front of a closed door. They seemed frozen, shocked to see him there. They both had handguns in holsters. They reached for theirs guns, one man's cigarette dropping from his mouth.

Troy sprayed them with the MAC. He lit them up. The gun bucked just a little in his hands. The sound was low, contained by the suppressor.

Clack, Clack, Clack, Clack, Clack.

One man oozed to the ground, riddled with holes in his chest.

The other was still on his feet. He lurched toward a box mounted on the wall. He pulled a lever down. Somewhere else in the building, an alarm started. It was faint here, but probably loud wherever it was going off.

That was not good. It said more were coming.

Clack.

Troy shot the guy in the head. The man's head jerked back, and he dropped to the floor, dead before he landed.

There was a line of wooden doors here, to Troy’s left.

Pick one. Pick one.

He picked the one the two men seemed to be standing in front of. He stepped over their corpses, faced the door square, lifted a leg, and kicked it as hard as he could. The door swung open. It probably wasn't even locked.

A heavyset man looked up. He was holding a gun to the head of a woman on the floor. 

He turned the gun on Troy.

BANG!

The noise was loud in the room and the hall. The shot was chest high, and knocked Troy backwards. He hit the wall behind him, stumbled on one of the dead men, and pitched forward.

BANG!

The man shot him again. The force of it jerked Troy upright.

I’m wearing a vest.

And on the heels of that:

Thank God.

He gasped for air, the wind knocked out of him. If he lived, he'd be feeling these gunshots for days.

He raised the MAC, he and the heavy man facing off. The fat man had learned his lesson. He aimed at Troy's head.

Clack!

The man’s head popped back, and he dropped to the floor.

Troy stepped into the dark room. 

"Man!" the woman screamed. "Man to your right! He has a gun!"

It was Dubois.

Troy turned, and a man was there in a metal folding chair. He had a gun in his hand but was slow to raise it. The man was bald, with a goatee. He was very thin. 

CLACK!

Troy shot him. The sound suppressor was already wearing out.

The man slumped in his chair, dropped his gun, and then slid off onto the floor. He seemed oddly withered. His arms and legs were like bones with skin on them. There seemed to be no flesh on them. In the low light from a yellow bulb, Troy spotted aluminum crutches leaning against the wall behind where the man had been sitting. 

The guy had some kind of wasting disease. That wasn't Troy's problem. Troy had found the guy here, holding Dubois prisoner, so he killed him. Sympathy for the guy was someone else's job.

Dubois was on the floor inside a cage, among the shadows. The cage was open. The fat man had fallen next to her. A halo of blood was spreading out around his head.

"Stark," Dubois said, her voice a rasp. "Nice helmet."

He tapped himself on the helmet, but said nothing.

“Took you long enough.”

Troy breathed shallowly, still barely able to speak. 

His chest felt tight and painful. He gritted his teeth.

"Traffic was tough," he said. He crouched next to her, scanning for any sign of injury beyond what was visible. Her face was swollen. One of her eyes was mostly closed. The sight of her battered form filled him with rage, and just behind that, relief. She was alive, and for the moment, that was good enough.

Troy turned her to the side and discovered that her arms were pinned behind her back and bound together with duct tape. He pulled his pant leg up to his café, grabbed the knife taped there, and ripped it away. He began to cut the tape binding Dubois down the middle, careful not to nick the skin on her arms. 

Dubois, battered, possibly broken, managed a smile.

“Ever consider a quiet retirement?”

Troy nodded. "For you, yeah. I think about it a lot."

She smiled, shook her head, but didn’t speak.

Gently, he cut the last of the bindings. Her arms were free. The duct tape was still thick on her arms. He would worry about removing that later.

“Can you move?” he said. 

Her voice was hoarse. Yes. I think so."

"Then let's go. We don't have much time."

“Lead the way,” she said.

He helped her to her feet. He reached into the holster on his belt, and pulled out the Glock. 

“Can you carry this?”

She nodded. She took the gun in her small hand.

Troy noted the bruises up and down her arm. He noted the torn clothing. Again, he noted her beaten face. A surge of feelings and sensations flooded his system. Horror. Terror. Heartbreak. There was a searing feeling, a sense of being burned alive, from the inside.

He wanted to scream in agony.

He forced it all down, down, deep inside himself. There was no time for it now.

He took a deep breath.

The urge in his body was for revenge. He had already killed four men.

Was it enough? He didn't know.

"Back to back, you lead," he said. "Face forward, I'm facing backward. We got bad guys coming. The stairwell to the roof is around the next corner, a door on your left. That's our way out. We need to move quickly."

They went out into the hall, Dubois in front, Troy watching their backs. Somewhere, the alarm was still blaring. Running footsteps were coming.

“Keep moving,” he said.

Dubois, who normally moved like a cat, staggered forward with an uneven gait.

Troy spoke into his helmet mic. "Alex, you hear me?"

"Stark. Loud and clear. You still alive?"

“Yeah.”

“Dubois?”

"Both of us. We are coming to the roof. Request immediate pickup."

"I'm circling back. Be there in a minute or less."

They turned the corner. A second later, they reached the doorway. Dubois eased it open, gun pointed in front of her.

Heavy footsteps were coming now, from both sides. 

"Oh God. Run Dubois! Run!"

They sprinted up the stairs, two at a time, Troy giving up the back-to-back. He was right behind Dubois, pushing her forward. They were both gasping for air. Their breathing sounded like shrieks. Below them, the door to the stairwell opened.

Troy turned and fired.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

The bullets whined and ricocheted off the walls.

Whoever was down there ducked back behind the door.

Dubois reached the door to the roof. She hesitated to open it.

"Go! Dubois! Go!"

“What if there’s…”

Troy shook his head. His eyes were on that door below them.

“We have no choice.”

Someone down there pulled the door open. A man fired a machine gun into the stairwell. The bullets ripped up the bottom stairs, cement chips flying everywhere. 

DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH.

The sound was loud. LOUD. No suppressors for these guys.

Dubois pushed her way through the door. Troy cringed, waiting for the crack of gunfire on the roof. None came.

He yanked a grenade from the right front pocket of his vest. He pulled the pin and let the compressor go. He dropped the grenade down the stairs. It bounced downward like a hard rubber ball.

“So long, suckers.”

Troy turned and burst through the door.

Then he was out on the roof and running across it. Dubois was up ahead, half-running, half-stumbling. An icy wind whipped off the river. 

There was the heavy THUMP of chopper blades against the wind. Troy looked up, and there was the helicopter, dropping in like a rock.

BA-BOOOOM.

The roof trembled. Troy fell down. The ice was hard and bit his skin. 

Behind him, the cement doorway to the stairwell blew apart, breaking into flaming pieces. The door itself flew into the air, flapping like a disembodied wing. 

Dust and smoke rose from where the doorway had just been.

The chopper was here, hovering a few feet above the roof. Dubois was trying to climb into it, without much success.

Troy pushed himself to his feet, slung the MAC onto his back, and ran. When he reached the helicopter, the door was open. He scooped Dubois up, clambered onto the runners, and placed her into the seat. 

It was a tiny chopper. It was going to be tight in there.    

He was still standing on the rails as Alex took off. He shoved the MAC into the narrow gear space in back, then wedged himself in with Dubois. Gradually, he maneuvered her into his lap. There was no way he could get the safety belts on. 

Dubois seemed to melt into him.

“Rest now,” he whispered.

He looked at Dubois's beaten face. Her eyes were closed. Then she was unconscious, her energy drained as if someone had pulled a plug at the bottom, and it all flowed out. 

They were a hundred feet in the air and climbing fast. Troy looked back. They were over the river, the sprawl of Belgrade all around them.

Behind and below them, the building started to burn. Troy looked at Alex.

Alex worked the controls. He watched the sky ahead of them, but appeared to see Troy in his peripheral vision. He shrugged.

“Thanks for boarding so quickly,” Alex said.

His sarcasm was too much sometimes.

Troy stared out at the sky, and the city. He felt numb. He didn't want to think, least of all about the state Dubois was in. He didn't want to think about finding her in a cage, or about the men he had just killed. He didn't want to think about his rage or the helpless feeling of watching Dubois get taken away this morning. 

He didn’t want to think about anything at all.

“People often take a long time,” Alex said.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

2:35 pm Central European Time

Aboard the freighter White Swan

Derdap National Park

Golubac, Serbia

“We have trouble.”

Andrezj Becic stood on the deck outside the pilot house of the rusty freighter.  He took a deep drag of his cigarette.  All around him, the steep hillsides of the national park loomed. 

He stood at the rail in heavy coveralls, a thick wool coat, and steel-toed boots.  It was cold out here, but Becic didn’t really feel the cold anymore.  He didn’t really feel heat, either.  Weather made little impact on him.

The White Swan was passing through a deep and tight ravine, which Becic would ordinarily think of as beautiful.  A few kilometers ahead, the river would make a sharp bend to the left, and the ship, surrounded on three sides by land, would have to slow to a crawl to navigate the turn.  Unfortunately, Becic didn’t think they were going to make it that far.

He had come this way many times.  This was his ship, and he was about to lose it.

People often called him Kapeten, or the Captain.  He went to sea as a teenager, and now he was 55 years old.  He had traveled the world on the giant container ships.  For a time, he had worked on vessels running weapons from Russia to sub-Saharan Africa.  At another point, he had run heroin (and people) from Southeast Asia to Australia. 

He supposed he had seen nearly everything.  Vast, impossible slums in India, and Africa.  Bazaars in teeming Third World ports with live exotic animals for sale, and also children.  Cannibal tribes eating human flesh, and cheerfully offering to share.  Knife fights.  Gunfights.  Missile attacks.  Ghost ships full of dead migrants, floating rudderless in the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean, and the South China Sea.

He had grown to manhood under communism and watched it suddenly collapse, along with an entire way of life.  He had seen his own beloved city, Belgrade, bombed into submission by the capitalist Western powers. 

Becic took a deep breath.  This was going to happen quickly. 

A few moments ago, the gunmetal sky had been empty.  A moment later, it seemed full of dark specks coming from the east, and growing larger all the time.  Now, the specks had resolved into large white helicopters, the kind that carried military troops.  Interspersed with the larger choppers were smaller ones, the so-called Flying Eggs - they were fast, light and maneuverable attack helicopters armed with rockets and machine guns.

There were at least a dozen helicopters up there, and Becic had no doubt where they were heading.  Viktor Laskov had been on the docks this morning, which was always an ill omen.  The man brought bad luck as though it was stuck to his skin. 

He was always up to something, people around him often paid the price for his misadventures, and he walked away both unscathed and his pockets weighted down with money.  Becic had experienced enough of life to believe completely in the supernatural.  It was entirely possible that Laskov was a demon.

The White Swan was sailing toward a quarantine zone where tens of thousands of people likely had died.  The boat was loaded with many illegal items.  Viktor Laskov had turned up.  Intruders were in the warehouse.  Later in the day, a shootout had occurred, killing some of Bogovic's men.  And now military helicopters were in the sky, thick like flies on a rotted corpse. 

Where else could they be headed?

Becic pitched his cigarette over the side, turned and went back inside the pilot house.  It was all windows, giving a lovely 360-degree view of the surroundings.  The ship was old, at least half a century, but the pilot house had been overhauled. 

It was nicely appointed with new leather command chairs, radar, sonar, depth finder, satellite communications, digital controls, manual overrides, coffee, microwave, a head, even a small backroom with a cot where Becic could take a nap without going back to his cabin.  He was proud of the pilot house.

There were three men inside of it.  Becic made it four.  As he came in, the men were already in motion, opening the cabinet where the weapons were stored.  There were four guns in there, two Uzis and two AK-47s.  They were meant to discourage Black Sea pirates, not hold off military invasions.

“Kap…” one of the men said.  He was a young guy, right out of school, broad, with a beefy face and blonde hair.  People called him Mladic.  It worked on two levels, both because he was young, and he bore more than a passing resemblance to Ratko Mladic, the convicted war criminal, or national hero, or whatever you liked.

Becic waved a hand.  “Put those away.  It’s ridiculous.”

Mladic pointed out the windows. 

“Kap, look!”

Directly in front of them, a fat helicopter came down and hovered.  Ropes depended from either side, and men in military fatigues went out, sliding down the ropes to the lower deck of the White Swan.  Becic counted six men on each side.  There were already a dozen heavily armed invaders on board.

Besides the four men in this room, there were seven more crewmen on the boat, one of whom was the cook.

They had already lost the war.

As the helicopter turned, Becic noted that it wasn’t white, as his eyes had seen it before.  It was more of a light brown or sand color, with a sense of swirling camouflage to it.  One word was stenciled across it in giant dark block letters.

NATO.

It hurt him.  It hurt him to his core.  And it made him angry.  This was his ship.  And these were the barbarians from the West.

As he watched, another helicopter came in.  Another dozen men piled out and dropped to the ship’s deck.

“Kapeten!”

Becic turned and looked.

Mladic gestured at the closed circuit security screens. 

