The Hades Factor Page 24

  “Were there other deaths in Iraq from the virus then?”

  “Yes. Two more here in Baghdad.”

  “Also veterans from the war?”

  “So I have been told.”

  “Was anyone cured?”

  Dr. Kamil crossed his arms and nodded miserably. “I have heard rumors.” He did not look at Jon. “But in my opinion, those patients simply survived their ARDS. Other than untreated rabies virus, no virus kills one hundred percent. Not even Ebola.”

  “How many survived?”

  “Three.”

  Three and three again. The evidence was piling up, and Jon fought back both his excitement and his horror. He was uncovering information that pointed more and more to an experiment using human guinea pigs. “Where are the survivors?”

  At that, the frightened doctor stepped back. “No more! I do not want you going elsewhere and having survivor data traced back to me.” He yanked open the door of the examination room and pointed at another door across the hallway. “Go. Leave!”

  Jon did not move. “Something made you want to tell me, Doctor. And it’s not three dead men.”

  For a moment the doctor looked as if he could jump out of his skin. “Not another word! Nothing! Leave here! I do not believe you are from Belize or from the U.N.!” His voice rose. “One phone call to the authorities and—”

  Jon’s tension escalated. The terrified doctor looked as if he might explode, and Jon could not take the chance that he would be trapped in the consequences. He slipped out the side door and along an alley. With relief, he saw the embassy limousine still waited.

  In his office, Dr. Hussein Kamil shook with fear and anger. He was furious to have put himself in this position, and he was afraid he would be caught. At the same time, this wretched situation offered an opportunity, if he dared take it.

  He bowed his head, crossed his arms, and tried to quiet his tremors. He had a large family to support, and his country was disintegrating as he watched. He had the future to think of. He was tired of being poor in a land where plenty was to be had.

  At last he picked up the phone. But it was not the authorities he dialed.

  He inhaled. “Yes, Dr. Kamil here. You contacted me about a certain man.” He steadied his voice. “He has just left my office. He carries the credentials of a U.N. employee from Belize. The name is Mark Bonnet. However, I feel certain he is the one you asked me to watch for. Yes, the virus from the Glorious War of Unification … . That was what he asked about. No, he did not say where he was going. But he was very interested in the survivors. Of course. I am most grateful. I will expect the money and the antibiotics tomorrow.”

  He dropped the receiver into its cradle and fell into his chair. He sighed and felt better. So much better that he allowed himself a faint smile. The risk was high, but the payoff was, with luck, more than worth it. By making this one call, he was about to become a rarity in Baghdad: He would have his own private supply of antibiotics.

  He rubbed his hands. Optimism coursed through his veins.

  The rich would crawl to him when they or their children fell ill. They would throw money at him. Not dinars, which were useless in this benighted land in which he had been imprisoned since the stupid Americans began their war and embargo. No, the wealthy sick would shower him with U.S. dollars. Soon he would have more than enough to pay for his family’s escape and a fresh life somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  7:01 P.M.

  Baghdad

  Night fell slowly across exotic Baghdad. A woman shrouded from head to toe in the ubiquitous abaya scuttled like a black spider beneath candlelit second stories and balconies on the narrow, cobbled street. In Baghdad’s sizzling summers, these overhangs provided shade to the oldest sections of the city. But now it was a cool October night, and a swath of stars showed in the narrow opening above.

  The woman glanced up only once, so concentrated was she on her two missions that lay ahead. She appeared old. She was terribly bent over, probably not only from age but malnutrition—and she carried a frayed canvas gym bag. Besides the body-cloaking black abaya, she wore a traditional white pushi that covered most of her face and revealed only her dark eyes, which were neither properly downcast nor idle.

  She hurried past bay windows—mashrabiyah—with carved-wood screens that allowed viewing out onto the street but not in. At last she turned onto a winding thoroughfare lighted by wavering antique street lamps and filled with the babble of voices—struggling shopkeepers desperate to sell their few wares, would-be consumers with subsistence dinars , and barefoot children running and shouting. No one gave her more than a cursory glance. The place bustled in a final surge of energy as the traditional closing hour of 8:00 P.M. approached.

