Vertical Run (31 page)

Kreuter sighed. “Can’t say as I know enough to do more than speculate.” His accent carved the word into three distinct parts: Spec. You. Late. “Alls I can tell you is that the rumors been goin’ ’round a long damn time—long as I can remember. Yew see, at the end of World War II, the Rooskies wound up occupyin’ the eastern half of Germany where the Krauts had most of them death camps, an’ where they did most of their quote-unquote medical experiments. Occupyin’ that, you gotta figure Joe Stalin, who was as crazy as a shithouse rat, got his hands on suchever nastiness them Krauts was a-workin’ on. An’ so you gotta figure soon as our folks found out, they says if the Rooskies got that stuff, then we gotta get that stuff too.”

“Stuff, Jack?”

“Bugs, son, bugs. Plague and pestilence. Germs an’ viruses an’ biological weapons. Rumor was lots of enemy scientists were a-workin’ on it then. Rumor is that some folks still are.”

There was a long silence. Dave fired up a cigarette.

“Yew bein’ mighty quiet, son.” Jack’s voice was soft. There was an undertone of concern in his words.

“Just thinking, Jack.”

“Thinkin’ whut?”

“What would happen if fifty years ago someone, say an Army doctor on MacArthur’s staff, came across a Japanese biological weapons research facility.”

“Easy question, son. It’d get crated up and shipped home. Same way as they crated up all them Nazi rocket science labs, an’ all the people to go with them.”

“Then what?”

“Yew gotta remember, biological weapons is just as illegal as hell. Banned by Congress and condemned by treaty. So whut they’d do is they’d do everythin’ they could to keep it secret. Like as not they’d subcontract it out—meybe to yer friends from Specialist Consultin’ or somebody like ’em. An’ such few people as needed to
know about it, they’d get told that the whole she-bang was strictly research—jest to keep up with what the Rooskies was a-doing. Them Rooskies got this thing called Biopreparat whut’s on an island in the Aral Sea. Ain’t nobody much allowed to visit that island. Thems as does never comes back. So you can figure that if them Roosky boys is engaged in a little illicit R&D, then some Yankee boys is too. An’ of course if any of ’em—our gang or theirs—thought someone was gonna blow the whistle on ’em, they would initiate whut is technically called ‘appropriate sanctions,’ a term not defined to exclude the takin’ of certain regrettable but necessary steps with which both yew and I are sadly familiar.”

“One last question, Jack. What would happen to someone who got infected by one of those weapons?”

“Son, you’d likely die.”

The monkey. The goddamned stupid monkey.

He’d suspected from the moment Marge’s cat had snapped at him, known from the moment he saw the gutted interior of Bernie Levy’s very last acquisition, spent every moment since praying he was wrong.

Lockyear fronted for a biological weapons research lab. One that had been around since the end of the Second World War. One that had been founded by a man who saw fit to pose for his portrait in a fifty year old Army uniform.

A weapons lab. From the outside it looked like an ordinary biotech company. But on the inside—in Laboratory number five—it was far from ordinary. Nor was the monkey an ordinary lab animal. It had been infected with a test substance. And it had escaped and bitten …

The late David Elliot
.

Bernie had been conned into buying Lockyear. Who knew how or why? Maybe Harry Halliwell, honest broker, set up the deal. Maybe somebody else. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they had appealed to
Bernie’s sense of duty. He’d fallen for whatever lies they’d told him. That was why he was willing to play ball. It wouldn’t have been a problem for him. Not if they’d appealed to his patriotism.
Semper Fidelis
.

Poor Bernie. He wouldn’t have known the truth about Lockyear. They wouldn’t have told him. Not until after …

He assigned a notorious ex-whistle-blower to manage the deal. And the whistle-blower got infected
.

Sooner or later Dave would have started exhibiting symptoms. He would have gone to a doctor. There would have been tests. The tests would have revealed something inexplicable. All hell would have broken loose.

Calls to the Centers for Disease Control. Consultations with the World Health Organization. Questions, questions, and more questions
.

Questions asked of people who don’t like questions.

It’s contagious, you know. Really, really contagious
.

