Chapter 25

When Phidias saw the claw, would he ever have known it for a lion’s if he had never seen a lion?

—Lucian

 

Colonel Rico Toledo propped himself against the wall of the embassy’s makeshift communications center. Two canes took the weight off his lacerated feet, but nothing eased the pain in his butt.

The ambassador’s inner office was the last place Rico would’ve set up communications, but that was Hodge’s problem, not his. Hodge was flinging orders willy-nilly the last couple of days, and it looked to Rico that, as usual, Hodge was more a problem than a solution. He’d hoped to find Hodge at this hearing so he could rattle his cage. It wouldn’t be the same without a few drinks, but it would still be fun.

Rico watched Marte Chang, with her back to him, face a closed-circuit interrogation. She testified rapid-fire on a scramble to the Senate Intelligence Committee. They’d accepted a taped statement by Rico that he’d made for Scholz at the hospital, but they wanted Marte Chang choppered in from Casa Canada to face them in person.

Rico chuckled.

They know that if they hook up a broadcast unit out there, Harry will find a way to piggyback on it.

Rico was working on that very problem himself. He was sure, now, that Spook was their only hope. Everything else had either been royally screwed or stonewalled, and he was getting a bad feeling about the silence in Mexico City.

Rico itched all over from the sweat in his stitches. Condensation dripped from walls of the tight-packed room as the early-morning sun went to work on the plastic windows. The air-conditioner was overwhelmed by the Costa Bravan humidity and the press of Agency officials, witnesses, experts and a three-to-one security cadre. They weren’t afraid of anyone getting in. They just didn’t want anyone to get out, particularly Marte Chang and the Colonel.

Getting out wouldn’t be easy, but it was exactly what the Colonel intended to do. He just couldn’t move fast, or far. Even with the canes, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Moving around helped, but he didn’t move much. And when he did move, he exaggerated grimaces of pain.

—That’ll make ‘em careless, he thought.

It was an optimistic thought, his first in a while.

He thought of Harry, and smiled.

I taught him that elevator shaft escape trick in this very building.

At least one thing they’d done together turned out all right. He hoped that they’d have to bring Harry into town to testify at the last minute, but he’d heard they, too, would be recorded instead. He intended to snatch Harry out of here at the first opportunity, but first he had a couple of favors to call in from Spook and the Peace and Freedom guerrillas.

Major Scholz entered the doorway, caught his gaze and worked her way through the crowd and cables to join him. As she crossed the room, Rico saw everyone perk up at her presence, and greet her as she passed. She left smiles on their faces, and on his own. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

I didn’t dare.

“Is this the line for butt transplants, Colonel?”

“Scholz, you’re merciless. Please, don’t ride my ass. Is Harry coming in?”

“No,” she said. “It’s confirmed. They’ll interview him out there at the farm, with Sonja.”

“I’d sure like to figure a way to see him.”

“Well, Grace forbids us to let you set foot out there, I’m afraid. Something about some punched-out cupboards and a raging asshole.”

“That was before all this,” he said, waving a hand at the wreckage of the embassy and the frenetic workings of the hollow-eyed staff. “I was drunk then. I was stupid then.”

“And now you’re smart?”

“Smarter, Scholz. It’s a start.”

Rico resisted the urge to scratch the gel seal that covered the left side of his face and pretended to focus on the painful sluggishness of the inquiry at hand.

“When can I see him?” he whispered.

“When we pour the concrete over ViraVax, at the latest,” Scholz said. “This afternoon.”

She fingered the top brass button on her jacket.

Wearing a bug, he realized. And she wants me to know.

“I’ll be glad to see that show, Major, for three reasons.”

The peel-and-peek wall holo showed the jowly, red-nosed face of the Intelligence Committee Chair, the Honorable Frank Myers. His sensitive mike transmitted the rustle of off-screen paperwork from Washington, D.C. to La Libertad, Costa Brava.

“Three reasons?” Scholz asked. “What are they?”

Marte Chang took off her own headset and shrugged a question toward the floor director. She accepted the liaison’s headset and nodded her okay.

“Harry, of course,” Rico said. “I don’t know what I’ll say to him, but maybe he’s got something to say to me.”

“I know for a fact that he does,” Scholz said. “What are the other two?”

“ViraVax,” the Colonel sighed. “Not that it’s anything but symbolic, but I still want to see that place buried.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee began its interview of Marte Chang.

“Dr. Chang,” Senator Myers said, “you were a virologist for the company known as ViraVax, is that correct?”

Marte Chang, her smooth features wan and her eyes dark-circled, sighed.

“Yes.”

Rico was unimpressed by the Intelligence Committee’s intelligence except for one thing—they were intelligent enough to interview all survivors by satellite. His tape had rolled first, and Marte Chang’s statement would cap things off. It had been a very long night.

Major Scholz whispered so close to his ear that Rico felt the barest flutter of lips.

“What’s reason number three?” she asked.

Rico placed his hand over Scholz’s top jacket button, the one right between the swell of her breasts.

“You,” he whispered back. “I’ll get to see you.”

Scholz patted his hand, then removed it from her chest. She gave it a squeeze before she let go.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said.

Rico didn’t answer. He watched her walk past his hired security and return the man’s salute. The guy was a rent-a-gun who didn’t have to salute, but he probably thought she’d be impressed by the move. Scholz turned to the guard on just the right beat.

“Sergeant,” she told the guard, “Colonel Toledo will give you the slip. Page my on-call line when he does.”

“Yes, Major,” the young man said. He blustered on, “I’ll see to it that he doesn’t give me the slip, Major.”

Scholz was already walking away. When the sergeant turned around, Colonel Toledo was gone.

Colonel Toledo intercepted Marte Chang at the side door. Sweat-soaked security guards waited impatiently to take her back to quarters.

“They’re going to study the kids,” he said. “Whisper says they’re shipping them to the States in a day or two.”

Marte shook her head.

“That’s the least of my worries. And theirs . . .”

“Your work,” he interrupted. “It’s all theoretical, isn’t it? I mean, it’s computer work, not tissue work, right?”

Marte hesitated, glanced at their guards, then stepped back inside.

“You’re up to something, Colonel,” she whispered. “What is it?”

“Insurance,” he whispered back. “For all of us. And a way you can continue your work in private.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Trust me,” he said. “Have yourself and all your data ready to jump immediately.”

“But, look at you. How can you travel . . . ?”

“Motivation,” he whispered. “Someone will turn loose that virus, and you know it.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Someone will. But what can I accomplish on the run?”

“Warn the world, help people protect themselves. Until somebody comes up with an antidote, it’s the best we can do.”

One of their escorts interrupted.

“Colonel . . . ?”

“Shut up, soldier,” Colonel Toledo ordered. “Step outside and give us some privacy. I’ll let you know when I’m going to escape.”

The young sergeant backed away, his face a pale blur.

“The recipe is one thing,” Marte reminded him. “Manufacture and distribution on a worldwide scale is another. How . . . ?”

“You can’t do it here, either,” he said. “We take one problem at a time. Like the flight attendant says, ‘In case of loss of cabin pressure, place your own oxygen mask first.’ We’re no good to the rest of the world if we’re dead.”

“Good point.”

“Unassailable. Try to get a little sleep. Be ready.”

With that Marte Chang hurried out the door, her escort just a pace behind her. Colonel Toledo took less than a minute to give his greenhorn guard his second slip in ten minutes. He left a scrambled message with Rena Scholz via Sidekick, then caught a cab to the harbor in La Libertad. They would find him soon enough, this he knew, but by then arrangements would be made with Spook and there would be nothing they could do to stop him.