  Then a trio of Saddam Hussein’s feared Republican Guards in their distinctive dark-green fatigues and webbed weapon belts appeared.

  She tensed as they approached. To her left, among the row of open-air stands steaming in the cool night air, was a farmer hawking fresh fruit from the countryside. A crowd had gathered, fighting over who could buy and at what price. Instantly she pulled dinars from her voluminous abaya, slid into the throng, and added her voice to those calling for the farmer’s merchandise.

  Her heart pounded as she studied the muscular guards from the corners of her eyes.

  The three men stopped to watch. One made a comment, and another responded, secure in their weapons and well-fed existence. Soon they were laughing and sneering.

  The woman sweated as she continued to beg the farmer for fruit. Around her, other Iraqis glanced nervously over their shoulders. While most resumed their clamor, some slunk furtively away.

  That was when the guards chose their victim: A baker with an armload of bread loaves piled high, his face tucked behind to hide, had backed off and was skirting the crowd. The woman did not recognize him.

  With hard gazes, the trio surrounded the baker, their pistols drawn. One knocked away the loaves. Another crashed his gun across the baker’s panicked face.

  Hidden in the woman’s canvas bag was a gun. Every fiber of her wanted to pull it out and kill the brutal guards. Hidden by her pushi, her face flushed with rage. She bit her lip. She wanted desperately to act.

  But she had work to do. She must not be noticed.

  There was an abrupt hush on the busy street. As the baker fell, people averted their gazes and moved away. Bad things happened to anyone who attracted the attention of the mercurial guards. Blood poured from the fallen man’s face, and he screamed. Sickened, the woman watched two of the guards grab his arms and drag him off. He had been publicly arrested, or perhaps he was simply being harassed. There was no way to know. His family would use whatever clout they had to try to free him.

  A full minute passed. Like the lull before a sudden desert storm, the night air seemed heavy and ominous. There was little relief knowing the volatile guards had chosen someone else. Next time, it could be you.

  But life went on. Sound returned to the winding street. People reappeared. The farmer took the money from the woman’s palm and left an orange. With a shiver, she dropped it next to the gun in her canvas gym bag and sped off, uneasily scanning all around while in her mind she still saw the terrified face of the poor baker.

  At last she turned onto Sadoun Street, a commercial thoroughfare with high-rises taller than all the minarets on the far bank of the Tigris. But this wide boulevard now contained few upscale goods and even fewer buyers who could afford them. Of course, no tourists came to Baghdad anymore. Which was why when she finally entered the modern King Sargon Hotel, she found a vast emptiness. The once-magnificent lobby with its obsidian and chrome had been designed by Western architects to combine the culture of the ancient kingdoms with the most up-to-date conveniences of the West. Now, in the shadows of poor lighting, it was not only scruffy but deserted.

  The tall bellman with large dark eyes and a Saddam Hussein mustache was whispering angrily to the bored desk clerk. “What has the great leader done for us, Rashid? Te
ll me how the genius from Tikrit has destroyed the foreign devils and made us all rich. In fact, so rich my Ph.D. adorns this worn-out bellman’s suit”—he pounded his chest in outrage—“in a hotel where nobody comes, and my children will be lucky to live long enough to have no future!”

  The clerk responded gloomily, “We will survive, Balshazar. We always have, and Saddam will not live forever.”

  Then they noticed the bent-over old crone standing quietly before them. She had arrived softly, like a puff of smoke, and for a moment the desk clerk felt disoriented. How could he have missed her? He stared, catching a brief glimpse of sharp black eyes over the pushi. Quickly she lowered her gaze in the presence of men not her husband.

  He frowned.

  She made her voice humble and frightened, and she spoke in perfect Arabic: “A thousand pardons. I have been sent to be given the sewing for Sundus.”

  With the sound of her fear, the desk clerk recovered his disdain and jerked his head toward a service door behind him. “You should not be in the lobby, old woman. Next time, go around to housekeeping. The back is where you belong!”

