Black Order (40 page)

Why buy the cow and all that…

Plus his tastes leaned toward unripened fruit.

He had a new girl in the house, little Aina, eleven years old, from Nigeria, black as pitch, just like he liked them, better to hide the bruising. Not that there was anyone to question him. He had a manservant, Mxali, a Swazi brute, recruited from prison, who ran his household with discipline and terror. Any problems were dealt with swiftly, both at home and when needed elsewhere. And the Waalenbergs were only too happy to help any troublemakers disappear. What became of them once they were dropped off by helicopter at the Waalenberg estate, Gerald would prefer not to know. But he had heard rumors.

Despite the midday heat, he shivered.

Best not to ask too many questions.

He parked his car in the shade under a leafy acacia tree, climbed out, and strode down the gravel path to the side door that led to the kitchen. A pair of gardeners hoed the flower bed. They kept their eyes down as Gerald passed, as they were taught.

The smell of roasting hens and garlic whetted his appetite. His nose and stomach drew him up the three wooden steps to the open screen door. He entered the kitchen, belly growling.

To the left, the stove door was open. The cook knelt on the planks, head in the oven. Kellogg frowned at the odd tableau. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t the cook.

“Mxali…?”

Kellogg finally noted the underlying smell of seared flesh behind the garlic. Something protruded from the man’s arm. A feathered dart. Mxali’s weapon of choice. Usually poisoned.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

Kellogg backed away, turning to the door.

The two gardeners had dropped their hoes and had rifles pointed at his wide belly. It was not uncommon for small marauding bands, filth from the black townships, to raid farms and outlying homes. Kellogg held up his arms, skin going cold with terror.

A creak of a board drew him around, half ducking.

A dark figure stepped out of the shadows of the next room.

Kellogg gasped as he recognized the intruder—and the hatred in his eyes.

Not marauders. Even worse.

A ghost.

“Khamisi…”

12:30
P.M
.

“So what exactly is wrong with him?” Monk asked, thumbing where Painter had disappeared into one of the neighboring huts with Dr. Paula Kane’s satellite phone. The director was coordinating with Logan Gregory.

Under the shadowy eaves of another hut, he shared a log with Dr. Lisa Cummings. The medical doctor was quite the looker, even when covered with dust and a bit haunted around the eyes.

She turned her attention to Monk. “His cells are denaturing, dissolving from the inside out. That’s according to Anna Sporrenberg. She’s studied the deleterious effects of the Bell’s radiation extensively in the past. It causes multisystem organ failure. Her brother, Gunther, suffers from a chronic version of it, too. But his rate of decline is slowed by his enhanced healing and immunity. Anna and Painter, exposed as adults to an overdose of the radiation, have no such innate protection.”

She went into more details, knowing Monk shared a background in medicine: low platelet counts, rising bilirubin levels, edema, muscle tenderness with bouts of rigidity around the neck and shoulders, bone infarctions, hepatosplenomegaly, audible murmurs in the heartbeat, and strange calcification of distal extremities and vitreous humor of the eyes.

But ultimately it all came down to one question.

“How long do they have?” Monk asked.

Lisa sighed and stared back toward the hut into which Painter had vanished. “No more than a day. Even if a cure could be found today, I fear there might still be permanent and sustained damage.”

“Did you note his slurring…how he dropped words? Is that all the drugs…or…or…?”

Lisa glanced back to him, her eyes more sharply pained. “It’s more than the drugs.”

Monk sensed this was the first time she admitted this to herself. It was stated with dread and hopelessness. He also saw how much she suffered for it. Her reaction was more than just a concerned doctor or a worried friend. She cared for Painter and plainly struggled to hold her emotions in check, to guard her heart.

Painter appeared in the doorway. He waved Monk over. “I have Kat on the horn.”

Monk rose quickly, checked the sky for choppers, and crossed to Painter. He accepted the satellite phone, covered the mouthpiece, and nodded to Dr. Cummings. “Boss, I think the woman could use some company.”

