GRAND HYATT HOTEL
MACAU
Dewey returned to his suite at the Grand Hyatt. He went into the bathroom and took off his shirt. He leaned into the mirror and examined the spot where the needle had hit him. It was barely visible, only the tiniest of red marks, like a mosquito bite.
He took his phone and punched in a three-digit sequence.
#8+
He hit Send. The message would convey a simple fact: Yong-sik has been poisoned and the ultimatum spelled out. Operation successful.
He stripped off his pants and climbed into the shower. He took a long, relaxing shower, gradually lowering the temperature of the water, from warm, to tepid, and finally to cold, as cold as the hotel could offer. It wasn’t Maine cold, but it was cold. He was trying to cool down and stop the sweating from the fight.
Dewey finally climbed out of the shower and dried off with a towel. He stepped to the mirror. His face was even redder than before. Soon, his dry face was wet again as he started sweating. He stared into his own eyes in the mirror—then glanced down at his chest, registering the small red mark where the needle had accidentally dragged. It had only been a few minutes, and yet the red mark was no longer small. It had spread out and was the size of a quarter. The redness was turning into a deep purple. The colored area was also elevated, puffed out a small bit from his chest.
You didn’t press it. It’s not possible. You injected it all in Yong-sik!
He told himself it hadn’t happened, yet his eyes couldn’t look away from the growing purple patch on his chest.
He took his phone and opened a proprietary Agency application called Vision, designed to enable the phone to conduct a number of basic diagnostic medical functions. The screen lit up and he pressed an icon shaped like a square, then placed the phone’s camera against his neck. A few moments later, the phone made a low beep. Dewey looked at it.
HEART: 149 BPM
BP: 244/165
TEMP: 105.2 F
Dewey stared at the screen an extra moment, then hit his phone. A dull monotone came on and Dewey spoke:
“Twenty-one.”
A second later, a voice came on the line.
“Andreas,” said a man. “What’s the problem, sir?”
“I need Jenna Hartford immediately,” said Dewey, walking slowly, indirectly toward the bed.
“Hold, sir.”
Dewey sat on the edge of the bed. Suddenly, the room was reeling, spinning around, and he felt unbearably hot.
“Dewey?” came Jenna’s aristocratic British accent. “We received the message. Excellent job.”
Dewey fought to hold on to the phone. It wanted to drop to the ground.
“Jenna,” Dewey said calmly, as calmly as he could. “How much of the poison does it take to infect someone?”
“Why? Did you not hit him well enough? Don’t worry—we’ll know soon enough. In fact, we know Yong-sik’s jet was just powered up at the airport. He’s getting ready to leave.”
The words were meaningless to Dewey as he fought to remain lucid, despite the sweat that now poured over his body and the fever which had grabbed him in a noose.
“Please just answer me,” said Dewey.
“Oh, right. A drop. A fraction of a drop.”
“Why did I need to inject an entire vial?”
“Insurance,” said Jenna. “But in case all you could do was nick him, even then his goose would be cooked.”
“What are the first signs?” said Dewey, already knowing the answer.
“Fever. A sharp fever. It was manufactured that way. That way, Yong-sik knows the toxin is real. It stops after a few hours. He has time to retrieve the documents. Then it kicks in again, in case he has second thoughts.”
Dewey slipped off the bed, landing on the floor.
“Dewey?” said Jenna. “Are you still there? Is something wrong—”
The sound of Jenna’s abrupt, pained moan hit Dewey’s ears.
“Dewey,” she said. “You’ve spiked a fever, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How bad is it?”
“I’m okay.”
“What’s your temperature?”
“A hundred and five. But that was a few minutes ago. I’m about to lose consciousness.”
The phone went quiet.
“Jenna–”
“I warned you, Dewey,” said Jenna. “Why don’t operators ever listen? I told you. I made it so clear. There’s one antidote. It’s in Pyongyang.”
“Can’t they make another?”
“Not in time,” said Jenna. “It was a proprietary strain. A one-off. We needed to be sure Yong-sik couldn’t simply walk into a hospital and take care of it.”
Slowly, Dewey leaned down toward the carpet. The lights in the hotel room were still on. He was naked. He held the phone to his ear as he felt the first spike of deep, flu-like chills in his spine and neck.
“Dewey, if you’re still listening, you don’t have an option,” came Jenna’s soft, polite, but firm English voice. “I need you to get to the airport.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to need to go to North Korea. You’ll need to get to Pyongyang. It’s that simple. If you want to live, you must find a way to get to Pyongyang. In the meantime, you have precious little time. Can you stand up?”
Dewey lay on the ground, his body shivering and convulsing.
“I’ll try.”
“I’ll have a plane ready by the time you get there. Just stand up, get dressed, and get a cab to the airport. Can you do that for me, Dewey?”
Dewey tried to speak, but felt his hand shake, and then came numbness, a horrible sense of dizziness, and the phone dropped to the floor.
He heard Jenna’s voice, shouting for him from the phone, but he couldn’t move. She was shouting something, her words coming through in painful bursts. He shut his eyes, awakening a few minutes later to the loud, insistent sound of his phone beeping. He felt as if his entire body was on fire. He shut his eyes again as he fell into unconsciousness.