Kiss Me While I sleep (14 page)

If the virus made the necessary genetic changes that would enable it to jump from human to human, the company that could make a vaccine for that influenza would be able to name its price.

Dr. Giordano sighed. “If there are no more setbacks, the vaccine can be ready by the end of next summer. I cannot, however, guarantee there will be no more setbacks.”

The explosion in the lab last August had destroyed several years of work. Vincenzo had isolated a recombinant avian virus and painstakingly developed a means of producing a reliable vaccine. The explosion had not only destroyed the product, it had also taken out a huge amount of information. Computers, files, hard copy notes-gone. Vincenzo had started again from scratch.

The process was going faster this time, because Vincenzo knew more about what worked and what didn’t, but Rodrigo was concerned. This season’s influenza was of the ordinary variety, but what about next season? Producing a batch of vaccine took about six months, and a large quantity of it had to be ready by the end of next summer. If they missed that deadline and next season the avian virus made the genetic mutation it needed to jump from human to human, they would have missed the opportunity to make an incredible fortune. The infection would flash around the world, millions would die, but in that one season the immune systems of those who survived would adjust and that particular virus would reach the end of its brief success. The company that was ready with a vaccine when the virus mutated was the company that would reap the benefits.

They might be lucky once again, and the avian virus Wouldn’t mutate in time for the next influenza season, but Rodrigo refused to rely on luck. The mutation could happen at anytime. He was in a race with the virus, and he was determined to win.

“It’s your job to make certain there aren’t any more setbacks,” he told Vincenzo. “An opportunity such as this comes once in a lifetime. We will
not
miss it.” Left unsaid was that if Vincenzo couldn’t get the work done, Rodrigo would bring in someone who could. Vincenzo was an old friend, yes-of his father’s. Rodrigo wasn’t burdened by the same sentimentality. Vincenzo had done the most important work, but it was at a point where others could take over.

“Perhaps it isn’t once in a lifetime,” said Vincenzo. “What I have done with this virus, I can do again.”

“But in these particular circumstances? This is perfect. If all goes well, no one will ever know and, in fact, we’ll be praised as saviors. We’re perfectly positioned to take advantage
this one time.
With the WHO funding your research, no one will be amazed that we have the vaccine. But if we go to the well too many times, my friend, the water will become muddied and questions will be asked that we don’t want answered. There cannot be a pandemic every year, or even every five years, without someone becoming suspicious.”

“Things change,” Vincenzo argued. “The world’s population is living in closer contact with animals than ever before.”

“And no disease has ever been studied as thoroughly as influenza. Any variation is examined by thousands of microscopes. You’re a doctor, you know this.” Influenza was the great killer; more people had died in the 1918 pandemic than during the four-year Great Plague that had devastated Europe during the Middle Ages. The 1918 influenza had killed, it was estimated, between forty and fifty million people. Even in normal years influenza killed thousands, hundreds of thousands. Every year two hundred and fifty million doses of vaccine were produced, and that was only a fraction of what would be needed during a pandemic.

Labs in the United States, Australia, and the U.K. worked under strict regulations to produce the vaccine that targeted the virus researchers said would most likely be dominant in each influenza season. The thing about a pandemic, however, was that it was always caused by a virus that hadn’t been predicted, hadn’t been seen before, and thus the available vaccine wouldn’t be effective against it. The whole process was a giant guessing game, with millions of lives at stake. Most of the time, the researchers guessed right. But about once every thirty years or so, a virus would mutate and catch them flat-footed. It had been thirty-five years since the Hong Kong influenza pandemic of 1968-69; the next pandemic was overdue, and the clock was ticking.

Salvatore had used all his influence and contacts to win the WHO grant to develop a reliable method of vaccine production for avian influenza. The selected labs that normally produced vaccine would be focusing on the usual strains of viruses, not the avian virus, so their vaccines would be useless. Because of the grant and Vincenzo’s research, only the Nervi labs would have the know-how to produce the avian vaccine and-here was the important part-have doses ready to ship. With millions of people worldwide dropping like flies from the new strain, any effective vaccine against it would be priceless. The sky was literally the limit to how much profit could be made in a few short months.

There was no way to produce enough to protect everyone, of course, but the world’s population would benefit by some judicious thinning, Rodrigo thought.

The explosion in August had threatened all of that, and Salvatore had moved swiftly to control the damage. The ones who had set the explosion had been eliminated, and a new security system installed, since obviously the old one had huge flaws. But despite all his efforts, Rodrigo had never been able to discover who hired the husband-and-wife team to destroy the lab. A rival for the vaccine? There was no rival, no other laboratory working on this particular project. A general business rival? There had been bigger targets that could have been selected, but were ignored.

First the explosion, then three months later Salvatore was murdered. Could the two be linked? Over the years there had been many attempts on Salvatore’s life, so perhaps there was no connection between the two events. Perhaps this was simply a very bad year. And yet… the Joubrans had been professionals, the husband a demolitions expert and the wife an assassin; Denise Morel was probably also a professional assassin. Was it beyond the realm of possibility that they’d been hired by the same person?

But the two events were very different in nature. In the first, Vincenzo’s work had been deliberately targeted and destroyed. Since it was no secret he was working on a different method of producing influenza vaccine, who would benefit from that destruction? Only someone who was also working on the same project, knew Vincenzo was close, and wanted to steal a march on him. Undoubtedly there were private laboratories that were trying to develop an avian flu vaccine, but who among the many researchers would not only know how close Vincenzo was but have the financial wherewithal to hire two professionals to stop him?

One of the regular sanctioned laboratories that produced influenza vaccines, perhaps?

