The Hades Factor - Страница 2

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“Nine-one-one?” Judy Novak reached for the telephone.

“No time!” Novak cried.

“Our car!” Phyllis shouted.

Judy Novak ran up the stairs to where the two children were in their bedrooms getting ready to enjoy an evening out. Phyllis Anderson and Novak picked up the gasping major. Blood trickled from his nose. He was semiconscious, moaning, unable to speak. Carrying him, they rushed across the lawn to the parked car.

Novak took the wheel, and Phyllis climbed into the rear beside her husband. Fighting back sobs, she cradled the major's head on her shoulder and held him close. His eyes stared up at her in agony as he fought for air. Novak sped through the base, blasting the car's horn. Traffic parted like an infantry company with the tanks coming through. But by the time they reached the Weed Army Community Hospital, Maj. Keith Anderson was unconscious.

Three hours later he was dead.

In the case of sudden, unexplained death in the State of California, an autopsy was mandated. Because of the unusual circumstances of the death, the major was rushed to the morgue. But as soon as the army pathologist opened the chest cavity, massive quantities of blood erupted, spraying him.

His face turned chalk white. He jumped to his feet, snapped off his rubber gloves, and ran out of the autopsy chamber to his office.

He grabbed the phone. “Get me the Pentagon and USAMRIID. Now! Priority!”

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

2:55 P.m., Sunday, October 12

London, England

A cold October rain slanted down on Knightsbridge where Brompton Road intersected Sloan Street. The steady stream of honking cars, taxis, and red double-decker buses turned south and made their halting way toward Sloan Square and Chelsea. Neither the rain nor the fact that business and government offices were closed for the weekend lessened the crush. The world economy was good, the shops were full, and New Labor was rocking no one's boat. Now the tourists came to London at all times of the year, and the traffic this Sunday afternoon continued to move at a snail's pace.

Impatient, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jonathan (“Jon”) Smith, M.D., stepped lightly from the slow-moving, old-style No. 19 bus two streets before his destination. The rain was letting up at last. He trotted a few quick steps beside the bus on the wet pavement and then hurried onward, leaving the bus behind.

A tall, trim, athletic man in his early forties, Smith had dark hair worn smoothly back and a high-planed face. His navy blue eyes automatically surveyed vehicles and pedestrians. There was nothing unusual about him as he strode along in his tweed jacket, cotton trousers, and trench coat. Still, women turned to look, and he occasionally noticed and smiled, but continued on his way.

He left the drizzle at Wilbraham Place and entered the foyer of the genteel Wilbraham Hotel, where he took a room every time USAMRIID sent him to a medical conference in London. Inside the old hostelry, he climbed the stairs two at a time to his second-floor room. There he rummaged through his suitcases, searching for the field reports of an outbreak of high fever among U.S. troops stationed in Manila. He had promised to show them to Dr. Chandra Uttam of the viral diseases branch of the World Health Organization.

Finally he found the reports under a pile of dirty clothes tossed into the larger suitcase. He sighed and grinned at himself ― he had never lost the messy habits acquired from his years in the field living in tents, focusing on one crisis or another.

As he rushed downstairs to return to the WHO epidemiology conference, the desk clerk called out to him.

“Colonel? There's a letter for you. It's marked `Urgent.' ”

“A letter?” Who would mail him here? He looked at his wristwatch, which told him not only the hour but reminded him of the day. “On a Sunday?”

“It came by hand.”

Suddenly worried, Smith took the envelope and ripped it open. It was a single sheet of white printer paper, no letterhead or return address.

...

Smithy,

Meet me Rock Creek park, Pierce Mill picnic grounds, midnight Monday. Urgent. Tell no one.

B

Smith's chest contracted. There was only one person who called him Smithy ― Bill Griffin. He had met Bill in third grade at Hoover elementary school in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Fast friends from then on, they had gone to high school together, college at the University of Iowa, and on to grad school at UCLA. Only after Smith had gotten his M.D. and Bill his Ph.D. in psychology had they taken different paths. Both had fulfilled boyhood dreams by joining the military, with Bill going into military intelligence work. They had not actually seen each other in more than a decade, but through all their distant assignments and postings, they had kept in touch.

