Chapter Twenty-Eight
“S on of a bitch,” Max said under his breath, his hands wrapped around the butt of his Beretta just like they were supposed to be. Just like Ali had taught him.
Akbar had her, was jerking her around like she was a thing he could use to bring Max to heel.
“He wants to come in here and drink tea?” Hunt asked, incredulous. “He’s fucking nuts.”
“Yes, he is,” Max agreed. “That makes him even more dangerous.”
Hunt turned to stare at him. “You’re not considering it, are you? Letting him in here, I mean?”
“Yes, I am.”
“We need to find out what the nutcase wants,” Warren said. “We’re small fry in the scheme of things.”
“ Jesus ,” Hunt whispered.
“Is that a complaint?” Max asked him.
“It’s a prayer, because I know you’re going to say yes.”
“Feel free to hide a weapon or two around the building,” Max said. “I’m going to keep him talking for another minute.”
Hunt blinked, then nodded and disappeared into the rubble behind them.
“What about the people in here with me?” Max shouted. “Some of them are civilians, children. Will they be unharmed?”
“Why do you have children in there?” Akbar seemed genuinely curious.
“Their parents died or were killed. There wasn’t anywhere else for them to go.”
Max couldn’t see Akbar’s face, Ali’s was the one he could see clearly, but Akbar’s hesitation was the only sign so far that the man had any empathy left in him at all.
“Keep them out of the way and they won’t be harmed,” Akbar said after a few seconds. “Any soldiers with you must disarm now or they will be killed. If they try to fight, they’ll be killed, but not before one of the children is killed in front of them first.”
So much for empathy.
The ultimatum was enough to make Max sick. His fists clenched so tight the joints were white against his skin.
The soldiers around him swore, turning the air blue.
“He’s not sane,” Max said to the men around him. “He’s exhibiting psychopathic behavior, which means he’ll have no hesitation in hurting or killing anyone, and no guilt afterward. If you provoke him, he will kill you first and not bother with questions.”
“Sounds like he’ll kill us anyway,” Hunt said.
“No.” Max thought about it. “He wants something or he wouldn’t be here looking for my surrender.”
“What does he want?”
“I have no idea, though...” He thought back to Dr. Sophia Perry’s clash with Akbar. “He might want my professional expertise in some way. He tried to force one of my doctors to genetically alter a rabies virus into a superbug.”
“Did she?” Hunt asked.
“No, she blew up her lab instead. Nearly blew up Akbar too.”
Hunt grunted. “Too bad she missed.”
“So, as soon as you’re of no use to him, we’ll all die—is that what you’re saying?” Warren asked.
“In this plan-for-the-worst-hope-for-anything-better situation, yes.”
“Fuck.”
“What is your decision, Max?” Akbar called out.
“I agree to surrender. My men, as well,” Max shouted at the madman. “How do you want to do this?”
“You come out first, walk ten feet, then disarm. After you’ve been searched by my men, you may join me and your men may come out one at a time.”
“Fine. I’m coming out.” Max followed his words with actions, leaving the safety of the building. He stopped approximately ten feet out and set his Beretta on the ground. He put his survival knife there too. Then he stood and walked toward Akbar with his hands in the air.
A militant came toward him, searched him thoroughly, then frog-marched him to stand by Akbar, not quite close enough to touch.
Akbar had one hand wrapped around Ali’s arm and a handgun pointed at her head in the other.
Max looked her over, but didn’t see any new evidence of abuse or mistreatment.
“I have not hurt the woman,” Akbar said. “Nor will I, unless you provoke it.” He smiled. “Thank you for surrendering. You’ve saved me a great deal of money.”
“You put the bounty on me?”
“Of course. I had to keep you busy while I created my masterpiece.”
Whatever sanity Akbar had retained after the death of his family, it was all gone now.
Hunt came out of the building and was searched, followed by Warren, Jessup, Tom, Bird and Holland.
“I had heard she was a fierce fighter.”
Max watched Akbar tighten his grip on Ali’s arm. The bastard was going to leave bruises.
“She’s the best shot I’ve ever seen,” Max said softly. “And she teaches some hand-to-hand to soldiers in training, but this...” He looked around. “This isn’t training.”
“Women,” Akbar said, disdain coating every word, “are better suited to intellectual and family pursuits.” He smiled faintly. “Dr. Perry surprised me when she blew up her lab. I hadn’t expected that.”
There was an underlying tone of curiosity in Akbar’s voice that finally gave Max something to work with, something to distract him from Ali’s deadly threat. “I was furious when I found out what she had done,” he said, shaking his head. “Her reason for doing it only made me madder.”
Akbar tilted his head to one side and leaned slightly toward Max. “What was the reason?”
Oh, yes, he really wanted to know.
“You attempted to use emotional blackmail to get what you wanted from her. Fear isn’t a good motivator to someone who’s as pragmatic as she is. She has little patience for that sort of emotional outburst.”
Akbar stared at Max, unblinking for several seconds before saying, “I almost wish she was here rather than you.”
Max shrugged. “She’d just blow something else up.”
Akbar’s stare finally left him and the terrorist glanced at the line of Special Forces soldiers kneeling with their hands behind their heads.
“There are only six of them,” Akbar said. “There should be more.”
“One of the men died of the flu last night,” Max explained. “Others died of injuries sustained in a firefight.”
“Where are their bodies?”
“Inside, wrapped up.”
Akbar’s dead eyes didn’t flicker or flinch. “Show me.”
Max led the way into the old hospital. Akbar followed, his grip on Ali’s arm unchanged. Several armed militants came with them, and the rest stayed outside to guard the Special Forces soldiers.
Max took them to the room with the bodies. Akbar’s men unwrapped the dead with little care.
