Vektor (29 page)

“Two shots of vodka. The good stuff,” he said to the bartender, who barely acknowledged him.

“I don’t know about shots. Straight drinks hit me hard,” she said, still smiling.

“One shot to toast your arrival in Novosibirsk. It’s a tradition. When you drink vodka quickly, it doesn’t hit you as hard. That’s how we can drink so much,” he said, not sure if that made any sense.

“I suppose one shot won’t kill me. This is really exciting,” she said.

Four vodka shots later, they departed the club for his apartment, swaying arm in arm down the chilly street. He had decided to hedge his bet on the train trip and take what he could get up front. She’d become extremely “friendly” after the second shot, resting her hand permanently on his leg and eventually holding his hand with the other. All of this could change tomorrow, when the effects of the vodka wore off and she was faced with the choice of spending the next four or five days on a train with a virtual stranger or slipping quietly out of town to continue her journey alone. Alcohol had a wonderful way of making even the most impractical suggestions or plans sound feasible for a limited period of time.

They walked for about fifteen minutes, stopping to kiss and grope each other in the shadows at random intervals along the way. When they turned onto Planovaya Street, he could see his apartment building in the distance, situated above a pleasant bakery and café. He would bring Katie some coffee and pastries in the morning. They crossed the well-lit intersection, dodging the odd car still negotiating Novosibirsk at one-thirty in the morning.

By the time they reached the door to his apartment building, he suddenly realized that Katie was supporting much of his weight. He felt dizzy, almost like he was floating. Finding the keys to the building seemed nearly impossible, though he managed to produce them. Katie helped him open the door, and they somehow made it up the stairs to the third floor. He tried to think back and count the number of shots they drank at the nightclub, but his memory was hazy. He couldn’t remember the name of the last club they left. He must have overdone it at some point, which was a real shame.

He raised his watch to his face in an exaggerated manner, straining to read the dial. Placing his wrist against his nose, he was able to make sense of the watch’s hands. One-thirty? He must have gotten carried away with shots. He vaguely remembered doing vodka shots with this woman. Her name slipped away as they stumbled into his apartment. Was he even in his own apartment? He tried to focus on his surroundings, but the hazy blur worsened until it darkened completely.

***

Erin Foley lowered Pyotr to the ground and closed the apartment door, ensuring that it remained unlocked. She leaned over the young scientist and shook him a few times to be sure that he was unconscious. He didn’t stir. Her timing had been nearly perfect. She had ordered a final round of vodka shots after he excused himself to use the bathroom, spiking his drink with gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB). The date-rape drug typically took hold within fifteen to twenty minutes after ingestion, leaving her with time to maneuver him down the street to his apartment without raising any suspicions.

He left the club without protest, clearly energized by the prospect of what she had been advertising for the past hour. It hit him right after they turned onto his street. She noticed the glassy eyes before he started losing motor control, which gave her enough advanced warning to hasten their arrival. Ivan had made it clear that it was her job to get him into the apartment. After the stunt she pulled in the car, she didn’t expect any help from the
bratva
, and lugging Pyotr up two flights of stairs after five strong drinks would have been a chore in high heels.

Before exploring any further, she removed her cell phone and placed a quick call.

“He’s out,” she said, receiving a gruff acknowledgement.

Erin started searching in the most obvious place, removing Pyotr’s wallet and thumbing through the various compartments. Nothing. She glanced around the living room, not finding what she was looking for in the open. Further observation suggested that she should start her search in the bedroom. Pyotr’s apartment was immaculate and orderly, with nothing out of place on the dining room table or kitchen counter. Even the magazines were neatly stacked on the small coffee table in front of his couch. She could envision him entering the apartment at the end of a long day at the lab, and despite his exhaustion, still straining to keep his surroundings in order.

