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  Jarvis nodded, turning slowly as he did so, and then his eyes settled on the United Nations Headquarters Building, the flags of its one hundred ninety-two member states arranged in alphabetical order in front of the building, fluttering on their high poles.

  And a sudden, terrible realization shot through him.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Jarvis clicked off the phone as he struck out across 46th Street toward the UN Building, glancing at his watch and hoping against hope that he was wrong. He dialed another number, this time getting Butch Cutler on the other end, sounding as though he was traveling in a vehicle.

  ‘Doug? What’s the story?’

  ‘Get the New Mexico sheriffs office and get them into the SkinGen building as fast as you can. We’ve got the evidence you need, but there’s no time to collate it all and present it to the attorneys. Just go in and find out what the hell they’ve been up to in there.’

  ‘Any idea what they’ll be looking for?’ Cutler asked.

  ‘Tissues belonging to a victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic,’ Jarvis said as he jogged down the street. ‘I think Donald Wolfe’s planning to infect the United Nations General Assembly during his speech there. I need to know how he might do that.’

  Butch Cutler didn’t reply for what felt like a long time as Jarvis jogged toward the vast edifice of the United Nations General Assembly, wishing with every step that he exercised more regularly.

  When the reply came, it was tinged with horror.

  ‘There’s only two ways he could do it,’ Cutler replied. ‘It’s either going to be in the air, or it’s going to be in the water. My guess is he’ll infect the water that they’re drinking, either through the water supply or directly into their glasses somehow. Viruses don’t survive long in the open air.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Jarvis shut off his phone and broke into a run toward the north entrance of the complex that opened onto a landscaped plaza, where the curved façade of the General Assembly Building and its rows of international flags loomed. Translucent glass panels set into marble piers gave the public lobby a subdued glow as Jarvis burst through the doors and found himself surrounded by memorials to men who had worked, or even sacrificed their lives, for world peace.

  He headed for the stairs that led to the second-floor ceremonial entrance to the General Assembly Hall, passing a huge stained-glass panel, symbolic of man’s struggle for peace and dedicated to the memory of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and others who died with him in a plane crash in 1961. Adjacent to the panel were four bronze plaques commemorating members of the Secretariat who had died in the line of duty while serving the United Nations. Nearby, a facsimile of the United Nations Charter stood proudly, and Jarvis felt a nausea descending on him as he realized that such a building was about to become the latest stage for an act of international terrorism.

  He rushed up the stairs, praying his heart wouldn’t give out as he passed a Foucault pendulum, a gift of the Netherlands Government, offering visual proof of the rotation of the earth, suspended from the ceiling above the stair landing connecting the lobby with the second floor.

  He had almost reached the entrance to the Assembly Hall when two uniformed security guards stepped out and caught him between them in mid-stride.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t enter the hall right now.’

  Jarvis gasped for breath as he wheezed a response.

  ‘You don’t let me in there, right now, half of the world’s leaders will be dead within a week.’

  ‘Of course they will, sir.’ One of the guards smiled and rolled his eyes at his colleague. ‘The assembly is in a closed session, and you’ll have to wait until it’s finished before you can save the world.’

  Jarvis gathered his breath and slipped his identification card from out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Doug Jarvis, Defense Intelligence Agency,’ he rasped. ‘You don’t help me, I’ll have you both reassigned to a radar station in goddamned Labrador within twenty-four hours!’

  The security team looked at him curiously.

  ‘Where’s your evidence?’ the taller of the two demanded.

  ‘It’s being collated,’ Jarvis replied. ‘There’s no time for this. We need to—’

  ‘The hell we need to do anything,’ the guard replied. ‘We have our own security force, and this building is secure. You got a problem with that take it to my boss, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you in there without a damned good reason.’

  Jarvis stared at the guards in despair for a long beat, then turned away and dashed toward the adjoining Conference Building.