On one screen, a group of men moved through the holds, rifles out and ready to fire.  They were dressed for cold weather, faces covered except for the eyes.  Their uniforms seemed bulky, probably from light bullet-proof armor they wore underneath.

Clarion alarms were screeching throughout the ship.

“Make an announcement to all of our men,” Becic said.  “Surrender immediately and unconditionally.  Let them see everything.  Let them have everything.”

“Surrender?” Mladic said.  “Kap?”

Becic nodded.  It was a funny thing.  In his long career, he had been detained many times, by coast guards, by military patrols, by police of various kinds.  He had spent more than a few nights in lockups and jails, a couple of them real rat holes.  But he had never been convicted of a crime.  He had never even been on trial. 

Something told him he wasn’t going to start now.

“Surrender, yes.  Immediately.” 

Already one of the men was on the ship intercom, making the announcement.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came a deafening shriek from the sky.  It was visceral, piercing Becic’s entire body.  He cringed from it, involuntarily, and ducked into a crouch.  A ballistic missile perhaps, something was incoming.  He froze, unable to move.

Outside the windows, three fighter jets in a triangle formation came up the valley behind the ship, flying very low.  They zoomed by, causing Becic’s body to tremble, so loud they were almost beyond the range of hearing. 

The helicopters jostled in the turbulence caused by their wakes.

Becic glanced at the bank of security videos again.  The videos reached the pilot house a few seconds behind real time.  On the video, the tough NATO troops did exactly what Becic had just done.  They cowered in primitive animal terror.  A few seconds later, they remembered themselves and recovered.  Becic laughed.  In the end, it was all a charade.

“Those are ours,” Mladic said.  “Those are our jets!”

Becic shook his head, but he was still smiling.  The poor boy was too eager for World War III.  If he wasn’t careful, he was going to find his own version of it one day.

“They’re already gone,” Becic said.  “They can’t help us.  The surrender stands.  Whatever these soldiers are looking for, they won’t find it here.”

He clapped the kid on the back.  “No one is getting killed on my watch today.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

3:45 pm Central European Time

Headquarters of El Grupo Especial

Outskirts of Madrid

Spain

“Miquel?” Hans Jute said.

Miquel Castro-Ruiz sat in his office at headquarters, the telephone to his ear.  It had been very a long day already, and it showed no evidence of stopping.  It was just going to get longer and longer.  His reputation, once again, was in tatters.

Hans Jute had called him to gloat.  Miquel had taken the call just to get it over with.  Now was a good time to do so because he was numb - with frustration, with exhaustion, with anger, and with an overwhelming sense of relief that Dubois was still alive.  There wasn’t much that Hans could say that might bother Miquel right now, or even reach him.

Miquel glanced out the window.  A crust of snow covered the grounds of the facility.  The trees were bare.  He could see a strip of the highway from here.  If he wanted to, he could look all around the grounds, and see the half-built sheds and buildings, the empty helipad, and all the other evidence of his unrealized ambitions.  He didn’t want to do that. 

Yes, El Grupo Especial had done some remarkable things in its brief existence.  They had saved a lot of lives, which was the reason Miquel had started it.  They had also brought a lot of trouble down upon their own heads.  The group had nearly been disbanded, numerous agents and analysts had been reassigned, and Miquel’s grander dreams had gone unfunded and unfinished.

“Yes.  Hello, Hans.”

“Miquel, I’m not your direct supervisor.”

“I suppose I’m thankful for that,” Miquel said. 

Hans ignored the comment.

“But I do represent Interpol at the international level.  Part of my job is to explain and justify our actions to those who are skeptical of us.  You’re aware that the freighter you urged us to board and impound was carrying nothing of interest, correct?”

Miquel shrugged.  “I’m aware that it was carrying more than a hundred cases of stolen liquor lost in a truck hijacking, untaxed cigarettes, Cuban cigars that in all likelihood are counterfeit, hundreds of copies of bootlegged American films on DVD, as well as thousands of bottles of vitamin capsules that are probably corn starch, and an entire hold full of Chinese-made electronics masquerading as high-quality Western brands.  The ship was loaded with contraband.”

Miquel knew how pathetic this all sounded.  The primary load on the ship was consumer devices.  It was practically a victimless crime.  People in Eastern Europe wanted these things.  Owning a fake Samsung or Apple product, even for a short while, made them all the more likely to aspire for the real thing one day.  The companies whose trademarks and patents were infringed weren’t even losers in the deal.

“Contraband yes,” Hans said.  “Evidence of criminal activity, for sure.  But there was no deadly, weaponized disease on board.”

“I understand,” Miquel said.

“You understand, do you?  And you understand that on your word, and your word alone, NATO forces essentially invaded Serbia?  Do you understand why the men on board that ship immediately surrendered it without resistance?”

“Yes.”

It was as if Hans hadn’t heard him.  He had probably practiced this speech for half an hour before picking up the telephone. 

“I’ll tell you why.  Because the so-called contraband they were carrying was so inoffensive that they will barely be punished for it.  Unless someone on that boat has other warrants for his arrest, no one involved will spend more than a year in prison, if even that.  They’re all claiming ignorance, and most of them are Serbs, sailing in Serbian waters.  I’d say most of them will be home by tomorrow morning.”

Miquel was silent.  He might as well let Hans finish his soliloquy. 

“NATO forces penetrated Serbia and seized a Serbian freighter, Miquel.  At the request and urging of Interpol, and not really Interpol, but a secretive black operations sub-agency within Interpol.  This has barely reached the public yet, and already the street protests have begun in Belgrade.  And in Moscow, for that matter.  And in the Serbian Republic in Bosnia, which is already an unstable place, and likely on the verge of breaking away from Bosnia.  Serbs don’t like NATO, Miquel, and with good reason.  I reminded you of that this morning.”

“I remember,” Miquel said.

“The Serbs scrambled fighter jets, which buzzed the NATO helicopters.  In other words, a shooting war between Serbia and NATO nearly broke out.”

The thing was a bit of a public relations disaster.  He couldn’t agree more.  At least no one was hurt during the boarding.  Miquel felt flat, more than numb.  He didn’t really care what Hans said or did at this point.  It was a formality even listening to him.

“I doubt a real shooting war nearly broke out,” Miquel said, somewhat absently.

That was true, as far as it went.  If the Serbs had learned anything from tangling with NATO in the past, it was that resistance was futile.  Scrambling jets was probably a face-saving move more than anything.  But yes, certainly.  People could have died.

Again, it was as if Hans didn't hear him.

“The NATO High Command is furious with us.”

“Okay.”

“The American and English governments are furious with us.  The governing body of the European Union is furious at NATO, and by extension, at us.”

“I get it, Hans.  Everyone is angry with us.”

There was a long moment of quiet over the line.

“There was an explosion and fire in Belgrade this morning,” Hans said.  “It happened near the location the White Swan left from.  In fact, it was the same complex of buildings.  There were also two shootouts there, a few hours apart, which left several people dead.  I assume these were your operatives.”

“I have no information about that,” Miquel said reflexively.

“The city of Belgrade has offered a fifty thousand euro reward for information about the attackers and their whereabouts.  The Serbian foreign minister is claiming that this was also NATO activity, and that the West is carrying out unprovoked attacks on their territory and sovereignty.  They plan to take their case before the World Criminal Court in The Hague.”

Miquel shook his head.  He had heard enough. 

“What do you want, Hans?”

“Just this.  I want you to know that I spoke with Margaux a little while ago.  She is decidedly less enamored of you than she was in the very recent past.  She agreed with me that Max Davidoff may not be as firm a hand as we need to oversee your unit.  This has been such a setback on the global stage, such a humiliation, that she could hardly see it otherwise.  She gave the final approval, she made the request to NATO, and I’m sure she regrets it terribly.  Another mistake like this, and she could find her own job in jeopardy.”

“So you’re angling again?” Miquel said.  “All of this talk, to tell me that you’re angling to get control of El Grupo Especial?”

“I don’t want control of your unit,” Hans said.  “I want to destroy it and see it scattered to the winds.  It’s an embarrassment.  It’s gone on for far too long.  I always knew that if given enough rope, you’d hang yourself.  What I didn’t realize was you’d hang everyone else, too.”

Miquel sighed.  He couldn’t think of much to say.

“Thanks Hans,” he said, and hung up.

He stared into space for a long moment.  After a while, he came to realize that he was staring at the doorway to his office.  The door was open because that was his policy.  He wanted his people to come to him and tell them what was on their minds. 

At the moment, big Jan Bakker was standing there.  His massive frame took up the entire space.  The top of his bald head nearly touched the doorframe.

Jan’s slumped body language said he was tired, but the eyes behind his glasses were still alert and aware.

“Yes, Jan?”

"Miquel, I've been studying satellite imagery of those docks in Belgrade, taken over the past few days.  Yesterday evening, another freighter went out of there and headed west along the Sava River.  I tracked ship manifests and determined the freighter is called the Voivode.  Its ownership is as opaque and complex as the ownership of the docks themselves.”

“What is the ship supposedly carrying?” Miquel said. 

“A load of gravel.”

“Where is it now?”

“It has passed into Croatia, and is approaching Zagreb, perhaps 35 kilometers out.”

Miquel breathed.  In his mind, he pictured an old river freighter riding low in the water.  "Why is it suspicious?"

"It picked up the gravel nearly a week ago at a location on the Danube north of Belgrade.  Then it went to that Belgrade dock and stopped there for three days for no apparent reason.  With a little effort, I was able to access security video footage from several different businesses along the waterfront, none of which are affiliated with the Bogovic gang, or any associated organizations.  Two cameras gave me high resolution video shot from the other side of the river, which I could then freeze and enlarge."

“You hacked this footage,” Miquel said. 

It wasn't a question.  Why not hack the security systems of private companies esp,ecially ones based in Serbia?  El Grupo was being blamed for everything else under the sun at this point.  What was one more?

“I thought it was important,” Jan said.

Miquel nodded.  “Go on.”

“Something else was loaded onto that ship yesterday morning and afternoon.  The video makes this clear.  Men don’t load gravel by hand.  But they do load crates, and that’s what they were doing.”

Miquel sighed.  “Marijuana, probably.  Or coffee stolen from a truck.”

Jan raised a finger as if to say he was number one. 

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  I’ve done some thinking about this.  Even though the ship they raided today wasn’t carrying the cholera, our original suspicions still hold.  Nothing has been disproved.  The criminal Bogovic, or people associated with him, still own and run that dock.  A notorious Russian and Serbian intelligence operative was still photographed there this morning.  A biosciences company with no clear business objectives or activities or ownership structure is still based there, next door to a shadow group of environmentalists.  A man associated with that group, using that building as his home address, did die from a severe strain of cholera.  All of these facts point in one direction.  If we suspected the White Swan, which we did, then we must also suspect the Voivode.”

Through his fog, Miquel could see the logic in all this.  Nothing had changed. 

Well, one thing had changed.

“No one is going to listen to us,” Miquel said.  “We caused an international incident, and no one is going to raid another ship at our request.  Anything we ask will be rejected.  I just hung up the telephone with Hans Jute.  He is trying, once again, to have our mandate revoked and our group disbanded.  He is finding more receptive ears this time, for obvious reasons.”

“Agent Stark,” Jan said, without elaborating. 

No more detail was needed.  Miquel could fill in the blanks easily.  Stark had lost Dubois early this morning.  A few hours later, with no mandate from anyone, he had gone back in and rescued her.  He had murdered an unknown number of men, and set a building on fire, before escaping by helicopter. 

Where did he get a helicopter?  One was stolen from a radio station.  Who flew the helicopter?  It couldn't be Stark because he was in the building, killing people.

Stark seemingly had contacts and associations outside of El Grupo that he didn't care to divulge.  Miquel had known this all along.  You couldn't really hire a former elite soldier and black operative with rumored CIA ties, and not expect him to have contacts.

Stark and Dubois had crossed into western Romania.  Dubois was in a hospital there.  She was banged up, but alive.  They were away from the outbreak in eastern Romania and close to the border with Croatia.  They were outside the reach of Serbian authorities and gangsters, at least for the moment.

“Have you spoken with him?” Miquel said.

Jan shook his head.  "Not yet.  He expressed some frustration with me this morning.  I was reluctant to share information with him about Dubois's location for fear that he would attempt to rescue her during the daytime, which he did anyway.  I've tried to call him several times since then.  He hasn't responded, other than to send brief updates about his situation.  My opinion is that he is being a little bit childish."

We may have lost him.

That was always going to be a danger with Stark.  At heart, he was a lone wolf.  He tended to take enormous risks, usually with his own life.  Concerns that other people had, like politics, international relations, bureaucratic decision making, careers and reputations…

These didn’t seem to interest him. 

There was always a chance he was going to wander off and go his own way.  A man like Stark had many options available to him.  He could be gone in the blink of an eye.

"Try him again," Miquel said.  "We can explain our situation to him.  Perhaps he will see the logic in your reasoning and take this on."

“Agent Dubois is not operational,” Jan said. 

