doctor and get antibiotics. And the governments of the world can’t allow the manufacture of weaponized anthrax. They have to come. They have to rescue us.”
The suggestion that they should build a bioweapon to bring about their rescue prompted Victoria to look at him over her shoulder. He averted his eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
Vogel stopped spinning the piece of wood, a rare glimmer of anger crossing his face. He’d had enough of the Frenchman within an hour of their first meeting and now he was reaching his limit.
“The Americans were motivated to find Osama bin Laden, too. How long did that take? And even if they are able find us, what is it you think they’re going to do? Send soldiers to assault this mountain in order to save us? Risk their men’s lives and maybe give Halabi a chance to escape to save three people?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that they’ll blow the entire top of this mountain off. You’ll hear a slight whistle and then you’ll explode into—”
“Otto!” Schaefer interjected. “You’re not helping.”
He frowned and went back to spinning his stick.
“They aren’t going to be satisfied with making movies and they’re not going to give us a choice,” Bertrand said. “How long can we hold out? They’ll starve us. Freeze us. Torture us. And finally, they’ll kill us.”
In truth, none of that would be necessary, Schaefer knew. It wouldn’t take much more than a mild rash to get Bertrand pumping out every dangerous pathogen he knew how to create. Trying to get him to grow a backbone was a waste of time. As she saw it, there were two paths ahead of them. The first was to throw the man out the window and let his incredible knowledge of microbiology die with him. Undoubtedly, Otto would enthusiastically sign on to that strategy, but to her it was just an abstraction. She’d never knowingly harmed anyone in her life.
That left only one option: convincing him to focus that magnificent brain on something other than the hopelessness of their situation.
She sat next to the Frenchman and motioned Vogel over.
“Listen,” she said, speaking quietly in case there were listening devices. “We’re scientists, right? There’s a lot of equipment in that room, and we can probably ask for more if we play our cards right. All we need to do is figure out how we can use it to get ourselves out of here.”
“Agreed,” the German whispered.
“Agreed?” Bertrand said, the volume of his voice high enough that Victoria clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t talk, Gabriel. Think. Gas? Poison? Explosives? You keep telling everyone you’re a genius. Prove it.”
• • •
Sayid Halabi climbed the stairs with Muhammad Attia hovering directly behind. The voices of his prisoners had dipped to below what his microphones could pick up, suggesting that it was time to pay them a visit.
Undoubtedly, they’d begun plotting. They would pretend to cooperate and use the equipment he gave them to create some kind of weapon. Perhaps a disease that they inoculated themselves against. Perhaps a poison. Perhaps even a way to contact the outside world. It was to be expected.
He pulled back the bolt and opened the door, watching the three Westerners leap to their feet as he entered.
“How long will it take to make weaponized anthrax in a quantity sufficient for multiple large-scale attacks?” he said.
They looked at each for a moment before the woman answered. “None of us have ever made anthrax. We have nothing to do with bioweapons research. Do you have an Internet connection? You can look it up and see that I’m telling the truth.”
The Frenchman kept glancing over at her, drawing strength from his unwillingness to look weaker than a woman.
“Dr. Bertrand?” Halabi prompted.
He drew back at the sound of his name. “It’s . . . It’s not as easy as you think. That’s why no one uses those kinds of weapons. It’s not just that you could infect your own troops, it’s that nature tends to take its own path. It’s impossible to control and impossible to predict. And anthrax has its own unique problems that make it hard to weaponize. It—”
“I can assure you that I’m not stupid,” Halabi said, cutting the man off. “We know that anthrax can be weaponized because it’s been done before. By the Russians on a large scale and in 2001 by an American scientist with a background similar to yours. Now tell me how long and what additional equipment you will need.”