Extermination

CHAPTER FIVE

David McCarter saw the dead man’s switch begin to fall from the lifeless hand of a man who claimed Paris was about to die. His reaction was immediate and swift. He dropped his gun and leaped across the room, fingers clenching around the loosening fist of the corpse, keeping the pressure on the switch before it could activate.

“Cal! Get Gary now!” McCarter shouted. “I can’t squeeze this geezer’s digits all night!”

Calvin James took in the scene with a glance, then pivoted on his heel. McCarter could see that his partner was trying to raise someone on the hands-free radio even as he rushed to get the others, but communications had been knocked out.

It was a no-sweater for McCarter. The team was well coordinated, and had gotten along without the use of their hands-free communications nets before. The members of Phoenix Force hadn’t been chosen because of their ability to get along aided by some of the best high-tech equipment and intelligence in the world. It was their ability to improvise when cut off from all other assets, relying on their vast wealth of skills and experience to minimize chances of failure and succeed where all else was lost.

Still, McCarter couldn’t sit on the dead man’s switch indefinitely. The gunfire and explosions had to have attracted the attention of the Paris police, and no matter what, they would not take kindly to the Briton holding on to the trigger of a device that could unleash damnation upon their city, friendly or not. Barbara Price had been able to bail the Stony Man warriors out of trouble with local law enforcement before, but some incidents would be just too much and focus far too much attention on what was supposed to be one of the most covert operations in the world.

McCarter recognized Manning’s tread as he raced up the stairs, and checked his mental clock.

“You must have broken position as soon as the radios went out,” McCarter mused as the big Canadian came through the door.

“Cal met me halfway. He said you were hanging on to a dead man’s switch,” Manning replied, ignoring his friend and commander’s comment.

McCarter shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve always wanted to hold hands with a corpse.”

Manning looked at the device, then at the lifeless figure whom McCarter shared it with. “This could be one of two types of switches. One is that it transmits when it is released, in which case, our asses are safe, so long as they didn’t booby-trap the power supply. The other is that it is transmitting, and we’re on a countdown until the batteries fail, no matter how well we duct tape the trigger shut.”

McCarter looked at it. “Considering that there’s a jammer knocking out our radios, I’m not sure this is a live transmission that’ll stop once the lever’s depressed.”

Manning’s brow furrowed as he looked at it. “Perhaps it’s on a shielded frequency, or the jammer isn’t operating on that level.”

“T.J. should be working our scanner to see which frequencies are open,” McCarter said, referring to the radio communications bands. “Unless he’s too busy…”

“He’s on it,” Manning returned. “He can keep an ear out for the cops while checking the scanner. In fact, he’s determined that police bands are untouched by the jamming. We’d be on that wavelength, too, but…”

“Yeah, yeah,” McCarter said. “The geezer I’m all chummy with said that when this goes off, Paris dies.”

Manning leaned in closer to look at the crude electronic device. “David, you should know that I can perform multiple mental tasks simultaneously. Not to cast aspersions on…”

McCarter waited for Manning’s lecture to finish, but the trailed-off sentence set his nerves on edge.

“What is it?” McCarter asked.

“T.J. managed to hit a clear channel for us. He says that Cal and Rafe located the ‘bomb,’” Manning said.

“I don’t like that you made it sound as if ‘bomb’ were in quotes,” McCarter replied.

“Come on,” Manning said. He pulled out his combat knife and severed the dead man’s hand at the wrist, allowing them to take the trigger along with them to the roof.

“The roof?” McCarter asked. Manning reached over and reset the frequency on his hands-free radio.

“We’ve got three tanks up here,” Encizo said as the two men arrived at the top of the building. Their Cuban ally had just torn open an air-conditioning unit and McCarter could see the canisters within the remnants of the housing. “We’re lucky that no one put a bullet through one.”

“Nerve gas?” McCarter asked as he stepped closer to the bomb. The canisters had been united by a bit of electronics with spray nozzles that pointed up into the night sky.

“There’s not an agency or military in the world that doesn’t have biohazard markings on their nerve gas delivery systems,” James said. “Besides, these are traditional helium canisters, and as far as I can tell, they haven’t been reloaded. They’re fresh and unrecycled.”

McCarter looked at the device that connected the three tanks. “What kind of dispersal could three helium tanks give to a spore or other pathogen?”

“I’m seeing we can get close to thirty square miles, effectively infecting all of Paris,” Manning returned.

“Guys,” Hawkins interjected over the radio. “I’m monitoring the police bands, and we’re not gettin’ any attention. They’ve got calls about fireworks going off, not gunfire.”

McCarter and Manning looked at each other quizzically. “Staying away from this place under orders…like they know something bad is about to happen here,” McCarter added.

Manning nodded. “T.J….”

“I’m checking the scope for encrypted comms, and just linked up with the Farm,” Hawkins answered. “They’ve got satellites looking down on the city, and there are no aircraft heading our way, marked or unmarked.”

“Doesn’t mean that they can’t be arriving in a black van or two,” Manning noted.

“My head’s on a swivel down here,” Hawkins replied. “Want to defuse whatever that thing is so we can beat feet?”

“Absolutely,” Encizo agreed. “The longer we sit here thumbing our asses…”

Manning reached out to the box, his powerful yet sensitive fingertips caressing a smaller rectangular component on the side of it. With a powerful wrench of his wrist, the module popped off into his grasp and he closed his fist tight around it. Slender sheet metal buckled, the silicone board within popping as it was crushed in his powerful hand. “You can let go of the trigger now, David.”

“How did you know it wasn’t set to go off when its antenna was removed?” McCarter asked.

“It was just big enough to hold a transceiver, no booby traps. There’s nothing inside of this part of the device that could trigger the dispersant without a regular command,” Manning said.

McCarter nodded. “Get that shit off the helium tanks fast. We’re taking it back with us.”

Encizo spoke up. “You told us the guy holding that trigger said Paris would die.”

James frowned as he leaned back, slipping a small tube into his vest. “Helium under high pressure was the dispersant. I’ve got the nozzles on both ends of the device sealed with epoxy.”

“The superglue that you use to close minor cuts?” Manning asked.

James nodded. “Works on closing off tubing pretty well, too. It should retain its seal for a good stretch.”

“Find a means of hermetically sealing it, too,”

McCarter said. “T.J., any more news?”

“I’m on my way up. A black van just pulled into view,” Hawkins answered. “I made certain they didn’t see me enter the building.”

“We’re roofing it,” Encizo muttered.

McCarter tossed aside the severed hand, but kept the trigger unit, slipping it into a pouch for future study. If anyone could learn the origin of this particular bomb, it would be Gary Manning, if his keen observation of the strange dispersal unit hadn’t already raised a few clues and flags.

For now, James had bound the device in a thermal blanket, duct taping the neck of the metallic cloth shut as it wrapped around the boxy unit. For something no larger than a shoebox, David McCarter didn’t want to imagine what kind of monstrosity was within.

If one tiny bit was more than enough to kill a city, how much had Bezoar produced to deal with the whole world?