Target Zero. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ would come utopia; every being in the universe would be flawless, genuine, and untainted.

      For several hours the two men sat together, well into the night, and when Adrian’s head was as foggy as the thick, smoky air that swirled around them he finally asked the question that had been on his mind.

      “Is it you, Khalil?” he asked the holy man. “Are you the Mahdi?”

      Imam Kahlil had smiled wide at that. He took Adrian’s hand in his own and said gently, “No, my son. You are. You are blessed. I can see it as clearly as I see your face.”

      I am blessed. In the kitchen of their Marseille flat, Adrian pressed his lips to Claudette’s forehead. She was right; they had made a promise to Khalil and it must be kept. He retrieved the steel biohazard box from the countertop and carried it to the waiting Arabs. He unclasped the lid and lifted the top half of the foam cube to show them the tiny, hermetically sealed glass vial nestled inside.

      There did not appear to be anything in the vial—which was part of the nature of it being one of the most dangerous substances the world over.

      “Darling,” Adrian said as he replaced the foam and clasped the lid firmly again. “I need you to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that under no circumstances whatsoever should they touch this vial. It must be handled with the utmost care.”

      Claudette relayed the message in Arabic. Suddenly the Syrian man holding the box appeared far less comfortable than a moment earlier. The other man nodded his thanks to Adrian and murmured a phrase in Arabic, one that Adrian understood—“Allah is with you, peace be upon you”—and without another word, the two men left the flat.

      Once they were gone, Claudette twisted the deadbolt and put the chain back on, and then turned to her lover with a dreamy, satisfied expression on her lips.

      Adrian, however, stood rooted to the spot, his face dour.

      “My love?” she said cautiously.

      “What have I just done?” he murmured. He already knew the answer; he had put a deadly virus in the hands of not Imam Khalil, but two strangers. “What if they do not deliver it? What if they drop it, or open it, or—”

      “My love.” Claudette slid her arms around his waist and pressed her head to his chest. “They are followers of the Imam. They will exercise caution and get it to where it needs to be. Have faith. You have taken the first step towards changing the world for the better. You are the Mahdi. Do not forget that.”

      “Yes,” he said softly. “Of course. You are right, as always. And I must finish.” If his mutation did not work as it should, or if he did not produce the completed batch, he had no doubt that he would be a failure not only in the eyes of Khalil, but in Claudette’s as well. Without her he would crumble. He needed her as he needed air, food, or sunlight.

      Even so, he could not help but wonder what they would do with the sample—if Imam Khalil would test it privately, at a remote location, or if it would be released publicly.

      But he would find out soon enough.

      CHAPTER SIX

      “Dad, you don’t need to walk me to the door every time,” Maya griped as they crossed Dahlgren Quad toward Healy Hall on the Georgetown campus.

      “I know I don’t have to,” Reid said. “I want to. What, are you ashamed to be seen with your dad?”

      “It’s not that,” Maya muttered. The ride over had been quiet, Maya staring pensively out the window while Reid tried to think of something to talk about but fell short.

      Maya was approaching the end of her junior year of high school, but she had already tested out of her AP classes and started taking a few courses a week at the Georgetown campus. It was a good jump toward college credit and looked great on an application—especially since Georgetown was her current top choice. Reid had insisted not only on driving Maya to the college but also walking her to her classroom.

      The night prior, when Maria had been forced to suddenly cut their date short, Reid had hurried home to his girls. He was extremely disturbed by the news of Rais’s escape—his fingers had trembled against the steering wheel of his car—but he forced himself to stay calm and tried to think logically. The CIA was already in pursuit and likely Interpol as well. He knew the protocol; every airport would be watched, and roadblocks would be established on Sion’s major thoroughfares. And Rais had no allies left to turn to.

      Besides, the assassin had escaped in Switzerland, more than four thousand miles away. Half a continent and an entire ocean spanned between him and Kent Steele.

      Even so, he knew he would feel a lot better when he received word that Rais had been detained again. He was confident in Maria’s ability, but he wished he would have had the foresight to ask her to keep him updated as best she could.

      He and Maya reached the entrance to Healy Hall and Reid lingered. “All right, I guess I’ll see you after class?”

      She glanced back at him suspiciously. “You’re not going to walk me in?”

      “Not today.” He had a feeling he knew why Maya was so quiet that morning. He had given her an ounce of independence the night before, but today he was right back to his usual ways. He had to remind himself that she wasn’t a little girl anymore. “Listen, I know I’ve been kind of crowding you a bit lately…”

      “A bit?” Maya scoffed.

      “…And I’m sorry for that. You are a capable, resourceful, and intelligent young woman. And you just want some independence. I recognize that. My overprotective nature is my problem, not yours. It’s not anything you did.”

      Maya tried to hide the smirk on her face. “Did you just use the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line?”

      He nodded. “I did, because it’s true. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to you and I wasn’t there.”

      “But you’re not always going to be there,” she said, “no matter how hard you try to be. And I need to be able to take care of problems myself.”

      “You’re right. I will try my best to back off a bit.”

      She arched an eyebrow. “You promise?”

      “I promise.”

      “Okay.” She stretched on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “See you after classes.” She headed toward the door, but then had another thought. “You know, maybe I should learn how to shoot, just in case…”

      He pointed a stern finger her way. “Don’t push it.”

      She grinned and vanished into the hall. Reid loitered outside for a couple of minutes. God, his girls were growing up too fast. In two short years Maya would be a legal adult. Soon there would be cars, and college tuition, and… and sooner or later there would be boys. Thankfully that hadn’t happened yet.

      He distracted himself by admiring the campus architecture as he headed toward Copley Hall. He wasn’t sure he would ever grow tired of walking around the university, enjoying the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century structures, many built in the Flemish Romanesque style that flourished in the European Middle Ages. It certainly helped that mid-March in Virginia was a turning point for the season, the weather coming around and rising into the fifties and even sixties on СКАЧАТЬ