Painter rolled his eyes. They were bloodshot, splotchy with hemorrhages in the sclera. He shaded his sore eyes and crossed toward the woman.

Monk watched from the doorway and lifted the phone. “Hey, babe.”

“Don’t
babe
me. What the hell are you doing in Africa?”

Monk smiled. Kat’s scolding was as welcome as lemonade in the desert. Besides, her question was rhetorical. She had surely been debriefed.

“I thought this was supposed to be a babysitting assignment?” she continued.

Monk merely waited, letting her vent.

“When you get home, I’m locking you…”

She continued for another long, scrambled minute.

Finally, Monk got a word in edgewise. “I miss you, too.”

A blustering sound subsided into a sigh. “I heard Gray is still missing.”

“He’ll be fine,” he assured her, while hoping the same.

“Find him, Monk. Do whatever it takes.”

Monk appreciated her understanding. He intended to do just that. She asked for no promise of caution. She knew him too well. Still, he heard the tears in her next words.

“I love you.”

That was caution enough for any man.

“I love you, too.” He lowered his voice and slightly turned away. “
Both
of you.”

“Come home.”

“Try to stop me.”

Kat sighed again. “Logan is paging me. I must sign off. We’ve a meeting scheduled for zero seven hundred with an attaché at the South African embassy. We’ll do what we can to put pressure on from here.”

“Give ’em hell, babe.”

“We will. Bye, Monk.”

“Kat, I—” But the line had disconnected. Damn.

Monk lowered the phone and stared at Lisa and Painter. The two leaned together, talking, but Monk sensed it was more the need to be close than any real communication. He stared down at the phone. At least Kat was safe and sound.

12:37
P.M
.

“They were taking me to an internment cell down below,” Dr. Marcia Fairfield said. “For further questioning. Something must be worrying them.”

The three of them were back up in the room on the first-floor landing. The guard who had manhandled Fiona still lay unconscious on the floor, blood dribbling from his nostrils.

Dr. Fairfield had quickly related her story, how she was ambushed in the field, attacked by the Waalenbergs’ pets, dragged away. The Waalenbergs had learned through channels about a possible role she had with UK intelligence. So they staged her kidnapping as a fatal lion attack. Her wounds certainly still looked swollen and raw. “I was able to convince them that my companion, a game warden, had been killed. It was all I could do. Hope he made it back to civilization.”

“But what are the Waalenbergs hiding?” Gray asked. “What are they doing?”

The woman shook her head. “Some macabre version of a genetic Manhattan Project. That’s as much as I can tell. But I think there is some other scheme in the works. A sideline project. Maybe even an attack. I overheard one of my guards talking. Something about a serum of some sort. Serum 525, I heard them say. I also heard Washington, D.C., mentioned in the same context.”

Gray frowned. “Did you hear of any timetable?”

“Not exactly. But from their laughter I got the impression whatever was going to happen would be soon. Very soon.”

Gray paced a few steps, knuckling his chin.
This serum…maybe it’s a biowarfare agent…a pathogen, a virus…
He shook his head. He needed more information—and quickly.

“We have to get into those basement labs,” he mumbled. “Find out what’s going on.”

“They were taking me to that internment area,” Dr. Fairfield said.

He nodded, understanding. “If I pose as one of your guards, that might be our ticket down there.”

“We’d have to hurry,” Marcia said. “As it is, they must be wondering what’s keeping me.”

Gray turned to Fiona, ready for an argument. It would be safest if she stayed hidden in the room, out of sight. It would be hard to justify her presence alongside a prisoner and a guard. It would only arouse suspicion and attention.

“I know! No place for a maid,” Fiona said, surprising him yet again. She nudged the guard on the floor with her toe. “I’ll keep Casanova here company until you get back.”

Despite her brave words, her eyes shone with fear.

“We won’t be gone long,” he promised.

“You’d better not be.”

With the matter settled, Gray grabbed his rifle, waved Dr. Fairfield toward the door, and said, “Let’s go.”

