“So why keep working on it?”
“Some of the others raised questions and promptly disappeared,” Golner said.
Kurt understood. “I’ve seen how Shakir treats those who cross him. It’s my intention to put an end to that.”
“It won’t be that easy,” Golner said sadly. “Soon, the whole process will be automated. They won’t even need me.” He put the bullfrog back down in its hole. “Come with me.”
They went through another air lock and emerged in a typical research lab. Clean, dark and quiet, filled with refrigerators and lab tables on which small centrifuges were slowly spinning.
Brad Golner checked the first one and then the second. “The new batch isn’t quite ready,” he said, moving from the centrifuge to one of the stainless steel refrigerators. He opened the door and cool mist poured out. Reaching in, he pulled a few vials from a freezer, placed them in a Styrofoam box and then added cold packs all around it.
“You have about eight hours before it warms up past the critical temperature. After that, it’s no good.”
“How do I use it?” Kurt said.
“What do you mean use it?”
“To revive the people on Lampedusa,” Kurt said. “The ones Shakir put into a coma.”
Golner shook his head. “No,” he said urgently. “This isn’t the antidote. It’s the Black Mist.”
“I need the antidote,” Kurt explained. “I’m trying to wake people up, not put them to sleep.”
“They don’t make it here,” Golner said. “They won’t allow us to. Otherwise, we’d know too much. We’d be a threat.”
Another way for Shakir to keep his people off balance and subservient, Kurt thought. “Do you know what it is?”
Golner shook his head again.
“You might not know,” Kurt said. “But you can guess.”
“It would have to be some form of—”
Before the biologist could finish his sentence, the door behind them swung open. The red glow from the Mars-like incubation room spilled into the storage facility. Kurt knew it wouldn’t be Joe or Renata. He dove to the side immediately, grabbing Golner as he went and trying to pull him out of harm’s way.
He was a fraction too slow. Several gunshots rang out. One bullet grazed Kurt’s arm, two others hit the biologist squarely in the chest.
Kurt pulled Golner behind one of the centrifuge tables. He was barely breathing. He seemed to be trying to say something. Kurt leaned close.
“… The skins… put in hermetically sealed container… picked up every three days…” Golner tensed as if a new wave of pain had stricken him and then he relaxed and his body went still.
“Kurt Austin,” a much louder voice boomed from the open doorway.
Kurt remained on the floor, behind the table. He was hidden from view, but the thin wooden cabinetry of the table wouldn’t stop a bullet. He expected to be shot at any moment. But it didn’t happen. Maybe the men didn’t want a shoot-out in the midst of their toxin-filled lab.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Kurt shouted back.
“And that’s where you’ll stay,” the voice replied.
Kurt glanced around the corner of the table. He spotted a trio of silhouettes in the doorway. He guessed the silhouette in the center was Shakir, but with the red glow of the incubation room lighting them from behind, the three men looked more like the devil and his minions come to collect a long-outstanding debt.
51
“So you must be the great Shakir,” Kurt called out.
“The great?” his adversary replied. “Hmm… Yes. I like the sound of that.”
Kurt still couldn’t see him clearly, only that he was tall and lean and flanked by two men with rifles.
“You can get up now,” Shakir said.
“I’d rather not,” Kurt replied. “It makes me too easy a target.”
Kurt still had a pistol. But he was lying on the ground. And with at least two rifles pointed his way, he wasn’t going to win a shoot-out even if he managed to get off a shot or two.
“Trust me,” the man said. “We can hit you with ease right where you are. Now, toss your gun to us and stand up slowly.”
Making it look as if he was reaching for his gun, Kurt slid the cold pack of vials into his waterproof pouch and zipped it. When he brought his hand back out for everyone to see, he had the pistol in his grip. He placed it on the concrete floor and shoved it across the room. It slid easily, stopping only when Shakir trapped it with his boot.
“Up,” Shakir said, motioning with his hand.
Kurt eased to his feet, wondering why they hadn’t just shot him. Maybe they wanted to know how he’d discovered the place.
“Where are your friends?” Shakir asked.
“Friends?” Kurt replied. “I don’t have any. It’s a sad story, really. It all began in my childhood—”
“We know you came in with two others,” Shakir said, cutting him off. “The same two you’ve been working with all along.”
Truthfully, Kurt had no idea where Joe and Renata were. He was glad to know Shakir didn’t have them. They must have seen or heard danger coming and hid somewhere. On the odd chance they were following orders and heading for safety on their own, Kurt wanted to keep Shakir off their trail. “Last I saw, they went looking for a bathroom. Too much coffee. You know how that goes.”
Shakir turned to the man on his left. “Check the pumps, Hassan,” he said. “I don’t want anything interfering with them.”
“Ah, yes,” Kurt said. “You and your pumps. Great idea, faking the hydroelectric plant and using it to hide what you’re doing. It won’t work for long, though. Anyone with a brain in their head and a basic engineering background can look at your hydro channel and see that there’s more water coming out than going in.”
“And yet, no one has ever asked us. And you only just put it together.”
Kurt shrugged. “I said anyone with a brain. There are others out there a lot smarter than I am.”
Shakir motioned for him to move forward. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It will all be over soon. And then the siphoning will stop. And the hydroelectric plant will perform its original function. And no one will ever know it had been otherwise. By then, you’ll be long dead. And Libya, like the rest of North Africa, will be part of my domain.”
Kurt moved forward reluctantly.
“Hands.”
Kurt lowered his hands and put his wrists together. Shakir motioned for Hassan to tie them and Hassan stepped forward, wrapped a zip tie around Kurt’s wrists and pulled it tight.
“Why are you doing all this?” Kurt asked as he was marched through the incubation room.
“Power,” Shakir said. “Stability. Having wielded it for decades and having seen the chaos that a power vacuum brings, I, and others like me, have decided to put things back in order. You should be thankful that your country might prefer dealing with me, and those who answer to me, instead of a bunch of squabbling factions. It will be so much easier to get things done.”
“Things?” Kurt said as they neared the air lock. “Like killing five thousand islanders from Lampedusa? Or letting thousands of Libyans who have nothing to do with you die of thirst or in the violence of another civil war?”
“Lampedusa was an unfortunate accident,” he said. “Unfortunate mostly because it brought you into my world. As for Libya, mass deaths will provide an impetus. The worse it gets, the faster it will be over. But, then, history has always required the shedding of blood,” Shakir gloated. “It’s grease for the wheels of progress.”