The Bone Chamber

Marc had to duck through the low doorway as he entered the apartment. It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust to the dark interior after the brightness of the sun on the white stucco before he could really see Lisette. He’d known she was going to be here, but even so, the sight of her after all these months hit him like a rock. She looked past him, out the door, then back. “How was your flight?”

Not How are you? How have you been? Good to see you’re still around. Just How was your flight? “Rough.”

Lisette nodded. If she was disappointed that it was he and not Griffin or even Giustino who had come, she didn’t mention it. “We heard about Tex.”

Marc nodded, unable to discuss it. Thinking about Tex all night, he hadn’t slept, and the short doze on the quick flight to Tunisia did little to ease his exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then reached out, touching his arm.

The feel of her cool fingertips against his skin shocked him, and he looked down at her hand, an onslaught of memories of nights together flashing through his mind. He shoved those thoughts aside, gave a brisk nod, then asked, “Where are the others?”

Moment over. She dropped her hand. “They’re already on point, waiting to hear from us,” she said, leading him to a high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, where crimson Oriental rugs on the polished terra cotta floors gave the space a look of elegance. An open window let in a soft breeze, bringing with it scents of lavender and sage from the herbalist’s shop below. “Rafiq set out for the compound the moment we received word. He should be back any moment. This is big. A bioweapons lab in Adami’s Tunisian warehouse, one he allegedly uses to ship food and first aid to war-torn countries. Should your information prove accurate, it will be the first time we’ve ever had knowledge of their activities beforehand.”

“His warehouse aside, what have you heard on your end?”

“The same as you,” she said, motioning for him to have a seat on the divan. “The Black Network is active again. We’ve heard it’s centered in Rome and Washington, D.C.” Aptly named, the Black Network was the deadly enforcement arm of a vast and powerful network of criminals, politicians and businessmen, all board members of the Bank of International Commerce Trade and Trust, or BICTT, one of the largest and most profitable-yet illegal- world banks. While BICTT had been shut down after an almost successful run on the U.S. banking industry twenty years ago, a good portion of the money was never recovered and the power brokers who ran it-Adami being one of them-were still in business. They met under the guise of Freemasonry, which gave them a way to conduct their meetings in secret.

“What are they after?” he asked, watching as she took a small kettle of mint tea from a samovar. She poured the steaming liquid into glasses that contained pine nuts. “Besides brokering information and selling weapons, that is.”

“You mean you haven’t heard the rumor of la terza chiave,” she said, handing him a glass of the tea.

“Is it possible you mean C3?” She gave him a blank look, and he added, “Ci-Tre. We heard it the other night at Adami’s villa. Someone mentioned it in conjunction with P-Due.”

“Propaganda Due,” Lisette said. “You think this C3 is a clandestine Masonic lodge in the same vein?”

“After the way Tex’s body was desecrated, there is no doubt in my mind.”

“I do not believe la terza chiave, this third key, has anything to do with P-Due, which is, to our knowledge, still running under Adami’s watchful eye. But that Adami mentioned C3, it confirms our suspicions that he is after the third key, perhaps for the very reasons we feared. We have overheard chatter that this third key is a means of unlocking the sources of plagues not seen on earth for two thousand years. Biblical plagues.”

“Isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

“According to the academic studies I have read, the possibility is very real. Does the actual source of these plagues still exist? That I do not know.”

“If it does exist, what is the possibility that these sources could remain viable after that long?”

“If contained under the right conditions, it is a very real threat. And what makes it particularly dangerous is that, if true, these plagues have remained untouched for that many years and have survived, whether dormant and intact in their original form or evolving in a protected environment for so long…The possibility is great that it will devastate a population, since there are no vaccines for something that hasn’t been seen on earth in two thousand years.”

“Is that why Adami kidnapped Dr. Balraj?”

“Undoubtedly. Balraj is probably the world’s foremost expert on the evolution of plagues. If Adami is able to gain his cooperation-and under duress, who is to say Balraj won’t cooperate?-Adami is that much closer in his attempt to create a super-plague.”

“Do you think he has any chance of succeeding?”

“Unfortunately, yes. His past attempts to genetically modify the plagues to better control them have failed. We’re certain that’s why Dr. Zemke was targeted. Her expertise was on genetic engineering.”

“You do not believe she’s dead? Killed like the others?”

“We have yet to find Dr. Zemke’s body, and right now we believe she is worth more to him alive than dead. Her expertise fits with his plan to genetically mutate these plagues and combine his current bioweapons with this new, or rather much older plague, to increase its virulence.”

The news worried Marc. They knew Adami intended to create bioweapons, but this was much worse than any of them had dared imagine. “And if he is successful?”

She stared into the cup of tea before looking up at him, her dark eyes reflecting her worry. “Past attempts to weaponize plagues and viruses have been largely unproductive, due to heat and shock from explosives, never mind simple exposure to sun. And any biomatter that survived and found its target in the population was quickly contained, because the disease did not spread fast enough. But if Adami is able to develop this super-plague- genetically engineer it so that it will survive the heat, retain its virulence, in fact make it hypervirulent-he could wipe out whole cities before the world is able to do a thing. Adami is trying to create a hypervirulent, antibiotic-resistant, airborne plague. Airborne pneumonic plague would spread from person to person, and by the time the first fever appeared, it would be too late. Within days, thousands would be dead and the remaining population would be dying. The only answer would be to isolate the city, restrict travel so that no one could leave-hope no one has left-then let the population die out.”

“And since he is eliminating all the microbiologists one by one, if we uncover what he has done, we can’t control it?”

“That is one of the most frightening aspects about this. By the time the world caught up with what was happening, by the time they even realized the need for massive antibiotics-if such measures even worked with this new super-plague he intends to develop-it would be too late. Even more frightening is this: What if Adami’s scientists can’t control it? If he is effectively eliminating anyone in the free world who has a hope at containing such a threat, and he controls the scientists who have developed this new strain, who will put it back in the bottle once it is released?”

“Then let’s hope this information we’ve gotten about his lab being here in Tunisia is accurate. We can at least eliminate that part of the threat. What is your next step?”

“The warehouse is located near a small private strip at a compound south of here, used by Adami’s Tunisia corporation. Should they suspect that we are on to them, they could possibly move their lab and we are back to square one, so whatever we do, we’ll have to move quickly. We’ve had our eye on this place since you called. They’re very meticulous about who they let in, turning anyone away who is not on their schedule of deliveries. If we can’t figure out a way to get to that schedule and get the proper IDs, we won’t be able to pass the guards into the compound.”

“And what is it you need me to do?”

She sipped her tea, then smiled that smile he knew so well. “Break into their security building and get a copy of the schedule, of course.”

19