“I have nothing to say to you.”
“At least a comment about how surprised you are to see I’m still alive.”
“Or how sorry.”
Hassani waved a disparaging finger at her. “You disappoint me, Evira.”
“I killed a double. But why would you need one?”
“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?”
“Figured what out?”
“Telling you would eliminate the fun. I would have thought it would all be as obvious to you now as it would certainly have been to …” His eyes sharpened here. “… McCracken.”
She came forward until she could smell the steel of the bars. “How do you know about McCracken?”
“No pointless denials. That is a good start.”
“No start at all. His involvement in this couldn’t possibly mean anything to you,” Evira insisted, perplexed by the direction Hassani’s interest was taking.
“Then you won’t mind telling me what he knows.”
“I have no idea.”
His eyes scolded her. “Evira …”
“We haven’t been in contact. I retained him to—”
“To what?”
“It doesn’t matter to you.”
“Doesn’t matter to me that you coerced McCracken into finding Yosef Rasin for you and stopping him from employing a weapon that could destroy my world? Come now, give me more credit than that, please. You were helping me from the beginning. Why not help me some more?”
Evira felt numb. “You knew. How could you know?”
“It doesn’t matter to you,” the general shot back, using her own words against her.
“You’re asking questions you already know the answers to.”
“Then don’t bother holding the rest back. Where can I find McCracken? What system of contact did you set up for him?”
“None,” Evira insisted, trying to collect her thoughts while keeping her calm. How Hassani had learned of McCracken’s involvement wasn’t as pressing as why it seemed so important to him. If anything, as he had noted, the two men were allies in a twisted sort of way. Thanks to her.
“I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Evira. But only if you provide the answer to a question I’m sure you do know the answer to: where is McCracken’s son stashed?”
Evira’s response was to stare at Hassani in confused helplessness.
“You do know that, don’t you?”
“Why is it important to you?”
“It is. That is all you need to know.”
“The boy cannot possibly be of service to you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“McCracken has nothing to do with you!”
Hassani grew still calmer. “I expected far more of you, Evira. You have let me down. But I will give you one more chance to answer my questions.”
“Then what? Torture? Drugs?”
He looked genuinely insulted. “A gentleman would never treat a lady so. However …”
With that, the general gazed back toward the staircase and signaled his guards. Seconds later a pair of them approached, dragging someone between them.
“I believe you know this boy,” Hassani said.
Kourosh writhed and kicked between the guards dragging him along. His lips were bloody and the edges of his long auburn hair were wet with blood from a cut on his forehead.
“No!” Evira screamed.
The guards stopped just to the general’s right. Evira’s eyes met the boy’s.
“Now you will tell me where I can find Blaine McCracken’s son, won’t you?”
A nod from Hassani brought one of the guard’s revolvers from its holster, barrel pressed solidly against Kourosh’s head as the second guard held the boy in place.
“I will ask you again, and if you fail to answer, my man will pull the trigger.”
“You … animal!”
“Where can I find Blaine McCracken’s son?”
A thousand thoughts swam through Evira’s head. The problem she faced was impossible, death for herself a better alternative than choosing.
“Kill me instead!” she begged.
“But then who would tell me what I want to know?”
“I can’t! I can’t!”
“How unfortunate,” Hassani said, and nodded to the guard holding the gun.
The man pulled the trigger.
“Insurance,” Blaine had replied to Isser’s question of why the fabrication of his death was necessary prior to their leaving the O.K. Corral. “Before we parted in Jaffa, Evira assured me she could get my son away from Fett — and thus Rasin. But if she failed and he’s still alive, his best bet to stay that way is if we put the word out that I’m dead.”
“Because then Rasin would have no reason to kill him,” Isser added.
Blaine nodded. “That pair of female killers who went after me in Boston were his from the beginning. He only let Evira reach me so I would lead him to her. And I almost did.”
“Yes,” Isser had recalled. “Ben-Neser in Jaffa. You saved his life.”
“He saved mine first without realizing it.”
In Washington they transferred from the small private jet into a larger one for the flight to Tel Aviv. Precautions insured no one saw Blaine at any point, so the fabricated tale of his death at the hands of Holliday and his deputies was left intact.
“Incredible,” Isser commented when they were again off the ground. “This whole affair is incredible. This Gamma Option,” he continued, putting it together for himself, “you claim it has as its basis the takeover of a country by exposing it to an enzyme contained in a virus the population becomes instantly addicted to?”
“For the sustenance of their very lives, yes. But takeover is a poor choice of words. We’re talking about something infinitely more terrifying. Invasion without ever setting foot on foreign soil. Surrender without ever being faced with a conventional weapon. In a scant few days, an enemy country gets transformed into a massive prison camp, the whole of their population’s DNA-altered and in need of more of Bechman’s enzyme in order to survive.”
“But with such technology available, why not just kill everyone in the enemy country instead?”
“To begin with you’ve got the Indian over there’s theory,” Blaine said, nodding at Wareagle, “that this is truly a fate worse than death for any proud nation. There’s substance in that and practicality as well. To begin with, a poison potent enough to kill might show up by connection in the water supply early enough for the system to be shut down. And if you risked releasing the killer poison into the air, there’d be no way to control it. Think of it from the American viewpoint. Not only would Japan have been rendered impotent and our virtual industrial slave, but due warning would have been served on the Russians, as well. Hell, that’s what dropping the bombs was all about anyway. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? In a twisted way, it might have solved all our problems.”
“Which is the very way Rasin sees it in terms of Israel. But how did he learn of Gamma’s existence?”
“We can rule Bechman out, which leaves his assistant Eisenstadt. Others might have known about Gamma being out there, but only a scientist working closely with the project could furnish sufficient details and supply the expertise required to meet Rasin’s needs.”
“And you’re quite sure those needs have been met?”
“Everything points in that direction. Trouble is, Isser, we’re forgetting that in spite of all this the Americans didn’t use Gamma when they had the chance. I’ve got to figure that something was uncovered at the last minute, except Bechman couldn’t recall anything of the kind.”