Page 64 of Jacob

As they were talking, the affable affect slowly crumbled and she could see the dangerous psychopath emerge. The skull beneath the skin. It was so frightening because she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would use whatever tools at his disposal to get what he wanted. Psychological coercion. Physical coercion. Torture. Even death.

It sounded like he was on a timeline, on a schedule. Things had to happen by a certain date. That could be dangerous, in that he could get desperate if he didn’t get what he wanted by that date. Alex needed to walk him up to that line without going over it. All she needed was to give Jacob time to get to her, however long that took. And he would come for her. Like the sun rose in the east, he would come. She knew he would move heaven and earth to get to her.

“So.” The Colonel reached down to the ground and brought up a briefcase. There was a keypad lock and biometric pad. He entered in five digits, pressed his thumb to the pad and the briefcase clicked open. Dry ice fog rose up. He picked up a vial and held it up to the light. It was three quarters filled with a light powder. He pulled out another vial with liquid inside. “Here we have it. Mankind’s scourge. Rendered even more dangerous but also tamed once one of you two insert the kill switch. The liquid is reconstituted DNA of variola.”

He waggled the second vial back and forth, liquid sloshing up the walls.

Alex could barely breathe. Her eyes followed the sloshing liquid, throat gone completely dry. Inside that vial was the death of millions of people. Possibly billions, if it was true that the smallpox had been bioengineered to be faster-acting and more lethal. Death and destruction on a vast scale, unimaginable suffering. Perhaps even the end of humanity.

She lifted her eyes to the Colonel’s. His were bright, mocking. Almost as if expecting praise for being so clever.

Her stomach suddenly rebelled, her entire system rejecting what was happening. How she wished her hands were free so she could hold them over her mouth. As it was, she avoided vomiting by sheer will power.

She was looking at pure evil, something she’d never encountered before. This was someone who had no human emotions she could connect to. Someone she could never understand, not in a million years.

Someone who, for gain, could and would slaughter millions without a second thought. There was absolutely no remorse in those glittering light-grey eyes. If anything, he looked very pleased with himself. Someone who’d successfully pulled off something difficult.

She glanced at Elias, but he refused to meet her eyes, keeping his head down. Whatever happened, his life was over. He could die in here, maybe after being tortured. The Colonel looked as if he could torture Elias out of pure pleasure. Or if they escaped and got back to the States, he’d be tried for treason. She’d testify against him, no question. He wasn’t evil, like the Colonel. But he’d collaborated with a terrorist, for money. There were no other outcomes. Maybe he could escape, live the life of a man on the run. He wouldn’t last five minutes. Elias had no street smarts and had zero ability to live under the radar. He’d always liked to live large. That would never happen. His entire body language spoke of defeat. Head down, shoulders slumped. He’d clearly given up.

But she hadn’t.

Alex had no idea what to do, except take everything minute by minute, keeping an eye out for a moment in which she could maybe break away. Or attack the Colonel, crazy as that sounded.

Were there soldiers here, wherever she was? Would she be gunned down? Probably not, since the crazy man needed her. But after?

The Colonel had put the vials back into the briefcase, in their foam cutouts. He stood up. “Enough. Time to go.”

Alex was taken aback. “Go where?”

“To the BSL-4 lab where you are to commence working on inserting the kill switch. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“No.”

Alex was so proud of herself. Her voice didn’t tremble and her body language didn’t change. She wasn’t hunched in on herself or shaking. She was just angry, through and through.

“No?” The Colonel echoed her. “Hmm. We’ll see about that.” Swift as a snake striking, he whipped out a small rod and put it to Elias’s neck. Immediately a buzzing sound filled the room and, horribly, Elias shook in a frenzied, palsied way. All his muscles, from his feet to his head, contracted. His eyes rolled up in his head until only the whites showed. An inhuman sound, the sound of an animal in pain, came from between his lips. He trembled, muscles jumping, tendons standing out. The smell of charred flesh filled the air. A wild keening sound, high-pitched and rasping, filled the air. Elias lost all semblance of a human being and become something else—something that bore no likeness to a human.

“Stop!” Alex screamed and the Colonel immediately withdrew the prod. “You’ll kill him!”

The Colonel considered that, head cocked. “No, I don’t think so. I think he might wish that it would kill him, but he is a healthy man. In a great deal of pain, to be sure. But this is not life threatening. Not when used for a moment or two. However, using this—” he held the prod up like a chef displaying his favorite knife, “for a very prolonged period of time will create permanent damage to his brain and, eventually, death. A very nasty death, too.”

Elias was slumped over, breathing heavily. Paper-white skin drenched in sweat. He moaned, half conscious.

“Dr. Hethering?” The Colonel’s voice held mild curiosity. “Are you ready to start working? Because I can keep this up with no difficulty at all. For hours. Eventually, Dr. Field will die in a great deal of pain, as I said. His heart will give out or he will have a fatal stroke. Such a pity. He is a man of lax morals, but there is no doubt he is a gifted scientist. Such a pity to lose a mind such as his. And for what? A little pride on your part?”

Alex saw that the moral horror of what he was proposing was not a factor for him.

She shook her head. “I can’t do the work. Elias has been involved in the finer aspects of gene splicing and bioengineering, but I’ve been involved more in the research aspect. So I can’t replicate what he was doing.”

“Nonsense.” The Colonel’s voice was cold and sharp. “Dr. Field told me that you were as good as he was, if not better. His words.” He walked toward her, electric prod in his hand. He held it close to her neck. She tried to back away but had no room to maneuver. Just a few inches more and the prod would be against her neck. “Now come on, Dr. Hethering. Unless you need a little encouragement.”

He closed the distance and stabbed her in the neck.

The pain was intense, more intense than anything she’d ever felt in her life. Every nerve in her body was afire. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, ceased being a person and became a bundle of excruciating, unbearable pain.

The taser was withdrawn immediately, but it had been enough to realize there was no resisting that pain. It overwhelmed her, took over her body. There was no resisting it, not in any way. You couldn’t be brave, be stoic, because it wiped out who you were. You lost yourself and became unrelenting pain.

He took out a knife and she instinctively drew back. But all he did was cut the bonds holding her hands and legs together and the strip tying her to the chair.

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