Akbar ignored those whose deaths had been caused by violence and leaned down to examine Bull. “Symptoms before death?”
“Cough and fever. He complained of shortness of breath, took a couple of cold pills and went to sleep. He never woke up.”
Akbar looked down Bull’s shirt. “You didn’t autopsy him?”
“I didn’t deem it necessary. We’d already seen enough dead bodies to know what killed him.”
“And that is?”
“A cytokine storm. An overreaction of the body’s own immune system to the presence of the virus in the lung tissue.”
Akbar stepped away from the body and faced Max. “How infectious is the disease?”
“Why are you asking me questions to which you already know the answers?”
“One never knows how an infection is going to behave once it’s out in the world. Twice now, my weapons have not performed the way I would have liked. What is it you Americans say? Third time’s the charm?”
“What do you want from me, other than a pathologist’s report?”
“Where is your field lab?”
Max had never wanted to kill another human being, until now. Whatever had happened to Akbar when his family died had destroyed the human in him and left only an animal. A cunning animal. One he had to treat with extreme caution, because he still didn’t know what Akbar really wanted from him.
“This way.” Max indicated that they had to leave the room, and walked out first. His lab wasn’t far, just a short walk down the hallway and into the operating room he’d taken over.
Akbar stepped through the doorway, looked around slowly, then released Ali, shoving her at one of the armed men with them.
He examined the workspace Max had set up, taking his time, but touching nothing. When he got to the package they’d received only hours before, he asked, “What’s this?”
“Supplies.”
Akbar glanced at Max, then walked over and calmly slapped Ali hard enough to knock her to the floor.
Stay down, stay down.
Akbar stood over her like he was preparing to do more harm. “Don’t make me ask again.”
Shit.
“Syringes, stabilizing agent, and the current influenza vaccines for North America and Asia.”
“You believe the current vaccine provides some protection?”
“I don’t know. The man who died had been vaccinated, but he’s the only one so far. None of the people in this village had been vaccinated, so I felt it was worth trying.”
“You wanted to vaccinate the local people?”
“Yes.”
“When did you do this?”
“I haven’t yet. I’d sent out Stone and a local woman to find healthy people who were willing to be vaccinated.”
“Test subjects, Max?” Akbar asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you condemned such actions?”
“Not test subjects like when you tested your anthrax on that unknowing village in Afghanistan,” Max said with some heat. “These people will be fully informed and I’ll only vaccinate those who agree to it.”
Akbar watched him as if he were a bug he wanted to step on. “They will not be vaccinated at all.”
Son of a bitch. “What do you plan on doing with them?”
“Nothing.” Akbar sounded like a benevolent leader. “Since so many people here have died, I’m sending some to a nearby town and others to the city.”
His plan was so simple, it would probably work. “You want them to spread the disease.”
Akbar’s response was a sneer. “Disease has always been part of the human condition. I’m simply allowing it to purge the weak from the strong.”
“Is that what you say to the militants who’ve been helping you? Funding you?”
“The truth is a powerful thing.”
“Your truth.”
“Everyone’s truth.”
“No, yours is tainted by tragedy, and you won’t be satisfied until the whole world suffers with you.”
Akbar turned away, his hands curling into tight fists. He looked at the package again and Max could almost hear the gears in his head turning. “Tell me about this stabilizing agent.”
Back to the questions and answers. He glanced at Stone, but she was looking at the floor, giving an amazing performance as a defeated female, helpless and hopeless. Akbar wouldn’t hesitate to brutalize her again to get what he wanted. “I’m attempting to create a vaccine from samples of the virus. I can’t do that without a stabilizing agent.”
“How far into the process of creating a vaccine are you?”
“I’ve just begun. I injected the virus into those eggs a few hours ago, but they need another twenty-four hours to incubate before I can harvest any of it.”
“Very good, Max. Very, very good. How many doses will these eggs make?”
“Two or three.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s the same method the pharmaceutical companies have used for years to produce their yearly flu vaccine.”
“Is this your first batch?”
If he was going to lie, it had to be convincing. “No. My first batch didn’t produce enough for even one dose. I didn’t let them incubate long enough.”
Akbar stared at the eggs for several moments before saying, “I wish to see this process. I will have more eggs collected.”
“Didn’t you use a process like this to produce the virus you wanted?” Max asked. How the hell had he done it otherwise?
Akbar didn’t answer him. He turned to one of his men. “Collect several dozen eggs.” The man left the room.
“What is your estimated fatality rate of the flu?” Akbar asked him.
A hard knot formed in the pit of Max’s stomach. Akbar wasn’t having a conversation with him. There was no give and take, no exchange of information.
Akbar was interrogating him, violence a vibrating threat in his posture and clenched fists.
“I don’t know. People have been dying too fast for me to get any real numbers. I don’t even know how many people lived here to begin with. The refugee camp shot any estimates to hell.”
That wasn’t the answer Akbar wanted either. “An estimate, Max.”
Max scowled, uncaring if Akbar got angry with him. “My very unscientific fatality rate estimate is between thirty and forty percent.” An idea occurred to him and he spoke before he could censor himself. “How did you introduce the virus to this place? And when?”
Akbar’s reptilian gaze was unwavering. “You think you can discover a way to beat me, to combat this virus and save the world?” He shook his head and walked casually over until he was standing next to Stone where she still sat on the floor. “You can’t stop the spread of this disease. You can’t save yourself or anyone else. This virus will finally bring about justice. For me, my dead wife and children, and every man who agrees that the Western powers, the United States, need to be shown that they are as powerless as we are.”
Max could feel the blood leaving his face. “Why? Killing more people won’t bring your family back.”
Akbar sneered. “If my family wasn’t safe from grenades, rockets, hunger, and disease, neither is anyone else.”