Page 11 of The Echelon (Spy Girl 7)
T-MINUS:02:58:32
Two things awaken me simultaneously—the sound of the door of the villa opening along with the pungent smell of gas.
They’ve found me, is the first thought that goes through my head.
The second is, I’m going to die a horrible death in a fiery explosion.
Sophie has barely entered the flat with a young man, who pushes her against the open door and kisses her furiously.
“Let’s have a smoke, and then I’ll take you back to bed,” he murmurs to her. “If we’re all going to die from some plague, we might as well have fun doing so.”
“No!” I yell out.
Sophie turns toward me, her eyes full of fear. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Because you’re in danger. Someone is trying to kill you, Sophie. Can you smell the gas?”
Her eyes get huge.
The young man appears to be a bit intoxicated and isn’t taking the situation seriously. He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.
Sophie quickly bats it away. “Don’t be so daft,” she says to him.
“Sophie, this is important,” I tell her. “Is there anything hidden here, in your flat, that relates to your father, his death, or the virus?”
“No,” she says, so I grab her hand and run, leading her to what I hope will be a safe distance away. “Call the authorities to report the gas—” I start to say.
WHOOSH.
Air surges, blowing me backward and then causing me to crash into the ground.
Debris rains down, and the dusty air feels like it might suffocate me.
My ears ring, and my sense of balance is off-kilter, but I can’t let it stop me. I have to get Sophie away from here. Whoever made this happen is going to want to make sure she’s dead.
I immediately spot him.
One thing about the bad guys who work for The Echelon, they are pretty easy to detect in their all-black military-looking attire. Maybe they are all so confident in their skills that they don’t care about blending into their surroundings.
The man in question has come out of a coffee shop located between us and the now-destroyed villa. I assume, since he isn’t coming in our direction, that he wasn’t watching out the window for Sophie. He must have simply been waiting for the sound of the explosion. Now, if questioned by the authorities, he can say he was trying to help rescue survivors, not that he’s verifying death. He might even tell them he’s a friend of Sophie’s and very worried.
The street fills with people coming out of their homes and places of business to see what just happened. They are milling about, so it’s not like I can just go over and kill the man, especially when I know I’m not operating at full capacity.
I need to do something that is subtler.
I stagger behind him, trying to catch up, my vision still clouded.
As we get closer to Sophie’s flat, the man slows down upon seeing a woman’s foot sticking out from underneath a large chunk of stone.
It’s then that I’m able to get close enough to shoot him with a dart from my watch. The tranquilizer works quickly, causing him to collapse.
Sure, he’ll wake up fairly shortly, but hopefully, by then, Sophie and I will be long gone.
I go back to where I landed and find Sophie lying nearby, momentarily dazed. She’s got a pretty good gash on her arm, but it’s not life-threatening, so I hoist her off the ground and take advantage of the chaos around us to pull her behind an undamaged villa.
“They found me, didn’t they?” she says, coughing from the dust in the air.
“Do you know somewhere safe we can go?” I ask her, focusing on our immediate need—which is to get out of here. “Madelyn mentioned a church.”
“Yes,” she says, checking her watch. “Morning mass will be starting soon.”
She leads me through a maze of whitewashed villas, tiny alleyways, and stone steps. Even though I thoroughly studied the area on the flight here, I am all turned around.
Five minutes later, the sound of bells ringing fills the air, and we step into a more populated area set around an ancient church.
I follow Sophie into the foyer where she turns right and heads down a set of worn steps, instead of going into the chapel for mass. I’m half-expecting to find a room with a round table and ten chairs at the bottom, but instead, we go inside a nun’s office.
“Sister Maria,” she says to an elderly woman sitting behind the desk.
We must look pretty disheveled because the nun stands up and rushes toward Sophie. “What happened to you?”
Sophie bursts into tears, blubbering and not saying anything.
“There was a gas explosion. Her villa is destroyed,” I reply. “Do you happen to have a first aid kit?”