Miquel nodded.  Another wave of relief washed over him.  This one was profound.  Not only was Dubois still alive, she wasn’t able to accompany Stark on another mission. 

“I know.”

Jan looked down at Miquel for several seconds.  Jan’s emotions, if there were any, were impossible to read.  More than anything, Jan was a thinker, not a feeler, and his brain worked startlingly fast.  Miquel imagined that he was thinking through the operation, processing everything it would entail, and calculating the odds that it might succeed.

“The request is that Agent Stark raid the ship by himself?” Jan said. 

“Yes.”

“Is it an official mission of El Grupo Especial?”

Miquel nodded.  “Yes, of course.  I am authorizing it.  Agent Stark, if he chooses to accept the mission, will carry it out, but I will be the one responsible.”

My career is over anyway.

“Will this be the end of us?” Jan said. 

Miquel didn’t feel bad about the question.  They had done good things here.  And all things, especially good things, came to an end.

“Yes,” he said.  “I believe so.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

5:05 pm Eastern European Time (4:05 Central European Time)

An outdoor cafe

Victory Square

Timisoara, Romania

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Alex said.  “He likes you being here.”

They were under a large white awning in a row of similar cafes.  There were portable fireplaces keeping the little dining areas warm.  Troy was sitting with his back to the wall of the building, watching the action out on the plaza.

Across from them was a long park with a paved promenade up the middle of it.  On the other side of the park was another street of majestic hundred-year-old buildings.  At one end of the plaza was a large Eastern Orthodox cathedral.  At the other end was an old theatre or maybe a symphony hall.  It was a very nice plaza, and probably a nice city.  It was where the anti-communist revolution had started in 1989.

Troy was wearing a full black beard that Alex had scrounged up from somewhere.  It was affixed to Troy’s face with glue.  He was also wearing wraparound yellow sunglasses, though the day was mostly over.  Whatever sunlight that had been hidden behind the clouds was now fading entirely.  He finished the look with a green wool cap pulled down nearly to his eyes.

He was wearing a lime fleece pullover, brown wool pants, and the kind of boots yuppies would buy from J Crew or LL Bean.  The idea was to make him look like a tourist.  Whether it was working or not was anyone’s guess. 

People were looking for Troy, there was no doubt about that.  He was feeling a little paranoid at the moment.  The beard was silly and intrusive, and there was no way he was going to try to eat with it on.  But he could drink beer, and that's what he was doing.

“This has been one of the longest days of my life,” he said.  “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.” 

Alex nodded and gestured at the waitress for two more beers.  "I get that.  And I think he probably gets it too.  But you've done a lot with this job.  You've probably saved thousands of lives.  You've cracked open some networks and brought in a treasure trove of intel - more than you know.  Although they don't say your name publicly, you're practically a Hero of the Revolution in China.  You might have single-handedly saved that relationship.  You couldn't have done any of this if you weren't with Interpol."

This was the first time Troy and Alex had ever gone out together socially.  It was the first time they had ever really talked about anything.  Maybe the ice was breaking between them, maybe it wasn’t. 

Troy had just asked Alex what Missing Persons would think about bringing Troy back to the United States.

This mission had gone completely belly-up.  If it had only been a waste of time, that would be one thing.  But Dubois had nearly been killed.  She was admitted to a hospital here in Timisoara, and he couldn't see her.  There were tight restrictions because of the cholera outbreak, which was well to the east and hadn't reached here at all.  The staff had told him to come back tonight.  Maybe then they could let him in.

There were a lot of dead people in Romania and Moldova.  If it was a terrorist attack, the terrorists seemed to have gotten away with it.  The ship he and Dubois had watched being loaded this morning was carrying typical gangster swag - phones and DVDs and fake Cuban cigars.  A war nearly broke out when the ship was raided.  Street protests were ongoing, and would probably last all night.

Troy sighed.  He was tired.

“I don’t think this agency is going to exist anymore,” he said.  “Grupo Especial?  I think it’s a goner, probably in the next couple of days.”

The woman came and slid two more glasses of beer onto the table without saying a word.  She was wearing a paper mask on her face.  Many of the people walking around in the plaza were wearing masks.

Troy and Alex were not wearing masks.  They were drinking beer.  The beer was helping with the pain in Troy’s chest.  When he first got hit with those bullets, he almost couldn’t breathe.  An hour later, there was a sharp pain in both spots.  Now there was a dull thump. 

Alex was chain smoking cigarettes, lighting the next one with the embers of the last.  He was using a coaster as an ashtray.  It was the only evidence that he was under stress.  Otherwise, he seemed calm, even placid.

“I’m going to be on the street,” Troy said.  “Hat in hand.”

Alex shrugged.  “I say ride it out.  See what happens.  You never know.”

Even if El Grupo survived, that wasn’t the only issue.

“I don’t want Dubois participating in these missions anymore.”

Alex sipped his beer and smiled. 

“Talk to her.”

“I have.”

“And?”

Troy shook his head.  He nearly laughed. 

“It’s gone about as well as you might expect.”

"Maybe it'll be different now," Alex said.  "Beat downs and near-death experiences tend to concentrate the mind."

Alex didn’t say torture.  Troy was thankful for that.

Troy’s satellite phone began to ring again.  It was sitting on the table, just to his right.  He had set it to vibrate, and every fifteen or twenty minutes, it started up again. 

Okay.  He was ready.

“You mind if I take this?”

Alex half-shrugged, half shook his head.  He was non-committal.

Troy picked it up and put it to his ear.

“Yeah.”

It was Jan Bakker and Miquel Castro-Ruiz.  They were at headquarters.  They had Troy on speaker-phone.  He listened to them speak for a long moment.  El Grupo was dead in the water.  No one would listen to them, possibly ever again.  No one would honor a request from them.  But there was a new possibility that Jan had uncovered, something that had to be investigated. 

If it turned out to be real, and they did nothing to stop it, how could they ever forgive themselves?

Troy thought about Jan.  The guy was smart.  Troy had trouble remembering another time when Jan had been this far wrong.  Jan was mostly never wrong, not even a little bit.

The ship they raided was a decoy.

“All right,” Troy said.  “Let me think about it for a few minutes.”

He hung up the phone and looked across the table at Alex.  Alex was lighting another cigarette, using the butt from the last one.  Once it was fully lit, he breathed in deeply, then exhaled a long stream of smoke.  He took a sip of his beer.

“Those things are gonna kill you,” Troy said. 

Alex nodded.  “I know.”  He gestured with his head at the phone.  “What’s the story?”

“There’s another ship,” Troy said.  “They think it’s the real one, with the real bad guys on board.  They’re tracking it by satellite.  They want to double down on today’s disaster.  They’re hoping I’ll go check it out.” 

“Where is it?” Alex said. 

“Croatia, on the Sava River.  Almost to Zagreb.  A couple of hours southeast of there.”

Alex seemed to do some calculations in his head.  "Once we get the chopper back and fueled, we can be there in two and a half hours, maybe two if we push.  But that's the far edge of the Yoyo's range.  It'll be full dark when we get there, and we'll be running on fumes."

Troy shrugged.  “I was a Navy SEAL.  I enjoy night swimming.”

“I know,” Alex said.  “Personally, I’m going to try to stay out of the water.”

“Where’s the chopper?”

Alex was already standing.  He tossed some cash onto the table, then pinned it there with an empty beer glass.  “It’s not far.  But we’ll need to drive out there.”

Troy looked out at the plaza.  There were a few cars parked along the side street.

“Plenty of cars to steal,” he said.

Alex smiled.  “Stark, I like the way you think.”

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

5:20 pm Central European Time (6:20 pm Eastern European Time)

Aboard the freighter Voivode

The Sava River

Southeast of Zagreb, Croatia

“In the end, everyone will have to go,” the tall man said.

The archangels were in a meeting with God himself, Viktor Laskov.  He was the one now planning to get rid of his entire crew. 

After their stop at the home of Prins Gekkenhuis, Michael and Uriel had wasted a couple of nights in Amsterdam, enjoying the charms of the local pub culture and the red light district.  They had flown to Zagreb yesterday evening, and had spent today waiting to rendezvous with this freighter.

Laskov had been a busy man.  He had caused a catastrophe in Romania and Moldova, exactly as he said he would.  He had flown to Belgrade, smuggled materials for another catastrophe aboard this ship, and had sent the ship here, exactly as he said he would, exactly when he said he would.

He was remarkably good at logistics, this Laskov.  Michael was impressed.

“Not ourselves, though?” Michael said, and smiled. 

He meant the comment in jest, but you never could tell with the Laskov types.  Sometimes, when they decided to erase everyone, they meant absolutely everyone.

Laskov seemed confused.  Perhaps the point was lost in translation.

“Not your…” he said, trailing off.

“We can’t be expected to kill ourselves,” Uriel said helpfully.  “Can we?”

It was curious, listening and watching Uriel talk about murder.  He was good at killing, no doubt, though his stronger suit might be technology.  He was tall and slim, with a bland face and a heavily receding hairline.  He looked like a young accountant who had become prematurely middle-aged.  His hands and feet were lightning-fast.

Now Laskov smiled.  He let out a small sound of mirth.

“No.  Of course not.”

“Who, then?” Michael said. 

The three men were inside a stateroom of sorts, with a single-person bed on metal posts, a wooden dresser and table, a narrow closet with no door, and a couple of chairs.  Laskov was the only one sitting.  The ceiling in here was low, and Laskov was tall enough that his head would probably scrape it.

"There are ten," Laskov said.  "There are two groups of four men each, what we call environmental commandos.  They are good men from all over the world, the types who engage in water cannon battles with whaling ships on the high seas.  You've probably seen them loading the zodiacs."

Michael and Uriel both nodded.

“Yes,” Michael said.

The freighter was tied up at an isolated network of deepwater concrete docks 10 kilometers outside the city.  The docks were in what would be a grassy, swampy area during summer, not far from the main motorway.  There were no lights, and no obvious way to reach the docks from land, save a long icy footpath from a parking lot more than a kilometer away.  The docks had either been abandoned by their original owner or were built by smugglers in the first place.

Michael and Uriel had found their way here with flashlights, heavy boots tromping through the shallow crust of ice and snow, their equipment bags slung over their shoulders.

There were two large, rugged inflatable motorboats also parked along this dock.  When Michael and Uriel arrived, a group of young men were loading the inflatables with heavy plastic tankards filled with a liquid that certainly looked to be water. 

“Their job is to infiltrate two water treatment plants, a reservoir along the river north of the city, and a couple of holding ponds, among other locations.  It will take several hours, though the infiltration will be easy enough.  The guards have been paid.  Your job is for each of you to ride in a Zodiac with a four-person team, and when the team has finished its work, to terminate the team members immediately.”

“What have they been told?”

Laskov shrugged.  “That you’re riding with them for their protection, which is true.  If they run into trouble with anyone while carrying out their work, I hope you will eliminate whatever the trouble happens to be.”

Michael smirked.  Laskov was one of a kind.

“Is that how you did it in Romania?”

“There is a lot of pressure from international authorities,” Laskov said.  “You can imagine the kind of manhunt underway to identify and find the culprits.  It’s better if there are no culprits to find.”

“That’s eight people,” Uriel said.  “You said ten.”

Laskov nodded.  “There is a woman on board.  There is also a blonde-haired man who is not a commando.  He’s a scientist.  His name is Robert.  I’ll introduce you to him.  His efforts are no longer needed.”

“You can take care of the woman, can you not?” Michael said.  “Your reputation precedes you.  I understand you’ve killed once or twice before.”

“Physically, I could,” Laskov said.  “Of course.  But the woman is quite precious to me.  It would be difficult.  I prefer if someone else handles it.  In any event, I trust that your payments have been adequate enough for the tasks I’m outlining?”

Michael shook his head.  “It isn’t a problem.  When do we take care of these other two?”

“If it can be done quietly, it’s best to do it before you leave with the Zodiac teams.  I’ll dispose of the bodies in the river after you’re gone.”

“Fine,” Michael said.  “The freighter crew?  What about them?”

There were other men on board this ship, strong men, typical river sailors in dark heavy coats and wool caps.  They were keeping to themselves, above deck and in the pilot house.  They were, in all likelihood, running the ship.

Laskov shook his head.  “They work for Bogovic.  They are completely trustworthy.  As far as they know, they are delivering a load of gravel.  They see nothing else.  They know nothing else.  The CIA could torture them, and they wouldn’t change their story.  They hope to leave here within the hour.  If we do our jobs correctly, it’s possible the ship will make its delivery without incident, and without suspicion.”

“And Bogovic?” Michael said.  “I knew him a little when I was a young man.”

Michael had grown up a Belgrade tough guy and football hooligan, before elite military service and the work he did now took him around the world.  He retained a deep affinity for those early days, and for the colorful street characters he had known.

“Our dear uncle Bogovic is old,” Laskov said.  “He’s lost his marbles.  His nephews run the business now.  They are the same as him.  Traditional and no-nonsense.  His blood runs in their veins.  They are a bit angry with me at the moment, and I am trying to remain on their good side.  Achieve success here, and it will go a long way to repairing the relationship.”

