PROLOGUE
Warsaw Chopin International Airport, Poland
4:00 pm September 16th, 2010
A balding, middle-aged customs agent smiled warmly at the beautiful, dark-haired woman's piercing blue eyes. He spoke in Romanian, asking "Miss Lavorya is your visit to Poland business or pleasure?"
"Business," she replied coolly.
"Do you have anything you wish to declare?" he asked as he stamped her Official Romanian passport.
"No."
"I hope you enjoy your stay," he said, handing her the passport and smiling again.
"Thank you," she said, taking her passport and putting it in her jacket pocket next to her other identification and credentials. She worked for the Bio-Terror Security Assessment Alliance, which was an international organization with specially trained operatives all over the globe. As a Special Operations Agent, or SOA, her job was to locate current and former biological weapons researchers and determine their capabilities and the level of threat they posed. If necessary, she was authorized to take action to prevent the production or use of biological weapons anywhere in her assigned region. SOA's were stationed all around the world and worked together to create a compiled database of bio-terror threats and to put an end to the use of bio-weapons.
Karina Lavorya had been with the BSAA for five years, ever since she'd left her broken dream of being a police officer in Bucharest behind her. After she graduated from college, she went to the academy, easily passing the qualifications and completing the training. She tried, for three years, to become a respected officer and to make a difference in the city she grew up in, but she never really got the chance to. Being a woman, especially one as attractive as she was, made the predominantly male force uncomfortable. Her assigned job was to answer telephones and radios while she struggled the entire time with her superiors to do something, anything more important.
When she started getting offers for advancement in exchange for "favors" she quit and began looking outside of Romania for a career in law enforcement. Eventually, she applied for a position with Interpol, since she was fluent in four languages, but the man she interviewed with had to decline, because she simply did not have enough experience. She was on the verge of venting her frustrations on the poor man when he informed her of the new organization forming in the United States. He provided her with the contact information and she immediately applied.
After obtaining her visa she travelled to Washington D.C. for the interview and a brief selection process. Afterwards, she stayed in Virginia for the training courses, which heavily involved the procedures used for the investigation and assessment of bio-engineering. She also learned how to use a wide variety of weapons, communications equipment, emergency medical and life saving techniques, and how to safely handle viral specimen. What she learned about biological weapons and the threat they posed terrified her, but it also made her more resolute that what she was doing was important. It gave her more drive.
After eight long months of training six days a week she returned to Europe to report to the BSAA's Eastern European branch, headquartered in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. She had been on assignment after assignment since she arrived, constantly tracking down scientists and doctors who had taken refuge in the former Soviet Bloc nations. In the line of duty she had faced many of the horrors she'd studied during training, from the walking dead to parasite controlled mutations and even genetically engineered weapons designed to hunt and kill any and all living things.
During investigations, the SOA's usually worked alone, but when interdiction was necessary they were commonly paired with another local agent, sometimes even a tactical Special Operations Unit. The twelve man SOU's trained solely to identify and combat bio-weapons of all kinds. With an SOU backing her up on operations, Karina knew that there was no limit to the good she could do with the organization.
She walked to the baggage claim area of the airport and collected her black deployment bag and hard plastic gun case, then flashed the customs checkpoint her BSAA credentials, passing right through the baggage check point. The airport security officers all over Eastern Europe were getting accustomed to seeing the ID badges and waved her through without a word. She ignored the leers of the men as she passed and walked to the passenger pick-up area outside. As she stepped through the automatic doors she heard a car horn, and then saw a tall man with dark hair step out of the driver's seat of a black Land Rover. He smiled brightly as she headed for the car and she couldn't help but smile in return.
"Levi," she said, speaking English, one of two languages they shared, "so good to see you again."
"Always a pleasure working with the BSAA's finest," he replied, his voice deep and thickly accented, "How have you been?"
"Busy," she answered as they loaded her things into the back of the SUV, "unfortunately."
He shut the rear hatch and they got in the front seats. Levi started the car and maneuvered it through the heavy airport traffic to get on the highway. The afternoon sun was out and the sky was a clear blue, a beautiful autumn day. She looked at the city skyline as they drove onto the highway and imagined how pleasant it would be to just take a few days to wander around Warsaw and enjoy the city. Then they passed under an overpass and her view was blocked, which brought her attention back to why she was there.
"I read the file on Dr. Leukin during the flight," she said, referring to the Investigation and Assessment Report he'd written and sent in, "when do you plan to move in on this?"
"We're headed to his laboratory now," he said, confidently steering his way through the traffic, "According to an informant I have, a few days ago Leukin contacted one of the crime syndicates about hiring a smuggler. I believe he plans to move very soon, if he hasn't already."
