Robin Cook - Vector

Yuri leaped forward. “Careful!” he cried. He then calmed when Jack pulled his hand away. “I don’t want those to break.”

“Sorry,” Jack said. “I didn’t touch it very hard. Is this some kind-of Russian delicacy?”

“In a way,” Yuri said vaguely.

“Wait a second,” Jack said suddenly. “I remember you. But aren’t you from Sverdlovsk?”

“No, I’m from Saint Petersburg,” Yuri said.

“Didn’t I meet you in the Corinthian Rug Company office?” Jack asked. “I mean your neighbor, Yegor, told me you drove a taxi. Didn’t you come to the rug company to pick up Mr. Papparis?”

“It must have been someone else,” Yuri said uneasily.

“You’re the spitting image of this guy,” Jack said.

Laurie opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. All that was in it was a bottle of vodka and a tray of ice cubes.

“You don’t have much food in here,” Laurie commented.

“My wife ate fast food,” Yuri said. “I ate on the road.”

Laurie nodded. She opened the kitchen cabinets. Not finding anything suspicious, she stepped back and surveyed the tiny kitchen. “I don’t see any home-canning implements.”

“That’s all downstairs,” Yuri said.

Laurie turned to stare at the Russian. “So your wife did do some home food processing after all?”

“She used to,” Yuri said. “Now that I think about it.”

“Is there any of the food left?”

“I don’t know,” Yuri said. “I haven’t looked for a long time. She used to go down there often.”

“Could we see?” Laurie asked. She glanced at Jack, who made an expression of puzzled surprise.

“Why not?” Yuri said. He opened the door and descended.

Laurie and Jack exchanged confused glances and followed. By the time they got to the basement level, Yuri had the padlocked combination steel and heavy plywood door to the entry chamber open. He was inside unlocking the similarly stout door to the supply room.

Laurie and Jack stepped into the entry chamber. Their eyes took in the hazmat suit, the showerhead, and the plastic bottles of bleach. They smelled the distinct odor of chlorine in the air as well as the more subtle odor of fermentation. They heard the sound of the exhaust fan. They looked at each other in bewilderment.

Yuri was standing next to the door to the supply room. He pointed inside. “I think this is what you are looking for.”

Laurie and Jack stepped over to peer gingerly into the supply room. As they did so Yuri slipped behind them. They saw the petri dishes, the agar, the jars of nutrients, and the spare HEPA filters.

“How about stepping inside,” Yuri said.

Laurie and Jack turned to look at the Russian and gasped. Yuri had trained a gun on them.

“Please,” Yuri said in an even voice. “Step inside!”

“We’ve seen as much as we’d like to see,” Jack said airily, trying to sound unconcerned about the sudden appearance of the gun. He took a step forward, ahead of Laurie. “It’s time for us to be on our way.”

Yuri raised the gun and fired without hesitation. Upstairs, he’d been afraid to discharge the pistol for fear of disturbing the neighbors. But in the basement with the circulating fan going, he had no concern. Still, the noise had been deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet thudded into one of the floor joists. Dust rained down from the ancient floorboards above. Laurie screamed.

“The next time I aim,” Yuri said.

“No need to shoot again,” Jack said with a voice that had lost all pretense of buoyancy. Raising his hands to chest height, he backed up, forcing Laurie, who was between him and Yuri, into the storeroom. Jack stepped in as well.

“Move back from the door,” Yuri commanded.

Jack and Laurie did as they were told and pressed against the concrete wall. The blood had drained from both their faces, and they appeared as pale as the whitewash covering the cement.

Yuri came forward and closed the door. He fastened the hasp and locked the padlock, then stepped back and looked at the door. He’d designed it to keep people out, but he guessed it would work just as well to keep people in.

“Shouldn’t we discuss this?” Jack called through the door.

“Absolutely,” Yuri said. “Otherwise you couldn’t help me.”

“You’ll have to explain,” Jack said. “But we’re much better listeners and far more helpful when we don’t have to yell through a door.”

“You’re not coming out, probably for several days,” Yuri said. “So make yourself comfortable. There’s distilled water on the shelf, and I apologize for the lack of a toilet.”

“We appreciate your concern,” Jack said. “But I can assure you, we’d be far happier upstairs. We promise to behave ourselves.”

“Be quiet and listen!” Yuri said. He looked at his watch. It was ten to eleven. “The first thing I want to say is that in a few minutes the People’s Aryan Army is going to be here. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Indeed,” Jack said.

“Then I assume you know they want you dead,” Yuri said. “In fact, I’m surprised you are not dead, since I know they set out to kill you this afternoon. If they find out you are here, they will come down and shoot you for certain. I would prefer you stay alive.”

“Well, at least we agree on something,” Jack said.

“They are very crazy and selfish people,” Yuri said.

“I got that impression,” Jack said.

“And they have a lot of guns and they like to use them.”

“That was apparent as well.”

“So my advice when you hear them is to be silent,” Yuri said. “Does that make sense to you?”

“I suppose,” Jack said. “But what was this talk about helping you?”

“Tomorrow morning the People’s Aryan Army and myself are scheduled to release bioweapons in Manhattan,” Yuri said. “This is not an idle threat. I have produced many pounds of potent, weaponized anthrax right here in this laboratory. I assume you doctors guessed that this was a laboratory.”

“We had a sneaking suspicion,” Jack admitted. “Especially since this looks like we’re in a microbiological storeroom at the moment.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Yuri said. “Now, what I want you two to do to help is merely to make sure I get the credit for what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

Yuri waited for a response. Instead he heard Jack and Laurie whispering.

“Did you hear me?” Yuri asked.

“We were wondering if you produced botulinum toxin as well as anthrax?” Jack asked.

“I tried to,” Yuri admitted. “But the culture grew too slowly to make enough toxin quickly enough for a bioweapon.”

“What happened to the culture?” Jack asked. “Did it just go down the drain?”

“What happened to the clostridial culture is not important,” Yuri said. “What is going to happen with the anthrax tomorrow is.”

“We agree fully,” Jack said. “And we’ll make certain you get all the credit you deserve.”

“Just to be absolutely sure, I want to tell you in detail what is planned for tomorrow,” Yuri said. “That will make you extraordinarily credible witnesses for me.”

“We’re all ears,” Jack said.

“If the People’s Aryan Army arrives I will have to interrupt,” Yuri said.

“We’ll try to deal with the suspense,” Jack said. “Let’s hear it.”

Yuri told Jack and Laurie the details of both laydowns, including the timing and the exact way Curt and Steve planned on getting the powder into the air-conditioning system of the Jacob Javits building. He told them how the firemen intended to shut down the annunciator panel for the entire building after they’d planted the material so that the powder would not set off the smoke detectors. He then went on to tell about how he was going to drive around Central Park at the same time in the stolen pest control truck. He finished by giving an estimate of the casualties from his plan, which he thought would be a million dead, give or take a couple hundred thousand. He said he expected the anthrax to spread out in an expanding arc at least fifty miles over Long Island. The only thing he didn’t explain was his plans after the laydown.