She strode across the well-appointed room toward the doorway leading into the bedroom, flipping on the light. She found his private chambers in the same condition. Pristine and organized, bed covers pulled tight and an extra blanket folded near the foot of the bed. She took a few steps into the room and spied a long mahogany dresser with a perfectly centered black valet box sitting on top. She made her way to the dresser, reaching for the top center drawer instead of the more obvious box. Inside the drawer, she found several pairs of neatly arranged socks, separated into two sides. Casual socks on the left, formal black pairs on the right. She saw something jammed between the stacks and reached down to retrieve the grand prize. She stared at the thick plastic card for a moment, grinning.

“Roskov, Pyotr. Clearance Level 4. Vektor Laboratories,” she repeated.

The white card was attached to a lanyard by a small clip that penetrated a small hole punched into the plastic at the top of the identification card. The front of the card displayed a picture of Pyotr, along with the basic information she had just uttered. The back contained the words, “THIS SIDE FOR ACCESS.” The back of the card was imbedded with a biometric microchip that verified Roskov’s identity and security clearance, granting him mostly unlimited access to Vektor Labs, including Farrington’s target building. The security clearance system at Vektor operated on a layered principle. Since Roskov worked in Building Six, the most secure location within the Vektor Laboratories compound, his security card granted him nearly unfettered access to the entire area.

She heard the apartment door open and stepped back into the main room. Two men stood inside the apartment. Ivan and the guy she had disabled in the back seat of the car. Without moving her head, she instinctually took note of the rack of knives next to the stainless-steel sink. Logic and training told her that she was in no danger at the moment, but once Farrington’s team departed the warehouse, en route to Vektor, all bets were off. If either of these men harbored a grudge, they might make a move against her at that point. She hoped to be long clear of Novosibirsk by then.

She held out Pyotr Roskov’s identification card to Ivan, who calmly took it and placed it in a pocket on his black leather jacket.

“How long?” she said.

“Three to four hours. You need to stay here with Mr. Roskov. The dose we provided was a small one for someone his size. He should be dead to the world for at least ten hours, but you never know. If he wakes up and finds his security card gone before we replace it, this whole plan is fucked,” Ivan said.

As much as she didn’t want to sit around this apartment, she couldn’t argue with Ivan’s logic. In fact, she had been impressed with their plan from the beginning, even if she could barely stand to be around them. Surreptitiously acquiring a high-level security card from Vektor presented several opportunities to explore. The team’s electronics tech, “Misha,” working alongside the
bratva’s
best credit card forgery people, would reproduce Roskov’s identification card with one major modification.

The new card’s biometric chip would transmit a simple Trojan horse virus deep into Vektor’s automated digital security system, providing Misha with a customized “backdoor” to access the system. Most biometric chips used in point-of-access security systems utilized passive authentication protocols, where the chip is simply read by the scanning device. Most of the security focus is placed on encrypting the chip, leaving the point of interface vulnerable to active data transmission from a modified microchip.

When Roskov held his new card up to one of the secure access terminals, the microchip would actively transmit the virus during the negotiated scan of the chip’s stored biometric data. Misha hoped to transmit the entire virus in one transaction, but had designed the replacement chip with the capability to stop and start, monitoring its own progress to ensure all of the data found its way into the system.

Ivan’s partner placed a small duffel bag on the ground and pushed it toward her with his foot.

“Everything you need,” Ivan said, nodding at the bag.

“All right,” she said, making no move to retrieve the bag in front of them.

She had no reason to intentionally place herself within striking distance of either man. Ivan cracked a faint grin, which under any other circumstance could be interpreted as bizarrely creepy. He had a disturbingly calm, unaffected look plastered on his face most of the time. Smiling was not one of Ivan’s practiced facial expressions, and the result was unnerving.

“When we’re done here, I want to learn how you did that trick with my hand,” he said.

“Takes a lot of practice,” she said.

“We’ll have time,” he said, flattening his grin.

“In that case, it’s a date.”

