Even so…
It took his breath away! To hold this power, the power of life and death. And not just the power of life and death over one person – the power to kill many, many people. The power to destroy an entire population. The power to hold nations hostage. The power of total war. The power of revenge.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply from his diaphragm, seeking calm. It had been a risk for him to come to Galveston personally, and an unnecessary one at that. But he had wanted to be there in the moment when such a weapon passed into his possession. He wanted to hold the weapon, and feel the power in his own hand.
He placed the vial back on the table, pulled on his pants, and rolled out of bed. He shrugged into a Manchester United soccer jersey and went out onto the deck. He found her there, sitting back in a lounge chair and gazing out at the night, the stars, and the vast dark water around them.
A bodyguard stood quietly near the door.
Omar gestured to the man, and the man moved to the railing.
“Aabha,” Omar said. She turned to him, and he could see how sleepy she was.
She smiled, and he smiled as well. “You’ve done a wonderful thing,” he said. “I’m very proud of you. Perhaps it’s time for you to sleep.”
She nodded. “I’m so tired.”
Omar bent down and their lips met. He kissed her deeply, savoring the taste of her, and the memory of the curves of her body, her movements, and her sounds.
“For you, my darling, rest is much deserved.”
Omar glanced at the bodyguard. He was a tall, strong man. The guard removed a plastic bag from his jacket pocket, moved in behind her, and in one deft move slipped the bag over her head and pulled it tight.
Instantly, her body became electric. She reached back, trying to scratch and pummel him. Her feet kicked her up out of the chair. She struggled, but it was impossible. The man was far too strong. His wrists and forearms were taut, rippling with veins and muscle doing their work.
Through the translucent bag, her face became a mask of terror and desperation, her eyes round saucers. Her mouth was a huge O, a full moon, gasping for air and finding none. She sucked in thin plastic instead of oxygen.
Her body tensed and became rigid. It was like she was a wood carving of a woman, her body sloping, bending slightly backwards at the middle. Gradually, she began to settle down. She weakened, subsided, and then stopped entirely. The guard allowed her to sink slowly back into her chair. He sank with her, guiding her. Now that she was dead, he treated her with tenderness.
The man took a deep breath and looked up at Omar.
“What shall I do with her?”
Omar stared out at the dark night.
It was a shame to kill such a good girl as Aabha, but she was tainted. Sometime soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow morning, the Americans would learn that the virus was missing. Soon after that, they would discover that Aabha was the last person in the laboratory, and was there when the lights went out.
They would come to realize that the power failure was the result of an underground cable being deliberately cut, and the failure of the backup generators was the result of careful sabotage conducted several weeks ago. They would make a desperate search for Aabha, a no-holds-barred search, and they must never find her.
“Get some help from Abdul. He has empty buckets and some fast-drying cement in the equipment locker down by the engine room. Take her there. Weight her with a bucket of cement around her feet and calves, and drop her into the deepest part of the ocean. A thousand feet deep or more, please. The data is readily available, is it not?”
The man nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Perfect. Afterwards have all my sheets, pillows, and blankets laundered. We must be thorough and destroy all evidence. On the very unlikely chance that the Americans raid this ship, I don’t want the girl’s DNA anywhere near me.”
The man nodded. “Of course.”
“Very good,” Omar said.
He left his bodyguard with the corpse and went back into the master bedroom. It was time to take a hot bath.
CHAPTER FIVE
June 10th
11:15 a.m.
Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay
“Well, maybe we should just sell the house,” Luke said.
He was talking about their old waterfront country house, twenty minutes up the road from where they were now. Luke and Becca had rented a different, much more spacious and modern house for the next two weeks. Luke liked this new house better, but they were here only because Becca wouldn’t go back to their place.
He understood her reluctance. Of course he did. Four nights ago, both Becca and Gunner had been abducted from that house. Luke hadn’t been there to protect them. They could have been killed. Anything could have happened.
He glanced out the big, bright kitchen window. Gunner was outside in jeans and a T-shirt playing some imaginary game, the way nine-year-old kids sometimes did. In a few minutes, Gunner and Luke were going to take the skiff out and go fishing.
The sight of his son gave Luke a pang of terror.
What if Gunner had been killed? What if both of them had simply disappeared, never to be found again? What if two years from now, Gunner didn’t play imaginary games anymore? It was all a jumble in Luke’s mind.
Yes, it was horrible. Yes, it should never have happened. But there were larger issues here. Luke and Ed Newsam and a small handful of people had taken down a violent coup attempt, and had reinstalled what was left of the democratically elected government of the United States. It was possible that they had saved American democracy itself.
That was nice, but Becca didn’t seem interested in larger issues right now.
She sat at the kitchen table in a blue robe, drinking her second cup of coffee. “Easy for you to say. That house has been in my family for a hundred years.”
Rebecca’s hair was long, flowing down her shoulders. Her eyes were blue, framed in thick eyelashes. To Luke, her pretty face looked thin and drawn. He felt sick about that. He felt sick about the whole thing, but he couldn’t think of something he could say that would make this better.
A tear rolled down Becca’s cheek. “My garden is over there, Luke.”
“I know.”
“I can’t work in my garden because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of my own house, a house I’ve been going to since I was born.”
Luke said nothing.
“And Mr. and Mrs. Thompson… they’re dead. You know that, don’t you? Those men killed them.” She looked at Luke sharply. Her eyes were hot and mad. Becca had a tendency to grow angry with him, sometimes over very small matters. He forgot to do the dishes, or take the garbage outside. When she did, she would get a look in her eyes similar to the one she had now. Luke thought of it as the Blame Look. And for Luke, right now the Blame Look was too much.
In his mind, he caught a brief image of their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. If Hollywood were to cast a kindly older couple who lived next door, the Thompsons would be it. He liked the Thompsons, and he would never have intended for their lives to end like that. But a lot of people died that day.
“Becca, I didn’t kill the Thompsons. Okay? I’m sorry they’re dead, and I’m sorry you and Gunner were taken – I will be sorry for that the rest of my life and I will do everything I can to make it up to both of you. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill the Thompsons. I didn’t send people to abduct you. You seem to be blurring these things in your mind, and I won’t have it.”
He paused. It was a good time to stop talking, but he didn’t stop. His words came out in a torrent.
“All I did was fight my way through a blizzard of gunfire and bombs. People were trying to kill me all day and all night. I got shot, I got blown up, I got run off the road. And I saved the President of the United States, your President, from almost certain death. That’s what I did.”