Black Rose (24 page)

CHAPTER 63

Nick came down the steps, MP-5 held close by his cheek. He heard something scraping across the floor. He reached the bottom of the steps and saw Gutenberg and another man in front of a door set into the wall of the vault.

"It's all done, Gutenberg. Stop what you're doing."

Gutenberg froze. He turned toward Nick and raised his pistol. But he wasn't pointing at Nick and the others. The gun was aimed at the rows of steel containers.

"I wouldn't advise you to shoot," Gutenberg said. "Bullets will ricochet in here from the stone walls. If one of them hits any of those containers, you are all dead. It will take a week or so before they put your rotting, blackened body into the ground, but you'll still be dead. If you make one move toward me I'll fire."

"Nick, he means it," Selena said. "He's crazy."

Gutenberg heard her and laughed. "Crazy? I'm not the one who's crazy. It's people like you."

Ronnie whispered in Nick's ear. "I can take him. Let me take the shot."

"Don't try it," Gutenberg said.

"Looks like we have a stalemate," Nick said. "You know I can't let you go."

"You don't have a choice. I really will shoot, you know. Let me make a proposal."

Beside Gutenberg, Halifax started breathing heavily. He raised his hand and began rubbing his chest.

"Humor him, Nick." Selena's voice was quiet.

"I'm listening," Nick said. "What did you have in mind?"

On the side of the room, the big boiler fired up. The flames made a low, steady roar in the background.

"We're going into this tunnel," Gutenberg said.

Halifax clutched his chest. He gave a strangled cry, dropped his shotgun and fell against Gutenberg. The shotgun struck the floor and went off. The blast struck the big meter feeding gas to the boiler furnace. Gas poured out with a loud hissing sound. Ronnie fired at Gutenberg and hit him in the shoulder, sending his pistol flying. Gutenberg cursed and ducked behind the wooden door and pulled it shut behind him. They heard a bar fall into place on the other side.

The air in the vault stank of escaping gas.

"We have to get out of here," Nick said. "That gas will blow and we can't do anything about it."

"Which way?" Selena asked. She coughed.

"The way we came in. It's the quickest way out."

They ran to the stairs leading to the lower vault and scrambled down them. Fresh air blew in from the river, clearing away the cloud of gas that followed them. They went through the old door. The moon had come out, shining pale silver light over the river. Their raft was tied where they'd left it. They clambered in and paddled hard, away from the château. They'd reached the middle of the river before the gas exploded.

The sound was like deep thunder inside a mountain. A billowing gust of flame shot out of the open door in the lower vault. The retaining wall blew outward into the river, sending stones splashing into the water just yards away from where they fought to put distance between themselves and the building. Waves rocked the raft.

"Whoa," Ronnie said. "Look at that."

The foundation had been undermined by the explosion. The back wall of the building collapsed in slow motion and dropped into the water with an ominous grinding sound. Plumes of water fountained into the air and rained down around them.

One of the tall towers began to lean.

"The whole building is going," Selena said. "The vaults must have been destroyed. They were holding everything up."

The tower toppled onto the roof. A second tower crumbled, then the roof fell inward and the building collapsed upon itself. The noise was unlike anything Nick had ever heard. A great cloud of white dust rose into the moonlit night. The rumbling and grinding of stone went on for what seemed like a long time before the sounds died away.

The château was gone. Only the outer walls remained.

"Gutenberg," Selena said.

"He was under all that. He has to be dead. Keep paddling. Don't forget those cylinders full of plague were in there."

"They must have been wiped out by the explosion," Ronnie said. "The fire would have burned off anything that got released."

"Probably, but I don't want to wait and find out the hard way that it wasn't."

They paddled downstream until they came to the narrow cove they'd used to launch into the water. Their rented van was hidden under the trees nearby.

"What about the raft?" Selena asked.

"Leave it. We don't have time to pack it up. We need to get away from here. Get changed."

They changed into civilian clothes. The weapons and gear went into an aluminum case. Their diplomatic passports would get them past inspection and back to their plane, waiting in Geneva.

CHAPTER 64

Nick sat in the comfort of a wide leather armchair in the forward cabin of the Gulfstream, sipping an Irish whiskey. They were two hours out of Switzerland, headed back to Washington. He could feel the tension leave his shoulders as Ireland's magic began working.

Selena sat next to him, head back and eyes closed, asleep. Ronnie was in a chair across the aisle, reading a magazine.

He thought about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. It was a blur. He thought about Adam and wished he could tell him that AEON was finally finished. Even though he'd never known his real identity, in some way Adam had become a friend.

Nick thought about the people he'd seen dying in agony in Brazil. He hadn't been able to stop that from happening, but they'd kept Gutenberg from carrying out his plan to kill millions more. An evil man. If there was a hell, Nick hoped Gutenberg was in it. It was what he deserved.

He raised his glass. "Pretty good work," he said.

"What is?" Selena was awake. She yawned.

"Stopping Gutenberg. I was just thinking about what an evil bastard he was. We stopped him. Like I said, pretty good work."

"Pour me a drink."

Nick took ice from a bucket by his chair, added it to a fresh glass and filled it with whiskey.

"Here you go," he said.

"To good work," she said.

They drank.

"This one was hard," she said.

"They're all hard."

Selena looked out the window. "How are we going to replace Lamont?"

"It won't be easy but Harker will find someone. It's going to be a tough adjustment."

"How much longer do you think we can do this?" she asked.

"You miss your old life?"

