Firechild (11 page)

“On your person?” Anger edged his voice. “The Americans already suspect me, and your own status here is barely legitimate. They are well enough aware that Roman was a friend of the USSR. These offices are probably under surveillance. At any time, either of us could be seized and searched.”

“We take risks.”

“We also expect results. Can’t you deal with this Carboni?”

“We’ve lost him.” His harshness had turned her half defiant. “He was to meet us last night in a bar near the Chicago safe house. Scorpio waited there with me till three this morning. That’s why I’m late—that and the panicky mobs at O’Hare.

“I thought we had a deal. Scorpio had promised him photos and letters from the three dissidents assuring him that we had arranged their safe release. In return, he was to give us the key to an airport locker where we would find the films. I had the letters with me.

“Professional forgeries, complete with doctored snapshots of the old rogue Alyoshka and his women. The letters confirm his joy at discovering that he has a son and the happiness of the whole family in being liberated. But”—her breath went out—”Carboni never came.”

“He didn’t die in the Enfield disaster?”

She shook her head. “An odd thing. You know he was our only good source at EnGene. Scorpio thinks he must have learned that it was about to happen. Previously, they had arranged to meet that night at his Enfield apartment to finalize plans for the exchange. Carboni called on very short notice to change the meeting place to a Kansas City motel—he said he suspected that the CIA had bugged his place.

“Scorpio says that Kansas City meeting saved both their lives.” •

“Let’s get to the point.” His voice sharpened impatiently. “What happened to the Belcraft files?”

“Who knows?” A baffled shrug. “Scorpio hates me. Recently he has been difficult. Demanding more money. He seems afraid of his work since the disaster, and I hate to trust him. As for Carboni—I’ve never even seen him. Scorpio says the FBI and the CIA have been collecting dossiers on all the EnGene employees. He and Carboni are both on the list, subject to interrogation if they can be captured. Carboni may have simply gone into hiding.” Her voice sank. “I just don’t know.”

“Find out!” Shuvalov turned shrill. “I don’t risk my neck for nothing.”

“Operations are getting sticky.” Her brow furrowed. “The Americans are desperate. They apparently know even less than we do about what hit their city. They suspect nobody and everybody. As you say, they may strike at us.” A weary shrug. “Anyhow, here’s something for you.” She dug into her bag. “Scorpio did deliver another report.”

“If you’ve lost Carboni and the films, what’s left to report?”

“Scraps of fact that Carboni kept offering to justify his arrogant demands. Scorpio carried a hidden tape recorder and later dictated his own report of each encounter. I have transcribed the tapes—Scorpio refuses to put anything on paper.”

“But you are bolder?” He turned sardonic. “You risk us both?”

“Read it.” She produced a thick envelope. “Evidence enough that EnGene was in fact working to create a biological super-weapon. The effort was based largely on Belcraft’s work, but never with his cooperation. He was bitterly opposed to all military research, and he had remained at the laboratory only because he was allowed to use the facilities for a project of his own—a strange project.

“Carboni says he was attempting to create a new kind of life.”

“A madman?”

“A genius, Carboni calls him. Looking for genetic discoveries that might transform mankind. Carboni calls him an idealistic dreamer, driven by visions that he could somehow recreate the human species into beings nobler and wiser than we are. Too noble even to think of genetic warfare.”

Shuvalov snorted. “I think he was a madman.”

“Mad, perhaps, but also something greater!” Her voice quickened. “Perhaps he hadn’t done much to impress most of his fellow Americans, but Carboni knows genetics enough to feel terrified. He told Scorpio that Belcraft was creating what he called para-life. A stranger stuff than just a clone or a mutation or genetic recombinant. Something wholly new. As different, Carboni told him, as some alien form that might have evolved on another planet.”

“Not very likely.”

“It is described, Carboni swears, in the lab notebooks he photographed. Described in very convincing detail, with outlines for lab processes that he hopes will synthesize it.”

“So?” Shuvalov shrugged. “What is it to us? Colonel Bogdanov will hardly care to play creator. Or allow experiments that might bring this plague to Russia.”

“Knowing the lesson of Enfield, our own genetic engineers might perhaps do better.”

