STAR TREK - TOS (31 page)

Blisters broke out upon Williams’s flesh, leaking a foul black fluid. The same dark effluvia oozed from the[276]gashes in the dying man’s chest. Dhasal regretted that there wasn’t time to strip the shredded hazmat suit from Williams’s body entirely, the better to observe the progress of the infection elsewhere on his anatomy, but consoled herself with the thought of performing a full postmortem on the Englishman later on.

As a survivor of Bhopal, and a researcher of biological warfare, she had a strong stomach. Even still, as the voracious bacteria attacked Williams from within, she grew highly appreciative of the plastic faceplate sparing her from the stench of living tissue necrotizing before her very eyes.

“Celestial starfathers!” Arcturus shrieked from the gurney, distracting Dhasal, who had almost forgotten that the earlier specimen was still present. The hairless superman strained futilely against his bonds, horror-struck eyes locked on the writhing form of the infected scientist., “What malignant, terrestrial blasphemy is this?”

“Quiet!” she shushed him impatiently. “You and I are perfectly safe.” If not for the undoubtedly nauseating odors emanating from the rotting tissue, in fact, she would have discarded her own hood by now, so confident was she that the modified strep-A posed zero threat to her and her kind.
Yet one way,
she reflected,
in which we surpass the common herd of humanity.

The end came quickly, if probably not speedily enough from Donald Williams’s perspective. Much of his swollen, mottled flesh died before he did, turning a pale necrotic blue, but toxic shock finally stopped his heart only minutes after his exposure to the contaminated air. Dhasal made a mental note to check the exact duration later.

[277]
It had all happened so fast,
she marveled.
Almost too fast to observe properly.
Thankfully, the chamber was fully equipped with video cameras, so she would be able to review the entire process at her leisure, preferably in slow motion.

Energized by the highly satisfying results of the experiment, she promptly moved onto the next stage.

“Flush the atmosphere in the test chamber,” she ordered the unlocking technicians, dictating instructions into the microphone at a rapid clip. “I want complete bloodwork and X rays on both specimens, followed by immediate dissection and analysis of Dr. Williams’s remains.”

A blood-curdling howl emerged from Brother Arcturus as his questionable sanity snapped completely, but Phoolan Dhasal was in too good of a mood to care. She looked forward to updating Khan on the outcome of the experiment.

LONDON

UNITED KINGDOM

NOVEMBER 14, 1994

WAITING JUST PAST THE AUTOMATED ENTRANCE GATES, on the international concourse, Gary Seven could only hope that today would indeed mark General Morrison’s Waterloo.

The impressive new terminal sported a high glass ceiling and walls. Four full levels offered convenient electronic signboards, cozy departure lounges, a cafeteria, information counter, newsstand, shops, telephones, and even a
bureau de change
for exchanging pounds for francs and vice versa. A palpable aura of excitement suffused the crowded terminal on this, the Eurotunnel’s first real day of operation.

Although the Chunnel had officially opened several months earlier, at a gala event attended by both Queen Elizabeth and French President Mitterrand, commercial[279]train service from London to Paris had not actually begun until today. TV news crews were on hand to broadcast the event, just as General Morrison no doubt intended. The eyes of the world were on Waterloo Station; it was Seven’s job to make sure they weren’t forced to witness a massacre.

Frankly, he would have preferred the terminal to be not quite so spacious; it was going to be hard enough to spot Porter or Connors in this mob scene. To play it safe, he was keeping careful watch over the front entrance, hoping to spot either of the militiamen before they disappeared into the swarm of eager passengers waiting for the 8:23 departure for Paris.
If he gets past me here,
he admitted grimly,
I’ll
have a devil of a time locating him before he can release the nerve gas.

The mainstream media had done a pretty good job of covering up what had really happened in Geneva two months ago, but a careful analysis of the unofficial reports had convinced Seven that sarin gas had been the weapon of choice in that attack. That was definitely cause for concern; the barbaric concoction was over twenty times more deadly than cyanide gas, and easily transportable in liquid form. “Could be worse,” he murmured quietly to himself; at least humanity hadn’t invented biogenic weapons yet.

