Red Alert (4 page)

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adjacent wall. The door opened on to a small, neatly furnished office. Three of the walls were covered with cream-coloured wallpaper. The fourth wall was constructed of rows of teak slats, incorporated into which were two seamless sliding doors which could only be opened by miniature sonic transmitters. The door on the right led into the soundproofed UNACO Command Centre where teams of analysts, using the latest in high tech equipment, worked around the clock to keep abreast of the ever-changing developments in world affairs. The door on the left led into Philpott's office and could only fee opened by him.

Sarah Thomas looked up from her typewriter and

smiled at Sabrina. She was an attractive 31-year-old with

short blonde hair who had turned down the possibility of

a lucrative career in Hollywood after winning a beauty

ageant and gone instead to secretarial college in Chicago.

ic had been with UNACO for four years and was married

the Test Centre's senior martial arts instructor.

'How was the vacation?' she asked after Sabrina closed ic door.

'Short,' Sabrina replied with a grin, then sat down on

ie couch. 'Am I the first one here?'

Sarah nodded. 'Mr Kolchinsky's gone to fetch Mike at ie airport.'

'And C.W.?'

'He's in Paris. Jacques Rust is flying up from Zurich to rief him.'

Sabrina indicated the desk panel. 'Well, you'd better

U His Lordship I'm here.'

Sarah smiled then flicked on the intercom switch.

abrina's here, sir.'

'Send her in,' Philpott replied, and the door slid open.

'Afternoon, sir,' Sabrina said as she entered the office.

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'Sit down,' Philpott replied abruptly, activating the transmitter on his desk to close the door behind her.

She sat on the nearest of the two black leather couches.

'I received a call earlier this afternoon from Miami's Chief of Police,' Philpott said, reaching for his pipe. 'It seems you not only went out of your way to embarrass this Lieutenant Grady in front of his own men, you also threatened him with physical violence.'

'The guy was a creep -- '

'He's a police officer!' Philpott thundered. 'You were supposed to be on leave. And that meant you didn't have official clearance with any of the local law enforcement agencies. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you out of testifying at the trial. What if the papers had got hold of the story? My God, they would have had a field day. You drew unnecessary attention to this organization and that's something I will not tolerate. Pull another stunt like that and you'll find yourself suspended. Do I make myself understood?'

'Yes, sir,' she muttered through clenched teeth.

Philpott lit his pipe and sat back in his chair. 'This negative side has only surfaced since you teamed up with Graham. It's obvious that some of this contempt he holds for the law has rubbed off on to you. It might be your way of getting him to accept you as an equal, I don't know, but it won't do you any good if you're transferred to another team.'

'I resent that, sir. I've never tried to prove anything to Mike. If he can't accept me for what I am, that's his/ problem. Not mine." $, The intercom buzzed.

Philpott flicked on the switch. 'Yes?'

'Mr Kolchinsky's here with Mike Graham, sir,' Sarah said.

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'Send them in.' Philpott switched the intercom off and activated the door with the transmitter on his desk.

Kolchinsky greeted Sabrina with a quick handshake then sat down and lit a cigarette.

'Afternoon, sir,' Graham said to Philpott, then sat on the couch beside Sabrina. 'How you doing?' 'Good,' she replied with a smile. 'And you?' 'Okay, I guess. Where's C.W.?' 'Paris. Jacques is briefing him.'

'Can we begin?' Philpott asked, and waited until he had their attention before continuing. 'Sergei and I had an hour-long meeting with the Secretary-General this morning about this Code Red you've been assigned to cover. That, in itself, should give you an idea of the severity of the situation. How often does the Secretary-General involve himself personally in a case? Sergei will brief you, he's been monitoring the case from the start. Sergei?'

Kolchinsky stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet. 'Last night four terrorists from the Red Brigades broke into the Neo-Chem Industries plant outside Rome.' ' 'I take it this is the same Neo-Chem Industries who own that glass and aluminium monstrosity over on West 57th Street?' Graham asked.

'That "glass and aluminium monstrosity", as you call it, < is their international headquarters,' Kolchinsky told him. f 'They have fourteen plants outside the United States and I"' are widely regarded as one of the foremost pharmaceutical |. manufacturers in the world.' | 'Pity about their taste in architecture.' | 'Let's stick to the briefing, shall we?' Philpott said, eyeing Graham sharply. 'Go on, Sergei.'

