Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector (13 page)

The bigger man nodded coolly. He tapped his digital camera. “The images I need for detailed planning are stored in here. The rest is a mere matter of mathematics.”

“You’re sure?” the thin-faced man asked. “Ivanov will insist on absolute certainty and precision. He wants a cold-blooded massacre, not a pathetic fizzle.”

The other man grinned back. “Relax, Gennady Arkad’yevich. Relax. Our masters will have the excuse they need. Give me enough explosive—

especially RDX—and I could send that so-called Iron Column flying to the moon.”

Near Orvieto, Italy

The ancient and beautiful Umbrian town of Orvieto perched high on a volcanic plateau above the broad Paglia valley, roughly halfway between Rome and Florence. The sheer cliffs ringing the town had acted as a natural fortifi-cation for millennia.

Below those cliffs, a side road broke away from the main highway, the cam tostrada, and wound west up the flanks of a low ridge facing Orvieto. Several ultramodern steel-and-glass buildings sprawled across the ridge, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with tight rolls of razor wire.

Signs at the main gate identified the complex as the headquarters of the European Center for Population Research. The Center’s stated purpose was the study of historical European population movements and genetic drift.

Scientists assigned to the different labs inside the compound routinely fanned out across the continent and North America, sampling the DNA of various communities and ethnic groups for a wide array of historical, genetic, and medical research projects.

Early in the gray, damp morning, a black Mercedes sedan passed through the gate and parked near a large building set slightly apart from the others.

Two men wearing fur hats and dark-colored coats got out. Both were tall and broad-shouldered. One, blue-eyed with high Slavic cheekbones, stood waiting impassively near the car while the second man strode toward the building’s locked main entrance.

“Name?” a voice asked in thickly accented Italian from an intercom set beside the solid steel door.

“Brandt,” the big man said clearly. He turned slightly toward the security cameras set to cover the entrance, letting them scan first his face and then his profile.

There was a brief pause while the images captured by the cameras were matched against those on file in the security system computer. Abruptly, the intercom crackled to life again. “You are cleared to proceed, Signor Brandt,”

the voice said. “Please enter your identifier code.”

The big man entered a ten-digit code sequence on the keypad next to the door and heard the multiple locks sealing it click open, one after another.

Once inside, he found himself in a gleaming, brightly lit corridor. Two hard-faced men, both cradling submachine guns, stood watching him closely from the adjacent guard station. One of them nodded politely toward a coat rack.

“You may leave your coat, hat, and weapon there, Signor.”

He smiled thinly, faintly pleased to find that the rigorous security procedures he had decreed were applied even to him. He found that a reassuring contrast to the bad news he had received earlier from Prague. He shrugged out of his coat and then stripped off the shoulder holster containing his Walther pistol. He hung both of them on a hook and then doffed his fur hat, revealing a shock of pale blond hair.

“We’ve informed Dr. Renke of your arrival,” one of the armed guards told him. “He is waiting for you in the main lab.”

Erich Brandt, the man code-named Moscow One, nodded calmly. “Very well.”

The main lab took up nearly half of the building. Computers, boxlike DNA sequencers and synthesizers, chromatography cells, coffee-grinder-sized electroporation machines, and sealed tubes of reagents, enzymes, and other chemicals crowded a line of black-topped benches. Other doors led into isolation chambers used to culture the required viral and bacteriological materials.

Technicians and scientists wearing sterile gowns, gloves, surgical masks, and clear plastic face shields hovered around the equipment, carefully moving through the rigidly prescribed set of steps necessary to produce each unique HYDRA variant.

Brandt stopped near the door and stood watching the complicated process with interest, but very little real comprehension. Although Wulf Renke had tried explaining the intricacies involved several times before, Brandt had always found himself lost in a sea of scientific jargon.

The tall, blond-haired man shrugged. Did it really matter? He had the skills necessary to kill coldly and precisely, and HYDRA was a weapon much like any other. Boiled down to its non-scientific essentials, the mechanisms of HYDRA’s manufacture and killing power were cruelly simple in theory, though complicated in execution.

