The enemy, p.17
The Enemy, page 17
Helpless, they were swept forward on the crest of a huge wave. Ahead lay a wall of black. The sound of the surf grew loud. The bow dipped until it was pointed almost straight down. The engines screamed as the props came out of the water. They slid down the face of the wave, picking up speed.
Selena screamed. The boat struck the shore. The fiberglass hull shattered as the wave thundered over them. Nick was rolled and tossed in a churning maelstrom of choking water, sand and debris. Something struck him on the side of the head.
Then, nothing.
Chapter 48
Nick came to, retching seawater. He lay on his stomach, his face pressed into rough sand. His side hurt. Something slimy and uncomfortable was under his cheek. A hard shape pressed into his chest.
The boat! Selena!
The thought jarred him awake. He raised up on hands and knees, then climbed to his feet. The wind tried to blow him over. A thick strand of kelp was plastered to his face. He pulled it off and tossed it away. He looked around in the dark. Behind him, a churning line of white foam marked where the surf crashed against the shore.
He called out.
“Selena. Ronnie. Lamont.”
“Over here.”
It was Selena. Her voice came from somewhere on his right.
“Keep talking.”
“Nick. I’m here.”
He stumbled in her direction and almost tripped over her. She sat upright on the sand, holding her left arm close to her chest.
“Thank God,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, but my shoulder is dislocated.”
“That was a hell of a ride,” he said. She gave him a tiny smile. “What about Ronnie and Lamont? Have you seen them?”
“No.”
“Let me look at your arm. You’re sure it’s dislocated, not broken?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I can fix it. It will hurt.”
“I know. Just get it over with.”
Nick knelt in front of her. Gently, he moved her arm. She gasped in pain. He grasped the arm behind the wrist and in front of the elbow.
“Okay. On three. Ready? One. Two.”
Nick pulled her arm straight forward. Selena yelled in pain. There was an audible click as the bone moved back into place. Tears ran down Selena’s face.
“Damn it, Nick. You said on three.”
“I lied. Easier that way for you.”
He pulled off his belt and improvised a sling.
“You know the drill. Try not to move it. Does it feel better?”
“Yes. Thanks, I think. Go look for Ronnie and Lamont. There’s a small flashlight in my left jacket pocket. If it’s still there.”
He reached inside the pocket and found the light. It clicked on, giving a small, intense, white beam.
“This will help.”
Nick stood, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted.
“Ronnie. Lamont. Where are you?”
“Nick. We’re over here. Hurry.”
Ronnie’s voice came from farther down the beach.
“Go. I’m fine,” Selena said.
Nick swept the flashlight beam in front of him. Ten yards farther on, Lamont lay unmoving on the sand. Ronnie crouched over him, giving him CPR.
“Shit,” Nick said he came up to them. “Is he breathing?”
“No. I think he hit his head on the rocks. Probably swallowed a lot of water. Take over, I’ll try and get some air into him.”
Nick set the flash on the sand, knelt down and began. Ronnie leaned close, pinched Lamont’s nostrils and blew into his mouth. They set up a rhythm between compressions and pushing air into Lamont’s lungs.
“Come on, Lamont,” Nick said. “Breathe, damn it. You’re not getting out of here that easy.”
Selena came up, drawn by the light.
They kept at it. Nick’s wound opened as he pressed on Lamont’s chest. The blood felt warm as it trickled down his side. He kept up the rhythm, looked at Selena, shook his head. His arms were growing tired. He was about to ask Ronnie to take over, when Lamont coughed. Water spewed from his mouth.
“Quick, turn him,” Ronnie said.
They rolled him onto his left side. Lamont began coughing and choking, spitting water. Ronnie held his head off the sand.
“Breathe. That’s it. Breathe.”
Minutes later, Lamont was sitting up, shivering. His coffee-colored skin looked white in the light of the flash.
“Thanks,” he croaked.
Rain poured down. The wind whipped around them.
Nick remembered his phone. It was still in his jacket, the hard shape he’d been lying on when he woke up. It was supposed to be waterproof. He took it out and turned it on. Nothing happened.
“No good. Maybe if we can get it dried out. Lamont, can you walk?”
“Yeah. Give me a minute.”
“What’s the plan?” Ronnie said.
“Find shelter. Walk until we find something.”
“I’m ready,” Lamont said.
They helped him up and set off. The beach stretched along a deserted, rocky shore. They couldn’t see far with the small flashlight, but it was enough to keep from tripping over rocks and debris. They’d been walking for several minutes, when the light crossed a sandy trail leading up from the beach.
“That looks like a path,” Ronnie said.
“Good a bet as any,” Nick said. “Lamont, how you doing?”
“I’m good.”
He coughed, a long string of hacking sounds.
They took the path. Years of military training, putting one foot in front of the other, took over. It didn’t take much thinking. As long as you kept doing that, you’d get somewhere.