  60

  UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

  NEW YORK CITY

  Colonel Donald Wolfe stood in full military uniform amidst almost a thousand dignitaries milling about near the entrance to the General Assembly Hall as he glanced at his watch for the fifth time in ten minutes. World leaders surrounded him, talking through translators and to a small number of television crews allowed access to the United Nations complex. He stood for another five minutes, fielding questions from the British Prime Minister, before he finally slipped away into an annex and pulled a cell phone from his pocket that he’d bought for cash two days previously. He would dispose of it as soon as he’d finished.

  He punched in a number from memory and listened to the ring tone warbling in his ear for several long seconds before finally a man’s voice answered.

  ‘Donald?’

  Wolfe spoke slowly and clearly, aware that the line was most likely protected by levels of encryption far more advanced that even his own at Fort Detrick: Bilderberg’s most powerful attendees took no chances with their anonymity.

  ‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Oppenheimer is in position and ready to strike, as are my men. I only need you to give me the go-ahead and assurance of my security.’

  The voice replied, calm and in control. ‘Everything is in place, Donald. As soon as you order your men in, your role in this will be unidentifiable. We will contact you directly at the next Bilderberg meeting once everything has been achieved and the dust has settled. By then, everyone will have forgotten about Jeb Oppenheimer and his crusade.’

  The line went dead in Wolfe’s ear. He immediately punched in a second number and waited for the line to pick up.

  ‘Hoffman.’

  Red Hoffman was breathing heavily, as though he were slogging his way up a hill.

  ‘What’s your status?’ Wolfe asked without preamble.

  ‘We’re within two miles of them,’ Hoffman said under his breath. Wolfe could hear other footfalls around him, the sound of troops marching. ‘We’ll have everything under control within the hour.’

  Wolfe breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘As soon as you do,’ he said with finality, ‘obtain a live subject and leave the area. There must be absolutely no witnesses. Do you understand?’

  Hoffman’s reply was brisk and uncompromising.

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘Bring the subject back to me as soon as you have them, in person.’

  ‘Will do. Hoffman out.’

  The line went dead. Wolfe shut the phone off, unclipped its rear panel and slipped the SIM card out from within. He tossed it onto the floor and smashed one heel down on the delicate card. Then, he slipped the untraceable cell phone into his pocket and turned, striding across the chamber toward the exit.

  He was almost there when he saw two security guards flanking the doors, talking to an old man in a smart blue suit. Wolfe froze on the spot as he recognized Douglas Jarvis, gasping for breath, his face flushed with urgency, gesturing wildly at the two guards.

  Wolfe turned and hurried away to take a different exit from the hall, walking across the connection between the General Assembly Hall and the Conference Building, cantilevered over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. He then took an elevator to the fourth floor. He weaved his way to the Delegates’ Dining Room and just beyond it, to a kitchen that served VIPs in the dini
ng room and was often used as a short cut by delegates between the Conference Building’s dining rooms and the General Assembly Hall. Wolfe strode into the kitchens, one hand in his pocket as several members of staff within glanced at him.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  Wolfe smiled at the head chef, gesturing to the kitchens beyond.

  ‘Just a routine search of the premises before the assembly convenes,’ he said, flashing his USAMRIID identity card. ‘Ask your staff to give me the room, if you will. I’ll walk through here, then exit the same way I came in and report to you there. Is there anything out of order today in here that I need to know about?’

  ‘No, sir.’ The man shook his head and headed for the kitchen door, instantly recognizing Wolfe’s identity and rank. ‘All’s running smoothly.’

  Donald Wolfe waited until the staff had all left the kitchen, keeping his head up and his eyes alert as he turned to stride between the endless worktops, steel vats, pans and ovens. As he walked he saw two rows of approximately fifty large glass jugs filled with water. Each would be taken down to the Assembly Hall and used to fill the glasses of hundreds of world leaders as they sat listening to the lectures and speeches that were part of the General Assembly’s convention.