She caught both of them looking at the bag again, which was supposed to contain a portable mask system to deliver an aerosolized anesthetic in the unlikely event that Roskov roused from his deep, artificial slumber before they arrived with the replacement card. A few hits of sevoflurane, a general anesthetic, would render him unconscious again for a short period of time. She could continue to safely deliver sevoflurane in small doses until she could leave the apartment.

“All right. I give up. What’s in the bag?”

“The anesthesia and a special kit. We can’t have him suspicious,” Ivan said, now fully grinning.

“Kit?”

“It should be self-explanatory. We’ll leave you to take care of the scene,” he said, signaling for the other man to leave.

She didn’t like the way this sounded. When Ivan closed the door, she threw the deadbolt and cautiously retrieved the bag, placing it on the kitchen counter. She fought away all of her irrational fears about what might be waiting for her in the bag. It made little sense for them to hurt her at this point in the operation, especially at this exact moment in Roskov’s apartment. She was a phone call away from the very hasty arrival of her own teammates, who had followed her to the apartment from a distance. Grudgingly, she opened the bag and started to remove the contents.

The mask and connected aerosolizing unit was intact and ready for use. A portable battery unit had been provided to ensure continuous uninterrupted power in the unlikely event that Roskov’s bed wasn’t near an electrical outlet. Nothing unexpected so far. She delicately lifted a large zip-lock bag out of the duffel and examined the contents, shaking her head in disgust. Now she knew why they were smiling. Ivan and his friends had been busy in the car while she worked Roskov in the club. Unfortunately, they appeared to have enjoyed themselves more than she cared to imagine. She had to hand it to Viktor’s people. They were excruciatingly thorough and took a perversely twisted pride in their work.

Chapter 34

10:45 AM

Planovaya Street

Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

Pyotr Roskov slowly tried to open one of his eyes, which stayed mostly shut in protest of the sunlight pouring into his bedroom. A pounding headache and waves of nausea rippled through him simultaneously, driving his simple desire to get out of bed. He desperately needed water and aspirin, but his body wasn’t responding very well to commands. He lay there for several minutes in agony, wondering what had happened to him. He vaguely remembered meeting a woman at a nightclub. An Australian woman he seemed to recall, but details were hazy beyond that. He certainly didn’t remember the trip back to his apartment.

The lack of memory disturbed him. He’d never blacked out from drinking before, despite some serious partying at university. His hangover felt different, worse than before, causing him to question the night’s events. Had he been drugged? Robbed? Shit. Now it made sense. He had finally been taken for a sucker by a con artist. The thought of being duped angered him enough to turn his head and stare at his alarm clock. He was normally in the lab by now, enjoying the weekend tranquility of an abandoned facility. He wondered what they took. He let this thought linger for a few moments before sitting up suddenly and sending a shockwave through his skull.

He focused his blurry vision on the top dresser drawer, which was closed. He was well paid by Russian standards, but far from wealthy. He could think of several dozen better targets than himself in that nightclub. Regulars that would be easy to target. Maybe the thief was after something different. He struggled out of bed, feeling a little more connected to his body. He was naked, which was unusual. He typically slept in shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t want to think of what they might have done with him while he was passed out. The pictures that might surface in an email…further blackmail opportunity.

His feet found the floor, and he walked unsteadily to the dresser. Upon hesitantly sliding the top drawer open, he stared inside for a moment, not immediately finding his Vektor security card. Aside from money and some second-rate jewelry, his security card was the only other thing worth stealing. He dug between the two rows of socks and felt the plastic card. He removed it from the drawer and examined the card, half-expecting to find a low-quality fake with a picture of Lenin. Nothing was wrong with his card.

Now he felt foolish. He was clearly not as important as he’d momentarily thought. They’d apparently just taken what little money he kept on hand, along with a few watches and an heirloom ring from his grandmother. He opened his valet box, shocked that it hadn’t been emptied of these petty valuables. Now he was intrigued. Had he just drank too much, while enjoying the company of a beautiful woman? It was almost more plausible to believe that he had been the victim of a plot to steal a deadly flu strain from his laboratory.