'One of those killed during the breakin was the plant's senior scientific adviser, Professor David Wiseman. He'd worked for UNACO in the past as a consultant, which

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was why we were able to gain access to his personal files within hours of his death. A team of scientists from our Zurich HQ took a complete inventory of his stock but found only one item missing. A vial encased in a metal cylinder identical to this one I got from the Test Centre.'

Sabrina took the metal cylinder from Kolchinsky and turned it around in her fingers. 'And nothing else was taken from any of the other laboratories?'

'All the other laboratories were still locked when our people got there. No, the terrorists knew exactly what they wanted and where to find it.'

'What was in the vial?' Graham asked, taking the metal fi; cylinder from Sabrina.

'I'm coming to that.' Kolchinsky lit another cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray on Philpott's desk. 'According to the files Wiseman kept in his personal safe he had been working on two projects that hadn't been sanctioned by the company. One was to procure a quantity of sleeping gas for the Rome cell of the Red Brigades.'

'And was the Rome cell behind the breakin?' Sabrina asked.

'Yes,' Kolchinsky replied. 'The second project involved viruses. Six months ago he set out to develop a highly contagious recombinant DNA virus which could poten-j tially kill millions of people if it were ever released into the atmosphere. He completed his work on it a fortnight j ago.'

Sabrina sat forward, her arms resting on her knees.] 'And the Red Brigades took the wrong vial?'

Kolchinsky nodded grimly. 'Both were stored in met all cylinders. The only way of telling them apart was by their J different serial numbers. The vial containing the sleeping! gas was found in Wiseman's office.'

'What about the antidote?' Sabrina asked.

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'He was still working on it at the time of his death,' Philpott replied.

'But surely if all his work's been documented then our boffins can come up with an antidote themselves?' Graham said, handing the metal cylinder back to Kolchinsky.

'I don't know how much you know about recombination, Michael, but basically it needs the genes of two virus strains to conjugate for it to be successful. An antidote can only be developed if both strains of the virus are known. In this case both strains were artificially created in his laboratory. He referred to them throughout his files simply as 'alpha' and 'beta'. He was the only person who knew what they were.'

'And now he's dead,' Sabrina muttered, rubbing her hands over her face.

'What if the sleeping gas was just a red herring and the virus was destined for the Red Brigades all along?' Graham said.

'That was my theory, until this arrived on my desk.'

Philpott removed a telex from the folder in front of him.

'It's a transcript of a taped message the Italian government

I received earlier this morning. The voice has been identified

| as Riccardo Ubrino, one of Rome's senior Brigatisti. He's

threatened to open the vial at ten o'clock on Thursday

morning unless he sees a live telecast of Rome's jailed

brigade chief, Lino Zocchi, being put on an aeroplane

bound for Cuba. What is significant, though, is that he

refers to the contents of the vial as "sleeping gas". Why

ntinue the pretence knowing that the authorities will

we already discovered the truth, unless he genuinely

iieves he has the sleeping gas?'

'I don't get it, sir,' Sabrina said, frowning. 'Have we n called in because the Italian government won't com with his demands?'

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'We've been called in because the Italian government can't comply with his demands. Zocchi's dead. He was shot by an unknown gunman an hour after the government received the tape. The authorities have instigated an immediate news blackout on Zocchi's death. The prison itself has been isolated. The authorities have come up with a story that there's a bout of acute conjunctivitis amongst the prisoners so that news of Zocchi's death can't be leaked out to visitors. But it can't remain isolated indefinitely. The vial has to be found. Quickly.'

'Can't the authorities get around the table with senior Brigatisti and explain the situation to them?' Sabrina asked.

'They already have,' Kolchinsky replied, resuming his seat. 'Word is that Zocchi masterminded the breakin from his prison cell. It was done without the knowledge of the committee, so none of them know where Ubrino's gone to ground. They have no way of contacting him. And even if they could, who's to say Zocchi didn't give him instructions to open the vial in the event of his death?'