"Did he have any information about what virus the doctor's been working on?" she asked.
"No," he answered, "All I know is that he was part of the team that theorized the creation of the T-Virus. We don't even know that he ever actually worked on it."
"And we don't know who's funding his current work?" she pressed.
"Not yet, but we're hoping to find out shortly."
"How long will it take to get there?" she asked, looking at the flowing traffic ahead of them.
"Maybe an hour," he said, smiling before continuing, "There are some Red Bulls in the cooler behind my seat."
She smiled back. They'd gone through the training course together and both of them had nearly lived on the energy drink during that rigorous period of time. Two years ago, he'd joined her in Romania for a case, searching a ruined Transylvanian estate for traces of bio-weapons she had learned were hidden somewhere inside. When he had arrived to work with her she'd been ready with a few cold Red Bulls and now he was just returning the favor.
She reached back and grabbed a couple of them, handing one to Levi and opening the other for her. As they drove, Levi filled her in on what he knew about the layout of the laboratory, which wasn't very much. From what he'd learned from the contact, Leukin was using an old railroad station that had been abandoned since the second World War, when the town it serviced was bombed to rubble by the Stalin's Red Army along with part of the station itself. From what little information Levi could find about the station he assumed that the doctor was using the underground mechanical and storage rooms for his work. No blueprints still existed anywhere for the station and the trains that ran on the tracks just passed by it on the way into the city. The building was officially listed by the local governance as condemned, but since no one wanted the land, it was never demolished.
He explained to Karina his theory that whoever was funding the project must have provided the doctor with some sort of security at the site, but he couldn't even begin to guess how much. Without knowing who was pulling the strings they'd be going in pretty much blind. Karina knew that Levi was an exceptional agent and, if anyone else had asked for her help with as little intelligence as he had, she'd have flat out refused. As it was, she was confident that the two of them would be able to handle whatever was waiting for them at the railroad station.
They left the highway and began moving through rural farmlands on country roads. Levi used a GPS navigation system to guide him down some dirt roads leading farther into the forested countryside. Eventually he pulled off into a clearing along the side of the road and parked the Land Rover, shutting off the engine.
"We'll move on foot from here to avoid any early detection on the roads," he said as he opened his door to get out.
Karina exited the comfortable SUV and noticed how cool it had gotten since the sun had set during their drive. They walked to the back of the vehicle and Levi opened it then reached in for his duffle bag next to Karina's things. He unzipped his bag and pulled out his gear while Karina removed hers from her black deployment bag.
She belted on a magazine pouch for her three reloads and a small radio pouch on her left hip, a compact trauma medical pouch at her back, and drop leg pistol holster on her right side. She buckled her belt and then the leg strap of the holster before she removed her jacket, shrugged on a shoulder harness, and attached it to the belt. It helped keep all the weight off of her hips and it had a cord woven through it, with a plug near the radio pouch at her waist and the other side plugged into a push-to-talk device attached to the harness at her left shoulder. From a small plastic box she grabbed an earpiece and bone mic which she plugged into the PTT box and fit around her left ear.
After putting her jacket back on she pulled out the black case and opened the small combination lock. Inside was her radio, her Beretta M9 pistol with a gun light mounted on a rail attachment that had been bolted on to it, and four empty magazines. She removed a box of nine millimeter hollow point rounds from her bag and started loading them into the mags with Levi's help. She put three in the belt pouch and slid the fourth in her weapon, pulling back the slide and letting it go to chamber a round. She slid it back just enough to confirm that she had a round in the chamber and let it go again. She tested the light to make sure the batteries were still good and then holstered her sidearm. Levi shut and locked the truck when they were both ready.
He used a handheld GPS device to guide them as they left the vehicle and travelled on foot through the dark woods. A rising full moon and star filled country night sky gave them just enough illumination to pick their way safely between the trees and underbrush. Levi led the way with Karina following silently behind, alert and cautious.
Half an hour later they could see a field ahead of them, past the end of the tree line they were cutting through. When they reached the last trees Levi pulled a small monocular night vision device from a pouch on his belt. Karina could just make out the raised railroad tracks far to their left and the outline of the train station ahead of them, across the field. It wasn't an especially large building but the empty darkness made her feel a little uncomfortable. Levi studied the structure and grounds for a few minutes.
"I don't see any movement in or around it," he whispered to her, "Let's cross this field as quickly as we can and find a way inside."
She followed his lead as he kept himself in a half crouch and ran across the field of tall, wild grass, his hand hovering near his holster. They sped across and stopped next to the wall of the short side, perpendicular to the train tracks. They took a minute or so to catch their breath before they began to creep to the right corner where he slowly peeked around. Seeing nothing he again used the monocular to double check the front of the station. He returned it to his pouch and turned to her nodding.
