Hazard (36 page)

“Where?”

Gabil didn't know. He'd tried to find out from the workers and guards around the place, but they didn't know either. They only knew the vx–10 was somehow destined for Israel. That was how the operation had been set up, on various levels, with each limited to knowing about and performing its special phase. Of course, Mustafa and surely a few others higher up had full knowledge.

It seemed incredible to Hazard that anyone would go to such extremes, but then he thought of the Lod Airport massacre, the 1972 Olympics, the murder of diplomats in Sudan … “Where did they get the vx–10?”

“From your country.”

“How do you know that?”

“From the markings on the canisters.” Gabil, with difficulty, had memorized the serial numbers. He now wrote them down and gave the slip of paper to Hazard.

USACC
–
FD
–12–70–
B
2046–
ABV
–10

USACC
–
FD
–10–71–
B
2867–
ABV
–10

The first three and last three digits of each of the series were enough to verify the source. “How did they manage that?” Hazard asked.

“Pinchon arranged it.”

“How?”

Gabil could easily have said that was something else he didn't know. Just the day before Mustafa had proudly revealed to him the success of the operation thus far, including how Carl had been used. The Arab had especially enjoyed the part about Carl. It was a way of dishonoring a sworn enemy—in this case, Hazard.

Gabil decided omission would be as bad as a lie. He preferred to keep things straight with Hazard. He told him all of it.

Hazard was obviously shaken, but he insisted that Carl didn't give them the information.

“Perhaps he did.”

“No.”

“Perhaps he saw no possible harm in it. Considering where the canisters were, under that much ocean, they doubtless seemed secure enough. I myself would have thought so.”

Hazard wanted to believe that.

“Did you know there was such a ship as the
Sea Finder
?”

“No.”

“Nor did I,” Gabil said. “And I doubt your brother did. Evidently Pinchon disliked your brother personally.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He ordered him killed.”

“For the information?”

“Hardly. It wasn't the kind of secret one would need to kill for. It could have been easily and cheaply purchased from numerous other sources.”

It took a moment for Hazard to rearrange his perspective, but then it all did fall into place.
Carl, Catherine, Pinchon.
That had to be it. Bitterly, Hazard added Pinchon to his list, telling himself that he should have had him there all along, on the top, with an underline.

Gabil noted the time. “I have to get back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“The only thing I can do.”

“What?”

“Empty the canisters.”

“You mean just open the valves and let it come.”

“It's the one sure way.”

“But–”

Gabil raised his huge hand. It was settled, understood. What Gabil proposed to do was sacrifice himself.

“When?” Hazard asked.

“The day after tomorrow. Before they can transfer the gas to the pods,” Gabil said. “I have a favor to ask you.”

“I owe you a few.”

“Go to Tel Aviv for me, to the Mosad. Tell them about all this.”

“Don't you have a contact here in Cairo?”

“None that I can trust, not
landsmen,
only opportunists who may be working both sides. Those I could be sure of were recently exposed and arrested.”

“I'm not a
landsman.
”

Gabil grinned. “You might be, if you looked deep enough.”

“Why not just phone a contact in Paris or Rome and have him relay the information?”

“Telephone service here is under Government control. Every international call is strictly monitored by security people. If they hear one questionable word, they cut you off.”

It made Hazard realize how little he knew about this business. “Anyway,” he told Gabil, “what can the Mosad do?”

“If I fail at least they will be alerted.”

Hazard said he would see that the Mosad was informed.

Gabil thanked him. He took a final gulp of the coffee that was cold by now.

“Do me one more favor,” Hazard said. “It might help if I knew the layout of that house.”

“You still want Mustafa.”

“More than ever.”

After Gabil left, Hazard sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes. Maybe, he thought, that was the last he'd ever see of the Israeli—the big, ugly son of a bitch. It made Hazard depressed.

He shaved, finished dressing and left the hotel at noon. It was even hotter outside than he'd thought, an arid heat that reminded him of a long ago July in Needles, California, when he was on the road thumbing at cars all day and finally got a ride from a wife on her way to a Tiajuana divorce, so eager for freedom she couldn't wait.

He went up the short, steep rise to the plateau of the Pyramids. Immediately he was set upon by a swarm of
dragomans,
Arab guides with their camels and donkeys in bleached, dusty trappings, wanting to show him around for a price. One in particular was persistent, followed, kept selling and stopped him. Hazard asked him where the Sphinx was and gave him two dollars just for pointing the way.

The heat made it seem a longer walk than it was, and Hazard wished he'd thought to get some dark glasses because everything reflected the sun harshly. He passed by the much smaller satellite pyramids on the eastern side of the Grand one and continued down to the large excavated recess that held the Sphinx.

It didn't appear as impressive as he'd imagined. Not wise as legend had it nor as large and mysterious, really. Baking and biscuit-colored, it looked like something that had come crumbling unsuccessfully out of an oven. Hazard remembered a sphinx was also an ancient symbol for female lust, but he saw no reason for that, unless it was the preying, ready-to-spring posture. Standing between its extended paws, he realized the reason for his apathy. He was just too distracted to appreciate anything at the moment. His mind was taken up with thoughts of Gabil and those canisters of nerve gas bearing the serial numbers like a trademark,
made in the U.S.A.

By the time he returned to the hotel and air conditioning, perspiration was dripping from his nose and trickling down his back. He found the bar and ordered another of those generous gin-and-tonics. Except for the bartender and an older foursome at a table, he had the place to himself. Music was coming from somewhere. An old Beatles song. He dug the section of fresh lime from his glass and sucked on it without making a sour face. Those serial numbers came to mind again, kept intruding, the last three digits especially standing out from the others. Serial numbers. He supposed there was one on every bomb, every grenade, every weapon. And somewhere there were clerks who kept an accurate corresponding record, a death-dealer's catalog.