'To make matters worse, the gunman who shot Zocchi was in a police helicopter, or what looked remarkably like one,' Philpott added. 'Put yourself in Ubrino's shoes. An hour after the government receives his demands, Zocchi is killed by a gunman in a police helicopter. Coincidence?'

'It's obviously a set-up, sir,' Sabrina said. I # 'Try explaining that to the Red Brigades,' Philpott replied, i

'But why us, sir?' Graham asked. 'Why haul us back from leave when you could have brought in one of the | other Strike Force teams?'

Philpott removed a second telex from the folder. 'This 1 also arrived this morning. It concerns Wiseman's brother. I You might remember him. Richard Wiseman. I believe he j was one of the more colourful officers in Vietnam.'

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l

'Yeah, I remember him. Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Wiseman, Marine Corps. A damn good soldier.'

'He's now General Wiseman of the First Ranger Battalion. And he's out for revenge. I'm not going to go into detail, it's all in the resume for you to read on the plane. Basically, he's hiring a gunman and a driver to do the dirty work for him. We can't afford to have them encroaching on the case. There's too much at stake. It seems he's chosen a Jamaican from London as the getaway driver. We're going to put our man in his place. And there's only one field operative who fits the bill.'

'C.W.,' Sabrina said.

'Right,' Philpott replied, handing out two manila envelopes to Graham and Sabrina.

The envelopes contained the resume, which had to be destroyed after reading; airline tickets; maps of their ultimate destination; written confirmation of hotel accommodation; a brief character sketch of their contact/s (if any) and a sum of money in lire. All field operatives also carried two credit cards for emergencies. There was no limit to the amount of money an operative could use during an assignment but it all had to be accounted for to Kolchinsky, with chits to back up the figurework, when returned to New York.

'Your flight leaves in two hours. Sergei will be going

ith you to set up a base in Rome. I'll be joining you as

m as I can. Jacques will run things from Zurich

ny absence.' Philpott activated the transmitter on his to open the door. 'Mike? Sabrina?'

They paused at the door to look back at him.

; 'Good luck. I've got a feeling you're going to need

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C. W. Whitlock replaced the receiver and looked round at his wife, Carmen, who was standing motionless on the balcony, her hands gripped tightly around the railing, the light evening breeze teasing her shoulder length black hair. She was a tall, slender Puerto Rican with a youthful beauty which belied her true age. She was forty. As he stared at her he realized just how much he loved her. But that wasn't enough to save their crumbling marriage.

'It's beautiful, isn't it?' he said behind her, looking across the Champs de Mars at the brightly lit Eiffel Tower which soared 984 feet into the clear night sky.

'That was Jacques on the phone, wasn't it?' she asked softly.

'Yes, he's on his way up,' he replied, putting an arm around her shoulders.

'Don't.' She shrugged his arm off and returned to the bedroom.

He leaned his arms on the railing and looked down at the passing traffic on the Avenue de Bourdonnais. He was a 44-year-old Kenyan with sharp, angular features tempered by the neat moustache he had worn since his university days. After graduating with a BA (Hons) from Oxford he had returned to Kenya where he spent a short time with the army before joining the Intelligence Corps, remaining there for ten years and rising to the rank of Colonel. He had been one of Philpott's first recruits in 1980.

There was a knock at the door.

Til get it,' Carmen said.

Jacques Rust smiled at her when she opened the door. He activated his mechanized wheelchair and entered the room. He handed her the bouquet of red roses he was carrying. 'Freshly picked from thejardin du Luxembourg,'

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he said with a smile. 'Well, I hope not. I bought them from a vendor I've known for years.'

She kissed him lightly on the cheek, the anger suddenly gone from her eyes. 'Thank you, Jacques, they're beautiful. I'll put them in some water.'

'Where's C.W.?'

'He's on the balcony,' she replied. 'I'll get him for you.'

Rust put his attache case on the floor. He was a handsome 4 3-year-old Frenchman with pale blue eyes and short black hair. He had spent fourteen years with the French Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage before joining UNACO in 1980. He and Whitlock had worked as a team until the Secretary General had given Philpott permission to increase the field operatives from twenty to thirty. Sabrina, because of her age and relative inexperience, had been put with them to form the original Strike Force Three.