Frowning, Smith stood motionless in the stately lobby and stared down at the cryptic words.

“Anything wrong, sir?” the desk clerk inquired politely.

Smith looked around. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Well, better be on my way if I want to catch the next seminar.”

He stuffed the note into his trench-coat pocket and strode out into the soggy afternoon. How had Bill known he was in London? At this particular secluded hotel? And why all the cloak-and-dagger, even to the extent of using Bill's private boyhood name for him?

No return address or phone number.

Only an initial to identify the sender.

Why midnight?

Smith liked to think of himself as a simple man, but he knew the truth was far from that. His career showed the reality. He had been a military doctor in MASH units and was now a research scientist. For a short time he had also worked for military intelligence. And then there was the stint commanding troops. He wore his restlessness like another man wore his skin ― so much a part of him he hardly noticed.

Yet in the past year he had discovered a happiness that had given him focus, a concentration he had never before achieved. Not only did he find his work at USAMRIID challenging and exciting, the confirmed bachelor was in love. Really in love. No more of that high-school stuff of women coming and going through his life in a revolving door of drama. Sophia Russell was everything to him ― fellow scientist, research partner, and blond beauty.

There were moments when he would take his eyes from his electron microscope just to stare at her. How all that fragile loveliness could conceal so much intelligence and steely will constantly intrigued him. Just thinking about her made him miss her all over again. He was scheduled to fly out of Heathrow tomorrow morning, which would give him just enough time to drive home to Maryland and meet Sophia for breakfast before they had to go into the lab.

But now he had this disturbing message from Bill Griffin.

All his internal alarms were ringing. At the same time, it was an opportunity. He smiled wryly at himself. Apparently his restlessness still was not tamed.

As he hailed a taxi, he made plans.

He would change his flight tickets to Monday night and meet Bill Griffin at midnight. He and Bill went too far back for him to do otherwise. This meant he would not get into work until Tuesday, a day late. Which would make Kielburger, the general who directed USAMRIID, see red. To put it mildly, the general found Smith and his freewheeling, field-operations way of doing things aggravating.

Not a problem. Smith would do an end run.

Early yesterday morning he had phoned Sophia just to hear her voice. But in the middle of their conversation, a call had cut in. She had been ordered to go to the lab immediately to identify some virus from California. Sophia could easily work the next sixteen or twenty-four hours nonstop and, in fact, she might be at the lab so late tonight, she would not even be up tomorrow morning, when he had been planning to share breakfast. Smith sighed, disappointed. The only good thing was she would be too busy to worry about him.

He might as well just leave a message on their answering machine at home that he would arrive a day late and she should not be concerned. She could tell General Kielburger or not, her call.

That was where the payoff came in. Instead of leaving London tomorrow morning, he would take a night flight. A few hours' difference, but a world to him: Tom Sheringham was leading the U.K. Microbiological Research Establishment team that was working on a potential vaccine against all hantaviruses. Tonight he would not only be able to attend Tom's presentation, he would twist Tom's arm to join him for a late dinner and drinks. Then he would pry out all the inside, cutting-edge details Tom was not ready to make public and wangle an invitation to visit Porton Down tomorrow before he had to catch his night flight.

Nodding to himself and almost smiling, Smith leaped over a puddle and yanked open the back door of the black-beetle taxi that had stopped in the street. He told the cabbie the address of the WHO conference.

But as he sank into the seat, his smile disappeared. He pulled out the letter from Bill Griffin and reread it, hoping to find some clue he had missed. What was most noteworthy was what was not said. The furrow between his brows deepened. He thought back over the years, trying to figure out what could have happened to make Bill suddenly contact him this way.

If Bill wanted scientific help or some kind of assistance from USAMRIID, he would go through official government channels. Bill was an FBI special agent now, and proud of it. Like any agent, he would request Smith's services from the director of USAMRIID.