“Will you contaminate the river?” Uriel said.  “Like you did in Romania?”

Laskov nodded.  “I will deal with this after you are gone.  We’ve kept some of the bacteria on board here.  It will be a simple matter to dump it into the river.”

Michael sighed.  He and Uriel shared a glance.  This was something they had agreed upon.  It could mean the job went no further from here.  It could mean Laskov’s corpse on the floor in this very room.

“Won’t that upset your friends?” Michael said.  “Won’t it upset you, given your obvious fondness for Belgrade, and the Serbian people?”

“Won’t what upset me?” Laskov said. 

His eyes showed confusion again.  Michael would not say they showed fear, but Laskov clearly did not want to anger two professional killers, alone in a room.

Michael assumed he didn’t need to explain the basics of the natural world to this man.  “The river flows from here back into Serbia,” he said.  “There are millions of Serbs whose lives will be at risk.”

Now Laskov smiled.  A second later, the smile spread into a large, wolfish grin.

“Ah.  I see your concern.  There’s more going on here than meets the eye.  This is a settling of accounts, my friends.  The river flows slowly, especially this far from the source, and this time of year.  It will take days for contaminated water to reach the frontier with Serbia.  By tomorrow afternoon, both Croatia and Bosnia will be in crisis.  With a little luck, the weak Bosnian government will collapse.  The nation of Serbia will step in to help stabilize the situation, but also to protect its people.  As part of a rapid strike force, Serbian military engineers will push 20 kilometers into Croatia and quickly dam a narrow stretch of the river.  There is a broad flood plain behind there that will become a lake.  The contaminated water will not reach Serbia."

“How can you know these things?” Uriel said.

Now Laskov laughed and shook his head.  “Do you believe I came up with these plans on my own?  Viktor Laskov, the man who one day decided to poison entire countries?  Why would I do that?  How would I do that?”

For Michael, a whole series of assumptions began to fall apart, and a much clearer picture started to emerge.  He and Uriel often worked on jobs that were obscure, mysterious, and didn’t make much sense to an outsider.  They didn’t have to make sense if the money was right.  

“The man in Holland was an environmentalist.”

Laskov shook his head.  “The environmentalists were useful.  The scientists were useful.  Who do you think I work for, myself?”

***

“A small toast to us,” Viktor Laskov said.  “Before we begin the night’s work.”

Michael watched him, and watched the people around him.  Was it the height?  Was it really that simple and primitive?  Everyone in the room was forced, by dint of his genetics, to "look up to" Laskov.  And they gazed at him admiringly, submissively, and proudly, as though merely being in his presence was a privilege.

The group was standing in a sort of semi-circle around their leader.  The chamber where they stood seemed like it was somewhere in the bowels of the ship.  There were no windows.  But right down a hall from here was a doorway, with a gangplank to the docks outside.

The ship rocked slowly and gently with the river current.

Laskov lifted a small glass, half-filled with an amber liquid that caught the light like captured fire.  His cohorts did the same.

“Tomorrow there will be panic in the streets, and in the halls of power, and there will be the inevitable clamor for answers, and the search for someone to blame.  Hopefully, the search will end where it began, because there is no one to blame but themselves.  By then, we’ll be gone, we’ll be ghosts, and untouchable to them.”

Michael smiled.  They would be ghosts, almost certainly.

A small cheer rose up, but Laskov wasn’t done yet. 

“I feel free to share with you now information I’ve been withholding, for your safety, and the safety of our comrades.  Airplanes went out of Norway carrying our people, and our achievement, to other places, in southern Asia, and in Africa.  Another ship, like this one, left Belgrade today, with a similar destination.  The details will become clearer to you in time, but know this: we are unstoppable.”

Another cheer went up, louder this time.  People were eager to drink the toast.

Michael marveled at what he was witnessing.  The freighter that left Belgrade didn’t even make it to Romania before being seized.  Serbian fighter jets buzzed NATO attack helicopters.  For an hour this afternoon, there was widespread concern that World War III had begun.

Maybe there is another freighter.

Either way, Laskov had enforced a media blackout aboard this ship.  These people had no idea what was going on in the outside world.

“I toast to us, the vanguard of the new world,” Laskov said.

Everyone knocked back their drinks.

As Michael watched, the dark-haired woman slipped away from the revelry.  She went down a different narrow corridor, one that seemed to lead deeper into the ship. 

Might as well do this now.

People were talking and laughing, hovering near Laskov.

Michael stepped backward, and moved sideways to the left.  The corridor entryway was here, and he followed the woman along it.  He reached into the pocket of his coat and came out with a garrote, nothing more than some thick wire mounted at the ends into two small blocks of wood.  It was a very quiet killing method.

The woman turned and pushed open a door.  She did not look back at Michael.

He quickened his pace.  He was just a few steps behind her now.  He had seen her in the low light of the chamber where Laskov made his toast.  She was a remarkable beauty, like the old Italian movie starlets from a bygone era.  It seemed a shame to kill her. 

But he could also see Laskov’s reasoning.  Anyone left alive might talk. 

The door was unlocked.  Michael pushed it open. 

This was another small stateroom.  It had the same narrow bed as the room where he had spoken to Laskov.  The walls were dark wooden paneling.  There was a single porthole looking out upon the dark night.  Against the far wall was a low dresser with a mirror mounted on it.  The woman was facing the mirror.  She met his eyes as he came in. 

There was a pile of clothes on the dresser.  There was a large backpack unzipped on the bed.  Some of the clothes seemed to be lingerie, as though she was expecting to use this basic, threadbare cabin as a love nest.  Her hands were buried in the clothes, like she had been savoring the softness of them.

Michael stepped further into the room.  The door closed behind him. 

Her eyes were large.  They looked like a cat’s eyes. 

“He sent you to kill me, didn’t he?”

Michael shook his head.  “It’s not like that.”

He took another step closer to her.

“Please.  You can tell me.  I want to know before you do it.”

Michael shrugged.  This was the job.  It was intimate work sometimes.  People often said things.  The things they said didn’t matter. 

Dogs barked.  The meaning of it was the same.

Nothing.

“Don’t resist, and I will make it as quick and painless as possible.”

In the reflection of the mirror, she nodded and sighed.  She turned to face him, and there was a pistol in her hand.  The gun was small.  The sound suppressor mounted on it was comically huge in comparison. 

She hadn’t been feeling the clothes.  She’d been hiding the gun.

She shot him, above the chest.  The shot didn’t make a sound.  Or if it did, he didn’t hear it.  No one else would, either.  The bullet entered just below his throat.

His hands shot out, looking for something to hold him up.  There was nothing. 

He sank to the floor.  His mouth hung open.

His eyes blinked.

There was no pain yet.  That was good. 

He couldn’t speak.  He put his hand to his throat, and it came away covered in blood.  Now he was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

She appeared there, looming over him.  She looked down at him like he was little more than a curiosity.  She was beautiful indeed, if possible more beautiful than before.  The dim light of an overhead fixture seemed to ring her head in a halo, as though she was an angel.

She smiled.

“I was waiting for you.”

Two decades of battle, of killing, of surviving, and of living on.  Only to be murdered by this woman in a matter of seconds.  Beauty could fool you.  He had learned that lesson before now.  He should have heeded it.

“There are listening devices in all the rooms,” she said.  “You know who put them there?”

Michael would shake his head, but he couldn’t move.

“I did.”

She pointed the gun down at him, right in his face.  Michael stared into the cave at the end of the barrel.

“I heard every word you and Laskov said.”

Even if Michael could speak, there would be no sense in pleading with her.  There was no mercy in the woman’s eyes.  There was very little humanity in there. 

Maybe none at all.

She pulled the trigger, and an instant later, the real darkness came.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

5:45 pm Central European Time

Approaching the freighter Voivode

The skies above the Sava River

Southeast of Zagreb, Croatia

“Is this it?” Troy said. 

“Yes,” Jan Bakker said over the satellite phone.  The call had dropped half a dozen times on the way here.  “You are very close to the ship.  It is docked along the south edge of the river.”

The river was wide here, just ten kilometers outside the city, and there were just a few lights.  A highway ran parallel with the river, just to the south.  The ship was a small river freighter.  It had a few lights on, but nothing that would call attention to it.

It was dark in color, set against the dark water, and the dark of night.  The ship itself was little more than a black smudge.  But the lights revealed people moving on the dock.  From this distance, the people and their shadows seemed to become one, like the long, thin fingers of a piano player.

“Okay,” Troy said.  “We’re going in.  I’ll call you when it’s over.”

He hung up, not waiting for Jan’s reply. 

“Low on fuel,” Alex said, as soon as Troy put the phone away.

“I know,” Troy said.  “You told me that would happen before we left.  Just put me down somewhere on land over there, and then park this thing anywhere you like.”

Troy still had the MAC-10.  He had two full magazines for it, and another that was mostly full.  He had removed the big sound suppressor, which had already been failing.  He didn’t want quiet this time around in any case.  If he started shooting, he wanted a BIG sound.  He wanted to seem like more than an army of one. 

He had the serrated knife taped to his calf again.  The Glock he had given Dubois was gone.  It was lost in the chaos of their escape. 

“It’s not that simple, Stark.”

“You do your job, I’ll do mine,” Troy said.  “How does that sound?  Simple enough?”

The alcohol from the beer they’d drunk had long ago worn off.  The good feelings and tiny bit of esprit de corps they’d shared had also worn off.  Troy was beyond exhausted now, and there wasn’t a can of Rock Star to be had for any amount of money.  The past half an hour had mostly been he and Alex bitching at each other. 

At one point, Troy had taken the last remaining grenade out of his bulletproof vest.  He inspected it, looking for markings that would indicate who made it.  The first one had packed quite a wallop.

“What are you going to do with that?” Alex said. 

Troy shrugged.  “I might need it.”

“To do what, sink the ship?  That might have cholera aboard?  So the cholera goes in the river by accident?”

Troy was beat.  Talking to Alex wasn’t fun anymore. 

He had tossed the grenade in the back. 

“If the chopper runs out of fuel, there’s no way to refuel it,” Alex said now.  “Do you see a helicopter refueling station around here?”

Troy was staring at the docks, ahead, below, and to his right now.  The guys down there were loading something onto Zodiac boats.  It sure did seem like an amphibious operation of some kind was about to take place.

“Do me a favor,” Troy said.  “After you drop me off, do a little hover over these guys, give them the spotlight, as bright as it goes, and tell them you’re the cops.  Okay?”

“And if they shoot at me?”

“You’re the chopper pilot,” Troy said.  “Employ evasive maneuvers.”

“You’re going to put me right in the river,” Alex said. 

Troy ignored that comment.

“This has been the longest day in human history.”

Alex flew the helicopter low over land to the south of the ship.  Troy was watching the men on the dock.  They had noticed the chopper - how could they not?  They were beginning to move away from the Zodiacs they were loading. 

There was a ramp to the ship and an open door at its lowest level.  A dim light came from inside there.  That was Troy's way in. 

“I don’t want those guys following me up that ramp if you can help it.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said. 

“How quickly can you get the real cops here, if I find something?”

Alex shook his head.  “Zagreb air traffic control has been trying to raise us on the radio for the past twenty minutes.  We’ve been ignoring them, as usual.  I’m surprised they didn’t send someone to knock us out of the sky.”

“Quickly, in other words?” Troy said.

Now Alex nodded.  “I think so, yeah.”

CRACK!

A sound came across the snowfield, the sharp report of gunfire.  It was loud enough that Troy could hear it, even with the helmet on and the speaker system working. 

“Incoming fire,” he said. 

Of course.  Of course there was incoming fire. 

Now there was more of it.  Off to their left, near the Zodiacs, there were muzzle flashes in the darkness. 

CRACK!

CRACK!

It was rifle fire, single but repeating action.  A crunch came, as something punched through the fuselage behind them. 

The helicopter touched down lightly.

“Go!” Alex said.  “Go!  Get out of here!” 

Troy opened his door and rolled out.  His feet hit the snowy ground.  There was tall grass here, brittle and dead, and pressed down by the snow.  He dropped to the ground and rolled, the snout of the MAC-10 out in front of him.

Behind him, the helicopter was in the air.  Its shadow passed over him.  The THUMP of its rotors muted as it lifted up and away.

CRACK!

“Call the cops!” Troy shouted.  “Looks like we found something.”

“Roger that,” came Alex’s voice through the helmet speaker.

Troy crawled like a worm through the snow.  He could see the muzzle flashes across the way, but he couldn't tell if they were firing at him or the chopper.  The men over there were shadows.  Two or three seemed to have taken a knee.  A couple of others were standing upright.

Troy stared at them. 

CRACK! 

They were moving this way. 

A muzzle flashed.

They were shooting at him.  They knew he was here.

CRACK!

He felt a sting in the meat of his left arm near his bicep.

Ah, man.

“I’m hit,” he said, shaking his head. 

