Viral

Lifeboat Inquiry. His father’s last project.

“I’m afraid you have me confused for someone,” Vogel said.

“No. You’re not paying attention, Ivan. If you say that again, it’s going to cost you. Your choice. The first thing you need to do is go to another phone. Go to the phone kiosk at the intersection with Liestal Street and I’ll talk to you there.”

“When?”

“Right now. And don’t tell anyone, or your friend Adele is killed.”

Vogel hung up. Mallory walked back to the space up on the hill and sat on the stone ledge among the trees. He didn’t know if threatening to kill Adele would make any difference with a man like Vogel, but it couldn’t hurt. Mallory watched the entrance to the building through the field glasses. Less than two minutes later, Vogel stepped out the front doors again, taking long, determined strides, cutting across traffic. At the phone kiosk, he stood and turned in a semi-circle, looking up at the windows of buildings as smoke rose from the street grates in front of him.

Charlie dialed the pay phone number. Vogel answered.

“Did you tell anyone, Ivan?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes. Sure.”

“Okay. Now,” he said, “place your cell phone on the kiosk counter. Set it down and leave it there. If you have a weapon, leave it there, also.” Mallory watched him as he set his cell phone on the metal counter. “Okay. Now, hang up the phone and walk to the street car stop on Zwingli. Two blocks from there. Get on board the next car and take it across the river. Okay?”

Vogel looked around again.

“Okay?”

Charlie watched him walk up Zwingli Street toward the riverfront, then he began to walk toward it, too, taking a different route.

There were two ways of boarding the streetcar, by the front doors or the back. Vogel went in the front doors, along with five other passengers. Mallory boarded through the back, along with two teenage boys full of tattoos and nose and eyebrow jewelry. Most of the seats were taken. Vogel found one in the front. Charlie stood midway back and watched him as they began to move. The breeze was cooler along the river, the afternoon sun flickering above the horizon. Vogel looked in Mallory’s direction as the streetcar crossed the water.

When a seat opened beside Vogel, Charlie moved up in the car and took it. Vogel seemed to tense, turning his eyes slightly but without looking directly. Charlie studied him, saying nothing: sallow skin, lots of white nose hairs, a loose, fleshy neck. A slight bulge under his overcoat near his heart that was probably a handgun in a shoulder holster. At the next stop, Charles Mallory gripped Vogel’s right arm. “We’ll get out here,” he said.

Vogel stood like a robot. Mallory exited with him, keeping a hand on his arm. They emerged onto a busy street a couple of blocks from the river. Mallory guided them toward the first cafe he saw, taking charge as if he had the weapon. He wanted to stay in the open until Vogel had told him what he needed to know.

“Right here. Have a seat, Ivan.”

They sat beside each other at a small round table. Charlie smiled. He was counting on Vogel wanting to avoid a scene. He stared at his strange red lower lip, making Vogel look away.

“My interest—our interest—is strictly business, Ivan. All I want is information. I presume that both the Russians and the Americans would like to find you at this point, wouldn’t they?”

Vogel watched him with hooded eyes, breathing heavily. “Look, I’m just consultant these days,” he said. “I have no big secrets to tell anybody.”

“You’re more than a consultant.”

“I run a small business.”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out about me?”

Charles Mallory shrugged.

“I’m research scientist, not politician,” he said, speaking suddenly with a more pronounced Russian accent. “I’m biologist. I do contract work. I don’t set policy.”

“Based on your curriculum vitae, I would venture a guess that you don’t keep particularly strong loyalties either, or use a great deal of discrimination in determining who you work for.”

“I work for myself.”

The waiter came and Charlie ordered them two Coca-Colas.

“You’ve also recruited scientists who were part of Biopreparat, haven’t you?”

He observed Mallory with a new interest. “Maybe,” he said. “Thousands of scientists lose jobs. Victims of program. What you expect them to do? Sell flowers?”

“Sounds like you’re trying to justify something.”

“I have nothing to justify. I don’t know what you think, but it’s wrong. I’m doing nothing.”

“You’ve been producing viral properties in your labs, haven’t you? Genetic engineering projects. Bad things.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. We were presented with flu. Virulent strain of flu. Asked to produce vaccine and anti-virals. Medicines, for research projects.” He was acting defiant, but Mallory sensed, from the way his voice thickened, that he was scared, too.

“In huge volumes. Millions of doses, I understand.”

Vogel seemed momentarily surprised. “You misunderstand. We manufacture nothing here. This is research lab.”

“Maybe. Your lab has contracts with distributors, though, doesn’t it? You hold the license. It’s a tight circle.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You have contracts with half a dozen distributors, under different names. Your operation is deliberately non-descript, low key. But you’re being subsidized with enormous amounts of investment money. Not all of the deals, I suspect, are legal.”

“That is not true.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow your cover, Ivan, so long as you give me the information I ask for.”

“We’re an independent laboratory. I don’t reveal clients.”

Vogel’s eyes were nervous. He was considering his options, Mallory sensed, which weren’t very many at this point.

“The production of this vaccine suddenly increased dramatically over the past several months, I’m told.”

“That isn’t my business. I told you.”

“It is, though. You license the product. And you’ve also made it your side business, as well. Arnau Inc.? If your investors found out about that, you would be in trouble, I suspect.”

Now there was alarm in his eyes. So Keller had been correct.

“Your father did this, too,” Charlie said, keeping a conversational tone. “He worked for Vector. The largest illegal military bio-weapons operation in the Soviet Union. He was there when the anthrax leak occurred in 1979.”

“Yes,” Vogel said, and Mallory saw that he had hit a nerve. “I’m not a believer in the Soviet Union anymore. Or Russia. I won’t defend them.”

“Something like that’s about to happen in Africa now, though, on a much larger scale. Not accidentally.”

“I know nothing about what you say. I’m just a researcher and businessman.”

“You were recruited some time back by a pharmaceuticals research lab in the United States, and from there you set up this business. You know exactly what’s going on, and you’re planning to benefit handsomely from it.”