"Some of it. I miss seeing students get excited about learning but I don't miss stuffy faculty parties and self-important professors who want to argue with me. After the last couple of years I could never go back to that. It would seem terribly boring."

Nick laughed. "Yeah, you can't say that what we do is boring."

"Do you think AEON is finally out of our lives?"

"I think so. But there's always someone out there who believes the world exists for their personal exploitation. It won't be long until something else like AEON comes along."

"That's a depressing thought."

"It's always been that way, all through history. The people who run things never learn."

Selena looked out the window. Dawn revealed the gray waters of the Atlantic far below.

"What am I going to do about my sister?" she said.

Her question took  him by surprise.

"There's not much you can do. She's not really your sister, even though she has your father's blood."

"Yes she is, as much as I don't want to admit it. I wonder if she knows about me?"

"If Vysotsky has anything to say about it, I don't think she does," Nick said. "You'd be just as much of a surprise to her as she was to you."

"I wonder if we'll ever meet?"

"That might not be a great idea. Don't forget who she works for and what she does."

"I don't think there's much of a chance I'll forget that."

Nick changed the subject.

"I'm looking forward to getting back."

"So am I. I want to start putting our new place together."

"You just want to go shopping."

"Jerk." She punched him in the shoulder. "Seriously, aren't you excited about it?"

"About shopping? No. But I'm looking forward to living there with you."

"You are?"

Nick took her hand. "Yes. It took a while but I finally figured it out."

She looked at him. "Figured what out?"

"That we're a team," he said.

CHAPTER 65

Nick, Selena and Ronnie were in Elizabeth's office.

"Are you sure Gutenberg didn't get away?" Elizabeth asked.

"I don't see how he could have," Nick said. "There wasn't time for him to get very far and he was wounded. The building came down fast. It would have crushed him underneath."

Elizabeth nodded, once.

"The containers of plague were destroyed," Nick said, "but there could still be samples around. We never went into Krivi's corporate building to check the labs there."

"It's handled. Langley sent a team in. They recovered samples of the bacteria and two hundred vials of vaccine. We have what we need to stop the spread, once it's in production."

"How many have died?" Selena asked.

"I don't know the exact figure, but at least twenty-five thousand so far. There'll be more before it's done. It's still spreading. The borders of Brazil are closed and the entire country is under quarantine. It's wrecking their economy."

"So AEON wins after all," Nick said.

"Not quite. Aid is pouring in from all over the world. It seems not everyone in power thinks knocking out Brazil is a good idea. Don't forget, you stopped them from releasing the plague here. If Gutenberg had succeeded, millions would have died before a vaccination program was put in place."

"What about the Russians?" Selena said.

"What about them?"

"They could still have some samples."

"They might. If they do, they'll add it to their biological weapons inventory. Just like us."

Selena looked shocked.

"Us?"

"We'll store it with the other bio weapons we have."

"I thought all of that was illegal."

"It is. Technically speaking, we don't have biological weapons. We only have research facilities and samples stored for the purpose of creating vaccines and preventive measures."

"Yeah, right," Ronnie said.

"It's part of the MAD policy," Elizabeth said. "Mutual Assured Destruction. If our enemies know we have the capability to retaliate in kind against a biological attack, they might think twice about launching one against us."

"It's insane," Selena said, "immoral."

"But necessary. War has nothing to do with morality."

"Why did Vysotsky go after AEON?" Nick asked.

"It's not hard to understand," Elizabeth said. "It was Vysotsky's men who lost the samples in the first place. As far as the Kremlin was concerned, it was his fault and it was up to him to correct the problem. I think there was another element as well. From what I know of him, Alexei would take the deaths of his men as a personal insult. He's not a man to let an insult go by. He wanted revenge. Not to mention the fact that AEON posed a direct threat to the Federation."

"Does the president know about Senator Mitchell?"

"I intend to brief him later today. He needs to know so he can discover what Mitchell was doing. Whatever it was, you can be sure it wasn't in our interests."

"What are we going to do about Vysotsky?" Selena asked.

Elizabeth looked at her.

"Nothing. What would you have us do?"

"He sent my sister over here to kill an American senator. I know Mitchell was part of AEON but..."

"Selena. There's nothing we can do."

Selena opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.

Elizabeth reached into a drawer and took out several file folders.

"Nick, these are service records. Lamont's made it official. He's leaving at the end of the month and we need to replace him. I want you and Selena and Ronnie to look at possible candidates."

Nick reached over and took the files from her.

"It's not going to be the same without Lamont."

"No, but we don't have a choice."

"We'll get on it."

"That's all for today," Elizabeth said. "I just want to say that I'm glad you all made it back. Good work."

"We get a break?" Ronnie said.

"Count on a week unless something comes up."

Nick stood. "Come on, Selena. Let's go buy some furniture."

Elizabeth watched them leave and wondered how much longer the team would hold together. They were old for the kind of missions she sent them on. Ancient, by the standards of modern combat. Somehow they kept pulling it off. Lamont had been lucky, if you could call being left with a permanent limp lucky.

She got up and walked over to the counter with the coffee. It was the fuel that kept her going. She poured a cup and watched steam rise from the surface. She blew on the hot liquid to cool it and looked out through the bulletproof glass of the French doors at the patio and flowers that provided an illusion of normalcy.

AEON was finished, at least she hoped it was. Everything indicated that it was. But Elizabeth had learned that when one threat was finished, another waited in the wings. She opened the patio doors and took the coffee outside into the sunshine.

There would be time enough tomorrow to worry about what would come next.