  Wolfe lifted his hand from his pocket, a large plastic syringe concealed beneath his sleeve. As he walked casually past the huge jugs, he lifted his hand and squirted brief jets of clear fluid, one for each jug, one after another. He then turned at the end of the row and repeated the action down the second row on the other side, dumping jets of infected water into the jugs until his syringe was empty. Wolfe slipped the syringe back into his pocket and walked toward the exit, leaving the kitchens and nodding to the chef by the door as he departed.

  By his best estimate, given the travels of world leaders, the handshakes, the hordes of staff, the telephones and faxes and interviews, cars, aircraft and beds, from the United Nation’s General Assembly Building to a world pandemic would take less than two weeks.

  And the best of it was, nobody would show symptoms for at least four days after infection. Within ten, they would be dead.

  Doug Jarvis ran across the connection between the General Assembly Hall and the Conference Building, staggering into the elevator and punching the button for the fourth floor. He sucked in air with ragged gasps as he leaned on the aluminum walls and watched the digital floor counter change agonizingly slowly. The elevator alarm pinged, and the doors slid open.

  Jarvis took a step out, and stared straight into the eyes of Donald Wolfe.

  The colonel filled the corridor before him, resplendent in his uniform. Before Jarvis could react, Wolfe rushed forward and slammed his shoulder into Jarvis’s chest, plunging them both back into the elevator with a crash of bodies against metal. Wolfe thumped down on top of Jarvis and the impact forced the air from the older man’s lungs. Jarvis saw him punch a fist out at the buttons beside them and the elevator doors closed behind them before he reached down and drew a small ceremonial silver pistol from a holster at his waist.

  Jarvis struggled against Wolfe’s iron grip, but the younger man was too strong for him.

  ‘You’re finished, Colonel,’ Jarvis growled up at him. ‘Doesn’t matter what happens here now. We know everything: Brevig Mission, the flu corpse, SkinGen’s involvement. It’s over.’

  Wolfe nodded, jabbing the pistol against Jarvis’s cheek.

  ‘Yes, it is indeed over. Or at least it is for the majority of the world’s population. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now, Mister Jarvis. This is more important than my survival, or yours. This is about the survival of our species. One way or another, by the end of today one hundred ninety-two world leaders and their staff will walk out of the United Nations plaza carrying the most virulent influenza virus ever to have existed. They will contaminate each other, pass the infection on at a trimetric rate throughout the global population. Hundreds of millions will meet an early grave, for the benefit of those remaining.’ Wolfe grinned a hawkish smile. ‘Cruel to be kind, as they say.’

  Jarvis shook his head.

  ‘You’ll never get that far,’ he said. ‘SkinGen’s already being raided as we speak, and Jeb Oppenheimer’s little experiments in New Mexico have unraveled already. The police will be here any moment.’

  Wolfe chuckled as he glared down at Jarvis with his piercing gray eyes.

  ‘Not soon enough,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’m due on stage in ten minutes. This will all be over by then, if not before. As for you, your time’s already done.’

  Wolfe raised the pistol above his head and brought it crashing down on Jarvis’s temple with a sickening crack. Jarvis felt an instant of skull-piercing pain, and then everything turned black.

  61

  MISERY HOLE

  NEW MEXICO

  7.48 a.m.

  Ethan jogged forward in a low crouch, dodging left and right between bushes of thorn scrub as he tracked north along a dry riverbed weaving through a rugged valley. The tops of the hills were now bathed in brilliant sunlight that flared brightly off the rocks. The flutter of bat’s wings whispered through the air above him as the tiny mammals raced away from the spreading dawn. Behind him Lopez followed his every footstep, whispering as she did so.

  ‘You sure you know where you’re going?’

  Ethan, his pistol held before him in both hands, nodded.

  ‘Damn straight I do. Be quiet, we’re nearly there.’

  Ethan saw that the valley ahead became steeper, and to his right a narrow track heavily lined with trees and scrub climbed the side of the hills before vanishing entirely on a ridge above them. Somewhere within, he now knew, was an entrance to the caverns concealed from humanity by Ellison Thorne and his men over one hundred fifty years before.

