Pandora, but also of the cult’s contacts, the whereabouts of other possible laboratories, warehouses-everything we’d need to know in order for the CIA to raid all of these facilities and shut them down permanently.”
“Yes, I do.” She then looked at Levickis and Dobbs. “But I’ll need special clearance to enter the Safe.”
“You’ll have it.” Dobbs got up and brought over a series of printouts from his laptop and placed them on the opposite bed, side by side, to form a layout. Parris and Levickis stood up to take a closer look at the layout as Dobbs pointed things out with a pen as he glanced at Parris. “Have you actually seen the area around the Safe?
“No, I just said that I don’t have clearance for that area.”
“This is where you’ll get off the elevator.” Walsh pointed out the area with a pen. “You’ll enter a room with a guard sitting at a small monitoring station. From that room you’ll access the Safe directly, but you’ll need an access card and you’ll also have to punch in a four-digit code into a keypad.”
Parris turned to Dobbs. “What about cameras? Someone’s sure to recognize me and know that I’m not supposed to be there.”
“Levickis and I will be in control of that. We’ll actually be underground, but outside Hexagon, where we’ll gain access to the mainframe computer and to all of the cable and video feeds throughout Hexagon.”
Levickis turned to Dobbs. “We’ll loop a segment.”
“Correct. So anyone else watching will only see a recording of the security guard instead of you,” Dobbs replied.
With his index finger, Levickis drew a circle around the area of the guard’s workstation. “But we’ll allow her to be seen by the security guard from his monitoring station in his room, of course. We’ll just block out the other viewing areas.”
“And we’ll still be able to maintain contact with you via your earpiece, until you enter the Safe,” said Dobbs. He referred to the microprocessor-controlled receiver that was small enough to nestle in the ear canal. One would need a flashlight to find it. Inside Parris’s jacket lapel would be a voice transmitter of the same size. The transmissions would be burst UHF, making them next to impossible to track. Even if one were to track it, the transmissions would still be scrambled.
“What do you mean, until she enters the Safe?” asked Walsh.
“Because it really is a safe,” Parris said. “It has high-end anti-surveillance equipment which will interfere with all communication to the outside of it, knocking out both audio and video. I’ll be on my own from that point on, until I leave.”
Dobbs then handed her a disc. “This SCSI CD contains a virus which will eliminate all the firewalls and other security features that prevent hackers on the outside from breaking in. It’ll actually trick Hexagon’s system into thinking that the security protocols are still active. Think of it as unlocking a window from the inside.”
Walsh then pointed to the disc as he turned to Parris. “Once uploaded, Dobbs and Levickis will hack into the system and download all the info we need.”
“Once this is done, the CD will automatically reset all of the security protocols,” said Dobbs.
Parris played with the disc in her hand. “Anything else I need to know?”
Levickis cut in. “Yeah, don’t damage the earpiece.”
Chapter 22
Fox was forced to sit down in front of a round table. The ninjas had no intention of allowing him to get any closer to Marx and literally shadowed his every move. Tanaka stood opposite him, leaning against the side of the booth next to her. She got up and walked towards Fox, stopping about five feet from his table’s edge.
Dr. Marx rested her drink on another table close by, just as a momentary blast of loud music caught his attention. When Fox looked at the entrance to the cocktail lounge, he saw a waiter enter with a glass on a tray.
“Care for a drink?” asked Dr. Marx.
“I’ll pass.”
“I insist.” Marx motioned to the waiter to put the drink down in front of him. She then crossed her arms.
There was a moment’s blast of loud music as the waiter left the lounge. Fox put the glass to his lips and tilted it towards him, but didn’t drink any of it. For all he knew, she had slipped something into his drink. He needed to be in fighting form.
“So where do you fit into all of this? No, don’t tell me. You plan to sell Pandora to the highest bidder and beat Ares at their own game.”
By the way she raised an eyebrow, Fox got the impression that he had insulted her.
“Sell? Pandora belongs to me. The only reason Ares ever got it is because I let them take it.”
“You mean to tell me you just gave it away?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I had no choice but to let them have it.” Marx paced slowly from side to side. “It would’ve been difficult to weaponize it on American soil while keeping my cover at the CDC. Thanks to Valerik, I was able to let Ares do the job instead. When the ice man was accidentally discovered two years ago in the Arctic, I was once again given the chance to continue my work. I extracted a Pandora sample from the ice man and gave it to Valerik, who then gave it to Ares. Valerik told Ares of his retrieval of the perfect weapon.”
Fox sighed. “And Ares fell for it.”
Marx smiled. “Of course they did. Valerik and I kept in touch so that I could monitor its progress from a safe distance. Ares never really knew the origin of Pandora. All along they thought that they were dealing with a weapon that was created in the CDC labs several years ago. The Americans had a chance at controlling Pandora because of my genius. I remember when the Defense Department needed me back then. When my project was terminated, so was my necessity. Do you know how it feels to be someone’s puppet?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“Really? You, an instrument of your government’s political ideals? Please, you’re a puppet and don’t even know it.” Fox sensed the iciness in her voice, as she uncrossed her arms. “You’re just like my parents, the way they lived their secret lives. My father worked for the CIA, whereas my mother for the KGB. Guess what?”
Fox remained silent.
“My father gets killed in a Soviet air raid over an Afghan rebel training camp, thanks to my own mother. I never knew this at the time, obviously. It’s ironic that I later accepted an offer from the Defense Department to work on a bio-weapon that was to be used against enemies of the state, giving me the chance to avenge my father’s death. Now I was the one keeping secrets from my mother. All of a sudden, the US signs the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act. I show up at work one morning to discover that all of my research was destroyed, then get handed a letter stating that my services were no longer needed.”
Fox lowered his head. “Who are you to compare me to your parents? You don’t know anything about my life.”
“On the contrary. I know that at one point in your life you wanted to stop serving your home country to settle down. The things that love can do to a man.”
Fox’s stare would’ve frightened the average person. But not Marx, she was way too psychotic. In fact, Marx’s smile grew the longer Fox stared at her. “Do you still dream about her, or am I correct to assume that they’re actually nightmares? I know you must have them from time to time.”
She’d caught Fox off guard.
Don’t let her gain control over me, whatever I do.
Marx took a sip of her drink. “Come on, it’s no secret that you were once a Warrant Officer in the Canadian Joint Task Force Two, and you quit to settle down and take a teaching position. You were even about to get married. All of that was cut short when a so-called traffic accident took your bride-to-be away from you.”
She’s trying to rattle me. This could be a precursor before she administers the Clarity drug. Just as Parris described.
“You must have spent several sleepless nights blaming yourself for not seeing it coming. Knowing that it was something you could’ve prevented. Am I right?”
Fox looked away from her so that her eyes would have less effect on him.
