The Devil on Chardonnay (7 page)

“Actually, we know more than that,” Joe replied, no dry humor, and he had those wrinkles that Boyd had first noticed on Diego when they’d talked about Ebola.  “He’s well financed.  He knows the world community of infectious-disease experts well enough to recruit a journeyman researcher like Jacques.  He’s been patient, waiting two years for Ebola to surface again in the Congo.  What worries me the most is the effort he’s made to keep the secret.  If his researcher hadn’t panicked and broadcast the news to the entire world, Jacques and Franz would still be dead on that island, but nobody would know it except him.  He could burn the buildings and the next storm would wash or blow everything away.”

“A vaccine for Ebola would be worth a lot,” an officer interjected.

“Yes, millions,” Joe responded.  “If you were a research company trying to turn a buck on a vaccine, your profit would come when you announced your discovery and sold your idea to a large pharmaceutical company to bring to market.  Or, you could sell stock at this point.  Secrecy only helps if others are on the same trail. But nobody wants anything to do with Ebola, so this guy is on the trail alone, yet secrecy is still his top priority.”

“So, he’s not going to sell a vaccine,” the officer responded. 

“Not to the general public.  Someone else wants it, and is paying for it.  That brings us to the dark side of the business we’re all in: biologic warfare.  Virtually every dictator taken down in the Arab Spring uprisings had a biological ace up his sleeve. Saddam Hussein used it against the Kurds between Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it eroded his prestige in the world so he didn’t use it again. Mubarak had some that he didn’t use. Khadafy had some that he didn’t use. Assad had some that he didn’t use.  Using a biological weapon destroys whatever reputation a government has, so it’s pretty much a last-ditch option, and not a good one.”

 “Are we jumping to a conclusion that this vaccine is to be used in biological warfare?”  Ferguson asked.

“That’s the only use for a secret vaccine that I can think of. With something as dangerous as Ebola, you wouldn’t need a sophisticated delivery system to spread it, so it could look accidental.  If it looks accidental, the strongest disincentive to using a biological weapon is taken away.  The second disincentive to using bioweapons is that your own people can get the illness, which is removed if you have a vaccine.  If it’s a secret vaccine, now you could quell an uprising or occupy territory and it just looks like your soldiers are foolhardy, fastidious hand-washers going into a natural outbreak of a dangerous disease.”

“And your reputation remains intact,” the officer in the back finished the sentence. 

“Exactly. And if the world finally figures out you have the vaccine, you can claim you cooked it up in response to the natural outbreak and retain your reputation – enhance it, actually, as you’d have an ace nobody else had.  A secret vaccine to Ebola would be better than a nuclear arsenal.”

“If it worked,” Ferguson said darkly.

“It worked on some of the monkeys, but not all, so he’s not done yet,” Joe said. “And that’s really the big danger here. He has more work to do, and he’s playing with something that’s been hiding in that Congo jungle for a long time.  There is a lot about Ebola we don’t know.  Jacques’ note stated the virus went dormant after the first two groups of monkeys.  That’s a pretty big assumption from the data he had but, if he’s right, Ebola is more dangerous than we ever thought.  We need to heed Jacques’ warning.”

“Back to clients, for a moment,” the officer in the back interjected.  “We ought to keep that open, list as many possibilities as we can.  If we assume it’s a government and it isn’t, we might miss the chance to find him.”

“Good point,” Ferguson said, turning to look back at the rest of the room. 

“One thing that came up while we were in quarantine in Diego,” Boyd said.  “Raybon Clive and Davann Goodman, the two disabled veterans we contracted to fly us in and out of the island, have been in Mombasa for a couple of years.  They said the jihadists are thick there, and they all see themselves as holy warriors bent on returning the whole planet to righteous rule under the Prophet’s law.  Imagine what a boost it would give them if they were immune to Ebola and the infidel was not.”

Ferguson shook his head and sighed.

“What about an attempt at worldwide extortion, a doomsday weapon so terrible it will bring the world to its knees unless we send someone all the gold in Fort Knox.  That’s the plot in most of the James Bond movies.”