  Murmuring words of apology, she dropped her head and brushed past the Ph.D. bellman named Balshazar. As she did, her unseen hand slid a folded paper into the pocket of his frayed uniform.

  The bellman gave no indication of it. Instead, he asked the haughty desk clerk, “What about the electricity? What is the schedule for its being turned off tomorrow?” Unconsciously he laid a protective hand over the pocket.

  As the woman disappeared through the service door, she heard the rise and fall of the men’s voices resume. Inwardly she sighed with relief: She had successfully completed her first mission. But the danger was far from over. She had one more crucial errand.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  7:44 P.M.

  Baghdad

  A sharp wind off the desert blew through nighttime Baghdad, sending home shoppers on Sheik Omar Street. The spicy scents of incense and cardamom were in the brisk air. The sky was black, and the temperature was dropping. The bent old woman in the black abaya and face-hiding pushi who had carried the message to the King Sargon Hotel threaded among pedestrians and past plywood stalls where used parts and Iraqi ingenuity for repair flourished. These days, many of the city’s once comfortable middle-class manned these lowly stalls where everything from herbs to hot foods and used plumbing pipes were sold.

  As the woman approached her destination, she stared, appalled. Her heart thudded against her ribcage. She could not believe her eyes.

  Because the crowds had thinned, he stood out more than he would have under ordinary circumstances. Tall, trim, and muscular, he was the only northern European on the street. He had the same dark blue eyes, raven-black hair, and cool, hard face she remembered with such pain and anger. He was dressed casually in a windbreaker and brown trousers. And despite the U.N. armband, she knew he was no U.N. worker.

  She would have covertly studied and analyzed him if he had been any European, an unusual sighting in today’s Iraq. But this man was not just anyone, and for a split instant she stood paralyzed in front of the workshop. Then she quickly continued inside. Even the most experienced observer would have seen nothing in her manner but the slightest of hesitations. Yet her shock was profound.

  What was he doing in Baghdad? He was the last person she expected or wanted to see: Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, M.D.

  On edge, Jon surveyed the street of plywood stalls and narrow repair shops. He had been slipping into medical offices and the storerooms of clinics and hospitals all day, talking to nervous doctors, nurses, and former medics from the war. Many had confirmed there had been six ARDS victims last year with the symptoms of the deadly virus Jon was investigating. But none could tell him about the three survivors.

  As he strode along, he shrugged off a feeling he was being watched. He scrutinized the lamp-lit street with its faded bazaar shops and men in long loose shirts—gallabiyyas—who sat at scarred tables drinking glasses of hot tea and smoking water pipes. He kept his face casual. But this section of old Baghdad seemed an odd place to meet Dr. Radah Mahuk, the world-famous pediatric physician and surgeon.

  Still, Domalewski’s instructions had been specific.

  Jon was getting desperate. The famed pediatrician was his last hope for the day, and to stay in Baghdad another twenty-four hours would increase his danger exponentially. Any of his sources could report him to the Republican Guard. On the other hand, the next informant might be the one to tell him where the virus had originated and what bastard had infected the Iraqis and Sophia.

  Every nerve on edge, he paused outside a workshop where bald tires dangled from chains on either side of a low, dark door. This gloomy tire-repair shop was where Domalewski had sent him. According to the diplomat, it was owned by a formerly well-to-do Baghdad businessman who was bitter because his burgeoning company had been ruined by Saddam Hussein’s unnecessary wars.

  The store’s seedy appearance did nothing to relieve Jon’s suspicions. He glanced at his watch. He was on time. With a last look around, he stepped inside.

  A short, balding man with rough skin and the usual thick black mustache stood behind a battered counter, reading a piece of paper. His thick fingers were stained with tar. Nearby, a woman wearing the usual fundamentalist black robes was shopping through tires.

  “Ghassan?” Jon asked the man.

  “Not here.” The Iraqi answered indifferently in heavily accented English, but the gaze that swept over Jon was shrewd.

