Shadow Read online

  “Sakina!” Al-Baruni saw his wife and called out her name.

  Marc hit the brakes and they skidded to a halt on the intersection. The man didn’t wait for the scooter to stop, and he leaped off, running into an embrace with his family. At once, they were crying, holding each other, their stark relief overwhelming them with emotion.

  But Marc’s attention was elsewhere.

  “Where is she?”

  He shouted the question at Loki, who came up and out of cover, brandishing a pistol.

  “Inside,” said the Icelander, pointing at the warehouse. “There was a firefight. The local police will be coming.”

  “Have no doubt,” Marc retorted, and he revved the engine.

  The Suzuki surged forward, up the vehicle ramp and into the derelict warehouse. Dust kicked up and Marc tasted acrid burning plastic. He saw glimpses of the chaos around him—a heap of burning fabric, an idling truck, a discarded motorcycle and bodies on the ground—before coming to a screeching halt just before the loading dock leading out to the canal.

  He dumped the scooter and ran out into the sunlight. Out on the dock, Marc saw Verbeke with his hands raised and Lucy drawing down on him. She had a set of zip-ties in one hand.

  “Ah, the race traitor is here,” called Verbeke. “Good timing.”

  “Shut up,” Lucy snapped, never taking her eyes off her target.

  “The cops are right behind me,” called Marc. “I got to your mule, pal. It’s over.”

  “You’re lying,” snarled Verbeke. He made a show of pulling up his sleeve to look at his watch. “The device has activated by now.” He leered at them. “Shadow is out there. It’s loose—and this city is going to learn the price of opening its doors to foreign scum.”

  “Actually,” said Marc, with a shake of the head, “your toxic little toy is buried under a ton of wet cement.”

  “Another lie!” Verbeke barked, but there was a moment of hesitation, an iota of doubt.

  “Step away from the boat,” Lucy ordered. “And get on your damn knees. I won’t tell you again.”

  Verbeke paused, then gave a nod. He stepped forward, coming closer to Lucy.

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s always another way. Always another weapon.”

  Marc saw something metallic glitter in the daylight, a slim tube that Verbeke had slipped out of his cuff, and shouted a warning.

  “Lucy, he’s got…!”

  What happened next came in a flash of motion, almost too swift for Marc to follow. Verbeke’s hand came up and the tube shrieked, firing a jet of fluid straight into Lucy’s face. With a cry, she reeled back as if she had been punched, her hand coming up to claw at her eyes and nose.

  As she stumbled to the ground, Verbeke dived into the idling speedboat tethered to the dock and he slammed the throttle forward. Marc pulled his gun and started firing, his bullets skipping across the back of the boat as he unloaded the magazine. He saw a splash of red as Verbeke jerked against the wheel, but the boat didn’t slow and continued on its course away down the churning canal.

  He spun, finding Lucy sprawled on the concrete quay, her body shaking as she pawed at her skin. A gluey, pinkish fluid coated her hands and face. Marc felt hollow and cold inside as a medicinal smell reached his nostrils.

  “Stay back!” Lucy shouted. “Shit. Oh shit! This is Shadow! Marc, stay the hell away from me. Oh no.”

  She gave a racking cough and spat up thin bile.

  A flood of fear charged through Marc and he fought it down, tearing off his ripped racer jacket.

  “I got you,” he said, folding the leather over her torso and around her head, wrapping her in it.

  “No,” she said, wheezing. “Don’t.”

  Marc ignored her and hauled Lucy up on to his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He could feel her trembling as the bioweapon hit her system, and he moved as fast as he could. That terrible sense of time running out tightened in his chest.

  Loki, al-Baruni and his family were still there as he emerged on the street, but Marc warned them away.

  “Keep back, she was hit by a dose of the virus!”

  “What … virus?” said Sakina, her eyes widening.

  “Marburg variant,” Marc panted. “Same thing they released in Benghazi.”

  “Let me see.” Sakina came forward, and her attitude shifted, becoming firm and businesslike. “I am a nurse. Show me.”

