Chapter Seventeen

‘NO! ’ BEN WAS shouting, staring at me. I had never seen him so angry. I had just explained how we were going to force the Saracen to reveal the so-called delivery arrangements and, now that I had finished, he wasn’t bothering to hide his disgust at even being in the same car as the idea.

‘I won’t do it. Nobody fucking would. What sort of person – what sort of mind – thinks up something like that? ’

‘Then give me a better idea, ’ I replied, trying to keep it calm. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do. ’

‘Oh, yeah? You’re forgetting – you chose this life. ’

‘I didn’t. If you recall, I was trying to leave it – this life chose me. ’

I was pissed off – the last thing I needed was a lesson in morality. I hit the brake and swung into the parking lot of the café with the panoramic view of Bodrum and the sea.

‘I’m not interested in a fucking view, ’ Bradley said.

‘I pulled in so that you could have some privacy. ’

‘Privacy for what? ’

‘To talk to Marcie. ’

Again, I stopped far away from the crowd on the terrace. I started to get out of the car so that he could be alone.

‘What am I speaking to Marcie for? ’ he demanded.

‘You told me once her parents had a beach house – in North Carolina or somewhere. ’

‘What’s a beach house got to do with it? ’

‘Have they got one or not?! ’ I insisted.

‘On the Outer Banks. Why? ’

‘Tell her to drive there – now, tonight. ’

‘Here’s an idea – she might want to know the reason. ’

I ignored it. ‘Tell her to pick up as much food and bottled water as she can. Staples – rice, flour, gas bottles. She’s got to remember gas bottles. As many as she can find. ’

He stared, the anger gone. ‘You’re scaring me, Scott. ’

‘Brodie! The name is Brodie. ’

‘Sorry. ’

‘Don’t be scared, you’re safe up where you are – on the moral high ground. Can she shoot? ’

‘Sure. I taught her. ’

‘Get long arms – rifles, shotguns. I’ll tell you the best make and model numbers in a minute. Once she’s set up in the house I can walk her through how to convert ’em to full automatic. She’ll need ammunition. Lots of ammunition. ’

Bradley tried to interrupt.

‘Shut up. Anybody approaches the house, at two hundred yards she tells them to back off. They keep coming, and she shoots to kill. No warning shots. Two hundred yards is important – at that distance there’s no chance of her inhaling aerosoled particles and becoming infected. ’

I saw the fear spark in his eyes. ‘Infected with what?! ’

‘A virus. Highly contagious and resistant to any known vaccine. This version is being called evasive haemorrhagic, and it is believed to have a 100 per cent kill-rate. That is what is being sent into the homeland. Smallpox. ’

Ben Bradley, a homicide cop from Manhattan, a hero of 9/11, someone taking only the second overseas trip of his life, an outsider drafted into the secret world less than twelve hours before, a guy sitting on an isolated lookout high above the Turkish coast, the bravest man I have ever met, was now the eleventh person to know.