“Bad?” came Alex’s voice.  It sounded tinny and far away now.

Troy sighed.  “I don’t know.  Not yet.  Put some light on those guys, will you please?”

It was the second time he’d had to ask.

The chopper’s spotlight came on, so bright it turned night into day.  It was a supernova compared to the lights aboard the ship.  Suddenly, the men over there were etched in sharp relief.  It was hard to say how many there were.  Several were still over by the boats. 

A handful of them were spread out across the snowy field.  They knew enough not to bunch up.  But it wasn’t going to matter.  They looked up into the sky.

One man raised a rifle toward the helicopter.

Troy sighted on him with the MAC.

CHAPTER THIRTY

5:48 pm Central European Time

Aboard the freighter Voivode

The Sava River

Southeast of Zagreb, Croatia

“You’re amazing,” Viktor said.  “Did you know that?”

Irina stared up at him.  He had come into the tiny, dim cabin maybe a minute after she had killed the assassin.  That man was dead on the floor, his face punctured, a bloody halo spreading around his head.  His eyes were wide open in something that looked like surprise.

She backed away from Viktor, holding the gun on him. 

Viktor was sweating.  He was breathing hard.  He seemed electric with energy.  Was he glowing?  Was there light coming from inside of him?  There must be.  The brightness in the room had increased when he came inside.  She didn’t imagine it.  It was real. 

The man was magic.  He was supernatural. 

“It’s an incredible night, isn’t it?” he said.  “The things we’ve done.  The things we’re about to do.  We did this, Irina.  You and I.  We’re the leaders of it.”

Irina made a noise, an animal noise.  It was a noise from the deep past, a noise from the caves.  She was terrified of Viktor.  He had tried to have her murdered only moments ago.  And yet there was something…

“If you come any closer, I’ll kill you,” she said.   

He smiled.  “No, you won’t.”

“You tried to kill me,” she said.  “Of course I’ll kill you.”

“I didn’t do anything to you, Irina.  The last thing I would ever do is hurt you.”  He gestured at the corpse on the floor.  “If he told you otherwise, he was lying.”

He had started life as someone else, of course.  People like him always did - no one is born Viktor Laskov.  You have to become Laskov.  She knew he had tried on quite a few personalities and identities along the way.  But this most recent identity was the real one, the final one.  He had reached his destiny.  The original person, whoever that had been, was gone. 

That was part of Irina’s affinity for him.  They were the same in many ways.

“YOU told me,” she said. 

She had a strange fascination with how he twisted words and events to suit him.  She wondered how he would try to lie his way out of this. 

He smirked, his eyes alive and dancing, even mocking.

“I told you?  How did I do that?”

“I placed listening devices everywhere,” she said.  “I heard you telling them to kill me.”

She should have already shot him by now.  Why was she even talking to him?  Why was she entertaining any of this?  He was as dangerous as a viper. 

He was handsome.  Damn near movie star looks.  You couldn't tell when he was dressed, but when he disrobed, he had a fabulous body - thin, muscular, like an athlete.  He had a powerful gift for oratory and the urge to dominate the people around him. 

Then there was his height.

Irina was dangerous herself - slippery, manipulative, smart, greedy but not excessively so.  She was a survivor.  She had confused and taken advantage of many people.  She had stolen money.  She had stolen expensive property.  She had sent men to their deaths.  She would have said that she was as cynical and worldly as a person could be.   

But God, how she had fallen for this man.

He knew how to drive people to the limits of what they could bear, of what they were willing to do, and then past those limits.  He owned people, he controlled them, and they became his children.  They were good children, and they did exactly as they were told.  The group he had assembled were so obedient to him - him above all else, above themselves, above their careers, above their safety, above their morality, above the law. 

Maybe he was their savior.

She stared at him for a long moment. 

He hadn’t said a word since she revealed the listening devices.  The expression on his face had changed just a little bit.  It was now a look of compassion.

“Why?” she said, her voice low.  “Why did you try to kill me?”

He held her gaze and did not look away, not for a second.  Irina found that she couldn’t look into those eyes anymore.  She looked down at her shoes.  She looked at the wooden floor, with a vague reflection of the overhead light in the polished surface.

“I didn’t.”

He took a step closer to her. 

Irina saw his feet move, and her heart skipped. 

“I need you to put down the gun.”

With some difficulty, she tore her eyes away from the floor and lifted them to meet his.  It was like a fire burned in those eyes.  They seemed red-rimmed, almost with blood.  He was an intense man.  There was a volcano in those eyes, but she saw other things there as well - a white sand beach, sunshine, escape, the promise of something new and wonderful. 

All of that, just in his eyes. 

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said. 

She looked away again at the dark porthole next to her, where she caught sight of a misshapen version of her own reflection.

He moved even closer to her.  The gun was pointed at his chest, but he didn't seem to mind.  As he came ever closer, she felt how tall he was, and how broad.  He stared down into her eyes again.  She felt as if they might embrace.  She was drawn to him as though a powerful magnet was pulling her.  If he tried to embrace her, she would not try to stop him. 

If he reached for the gun, she would give it to him.

Somewhere, not far, gunfire began.

CRACK!  A single shot, like a man, had been executed.

Irina snapped awake, as if from a dream.

The spell was broken, the magic, whatever it had been.  There was a dead man on the floor.  He had come in here to murder her, sent by her lover and boss, Viktor Laskov.  Viktor himself was maybe one meter away and probably only seconds from killing her. 

Another single shot came, then another.  The gunshots sounded like they were outside the ship.  The muffled sounds were coming through the wall, or perhaps through the porthole. 

Suddenly, the ugly blat of an automatic weapon erupted. 

Viktor eyes were sharp.  He raised his hands. 

“Stay here.”

He turned, vaulted over the dead man, pushed open the door, and then was gone. 

The gunfire was explosive now, ripping up the night outside.  There were big problems coming.  Irina waited several seconds, and then followed Viktor out.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

5:50 pm Central European Time

Outside the freighter Voivode

Southeast of Zagreb, Croatia

Troy opened up with the MAC.

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

He cut the first man down, the one who was going to shoot the helicopter.  The guy crumpled into a heap on the snowy ground. 

The chopper rotated slowly, the bright light shining down on the men in the field.  These guys were sitting ducks, which was good.  Another man was standing, rifle in his hands.  He had been walking across toward Troy. 

Troy sighted on him and opened up again.  The MAC jumped in his hands.

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

That man went down like the first.

Now, the others began to run back toward the Zodiacs.  Troy fired toward them, the gun jumping, his left arm beginning to hurt a lot. 

I’m shot.

The thought came as if someone else was reminding him of it.  He needed to deal with that, he knew, but he hadn’t to finish the job first.

“We have runners!” Alex said through the headset.  “We have runners.”

Troy glanced ahead and to his right.  A couple of men were running across the snow away from the docks.  He looked back to his left.  Two men leapt into a Zodiac, as another worked to untie it.

He sighted on it.  They were pretty far away now.

“Stark!” Alex shouted.  “Don’t shoot those boats!”

Right. 

If he sank them, he might put cholera in the river.

“I’m going inside the ship,” he said. 

“Good luck,” Alex said.

Troy pushed himself to his feet.  He turned, and the ship was ahead, away from Alex’s searchlight, a darkness looming in even more darkness.  The yellow light at the end of the gangplank suddenly seemed bright. 

He began to run.  He crunched over hard snow.  His breath was loud in his ears.  He felt tired, unnaturally so.  He couldn’t tell how much blood he was losing, but it must be quite a bit.  He was becoming lightheaded.  

The snow seemed to pass by itself, and then he was running up the gangplank. 

He passed through a small, round doorway, leaping over the metal lip at the bottom while ducking his head like a circus dog.  Then he ran along a short corridor.  Suddenly, he burst into a low chamber.  A group of people were in here. 

“Everybody freeze!  Everybody get down!”

There were four of them.  They stood in a rough square.  A woman with dark hair was at one corner.  Directly opposite from her was the tall man Troy had seen at the Belgrade docks early this morning.  There were two more men at the other corners - a man with blonde hair and broad shoulders, and a thin man with a receding hairline. 

The woman had a gun at her side.  She lifted it and pointed it at the tall man, holding it with both hands.  The gun was small, but had a huge silencer.  It was like something out of a cartoon. 

“Put that gun down!” Troy shouted.

He turned the MAC on her.  She didn’t even look at him. 

Her eyes were fixed on the tall man. 

Troy seemed to have no effect on these people.  Everyone spoke some English, didn’t they?  It shouldn’t even matter.  A large man comes running in wearing a big white helmet and brandishing a MAC-10 submachine gun - that should get people’s attention.

“Lady, drop that gun!”

She fired.  The gun made almost no sound.  The way Troy knew she had fired was by how she pulled the trigger, how the recoil lifted her arms, and how the man across from her jerked violently, and then sank to his knees.

“Lady, I will kill you.”

She looked at Troy and then dropped the gun at her feet.  The floor was metal, and the gun clanged when it hit. 

“Kick it.  Kick it away.”

She kicked the gun sideways, and it slid across the chamber.  She understood English after all.  She understood perfectly. 

Troy took a breath.  What was going on in here? 

He glanced around.  There were 20 or 30 tall plastic tankards lined up along one wall.  The tankards were mostly transparent, and they were filled with liquid.

The tall man was gut shot.  His mouth hung open.  He pressed his hands to his lower abdomen.  There was blood seeping through his fingers.  Gut shot was bad.  Gut shot could kill you.  The man was going to need medical attention, or he was going to die.  Troy didn’t know if that was good or bad.

Was this guy the ringleader?  If so, they would want him alive.

Troy gestured at the tankards with his chin. 

“What’s in those things?”

“It’s too late,” the blonde-haired man said.  “You’ll never stop it now.”

Troy turned to face him.

And that’s when the other man attacked.

***

“Police!” Alex said into the hand-held microphone.  “Stop that boat and surrender your weapons.”

His voice boomed out over the water. 

The Zodiac was below him, bathed in the white of the spotlight.  It was running north on the river, probably with the throttle opened all the way.  Three men were on board.  The boat was loaded down, with God only knew what.  They were smugglers, at the very least.

It’s the cholera.  It has to be.  Why else would they shoot?

It was ridiculous for them to think they could outrun this helicopter.

“Policija!” he shouted in Croatian. 

“Polizei!”

“Polizia!”

He would shout it in every language he could think of.

He was out ahead of them now, so he turned and flew backwards, keeping the light on them.  They were hopeless, except his fuel gauge warning had just come on.

He was no longer running on fumes.  He wasn’t running on anything. 

An alarm began to sound. 

BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP. 

He dropped towards the water.  He was in a hover, maybe three feet above the dark surface.  The glaring light was on the Zodiac, still coming this way.

The men on board tried to block the light with their hands. 

“Stop that boat!”

He switched off the loudspeaker and turned on the radio.  He was on the air traffic channel.  "Mayday, mayday," he said.  "I am declaring an emergency."  His mind raced, looking for a term.  Then he found it. 

“Hitan slucaj!” he said.   

Abruptly, power to the engine ceased.  All of his engine indicators went to zero at the same time.  The chopper fell out of the sky and into the water. 

It hit hard.  It was just a few feet, but Alex felt the impact.  The jolt went up his spine. 

“Aaahhhhhhh,” he said, like air escaping from a tire. 

He slumped in the seat.  The chopper was floating, at least for the moment.  Probably, it was sinking, but it was happening slowly enough that it was almost like floating. 

He still had electric power.  The spotlight shone underwater now, creating an eerie circle of light in the dark water.  

“Hitan slucaj,” he said into the radio again.  “Sava River, south of Zagreb.”

He reached for the belt harness, and unclipped it. 

There was a small compartment under the dashboard.  He had put a .38 revolver in there earlier today.  He reached down, opened the compartment, and pulled out the gun.  It held six shots in the cylinder.  Stark would laugh if he saw it.

Alex pushed open the door. 

The Zodiac was right there, maybe ten meters away.  It was idling.  The men on board watched Alex.  It looked like they weren't sure if they wanted to keep running or come and rescue him. 

Alex pointed the gun into the air. 

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

The sound was loud and made his ears ring.  The shots echoed across the river. 

He waited a moment.  The shooting should bring somebody.  And it did, or maybe the radio call did.  Downriver from here, a fast boat was coming.  Alex couldn’t tell what it was, but it had a searchlight, which was on, and sweeping the water back and forth. 

Alex tapped himself on the helmet.

“Stark!  Can you hear me?  I’m in the river, Stark.”

To his left, and far above their heads, another helicopter was coming in.  Now, its spotlight swept the water as well.  In another few minutes, this place was going to be swarming with first responders.  Alex looked at the Zodiac again. 

There was nowhere to run, and they knew it.

“Stark?” he said.

***

The man was fast, shockingly so.

Troy was on his back before he knew it.  His gun, the MAC-10, had slid away somewhere.  His helmet was askew, partially blocking his sight.

The man was on top of him, kneeling on his guts.  It was the man with the receding hairline.  His face was blank, and hard.  He hammered Troy, punching at his throat.

