24 Declassified: 04 - Cat's Claw by John Whitman

Author:John Whitman [Whitman, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense, Fiction, General, Media Tie-In, Thrillers, Suspense Fiction, Terrorists, Terrorism - United States
ISBN: 9780060842277
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

From that moment on, all his plans had fallen apart. The police detective had...

Copeland shuddered, reliving the moment when she’d fallen into his precious and deadly stack of glass vials. Now Copeland needed the vaccine for himself. He could not be sure if he or Frankie had been exposed to one or both strains. The detective undoubtedly had.

“And she has no idea,” he murmured, his words slurred ever so slightly by the maracuja. “No idea at all. She could kill thousands.”

“So what?”

Copeland sat up, his heart skipping a beat.

“Relax, it’s me,” said Frankie Michaelmas.

She was standing in the doorway to his back rooms as calmly as though nothing had happened. He stood up and walked over to her in a maracuja haze and hugged her. He kissed her, and was too frantic and drugged to notice that her lips offered no warmth or passion.

“Don’t say so what,” he said at last, “don’t say so what. You know what. I don’t even know which strain she was exposed to. Maybe in less than a day, she could be infecting people, spreading the disease all across the city. We have to warn someone.”

Frankie shrugged, dislodged herself from his arms, and sat down in a chair.

“You do have doses of the vaccine, right?” Frankie asked almost lazily.

“Of course I do. But I have to make more now. For you and me.”

“Which strain do you think?” she asked.

Copeland shook his head. “No way of knowing. We have time, if we hurry. I’ll call the others. They’ll help.”

Frankie nodded. “I’ll call them. Tell me who.”

Copeland paused. Secrecy had been part of his protection, both for himself and his virus. Few members of his gang knew all the other members, and as a safeguard against abuse, he had not told those willing to use the virus where the vaccine was hidden. That way, no one was eager to play fast and loose with the virus itself.

“Okay,” he said uncertainly. He went over to a bookshelf to collect the contact information for his colleagues.

“Good. But don’t warn anyone else. It’s a disease. There’s a cure. Spread the disease and tell them where to go find the cure. Best way to get our way.”

So brutal, he thought, though he felt a delicious tremor in his stomach. “We have to warn them,” he said again. “And we have to find a way out. We have to take the antivirus ourselves and then get out. She saw my face. She knows you’re involved. And that Federal agent. I can’t believe the Feds got on our tail so fast. They’ll find us eventually.”

CAT’S CLAW 173

Frankie nodded. “That’s true. But you know that we know people that can help us with that. People with a lot of experience hiding from the government.”

The impact of her words reached Copeland even through his drug-induced stupor. He put down the book containing his contacts and bristled. It suddenly occurred to him that he absolutely should not tell Frankie where to find the vaccine. “Absolutely not.”

“They’re your contacts,” she pointed out.

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