Wearing a conservative gray suit, he scoured the faces of the new arrivals making their way through the security and passport controls. The screening process appeared relatively well-managed, but hardly equipped to catch a seemingly ordinary American smuggling a small quantity of nerve gas. Fortunately for him, however, it was fairly easy to identify the Americans in the line, almost all of whom wore some[280]

variation of the standard uniform of a U.S. tourist traveling abroad: baseball cap, souvenir T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

By these criteria, he had successfully isolated several likely prospects, but, regrettably, none of them had matched the photos of Clayton Porter and Butch Connors with which the Beta 6 had managed to provide him. He frowned pensively, worried that his target had already slipped by him in the crush of new arrivals.

He was also concerned that one of the men may have targeted the Paris station as well. Suppose Morrison wanted to strike at both ends of the Chunnel simultaneously? Even Seven couldn’t be in two places at once, at least not without seriously warping the space-time continuum.

He glanced apprehensively at his wristwatch. It was already 7:55 A.M. Sunlight shone through the smudge-free glass walls and ceiling as the concourse rapidly filled with travelers. “Excuse me, sir,” a helpful voice accosted him, distracting him from his all-important surveillance of the terminal’s entrance. A youthful Eurostar employee, wearing a navy-blue uniform accented by a yellow scarf and tie, stepped between Seven and the front gate. “Can I help you?”

“No, thank you,” Seven replied, trying to remain casual while maintaining his lookout for the American terrorists. His worried expression, he feared, had attracted the young woman. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“If you’d like, we can have them paged,” the overly solicitous railways worker volunteered. Seven found himself longing for less attentive customer service.

[281]“No thanks,” he insisted. Was that another baseball cap coming through the gate? He tried to peer past the chirpy young Brit, but the woman’s shoulder got in the way. “I’ll be fine,” he declared, as firmly as he could without attracting the attention of station security.

“Very well, sir.” His unwanted helper finally seemed to get the message. “Thank you for riding Eurostar.”

She moved on to another lost-looking customer, but Seven could not spare a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. What had happened to that red baseball cap? A large Pakistani family was now making its way through the gate, and Seven looked around the terminal anxiously, terrified that his quarry had evaded him while his attention was elsewhere. What if Porter or Connors had already entered the terminal?

Wait! Seven spied the cap in question bubbling along above the heads of the crowd, just a few yards beyond where Seven was now standing. Seen from behind, the cap’s wearer fitted Roberta’s general description of Porter: a tall, rangy man with a somewhat military bearing. Unfortunately, Seven could not manage to get a glimpse of the man’s face.

The alien-raised supervisor had only a moment to decide whether to continue his stakeout or take off after the suspect. If he gambled wrong, and pursued the wrong man while the real terrorist proceeded unobstructed, the consequences would be dire. The lives of hundreds of travelers, journalists, and Eurostar employees depended on him.
Ihave to take a chance,
he realized,
and hope for the best.

He looked again at his watch. It was 8:06. If the attack was indeed scheduled for 8:23, and the militiamen had yet to arrive at the terminal, then they were[282]calling it pretty close. Seven guessed that the real terrorists would be more cautious than that.
If I were responsible for this operation, I would
already be here.

His decision made, although not without some trepidation, he hurried after the tall man in the red cap.

The servo in his pocket had mercifully made it past the metal detectors, and he fingered it in anticipation as he followed the other man (Porter?) deeper into the terminal.
Now what?
he pondered. Would the terrorist actually board the waiting train, or would he release the nerve gas inside the crowded terminal, now temptingly packed with humanity?

Seven predicted the latter. According to his research, the passenger cars on Eurostar’s deluxe high-speed bullet trains carried only forty-plus travelers apiece and, for purposes of safety, had sealed fire doors between the individual cars. Morrison’s assassin could more easily achieve maximum carnage by deploying the sarin in the comparatively wide-open spaces of the cathedral-like terminal.