Troy undulated, trying to throw the man off of him.  Troy bent his knees, planted his feet and tried to throw his own body into the air.  The man rode him like he was riding a wave.  It was impossible to get him off. 

Troy blocked the man’s punches, but they came fast and furious, again and again.  They were finding their targets.  He punched Troy’s jaw.  He punched Troy’s chest.  The bulletproof vest helped with that.

The punches were hammer blows.  He tried for the throat again.  Troy blocked it, and slapped the punch away.  If the man connected with Troy’s throat, Troy was going to die.

Behind the man, the woman and the blonde-haired man stood and stared.  Troy was fighting for his life.  The man was trying to kill him.  And the people just watched. 

The man’s eyes said he had done this before.  He had killed people with his bare hands. 

The knife.

There was a sharp, serrated knife taped to Troy’s right calf.

The man fell forward and put both of his hands around Troy’s throat.  The hands were strong.  They began to squeeze.  The helmet was sideways.  Troy could only see out of one eye. 

“Stark?” a voice said inside the helmet.

The man was choking him.  Tighter and tighter. 

Troy brought his right leg up, as far as it would go.  The leg couldn’t kick the man off of him.  He was too far up on Troy’s body now.  He straddled Troy’s chest. 

Troy reached to his calf, found the pant leg, and pulled it up.

His vision was starting to dim and go dark.

Troy stripped the knife away from his leg.

Everything was turning gray.  There was no color anywhere.

Troy put the handle in his fist, and brought the knife blade up, and back towards himself.  He plunged it into the man’s back.

The man straightened up, his mouth wide open in agony.

But he did not release Troy’s throat.  Troy ripped the knife out, and plunged it in again.  The man screamed this time, a howl of rage and pain.

Troy pulled the knife out and stabbed the man again.  And again.  He stabbed him high in the lungs.  He stabbed him low in the kidneys.  He brought the knife around and stabbed the man in the side.  Again he stabbed him.  Again.

The man's hands were weaker now.  His eyes were growing dull.  His face was a permanent grimace of pain.  His shoulders went slack.  His hands went limp and hung on either side of Troy's neck.  Troy drove the knife into the man's back one more time. 

Then he pushed him onto the floor, leaving the knife in.

Troy gasped for air.  His breaths were rapid and shallow.  His throat felt constricted, as if the man’s strong hands were still gripping it.  Troy forced air all the way out, and then let it flow slowly back in, filling his lungs to the bottom.  The guy had nearly killed him. 

Troy made a sound like: "Aaaaaaahhhhhh."

He lay on his back, looking up.  He noticed now that his heart was thumping in his chest, but beginning to slow.  He was breathing.  He was okay.  He arm still hurt, a lot now, but it seemed like a very minor thing.

The woman and the blonde-haired guy were still standing over him.  They looked at him as if he were an interesting bug that they had caught and placed in a jar.  These must be the scientists who had created the deadly disease.

Troy gestured with his head.  “Who was that guy?”  It hurt his throat to talk.

The guy was sputtering, still alive, but he’d be dead in another minute or two. 

Good. 

“He was an assassin,” the woman said. 

Troy nodded.  “Yeah.  That sounds right.” 

Troy reached up and straightened his helmet.  Now he could see the woman clearly, and with both eyes.  He was in no mood for any more games.  He swallowed.  His throat worked.  The saliva went down hard. 

“If you try to pick up that gun again, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

She shook her head.  “I won’t pick it up.”

Troy pushed himself into a seated position.  He wasn’t sure if he would be able to stand for a little while.  The assassin was dead on the floor with him now, his body bleeding out.  The tall man, gut shot, remained slumped over.  He was starting to turn ashen in color.

“Stark?” Alex said over the helmet speaker.

Troy nodded.  “Yeah.”

“I’m in the river.  The chopper is dead.”

Troy nearly laughed.  “Call the cops,” he said. 

“I did.  They’re already here.”

Troy sat still for a long moment.  He could hear the sirens now, some far away, but some very close.  Some sounded like normal police vehicles.  Some sounded like fire engines.  One or two were shrieking clarions, like air raid sirens. 

They were beautiful sounds.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

February 6

1:05 am Eastern European Time

A Hospital

Timisoara, Romania

“Nice place,” Troy said under his breath.

He sat in a threadbare waiting room in an uncomfortable, metal framed chair.  A dozen other similar chairs were taken, all facing forward toward a desk with two nurses sitting behind it.  The light in here was bad, given off by sputtering yellow fluorescents in the drop ceiling overhead. 

As protocols demanded, everyone in the place was wearing at least a paper medical mask on their face and rubber gloves.  A few people - the ones who could acquire them - wore full face shields.  The crisis wasn't over.

Even so, this dismal hospital was quiet.  The outbreak had never reached here, and so the hospital had not been overrun. 

Troy was waiting for them to give him permission to see Dubois, who was imprisoned in here somewhere.  In the meantime, he pulled out Jan’s tablet computer.  Jan was still sending him information, and if nothing else it was informative, and maybe a little entertaining.  A stack of short videos had just come through.

One was playing on Troy’s screen at the moment.  It showed a somewhat young looking, blonde-haired man, sitting in another threadbare room.  He was at a desk, both hands fastened behind his back, answering questions from someone off-screen. 

The man’s blue eyes were wild, wide open and frightened.  He was wearing a mask, so there was no telling what his mouth was doing.

Troy had the sound down, but it didn’t matter.  He wouldn’t be able to understand what was being said, and anyway, there were captions appearing that translated the dialogue into English.

At the bottom left of the screen, in small letters, it said:

Name: Robert Osgard. 

AKA: None.

Place of Birth:  Frankfurt, Germany.

Words were scrolling about halfway up the screen:

RO:  “It’s too late now.  The bacteria have gone around the world.  There will be outbreaks that you cannot contain.  I will not tell you where.”

Q:  “What is the purpose of these attacks?”

RO:  “To save the Earth, while there is still time.”

Q:  “You will save the Earth by killing everyone on it, yes?”

On the screen, the blonde-haired man nodded.  He seemed agitated.  Being bound seemed to disagree with him. 

RO:  “Yes.  Of course.  Not everyone.  Nearly everyone.”

Q:  “You understand you are wanted for mass murder in the state of Moldova?”

What looked like tears were beginning to form at the corners of the man’s eyes.

RO:  “Yes.  I would assume that’s correct.  But to be clear, I never…”

Q:  “The Moldovan government has just voted to reinstate the death penalty.”

Troy nearly laughed.  He switched to another video.  In that one, a dark-haired woman sat at a wooden desk in yet another similar, threadbare, nondescript room.  Eastern and Central Europe, the old communist world, were the kings of dated-looking offices.

The woman’s wrists were cuffed to a steel ring screwed into the heavy wood of the table.  She wasn’t wearing a mask.  She sat in a somewhat awkward position, pulled forward, but her dark eyes seemed relaxed.  She was pretty.  A wisp of dark hair hung down into her face.  She looked tired, but not afraid.

Troy mused that it would take a lot to make this woman afraid.  It was possible that nothing could do it.  There were people in this world who were born without the ability to feel fear.  Usually, they were missing a lot of other emotions as well.

At the bottom of the screen, it said:

Name:  “Irina Decker” (there is no official record of this person).

AKA:  Unknown.

Place of Birth:  Unknown.

Q:  “Who are you?”

The woman smiled.

ID:  “Who are you?”

Q:  “Will there be more attacks?”

ID:  “No.”

Q:  “Your accomplice says there will.  He says this is an attempt to cull the human race.  He said this was an effort to return the population to that of the year 1700, before the industrial revolution.  He says you are one of the leaders of this project.”

The woman was shaking her head now.  It wasn’t emphatic, the head shaking.  It was a simple side-to-side, side-to-side, almost a robotic movement.

ID:  “They’re silly, the enviro whackos.  They’re naïve, like children.  That was never the plan.”

Q:  “Who are they, these enviro whackos?”

The woman shrugged.

ID:  “People like the man you captured.  Robert.  They’re scientists.  So-called activists.  Well-meaning, I suppose.  But very child-like.”

Q:  “Where are they now?”

ID:  “Other than the ones you captured?  They’re dead.  Laskov used them.  When he was done with them, he killed them, or had them killed.  They were no longer useful, so he got rid of them.  Dead men tell no tales, as the saying goes.”

Q:  “It’s cold-blooded, isn’t it?”

She smiled.

ID:  “Yes.  Laskov is cold-blooded.  Like a lizard.  He was covering his trail so he could escape when this was over.  He has escaped from many things before now.  He’s a spy.  You must know that.  He works for Serbia and for Russia.  This was all his idea, or maybe the idea of his bosses.  I know a little bit about their plans, but I was really just here to be next to Laskov.  He held me in his thrall, like a modern Rasputin.  I shouldn’t be blamed.  I didn’t hurt anyone, not until he tried to have me killed.  It was Laskov all along.  He’s manipulative.  He harbored the grand design, which he kept secret from almost everyone, but not from me.”

Q:  “Are you in love with him?

ID:  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

Q:  “Please continue.”

ID:  "They want to rebuild Yugoslavia, or at least Greater Serbia.  That was the plan.  Not this other thing about killing the whole human race.  There was a lot of talk like that, but it was never going to happen.  It was a return to the great Yugoslavia of the past.  You do that by collapsing Bosnia and Croatia and weakening them with a terrible disease.  Then you walk in there with troops, and maybe some medical aid, and food, and tents, and you take over.  Later, maybe you can grab the others, like Kosovo and Montenegro."

Q:  “Then why attack Romania and Moldova?”

The woman stared.  Her eyes were blank for a long moment.  She seemed to be looking deep inside herself for the answer.  The interviewer must have repeated the question.

Q:  “Why attack Romania and Moldova?”

Now, she shrugged.

ID:  “I don’t know.  For fun, I guess.  For target practice.  For revenge.  They betrayed Russia.  The Soviet Union was the modern Russian empire.  Who ever really cared about communism, anyway?  The regular people went hungry.  For the rulers, it was about world power.  That’s all it’s ever about.  Those two countries are trying to escape to the West, but you can’t escape Mother Russia.”

Q:  "Do you know that Moldova has the death penalty now?  They've asked us to send you there.  We have agreed once we're done with you."

ID:  “I didn’t know any of that, but it makes me glad.”

Q:  “Why?”

ID:  “I’m tired.  I don’t want to play these games anymore.  I hope they kill me, an innocent woman, in front of everyone.  Something barbaric, to show the world their true colors, and their hypocrisy.  Slow and horrible, like the gas chamber.  I hope they broadcast it on the TV.”

Troy clicked on another video.

A man was lying in a bed, medical equipment around him.  He had an IV drip.  They were monitoring his vital signs.  He looked weak and sick.  His wrists were handcuffed to the metal railings of the bed.  His head was drooping.  His hair was dark, with some gray streaked through it.  He had a sharp face, almost like a wolf.  It was hard to guess at his age. 

A thick glass sat on a table next to him - it looked like a small beer stein or a glass that might hold hot coffee.  There was a clear liquid in it.

A hand appeared from off-screen, picked up the glass, and threw the liquid in the man's face.  The man jolted back as if he'd been stung or electrocuted.  His left eye opened wide.  His right eye was swollen nearly shut.  His face was bruised and beaten.  Someone had gone to town on this guy in the past several hours.

The clear liquid might be anything - vinegar, or alcohol, or something worse.  It seemed like it startled him, but it didn’t do any lasting damage.  It wasn’t bleach, say, or some sort of cooking gas.  Troy was thankful for that.  He shouldn’t be witnessing torture, and neither should Jan. 

It was clear, whatever was going on, that the Croatians were in breach of any number of European Union laws and treaties.  People tended to take it hard when a suspected mass murderer attempts another mass murder in their own land. 

The man’s one open eye narrowed into a squint.  He was staring at whoever was in the room with him, unbowed by them, apparently unafraid.

The words at the bottom left read:

Name: Viktor Laskov.. 

AKA: Viktor Kovich; Viktor Trask; Viktor Chekhov; Emil Jokic; Anton Jovanovich; Antony Jovan, Josip Novacek, Josip Novak, Mikael Saucek, many others; Code Name: Sundown (CIA);  Code Name: Barksdale (MI6); others.

Place of Birth: St. Petersburg, former USSR.

Q:  “Laskov.”

There was a long pause.  Laskov said nothing.

Q:  “Are you enjoying your time here?”

VL:  “I’m a prisoner of war.  You are breaking every rule you claim to believe in.”

Q:  “You’re a terrorist.  No country will claim you.  Both the Russians and the Serbs disavow your actions.”

For a long moment, the man said nothing.

VL: “Of course they do.  Given the circumstances, what else would they do?  Claim these actions for themselves?”

Q:  “Were you trying to kill off the human race?”

Laskov smiled, revealing a gap where a couple of teeth had gone missing.

VL:  “Give me a cigarette.”

Q:  “Answer the question.  Were you trying to kill off the human race?”

