She climbed down from the back of the truck, and Morgan followed her, being careful as he touched his right foot to the ground. He was slightly relieved not to feel any pain in his knee.
Barrett noticed. “Got yourself a gimpy leg there, do you?” she asked.
“Old battle wound.” He shrugged. “Flares up now and then.”
The two of them were in a mostly empty loading dock on the edge of Budapest. Lubarsky was waiting in a car outside with the two bodyguards from the hotel. His companion, Eugenia Barrett, was a slight woman with close-cropped hair, pretty in an unconventional, boyish sort of way. She was no older than thirty, a, clever fast-talking science prodigy with no ear for social graces. Her disregard not only for the regular niceties, but also the cautions and concerns of normality, seemed to make her particularly well-suited to clandestine work. That, along with her directness, had made Morgan like her right away.
“The one upside,” she continued, as they walked to a workstation she had set up in a corner, “is that the half-life for this baby is only about a minute in the atmosphere.” Half-life referred to the time it took for half of the gas to lose its potency. “If there’s any kind of leak, hold your breath and get the hell out of there.” She picked up a syringe in a hermetic plastic sheath that had been left out on the table. “You’ll still absorb the gas through your skin, but you just might make it if you inject yourself with this.” She held out the syringe for him.
Morgan saw the size of the needle, and his knees became suddenly unsteady. His nervousness must have shown, because Barrett asked, gently mocking, “Oh, is someone scared of needles?”
“I just don’t like them, all right?” he said, irritated at his own embarrassment.
“What is this anyway, some kind of antidote?” he said, examining the clear contents of the syringe.
“Atropine. It’ll counteract the effects of the gas. Plunge that son of a bitch right in your heart, and it could save your life.”
“My heart?” He stared at the three-inch-long needle. He wondered if he’d be able to do it if and when the chips were down. “Remind me, Genie,” he said, “why we’re not giving this bastard a goddamn decoy?”
She shrugged. “I wish we could. But if this Novokoff is half as competent as he’s supposed to be, he’ll make damn sure he gets what he’s paying for. And if he finds out we’ve filled these canisters with weapons-grade air, the whole operation is blown.”
“That fail-safe had better work then,” he said, still staring warily at the needle.
“Don’t worry. I designed the system myself. We tested the hell out of those incinerators. One in each canister, well-hidden inside the cooling mechanism. They’re on timer and remote control, and there’s enough thermite in each canister to melt a new hole in an Eskimo’s ass.”
“Just take care that it doesn’t melt mine,” he said wryly. He tucked the syringe into one of his breast pockets.
Barrett laughed. “Don’t worry, Cobes. If everything goes according to plan, you’ll be gone and he’ll be captured before long before that timer goes off.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
She shrugged.
“That’s reassuring,” he said. But the plan was as solid as it was going to get. Risk was the name of the game, and he’d been in Black Ops long enough to know how it was played.
“Looks like we’re about ready on this end. All you need now is the okay from number one.”
Barrett bent down to type at a laptop that was set up on one corner of the table. After a few seconds, there appeared on the screen the familiar face of a woman: mid-forties, with chin-length straight brown hair, steely blue eyes on a stern heart-shaped face that narrowed to a pointed chin and was lined with years of worry. Diana Bloch, supreme leader of Zeta Division, who was coordinating and heading this entire operation.
“Morgan,” came Bloch’s voice over the computer. “What’s the status?”
“It’s all in position and waiting for the go-ahead,” he said. “Lubarsky came through. He’s waiting outside, and he’ll have the location for us when we’re ready.”
“Good,” she said. “Remember, we can’t risk Novokoff catching you with any kind of radio transmitter, which means you can’t have any kind of wire or tracker. Bishop is standing by with the tactical team. They’re going to do whatever they can to keep visual contact with you at all times, and we’ll have satellite coverage as well.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Got this all during the mission brief.”