‘We have a major situation here,’ he told his commander breathlessly. Terrorists were on the loose with anthrax.
Eldridge heard the conversation between Sergeant Vega and his captain in virtual real-time, and cursed his own bad luck. They were low on fuel, and were holding position as they waited for aerial refuelling. The refuelling aircraft would be with them within the next ten minutes, but the delivery of fuel would take a further hour. During this time, they would continue to head towards the fugitives from their current position due east of Santiago, but at a seriously reduced speed.
Given the current speed of the stolen police car, Eldridge knew that it was unlikely that he and his onboard team would make it to the border in time. His other men, currently scattered at various points around central Chile, would also not be able to make it in time, which meant he was going to have to trust the local authorities to pick the pair up.
But what was this about anthrax? The police sergeant had said that the pair had shown them a glass, freeze-packed test tube, which they claimed contained weaponized anthrax.
Did they? Eldridge thought it highly doubtful. Where the hell would they have got such a thing? Did they have contacts in Chile? Or did Adams use his old government contacts and get some before he came here? But if that was the case, how would he have got it past customs?
The fact that it was in a test tube was also strange, given that weaponized anthrax was designed to be used in aerosol form. But they nevertheless had a test tube, which led Eldridge to consider whether—
Damn!
What if Edwards had collected samples from the body? She always seemed to have a backpack with her, and as Eldridge cast his mind back to the Antarctic, he realized that it was the same one she had boarded the helicopter with. Why the hell hadn’t he picked up on that before?
Thinking back further, he remembered their conversation in the dining room of the Matrix base camp.
‘So since talking to Atkinson last night, you didn’t go back out to the body until this morning?’ he had asked her, pretending at the time to be Major Daley of the US Army Engineers.
Edwards had looked at him, and then shaken her head. ‘No,’ she had replied. ‘Samuel ordered us to return here and stay until you guys arrived.’
Eldridge tried to examine his memory of that day, extract the image of Edwards from the recesses of his mind, examine it for any evidence of lying. It was a hopeless task, he knew, and yet he tried, searching his image of her face for any waver, anything that hinted at dishonesty.
But he already knew the answer. Of course they had been back out. What scientist wouldn’t? It hadn’t seemed an issue at the time, as Eldridge knew he was going to kill them all anyway, but it was now apparent that he hadn’t given it enough consideration at the time. Yet another mistake.
It wasn’t one he would bother Jacobs with yet. If the pair was stopped at the border, he would be there within another hour, and the whole sorry incident could be wrapped up.
But they had to be caught first, and so Eldridge immediately contacted Nevada, who in turn ordered the NSA to retask the necessary satellite to provide real-time footage of the escaping police car. He next ensured that the border patrols at the checkpoint at Arica were on full alert, and reinforcements from the Chilean military were en route, just in case.
Talking to the border patrol, it transpired that they had a Lynx scout helicopter on loan from the British Army Air Corps, and Eldridge immediately gave the order for it to fly south on Interstate 5 to intercept the fugitives if possible, or at least to provide close surveillance.
Part of him was tempted to let the pair get to the border, where more forces would be ranged against them, but another part told him that they had lost them several times already, and waiting was no longer an option — the fugitives had been located, Eldridge knew where they were right now, and the border patrol forces had the capability of getting to them within the next ten minutes.
Yes, it was definitely a good idea to send in the helicopter, and send it in hard. Eldridge called back to make sure the men aboard the chopper were well-armed.
And then he called the authorities in Peru, to warn them what was happening over the border. And to get them mobilized.
Just in case.
15
They heard it long before they saw it, the slow, steady whump, whump, whump of helicopter rotors, high in the sky above them.
Lynn turned to Adams. ‘How far are we?’
Adams glanced quickly at the odometer. ‘Just twenty miles,’ he answered. ‘Damn.’
Somebody must have discovered the roadblock cops and called it in, or else they must have escaped somehow. Either way, the border had been alerted, which meant they were going to have to come up with a new plan, and quickly.
He turned to Lynn. ‘Any ideas?’ he asked hopefully.
‘It depends what they’re up to,’ she said, craning her neck up to look through the windscreen, catching just a glimpse of the Lynx scout helicopter above them. ‘If they’re just monitoring us, they’ll follow us to the border, where the police will arrest us. We can use the anthrax ploy again, but I don’t know if it’ll work a second time. If the helicopter crew has been ordered to make the arrest, though, it’ll have to land at some stage…’
Adams nodded his head, following her reasoning instantly. Given Lynn’s last experience in a helicopter, he hoped she wouldn’t panic. He turned to her. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked gently.
She nodded her head. ‘It’s our only chance.’
Adams returned his gaze to the road, determined. ‘Then we’ve got to get that chopper to land.’
What was this? Captain Marco Delongis saw the police car on the highway below his helicopter brake to a screeching halt, then watched as the two fugitives leapt from the vehicle.
What was the man holding? Delongis narrowed his eyes. Pistol!
He fought the natural urge to command the pilot to pull up, knowing that a 9mm handgun round would do absolutely nothing to harm the helicopter. Instead he continued to watch in dread fascination as the man loosed off all fifteen rounds from the gun until it clicked empty. He then saw the man look at the gun in disgust, and fling it to the ground.
He had obviously taken the pistol from one of the policemen at the roadblock but he hadn’t had the good sense to take their spare ammunition. He saw the woman screaming something at her partner, pointing up at the helicopter, and then they were running, straight off the highway and into the scrubland that bordered it.
They were obviously panicking, the sight of the helicopter causing them to flee on foot in blind fear. Delongis was always surprised when this happened, the effect his little aircraft could have on people, and always glad. It made things substantially easier.
The fact that the pair had stopped the car and fled on foot also made life easier. His orders had been to stop the vehicle and arrest the two fugitives. He would have had to manoeuvre the chopper in front of the speeding car, hovering above the highway, in order to get it to stop, and he was glad he didn’t have to. Who knew how crazy this pair was? They might have driven straight at him.
As it was, he just had to land near them, deploy the four-man team from the rear, and wait for the arrest. Easy, especially as the pair was now unarmed.
But there was, Delongis reminded himself, the problem of the anthrax. The word was that the fugitives had a test tube, which indicated that it wasn’t weaponized, but its presence would still be enough to make his men wary. Their orders were to bring the pair in alive, but Delongis had given his own orders: if it looked like either the man or the woman was going to use the anthrax, they should be shot immediately. There was no point taking unnecessary chances.