The Hades Factor Page 20

  A tense voice announced in his earphones, “Just a few more minutes. Hold him on, Xavier.”

  Jack McGraw at Long Lake sounded as if he were sweating as much as Xavier. Twice before they had almost had Zellerbach, when Xavier had led him in circles with phony data while he tried to locate Bill Griffin, and again when he accessed USAMRIID’s computer to check on progress with the unknown virus. Each time Zellerbach had moved too fast for Xavier to hold him. But not this time. Maybe Xavier’s false data was better now, or maybe Zellerbach was getting tired and losing his concentration. Whatever it was, another two or three minutes and …

  “Got him!” Jack McGraw’s voice exulted. “He’s online outside some little burg in California called Lee Vining. Al-Hassan’s near Yosemite. We’re alerting him now.”

  Xavier switched off. He felt none of the security chief’s jubilation as he watched Zellerbach still following the fake trail he expected to lead to the phone call the Russell woman had made to Tremont. Zellerbach’s creativity was too beautiful to be sabotaged by his own carelessness. It made Xavier feel sad and confused. It looked as if Zellerbach had been carried away by his own enthusiasm, by a kind of naive ignorance of the existence of the Xavier Beckers or the Victor Tremonts of this world.

  2:42 P.M.

  Near Lee Vining, High Sierras, California

  Smith stepped into the computer room, and Marty’s frustration greeted him like an atomic blast. “Zounds, zounds, zounds! Where are you, you chimera! No one defeats Marty Zellerbach, you hear? Oh, I know you’re there! Fuck and damn and—”

  “Mart?” Smith had never heard him swear. It must be another sign he was going over the edge. “Mart! Stop it. What’s going on?”

  Marty went on swearing. He pounded the console, unaware Smith was speaking or that he was even in the room.

  “Mart!” Smith grabbed his shoulder.

  Marty whirled like a wild animal, teeth bared. And saw Smith. He suddenly collapsed in upon himself, drooping limp in his chair. He stared up with anguish. “Nothing! Nothing. I’ve found nothing. Nothing!”

  “That’s okay, Marty,” Smith said in a soothing voice. “What didn’t you find? Bill Griffin’s address?”

  “Not a trace. I was so close, Jon. Then nothing. The phone calls, too. I’m in my computer, using my own software. Just another step. It’s there, I know it! So close—”

  “We knew it was a long shot. What about the virus? Anything new at Fort Detrick?”

  “Oh, I had that in minutes. Officially, there have now been fifteen deaths and three survivals here in America.”

  Smith jerked alert. “More deaths? Where? And survivors? How? What kind of treatment?”

  “No details. Had to break through a brand-new security wall to find what I did. The Pentagon has all its data shut down, except to me.” He chortled. “No information to the public except through the military.”

  “That’s why we didn’t hear about the survivors. Can you locate them?”

  “I haven’t seen a whisper of who they are or where they are. Sorry, Jon!”

  “Not at Detrick or the Pentagon?”

  “No, no. Neither place. Terrible. I think those Pentagon bandits are keeping the information off-system!”

  Smith thought rapidly. His first instinct had been to find the survivors and try to get close enough to interview them. It seemed like the easiest, most direct route.

  The reason the government had shut down the information was probably to avoid panicking people—standard operating procedure—and the situation was likely a lot worse than fifteen deaths. Scientists would be studying the three survivors around the clock to find answers before going public. Which meant every possible American human and technological security would be assigned.

  Inwardly he sighed, frustrated. No way was he or even Peter Howell going to get past that.

  Besides, the survivors would be the first place army intelligence, the FBI, and the murderers would expect him to go. They would be waiting. He inhaled and nodded. There was no choice. The only survivors he had a chance to reach were in Iraq. That locked-down country did not expect him, and they did not have the technological wizardry of the U.S. government. His best and fastest hope of finding out what was behind all this was to go there.

  Marty was saying excitedly, “There! Almost got you! Just another minute.”

  Smith came out of his reverie to see him screaming at the console, hunched toward the screen like a hunter who sees his prey only a few feet ahead.

  Fear tightened Smith’s chest. Suddenly the mechanics of what Marty was doing made terrible sense. He snapped, “How long have you been connected to your computer in Washington?”

  Howell appeared in the doorway. His wiry body went rigid. “He’s been online through his own computer?”

  “How long, Mart?” Smith repeated tensely.

  Marty came out of his thrilled trance. He blinked and checked the time on the screen. “An hour, perhaps two. But it’s fine. I’m using a series of relays all over the world, just as we’re supposed to. Besides, it’s my own computer. I—”

  Smith swore. “They know where your computer is! They could be in your bungalow right now, inside your computer, teasing you on! Was the trail through the telephone company there the first time you cracked in?”

  “Heck, no! I located a whole new path. I found a new one for Bill Griffin, too, but that led nowhere. This one in the phone company keeps opening up to new avenues. I know I can—”

  Peter Howell’s voice was crisp. “Do they have people in California?”

  “I’d bet the farm on it,” Smith told him.