VL:  “No.”

Q:  “What were you trying to do?”

Laskov shook his head and stared at the floor.

VL:  “You people are fools.  Did you know that?”

Q:  “You’re going to die.”

Laskov shrugged, and smirked. 

VL:  “So are you.  So is everyone.  Just probably not today.”

“Mr. Stark?” a female voice said. 

Troy looked up from the screen. 

A woman in a starched white nurse’s uniform stood there.  Her dark hair was pulled tightly to her scalp.  Her dark eyes were hard.  She was not smiling.  She was what a person might call “severe.”  Perhaps she had lost someone in the disaster.

She spoke English with the Romanian accent that made Westerners think of vampires.

“We can bring you to the room now,” she said.

***

The light of the tablet computer flickered in the semi-darkness of the hospital room.  Troy sat slumped in a metal folding chair, staring at the screen, the sound all the way down.  He was inches from Dubois’s bedside, but she was sleeping and he did not want to wake her.

Here, in the gloom, by himself, he noticed how sore his throat was, and was going to be, and how much his arm hurt.  His injuries were treated by medics in Zagreb, but even so, the pain was going to be awhile.

On the screen in front of him, a video played, showing a man at a desk giving a news report.  An image of a city at night, probably Zagreb, loomed behind the reporter. 

Words scrolled along the bottom.

Massive Cholera Attack Thwarted in Croatia.  Interpol and American intelligence uncover “Ship of Death” loaded with contaminated water, enough to kill millions.  Several unnamed people in custody.

Troy wasn’t ready to deal with that.  He didn’t want to think about Interpol, or El Grupo Especial, or Alex, or anything.  He didn’t want talking head news reporters massaging his mind and telling him what it all meant.

He switched to another video.

The new video showed daytime footage of a vast tent encampment at the edge of the quarantine zone in eastern Romania.  The footage was shot with helicopter or drone, and gave an aerial view of the camp disappearing over rolling hillsides and into the distance. 

There was snow on the ground, but what the eye really saw was a riot of colors, blues and greens and oranges and yellows, the colors of the tents and the heavy tarps covering them.  It was hard to make sense of it all.

A hastily erected concrete barrier, with tall fencing and razor wire ran the length of a stream or river.   There were hundreds of transport trucks, some organized in a sort of giant parking lot, and many just parked in seemingly random places.

There was a heavily-armed checkpoint, with a long line of trucks waiting to pass through it and into the encampment.  It certainly looked like they had stopped letting people pass through in the other direction.  There was no line of refugees going that way.

At the bottom of the screen, there was a caption in Romanian, helpfully translated into English: Camp New Hope.  Estimated population: 1.3 million people.

Troy knew that this was only the largest of three similar camps.  There were currently more than two million internal refugees in Romania and possibly another million in Moldova.  The death toll hadn't been fully calculated, but was thought to be around thirty thousand.  Any way you counted, it was a nightmare of epic proportions.

“Why not just go home?” he whispered.

He had been in the villages these people had escaped from.  It seemed almost safer out there, away from these crowds.  But then again, the countryside, the towns, the homes, they were all probably full of…

“Bodies,” he said out loud.

No one wanted to go back.

In the bed next to him, Dubois stirred, probably at the sound of his voice.  Her eyes opened and she gasped.  Her head darted left and right.  She seemed ready to spring out of the bed.  She saw Troy there, but her eyes showed no recognition.

“Hello, Agent Dubois,” he said.

His heart skipped a beat.

“Stark?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God.  I thought I was…”

“You’re fine,” he said.

“Can you hold me?”

“Of course.”

He powered down the tablet and placed it on the thick wooden table next to him.  The room became very dark.  He found that he preferred it that way.  He didn't want to look at this bleak hospital room.  He didn't want to see the bruises on Dubois's pretty face.

It occurred to him that he wasn’t so very different from the woman being questioned in the video.  Irina Decker.  She showed no fear, and probably felt none.  She showed almost no emotion at all.

Troy never felt afraid, not for himself.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had.  Maybe when he was in high school, early on in his amateur boxing years, he’d felt afraid before a few fights.  Maybe that wasn’t even true.  Maybe he was just nervous, and wanted to make a good impression on the people who had come out to watch him.

Dubois.  When Dubois was taken, Troy felt afraid.  He felt terrified. 

It was more than terror.  When he saw her fighting in that alley, and he was helpless to do anything…  He blotted it out before it could replay in his mind.  He never wanted to relive that moment as long as he lived.  It was like he was being burned alive.

And in the hours after that?  He had gone into a frenzy.  He barely remembered it.  But there was a feeling.  And the feeling was that he would kill anyone and everyone, all of them, to get Dubois out alive again.  He had felt that way when Dubois was taken captive by the Albanians, though of course they weren’t as close then.  They weren’t in love yet.

Yes, you were.  You just wouldn't admit it.

He had felt a similar way when Aliz Willems was taken.  In that case, the feeling was less intense because Troy assumed she was taken by her brother Lucien, who had done the same thing before.  Lucien wanted Troy, and was very unlikely to harm his own sister.

This time, though, with Dubois…

It was bad.  Troy had never experienced anything like it.  A sigh escaped him. 

He was vulnerable.  Family.  Loved ones.  People close to him.  You could hurt Troy Stark, and you could do it by getting to the people he cared about.

“Agent Stark?” Dubois said, being weirdly formal. 

He nodded in the darkness.  “Coming.”

He slid into the narrow bed next to her.  The bed was a metal frame, and the mattress was old.  The box spring, or whatever was under there, must also be old.  The whole arrangement sank under Troy’s weight.

Dubois’s body was warm.  She pressed herself tight against him.  He held her close.

He was almost breathless with gratitude, to who or what he didn’t know.  The relief he felt was nearly overwhelming.  His chest hurt.

Dubois’s face was pushed against his chest now, and she was crying.  He held her tighter.  “It’s okay,” he said quietly.  “I’m here.”

There was going to be a lot to talk about between him and Dubois.  She wasn’t going to want to hear the things he had to say.  He didn’t know how they were going to go on, either as a couple, or as partners.  He couldn’t have her in danger like this.

Even if they weren’t a couple… there was just no way. 

It occurred to him that in the hours since the mission had ended, he had sometimes thought about crying.  But he hadn’t done so yet.  In fact, he had barely acknowledged the urge.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried.  It wasn’t a thing, not for him, not for the men in his family, not for the men he had worked with over the years.  But the urge was stronger now, and growing.  Maybe later, if he could find a quiet place to be by himself, he would do it. 

Maybe Troy Stark would cry.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

7:45 am Eastern European Time

Aboard the mega-yacht Cristina

Cruising between Crete and Malta

The Mediterranean Sea

“I’m going to talk to him right now,” Nico Allesandro said. 

“I hope so,” the voice on the other end of the call said.  “Because there have been some concerns.  This isn’t a big ask.  People are starting to wonder.”

Nico stood just inside glass double doors to the main deck.  It was a stormy, rainy day on the open water, and colder than Nico preferred.  He wore a blue windbreaker jacket, a light wool cap, and slacks.  There were big waves out there, and the giant ship was rolling a lot, enough to make less hardy people seasick.  But Nico had spent a lot of time on this boat, and he barely even noticed the heavy seas.

He was the personal assistant to Antonio Di Napoli DeLorenzo, who was once one of the most powerful men on Earth.  In the past, Nico had imagined himself to be Antonio’s consigliere.  But those days were fading. 

Antonio was old, and didn’t seem himself anymore.  He was a fugitive from justice in a dozen countries, and they had been on this voyage to nowhere for more than a year now.  All this time at sea had made Antonio confused. 

On the mainland, some people were talking about moving on.  Many people were remaining loyal, but even their patience seemed to be wearing thin.

“I’ll have your orders in a few moments,” Nico said.

“Good,” the voice said.  “We’re ready.”

Nico hung up the telephone. 

He climbed a flight of stairs and entered the main cabin through a glass door.  The giant cabin had a long bar against one wall, several tables along the walls, and a dance floor in the middle.  The previous owner of this ship, a prince in the Saudi royal family who was missing and presumed dead, had used this room for parties.  The man’s parties were legendary for their debauchery. 

Now, the room was silent and empty. 

Nico moved along a deep carpeted hallway with half a dozen staterooms on either side, and then climbed another flight of stairs.  At the top of the stairs was another hall.  He reached the end of this hall and knocked on the wide double doors there. 

“Come in,” a man’s voice said.

He opened both doors and went in.  This was the master bedroom, located directly below the pilot house.  Across the room, a curved, floor-to-ceiling, 180-degree window gave a view of what the boat was approaching, as well as much of what was to its right and left.  At the moment, the view was of wide-open ocean, with towering waves, whitecaps, and blowing foam. 

On the left side of the room was a sitting area with a large white sofa, two easy chairs, and a four-seat dining table.  A tall, glass-faced liquor case stood near the wall in the corner.  This was a place where meetings could be held when the weather didn’t permit them to happen outside.  The meetings occurred less and less these days. 

To Nico’s right was the double-king-sized bed.  The bed was almost obscenely ornate, with gold posts and a jewel-encrusted headboard, inlaid with carvings of galloping horses and the silhouettes of nude women.

Antonio had made some small changes to the yacht when he purchased it, but the huge bed was built into this room, not installed.  He said it was too much trouble to do anything with it. 

That, almost more than everything else, described the situation here.  Antonio DeLorenzo was a man who used to move Heaven and Earth, and bend all of Italian society to his will.  These days, he couldn’t bring himself to have a garish piece of furniture torn out and replaced. 

Antonio lay on the bed, fully dressed, his head propped on several pillows, his arms and legs splayed out.  He wore a blue sweater and white slacks.  His hair was white, framing a bald head.  He wore dark round glasses, even inside, that made it impossible to see his eyes. 

Nico knew that the old man had a terrible light sensitivity, and that his vision was failing.

Across from the bed was a giant flat-panel TV mounted on the wall.  It was almost the size of a small movie screen.  On it was footage of a large fire burning in the night.  It looked like a giant warehouse or similar building, being totally consumed. 

In the background was an isolated land of snowy, icy wastes.  It was clearly a remote location.  There was an airstrip there, a few other corrugated outbuildings, and just about nothing else.  A small plane, parked away from the main building, had also caught on fire.  Nico was a warm-weather person.  He never wanted to live in this place in the video or even visit there. 

There was a caption at the bottom of the screen.

Mysterious fire near Karasjok, Norway.

“Antonio.”

The great Mafia boss Antonio DeLorenzo turned his head away from the images on the screen and focused on his trusted advisor.  It was if he hadn't known Nico was even there.

“What?”

“We need to make some decisions.  Our friends are waiting to hear from you.”

Antonio waved his free hand. 

“Let them wait.”

Nico noticed the glass in Antonio’s other hand.  It was a dark liquid with ice in it, almost certainly not coffee.  The man was also drinking constantly.

The time was coming.  Nico would need to make an announcement soon.  One possible announcement was: 

“Antonio is no longer in his right mind.  He cannot lead anymore.”

Another announcement Nico could make would be:

“Antonio died peacefully in his sleep.”

That was probably the best way to do it.  He could bring the body back to Calabria, and everyone, thousands of people, could pay their respects.  Nico knew that all the clans and families, from everywhere in the world, would send emissaries.  Antonio’s own family could be with their grandfather and great-grandfather one last time, without the police and the courts interfering.  Even the worst of the Italian secret police wouldn’t arrest a dead man. 

Nico just couldn't bring himself to take the required action.  It was his responsibility, and would be easily accomplished.  But in his own way, he loved the old man and wasn't ready to see him off.  Also, when Antonio was finally gone, a power struggle was bound to erupt. 

There would be violence.  There was no way around it.  Nico and his generation were likely to be shoved aside.  Nico himself would be pushed into retirement, or worse.  He’d made his own share of enemies over the years.

“It’s better,” Nico said, “if you simply send an order.” 

“What’s the question?” Antonio said.

There were a few questions, and Nico would have to go through them slowly, one at a time.  He wasn’t sure why he went through the formality now, except Antonio had clear-headed moments that appeared and disappeared like the sun behind the clouds.  God forbid if in a moment of clarity, Antonio found out Nico was giving orders without consulting him. 

“First question.  There’s a policeman named Troy Stark.”

“Yes?  Who is he?”

Nico was quiet for a moment.  This was how forgetful Antonio was becoming.  They had talked about this repeatedly, just in recent days.

“He’s the man who murdered Mateos Baruti.”

Now Antonio stared at him. 

“That’s too bad.”

Nico nodded.  “Yes.”

“I say we hit him,” Antonio said.

“We did.  We blew up his car.”

Antonio nodded.  “Good.  Enough said.”

“It was a miss.  Everyone who tries to hit him seems to miss.”

Antonio seemed to consider it.  In fact, he seemed to consider it so long that for a moment, Nico thought he was going to have to remind him of it again.

But that was wrong.  

“So keep hitting him.  Hit him until we get him.”

“At all costs?” Nico said. 

