Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
He stopped at the doorway. Not because he was worried about Huisman getting the jump on them.
They weren’t alone. Not that it mattered.
“Is he dead?” Maggie moved in behind him.
Yep. Dr. Emmanuel Huisman was totally dead on the floor of his office. Unless he’d managed to fake the bullet hole to his left temple. Ben kicked the revolver away from the bad doctor’s hand anyway. Never hurt to be cautious in his line of work. More than one person had come back from the “dead” and tried to kill him.
“He must have decided to kill himself rather than face the Agency.” Maggie stared down at him.
“Maybe he knew he was facing CFI.” Canadian Foreign Intelligence. His group.
She laughed. “You’ve been around for five years, buddy. You’re not known for being particularly ferocious when it comes to dealing with prisoners. You do tend to give them donuts and hope they like you enough to talk.”
There was another thing his country had on hers. Niceness. The Canadian version of the CIA hadn’t existed until five years before, when the Chinese and Russians had started moving in on South America and Mexico.
Maybe they weren’t great at all things torture, but damn it, he wasn’t going to allow his country to go down.
He stopped and stared at the desk in front of him. Huisman’s office was totally different from the utilitarian rooms outside it. This office was luxurious and built for comfort. There were several laptops and a big, sturdy desktop that likely held the secrets of this facility. A monitor sat on the desk, a sticky note hastily attached to the side. It was barely clinging there.
Play Me
“I don’t think we should go down that rabbit hole,” Maggie said, her boot tapping against the floor. “Let’s get into the lab and get out of here. If he wanted to monologue like a good villain, he should have stayed alive.”
Somehow Ben couldn’t see it going so smoothly. Huisman was the kind of man who tended to get what he wanted. If he wanted them to listen, he would have found a way.
Still, he agreed that he wasn’t simply going to stand there and comply. He glanced around and saw there was another door. There was a room beyond the office.
He stepped in and found something the reports hadn’t mentioned. Huisman had a beautifully decadent bedroom. He should have known the fucker wasn’t sleeping on some military-grade cot. The whole space was white and cream-colored, dominated by a massive four-poster bed. He had to wonder what it had cost to get that gorgeous monstrosity up a mountain.
Was that a fucking Picasso above the bed?
“What is that?” Maggie stepped in behind him.
She wasn’t talking about the bed. Right there in the middle of the room was a large piece of equipment with tons of wires and compartments attached. On top of it sat a digital clock.
The door behind them slid closed with a nasty hiss, and Ben watched in horror as the clock blinked to life.
1:00:00
0:59:59
0:59:58
“Shit. It’s a bomb,” Maggie said.
Yes, the other quality the Americans possessed was the unquestionable ability to state the obvious.
He turned and tried to open the door. It held firm. “Try the key card.”
She waved it over the security box. Nothing. Well, not nothing. They got nothing from the door. It didn’t budge, merely blinked red to let them know it wasn’t opening. But a monitor did slip down from the ceiling. It was perfectly placed to be seen from the bed. Ben moved back, taking in the monitor that was now full of Huisman’s self-satisfied smile.
“Welcome, Benjamin,” the man on the monitor said. He spoke in softly accented English, French being his native tongue. “I figured you wouldn’t follow my very reasonable orders, so I had to set a bit of a trap to get you to hear me out. If you are not Benjamin Parker of Canadian intelligence, I apologize. But I think it will be you. You and the American girl. I seem to find you together so very often. Welcome. You finally found me. I applaud you, and you’ve managed to catch me at a delicate time. Even now you’re at work in the outside perimeter, taking out my soldiers. I went cheap on the mercenaries. I suppose thrift really was my downfall. The good news is the bomb you are currently sharing space with is not cheap. It’s quite expensive, filled with all the best uranium China could get to me. It’s certainly enough to blow the top off this mountain. And it will be enough to send my enriched and hearty anthrax all over the country of Nepal.”
“What the fuck did Nepal do to him?” Maggie asked.
Huisman wasn’t finished. “Why do I care about Nepal, you might ask? I don’t, but the Chinese want it destroyed and they paid me an enormous amount of money to do it. The explosion will destabilize this part of the world. In addition to blowing off the top of this mountain, I’ve rigged something special up there. When my new anthrax hits the upper atmosphere, it will breed and form clouds. It will rain down on the people of this region. Imagine that. Not acid rain. Anthrax rain that only the Chinese and their select friends will be immune to. It will seep into the soil. Perhaps my new bacteria will continue to breed. It will be a brave new world, my friends. Unfortunately, you and I will not live to see it. I think I’ll go out on a high note, but I wanted to leave you a bit of time to contemplate the end of your existence. This is my final gift to you, Benjamin. I give you the gift of time. What will you do with the final hour of your life? I think you will be like a rat on a sinking ship, scratching and panicking to save your own pathetic life. You see, there are worse things than dying. Au revoir, mon ami.”