  Jon lowered his voice and glanced back at the woman, who had moved closer, apparently to examine a different group of tires. “I have to talk to him. Farouk al-Dubq told me he has a new Pirelli.” It was the coded signal Jerzy Domalewski had relayed to Jon. It should activate no outside interest because Ghassan’s booming company on Rashid Street had specialized in the best new tires from around the world, and everyone knew he was a connoisseur.

  Ghassan raised his brows in approval. He gave a brief smile, crumpled the piece of paper between his work-worn hands, and said heartily in much better English, “Ah, Pirelli. An excellent choice in tires. In the back. Come.” But as he turned to lead Jon, he muttered something in Arabic.

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stood on end. He spun just in time to see the woman in the long black abaya slide like a shadow out the front door.

  He frowned. His gut told him something was wrong. “Who—?” he began.

  But Ghassan was speaking urgently to him. “Please hurry. This way.”

  They ran from the empty front through a thick-curtained doorway and into a cavernous storage room with so many piles of worn-out tires that they nearly blocked the rear entrance. One stack reached the ceiling. On the lowest mound near the room’s center sat a middle-aged Iraqi woman cradling a baby. Fine wrinkles creviced her cheeks and high forehead. Her charcoal eyes focused on Jon with curiosity. She wore a long print dress, a black cardigan sweater, and a white cowl wrapped over her head and around her neck. But Jon’s gaze was on the moist, feverish face of the baby. As it whimpered, he hurried toward it. Obviously the infant was sick, and all Jon’s medical training demanded he help, whether or not this was a trap.

  Ghassan spoke to the woman in rapid Arabic, and Jon heard his fake U.N. name mentioned. The woman frowned and seemed to be asking questions. Before Jon could reach the child, a violent crash sounded from the shop’s front. Someone had kicked open the door. He froze, tense. Booted feet thundered, and a voice bellowed in Arabic.

  A bolt of adrenaline shot through Jon. They had been betrayed! He pulled out his Beretta and whirled.

  At the same time, Ghassan yanked out an old AK-47 assault rifle from the center of a pile of threadbare Goodyear tires and snapped, “Republican Guards!” He handled the AK-47 with a familiarity that told Jon this was not the first time he had used the powerful assault rifle to defend himself or his store.

  Just as Jon started toward the noise, Ghassan ran in front to block him. Radi
ating hot rage, Ghassan jerked his head back at the middle-aged woman with the sick infant. “Get them out of here. Leave the rest to me. This is my business.”

  The resolute Iraqi did not wait to see what Jon would do. Determined, he sprang to the open archway, shoved the muzzle of his AK-47 through the curtain, and opened fire with a series of short bursts.

  The sound was thunderous. The plywood walls rocked.

  Behind Smith, the woman cried out. The baby screamed.

  Beretta in hand, Jon raced back through the stacks of tires toward them. The woman was already up with the baby in her arms, hurrying toward the rear door. Suddenly a fusillade of automatic fire from the front blasted into the storage room. Ghassan fell back and jumped behind a pile of tires. Blood poured from a wound on his upper arm. Jon pulled the woman and baby down behind a different stack of tires. Bullets thudded into the storage room and landed in the hard tires with radiating thunks. Rubber exploded into the air.

  Behind his stack of tires, Ghassan was excitedly muttering his prayers: “Allah is great. Allah is just. Allah is merciful. Allah is—”

  Another burst of violent automatic fire ripped the room. The woman ducked over the child to protect it, and Jon arched himself over both as wild bullets exploded bottles and jars on the shelves. Glittering shards of glass sprayed the storage area. Nuts, bolts, and screws that had been in the containers shot out like shrapnel. Somewhere an old toilet flushed spontaneously.

  Jon had seen this before—the stupid belief of ill-trained soldiers that brute firepower would subdue all opposition. The truth was, it would do little damage to a target entrenched or under cover. Through it all, Ghassan’s frenzied voice continued to pray. As gunfire erupted again, Jon sat back on his heels and looked worriedly down at the woman, whose face was white with fear. Smith patted her arm, unable to reassure her in her own language. The baby cried, distracting the woman. She cooed soothingly down to it.