2022 (18 page)

“What kind of action? How’d you find
out?”

“Like I’m going to tell you! For all I know,
you’re behind the whole thing and are just trying to find out what
we know. Sorry, Richard, the information flow can go only one way
here. You can send me what you have if you want.”

“You’re being foolish. I’m on your side for
God’s sake. I can help you.”

“I think you and your foundation have done
enough already. Unless you have something else to say, or happen to
be in the middle of a national park and need to be rescued like
your employees, this conversation is over.”

He threw down his phone and wondered how much
Sue and her team knew and what they were going to do next. Thinking
that it couldn’t hurt anything, he sent the lab address to the
DIR.

Richard also called his friend who was
leading the Mars mission program and said he’d be sending a box of
vaccine for a strain of flu bug one of his researchers thought may
soon become widespread. He suggested giving the vaccine to the crew
and others essential to the lift-off, and his friend agreed.

Then he divided the vaccine from Olivia and
had an assistant ship it to the other two operating villages as
well as to the director of the Mars mission.

The pointer hovered over the “Purchase”
button on the screen before Mikhail finally clicked it, completing
the acquisition of a one-way ticket back to his home country in the
Middle East. The flight would leave in three days, slightly earlier
than he originally had planned, but after Richard’s call
threatening to remove him, he knew he had to speed up his whole
timetable.
Finally, after years of hard work, I’ll be the leader
of a new beginning. There’s nothing that can stop this now.

He updated the description of a sale item on
an auction site and pulled the end date in one week so that it was
only three weeks away. The description was a short, encrypted
message telling the people who were to release the Virtuesh-B virus
that everything was going according to plan and the auction’s end
date was the day of release. Failure to update the description
every two days would signal his comrades that they should release
the virus immediately.

He picked up his phone and called Hope. “How
are things going in Percipience? Anything on Olivia and Diane?
You’ve found them I assume?”

There was a slight hesitation in the reply,
“I haven’t seen them. If they do show up, what do you want me to
do?”

“Kill them.”

“Like brother, like sister.”

“Right—I’ll call as soon as I know when I’m
coming your way with your payment.”

Diane found Olivia in the research lab. Her
hand shook as she put the phone down on the counter. “I just got a
call from Mikhail on Hope’s phone. The voice disguise obviously
works because he thought I was Hope, and I was just ordered to kill
us. He also openly admitted to ordering the murder of my
brother.”

“Maybe we should go to the police after all,”
Olivia said. “This is getting beyond our control. I’ll probably go
to jail for my part in Virtuesh, but we need to put an end to this.
We haven’t heard anything from Richard either.”

“I’m not sure about going to the police, but
I do think we should get out of here. How about Spencer and the
DIR? Surely he must have some connections.”

When Olivia called Spencer to disclose the
latest events, he told her that the DIR had been watching Mikhail.
And they just found out that he had booked a one-way plane ticket
that would leave in about two days. They were coordinating a raid
on his office to coincide with his departure.

“I wonder what leverage they have, or how
they’ll convince Mikhail to call off his plans.” Olivia said.

“It’ll have to be something big,” Diane said
“And I don’t want to miss him getting busted. I want to see him pay
for my brother’s death. We should take my RV and drive up
there—that way he won’t know that we're coming.”

“I like that idea. I think we should call
Richard and update him on the plan, but we can make that call while
we are on the road. Let me get some vaccine and then we can
go.”

********************

Richard sat in his office feeling pleased
with the week’s progress. He was uncertain about near-future
happenings and decided to play it safe. A large staff had been
brought in to hasten deliveries of equipment, books, raw materials,
and food to the villages. He authorized overtime for finishing key
construction activities. It was both an exhausting and expensive
exercise, but now all of the critical items were in place at all
the village sites.

The serenity of the moment was shattered by
the ring of his cell phone. He was reassured to hear the voice of
an old acquaintance whose position in the Australian government had
served his philanthropic interests well and who now greeted him
warmly.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been in my
neck of the woods. I thought I’d call after hearing certain things
mentioned around the parliament buildings that you should know
about. That is if you don’t already know.”

Richard immediately knew this couldn’t be
good news. “What are you referring to?”

“I heard this morning that there’s a push to
have your wilderness retreat in our outback shut down.”

“What on earth for?”

“We’re getting a lot of pressure from the
American government. They’re saying this is part of a big terrorist
plot, and that word alone here makes people edgy.”

Sue and the DIR came into Richard’s mind. “I
hadn’t heard this, but I have a good idea who’s behind it. There’s
absolutely nothing on the site related to terrorism. You can go
over anytime you want, inspect everything. You’ll find
nothing.”

“You don’t have to convince me, but this
isn’t my department, and I have no control over it.”

“Have you heard of any kind of
timetable?”

“Soon. As little time as a week.”

“I appreciate the heads-up, and I’ll do what
I can to stop it.”

He put his head back on his chair. After
years of hard work and a great deal of money his dream was close to
realization; now, it was about to be taken away from him. If the
villages were shut down, the effects would be disastrous. The same
actions were likely being taken at the other village sites as well,
and he knew something had to be done in a very short time to
protect his plans.

He was contemplating his options when he was
interrupted by a phone call from Olivia. She explained to him the
news about Mikhail and the timetable that the DIR had for stopping
him. This news left Richard with only one possible course of action
that he could take to try and salvage his plans. With apprehension,
he picked up his phone and punched in a code.

“I need you to execute the plan we discussed,
and it must be done within the next twenty-four hours,” he
said.

“That doesn’t give us much time. All
fifty?”

“As many as possible, but concentrate on the
critical ones.”

“It’ll be done.”

