Thirty seconds later the CIA Hip roared over the top of Curtis’ position. The Russian pilots had made the mistake of staying on the ground and their big transport helicopter exploded in a ball of flame and flying pieces of rotor as two high-powered rockets found their mark.
Amazing what you could buy in the second-hand arms bazaars these days, Curtis thought, but any feeling that he might still get out in one piece was cut short as a withering burst of fire cut through the trees. One of the Russian soldiers had spotted the Toyota.
Curtis got away three quick bursts to make the Russians think twice about storming his position, but as he watched the Russian soldiers spreading out below him, another machine gun started firing from a ridge to his right.
‘Shit!’ Curtis’ first thought was that the Russians had somehow managed to get a gun group into position above him, but then he realised they would have needed a second helicopter to do it so quickly. Another burst of fire from the machine gun echoed around the high mountain peaks and to his surprise, Curtis discovered that whoever was above him was firing at the Russians. A short while later he could see the Russian soldiers withdrawing back down the mountain, carrying several casualties. Through his binoculars Curtis picked out three men, high on the ridge above him, black scarves around their faces and bandoliers of ammunition over their shoulders.
As the CIA’s big Hip flared on to the landing zone, Curtis and Dolinsky broke cover, Curtis glancing back towards the ridgeline as he doubled over to get underneath the chopper blades. The pilot hauled on the collective, and as they cleared the snow-covered pines Curtis could see three men moving back along the track towards the border with Xinjiang. He felt a chill run down his spine, wondering if the operation had been compromised and again pondering the possibility that Dolinsky might be a double agent.
As word filtered back along the border that Dolinsky had been safely extracted, many more similar groups started to return to where they came from. Kadeer had no way of knowing which part of the border Curtis would use, but he knew that with over sixty small groups watching there had been a reasonable chance they would be ready to assist him.
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Curtis,’ Tom McNamara said, speaking to Curtis by satellite phone from Washington to the big US air base in Kyrgyzstan.
‘Kate’s in the intensive care isolation ward at CDC. A Gulf Five will arrive shortly to bring Einstein and yourself back to Washington and I’ll have a plane on standby for you to fly to Atlanta if you want.’
‘Thanks, Tom, I’d appreciate that.’ To lose a scientist at the start of this operation would raise some very awkward questions, but as Curtis struggled with the devastating news, he realised that the awkward questions were only part of it. He suddenly felt very alone, realising that maybe, just maybe, there was something really special about Kate that he didn’t want to lose just yet.
CHAPTER 51
T he lights on the thirty-seventh floor of Halliwell Pharmaceuticals pierced the pre-dawn darkness surrounding Stone Mountain and Dekalb County. Dr Richard Halliwell had spent the night in the private wing of his opulent office suite. Simone was used to his odd hours and she was asleep in the main bedroom. Her perfume and the faint smell of sex still hung in the air.
Halliwell had risen at 3 a.m. and his waking thoughts had turned to his first critical experiment in his plan to counter the rising threat of China. In a little under an hour he was expecting the first delivery from the pound man. The security command centre had been warned to expect a pre-dawn arrival of urgently required chemicals for experiments that were ‘in the national interest’.
He smiled a cold, humourless smile. The dossiers on his guards always made interesting reading, and Halliwell was intimately acquainted with the contents of each of them. The personnel in the Halliwell security command centre were well paid and bonuses were tailored to meet individual needs. Some of those needs were way outside the norm and Halliwell, a master at latent blackmail, was very happy to facilitate them. As a result, even mundane and routine events like delivery schedules at Halliwell were never discussed outside the compound and Richard Halliwell was very confident that his security was much tighter than Washington where the beltway leaked like a sieve. His small but ruthlessly efficient team of security guards boasted more than a few ex-special forces and FBI officers among their number, all of whom for one reason or another had fallen foul of their previous employer. In a final hiring interview applicants would be confronted with how much the company knew about them. An unwritten requirement for being offered a job in Halliwell Security was a personal history or lifestyle that no applicant would ever want made public.
Halliwell sat down at his desk, deep in thought, but a siren wailing in the distance prompted him to look at his watch. 3.45 a.m. He unlocked a desk drawer and retrieved a dun-coloured envelope. Meticulous in attending to any detail, he double-checked the total of US$10,000 inside the envelope in used, unsequential $100 bills. This morning there would be two deliveries. The low-life pound man had done well, he thought, as he shrugged on his black leather jacket. Halliwell put the envelope in an inside pocket, walked across to his personal lift and pressed the button. It was programmed to remain stationary at his office when it wasn’t being used; the doors opened immediately. He inserted a key and pressed another recently installed button. Simone knew that it took the lift to a tunnel and the Level 4 laboratories, but Halliwell had told her that it was an area he didn’t want her exposed to, nor did he want the entrance discussed with anyone. Like many other secrets that she was very good at keeping, this one was safe. In Simone Carstair’s world, knowledge was power.
The lift descended swiftly and silently. Halliwell had personally designed the Level 4 complex and the small laboratory to which he was now headed was almost completely isolated from the main hot zone. A steel door, hidden behind a large cabinet, connected Halliwell’s lab to the main complex, but the door was permanently locked, and Richard Halliwell was the only one who knew of its existence. Even the rear loading dock had been carefully designed to blend in, shrouded with thick vegetation and sealed off by a razor-wire fence that looked as if it was part of the main perimeter fence.
Halliwell stepped out of the lift into a small basement. He deactivated the door alarm and punched in the combination to the lock that secured the steel entrance door to the tunnel. He flicked on the tunnel lights, locked the door behind him and strode toward the far end. The tunnel was nearly a kilometre long, and Halliwell’s footsteps echoed eerily on the polished concrete floor. Ten minutes later he punched another combination to unlock the access to the specially built receiving bay. A rush of cold air flooded in as he opened the loading dock. In the distance he could see the headlights of the city pound van as the driver picked his way over the dirt track that skirted the perimeter fence. Richard Halliwell picked up the red phone that connected directly to the security command centre.
‘Certainly, Mr Halliwell,’ was all the officer on duty said, and the heavy steel back gates moved silently and slowly.
CHAPTER 52
I mran woke from his doze in the total isolation ward where they’d transferred Kate after the accident. The small hospital had been constructed in a separate building on the campus of the Centers for Disease Control. Accidents in Level 4 labs were very rare but they were almost always fatal, and this ward had the same level of protection as the laboratories. Imran, like the doctors and nurses, was in his spacesuit, his regulator connected to a coiled red air hose dangling from the ceiling of the ward. He looked across at Kate and mouthed a silent prayer to Allah. She was tossing and turning in her sleep, beads of perspiration covering her pale forehead.
The door opened and the duty sister shuffled in followed by Curtis O’Connor. Both were fully suited and Imran
