Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (34 page)

That made Nouria Besseghir a widow—a widow whose French birth entitled her
to a modest welfare allowance from the French government. In the eyes of the
thieves, pimps, and rogues who essentially ran the affairs of the Cite des
Quatre Milk, that small weekly stipend also made her a valuable commodity.
Any one of them would be only too glad to offer her his dubious
“protection”—at least in return for the chance to plunder her body
and her money.

Her lip curled in disgust at the thought. Allah only knew that her dead
husband, Hakkim, had been no great prize himself, but even so she

would rather die than be fondled and then robbed by
the human parasites she saw lurking all around her. And so Nouria walked
quickly whenever and wherever she went outside her tiny apartment, and she
always kept her gaze fixed firmly on the ground before her. Both she and her
daughter also wore the hijab — the loose-fitting clothing, including
head scarf, that marked them as Muslim females of decency and propriety.

“Mama, look!” Tasa exclaimed suddenly, pointing up into the blue
sky above them. The little girl's voice was excited and shrill and piercing. “A big bird! Look at that big bird flying up there!
It's enormous. Is it a condor? Or perhaps a roc? Like
one from the stories? Oh, how Papa would have loved to have seen it!”

Annoyed, Nouria shushed her daughter sternly. The very last thing they
needed to be right now was conspicuous. Still walking fast, she pulled on
Tasa's wrist, tugging her along the littered pavement. It was too late.

A drunk with a matted beard and acne-pitted skin reeled out from a nearby
alley, blocking their path. Nouria gagged as a choking stench of sour liquor
and unwashed flesh rolled over her. After her first appalled look at this
shambling wreck, she lowered her gaze and tried to walk around the man.

He staggered closer, forcing her to step back. The drunk, with his eyes
bulging, coughed and spat and then moaned —uttering a low, guttural groan that
was more dog-like than human.

Disgusted, Nouria grimaced and stepped back farther, pulling Tasa with her.
Part of her ached that her beautiful little girl was being exposed to so much
filth and degradation and depravity. Why, this cochon was so intoxicated
that he could not even speak! She averted her eyes from the sight, wondering
what she should do to get away from this stinking brute. Should she scoop Tasa
up in her arms and make a dash back across the street? Or would that only draw even
more unwanted attention?

'Mama!“ her daughter murmured. ”Something awful is happening to
him. See? He's bleeding all over!"

Nouria looked up and saw with horror that Tasa was right. The drunk

had collapsed in front of her, falling onto his
hands and knees. Blood trickled onto the pavement, dripping from his mouth and
from the terrible wounds spreading along the length of his arms and legs.
Strips of flesh peeled away from his face and dropped to the ground, already
turning into a reddish, translucent slime. He moaned again, quivering wildly as
spasms of agony wracked his disintegrating body.

Stifling her own terrified screams, Nouria backed away from the dying man,
putting her hand over her daughter's eyes to shield her from the gruesome
sight. Hearing more anguished howls behind her, she whirled round. Many of the
other men, women, and children who had also been out along the street were on
their knees or curled up in agony-screaming, groaning, and clawing at themselves in a mindless, twitching frenzy. Dozens were
already affected. And even as she watched, more and more fell prey to the
invisible horror stalking their neighborhood.

For several seemingly endless seconds Nouria only stared at the hellish
scene around her in mounting dread, scarcely able to comprehend the magnitude
of the slaughter happening right before her panicked eyes. Then she gathered
Tasa in her arms and ran, scrambling toward the nearest doorway in a frantic
effort to find shelter.

But it was already far too late.

Nouria Besseghir felt the first burning waves of pain rippling outward from
her heaving lungs, spreading with every breath through the rest of her body.
Shrieking aloud in fear, she stumbled and fell—trying vainly to cushion her
daughter against the impact with arms that were already disintegrating,
shredding apart as skin and muscle tissue dissolved, pulling away from her
bones.

More knives of fire stabbed at her eyes. Her vision blurred, dimmed, and
then vanished. With the last traces of nerves remaining in what was left of her
once-pretty face she felt something wet and soft sliding out of her eye
sockets. She sank to the pavement, praying for oblivion, praying for a death
that would stop the pain w racking every part of her flailing,

shuddering body. She also prayed desperately for
her daughter, hoping against hope that her little girl would be spared this
same suffering.