The flames on the TV were starting to mesmerize Antonio again.

“Of course.  How hard could it be?  You say he’s a cop, right?”

“Something like a cop,” Nico said. 

Troy Stark was more than that, and therein lay the problem.

Antonio shrugged.  “I don’t like cops.” 

He paused, staring into the fire. 

“If he’s not on the payroll, then kill him.”

Nico watched the old man for a moment.  Antonio was becoming a stick figure with a round belly.  His mind often seemed empty of thoughts.  It was better to go out in a blaze of gunfire, then to fade away like this.

“We’ve tried,” Nico said again, a bit wistfully this time.  “A lot of people have tried.  He’s hard to kill.”

With what looked like some effort, Antonio tore his gaze away from the flames raging on the TV.  His eyes were sharp and suddenly clear again.

“Hard to kill, you say?  Tough guy?”

Nico nodded.  “Yes.”

“Then kill his family.  See how he likes that instead.”

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

February 15

1:05 am Central European Time

A small port

El Amra, Tunisia

“Move it, move it, move it.  We don’t have all night.”

Filip Chechnik stood back from the boat, smoking a Turkish cigarette and watching the men work.  Three of the men were his guys.  The other four were Tunisians who worked for the local mob.  They were working fast, like machines, Filip’s men bringing crates up from below, and handing them across the gunwale to the men on the dock.

The Tunisians were piling the crates into the back of a small box truck with Arabic lettering on the side.  Filip had no idea what the words said, but there was a faded mural of fruits and vegetables that went with them. 

It wasn’t food that was going on that truck.  Some of this delivery was contraband cigarettes taken from a hijacked Turkish freighter, along with about a hundred bricks of intense Moroccan hashish.  But most of it was cases of untaxed wine and strong liquor because even though Islam forbade it, the Tunisians loved their alcohol.

They were 30 kilometers from the big port of Sfax here, and about halfway up the coast from Tunis, where most of this stuff would end up. 

The boat was an old yacht, a 40-foot pleasure cruiser.  It had probably been criss-crossing the Mediterranean for half a century.  Its hull had been patched and re-patched with cheap fiberglass so many times, there was no telling what it was originally made of.  There was also no telling what its original color was.  The stern was dark, a deep blue or black, with one word in white stenciled along it.

Lapochka.

Filip smiled at the name.  In Russian, it meant “Sweetie Pie.”

The old inboard motor had been torn out and replaced with five huge 250-horsepower outboards.  The compartment the inboard motor used to take up was used for cargo now.  Below deck, the main cabin, the smaller second cabin, and the galley had all been torn out, making the whole thing a large, open space with a low ceiling.  It was all a cargo hold now. 

The head was still down there, but it didn’t work very well.  It was generally a better idea to relieve yourself over the side.      

As Filip stood there, a foul odor of untreated sewage wafted up from the water.  Behind him, a bleak wharf of warehouses ran along the waterfront to a small cargo port, guarded by a gatehouse and razor-topped fencing.  In the glow of a couple of weak yellow sodium arc lamps, he could see a crowd of about 20 or 30 very dark men loitering by the gate.

This was a fast boat, and it needed to be.  They made high-speed runs in the middle of the night, no lights, obsessively watching radar for coast guard ships, airplanes, and helicopters.  Filip’s business was a sort of triangle trade from Eastern European gangster ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, across here to North Africa, and then back to Southern Europe. 

Maybe a week or ten days ago, this load of booze and cigarettes had left Belgrade as part of a much larger delivery.  It rode on an ancient river freighter, made the hazardous run through the Bosporus Strait, and then was parceled out to smaller, faster boats at a small, grimy port outside Istanbul.  The hash was added there.  

Here in El Amra, the men standing outside that gate were migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.  Filip and his men would load them into the cargo hold.  It was done at gunpoint, and Filip was firm on this, though there was never much violence associated with these shipments.  They would make a breakneck run, full-throttle, to the beautiful Italian holiday island of Lampedusa, and drop these guys off there before first light. 

Lampedusa was the southernmost European island in the Mediterranean.  If the migrants made it there, technically they were in Europe.  It was kind of funny.  The lovely beaches on the island, and the well-heeled tourists who visited there, were being overrun by exhausted, dark black Africans in rags.

Filip and his guys usually spent a night or two in Lampedusa, relaxing in holiday bungalows, drinking, spending their money, and blowing off steam.  Then it was back in the boat to a port on the edges of Catania, in Sicily, to pick up heroin and cocaine bound for the interior of the continent.  The drugs would be concealed inside a shipment of red wine, olives and olive oil. 

It was a living, and it was a lifestyle.  Filip was 46 years old and was beginning to think the lifestyle was a little too strenuous for him.  Too many late nights.  Too many fraught interactions with military personnel on the high seas.  Too many payoffs.  Too many storms.

Too many nagging injuries.  That’s why he no longer helped unload the boat.  He had a bad back now, and bad knees.

“Let’s go!” he said, not shouting, but loud enough to be heard.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and sighed.

One of his men had stopped working and was walking toward him.  Filip checked his watch, but didn’t even notice the time.  It was more of a pantomime to express his frustration.

“Vladimir!’  Don’t come over here.  Work!”

Vladimir came anyway.  He was a small, stocky young guy with early male pattern baldness, so he shaved his head as bald as a billiard ball.  He was solidly built.  His nose was broken and sideways from being punched in the face so many times. 

When they did short holiday breaks, like they were about to do in Lampedusa, Vladimir tended to get in pub fights.  He didn’t mean anything by it.  He wasn’t even particularly angry.  To him, it was a form of entertainment.   

“Filip.”

Filip shrugged.  “Yeah?”

“There’s something you need to see.”

“What is it?”

Vladimir shook his head.  “I don’t want to say.”

Filip sighed again, and followed Vladimir to the boat.

The unloading had stopped now.  All of them, Filip and his three men, climbed the narrow ladder below deck, then moved to the far side of the cargo hold.  There wasn’t much light down here.  The boat rocked and swayed gently. 

At the very back, a tall bulk loomed in the darkness.  Filip’s men didn’t need to be told what to do.  They put the flashlights on it.  It was a stack of metal boxes, gunmetal gray.  The boxes didn’t match the ones that had already been off-loaded. 

“What is it?” Filip said softly, his voice flat in the mostly empty hold.

“Look,” Vladimir said. 

His flashlight fell on some Cyrillic lettering on one of the boxes. 

Tea from China.

For a long moment, Filip said nothing.  During part of that, his mind stopped working altogether.  His heart seemed to race, pounding inside his chest.  Then it subsided a little bit.  He began to breathe again.

“Don’t touch it yet,” he said. 

The freighter they met had come down from Belgrade.  The infamous Russian black operator and gangster Viktor Laskov had been attempting to poison the Bosnians and Croatians with cholera.  He had successfully killed a lot of Romanians and Moldovans.  There were news reports he had also recently been in Belgrade. 

Everyone knew about Laskov.  No one seemed to know where he was at this moment.  Probably undergoing serious torture somewhere, if he was even still alive.

In truth, Filip hadn’t paid a lot of attention to Laskov’s cholera disaster.  Filip didn’t have time for the world to end.  He was too busy. 

But he knew the rumors.  Laskov had tried to move the cholera, freeze-dried and carefully packed, on small freighters up and down the Danube and Sava Rivers.  It was incredibly dangerous, and it was hiding in metal boxes marked as tea from China.  Somehow, some of the cholera had made it all the way downriver, across the Black Sea, and into Turkey.

“Who loaded this on here?”

The three men shook their heads. 

“Those guys at the port must have done it.  It was probably a mistake.”

Filip knew an arms dealer in Tunis.  Weapons weren't Filip's trade, but sometimes he needed to buy small arms, and the man gave him good prices.  What would someone pay for the shipment of weapons that he was staring at right now?  It was proven to kill thousands of enemies all at once.  It could throw entire countries into chaos.

The deal would be fraught, Filip knew that.  Trust would be low.  It would be easy to get killed.  But he had survived such deals before, many times. 

“How are we on guns?” he said.

Vladimir shrugged.  “Good.  Two AK-47s, two Uzis, a few pistols, plenty of ammo.”

Filip nodded.  “Go tell those guys upstairs we can’t run the migrants tonight.  They’ll have to wait.”

Waiting was no problem, when you were a migrant.  It took some of those guys years to make it to their final destinations.  Waiting was what they did best.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“There’s a problem with the boat,” Filip said.  “Mechanical problem.  We have to go to Tunis to get it looked at.  That’s where my mechanic is.” 

He paused.  If things worked out, this boat might never come back here again.

“Tell them anything.  I don’t really care.”

Vladimir dutifully backed out to relay the message. 

Filip turned to his other two men.  Retirement.  That’s what he wanted.  For the first time, it was right there, almost within his grasp. 

“We’re going to be rich,” he said.

NOW AVAILABLE!

ROGUE ORDER

(A Troy Stark Thriller—Book #7)

“Thriller writing at its best. Thriller enthusiasts who relish the precise execution of an international thriller, but who seek the psychological depth and believability of a protagonist who simultaneously fields professional and personal life challenges, will find this a gripping story that's hard to put down.”

--Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Any Means Necessary)

“One of the best thrillers I have read this year. The plot is intelligent and will keep you hooked from the beginning. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. I can hardly wait for the sequel.”

--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Any Means Necessary)

From #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author Jack Mars, author of the critically-acclaimed Luke Stone and Agent Zero series (with over 5,000 five-star reviews), comes an explosive new, action-packed thriller series that takes readers on a wild-ride across Europe, America, and the world.

After elite Navy Seal Troy Stark is forced into retirement for his dubious respect for authority, his work in stopping a major terrorist threat to New York is noticed. Invited to join a secretive new international terrorist-fighting organization, Troy must hunt down all threats to the U.S. that originate from overseas—and pre-empt them by any means possible.

In ROGUE ORDER (Book #7), when a group of international thieves have stolen a priceless diamond from a museum in Paris, seemingly intent on selling it in the black market, it soon becomes apparent that it is far more than a diamond they want—and that these are far more than simple thieves. With the fate of the world in the balance, Troy must hunt down the stolen diamond in a non-stop action chase across Europe and the Middle East, before it’s too late….

An unputdownable action thriller with heart-pounding suspense and unforeseen twists, ROGUE ORDER is the seventh novel in an exhilarating new series by a #1 bestselling author that will have you fall in love with a brand new action hero—and turn pages late into the night.

Future books in the series will soon be available.

ROGUE ORDER

(A Troy Stark Thriller—Book #7)

Jack Mars

Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising six books; of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising twelve books; of the TROY STARK thriller series, comprising seven books; of the SPY GAME thriller series, comprising ten books; of the JAKE MERCER thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting); and of the new TYLER WOLF thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting).

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (a Luke Stone Thriller—Book #1), AGENT ZERO (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #1), and PRIMARY TARGET (The Forging of Luke Stone—Book #1) are each available as free downloads on Amazon!

Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

BOOKS BY JACK MARS

TYLER WOLF THRILLER SERIES

DOUBLE AGENT (Book #1)

DOUBLE CROSS (Book #2)

DOUBLE ASSET (Book #3)

DOUBLE DOCTRINE (Book #4)

DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Book #5)

DOUBLE THREAT (Book #6)

DOUBLE TARGET (Book #7)

JAKE MERCER THRILLER SERIES

ABSOLUTE THREAT (Book #1)

ABSOLUTE DAMAGE (Book #2)

ABSOLUTE FORCE (Book #3)

ABSOLUTE PERIL (Book #4)

ABSOLUTE TREASON (Book #5)

ABSOLUTE VENGEANCE (Book #6)

ABSOLUTE TARGET (Book #7)

THE SPY GAME

TARGET ONE (Book #1)

TARGET TWO (Book #2)

TARGET THREE (Book #3)

TARGET FOUR (Book #4)

TARGET FIVE (Book #5)

TARGET SIX (Book #6)

TARGET SEVEN (Book #7)

TARGET EIGHT (Book #8)

TARGET NINE (Book #9)

TARGET TEN (Book #10)

TROY STARK THRILLER SERIES

ROGUE FORCE (Book #1)

ROGUE COMMAND (Book #2)

ROGUE TARGET (Book #3)

ROGUE MISSION (Book #4)

ROGUE SHOT (Book #5)

ROGUE STRIKE (Book #6)

ROGUE ORDER (Book #7)

LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)

OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)

SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)

OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)

PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)

OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)

HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)

FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES

PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)

PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)

PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)

PRIMARY GLORY (Book #4)

PRIMARY VALOR (Book #5)

PRIMARY DUTY (Book #6)

AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES

AGENT ZERO (Book #1)

TARGET ZERO (Book #2)

HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)

TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)

FILE ZERO (Book #5)

RECALL ZERO (Book #6)

ASSASSIN ZERO (Book #7)

DECOY ZERO (Book #8)

CHASING ZERO (Book #9)

VENGEANCE ZERO (Book #10)

ZERO ZERO (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE ZERO (Book #12)