Just for the hell of it, a small challenge, he started to try to translate the serial numbers of the canisters. USACC was obviously United States Army Chemical Corps.

After twenty minutes and another gin he felt he had most of it deciphered. United States Army Chemical Corps—Fort Detrick (Maryland)-December, 1970-Batch number 2046.

USACC
–
FD
–12–70–
B
2046–

But those last five digits:

ABV
–10

had him stumped. Assuming v–10 represented the type of gas, why had they left out the x? Was it army shorthand or army oversight? But then, what did the
AB
stand for? What difference did it make, anyway?

He gave up on it, went up to his suite and decided on a bath in that big brass tub. He was in the water, observing his distorted, yellow image in the curvature of the tub when he got back to it again—because it was taunting, eluding him like a critical word in a
New York Times
crossword puzzle.

ABV
–10

Look at it from a different angle, he told himself, a fresh approach. If he'd never heard of vx–10, what would he have thought? Well,
B
could stand for base, or battle, or booster, or biological. Only the last seemed plausible, although chemical and biological were two distinct categories.
CBW
were initials he'd seen in articles, short for Chemical-Biological Warfare. A biological v–10 nerve gas didn't make sense. But he felt he was on the right track and should keep on it. He associated biological and got bacteriological, and then it occurred to him there probably wouldn't be an adjective in a serial number. The noun was bacteria. That could be it. Assume it, work from that. What could the A stand for, an A-Bacteria? The first, and worst, one that came to him was Anthrax. Anthrax bacteria? Sure, why not?

But if it was anthrax bacteria the v–10 couldn't be a nerve gas. Not both. It had to be one or the other. Was that why the x was missing? If so, what did v–10 signify? The number 10 could be a rating or type designation. That would mean there were other types, a variety of them numbered from one up. A variety. Variety? Variant? Same thing. He settled for variety and put it in sequence:

Anthrax Bacteria Variety 10

He felt as if he'd accomplished something. But was it possible that Pinchon and the Arabs didn't have what they thought they had? When they'd retrieved the canisters from the ocean floor, in their hurry and eagerness, had they been misled by those last three digits? The United States had dumped all kinds of chemical and bacteriological stockpiles into the Canary Basin. The Arabs could have made that logical error.

So what? In many ways anthrax was even more horrible than nerve gas.

Anthrax, also called Black Bain, Charbon, Malignant Postule, Splenic Fever, Woolsorter's Disease. One of the most dreaded of all infectious diseases. Caused by a rod-shaped bacterium or spore,
Bacillus anthracis.
Infects the bloodstream. Can cause death within eighteen to twenty-four hours when inhaled.

Another ugly fact Hazard recalled about Anthrax—its extreme resistance. As a spore it could contaminate the earth, remain alive in the soil, and be capable of causing the disease for as long as a hundred years. The promised land could suddenly become a disappointment—a vast, diseased wasteland.

He felt futile. Nothing had been gained from his mental efforts. Besides, he was probably wrong about the serial numbers. He had only been playing a game with himself, following a hunch.

At six o'clock a hotel boy delivered an envelope. It was from Gabil—the plan of the house and other useful information. Gabil had drawn, freehand but carefully, a detailed overhead view with everything indicated, including approximate measurements. He had marked Mustafa's room with a red circle. One notation said that no one was allowed in or out of the house from dark to dawn. Hazard examined the plan briefly and then tore it into small pieces that he flushed down the toilet.

At nine o'clock he sent to Keven.

His first message told her to stand by for further messages he would be sending every fifteen minutes exactly on the quarter hour.

For accuracy, he sent only four words at a time. He did it with confidence, drawing assurance from past successes, telling himself it was undoubtedly possible. His mind was lucid, his concentration good. Despite the pressure, or maybe because of it, he was able to superimpose and hold the required images in position for longer than before. It took him an hour and a half to complete the transmission, and not until he was done did he realize how much energy he'd used. It left him thoroughly drained.

He lay on the bed in the dark, his body sapped but his mind racing. He tried to bring his mind to rest, but it was charged with impressions of Mustafa, Pinchon, the canisters, the situation. A stray thought came through. It seemed only another piece of triva from his mental storehouse. He passed over it but it returned for attention:

The disease anthrax may be contracted through
the eating of inadequately cooked meat.

It set him to thinking in a new, possibly more hopeful, direction.

20

A
T A FEW
minutes to nine that night Keven was on a hillside rock a short distance from the Auberge des Noves.

She had returned to Avignon because she felt it would be easier for her to do her waiting there. Not that any place could really reduce her aloneness or her fear for Hazard, but at least there she had a residual of recent happiness with him that she could draw on.

Now that it was almost the hour they'd set for their nightly communion, she wondered what his message would be. Maybe he'd send her a romantic thought, like the one he'd sent from the plane, which she, out of hurt and pique, had denied receiving.
Happiness was born a twin.
She'd liked that. Or maybe he might send something erotic, which wouldn't be at all bad.

It was time. She took a deep breath. The Provençal air offered the fragrance of wild-growing spices. Her mind began its usual race, all sorts of thoughts in rapid succession. She'd come to think of this phase as a sweeping away—a stirring up of old impressions like particles of dust in her mental atmosphere. Suddenly there was the clearing, the opening of the inner envelope to disclose a white whiter than any other white.

She got the message.

Realizing its tone of urgency, she hurried to the Auberge and when it was 9:15 exactly she was in the suite with pen and paper ready to record whatever came to her.

It didn't come with absolute precision, not as though she were a human teletype. It came in various ways and with different degrees of difficulty. Some parts of it graphically, in the form of pictures. Other parts letter for letter, spelling out. And some words came whole.