The hotel was smaller than the enormous Oasis Resort just along the coast. However, it provided to high-security-clearance employees such as Dr Yousef Bijar a place inside Pakistan where they could unwind and take a well-earned rest on the nation’s Arabian Sea coastline. The Mercedes pulled into the covered reception area and the driver—in reality an ISI security guard—lifted the Doctor’s case from the trunk and walked with him to the desk. This person would be living next door to Bijar’s villa for the next week, and he’d always be somewhere in the Doctor’s vicinity. It didn’t concern Bijar; he’d lived like this for many years and accepted the need for personal security.
He unpacked and dressed for the beach. He wanted to wash out the airline travel from Islamabad and he needed some sunlight and sea air. The strain of the Scimitar program had been on his shoulders for eight years, and that didn’t count his scientific work leading up to the point where elements in the ISI decided to fund and green light the attack on Paris. The extended rounds of debriefings and report writing he’d had to go through after Paris had been exhausting. It had been made worse by the fact that the MERC and Bijar’s Clostridium perfringens program had been largely undeclared to the government and the generals. The Colonel was a ‘cut-out’—a middle man who enabled funding, resources and strategic planning, but always off the books. So there’d been two days of concern for Bijar, when he was interrogated directly by the upper levels of the ISI and the intelligence officers of the general staff. It wasn’t until the afternoon of the second day that he’d realised they were less concerned with the fate of millions of Parisians than they were with reputational damage to Pakistan, which took in billions of dollars in aid and defence technology transfers from the United States and Europe on the basis that Pakistan was a bulwark against terror. When Bijar made it clear that both Murad and Manerie were not in a position to cause further embarrassment, the ISI gave him the go-ahead to destroy the MERC and transfer his program to a new facility.
Bijar swam in the clear warm waters, watching large crude oil carriers gliding past on the horizon. He thought about how his sister, Anoush, and his father had enjoyed boating on this northern reach of the Indian Ocean, and how it enraged him to be excluded from his father’s approval. These two people he’d loved so much—and who had disappointed him so greatly—had met their demise at his hands. He was not proud of it, but he knew that love for one’s country, and faith, were things that not everyone understood.
Bijar dried off on the beach and nodded at his bodyguard, who stood in the shade of the palm trees that populated this coast. There were practical reasons to monitor a scientist such as himself, he thought as he showered in his villa. With the MERC destroyed, the research hard drives and the weaponised epsilon toxin cultures were secreted in a location known only to Bijar and the Colonel. And only one of them knew how to weaponise and optimise the clostridium strain that he’d isolated.
Bijar slept away the afternoon, the sounds of the waves on the beach bringing him a peaceful sleep. When he awoke shortly after 5 p.m. he was very hungry. He phoned ahead for an early dinner and arrived at six on the dot. He may have been on holiday, but he liked to be prompt. He ordered the fish curry, a tribute to his childhood visits to this part of the world, and asked for a glass of water. The Arabian Sea sparkled and rolled, its pale green colouring a natural wonder. He thought about Scimitar and what he’d do differently next time. Paris was so close to success that he’d been shocked to watch the events unfold on CNN, the shoot-outs and the involvement of French special forces. Saint-Cloud was part of one of the largest water supply systems in the world and it had been mere minutes away from becoming the deadliest piece of public infrastructure on the planet. Even those who survived the dose of ETX would have overwhelmed the French hospitals and driven people from that city in their millions. Chaos, societal meltdown, distrust in the French government and endless insurgency. They’d come so close.
Bijar wouldn’t fail again. He had a working bioweapon secured in a secret location and he wouldn’t again use a commercial operator such as Murad, whose connections in Sicily had been the loose thread that, when pulled, brought the entire operation undone.
And Aguilar. The French spy they called Aguilar. Bijar could feel his pulse quicken just thinking about how that arrogant, entitled Frank seduced his own sister and walked into the heart of Islamabad to meet him for dinner. The gall of the French secret services was quite something, and when he and the Colonel were ready to relaunch a new version of Scimitar, they would do so in a way that eliminated any exposure to France or the DGSE.
The waiter poured a glass of water and Bijar thanked him, noticing his lighter skin shade—a feature of the Pakistanis on this coast.
He remembered how his sister and father would toast each other; how they would cook up a plan and laugh and say, I’ll drink to that. Bijar had never had one mouthful of alcohol in his life, but he smiled at the memory of his family and, raising his glass, mumbled to himself, I’ll drink to that.
The waiter walked through the kitchen and into the loading bay area where the employees’ restroom and lockers were situated. He quickly undressed, threw his waiter clothes into a locker and dressed in his street clothes. He emerged into the sunlight, where the white Toyota LandCruiser was purring in the sun. He opened the rear door and deliberately slowed his actions so as not to make a mistake—he sealed the water bottle with a wax and stainless steel lid, placed it in a military self-sealing hazardous materials bag, and then secured the bagged bottle in a bright yellow bio-chem-nuclear carry case with a seal that would hold firm at a thousand feet underwater. He wiped his hands and arms with a military-grade disinfectant wipe that army field hospital workers used to kill bacteria. He grabbed another of the wipes and cleaned his face.
He climbed into the front seat and the driver accelerated away from the resort.
‘Package sent?’ asked Templar.
Shrek smiled. ‘Delivered, accepted and stamped.’