  Marc put Lucy down on the hood of Loki’s car and Sakina peeled back the jacket around her. The dusky color of the American’s face was already taking on an ashen pallor, and she gasped with each painful breath she took.

  “She’s going into shock,” said Sakina. “We have to get her to a hospital right away. Every moment she is here, her chance fades.”

  As Sakina spoke, her last few words were drowned out by howling sirens. A trio of white Federal Police cars emerged from the intersection and screeched to a halt. Uniformed officers burst out, drawing pistols and extendable batons.

  Marc had lost his gun somewhere on the dock, and he turned to the Belgians, his mind only registering Lucy’s condition, and the desperate compulsion to save her life. The weapons they pointed at him seemed insignificant.

  He advanced on the closest of them.

  “We have to get this woman to a hospital right away!” he shouted. “She’s in critical condition, do you understand? She will die!”

  “Put up your hands, sir!” called the closest officer. “Stay where you are!”

  Marc ignored him, reaching for the driver’s side door of the closest police car.

  “I’ll get her there, we have to get her there…”

  Nothing else mattered. It was as if the entirety of the world had dropped away from him, and the only thing remaining was to get Lucy Keyes to safety, to keep her alive.

  I can do it. I can save her.

  This time, I can save her.

  “Raise your hands!” shouted the policeman. He moved up, his drawn gun at Marc’s head. “Stop!”

  “I can’t!” Marc roared, and spun about, unleashing a wild punch that caught the police officer by surprise and knocked him down to the road. “I have to—”

  From out of nowhere, an ASP baton cracked Marc across his shoulders and he felt the world turn sharply around his axis. The ground came up to meet him and Marc’s vision blurred, becoming hazy and indistinct.

  “You are under arrest!” said a voice.

  Marc didn’t hear it.

  “Help,” he breathed, forcing out the words. “Help her!”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The battery of tests included half a dozen blood draws, skin samples and invasive swabs from Marc’s mouth and nostrils, leaving nothing to chance. Gloved hospital technicians in plastic smocks and full-face masks worked around him, talking in swift snatches of Dutch that he couldn’t follow.

  What parts of the conversation were in English were impenetrable medical jargon, and when it became abundantly clear that they were not going to answer his questions, Marc gave up and sat there on the end of the bed in the secure infection unit, letting them poke, prod and pull him around.

  After a while, the technicians left him alone and he sank back on to the bed, his mind turning in a cycle of dread. In the end, it had been Loki—whose real name was actually Björn—who flashed his badge and forced the Belgian cops to listen to them. The Icelander had convinced the locals to get everyone to the nearest emergency ward and that had been the last Marc had seen of anyone else.

  He fixated on a fleeting image of Lucy lodged in his thoughts, shivering on a gurney as doctors ran her away down a corridor. Marc dreaded the possibility that this would be the last thing she left him with. Lucy was the strongest person he knew, and it tore him up inside to think that she might go out in so much pain. The weight of that notion was iron on his shoulders; it was tight around his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. Marc leaned up, found a jug of water and poured himself a cupful.

  On the other side of the isolation room’s door,
he could see the back of a uniformed policewoman standing guard. Marc sipped the water and took in his surroundings, trying to turn his fear into fuel, to give it purpose.

  If they were not going to tell him how Lucy was, he would have to find out on his own. The first step toward that was to make it out of here. He looked down at the pulse rate sensor attached to his finger, trailing a wire to a medical monitor behind him. The moment he removed it, someone would be alerted. He needed a plan, and then …

  And then?

  All at once, the energy fell out of him. Wasn’t this how he had got into this situation? The fool rushing in, risking everything on his wits.

  “What’s that done for you, Dane?” He asked the question to the empty room, staring morosely at the far wall.

  A shadow appeared at the window in the door and the policewoman stepped aside. Marc drew back and weighed his options, as in came an unsmiling man in his late forties, walking with difficulty on a carbon-fiber stick. The guy had a craggy look about him and a manner that immediately connected to military and veteran in Marc’s mind, but he was dressed in a police windbreaker with a rank tab on his breast and an ID pass around his neck.