  “His meds are on the way.” Howell spun on his heel. “Your killers can trace the phone line to Lee Vining and to me. Not my real name, of course. They’ll have to locate the cabin, get out here, find the road, and reach us. I’d say an hour at worst. With luck two. We’d be wise to be away in less than one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  6:51 P.M.

  New York City

  Victor Tremont adjusted his dinner jacket and straightened his black tie in the mirror of his suite in the Waldorf-Astoria tower. Behind him, still stretched naked on the rumpled bed, was Mercedes O’Hara. She was beautiful—all curves and lush, golden skin.

  She fixed her dark eyes on him in the mirror. “I do not like to be hung in the bedroom closet with the suits until you decide I am to be used again, Victor.”

  Tremont scowled into the mirror. Neither patient nor reserved, the tall woman with the cascade of red hair falling across her breasts had been a mistake. Tremont rarely made that misjudgment. In fact, he could think of only one other time. That woman had killed herself when he had told her he would never marry her.

  “I have a meeting, Mercedes. We’ll go to dinner when I get back. The table is reserved at Le Cheval, your favorite. If that doesn’t suit you, leave.”

  Mercedes would not kill herself. The Chilean woman owned extensive vineyards and a world-renowned winery in the Maipo Valley, sat on the boards of two mining companies and in the Chilean parliament, and had been a cabinet minister and would be again. But like all women, she demanded too much of his time and sooner or later would insist on marriage. None understood he did not need or want a companion.

  “So?” She continued to observe from where she reclined on the bed. “No promises? One woman is the same as another. We are all a nuisance. Victor can love only Victor.”

  Tremont found himself annoyed. “I wouldn’t say—”

  “No,” she interrupted, “that would require for you to understand.” She sat up on the bed, swung her long legs over the edge, and stood. “I think I am tired of you, Dr. Tremont.”

  He stopped adjusting his black tie and watched in disbelief as she strode to her clothes and dressed without looking at him again. A surge of unexpected anger took hold of him. Who did she think she was? Such disgusting arrogance. With a powerful effort he repressed his rage. He returned to arranging his tie and smiled at her in the mirror.<
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  “Don’t be ridiculous, my dear. Go and have a cocktail. Put on that green evening gown that makes you look so wonderful. I’ll meet you at Le Cheval in an hour. Two at the most.”

  Dressed in the black Armani suit that made her red hair flame, she laughed. “You are such a sad man, Victor. And such a fool.”

  Before he could respond, she had walked out of the bedroom, still laughing.

  He heard the outer suite door slam.

  Rage swept down over him like a mountain avalanche, and he felt himself actually shake. He took two swift steps toward the open bedroom door. No one laughed at Victor Tremont. No one! A woman. He would … would—

  His face burned as if he had a fever. His fists clenched at his sides as if he were still a schoolboy.

  Then he gave a short laugh. What the hell was he doing? The stupid woman.

  She had saved him the tedium of correcting his mistake. He had thought this one was intelligent, but, in the end, none was. With relief, he saw now there would be no dramatic and tearful scenes of abandonment. He would not have to give her any expensive farewell gifts. She would walk away with nothing. Who was the fool now?

  Grinning broadly, he returned to the mirror, finished adjusting his tie, smoothed his dinner jacket, took one last appraising glance at himself, and turned to leave the room for his meeting. Before he reached the door, his private cell phone rang. He hoped it was al-Hassan with news of Jon Smith and Marty Zellerbach.

  “Well?”

  The Arab’s voice was reassuring. “Zellerbach connected to his own computer to continue searching for the Russell woman’s phone call to you. Xavier held him on long enough for McGraw to trace him to Lee Vining, California.” There was a pleased pause. “I am there now.”

  “Where in God’s name is Lee Vining?”

  “On the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas near Yosemite National Park.”

  “How did you know to go to such a place?”

  “The FBI found the motel where they’d slept last night and then located where they’d rented a car. Smith had asked for a map of Northern California and if a certain road through Yosemite was open. We drove to the park, and when McGraw contacted us, we simply continued on to Lee Vining. They’re at the phone number of a man named Nicholas Romanov, obviously a false name. We are on our way there.”

  Tremont inhaled, pleased. “Good. Anything else?” At last the annoyance of Lt. Col. Jon Smith was ending.

  The Arab’s voice dropped lower—confidential. Pride radiated in his words. “Yes, I have other news. Very good news that you will like and not like. My investigation of Smith has shown that this Marty Zellerbach is an old friend from his school days—and so is Bill Griffin.”

  Tremont growled, “So Griffin did warn Smith in Rock Creek park!”

  “And undoubtedly has no intention of killing Smith. But he may not be overtly betraying us.”

  “You think he still wants the money?”

  “I see no signs that say otherwise.”

  Tremont nodded, thinking. “Then we may be able to use him to our advantage. All right, you deal with Jon Smith and everyone with him.” A plan was beginning to form in his mind. Yes, he knew exactly what to do. “I’ll handle Griffin:”

  7:52 P.M.