Sister Maria nods, leaves the room, and then returns with gauze and ointments. She cleans Sophie’s larger gash first and wraps it up. Then works on the rest of her smaller cuts. Sophie has way more than I do. I just have an angry red scratch across my shoulder and a few nicks on my hands from covering my head.
“Sophie,” I say, “we really need to talk about your father. Now.”
“He was murdered,” she says flatly.
“I know he was. Do you remember me? I’m Lee. We met in Iraq at the TerraSphere about six years ago. You played with me while my mother spoke to your father.”
She studies my face more closely. “I’ve tried to forget my time in the sand. But, yes, I do remember you. Why are you here?”
“Because they killed my mother, too. Just a few days after our visit.”
“I’m really sorry,” she replies, her tone soft with understanding. “Do you know why she was killed? Why my father was killed? Because I don’t understand at all what is going on.”
“What do you know?”
“Only that my father was scared for his life. He told me that some powerful men stole one of his discoveries and wanted to use it for evil. But he didn’t say who they were, what they were going to do, or when.”
“I’m assuming you’ve heard the news about the disease that is currently spreading around the globe?”
She nods her head in shame. “Is that it? Is it his discovery that is killing people?”
“Yes,” I say even though I’m still not one hundred percent certain. I’m operating purely on instinct right now, and this is the very last breadcrumb on the meager trail left by my mother.
“Revenge won’t change anything,” she says to me. “There’s nothing I can do against these men.”
“Yeah, there is. You’re going to help me stop this. You have to do it for your father. He was a good man and a brilliant scientist.”
“I know he was! But I can’t! These people, whoever they are, just tried to kill me. For the third freaking time in the last two weeks!”
“I know who is trying to kill you, and I know why they want you dead. Because your father had proof,” I lie. Well, not exactly lie. It’s more of a hunch that, like my mother, her father left her clues. “If you help me stop this disease, I’ll take care of them myself, and you will never have to be scared again.”
She stubbornly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, really, but I can’t help you.”
T-MINUS:02:08:39
I’m done playing nice. I stand up in front of her, my chest puffed out, and speak in a harsh tone, “Sophie, wake up. Your father died at the hands of these people. Do you want them to get away with it? Do you want your father’s legacy—your legacy—to be that you stood by and watched milli
ons of people die when you could have done something? I agree that revenge won’t change anything, but in this case, it can affect our future. It will affect all our futures. I believe they killed him because he was the only one who knew how to stop this.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say. No one will believe you,” she cries. “My dad tried to tell someone about it, and it got him killed. And, right before he died, he told me specifically to trust no one!”
“Well, you need to trust me. And you should, being as I just saved your life—twice. First, from the explosion, and then again from the mercenary who caused the explosion and was looking for you after it.”
She’s crying and shaking her head, so I sit in the seat next to her and take her hand, realizing she might need a softer approach.
“Look, Sophie, I know you’re scared, but we can do this. When we met, you told me that your father was like a superhero. That he fought germs with the vaccines he made. You believed it then. You need to believe it now. You need to be the girl who thought her father was invincible.”
She’s quiet for a few minutes, seemingly lost in thought, but I’m watching various emotions cross her face as she tries to make a decision.
“Tell me their plan,” she says.
“A deadly disease was spread at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, for which there is no known cure. Everyone who attended, including numerous world leaders, are sick and will die. It will throw the world into chaos, even more than it already is. The symptoms are similar to the flu—sore throat, fever, body aches, and an un—”
“Unusual rash?” she says. “I heard all of that on the news. You’re not telling me anything the rest of the world doesn’t know.”
“I wasn’t sure how off grid you’d been. But I need to tell you everything. A company called PureGen—owned by Marquis Dupree, the man whom your father ultimately worked for—has come to the rescue. They have vaccines. Countries around the world will be forcing their citizens to take it. I believe the vaccine is what is deadly. I believe it contains the same virus from the opening ceremonies and will kill off over ninety percent of the population.”