  The new arrival gave Marc a sideways look and then aimed his stick at a chair in the corner of the room.

  “I’m going to sit,” he said, in accented English. “Doctors tell me I shouldn’t even be back at work for another month or two, but what do they know?”

  The man lowered himself on to the seat with a grimace. He moved like he was wounded, favoring his right side. When he saw Marc watching, he gave a shrug and tapped his belly.

  “I had a pair of .38 slugs go through me. Lived to tell the tale, though.”

  Marc gave a nod. “I know how that feels.”

  “Yes,” agreed the man. “The doctor who examined you said she found some interesting scars. Perhaps later you can find a moment to explain where you got them.” He propped himself up on the stick, leaning on it with both hands. “I am trying to fathom this out. My name is Inspecteur Nils Jakobs, of the Belgian Federal Police.”

  “Martin Dale,” said Marc, recalling the name from the Canadian passport he had used to enter the country.

  “That is what your documents say,” agreed Jakobs. “They’re very convincing.” He went on, before Marc could say more. “But let’s treat each other like two professionals and dispense with the usual bullshit, yes? You and your lady friend are extralegal, non-official cover operatives working for a transnational security contractor.”

  “I need to see her.”

  Marc looked into the other man’s eyes, trying to gauge him.

  “She’s with the doctors now. They’ll do all they can, be certain of that. But you can’t help there.” Jakobs showed a flicker of compassion, his tone softening for a moment. “You are close?”

  “Yeah.” The words seemed hollow and broken. “You could say that.”

  “The other woman, the wife…” Jakobs nodded in the direction of the doorway. “You’re lucky she was there. She told the clinicians what to look for. Gave them vital information. Every second counts with something like this.” He looked away, frowning. “My soul shrivels up when I think about what might have happened today.”

  Marc said nothing, aware that he had already let on more than he should have. He wondered what al-Baruni had told the police. If their roles had been reversed, Marc would have given up everything he knew if it meant saving his family.

  “They’re not part of it,” he said. “Sakina, her husband, their kids—they’re innocent.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.” Jakobs considered his own words for a moment. “Their blood tests came back clean, no infection. Same with your associate, the Viking.” He studied Marc. “You haven’t asked me about your own health yet.”

  Marc gave a shrug. “I’m not bleeding out of every orifice, and you’re not wearing a noddy suit, so…”

  He trailed off. Thoughts of his own survival had been a distant second to everything else.

  “Fair point,” continued the other man. “From what I understand, this thing is quite horrendous when it gets its hooks in you.” He paused again. “Four city blocks around the town hall have been quarantined. We’re telling the media it is a gas leak.” Jakobs shifted uncomfortably, making a low grunt as he moved. “So far, no reports of any infections have come in. But you have left quite a few bodies in your path, you and your colleague. I know them all.”

  Again, Marc held his silence. Before, he might have hoped that Rubicon’s heavyweight legal team could swing into action and intervene on his behalf, but with everything going on in the upper echelons of the company, he couldn’t rely on that. If anything, there was a good chance that the board of directors might go the other way and totally disavow any knowledge of Marc and Lucy’s actions.

  “You have brought a mess into this city, my friend,” continued Jakobs. “I will be honest with you, because it will save time. As we speak, a group of men with ranks much higher than mine are trying to unravel what took place, and most of them want to find a way to pin it on you and those immigrants.” He spread his hands. “After what has happened in Brussels in the last few years, do you know how the rest of Europe sees us? They think Belgium is a breeding ground for terrorists, run by apathetic and spineless politicians.”

  “It’s not foreigners who did this,” Marc said, the words slipping out. “It’s one of your own.”

  Jakobs gave a rueful nod. “More than you know.” He shifted again in his seat and gripped the handle of his stick. “I had a long conversation with the Icelander,” he said, changing tack. “And his boss. In exchange for some latitude for his man, Inspector Larsson was quite forthcoming about your identity and that of Ms. Keyes.”