First, one obtained a sample of the intended victim’s DNA—from a piece of hair, a fragment of skin, a bit of mucus, or even from the oils left in a fingerprint. Then came the painstaking process of sorting through key sections of the gene-filled chromosomes, looking for specific patches of the genetic sequence that were unique to each individual and also associated with cell replication. Once that was done, one prepared single strands of so-called cDNA—complimentary DNA—creating precise mirror images of the chosen target patches.

The next step required altering a relatively small, single-stranded DNA virus active in humans. Using various chemical processes, it was possible to strip out everything except the genes associated with its protective protein coat and those that allowed the virus to penetrate into the very heart, the nuclei, of human cells. The carefully crafted patches of cDNA obtained from the victim’s genome were added and the altered virus was looped into a ring, creating a self-replicating plasmid.

After that, these viral plasmids could be inserted into a benign strain of E. coli, bacteria, one found commonly in the human gut. Then all that remained was to culture and concentrate these modified strains of E. coli, building up a useful amount of the material, and the HYDRA variant was ready for delivery to the selected target.

Essentially, invisible, odorless, and tasteless, these bacteria could easily be administered to the person marked for death through any combination of food or drink. Once ingested, the modified bacteria would lodge in the gut and begin multiplying rapidly. As they grew, they would constantly throw off the genetically altered viral particles, which would be carried by the bloodstream throughout the body.

Brandt knew that these viral particles were the key killing component in HYDRA. By their very nature they were designed to pierce the walls of human cells. Once inside a cell, each particle would inject the edited patches of cDNA into the nucleus. In anyone but the intended target, nothing else would happen. But inside the selected victim, a far deadlier process would he-gin unfolding. As soon as the cell nucleus began replicating itself, those mirror-image patches would automatically attach to the pre-selected portions of chromosomal DNA, blocking any further replication. The whole intricate process of cell division and reproduction —absolutely essential to life —would come to a screeching halt—much like a zipper jammed by a piece of cloth.

As more and more cells became infected and stopped reproducing, HYDRA victims would suffer aches, high fevers, and skin rashes. The failure of the fastest-replicating cells —hair follicles and bone marrow —produced symptoms resembling the wasting and anemia seen in radiation poisoning. Ultimately, of course, the cascading destruction extended to whole organs and systems, leading inevitably to a lingering and painful death.

There was no cure. Nor could HYDRA be detected by any practical means. Doctors, trying desperately to isolate the cause of this unknown disease, would never think to look at the ultra-common, seemingly harmless, and non-infectious bacteria hidden away inside each victim’s gut.

Brandt smiled with pleasure at the thought. Undetectable, unstoppable, and incurable, HYDRA was the perfect assassin’s weapon. In many ways, he thought sardonically, Renke and his team were crafting microscopic versions of the precision-guided bombs and missiles of which the Americans were so fond of boasting, with the exception that HYDRA would never create any embarrassing collateral damage.

Wulf Renke, a much shorter, thinner man, turned away from one of the DNA sequencers and came toward Brandt. He stripped off his gloves, face shield, and then his surgical mask, revealing a head of short-cropped white hair and a carefully trimmed Vandyke beard and mustache. From a distance, he appeared jovial, even kind. It was only up close that one could see the callous, unblinking fanaticism in Renke’s dark brown eyes. The scientist divided all of humanity into two very unequal parts: those who sponsored his research and those on whom he could test the advanced biological and chemical horrors that were his forte.

He extended his hand with a slight smile of his own. “Erich! Welcome!

Come to collect our new batch of toys in person?” He nodded toward an insulated cooler filled with carefully labeled small clear vials. Packs containing dry ice lined the cooler. To reduce the risk that their bacterial hosts would run

out of nutrients and start dying off, the HYDRA variants were kept frozen for as long as possible. “There they are, all packed up and ready for transport.”

“I am here to collect the Phase II variants, Herr Professor,” Brandt agreed quietly, shaking hands. “But we have other matters to discuss as well. Private matters,” he said meaningfully.