Dave had poured himself a cup of coffee while he was in Bernie’s office. Bernie had drunk from the same cup. Then he had killed himself. “Bernie Levy has got only Bernie Levy to blame. That’s some fine joke, Davy. Turnabout is fair play.… ”

He took the cup with him. Forty-five stories down
.

Whatever infection Dave had was so bad that Bernie would rather kill himself than endure it. And when Partridge thought that Dave had escaped from the building, he had said, “We’re all dead men.”

Marge
.

That was why they had taken vaginal smears and blood samples. They were afraid that Dave had …

If you had so much as kissed her
.

Whatever disease he had caught from the monkey was more than merely serious.

Curable, you think?

If there was a remedy, why wouldn’t they simply give it to him?

Easier to kill you and be done with it. You were a whistleblower
,
remember? Suppose they gave you the cure. Would you show the proper gratitude and keep your big mouth shut? Or would you go public? And if you were them, bad ass that you are, would you be willing to take the risk?

At the other end of a four thousand mile long telephone connection, Mamba Jack Kreuter asked, “Yew worked out yer situation yet, son?”

“Pretty much, Jack.”

“Yew wanna tell me about it?”

Dave blew a long sigh. “Thanks, Jack. But it would be best not to.”

“I believe I can say I understand. Ol’ Kraut preacher man I know over here done give me the right word for it. She’s a four-bit word, she is: ‘eschatology.’ That’s what we been a-jawing about, eschatology. But still, if there’s anything I can do …”

“You’ve done enough. You’ve told me what I needed to know. And I appreciate it.”

“No problem-o. An’ look, if yew manage to get past these here troubles of yours, yew give me a call. Hell, man, we was friends, and we still should be.”

“I’ll do that if I can, Jack.”

“Well, son, I purely hope you will.”

“Okay. Look, Jack, I’ve got to go.”

“Fair ’nuff. But now yew listen, yew put that business in ’Nam out of yer mind. She was a long time ago, an’ it ain’t no good to brood on it.”

“Sure, Jack.”

“An’ keep yer pecker up, yew hear?”

“I will.”

“Sayonara, boy.”

“Sayonara, Jack.”

A biological weapon. Silent, invisible, and lethal. The stuff of nightmares and Stephen King novels. It wasn’t
the kind of weapon you used to kill an individual enemy, nor even an enemy regiment. You didn’t even use it to kill an enemy army. There was only one use for such a weapon—killing an entire nation.

Now it was on the loose in his body.

And he was on the loose in New York.

No wonder they were after him.

And no wonder Ransome thought Dave was the bad guy.

You are!

He should run. They didn’t know he was in the building. Ransome had ordered his men to keep away from the stairs and the elevators. The man called Myna, the one in charge of the lobby, thought that he was a gay computer worker from American Interdyne Worldwide. Dave could get past him.

If he ran, he would be safe. Once on the streets he could escape to … to …

 … to wherever he wanted. It wouldn’t be hard. He’d flag down a cab and tell the driver to take him across the Hudson River to New Jersey. The Newark train station would be as good a place as any. From there, he could catch an Amtrak Express to Philadelphia or Washington. Then he could take a plane. He had stolen enough money to fly anywhere in the world.

Once in hiding, he’d want to make some phone calls. The medical authorities. The press. Maybe even a congressman or two.

If there was a treatment for what they’d given him, the publicity would force them to administer it. And if there wasn’t … well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

He should run. There wasn’t any reason to stay. Much less reason to walk into a firefight.

Well, maybe one reason.

Marge
.

Maybe two reasons.

Ransome. It’s time to settle his bill
.

3:36
A.M
.
—an hour and a half before the first faint glow of day in the east; three hours before sunrise.

Dave took one last long look at the sky. Nearest the horizon, the sky was pale, the color of weak beer, and the stars were erased by the haze of a million streetlights. Higher, some few stars, only the brightest, burned through the city’s shroud of dirt. But overhead, straight up, the night was black and pure, the stars painfully sharp, luminously clear—Perseus in perpetual pursuit of Andromeda, whom he must rescue; Orion stalking the Great Bear through and beyond all time; the Pleiades dancing behind a veil of radiant blue.

