“Circle back,” Lia told the driver. “And find a place where you can take a leak.”
“I don’t have to go.”
“You will.”
Dean’s head felt as if it were about to explode. The package truck they’d put him in not only found every pothole or crack in the pavement, but the springs and shock absorbers seemed to have been removed. Sitting on a bare metal floor, he had a hard time maintaining his equilibrium. Now as the truck came to a stop he slammed against the panel so hard he felt his eyes smack against their sockets. Instead of the darkness of the back, he saw rivulets of yellow and white light.
“Out,” said one of the men who had met him.
“Yeah, okay, out, go. Right,” said Dean, pushing upward. One of the men grabbed his arm and helped him toward the back. Except for his grip, he was very gentle.
The sunlight blinded Dean temporarily. He waited for them to blindfold him, but instead they prodded him toward a brick building that sat behind a macadam walkway on his right.
“No blindfold?” he asked his minders, hoping the Art Room was listening.
The minders didn’t respond. He walked ahead to the building as they trailed. The door opened just as he arrived, and a short, slightly overweight man of about sixty appeared, his thick glasses hanging off his nose and his oily black hair tousled as if he had left in a hurry. The man moved quickly, obviously anxious to get away — and then touched Charlie on the arm as he passed.
“You’re with me,” said the man. He spoke with what seemed like a British accent.
“Uh.”
“This way now,” said the man, already moving along the asphalt path.
Dean glanced at the two minders, but their faces were blank. Not knowing what else to do, he followed the man to a BMW. The man gestured toward the passenger seat. When they were inside, he said, “Dr. Dean, a pleasure to meet you.”
“I’m a little confused.”
“I understand that your employer did not fill you in before he sent you overseas. That is unfortunate.” The man gestured with the ignition key, as if it were a piece of chalk and he was in the classroom. “Please put your seat belt on.”
Dean complied and the man put his key into the ignition. The accent wasn’t British exactly, but he had spent some time there, at least enough to wash the majority of the rest of his accent from his voice.
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“To get the antidote.”
“Draw him out,” whispered Rockman in Dean’s ear. “Ask him some questions about who he is.”
“How do I know you’re the person I’m supposed to talk to?” asked Dean.
The man chuckled. He had a squashed freckle the size of a ladybug on his right chin, a birthmark of some type and undoubtedly a good identifier. But Charlie wasn’t equipped with a video fly; they’d worried it might be detected.
“Do you really think, Doctor, that anyone else in Austria would know who you were?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “Maybe you’re with the CIA or something.”
“Hardly.”
“Who then?”
“I’m a friend. Call me Hercules.”
“Not too conceited, is he?” said Rockman. “Ask him, ‘Why?’”
Good God, shut up, thought Dean. I’m not stupid.
“You’re the second man I’ve met with that name. Knew a fellow named Hercules Jones, little guy, feisty. His mother had no idea what she was doing when she gave him that name. He fought all the time as a kid. Plays a cello in an orchestra now, I believe.”
“Please, Dr. Dean.”
“I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a Ph.D.”
“Oh, that’s a bit of ridiculous formality, isn’t it? You could have your degree anytime you choose — Kegan hold you back?”
“I owe him a lot.”
“Hardly.”
“You offering me a job?”
Hercules chuckled. The man was about as far from being a hero of Greek legend — or any legend — as could be imagined.
“The antidote is where?”
“I have a place to take you to,” said Dean. “But whether the antidote is there, I haven’t a clue.”
The man turned to him and smiled. “Tell me about the difficulty of cloning DNA that originates in bacteria.”
“Uh, what do you mean? The technical aspects? Mapping?”
“Good,” said a new voice in Charlie’s head. He recognized it as the voice of one of the biology experts.
“I mean cloning bacterial DNA,” said the man.
“Once it’s properly sequenced,” said Charlie, “I don’t know that there’s more of a problem with bacteria than with anything else. I’m not an expert and I’m not saying the process is easy, but in theory, DNA is DNA. The literature — I guess I’m not entirely sure what you want to know.”
Hercules’ face clouded.
“We use a dye process generally at the first stage to do the mapping,” said Charlie. “Is that what you mean? Um, do you want me to walk through the lab process?”
“MegaBACE 4000:384 capillary DNA sequencer,” said Chaucer. “They call it ‘Marvin’ at the Hudson Valley lab. There’s a smaller set, too — Little Mo.”
“You want Mo’s blueprint or Marvin’s or what?” asked Dean. “What are you looking for?”
Hercules put the car into reverse without answering.
“That didn’t go well,” said Lia, sitting in the car a mile and a half south of the industrial complex.
“It’s all right,” said Chaucer, one of the bio experts. “It’s not clear what Hercules wants. He’s got to be more specific. Dean is answering exactly the way I would.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring.”
“Lia, we have a tentative ID on Hercules,” said Telach. “I’m going to beam some of the information down to you. He’s a Greek national, a scientist who’s had some trouble with the government and his university — he’s been working with a group of Georgians. The Soviet variety, not the Atlanta.”
“Not SVR?” The Russian foreign intelligence service — the initials came from the Russian words — was a successor to the KGB’s foreign spying operations. Among its important duties was the study of scientific breakthroughs; Lia had fenced with them before.
“I don’t know. We’re still sorting it out,” said Rockman.
Lia keyed the handheld so she could get the photo, which had been taken by the Fokker at long-range. They’d obviously used the birthmark on the man’s chin, to help cinch the ID.
“All right, they’re pulling out of the lot,” said Rockman. “Everybody get into position and we’ll trail them again. Hang on — helicopter is coming around.”
Lia heard Rockman tell the Fokker pilot to maintain his position in an orbit southwest of the city. She flipped back to her situational overview and saw that Dean was starting to move.
“Another helicopter,” warned Telach. “Good, more lease data to get through — I need some registration numbers.”
“Okay, everybody, keep doing exactly what you were just doing. Don’t stop; don’t react,” Lia told her ground team. “They’re going to spin around the block a few times and see if anybody moves. That’s why there’s another helicopter.”
Lia got out of the car and went to the trunk. The driver started to get out, but she waved him back in. “I can handle this myself. Just wait. Keep track of where they’re driving around.”