Renke raised a single, thin white eyebrow. “Oh?” He glanced over his shoulder at the other technicians and scientists busy in the lab before turning back to look up at the bigger man. “Then perhaps we should adjourn to my office.”

Brandt followed him to a windowless room just down the central hallway.

Shelves of books and other reference materials crowded one wall. Besides a desk and a computer, the tall, blond-haired man was not surprised to see a narrow cot and an untidy pile of blankets in one corner of the small room.

Renke was famous for his lack of interest in the material comforts so important to others. He lived almost entirely for his research.

Once the door was closed behind them, Renke swung around to face his much larger colleague. “Well?” he demanded. “Apart from collecting the next HYDRA variants, what else brings you here from Moscow so urgently?”

“Two things,” Brandt told him. “First we face a significant security breach.”

Renke’s face froze. “Where?”

“In Prague, tracing back to Moscow,” the bigger man said flatly. He ran through what he had learned about the successful attack on Petrenko and the second failed attempt to kill the American doctor, Lieutenant Colonel Smith.

The frantic emergency signals from the shocked survivors of his Prague team had reached him shortly after his arrival in Rome the night before.

As Renke listened closely, his lips curled downward in a frown of displeasure. He shook his head in disgust. “Liss was sloppy,” he said. “Unpardonably sloppy.”

“True. He was both imprecise and overconfident.” Brandt’s gray eyes were ice-cold. “At least his death at the hands of the American saves me the effort of

eliminating him as an example to Ilionescu and the others.”

“Has this man Smith turned up yet?”

“Not yet,” Brandt said shortlv. He shrugged his massive shoulders. “But he missed his scheduled flight to London and now the Czech authorities are searching for him, too. If they find him, I have other sources in Prague who will alert me.”

“It’s been nearly twenty-four hours,” the scientist pointed out. “By now Smith could easily be across the Czech border. In fact, he could be almost anywhere in the world.”

Brandt nodded grimly. “I am well aware of that.”

Renke frowned again. He stroked his neat white beard. “What do you know about this American?” he asked at length. “Despite their appalling errors, Liss and his men were professionals. How could an ordinary doctor have disposed of them so easily?”

“I do not know,” the taller man admitted slowly. “But clearly Smith is far more than he appears on the surface.”

“An agent, you mean? For one of the American military intelligence organizations?”

Brandt shrugged. “Perhaps.” The blond-haired man scowled. “I’ve had people digging into Smith’s background, military service record, and medical credentials ever since Liss first reported his meeting with Petrenko, but the work is necessarily slow. If he is connected to one of the American intelligence agencies, I don’t want to risk revealing our interest in him. That could tip our hand prematurely.”

“If he is a spv, your caution may come too late,” Renke said coldly. “The Americans could alreadv be probing deeper into our field tests in Moscow.”

Brandt stayed silent, holding his temper in check. No useful purpose would be served by reminding the scientist of his own role in pushing for those first experiments.

“Have vou notified Alexei Ivanov?” Renke asked after a moment. “After all, the Thirteenth Directorate may have a file on Smith. At a minimum, our friends in the FSB should be alerted to tighten their security in and around Moscow.”

Brandt shook his head. “I’ve told Ivanov nothing about the American thus far,” he said quietly. “He knows that Petrenko and Kiryanov are dead, nothing more.”

The scientist raised an eyebrow. “Keeping Ivanov in the dark? Is that wise, Erich? As you say, this is a very serious breach of operational secrecy. Surely that overrides any question of professional jealousy or embarrassment?”

“And direct orders from our patron trump all other considerations,” Brandt reminded him coolly. “He expects us to clean up our own messes without running to the Kremlin like frightened children. In this case I feel inclined to obey him. The Russians are too heavy-handed. Their intervention might only make matters worse. As it is, I have enough manpower to handle the situation if the Americans start poking and prying.”

Renke pursed his lips. “What do you need from me, then?”

“A complete list of those in Moscow whose knowledge of the first HYDRA outbreak could prove dangerous to us or to the project. With Smith still on the loose, we can’t take the chance that Petrenko and Kiryanov were the only ones inclined to disobey the orders to keep silent.”