“What do you want?”
Charles Mallory stood and motioned for them to go. He wanted to get away from people now, to see what Ivan Vogel would do when cornered. He was beginning to sense that Vogel was about to make a desperate move. That if they stayed at the table, Vogel would draw his weapon.
“Let’s go. I changed my mind about the sodas.”
They walked out into the street, Charlie steering Vogel by the arm. At the end of the block, they turned toward the river. It was breezy and cooler beside the water, and the air smelled of baking bread. They followed the concrete path above the bank to an empty wooden bench, where he nodded for Vogel to sit.
Charlie remained standing. He looked up and down the river, thinking for a moment about his father, holding back an anger roiling inside of him.
“Just pretend I’m a rival company,” he said. “Manufacturing a similar product. And say a small portion of our product was tampered with, holding up approval for distribution, and we suspect industrial espionage.”
“I would know nothing about it,” Vogel said, obviously confused.
“Maybe not. But we both know what’s going to happen in Africa. You do have a vulnerability, Vogel. I’m sure that’s occurred to you. You betrayed your country’s secrets to become involved with this thing. Not once, but twice. You have enemies who would like to see you go down. I suspect you see your side business as your ticket out of all that. Everyone has a dream. Right?”
“No. You have wrong information.”
Then Vogel made the mistake that Charlie had been waiting for. He lifted his right hand toward the inside of his jacket, and at the same time began to stand. Mallory lunged forward, grabbing his wrist as Vogel’s fingers prepared to grip his gun. He squeezed Vogel’s hand and bent it back. The gun fell to the bench. Vogel tried to resist. Charlie snapped his fingers with his right hand, breaking the smallest one at the joint.
Vogel screamed, a surprisingly high-pitched sound, and doubled over in pain. Fell to his knees.
“Sorry,” Charles Mallory said, catching his breath. “Please, stand up.” He retrieved the handgun, a German- made .22-caliber Arminius revolver. A decades-old gun, probably, in near-mint condition. “The good news is you’re going to live, Ivan, as long as you tell me what I want to know. Just sit there on the bench. I’m in something of a hurry.”
Vogel sat on one end of the bench, facing the river, whimpering. Mallory sat on the other end.
He kept the handgun out of sight, but ready.
“I need to know exactly what’s going to happen. Specifics.” Vogel started to speak, his eyes full of pain and protest, his arms shaking. But before he could say a word, Mallory stopped him. “You couldn’t have a business on the side if you didn’t know all the details, Ivan. What you’re doing now is what you did in Maryland and what you did in Russia: producing genetically altered viral microbes, processing them into aerosol delivery systems. I know all that. I just need to know the time frame.”
“How did you find me? I was told I was protected.”
“You weren’t. You were left very vulnerable. Answer my questions: Who is your boss? Who places the orders?”
“Mr. Priest,” he said, wincing in pain. “In Mancala.”
“Where in Mancala?”
“Mungaza.”
“Okay. Where is it going and what’s the time frame?”
“After it leaves here, it goes to an airfield. It’s flown to Africa.”
“Mungaza?”
“Nearby. Yes. A private airfield.”
“What’s the timetable?”
“It’s already there.”
“
“Yes,” Vogel said.
“What’s the time frame?”
“I don’t know. That isn’t my business.”
Mallory shoved the gun in his waisteband, stood, and grabbed Vogel’s left hand, applying pressure until he broke his other pinky finger at the joint. Vogel screamed, and then he buckled forward and flailed in the grass. Mallory waited for him to sit up again.
“I really don’t enjoy doing this,” Charlie said. “But just to let you know what’s going to happen: I’m going to go through your ten fingers and break them one by one until you answer. Okay? I don’t want to do that. And it wouldn’t be particularly strategic on your part if you let me. But that’s where we are.”
He crouched down and began to bend back the ring finger on Vogel’s right hand.
“Three days from now,” Vogel said. “It’s what I’m told. But I’m not involved in that end of it.”
“Three days from now or three
“Nights.”
October 5.
Charlie stood. “What else do you know?”
“That it’s too late to do anything. It’s already in place.”
“The viral properties have all been sent?”
He nodded.
“How?”
When Vogel hesitated, Charlie repeated his question.
“Four-hundred-gallon tanks that attach to the planes.”
“Delivered when?”
“Five days ago.”
“Okay. Good. And what’s the target?”
“I don’t know that.”
“Yes, you do.”
Charles Mallory reached for the ring finger on his right hand. Vogel pulled away, spitting on Mallory’s hand.
“The country,” he said. “That’s what I’ve heard.”
“What do you mean?”
“The whole country.”
“The nation of Mancala.”
“Yes.”
“How does it feel being involved in something like that, Ivan?”
“I’m not involved. I’m an independent contractor. A cog in a wheel. I don’t know anything. I hear things, just like you do.”
Charles Mallory nodded. “I need to get a plasmid Destabilization Propellant Gun in a hurry. If you can help me do that, I’ll walk away and let you live. Okay?”
Vogel blinked rapidly.
“Will you tell me where I can get one?”
“Yes.”
He did. Charlie surveyed the river path. No one was in sight. “Ivan?” Vogel looked up at him, his face wilting with pain. Charlie shot him in the lower right leg. That would put Ivan Vogel in a hospital, anyway. Make him easy to find. He didn’t want to risk him escaping again.
Walking away, Charlie made another call on his cell phone, pressing “144,” the number for emergency ambulance service. Then he tossed the phone into a trash can. Seven minutes later, paramedics discovered Ivan Vogel lying on the pavement beside the bench, moaning in a high voice, bleeding profusely from a wound to his right leg.