But in the end, before the final darkness claimed her, she knew that even
this last prayer had been denied.

“Mama,” she heard Tasa whimper. “Mama, it hurts ... it hurts
so much. . . .”

Rural Virginia

Terce leaned back against one dark-paneled wall of Burke's small study. His
posture was relaxed, almost casual, but his gaze was alert and focused. He
still held the Beretta he had taken from the CIA officer. The 9mm pistol looked
small in his large gloved right hand. He smiled coldly, sensing the growing
unease of the two Americans sitting motionless under his watchful eye. Neither
Hal Burke nor Kit Pierson was used to being wholly subject to the will of
another. It amused Terce to keep these two senior intelligence officials so
completely under his thumb.

He checked the small antique clock on Burke's desk. The last burst of
gunfire outside had died away several minutes ago. By now, the spies his men
were hunting should be dead. No matter how good their training was, no pair of
FBI agents could possibly be a match for his own force of ex-commandos.

A voice crackled through his radio headset. “This is Uchida. I have a
situation report.”

Terce straightened up, hiding his surprise. Uchida, a former Japanese
airborne trooper, was one of the five men he had assigned to drive the two
intruders into the ambush carefully laid along the north edge of Burke's farm.
Any reports should have come from the ambush party itself. “Go
ahead,” he replied.

He listened to the other man's tale of utter disaster in silence, keeping a
tight rein on his rising anger. Four of his men were dead, including McRae, his
best tracker and scout. The ambush he had planned had been rolled up from the
flank and wiped out. That was bad enough. Worst of all was the news that the
shocked survivors of his security team had completely lost contact with the
retreating Americans. Hearing that his forces had found and disabled two
automobiles belonging to the intruders was small consolation. By now they were
undoubtedly in touch with their headquarters, reporting whatever they had heard
and requesting urgent reinforcements.

“Should we pursue?” Uchida ended by asking.

“No,” Terce snapped. “Fall back on your vehicles and await my
instructions.” He had been overconfident, and his team had paid a high
price as a result. In the dark, the odds of regaining contact with the
Americans before they received help were too low. And even in this open, unpopulated
country the sound of so much gunfire was bound to draw unwelcome attention. It
was time to leave this place before the FBI or other law-enforcement agencies
could begin throwing a cordon around it.

“Trouble?” Kit Pierson asked icily. The
dark-haired woman had detected the anger and uncertainty in his voice. She sat
up straighter in the armchair.

A minor setback,“ Terce lied smoothly, working hard to conceal and
control his growing irritation and impatience. All of his training and
psychological conditioning had taught him the uselessness of the weaker
emotions. He waved her back down using a small, almost imperceptible, gesture
with the Beretta. ”Calm yourself, Ms. Pierson. All will be made clear in
due time."

The second of the Horatii checked the desk clock again, mentally
adjusting for the six-hour time difference between Virginia and Paris. The call
would come soon, he thought. But would it come soon enough? Should he act
without receiving specific orders? He pushed the thought away. His instructions
were clear.

His secure cell phone buzzed abruptly. He answered it. “Yes?”

A voice on the other end, distorted faintly by encryption software and by
multiple satellite relays, spoke calmly, issuing the command he had been
waiting to hear. “Field Experiment Three has begun. You may proceed as
planned.”

“Understood,” Terce said. “Out.”

Smiling slightly now, he looked across the room at the dark-haired FBI
agent. “I hope you will accept my apology in advance, Ms. Pierson.”

She frowned, clearly puzzled. “Your apology? For what?”

Terce shrugged. “For this.” In one smooth
motion, he lifted the pistol he had confiscated from Burke and squeezed the
trigger twice. The first shot hit her in the middle of the forehead. The second
tore straight through her heart. With a soft sigh, she slumped back against the
blood-spattered back of the armchair. Her dead slate-gray eyes stared back at
him, eternally fixed in an expression of utter astonishment.