“Perhaps. But you have not obtained the files.” His small eyes sharpened. “Did Carboni speak of anything of greater interest to the Center?”

“Carboni says there are notes made on a word processor for a letter Belcraft was planning to write his brother. Carboni got into the computer to make his own printout of the notes. Sketching Belcraft’s whole career at EnGene. His disagreements with the weapon-builders and his ideas for some new creation. If the letter was actually written, it would be a fascinating document. Even the notes should be revealing.”

“This brother? Where is he?”

“He’s a physician in Fort Madison. A town on the Mississippi. We sent an agent there, who found him away. His office nurse says he called her on the morning of the disaster to say he was driving to Enfield. He has not returned. She has heard nothing more.”

“Was he involved in the genetic research?”

“Apparently not. On the night before the disaster, he received a telephone call from his brother at EnGene —a call Carboni was able to record. We have a transcript here.” She nodded at the envelope. “The brother —Victor Belcraft—speaks of a letter, which he says has been safely mailed. Perhaps he was anticipating the disaster. Something in his call seems to have alarmed the doctor-brother.”

“He reached Enfield in time to die there?”

“No. I don’t think so.” A troubled headshake. “Scorpio is not my only agent. We have informers in the American task force. One of them has reported a survivor picked up inside the quarantine perimeter—a Dr. Saxon Belcraft. He must be the brother from Fort Madison.”

“If that’s true—” His eyes narrowed. “The Americans are doubtless interrogating him. We must learn what he says.”

“There’s something stranger.” Her voice dropped. “The informer reports that this brother ventured into the devastated area, where all life had been erased. The task force is still afraid of contagion, but he came out alive. He brought a creature with him. A queer little animal that had survived whatever destroyed the city.” She caught her breath, leaning a little toward him. “It is said to be a sort of thing never seen before. Perhaps the para-life discussed in the Belcraft documents.”

“The file you failed to obtain.”

“We made every possible effort.” She tried not to flinch from his rasp of accusation. “Scorpio says Carboni is afraid of us and afraid of the CIA. He has refused to reveal where he is hiding. Since he failed to meet us in Chicago, we have no way to reach him. With military law in effect around Enfield, and the whole nation under emergency alert—” She shrugged unhappily.

“The American investigators have accomplished nothing. I’m afraid we’ll do no better.”

“Comrade!” he scolded her. “We are never negative.”

“I’ll make every possible effort.” Gamely, she tried to brighten. “Even if we have lost Carboni, we have others as competent. I believe we are still ahead of the Great Enemy.”

She used the familiar Russian phrase,
Glavni Vrag.

“They appear to know even less than we do about the deadly agent. The evidence indicates that all its makers died in the disaster. Though Carboni once threatened to have his films given to the CIA if harm came to him, that has not yet happened.”

“If that is the case—”

Shuvalov paused, hard little eyes fixed unreadably upon her. She had begun to flush before he reached across the table for the envelope. His sallow smile relieved her.

“Comrade, I commend you.” His tone was suddenly too warm. “The fact that the Americans don’t know what is killing them will be welcome news at the Center. You have done well in a hazardous emergency, and I shall forward a commendation along with my analysis of this material.”

“Thank you, comrade!”

He was rising. “I’ll have new orders for you later today. Based on revised instructions from the Center. I believe our plan of campaign is already clear. The panic in the American military seems to indicate that the secret of their super-weapon was lost in the disaster.

“We are to make certain that it is not recovered. If Carboni’s photos still exist, we must obtain them. If Belcraft’s letter to his brother was mailed in time to escape destruction, we must secure it. If the brother and the creature from the ruins can offer clues to the nature of the weapon—”

He paused, quick little eyes probing into her.

“I understand.” She came slowly to her feet. “The brother and his queer little creature must be eliminated, though.” She had to shake her head. “The Americans will have them under heavy guard, somewhere inside the quarantine perimeter. They may be hard to reach.”

“They can be—have to be erased.” The pale smile turned him uglier. “Our best chance to sting the
Glavni Vrag!”

15

Born of Fire?