“Good. It’ll take me a day or so to get to
where I need to be. Make sure the equipment I’ve requested is set
up. I’ll courier your final payment, twenty doses, as
promised.”

Mikhail admired the ocean view from his
office window and was grateful for the rare sunny day.
Probably
the last time I’ll see this
.
Another twenty-four hours and
I’ll be home with my family
. He had packed personal mementos
from the office into one of the suitcases that sat by the door. A
limousine would arrive in an hour to take him to the airport.

He told his receptionist he would be at
Richards’s mansion for the next few days; in a moment of
generosity, he suggested that she take a few days off in his
absence.

He checked once more to make sure the flight
was on time. As he scanned flight schedules, the door to his office
flew open and several soldiers in full battle gear burst in with
weapons drawn. They were followed by Sue and Spencer, also carrying
guns.

He jumped to his feet. “What’s going on?”

“It’s over, Mikhail,” Sue said.

“If we’re talking about the same thing, I
hardly think so.”

“This is no time for games.” She raised her
gun to his face. “We know about your virus and we’re going to stop
you.”

He sat down slowly and smiled at her.
“There’s nothing you can do. Torture or kill me, whatever you wish.
It’s too late now.”

“Would it change your mind to know that all
the vaccine you shipped—all two million doses—were intercepted and
replaced with a placebo?”

He didn’t respond or move in his chair.

“Actually, better than a placebo—we threw in
a low radioactive substance just so we could identify who took it
and is part of your operation.” She reached into her pack and
pulled out a device as she moved towards him. She passed the device
over his arm and it created a series of small beeps.

“Works great,” she said, “Now, not even you
would design a scheme to destroy the world’s population without
including a failsafe. Stop this now or everyone, including your
friends and family, will be killed.”

He remained silent.

“When is the virus supposed to be released?”
Spencer asked.

“At the same time around the globe,” Mikhail
said calmly. “Two days from now if I don’t send out a specific
Internet signal. But I’m not going to stop it.”

Sue looked at him uncomprehendingly. “You’re
willing to kill everyone on this planet? Including your friends and
family?”

He managed a smile. “That will not happen.
While you may have sabotaged part of my plan, I still have a few
last cards to play. My family and friends are already vaccinated
from a small batch of vaccine I had made when the virus was
produced. One of Richard’s precious little villages is not that far
away from them. They can start again there. It’ll take longer, but
the end result will be the same.”

“Take him away,” she said. “Spencer, go with
them and have them put him in the same room they used to
interrogate you. We’re not done with him yet.”

********************

Diane and Olivia arrived at headquarters
directly after lunch. Instead of the usual guards at the front
gate, they were stopped by two fully armed soldiers. One approached
the RV while the other trained his rifle on Diane.

She told the soldier who they were and that
they were there to meet with Spencer. Following a brief radio
exchange, the soldier allowed them to proceed to the front
entrance. Spencer met them and filled them in on what had happened
with Mikhail.

“What’re you doing with the real vaccine that
you intercepted?” Diane asked.

“That’s just it,” he said. “Everything is
going to crap. We’ve started testing it to make sure it’s the real
deal, and if it checks out, we were going to distribute it to a
group of people that have already been selected. We thought we had
more time, but the virus is being released in a couple of days.
We’re screwed if we can’t get Mikhail to call it off.”

A limousine pulled up to the front entrance
of the building, and they looked to see who would emerge.

The limousine door opened and Richard stepped
out, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. He reached into his
jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. He walked up to
Spencer, Diane, and Olivia.

“I assume Sue is here—where is she?” he said
to the group.

“Who are you?” Spencer asked.

“I’m the head of this foundation. Take me to
her now. We have no time to waste.”

Spencer hesitated then decided to let Sue
take over. They led Richard inside to one of the main-floor
conference rooms where a temporary command center had been set up.
Sue immediately recognized him.

“What’s he doing here? Guard, arrest this
man!”

“Wait! I’m here to help!”

The guard came up behind him and handcuffed
his wrists. He then did a quick pat down and discovered that
Richard was carrying a small revolver in his jacket pocket.

“For my personal protection,” Richard said to
the unasked question.

“If you’re here to help, then call off this
virus attack,” Sue said.

“I’ve told you already that I had nothing to
do with what Mikhail had planned. I just found out about it a few
weeks ago myself, and I tried to warn you then.”

“Don’t feed me any crap,” she said. “We found
out about it months ago, so you must have known.”

“All right—I’ll admit that I started all of
this virus stuff, but it was set up purely as a defense for the
villages. That bastard went behind my back and built a
destroy-the-world scenario. I’m not even sure why or what his
motive might be.”

“It’s true,” Olivia said.

“Who are you?” Sue asked.

“She’s the microbiologist I told you about,”
Spencer said. “One of the people Mikhail tried to make disappear
last week.”

Olivia interrupted. “Look, I wasn’t sure what
part Richard has in this whole scheme. But we interrogated him
using a truth serum, and I’m pretty sure that he is not involved in
Mikhail’s plan.”

Sue shook her head, “I guess things can’t get
any worse. Guard, release him.”

“Thanks,” Richard said as he took back his
handgun. “Tell me what’s happened here so far.”

Sue and Spencer told him what had occurred
when they captured Mikhail. They said he was currently downstairs
in the interrogation room.

“I may be able to persuade him,” Richard said
to Sue. “Can you and I chat for second, alone?”

Sue raised her eyebrows, but got up and the
two went into the hall.

When they returned, she said, “Spencer, take
Richard to Mikhail. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Can we come too?” Diane asked. “We may be
able to help since we have some knowledge of the virus and
vaccines.”