Killing Salvatore, on the other hand, in no way affected Vincenzo’s work. Rodrigo had simply stepped into Salvatore’s place. No, his father’s murder served no purpose in that arena, so he couldn’t see a connection.

The phone rang. Vincenzo got up to leave, but Rodrigo stayed him with a lifted hand; he had more questions about the vaccine. He picked up the receiver. “Yes.”

“I have an answer to your question.” Again, no names were used, but he recognized Blanc’s quiet voice. “There was nothing in our data banks. Our friends, however, came up with a match. Her name is Liliane Mansfield, she is American, and she is a contract agent, a professional assassin.”

Rodrigo’s blood ran cold.
“They
hired her?” If the Americans had turned on him, matters had just become enormously complicated.

“No. My contact says our friends are greatly disturbed and are themselves trying to find her.”

Reading between the lines, Rodrigo interpreted that to mean that the CIA was trying to find her to eliminate her. Ah! That explained the American man who had been to her flat searching for her. It was a relief to have that mystery explained, as well; Rodrigo liked to know who all the players were on his chessboard. With the vast American resources and extensive knowledge they must have about her, they were far more likely to succeed before he did… but he wanted to personally oversee the solution to her breathing problem. She breathed, therefore she was a problem.

“Is there any way your contact can share their knowledge with you, as they receive it?“ If he knew what the CIA knew, he could let them do the legwork for him.

“Perhaps. There is one other thing that I thought would be of great interest to you. This woman was a very close friend of the Joubrans.”

Rodrigo closed his eyes. There it was, the one detail that made sense of everything, that tied it all together. “Thank you,” he said. “Please let me know if you can work out this other matter with our friends.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’d like a copy of all the information you have on her.”

“I will fax it to you as soon as I am able,” Blanc replied, meaning when he returned home that night. He would never send information to Rodrigo from the Interpol building itself.

Rodrigo hung up and leaned his head back against his chair. The two events were connected, after all, but not in any way he’d imagined. Vengeance. So simple, and something he understood with every cell in his body. Salvatore had killed her friends, so she had killed Salvatore. Whoever had hired the Joubrans to destroy Vincenzo’s work had set in motion a chain of events that had ended with his father’s murder.

“Her name is Liliane Mansfield,” he told Vincenzo. “Denise Morel’s real name, that is. She is a professional assassin, and she was friends with the Joubrans.”

Vincenzo’s eyes widened. “And she took the poison herself? Knowing what it was? Brilliant! Foolhardy, but brilliant.”

Rodrigo didn’t share in Vincenzo’s admiration for this Liliane Mansfield’s actions. His father had died a very painful, difficult death, robbed of dignity and control, and he would never forget that. So. She had accomplished her mission and fled the country. She was perhaps out of his reach now, but she wasn’t out of the reach of her own countrymen. With Blanc on the job, he would be able to stay abreast of their search for her, and when they were closing in on her, he would step in and do the honors himself. With great pleasure.

When Rodrigo received the faxed papers, he stared for a long time at the picture of the woman who had killed his father. His machine was a color printer, so he received the full impact of the skillfulness of her disguise. Her hair was wheat blond and very straight, her eyes a piercing pale blue. She was very Nordic in looks, with a strong, lean face and high cheekbones. He was amazed at how changing her coloring to dark hair and brown eyes had softened her face; her facial structure had remained unchanged, but one’s perception of her was definitely altered. He thought she could have walked into the room and sat next to him, and it would have taken him a moment to recognize her.

He had wondered what his father had seen in her. As a brunette, she had left Rodrigo cold; his reaction to her a? a blonde was very different. It wasn’t just the normal Italian reaction to blond hair, either. It was as if he was truly seeing her for the first time, seeing the intellect and strong will so evident in those pale eyes. Perhaps Salvatore had been more perceptive than he himself was, because his father had respected strength as he’d respected nothing else. This woman was strong. Once she had crossed his path, it was almost inevitable that Salvatore would have been attracted to her.

Rodrigo leafed through the other pages Blanc had sent him. He was interested in the Mansfield woman’s employment history with the American CIA; she was a hired killer, period. He wasn’t shocked that governments used such people; he would have been shocked if they
didn’t.
This was information he could use at a later date if he needed a particular favor from the American government, but nothing that would help him right now.

He was more interested in the information about her family: a mother and a sister. The mother, Elizabeth Mansfield, lived in Chicago; the younger sister, Diandra, lived with her husband and two children in Toledo, Ohio. If he couldn’t locate Liliane, he thought, he could use her family to flush her out of hiding. Then he read that she hadn’t been in contact with her family in years, and had to allow for the possibility that she might not care about their welfare.

The last page indicated what Blanc had told him, that his father’s murder had not been ordered by the Americans. She had acted alone, seeking vengeance for the deaths of her friends the Joubrans. The CIA had dispatched an operative to terminate the problem.

Terminate.
That was a very good word, but he wanted to do the terminating himself. If possible, he would have that satisfaction. If not, he would accept with good grace that the Americans had handled the situation.

The very last paragraph made him sit up straight. The subject had fled to London using an alias, then evidently switched identities once again and returned to Paris. Search efforts were focusing there. The operative on location believed she was preparing for yet another strike against the Nervi organization.

Rodrigo felt as if he’d been electrified; every fine hair on his body lifted, and chills ran down his spine.

She had come back to Paris. She was
here,
within his reach. It was a bold move, and if not for M. Blanc, he would have been caught unawares. His personal security was as tight as he could humanly make it, but what about the Nervi holdings scattered around Europe? More particularly, what about the ones here in the Paris area? The security systems in place were good, yes, but where this woman was concerned, extra precautions were called for.