How beautiful is the sky at night, how sad that electric lights blind city dwellers to its glories. When was the last time he had looked,
really
looked at the stars? So long ago … camped beneath their canopy in the high Sierras, Taffy drunkenly snoring, Dave awake and looking up in awe at the …

Waxing philosophical, are we?

Dave sighed. Well, at least the skies were clear. Thunderstorms had been predicted—Dave had heard the forecast on the rent-a-car’s radio. But, the storm hadn’t come, at least not yet.

Thank God for small favors
.

All around him the cityscape was still. In the far distance, south of the Battery and beyond the harbor, he could make out the lights of the Verrazano Bridge. It suddenly struck him that he had never once been on that bridge. He’d spent more than twenty years in the city of New York and never set foot on Staten Island. Odd—the island was part of the city. People lived there. It had restaurants, theaters, and probably even a museum or two. But he’d never been there. The idea of going had never crossed his mind. Now, of all times and in all places, he was wondering what it was like.

Peculiar what passes through your mind when you’re about to die
.

The other odd thing was that, in all of his years working at Senterex, he had never once been on the roof of the building. The roofs of other buildings, yes. There was a roof garden atop his apartment building; in the summer, on Sunday mornings, he went there to read
The New York Times
. Helen had arranged their wedding reception on the roof of another building—somewhere in midtown; he could probably see it from where he stood if he knew where to look. And other roofs, too. He’d just never been on this one before.

It was a cluttered place. Its center was occupied by the building’s air system, an enormous, grey piece of machinery. Even at this hour, set on low power for the evening, it rumbled noisily. Elsewhere there were standpipes, an emergency water reservoir for the building’s fire sprinklers, a miscellany of ducts, and, of course, the cement blockhouse in which the fire stairs terminated.

Future generations will call that blockhouse “Elliot’s last stand.” Maybe they’ll even put up a plaque, same as for Custer
.

A double row of metal rails surrounded the periphery of the roof. They were sturdy and firmly mounted. He checked and double-checked their strength before deciding to use them.

He leaned over the railing and looked down. The street was far away. One splotch of asphalt was blacker than the rest.

Bernie.

He didn’t want to think about that. Not given what he was about to do. Besides, it was time to get this business over with.

He tugged on the coaxial cable—the same sort that had saved his life earlier in the day. He had found another two hundred and fifty foot spool of it in one of the telephone rooms. It was strong stuff; he knew it was more than capable of bearing his weight. Unfortunately it was rubber-sheathed—too slick and too thin for a proper climbing rope. Still, it was all he had, and so, at the cost of some time and even more irritation, he had
carefully doubled it over, and tied thick, hefty knots every three feet. The knots would give his hands purchase.

He slipped on his telephone repairman’s work gloves, tightened the jury-rigged harness around his thighs, tested the cable one last time, and stepped over the railing.

He listened for his inner voice. Nothing. Dave’s invisible guardian angel had gone completely silent. It was as if it was too stunned to comment on what he was about to do.

Come on, say something.

You’re going to die
.

So what?

You’re going to take me with you
.

That’s life, pal.

He shook the cable. It fell loose, free of tangles.

Time to go.

He gripped the cable, easing his feet over the edge of the roof, stretching the cable tense with his weight. One foot beneath the other, one hand above the other, one knot at a time, David Elliot started walking backward down a fifty story wall.

It had been twenty-five years since he had done this sort of thing. At Fort Bragg, they had made all the trainees scale a 150-foot-tall smokestack, then rappel back down. Two of the men in Dave’s training unit refused to do it. A third made it to the top and then froze. All three had been washed out. No green beret for them. Dave joined everyone else in laughing about their cowardliness.

Not laughing now, are we?

The cable-rigged harness cut his thighs brutally. Unless he descended quickly, it was going to make his legs numb.

Sheets of speckled granite stonework were hung between the windows. Dave kept his feet to them. His shoes were tucked into his belt. The granite was rough and pitted, and cold through his stockings.