“That makes a better plot for a movie than it does in real life,” Joe said.  “How would you spend the money?  You’d have to have some way to hide and then spend a huge amount of cash.  Money laundering is a clandestine, intricate business. 

“Still, we’ll put that on the list.”  Joe said, writing on a legal pad. 

They added some more possibilities over the next 10 minutes, and then Ferguson rose to close it out.

“Governments, terrorists, criminals. It looks like anyone would like to get their hands on some Ebola vaccine, so we’ll have our work cut out for us. Homeland Security has alerted the air-freight companies and the post office to watch for anything that looks like a biological specimen.  The CDC is going to start spot checking all the companies licensed to do any kind of biological work, but that’s a slow process with no guarantee of success.  Boyd, go over to the Secret Service office and get your Special Agent status reactivated, then go to France and talk to Jacques’ boyfriend, Henri.  The embassy has already contacted him and told him his buddy is dead and that we want to talk in more detail before releasing the body.  He should cooperate.”

Joe said, “The notebook is gas sterilized.  It’s harmless now.  The body will be transported back to France in a sealed casket when you give the word.” He opened his briefcase and tossed the bloodstained notebook onto the table.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Paris

“Jacques spoke English.  I didn’t say he preferred it,” Henri said impatiently.

Things had started amicably enough.  Henri spoke perfect English, so Boyd had arrived alone, dropped off by the military attaché from the embassy.  Henri had welcomed him into the small apartment with stiff formality.  Henri was bulky but moved with the grace of an athlete.  He was dressed in tight jeans and a black turtleneck shirt that seemed to accentuate the spread of his midsection.  Boyd apologized for the delay in returning Jacques’ body and assured him that precautions were necessary as the disease Jacques was working with was so dangerous.  Henri knew that already.  Boyd had then asked why Jacques had written the note in French – a major blunder, as the French are very proud of their language.

“I’m sorry,” Boyd responded to Henri’s flash of anger.  “I’m working on this case and I’m not really a trained interviewer.  I’ll just give you the notebook so you can read the message and then you tell me what you think I need to know.” 

Boyd opened his briefcase and handed the notebook to Henri.

Wiping his eyes as he read, Henri was absorbed for several minutes as he read and re-read the note.  Then he put the notebook on the table between them and walked to a window looking out on a tree-shaded street in front of his home and stood there.

Boyd tried to imagine Jacques, as he was before the gulls got to his eyes and lips, here with Henri. How did that tattoo of the leopard fit into this overstuffed apartment with the modern art on the walls and the soft, muscular man sobbing at the window?   Did Henri know Jacques had murdered two assistants –Willi in the village where he first captured Ebola, and Franz on the island?  Was Jacques’ relationship with Henri spousal, business or revolutionary?  It seemed spousal and, probably, business.  Boyd was leaving the third possibility open until he heard more from Henri.

Giving Henri some space, Boyd excused himself and went into the bathroom.  Taking his time washing his hands he looked into the mirror and began to think about his own life.  Certainly, there was nothing there to hold up as an example to young lovers.  There was a woman in Colorado whom he’d asked to share his life.  It never occurred to him that she might ask him to give up flying.  She wouldn’t even consider leaving her tenured faculty position to take something in South Carolina so he could go back on active duty and have a better chance at getting into the next war in the first wave.  When they recognized that neither would give up the one thing the other required, their interest waned.  They still rang each other’s bells, but it was no longer music.  He hadn’t even called to let her know when he’d left Shaw for Africa. 

“I have some pictures,” Henri said as Boyd re-entered the room.  “The letters he wrote from Africa, some things we bought together, like that painting over there.  And this,” and he laid the notebook back on the table between them.  His eyes were red but dry.

“So, he’d been gone for a while?”

“Two years.  He was a researcher at the Pasteur Institute.  Jacques was working on a vaccine for some disease in swine and was invited to present part of his work at an Institute symposium on new vaccines.  He’s not a full scientist, he never completed his thesis, but he was very good and always worked with the top scientists.  At the end of the day, an American approached him and complimented him on his work.  Jacques thought he was going to make a pass and was about to brush him off when he asked if Jacques would consider a job offer.”

“Mosby?”