She nodded back and they moved silently around the corner, travelling along the long wall that faced the town, which lay in forgotten ruins far to their right. She watched the broken and boarded windows as they crept onward, looking for any light or signs of movement inside. Levi paused before the steps leading to the main entrance to listen for any sounds from inside, and then carefully climbed the few steps up to the landing in front of the main entrance.
The double doors of the main entrance were covered with a plywood barrier and Levi gently pushed on it, finding it securely attached to the walls on either side with heavy bolts. Breaking it down would cause too much noise, so he and Karina left the landing and continued to move along the wall. At the far end was a railing around a concrete stairwell that led down into the ground. Using a flashlight with a red lens filter, he descended the dark stairs and inspected a rusting metal door at the bottom, leading into the basement of the train station.
The handle and lock on the door appeared new, which meant that this was most likely the entrance that Dr. Leukin used. He motioned for Karina to take a look and she smiled, producing a set of lock picks from her jacket pocket. All agents were taught the basics of lock-picking during their training, but she kept practicing and honing the art over the years. She'd heard one of the figureheads of the B.S.A.A. extolling the importance of the skill in their line of work during one of her lectures. This was not the first time Karina had used the skill during an operation. In just a few minutes of methodically raking the plungers with her pick she was rewarded with a satisfying click as her tension bar rotated and the lock opened.
She replaced the lock picks and stood up, taking one step back as both she and Levi drew their pistols, her left hand on the handle. He nodded at her and she turned the handle and pushed the door open. The rusty hinges creaked as Levi rushed by her with his weapon up, shining his gun light inside. She followed him into a long, empty hallway that led back under the front side of the train station for about thirty meters.
The damp air was still and had a musty, almost stagnant kind of smell. There were two doors other than the entrance, both on the right side of the hallway, leading under the structure above. The first was only a few meters in front of Levi while the other was at the far end of the hall, barely visible except for the sliver of light coming from underneath it. On the ceiling in the center of the hall were a couple of broken light bulbs hanging from rusted boxes that were connected to an old conduit which led through a hole directly across from them into the room next door.
Levi moved down the hallway silently and deliberately, Karina followed him as they approached the first door. From inside they heard a metallic clunk and she thought she could hear voices behind the heavy metal door. There was no sliver of light under the foot of this door, just darkness and the filthy stone floor. Levi grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, about to step through with Karina a half step behind him, when he jumped back.
In the shifting beams of illumination from their weapon lights she saw a man lunging at Levi. The skin of his hands and arms was pale and covered with sores and his beard was crusted with dried blood. His jaw was open in a vicious snarl and he was in mid growl when Levi fired, the sound echoing loudly off of the stone walls. The man was silenced and went limp, falling forward into the hallway with a gruesome exit wound in the back of his head. The two agents stood on either side of the doorway, flooding the room with bright white light.
Through the door Karina saw more men, all wearing ragged and torn clothing, resembling destitute refugees or homeless drifters. Their hair was unkempt, long, and stringy with grime and blood covering their hands and bearded faces. Their skin was pale and looked like it was rotting already. She recognized the symptoms of the T-Virus infection, one of the first bio-weapons, which killed within days of infection and then reanimated the corpses. The undead creations existed only to feed on human flesh. They were pushing against each other to get through an open doorway in what looked like a cage that had been constructed inside the large, otherwise empty room.
Levi fired from the left side of the doorway and she took aim from the right, placing her sights on one of the men's faces. She fired, seeing her round strike him in the face, just to the right of his nose under his eye. The undead stumbled back and she aimed at the next one, firing quickly. She kept shooting, taking head shots to try and put the creatures coming out of the cage down permanently. It was the only way to stop someone who had been infected with the horrifying virus.
Levi fired until his slide locked back and he quickly dropped the empty magazine from the pistol and reloaded a full one from the pouch on his belt. Karina fired until she couldn't see any more from her angle, so she sidestepped closer to Levi and aimed at the last two from directly in front of the doorway. She fired at the first and was transitioning to the next when Levi saw a head poke out of the door at the end of the hall. It disappeared and was replaced by the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.
He swore in Polish and shoved Karina into the room, just barely clearing the doorway himself when the automatic weapon fired a loud burst of rounds down the hallway. Karina stumbled over the bodies near the doorway and pitched headfirst into the last of the undead creatures in the cage. She tried to push it away as she fell to her knees but it grabbed her right arm tightly, leaning down to bite into her.
