Read Online The Hades Factor by Robert Ludlum; Gayle Lynds - Free Book Online Page B

Medicine in Belgium was the third Sophia read after plunging back into work, the last scientist still there. She was too worried to sleep. If the damned general was right that Jon was off on one of his enthusiasms over some medical development, she would be furious. Still, she hoped Kielburger was right, as that would mean she had no reason to be concerned.

She continued studying the latest reports, but not until she reached the one from the Prince Leopold lab did something finally offer hope: Dr. Rene Giscours recalled a field report he had read years ago while doing a stint at a jungle hospital far upriver in Bolivian Amazonia. He had been preoccupied at the time battling what appeared to be a new outbreak of Machupo fever, not far from the river town of San Joaquin where Karl Johnson, Kuns, and MacKenzie had first found the deadly virus many years before. He had had no time for even thinking about an unconfirmed rumor from far-off Peru, so he had made a note and forgotten about it.

But the new virus had jogged his memory. He had checked through his papers and found his original note--- but not the actual report. Still, the note to himself back then had emphasized an apparent combination of hantavirus and hemorrhagic fever symptoms, as well as some connection to monkeys.

A surge of angry justification rushed through Sophia. Yes! After Victor Tremont had been unable to help her, she had doubted herself. Now Giscours's report confirmed her recollection. What contact did USAMRIID have down there? If she was right, there had been no major or even minor outbreaks of that virus since. Which meant it must still be confined to the narrow, deep jungle in a remote part of Peru.

In her daily logbook, she described her reaction to the Prince Leopold report, and she summarized what she recalled of the strange virus and her two conversations with Victor Tremont, since they might be relevant now. She also wrote some speculations about how a Peruvian virus could have been transmitted beyond the jungle.

As she was writing, she heard the door to her office open. Who---? Hope filled her.

Excited, she spun her chair around. “Jon? Darling. Where the hell---”

In the instant before her head exploded in violent pain and color, she had a glimpse of four men surrounding her. None was Jon. Then darkness.

__________

Nadal al-Hassan, disguised from head to foot in lab scrubs, methodically searched the female scientist's office desk. He read each document, report, notebook, and memo. He studied every file. The task was offensive, even though he was protected by surgical gloves. He knew such modern blasphemies occurred in his own country as well as many . other Islamic, even Arab, nations, but he made no secret of his distaste. Allowing females to study and work beside men was not only heresy, it defiled both the dignity of the men and the chastity of the women. Touching what the woman had touched defiled him.

But the search was necessary, so he performed it meticulously, leaving nothing unexamined. He found the two damaging documents almost at once. One was the only report open on her desk--- from the Prince Leopold Institute, by a Dr. Rene Giscours. The other was her handwritten phone record of outgoing calls that the USAMRIID director apparently required all personnel to complete each month.

Then he found her logbook musings about the Belgian report. Fortunately, it filled an entire page, beginning at the top and ending at the bottom. From a small leather case, he took out a pen-shaped, razorsharp draftsman's blade. With care and delicacy, he excised the page. He examined the cut to be certain it was invisible, then hid the page in his scrubs. After that he found nothing more of importance.

His three men, dressed in identical scrubs, were completing their search of the rows of file cabinets.

One said, “Got a new memo in a file 'bout Peru.”

Another said, “Couple of old files talked about stuff down in South America.”

The third