The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

break away and snap a valve into place, beginning a measured aerosol release—invisible.”

“An aerosol weapon,” Ben said. “And wherever the tank travels by rail or truck—”

“The bacteria spreads.” Kidan looked up at him with a defiant grin. “To every corner of the target nation.”

Ben returned his gaze to the laptop and the cut-out diagrams. “What about the liquid filling those bulk holds? If the disease is in the tanktainers on the deck, what’s down below?”

“That’s not a liquid. It’s . . .” Kidan paused, then shook his head and set his pallid features. “No. I’ll answer no more questions until you treat my arm.”

Kidan raised his arm to show his captors, and a thick red drop fell onto the desk. The blood had soaked his sleeve to capacity. Ben didn’t need him passing out. Not now. He had more questions. “Yeah. All right. You have a first aid kit?”

“In the bathroom.” The scientist directed him with his gaze.

“Fine. I’ll be right back.” He tapped the desk with the cattle prod and placed it in Giselle’s free hand. “If he moves, zap him. Don’t shoot him. We need this guy to get a jump on a cure if this thing gets out.”

He caught her eye with a warning look, and she answered with an exaggerated nod. “Zap. Don’t shoot. I’ve got it, okay?”

“Okay.” Ben walked down the short hall and rummaged through the bathroom cabinets for the first aid kit. He’d just found it when he heard a double crack from the Glock.

56

Ben snatched up the first aid kit and ran down the hall. “Giselle?”

She held the Glock at a low angle, finger still on the trigger. Kidan was slumped over the desk, face lying in the shattered glass from his sculpture, blood spreading out beneath his chest.

Giselle cast a vacant glance at the first aid kit in Ben’s hand and let out a quiet huff. “I doubt that will help him now.”

“I don’t see a gun, Giselle. What happened to ‘Zap, don’t shoot’?”

She answered in a quiet monotone. “I tried to scroll through the computer file—only for a moment. But when I took my eyes away, he grabbed the broken sculpture and tried to stab me. You understand, yes?”

The base of the DNA sculpture, with its two broken helix strands ending in wicked tips, lay on the floor beneath Kidan’s limp hand. “We needed him, Giselle. What if this thing gets out?”

“The file mentions an antidote.” She walked to the computer and reached over the dead man as if he wasn’t there. “I saw it before he went for the sculpture. Leviathan has the cure.”

“Good luck getting it from them.” Ben rested a shoulder against the curtain, eyeing the neighboring balcony. He saw no lights, but the owners could still be at home, and Giselle’s gunshots left nothing to the imagination. The cops might be on their way. He snapped the laptop closed and tucked it under an arm. “This data should be enough to get the Company’s attention. But that’ll take time we don’t have. For now, we need to stop the Behemoth.”

Giselle grimaced, eyes canted down at the computer. “Gross.”

He followed her gaze. Blood dripped from the laptop’s corner—the blood of a man who liked to play around with infectious diseases. “Good point.” He grimaced, wiping the blood off on the motionless scientist’s back, and strode past her with a shrug. “Best I can do. Let’s go.”

She didn’t move, didn’t even turn—just stared out the balcony doors.

“Giselle. Come on.”

“Look at her, Ben. Do you see her? Resting now. Feeding. But soon she’ll be ready to leave her den and become the monster Leviathan created her to be.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Ben watched her. He didn’t like her tone—admiration instead of horror. “But we don’t want the monster loose, right? We need to get this data to the Company without showing the enemy our hand.”

“Why?” She turned, nodding at the computer. “Why give it to him?”

“Him? You mean the Director? Why wouldn’t we?”

Giselle stepped close, within inches of a kiss. The Glock and the cattle prod hung at her sides. “Look at what he’s done to you, Ben. Your face. Your life. You are homeless, nationless, a hunted man.” She reached up with the hand holding the Glock and traced a knuckle from his temple to his chin. “No safe havens. No place to lay this beautiful head. Why do you persist in serving him? Why are you so desperate to please the man who asks for everything and leaves you nothing?”

Did he have to justify himself, even to her? “Stopping Leviathan is our duty. We took oaths. The severance doesn’t change them. It’s all a mistake or a trick. Once he knows, he’ll fix it. You’ll see.”

She closed her eyes, shoulders tensing, and when she opened them again, her shout knocked him back a step. “Wake up!” The rest came through clenched teeth. “He doesn’t care about you. To him we are nothing—cogs.” She backed away from him, spreading the Glock and baton wide. “Our homes are gone. Our lives? Gone. How long should we suffer these indignities? Do you think Leviathan would treat us this way?”

“Leviathan?” How could she go there? Even after all they’d suffered, how could she compare the enemy to the Director? “I don’t understand. You’re not making sense.”

“Ben, what if we didn’t hand this bioweapon data over to anyone, hmm? What if Jupiter sees a larger picture? Perhaps a controlled release of the plague is . . . healthy for the world—an ordered and effective version of the chaos we’ve already experienced. We had a chance at a global reset, yes? But we blew it.”

Now she was talking crazy—straight-up crazy. “You’re scaring me.”

“Oh, don’t be scared.” Her demeanor shifted. In an instant, her defiance gave way to the pleading of a playful sweetheart. “And”—she smiled, tilting her head—“don’t be mad, mon rêve. My dream. I did this for us.”

The blood drained from Ben’s face. He felt the same vanishing of tissue and bone he’d felt when he