  Ethan crept up to the ridge and looked over the edge as Lopez joined him.

  Below them, the angular, stacked rocks of the hillside vanished into a yawning chasm perhaps thirty feet across, surrounded by trees and the lechuguilla bushes that had given the mysterious cave somewhere within its name.

  ‘Misery Hole,’ Lopez said. ‘Looks deep.’

  Ethan peered over the edge into the depths and felt his guts convulse as vertigo scrambled his senses.

  ‘Maybe a hundred feet,’ he whispered, sweating from more now than just the heat. ‘I can’t see the bottom, too dark.’

  ‘We’ve got to get down there,’ Lopez said. ‘Fast.’

  Ethan nodded as he stepped back from the edge and took a deep breath, staring into the distance. Lopez looked at him for a moment and then chuckled.

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding me,’ she said in delight. ‘The rough and tough Marine’s scared of heights?’

  ‘Why do you think I joined the Marines and not an airborne unit?’ Ethan muttered.

  ‘Oh come on.’ Lopez punched his shoulder. ‘Surely you must have jumped out of airplanes or something?’

  ‘Sure we did.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Never had a problem with that, due to having a goddamned parachute on my back. But this . . .’ He gestured to Misery Hole. ‘This is different.’

  Ethan spotted a thick rope ladder bound to some trees fifty yards away. He reluctantly pointed to it. ‘They’re already here.’

  Lopez followed him around the ragged rocks and through thick scrub until they reached the ladder. Ethan glanced at her.

  ‘You want me to go first?’ Lopez offered in an ingratiating motherly voice.

  ‘Like hell.’

  Ethan took hold of the ladder, easing himself onto it and descending out over the edge. Don’t look down. Just face the rocks. Semper fi.

  The ladder hung vertically over the abyss, vanishing into the plunging depths below as he clambered one careful step after another. The shadows of the cave engulfed him as he descended, the ladder swinging and twisting precariously as Lopez swayed on the rungs above him.

  ‘Jesus! You wanna keep still?’ he snapped, looking up at her and wincing as the whirling vertigo spun his senses again.

&nb
sp; ‘Sorry, honey,’ Lopez called back with a smile. ‘Baby steps now, okay?’

  A strange odor assaulted Ethan’s senses as they clambered down, a damp and almost metallic reek of ancient soil that offered a welcome diversion of his attention. A breeze drifted up past them, cool and moist compared to the swiftly warming desert air above. Rock walls engulfed them as they climbed down, and the pure blue sky above them grew smaller. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ethan was relieved to glimpse below him a dimly illuminated floor strewn with the detritus of rock falls and the desiccated timbers of long-fallen trees, a maze of obstacles criss-crossing the sandy floor.

  He climbed down the last few feet of the ladder and dropped onto the dust with a heavy sigh of relief near the entrance to Lechuguilla Cave, a broad and forbidding maw hewn into the side of the rock walls that exhaled the metallic air of the earth itself. He had the brief impression of being in a giant dirty fishbowl, the light streaming down from above in shimmering shafts and the earth littered with debris as though a tornado had blown through.

  Lopez dropped down alongside him and looked into the depths of the cave.

  ‘Now what?’ she asked.

  Ethan was about to reply when the mouth of the cave spoke for him.

  ‘Satan’s teeth, you just don’t know when to quit, do you, boy?’

  From the inky blackness within Lechuguilla Cave, five bayonets glinted in the light beaming down from above. Ethan watched as Ellison Thorne led his companions out into the light, their rifles pointed unwaveringly at him.

  Ethan raised his hands, his pistol still in his jeans.

  ‘We’re not here to fight.’

  ‘How the hell did you find us?’ Ellison Thorne growled at him down the barrel of the rifle.

  Ethan walked forward to stand within a few yards of Thorne and his men, keeping his hands raised as he spoke.

  ‘We followed the trail,’ he said.

  ‘We didn’t leave a trail,’ Copthorne shot back.