Mars shrugged. “Why not? Quite lovely people up there. You’ll like it.”
* * *
• • •
Two weeks later Won was in her new facility, watching refrigeration technicians restoring the long-dormant coolers in the old laboratory to operational condition. The rest of the equipment she’d ordered had already been installed: the fermentation vats, the freezers, and the spinners. While the lab was smaller and simpler than where she’d worked in Sweden or in Russia or even in Iran, it was a lot more advanced than where she’d done most of her work in North Korea.
Her two assistants had begun working with her. One was a twenty-six-year-old British woman of Pakistani descent, a registered nurse who had worked extensively with infectious disease, and the other was a twenty-four-year-old female Portuguese laboratory tech in the UK looking for more lucrative work.
Won’s company, run by David Mars, paid them well, and Won worked them both hard.
As the refrigeration men left, David Mars and Roger Fox appeared in her lab, again showing her how personally invested they were in the attack that she would help prepare. Mars and Won stepped into her office off the lab floor while Fox looked around and Hines shadowed him.
Mars said, “I trust the laboratory meets your needs.”
“Very much so. The two assistants are . . . adequate, as well. My only question remains—”
“The target?”
“Yes. I know you won’t tell me specifically, but to determine the ideal recipe for the agent, to choose and construct the proper delivery vehicle, I must know something about where this is to happen. Is it a city block? A sports stadium? What’s the weather in this location? There are so many variables that must be accounted for before I can even begin work on this.”
Mars nodded, drummed his fingers on the table a moment, and then said, “The location is here, in the United Kingdom, which means you will have to prepare for any weather conditions save for extreme cold and extreme heat. The target is a building. Large, sturdy, well fortified and protected.”
“A building like a grocery store, or a building like a shopping center?”
Mars said, “A building like a shopping center.”
Won waited for something more, then said, “I assume there will be a narrow time window when this must take place.”
“You are correct in your assumption.”
“How much time do I have before the attack?”
“Ten weeks.”
Janice Won gasped. “That is not much.”
“You told me the spores will grow quickly.”
“It . . . it can be done. But why didn’t you approach me sooner?”
“Because . . .” He hesitated, and Won noticed an unease in the normally composed man in front of her. “Because I only became sufficiently motivated to enact this attack a few months ago. Believe me, I reached out for a virologist as soon as the idea came to me.”
Won recognized there was a clue here about this mysterious Englishman’s motivation, but she could not discern it. “I see. I hope you understand I will need more information as time draws even closer. Very soon, even.”
“I do understand,” Mars said. “I will feed you intelligence about the target, the defenses, everything, well in advance of the mission.”
Won wasn’t satisfied, but she went back to her work. She had much to do today to set up the perfect conditions here at the lab before she could take the small amount of spores she’d stolen from Sweden and cultivate and weaponize them, and she had no time to waste.
PRESENT DAY
A sleek corporate helicopter descended through the darkness towards a landing pad at a country estate an hour’s drive west of London.
The AgustaWestland AW109 had been purchased the year before for six million U.S. by an offshore business owned by David Mars but untraceable to him. It was a chic craft with a plush interior, a range of 600 miles, and a top speed of 177 miles per hour.
Mars sat behind the pilot while a trio of Israeli security officers, all armed with subguns and pistols, sat to his right and behind him. He looked out the window on his left at the estate as they descended; its impressive landscape lighting throughout the grounds shone brightly in the overcast night on a backdrop of rolling hills dotted with other multiacre mansions.
Upon landing, Mars and his three body men climbed out and turned away from the thirteen-thousand-square-foot home and instead walked towards an immaculate horse barn. A half dozen beautiful Arabians ran around in the