They almost ran into the side of a wooden shack that emerged from the darkness. There were no lights inside. The front of the shack had a door and one small window. The door was closed with a hasp and padlock. Ronnie made short work of that with his knife. They opened the door and stumbled inside, exhausted.
Nick closed the door behind them.
“Man, it’s good to get out of the rain,” Lamont said.
Nick’s light fell on a kerosene lamp resting on a brightly painted table.
“We need a match.”
Ronnie took a small metal box from his shirt pocket and tossed it to Nick.
“Waterproof. So they say.”
Nick struck a match, lifted the glass chimney and lit the wick of the lantern. It burned and began smoking. He adjusted the wick until the smoke stopped. The room filled with a warm, yellow glow.
Two wooden chairs painted red and blue sat next to the table. A bench with a metal basin and a cabinet made up a rudimentary kitchen. A rusty potbelly stove sat in one corner with a small pile of dry wood next to it. In a few moments, Nick had a fire going.
Lamont coughed, coughed again, and kept coughing. Finally, he stopped. Outside, wind and rain beat against the sides of the building.
Nick put his phone next to the stove, hoping the heat would dry it out. He sat down in one of the chairs, exhausted.
“We’re safe for the moment,” Nick said. “There’s nothing to do until the storm is over.”
“I need to sleep,” Selena said.
“Sounds about right,” Ronnie said.
Lamont stretched out on the floor near the stove. Nick sat at the table. The others found places to lie down. After everything they’d been through, the warped boards of the floor felt like luxury.
Long after the others were asleep, Nick sat staring at the glow of the stove. At last he folded his arms on the table, laid his head down, and slept.
Chapter 49
The heat dried out Nick’s phone. Once it began working again, Hood zeroed in on the GPS signal. They waited in the shack for the storm to blow over. It was another full day before Hood got someone to them. His connections still ran deep. There’d been no awkward questions from the Turkish authorities.
Now they were back in Elizabeth’s office, holding a council of war to decide what to do about Hauser. Elizabeth was still in the hospital. Hood was running the meeting.
“That was good work in Romania,” he said. “Unfortunately, it looks like Hauser is preparing to produce the vaccine in his Swiss facility.”
“How many factories does this guy have?” Ronnie asked.
“Too many. At least, too many for us to eliminate them.”
“Seems like everything we’ve done has been a waste of time,” Nick said.
“That’s not the case, Nick,” Hood said. “Everything you’ve done has set him back.”
“That’s not enough. He’s still in business. Isn’t there any way to stop him? Legally?”
“I made several discrete inquiries. Hauser’s money has bought him a lot of protection. No one is willing to do anything about him. My concerns were dismissed out of hand. I was told I was out of line. It was a warning. He has a great deal of influence.”
“So we’re just going to let him get away with it?” Selena said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“There’s only one thing you can do with people like this,” Ronnie said.
“Take him out?” Lamont said.
“You have a better idea? He’s made it clear he’s not going to stop. He releases that virus, it’s all over.”
“It’s not just him,” Nick said. “Remember, he has partners. There’s nothing to stop them carrying out their plan, even if Hauser is dead.”
“It’s like a nest of vipers,” Lamont said.
“There’s only one way to be sure this thing ends for good,” Nick said. “We have to get them all.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Hood asked. “These people are well protected. They’re almost never in the same place. If we manage to eliminate Hauser, that will put the others on their guard. We’ll never get near them after that.”
Stephanie had been sitting quietly to the side of Elizabeth’s desk in her usual position. Now she spoke out.
“Then we have to find a way to get them together in one place.”
“How?” Nick said.
“What’s the one thing all these people have in common, aside from their insane ideology?”
“That’s easy,” Ronnie said. “Money. They’re all billionaires.”
“Suppose something happened to their money? If we could get them worried enough, it might provoke a meeting. We could make it look as though someone in their group was responsible. They define themselves by their wealth and the power it gives them. It’s a good bet they’re all paranoid as hell. We plant the idea that one of them is a traitor to the others. If we’re successful, they might even destroy themselves and save us the trouble.”
“That’s an interesting thought, Stephanie,” Hood said. “It might even work. How would you go about it?”
“Most of their wealth will be invested. Freddie can manipulate the markets to make sure those investments start bleeding money. He can access their accounts and play games with them.”
“He can do that?” Nick said.
“Of course. Normally it would be unethical to take advantage of his abilities in that way. But in this case, I think we can make an exception.”
Hood steepled his fingers together. “Could you make it look as if one particular member of the cabal is stealing from the others?”
“Sure. The only question is how obvious you want it to be.”
“I think it should be very obvious,” Nick said. “We need to provoke a reaction fast, before they can get that virus out there.”
“What’s to prevent the other members of the cabal from simply eliminating the one they think is stealing their money?” Selena asked.
“Good question. We have to make them deal with it up close and personal, in a meeting.”
“I can intercept and monitor their communications,” Stephanie said. “We’ll know if what were doing is working.”
“Can you change anything in those messages?”
“Maybe. It depends.”