  “Shit!” Marc cursed quietly.

  “Indeed. And quite deep it is too, Mr. Dane. Interpol has a thought-provoking file on you. You are a person of interest. Your name comes up in all kinds of places. The Royal Navy, the British intelligence service, the United Nations Office of Nuclear Security … You get around.”

  “Travel broadens the mind,” he offered.

  “I was particularly drawn to your possible connection with a murder in St.Tropez last year. Celeste Toussaint, the television baroness. But that investigation has stalled. Lack of actionable evidence.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Marc replied, which was more or less true.

  He knew full well who Toussaint was—he’d even been part of a mission to tie her to the Combine and their dealings with right-wing extremists in France.

  Was that connected to the Lion’s Roar?

  But the true circumstances behind Toussaint’s death were not known to Rubicon.

  Marc blew out a weary breath.

  “Look, mate, if you’re going to arrest me, let’s just get it over with, yeah?”

  “Do you read?”

  “What?” The question wrong-footed him.

  “Books,” added Jakobs.

  Marc nodded, then felt the need to clarify.

  “Well. Not literary fiction. Beach reads, mostly.”

  “Moby-Dick,” Jakobs added. “Ahab and his white whale.”

  “‘From hell’s heart, I stab at thee.’”

  “That’s the one.” The other man leaned forward on his stick. “I have a nemesis of my own. Noah Verbeke. A week ago he tried to kill me, and that wasn’t the first time. Almost succeeded, too.” He patted his torso, and his voice turned grim. “He’s out there now because of me. I thought I had the angles covered, but the Lion’s Roar outplayed me. People are dead because I made the wrong choice, Mr. Dane.” Jakobs looked up and Marc saw his own remorse in the other man’s eyes. “I have been hunting him for years. But I let him slip through my fingers, and now my commanders are going to throw me under the bus, as the Americans say.” That bleak look in the older man’s gaze glittered and turned fiery. “Verbeke and everyone like him are a cancer. He cannot be allowed to get away with what he has done.”

>   And at once, Marc realized what this conversation was actually about.

  “You want Rubicon to help you.”

  “We are both in a similar situation.” He nodded to himself. “Rubicon has deniable resources that a man like me cannot access, yes? The Icelanders are willing to cooperate, but our window of opportunity is closing quickly. The boats Verbeke used were abandoned upriver, and we believe he has gone to ground in Antwerp. Best estimate, we have less than a day before he jumps the border to the Netherlands or gets away on a ship. Antwerp is a port city with dozens of vessels coming and going all the time, so he could vanish and resurface anywhere in Europe.” Jakobs slowly rose to his feet. “I believe you are as motivated to stop him as I am.”

  “I’m in.” Marc gave a nod. There was no hesitation in his answer. “One condition. I want to see Lucy first.”

  * * *

  For one terrible moment, he thought she was already lost.

  The nurses wouldn’t allow Marc to enter the biosafe room where Lucy lay unconscious, and he was forced to make do with the view through a wire-reinforced window in an observation anteroom. He watched a medical technician in a hazmat suit take a blood sample from Lucy’s arm, and the shade of her skin seemed wrong. She looked lifeless and dull, as if the energy had been sucked out of her body. The slow shock of it rolled over Marc in a steady wave.

  Marc had seen death before, through violence, through misadventure, and the unhurried, inexorable kind of ending brought on by disease, and he felt the aura of it looming here. In every sense of the word, a shadow was hanging over the life of Lucy Keyes, and all Marc could do was watch.

  Her chest moved in shallow, stuttering breaths. The doctors had intubated her, snaking a pipe between her pallid lips and down her throat, and plastic bags of fluid solution hung above her bed, thin lines leading down to her arm. Tears of pinkish-red marked her face and her eyes were closed. The slight movement of her chest and the steady peaks of the heart monitor were the only signs of life.