“Good God!” Hal Burke gripped the arms of his chair. The blood
drained from his face, leaving it a sickly hue. He pulled his horrified gaze
away from the murdered woman, turning to the big man towering over him. “What. . . what the hell are you doing?” he stammered.

“Following my orders,” Terce told him simply.

“I never asked you to kill her!” the CIA officer shouted. He
swallowed convulsively, plainly fighting down the urge to be sick.

“No, you did not,” the green-eyed man agreed. He placed the
Beretta gently on the floor at his feet and pulled Kit Pierson's Smith &
Wesson out of his pocket. He smiled again. "But then, you do not truly
understand the situation, Mr. Burke. Your so-called TOCSIN was only a blind

for a much larger operation, never a reality. And
you are not the master here—only a servant. An expendable
servant, alas."

Burke's eyes opened wide in sudden horrified understanding. He scrambled
backward, trying desperately to stand up, to do something, anything, to fight
back. He failed.

Terce fired three 9mm rounds into the CIA officer's stomach at point-blank
range. Each bullet tore a huge hole through his back, spraying blood, bone
fragments, and bits of internal organs across the swivel chair, desk, and
computer screen behind him.

Burke fell back into his seat. His fingers scrabbled vainly at the terrible
wounds in his abdomen. His mouth opened and closed like a netted fish gasping
frantically for breath.

With contemptuous ease, Terce reached out with his foot and shoved the
swivel chair over, spilling the dying CIA officer onto the hardwood floor. Then
he strode over and dropped the Smith & Wesson in Kit Pier-son's
blood-soaked lap.

When he turned around, he saw Burke lying motionless, curled inward on
himself in his final death agony. The tall green-eyed man reached into his coat
pocket and brought out a small plastic-wrapped package with a digital timer
attached to the top. Moving swiftly, with practiced ease, he set the timer for
twenty seconds, triggered it, and set the package on the desk—just below the
racks of Burke's computer and communications equipment. The digital readout
began counting down.

Terce stepped carefully around the CIA officer's body and out into the
narrow hallway. Behind him, the timer hit zero. With a soft whoosh and a sudden
white incandescent flash, the incendiary device he had planted detonated.
Satisfied, he walked outside and pulled the front door closed behind him.

Then he turned. Flames were already visible through the nearly closed drapes
of the study window, dancing and growing as they spread rapidly across the
furniture, books, equipment, and bodies inside. He

punched in a preset number on his cell phone and
waited patiently for the reply.

“Make your report,” ordered the same calm voice he had heard
earlier.

“Your instructions have been carried out,” Terce told him.
“The Americans will find only smoke and ashes—and evidence of their own
complicity. As ordered, my team and I are returning to the Center at
once.”

Several thousand miles away, sitting in a cool, darkened room, the man
called Lazarus smiled. “Very good,” he said gently. Then he swung
back to watch the data streaming in from Paris.

PART FOUR

Paris

The leader of the Center's surveillance team, Willem Linden, flipped quickly
from image to image on the large monitor set up in front of him, swiftly
checking the TV pictures transmitted by the sensor packages mounted on
lampposts around La Courneuve. The images were nearly identical. Each revealed
long stretches of pavement and avenues strewn with small, sad heaps of
slime-stained clothing and whitened bone. Shots from several cameras, those
deployed around the perimeter of the target area, showed wrecked police cars,
fire trucks, and ambulances—most with their engines running and their roof
lights still flashing. The first emergency crews, rushing to answer frantic
calls for help, had driven straight into the invisible nanophage cloud and died
with those they had come to aid.

Linden spoke
into his mike, reporting to the distant Center. “There appear to be no
survivors among those outside.”

“That is excellent news,” the faintly distorted voice of the man
named Lazarus said. “And the nanophages
themselves?”

“One moment,” Linden
said. He entered a series of codes on the keyboard set up before him. The TV
pictures disappeared from his screen, replaced by a series of graphs—one for
each deployed sensor package. Every gray box included an air scoop and
collection kit designed to gather a representative sample of the nanophages
falling through the air around them. As the white-haired man watched, lines on
each graph suddenly spiked upward. “Their self-destruct sequences have
just activated,” he reported.