Chapter 32 #2
Before Dan could ask who that was, the door to the toilet opened, and…
He gaped. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask the same question.” Gary frowned. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“She twisted my arm,” Nathan declared.
Sam looked miserable. “This is all my fault. If I’d been more vigilant….”
“We’ve had this discussion,” Nathan told her in a low voice.
“Yes, we have, and it doesn’t change a thing. I have to go with you, okay?”
Nathan stared at her. “Just do what you’re told and stay out of trouble. Remember, you’re supposed to be dead.”
“You need a scientist on your team.” She folded her arms and gave him a glance full of belligerence. “Well? Do you have one?”
“No,” he muttered.
Sam smiled sweetly. “Then you need me.”
Dan was lost. “But if she’s dead, she doesn’t have a passport.”
Nathan sighed heavily. “Yes, she does. I made sure of that.” He aimed a half-assed glare in her direction. “Of course, she didn’t give me much time to get it done—she only told me of her intentions twenty-four hours ago. I may work for the government, but that doesn’t mean I can perform miracles.”
“But in these days of facial recognition, surely….” Gary seemed as perplexed as Dan.
“It’ll get her into the country. And before you ask, no, we don’t all have several passports like you see in the movies.
What matters is how deep they are. The best lie is the one closest to the truth, so many of us don’t have fake identities but real ones.
” He glared at her. “But they still take time to put together.”
“And I’m still here to keep an eye on her.” Mike Welman waved at them. “Hey, guys.”
“Sir?” Soren raised his voice. “The pilot says we’re ready to taxi.”
Nathan gestured to four seats arranged on either side of a small table. “You two sit with me. There’s some stuff I need to share.”
“Am I invited?” Sam asked in a more conciliatory tone.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
The main door was secured, seat belts were fastened, and soon they were rolling slowly across the tarmac, gathering speed. It wasn’t long before the plane rose to meet the dark sky, and beneath them twinkled the lights of Massachusetts.
“How come all your team are wearing casual clothes?” Dan asked Nathan.
“Because I don’t want us to look like a convention of field agents when we pass through the airport in Johannesburg, even if that’s exactly what we are.”
“Now can I ask what you meant by a pawn in our phone conversation?” Gary inquired.
Nathan unfastened his seat belt. “In our line of work, we tend to think of people as chess pieces, hence the knights.”
“I didn’t get that part either,” Dan remarked.
“Okay. Do you know how a knight moves?”
“Yes. In a rectangle, three squares long, two across. They can move two squares horizontally or vertically and then one more square at a right-angle.”
Nathan nodded. “That’s right. And when you have two knights on a chessboard, they work as a team, covering each other, so they can act with impunity. How that works in this case? Knight One went ahead to plow the road, the advance guard if you like. Knight Two shadowing the pawn.”
“So who is the pawn?” Dan asked. “And how do you know he—or she—is this pawn?”
Nathan removed a folded sheet from the pocket of his jacket. “We took a detailed look at the passenger manifest on Knight Two’s flight, and everyone checked out—except for one passenger. Wilhelm Gerber, twenty-eight. Consulate secretary in the US Embassy in Jo’burg. Diplomatic pouch.”
Dan stilled. “Doesn’t that mean he can’t be searched?”
“Not exactly. He still has to take his bags through security, and he did that with no problems. I checked. But he was the only passenger to raise a red flag.”
“For reasons you can’t divulge, right?” Gary commented.
Nathan’s eyes glinted. “You catch on fast.”
Dan clasped his hands in his lap. “So you’re assuming he’s bringing out the device to release the pathogen?”
“Yes. He could have the pathogen too.”
“What form would it be in?” Gary directed the question to Sam.
“If they are using the nebulizers, it could be a small vial of liquid, maybe as little as five milliliters. As to how many vials they’ve brought, who knows?
If the nebulizer is there to make it appear harmless, they could have a box of what looks like asthma medication.
I checked online. Some of those boxes hold twenty-five such vials.
” She swallowed. “And that doesn’t bear thinking about. ”
“We assume it’ll all be handed over to their delivery boy in Jo’burg—whoever that is,” Nathan added. “Could be one of the knights, but we’re not certain of that.”
Dan frowned. There were still too many uncertainties about this case. “Just how big is Johannesburg?”
“Six hundred thirty-five square miles, with a population of over ten million.”
“So how can you hope to discover where they could release it?”
Talk about a needle in a haystack.
“I’ve had my analysts working on that very question ever since Knight One caught his flight,” Nathan said with a frown.
“We were looking for someplace with lots of people, where they could get the widest dispersal of the pathogen. Basically, where they could infect the most people in the shortest possible time with the minimum amount of effort.”
“And did your analysts come up with anything?”
Nathan’s face tightened. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Dan’s stomach roiled. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Nathan raised his eyes heavenwards. “It couldn’t be worse. Just before we took off, I got a message from one of the guys tailing Knight One. At eight in the morning, local time, he went to Ellis Park Stadium. We assume it was a reconnaissance trip.”
Dan’s stomach plummeted. “How big is the stadium? How many spectators can it hold?”
“About sixty thousand. Not that it’s ever had that many.”
“So they could release it during some sporting fixture?” Dan stared at him, and his scalp tingled. “There’s an event taking place soon, isn’t there?”
Nathan expelled a long breath. “Saturday is the final of the Currie Cup. Rugby. We’re talking a huge event. And they’re estimating a crowd of up to thirty thousand people.”