“That opens up a lot of possibilities,” Nick said. “You could stir things up. But how would you keep them from knowing their messages had been hacked?”
“I’d have to think about it,” Steph said.
“All right, let’s run with this,” Hood said. “Stephanie, start Freddie on interfering with their finances. See if you can figure out a way to insert something in their comms if we need to do that.”
I have already researched the financial information necessary. Shall I begin to interfere?
“That’s good work, but not yet, Freddie,” Stephanie said. “There’s something we need to decide first.”
Very well, Stephanie.
“What are you thinking, Steph?” Selena asked.
“Do we want to focus on one person with this strategy? For example, do we want the others to think Hauser is behind it? Or do we want everyone wondering who it is?”
“I think it’s better if no one is quite sure who’s doing it, as long as they believe it’s one of them,” Nick said.
“More suspicion, more paranoia,” Ronnie said.
“Right. The more we get them off center, the better chance of pulling this off.”
Selena brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead.
“We could make it look as if someone in the cabal was having less trouble than the others. Just enough to cast suspicion.”
“Maybe two of them,” Nick said.
“Who would you choose?” Hood said. “We have Hauser, von Breitenbach, Crampton, Romanoff, and Radu. Radu is the wealthiest of the bunch. I would say he’s also the most ruthless, although it’s a real tossup with these people.”
“Romanoff, for sure,” Selena said. “He’s not as wedded to the globalist philosophy as the others, and they know it.”
“I don’t think Hauser is a good bet,” Nick said. “All the damage we’ve done to him, it’s pretty obvious he’s fully on board with their agenda.”
“On the other hand, that might work to our advantage,” Selena said.
“How so?”
“We’ve cost him a lot of money. Millions, maybe more. All that equipment, those laboratories. That was expensive stuff we blew up.”
“You’re saying we make it look like he wants to recoup some of his losses, at the expense of the others?”
“It’s an idea, anyway.”
“I like it,” Lamont said. “I’d love to cause that creep some trouble.”
“Okay,” Hood said. “We make it look as though either Romanoff and Hauser are manipulating the markets.”
“The others will see it as a power play,” Nick said. “For people like them, money always equals power. That will fit right in with their paranoia.”
“I see a problem with this,” Selena said. “These men are all multi-billionaires. Damaging their investments will cause a lot of other people to lose money as well. If we aren’t careful, we could start a run and cause a crash. I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Freddie can make sure that doesn’t happen,” Steph said. “We’ll do it in a way that hurts them without setting off a larger panic. We can increase Hauser’s and Romanoff’s wealth at the expense of the others and still keep things balanced in the big picture.”
Do not worry, Selena. Stephanie is correct. I have completed an extensive analysis of the targeted investments. We can accomplish the mission without causing a market crash.
“Does that relieve your concerns, Selena?” Hood said.
“Yes.”
“This is going to be fun,” Stephanie said.
Chapter 50
Hauser was finishing breakfast on the veranda of his Texas home. By noon the temperature would hit a hundred degrees, but this early in the morning it was still pleasantly cool. He took a last bite of pastry, then poured another cup of coffee. The beans came from a plantation he owned in Hawaii. He inhaled the rich aroma and sighed with pleasure. One of his enjoyments in life was knowing the gourmet beans were not available to the public.
He contemplated the day. Production of the vaccine had started in Switzerland. In spite of the annoying delay caused by the attacks in Germany and Romania, the plan was moving ahead. Soon there would be enough to distribute to personnel essential to success. Once that was achieved, he would release the virus.
That woman had survived Strecker’s botched attempt to kill her, but he’d make sure she and her minions were infected. Needless to say, the vaccine would not be available to them. On the other hand, it might be interesting to let them get the shot. The protein could be stimulated to create excruciating pain. Then they would regret the trouble they’d caused him.
The image of his enemies suffering brought another smile. Yes, he’d make sure they got the vaccine. With that thought, he dismissed them from his mind.
Hauser had not become as wealthy as he was by delegating everything to others, no matter how experienced or competent they were. His empire was too big to manage every detail, but he always paid personal attention to his market investments. His habit was to review his financial position every morning. It was a simple matter to track how things were going, while enjoying his morning coffee.
He opened his laptop, entered his password, and logged into his account. He owned the company that managed his investments and had full access in real time to everything happening in the markets. His enormous wealth made him one of the hidden factors that influenced stock prices all over the world.
The figures on the screen did nothing to dampen his good mood. His portfolio had gained almost two percent over the last few days. That amounted to something well over a billion dollars. He was considering whether or not to invest in a Canadian mining venture when his encrypted satellite phone signaled a call. Only members of the group knew that number. He looked at the display. It was von Breitenbach calling. Hauser answered.
“Good morning, Baron.”
“Perhaps not so good, Carl. I believe we have a problem.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“Have you talked with the others lately?”
“No.”
“Have you suffered any recent losses to your investments?”
“What an odd question, Baron. As a matter of fact, I was just looking at my portfolio. Aside from normal fluctuations of the market, things are going well.”