“Yes.  The man, Mosby, said Jacques would have to move to Africa for a year, maybe more.  When Jacques expressed interest, Mosby made him pledge secrecy until they could meet again.”

“And, did they?”

“No.  Mosby called the next day and offered Jacques three times his salary at the Institute plus expenses and a bonus if he was successful.”

“Never met him again?”

“Never.  The money was wired into our account at the bank every month.  While Jacques was in Africa, he lived entirely off his expense account.  He came home for a few days every two months.”

“What was the job?  Did Jacques know what he would be doing?”

“Oh, yes.  It was clear from the beginning what he’d be doing.  He was to move to Kinshasa and wait for an outbreak of Ebola.  If he got there before the authorities and was able to get some blood without being detected, or traced, he would get a bonus of 500,000 Euros.”

“What’s that in dollars?”

“Six hundred forty six thousand at today’s exchange rate,” Henri said without hesitation. 

“That was fast.”

“Sir, I’m a banker,” Henri said with a modest shrug.

“Did Mosby pay up?”

“Yes he did.  Then he offered another 500,000 if Jacques could isolate the virus from the blood.  He had Jacques travel to Victoria, Seychelles, from Kinshasa.  From there a mysterious charter boat captain met him in the hotel bar, mentioned Mosby’s name and the next day he sailed out to the island.  Everything was already there.”

“There was another man on the island,” Boyd said, pausing to try to be as tactful as possible. 

“Franz.”

“Yes.”

“His assistant, a friend from the Institute.  Jacques hired him to speed up the work.”

“And one in Kinshasa.”

“Willi.  They were lovers,” Henri said darkly.

“Did you ever go out there, to the Seychelles?”

“Yes.  Jacques isolated the virus quickly, in a few weeks.  Then he separated RNA and freeze dried both.  Then he had to infect monkeys with it and bring slides of monkey tissue along to prove it was Ebola.  A boat picked him up and took him back to Victoria.  Mosby called him at the hotel and told him to wait a month, so I came out.”

“Why wait a month?”

“To see if he got sick.  Jacques thought Mosby was staying nearby, watching.  Mosby was very careful and very patient.  He called the hotel every two weeks.  Coffee?”

“Yes, thanks,” Boyd said, contemplating that Henri was involved in this from the beginning.  “Then what?”

“Mosby wanted Jacques to take some of the RNA, cut it up and splice part of it into something else and try it as a vaccine.  He offered a million Euros for that.  That was much harder to do, so Jacques hired Franz to go out there and help him.”

“That’s when trouble started?”

“Yes, he was there for a few months and then I got a call from your embassy that he’d been killed.”

“Did he get the first two bonuses, a million Euros?”

“Yes.  It came by electronic transfer just like the monthly expense money.”

“Any way to know where it came from?”

A grin crossed Henri’s face as he poured boiling water into a shiny glass vacuum-filter coffeemaker. 

“I was wondering when we’d get to that.  The money came through Citicorp in New York City.  I talk to someone there every day in my job at the bank.  My contact there knew where it was coming from.  I just casually asked one day and he told me.  The money originated from the Planters National Bank in Charleston, South Carolina.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Pamela Prescott

“Boyd, we’ve got an FBI agent on the way down.  She just called from the airport.     Could you guys clean up just a bit and, check in the bathroom, she might need to, ah, whatever.”  Ferguson rushed into the office from the Pentagon, speaking as he tossed his briefcase onto his desk. 

“Right, boss,” one of the officers said as they began stuffing donut bags and pizza boxes into the wastebaskets in the meeting room. 

“She has a law degree, and the Director’s office said she was the best they have at finding money that people want to hide,” Ferguson said, picking up coffee cups and taking them to the sink in the corner. Boyd had never seen him do that. 

The front door opened and they hurried as conversation indicated a visitor at the reception desk. 

“Miss Prescott,” the receptionist opened the door.

All eyes were on the door.  All activity stopped.

“Smells like a fraternity house.”  Pamela Prescott stood there smiling.  Her brown hair was braided into a businesslike bun and she wore an expensively tailored business suit.  She carried a small, discrete briefcase.