B
efore Belcraft reached the bridge, a chopper dropped and hovered ahead of him. A little blizzard of bright flakes swirled down around him. He stopped the car and climbed out to read smeary black print on an orange-colored leaflet.

DANGER! KEEP OUT!

AREA CONTAMINATED!

All persons are hereby warned that the ruins of Enfield and the surrounding area are under a strict quarantine required by public safety and enforced by military law. Trespassers are in danger of infection by an unidentified biological vector.

WARNING!

LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT!

By order of General Adrian Clegg

Commander, Task Force Watchdog

Waiting in the car, Belcraft looked across the bridge into that forbidden ground. It was now an ashen gray, as if from a fall of dirty snow. He saw nothing in it moving, but closer to him sparrows were flitting around the untouched trees along the creek. The bicycle lay unharmed where that luckless boy had fallen. His dust had eaten no farther into the weeds. Higher up the slope, those straggling sunflowers stood where they had been, bent now toward the western sun.

Had the contagion really stopped?

Heart beating faster, he watched the chopper rise and then drove on across the bridge and up the slope. A hundred yards into the dust, he stopped again to look around him. The road was still nearly bare; all the growth beside it had been dissolved into that fine gray powder. A tall chimney stood starkly alone where a home must have been, a red-brick monument to death.

He felt surprised to find so much unchanged. The dust was almost the color of ashes. Everything wooden had been consumed: buildings and signposts and telephone poles. It seemed strange to him that there had been so little actual fire to blacken brick or stone, crumple or darken the still-bright metal.

The chopper was circling back, hammering the stagnant heat, flying so low that it lifted a thick gray cloud. A breath of that reached him, edged with a queer dry sharpness a little like vinegar, more like new paint.

He scrambled out of the car. Fighting the impulse to shake his fist, he stood waving the chopper away. It kept drifting closer, the hot blast stirring up dust to wash him. His eyes began to burn. His nostrils stung. He sneezed. Gasping, close to panic, he waved both arms.

It sank closer. His eyes had blurred, but he caught the glint of lenses. Men in uniform, leaning to watch him with binoculars. Eager to observe and report what the dust did to him.

So far, nothing worse than a fit of hay fever. He didn’t like the stink, but it was no worse than anatomy labs he remembered. With a grin of bleak relief, he climbed back into the car and shut the windows. At least, he thought, they weren’t likely to shoot him for a looter. Not so long as he was their live guinea pig.

He blew his nose and waited. The chopper rose a little, pulling back until the dust cloud no longer reached him, but still it hung there. He counted eight others farther off in the shimmering heat, all cruising low. Metal vultures, wheeling over this alien desert where only metal could survive.

The closed car grew suffocating. He started the engine and turned on the air conditioner. The chopper dropped again, circling him. He opened the door for a moment and waved to let the crewmen know he wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyhow. They kept on watching.

Overheating, the engine slowed and bucked and died. He sweated again, watching the chopper and scanning the ashen landscape. A little cluster of taller downtown buildings stood undamaged on the dancing horizon. One of them, no doubt, was the Enfield Trust tower, where Marty Marks had watched the last convulsions of the dying city. A Chevron station, nearer, glistened red and white and blue, bright as an unwrapped Christmas toy. When at last the chopper rose and roared away, he got a can of water there and cooled off his engine.

He drove ahead. Beyond that shining Chevron station, a pile of burnt-out vehicles clogged the entrance to a divided highway. He jolted over curbs to get around them, then turned south toward where he thought the EnGene labs must have stood.

The road led him through what had been a residential district. The homes were gone, their flattened sites left littered with brick and metal: naked chimneys, uncovered plumbing, dusty appliances still in place on concrete floors or tumbled crazily where wooden floors had gone to dust. A business section looked oddly half intact, signs still bright and masonry walls still standing, though most roofs had caved in.

The skeleton of a burned fire engine lay more than half across the EnGene exit ramp. He scraped around it, reckless of damaged paint. Half a mile beyond, bare steel beams rose out of toppled ruin. He picked a wary way toward them across fields of dust, avoiding dead fire trucks and police cars and the empty van from KBIO, until he had to stop before a wall of blast-tossed debris.