He saw Olsen speak into his own telephone, issuing what looked like urgent orders, then looked back to Ellen Abrams and nodded his head.
While Richards was still trying to figure out what was going on, the doors to the conference room were opened and a squad of Marines entered at a run.
What the hell?
They were wearing masks and what looked like NBC suits; half were armed with assault rifles, the other half held restraints.
What the fuck were they doing?
Richards watched in open-mouthed wonder as they stormed across the room, weapons up and aimed… at him?
And then the Marines were right there in front of him, and the men without weapons were grabbing him, pulling him out of his chair, tying up his body even as they hauled him away, speechless, from the conference room.
President Abrams observed Jeb Richards through the portal glass in the door of the basement bunker.
He was screaming at her, hands pulling at his hair as he stormed from one end of the bunker to the other.
She had no idea what he was saying; she only hoped that Cole was wrong about him.
But the date of the last injection matched the date that Richards had been in Riyadh; and he had been there to visit Quraishi. Who else could Quraishi have injected, that would be able to wreak so much havoc on the United States?
If Jeb had been injected, and the spores erupted while he was in the White House, then most of the country’s senior government figures would be infected.
It certainly made sense, but Abrams didn’t want Jeb Richards to be immolated by flame throwers on a whim; she wanted to make absolutely sure, which was why she had ordered him to be quarantined in the specially converted bunker.
And once the on-site experts were properly suited up, they would enter the bunker and try and examine the man.
Abrams was of two different opinions on what she wanted the outcome to be. On the one hand, she had known Jeb for years and — despite his theatrics — she liked him; it would be devastating if he had been injected, knowingly or unknowingly. But on the other hand, if it was him then the mystery would be cleared up, and their search could stop.
As she watched him pacing up and down, pausing every once in a while to scream at the window, she decided that she felt sorry for him either way.
Richards didn’t know what the hell these people were thinking. He knew he hadn’t been injected with anything.
When he’d first seen the Marines coming for him, he’d thought that they must have found out about him taking payments from Quraishi to assist in suppressing information about the upcoming attacks. What had surprised him beyond credulity was the accusation that he was the mystery twenty-first bomber.
What the fuck were they thinking? Who the fuck did they think they were?
‘Yeah, you!’ he screamed at the porthole, only partially aware that the people outside couldn’t hear him. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, huh? When I get out of here I’m gonna tear all of you a new asshole, you hear me?’
Tears started to well in his eyes and he collapsed onto the floor, head on his knees.
It was crazy, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
But a voice in the back of his head kept reminding him of something, of the man he’d met at the hotel the night before his meeting, the one who had taken him out to the illicit drinking rooms, the high-class brothel afterwards, and then… then… what?
Richards had to admit that he had no idea what had happened the rest of that evening. When he had woken in his hotel bed the morning after, he’d had one hell of a hangover, and had put down his patchy memory of the previous night to having a few drinks too many.
But could it have been for some other reason? Had he been drugged? Had he been taken to the laboratory and injected with the bioweapon?
Could it be true?
For the first time, Richards felt the cold fear in the pit of his stomach.
He had sat in during all those briefings about the North Korean bioweapon — what it did, how it worked.
Was it going to happen to him?
He leapt up off the floor, banging on the porthole glass; only this time, he wasn’t shouting insults.
He was shouting for help; and he was shouting for mercy.
The NBC personnel had arrived and were preparing to enter the chamber, and Abrams was about to return to the conference room when she saw it.
At first Richards stopped shouting, stopped moving; and then his face went bright red, as if he was holding his breath.
His eyes bulged in their puffy sockets, and Abrams saw the NBC leader bar the way for the rest of his team. ‘No,’ she heard him say through his mask, ‘not now. It’s too late. We stay outside.’
And then Abrams watched the most horrific thing she had seen in her entire life, as the rest of Richards’ skin reddened and he started to scream, eyes threatening to pop straight out of his head, teeth crumbling and falling from his mouth.
And then the skin split, the flesh itself sloughing away from the man’s bones as the virus ate away at him from the inside.
And as the flesh dropped to the floor in pieces and clumps, Abrams saw the spores released from inside his body; like pollen floating in the air, there seemed to be millions of particles spreading through the bunker like a plague of insects, until she could barely see him.
But then his skeletal fingers appeared at the porthole, scraping down the glass and leaving a trail of blood and loose skin, and Abrams could swear she could hear his screams now, even through the armor plating.
And then the plague lifted slightly and she saw his ruined face; skinless, fleshless, unrecognizable.
The spores covered him again, and he was gone.
‘You were right,’ Cole heard the voice of President Abrams announce, thousands of miles away.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘We got him into the bunker just in time,’ she breathed, obviously still shaken. ‘He… He’s gone.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Cole said, and meant it. Traitor or not, it was no way to go.
But, he reasoned, better him than the whole of the National Security Council.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Abrams said next. ‘This is the third time you’ve saved my life.’
‘It’s becoming something of a habit,’ Cole agreed.
‘But thank you. I mean it.’ She breathed out slowly once more. ‘If that virus had hit when he was with us, I can’t imagine what would have happened. The Lion might still have won.’
‘But he didn’t,’ Cole said. ‘Not this time.’
‘No,’ Abrams replied in a more positive tone. ‘Now, is there anything I can do for you?’
Cole paused as he heard noise coming from above; shouted orders, booted feet. The Saudi authorities had found him.
Seconds later, the door was kicked open and a squad of armed men rushed in, a captain at the front, his pistol up and aimed squarely at Cole’s head.
‘Yes,’ Cole said into the telephone, ‘I think you might be able to do something for me.’
He held out the receiver to the captain.
‘It’s the President of the United States of America,’ Cole said to the man. ‘For you.’
EPILOGUE
Chang Wubei greeted the Defense Minister with a sigh. ‘So it is over,’ he said.
‘For now,’ Kang Xing agreed. ‘For now.’ He regarded the young man closely though his hooded eyes. Chang Wubei was one of the People’s Republic of China’s four Vice Premiers, and a man some thought might one day rise to the top post, supplanting Tsang Feng as president to become the nation’s Paramount Leader.