  Thurmont, Maryland

  Bill Griffin smiled thinly. The white pizza delivery truck had passed Jon Smith’s three-story, saltbox-style house three times in the last two hours. He was inside the dark house and had been since 6:00 P.M., after abandoning his all-day stakeout of Fort Detrick. The first time he had seen the pizza truck slow as it passed the house, it had caught his attention. Could it have been Jon checking to be sure the house was safe and unwatched? The second time, he was prepared with his night-vision binoculars and saw that the driver was not Jon. By the third time, he knew: One of al-Hassan’s men was looking for Jon—and perhaps for him, too.

  Griffin knew the Arab had been suspicious ever since Rock Creek park, but al-Hassan would not expect Griffin to be waiting inside the house. Griffin had been careful to leave no indications he was there. His car was hidden in the garage of an empty house three blocks away, and he had entered Jon’s place by picking the lock on the back door. Since Jon had returned to neither Detrick nor Thurmont, Griffin was beginning to think he would not. Had al-Hassan already killed him? No, otherwise al-Hassan would not be sending men to look for either Jon or Griffin.

  He moved swiftly through the dark shadows and into the study. Once the computer was up and running, he entered the password and encryption code for his secret Web site. He immediately saw the message from his old FBI partner, Lon Forbes:

  Colonel Jonathan Smith is trying to find you. He also contacted Marjorie for the same reason. FBI, police, and army are looking for Smith: AWOL and sought for questioning in two deaths. Let me know if you want to talk to him.

  Griffin thought, and then he checked for anything else. This time he spotted the footprints of someone who had hacked into the site, which might mean a third person was searching for him. There was nothing on the Web site to tell a hacker where he was. Still, a third tracker made him uneasy.

  He exited, shut down the computer, and returned to the rear door. When he was sure there was still no one surveilling the back of the house, he slipped away into the night.

  8:06 P.M.

  New York City

  The four people who were gathered in a private room at the Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street were nervous. They had known one another for years, occasionally on opposing sides and with conflicting interests, but now a shared attraction to money, power, and a view of the future they liked to call “clear-eyed” had brought them together in this room.

  The youngest of the four, Maj. Gen. Nelson Caspar, executive officer to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, held a low conversation with Congressman Ben Sloat, who was a periodic visitor to Victor Tremont’s hidden Adirondack estate. General Caspar glanced every few seconds at the door to the room. Nancy Petrelli, secretary of Health and Human Services, paced alone near the curtained windows in her cream-colored St. John’s knit suit. Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.), major lobbyist for the American military-industrial complex, sat in an armchair holding a book but not really reading. Neither General Caspar nor General Salonen wore their uniforms, preferring simple but expensive business suits for this clandestine meeting.

  Their heads rotated almost in unison as the door opened.

  Victor Tremont hurried in. “Sorry, gentlemen and lady”—a slight bow to the HHS secretary—“but I was held up by some business relating to our problem with Colonel Smith, which, I’m happy to say, is about to be settled.”

  A murmur of relief spread across the room.

  “How did the meeting with Blanchard’s board of directors go?” General Caspar rumbled. It was the question on everyone’s minds.

  Tremont perched on the arm of a leather couch, elegant in his dinner jacket and black tie. Assurance radiated from him, and he seemed to draw his four distinguished guests toward him like a magnet. He lifted his patrician chin and laughed. “I’m now in firm control of the entire company.

  General Salonen’s voice was loudest. “Congratulations!”

  “Great news, Victor,” Congressman Sloat agreed. “This puts us in the power position.”

  Secretary Petrelli admitted, “I wasn’t sure you could pull it off.”

  “I had no doubt.” General Caspar smiled. “Victor always wins.”

  Tremont laughed again. “Thank you. Thank you very much for your vote of confidence. But I must say I agree with General Caspar.”

  Now everyone laughed, even Nancy Petrelli. But her laughter had little humor in it. She went right to the critical point: “You told the board? The details?”

  “Chapter and verse.” Tremont crossed his arms, smiled, and waited. Teasing them.

  The tension in the room grew electric. Their gazes were riveted on him.

  “And?” Nancy Petrelli demanded at last.

  “What did the g
oddamned board say?” General Salonen wanted to know.

  Victor Tremont smiled broadly. “They jumped on the Hades Project like a dog on a bone.” He gazed around the room at the relieved faces. “You could see the dollar signs flash in their eyes. I thought I was in Las Vegas, and they were slot machines.”

  “No qualms?” Congressman Sloat asked. “We don’t have to worry about second thoughts? Bad consciences?”

  Tremont shook his head. “Remember, we hand-picked all of them. We pooled our sources so we could choose for background, interest, and risk tolerance.” His biggest problem had been getting the names past Haldane so they could be proposed and voted onto the board while old members retired or their terms expired. “Of course, now the question is whether we judged them accurately.”

  “Obviously we did,” Congressman Sloat said with satisfaction.

  “Exactly,” Tremont said. “Oh, they were a little green around the gills when I laid out the possible deaths without our serum, and all the deaths that will unavoidably occur before it is approved for use on humans. But I explained that on the other hand the virus wasn’t a hundred percent fatal without treatment, and they realized the deaths would extrapolate into not much more than a million or so worldwide if the government accepts our serum quickly.”

  Nancy Petrelli, ever the pessimist, said, “And if the government won’t pay our price at all?”