A public-address system announced, in English and French, that the 8:23 train would be leaving in ten minutes. The announcement caught the attention of the baseball-capped stranger, who turned to look up at one of the electronic signboards, finally giving Seven a glimpse of his profile. A very human surge of relief went through the gaunt, gray-haired older man as he gladly recognized the leathery, tight-lipped features of “Freeman” Clayton Porter, late of Arizona’s ignominious Fort Cochise.

Thank the Aegis!Seven thought with feeling.
I made the right choice, after all.

[283]All doubt removed as to the suspect’s identity, he endeavored to get closer to the roaming militiaman. The milling throng, now heading for the escalators that would take them up to the loading platform, impeded his progress, but Seven steadily shouldered his way toward Porter, who had paused in the middle of the wide concourse, showing little interest in boarding the train. Seven kept the other man in his sights, grateful that they were both relatively tall.

It was now 8:19.

Porter wore a checked wool hunting jacket unzipped to reveal a buttoned-down flannel shirt. Reaching into the front pocket of the coat, he drew out a small package that Seven recognized as a miniature juice box, of the sort American children packed in their school lunch boxes. Squinting his eyes to read the label on the box, Seven saw a photo of a succulent red apple.

What name had Roberta said was written on that file in Morrison’s office? Operation ... Applejack? In liquid form, he recalled, sarin was a greasy fluid roughly the color of beer—or apple juice.

Between the sun shining down through the glass ceiling, and the accumulated body heat of several hundred unsuspecting men, women, and children, the temperature within the terminal was uncomfortably toasty, yet Seven severely doubted that Porter was worried about dehydration. He watched in alarm as Porter, looking about furtively, dropped the juice box onto the floor, then raised his foot to stomp on the tiny cardboard container. Grasping his intention, Seven immediately visualized the so-called “juice”

spurting all over the station floor.

[284]Once released, the liquid sarin would quickly evaporate into the atmosphere. ...

“Excuse me!” Shoving a slow-moving Englishman out of his way, Seven charged across the concourse at top speed. Sinews strengthened by generations of selective breeding propelled the sixty-five-year-old secret agent toward Porter in the split-second that the other man’s leather-soled cowboy boot hovered only inches above the malignant juice box. “Coming through!”

The toe of his own shoe collided with the box before the boot came down. “Careful!” he warned helpfully, kicking the carton out from beneath Porter and sending it sliding across the smooth tile floor.

Seven watched with a certain amount of unease as the neatly-packaged container of sarin spun away from both of them, ricocheting through a maze of rushing feet. “You almost stepped on that.”

“What the hell—?” Porter glared at Seven furiously, the veins of his neck standing out like a Cardassian’s. Seven met the outraged man’s gaze with a steely look of his own, one that left no doubt that he knew exactly what Porter had been up to. The thwarted militiaman quailed before the icy authority of Seven’s regard; his Adam’s apple bobbing, Porter turned and made tracks away from the aging extraterrestrial operative.

Seven fully intended to go after him, but first he had a more important chore to deal with. Even his hard-earned self-possession was rattled a little by the sight of the unclaimed juice box being kicked back and forth across the floor of the terminal by the heedless traffic of dozens of migrating railway[285]

customers. So far the carton’s air-tight lining did not appear to have been perforated, but Seven knew that it was, at most, only a matter of minutes before someone trampled on the fragile cardboard container, spraying liquid sarin into the unprotected air.

There would be no way to evacuate the terminal fast enough; people would start dying almost immediately.

He did not waste time chasing after the footloose box. Instead, drawing his servo from his pocket, he carefully drew a bead on the moving object, trying to anticipate its every bounce and ricochet. It was a tricky proposition, particularly with all the dashing tourists moving in and out of the way; a shiver of anxiety tickled his spine as he waited, with bated breath and tightly-clamped impatience, for his shot.

Then ... there it was! The shifting sea of legs parted momentarily, granting him a straight shot at the juice box at the very moment that it temporarily skidded to a halt. Seven fired his servo, disintegrating the carton (and its virulent contents) down to their constituent atoms.

This was one time,he mused,
when an apple a day wasn’t in anyone’s best interests.