LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Yours and mine in this instance. I am an American.”

      “Well, that explains much. Are you annexing France or what?”

      Jack smiled at the jab. “Not right now. We received intelligence about a month ago that a man called Ahmed Chari has set up a laboratory where he’s concocting a deadly virus that he intends to sell for use as a biological weapon.”

      She gasped, covering her mouth with the fingertips of one hand. “No!”

      “Yes. There’s a possibility that he plans to test it here. If he sells it to the groups that will want it most, Americans everywhere will be at risk. It’s possible he’s only a puppet for some larger power that could be using him and others like him to establish a supply of bioweapons. We have to find out.”

      “But…but this is terrible!”

      “And unfortunately, true.”

      “Who told you this?”

      She had trouble believing it. It did sound far-fetched unless you dealt with these monsters on a regular basis and knew what they were capable of. “Someone with inside information. Unfortunately not enough information. What he related about the supplies Chari had purchased for that purpose proved to be true. Your intelligence people have been performing surveillance, and two agents have attempted to infiltrate. They haven’t been seen since. I need to work my way into his operation and see how far he’s been able to take it. And what else or who else might be involved.”

      “Why not simply go in by force and arrest this man?” she asked.

      “I told you. We need to know whether he is working independently or if his setup is but one of a number of labs doing this. Also, we have to find out who is to receive his product, where they are located and, of course, their affiliation.”

      “If you have him in custody, surely you could force him to reveal all of this.”

      “Torture?” he asked. “We have to suppose he would never talk, even on pain of death. If he is a fanatic, he would fight to the death. Or kill himself as we go in. If he is just a supplier with no ideological motive, he and those working for him would be more afraid of his clients than of us. These people use families as leverage. As you must know, truth serum’s vastly overrated. So, we have to extract the information, all of it, by other means. In this case, by gaining his trust if we can.”

      “And after you do?” she asked breathlessly.

      “Perform what damage control we can, destroy the product and put him out of business permanently.”

      “Kill him?” she asked in a broken whisper.

      “Yes, if necessary,” Jack replied. “At least lock him away where he’ll present no further threat.”

      “I do not believe you. This is not real.” But he could hear the horror in her voice. She didn’t dare not believe him and they both knew it.

      “We had planned for your father to go in with me when we reach Chari’s chateau,” he told her. “Someone would need to explain how I managed to get René out of Baumettes. The boy cannot do that, since he was drugged and unaware. I want Chari to hire me to work for him out of gratitude.”

      “How can you trust he will do that? Do you know anything about this man?” she asked, hitting squarely on his main problem.

      “Not as much as I would like. If you go in with me to verify details of the escape, you will probably be confined once we arrive, kept only to minister to Chari’s son, until we have this resolved. It shouldn’t take long. All you would need to do is keep the boy sedated and comfortable and stay where they put you. It’s highly unlikely you would be hurt.”

      “Unless what he is working on is mishandled and we all die from it!” she snapped.

      “The substance should be relatively safe unless you sniff it, swallow some or get it on your skin. As I’m certain you know, we have serum that works against ricin, smallpox and several other dangerous agents. You would be given that beforehand, of course. Because of what he has purchased, we believe what he has is ricin or something similar.”

      “You believe? Pardon me if I entertain some doubt. Even if the intelligence you received is credible, suppose he is attempting to alter the substance so that the immunizations will not be effective?”

      Jack looked at her, sympathizing with her fears. The awful part of this was that she could easily be right.

      He watched her as she sipped the remainder of her coffee, now probably tepid. But she wasn’t tasting it, only going through the motions to conceal her nervous tension.

      With a sigh he took the cup from her and got up to refill it. He couldn’t do this after all. Too risky. She was totally unsuited for this kind of thing. And God only knew what she might suffer if Chari or his men turned out to be hostile toward women. The man was half Iranian. Too much depended solely on Chari’s gratitude, his love for his son. What if he hated the kid and didn’t care whether his son had a doctor’s care?

      Jack plunked down the cup, sloshing a few drops onto the bare table top. “I can see you aren’t going to work out.”

      “No!” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “I will. It is simply that I had to digest all that you have told me.” She managed a crooked little smile. “It does not go down well, but I see how important—no, vital—it is that you succeed. That we succeed. I must help you, of course.”

      He was already shaking his head. “Admirable of you to agree, but I’ve changed my mind, Solange.”

      “It is too late for that, Mercier…Jacques,” she said, offering him a smile that was a bit more confident than the last. Not a full sun-on-the-water smile yet, but he saw a glimmer that could draw him in deeply enough to drown. What was it about this woman?

      “You’re too…honest or something. Too innocent, maybe. The boy and I will go in alone.”

      “I am going with you,” she said decisively. Now there was fire in her eyes and a determined lift to her chin. “My father had agreed to do this and now that he cannot, I must. You need me. It is too late to alter your plan.”

      For the remainder of the day Solange continued to argue with Mercier when she found the chance. He shushed her whenever they were anywhere near her patient, which was most of the time.

      René had roused for a while. Though he was mostly incoherent, he did manage some of the tinned soup she had heated for their midday meal. He moved more easily now and seemed improved over the day before, despite the ordeal of being shuffled from his bed at the prison.

      After he had eaten she administered more morphine. When he drifted off again, she renewed her assault on Mercier’s decision to leave her somewhere and go on alone with René.

      The more she considered her father’s decision to assist Mercier and his people in this mission, the more determined Solange became to do so herself in his stead. Her resentment at being kept in the dark about it had faded completely. Father would have been ordered not to confide in anyone. And, of course, he would have known she would be frantic for his safety if he had told her.

      She couldn’t afford fear now, not for herself. There was too much at stake.

      This was the first time she had really had a chance to study Mercier and take his true measure. He wore this rough exterior, his disguise, she supposed. Even that scruffy two-day beard, slightly unkempt hair and prison clothing could not conceal his real persona, not now that she knew him better.

      He took total control of his surroundings. His self-confidence seemed inborn or thoroughly ingrained early in his life. There was a charisma about him that would draw people to him, make them trust him. It had worked on her to some degree even before she had known why he had abducted her and René.

      There was something about this man that was unique and compelling. She suspected that it would affect almost anyone who came

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