In short order, Gray marched Marcia at gunpoint into the central elevator. No one accosted them. A card reader restricted access to the subterranean levels. He swiped Ischke’s second key card. The lighted buttons for the sublevels changed from red to green.

“Any idea where to start?” Gray asked.

Marcia reached out. “The greater the treasure, the deeper it’s buried.” She pressed the bottommost number. Seven levels down. The elevator began to descend.

As Gray watched the floors count down, Marcia’s words nagged.

An attack. Possibly in Washington.

But what type of attack?

6:41
A.M
. EST
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Embassy Row was only two miles from the National Mall. Their driver turned onto Massachusetts Avenue and headed toward the South African embassy. Kat rode with Logan in the backseat, comparing final notes. The sun had just risen, and the embassy appeared ahead.

Its four stories of Indiana limestone shone brilliantly in the morning sunlight, highlighting its gables and dormers typical of the Cape Dutch style. The driver pulled up to the residence wing of the embassy. The ambassador had agreed to meet them in his private study at this early hour. It seemed any issues concerning the Waalenbergs were best dealt with out of the public’s eye.

Which was fine with Kat.

She had a pistol in an ankle holster.

Kat climbed out and waited for Logan. Four fluted pilasters supported a carved parapet with the South African coat of arms. Beneath it, a doorman noted their arrival and opened the glazed front door.

As second in command, Logan led the way. Kat kept a step or two behind, watching the street, wary. With as much money as the Waalenbergs wielded, she did not trust who might be in their private employ…and that included the ambassador, John Hourigan.

The entrance hall opened wide around them. A secretary in a neat navy business suit ushered them across the hall. “Ambassador Hourigan will be down momentarily. I’m to take you to his study. Can I bring you any tea or coffee?”

Logan and Kat declined.

They were soon ensconced in a richly paneled room. The furniture—desks, bookcases, occasional tables—was constructed of the same wood. Stinkwood, native to South Africa, so rare it was no longer available for commercial export.

Logan took a seat by the desk. Kat remained standing.

They didn’t have long to wait.

The doors opened again, and a tall, thin man with sandy-blond hair entered. He wore a navy suit but carried his jacket over one arm. Kat suspected the casual approach was pure artifice, meant to make his manner appear more amiable and cooperative. Like meeting here in his private residence.

She wasn’t buying it.

As Logan made introductions, Kat surveyed the room. With a background in the intelligence services, she imagined the conversation here would be taped. She studied the room, guessing where the surveillance equipment was hidden.

Ambassador Hourigan finally settled to his seat. “You’ve come to inquire about the Waalenberg estate…or so I was informed. How may I be of service?”

“We believe someone in their employ may have been involved in a kidnapping in Germany.”

His eyes widened too perfectly. “I’m shocked to hear such allegations. But I’ve heard nothing about this from the German BKA, Interpol, or Europol.”

“Our sources are concrete,” Logan insisted. “All we ask is cooperation with your Scorpions to follow up locally.”

Kat watched the man feign an intensely pensive expression. The Scorpions were the South African equivalent of the FBI. Cooperation seemed unlikely. The best Logan sought here was to keep such organizations out of Sigma’s way. While they could not negotiate cooperation against such a political powerhouse as the Waalenbergs, they might place enough pressure to keep any policing authorities from helping them. A small concession, but a meaningful one.

Kat continued standing, watching the slow dance these two men performed, each trying to gain the best advantage.

“I assure you that the Waalenbergs hold the international community and governing bodies in the utmost respect. The family has supported relief efforts, multinational charity organizations, and nonprofit trusts throughout the world. In fact in their latest act of generosity, they’ve endowed all South African embassies and chanceries around the globe with a golden centennial bell, marking the hundred-year anniversary of the first gold coin minted in South Africa.”

“That is all well and good, but it doesn’t—”

Kat cut Logan off, speaking for the first time. “Did you say gold
bell
?”

Hourigan’s eyes met hers. “Yes, gifts from Sir Baldric Waalenberg himself. One hundred gold-plated centennial bells bearing the South African coat of arms. Ours is being installed in the residence hall on the fourth floor.”