She screamed and pulled it in as she swung her free hand. Her left fist slammed into its chin and its head jerked up. She could visibly see that its jaw was broken, but still it held her arm in a vice-like grip. Levi fired at it but pulled the shot, too afraid of hitting Karina, and missed it. She grabbed its throat with her left hand and pushed herself up off the floor with all the strength she had in her legs. It was still pulling her arm closer to its mouth as she shoved it backwards, gaining momentum as the clumsy creature stumbled.
She rammed its head against the stone wall of the back of the room, hearing a sickening crack from the back of its skull. She jerked her right arm back sharply, creating enough space for her to point her pistol and fire quickly. After two rapid shots, point blank to its head, the thing let go of her arm and fell to the floor as she stepped away, breathing heavily. Looking down at her Beretta she saw the slide locked back on the empty magazine.
"You okay?" Levi asked.
"Yes," she answered as she reloaded her weapon, "but that was too close."
Levi tried to peek out into the hallway but wasn't even able to see anything before another burst of rounds was fired blindly down the hall, some of them slamming into the edge of the doorway across from him. He swore and reached around the doorframe with his pistol, firing a few shots before more automatic fire made him jerk his hand band in. Karina quickly swept around the room with her gun light, finding a door inside the back of the cage that led to another room.
"There's a door here," she told Levi, "I'll try to get around them. Keep him busy."
Levi was about to protest her going in alone, but she was through the door before he could say anything. He was left trying to keep the gunner's attention without getting himself shot.
Karina entered what used to be a mechanical access room. Boilers for heating the train station and large hydraulic systems that controlled the rail switches and loading crane lined the wall to her right. The machinery was covered in a thick layer of dust and moldy cobwebs. The far wall, which would have been closest to the tracks, had a long panel with gauges and valves, but the glass and instruments were so clouded with dust and moisture that she couldn't tell what any of them were for. To her left, along the inside wall, was an old workbench with broken cabinets beneath a scarred and pitted surface, caked in dried blood and reeking of rot. There was a door on the left wall, between two newer looking metal shelves stocked with various medical tools and supplies. She could see light from the next room spilling onto the floor from beneath the door.
In the center of the room were two heavy wooden tables with thick leather restraints bolted around them. They were covered in blood stains of all shades, from bright crimson to nearly black. Karina figured that this was probably where the creatures in the next room were created. She could picture it like it was happening in front of her; Dr. Leukin would have lured the desperate men in and used them as his test subjects, drugging them heavily before strapping them down and infecting them with the virus, just to study how they were affected. He'd probably have started by injecting it himself, but then later let the other creations in to bite and infect the subjects. Their last moments of life would have been absolutely horrific and full of agonizing pain.
She switched off her gun light as she moved towards the door. There was a noise from the other side, but the gunfire in the hallway prevented her from determining what it was. The door suddenly pushed open from the other side and she could see the silhouette of a man holding an AK-47 standing in the doorway. He was turning to aim at her when she fired her pistol at him, striking him in the neck. He dropped the rifle on the floor and his hands went to his throat to stop the spurting blood. He stumbled back and fell to his knees, eyes wide with panic, almost pleading with Karina for help. She realigned her sights and fired a second round centered on his forehead. He fell over silently while Karina quickly moved to the door and grabbed the AK. She holstered her pistol and checked the rifle to make sure it was loaded then she looked into the well lit room from the doorway.
The room was long, stretching from the hallway on her left to the back of the basement on her right. There were four tables that ran across the room in rows, each one covered in medical and research equipment with metal cabinets beneath the busy work surfaces. She recognized many of the instruments and knew exactly what the doctor was using them for. The wall across from her was lined with filing cabinets, more metal shelves, and refrigerator storage units. There was a large metal desk set up in the far corner with a computer on top of it along with stacks of folders. To the left, at the far end of the long room, was the door to the hallway where a man stood reloading his assault rifle with a full magazine.
She stepped in to aim at the man when he noticed the movement and began spraying rounds, holding his rifle at his hip. Karina dove behind the nearest work table and tried to crawl forward as rounds struck the equipment on top of the table and through the cabinets around her. Papers and pieces of equipment were flying all over the lab as the gunner recklessly fired, trying to get a lucky shot on her. She kept moving forward to the end of the table, hidden from his view by the cabinets. She heard an agonizing scream from behind her, at the opposite side of the room from the gunner in the doorway, and Karina worried that there were more gun men closing in on her from the other side. She got up, crouching at the end of the table as more rounds tore through the thin metal of the cabinets under the table.
She slid around the end of the table and stood with her rifle up as the man was swinging his towards her, but she pulled her trigger first. The first two rounds of her short burst struck him in his left hip and bicep, the force of the impacting rounds pushed him out into the hallway where she watched a round pass through his head from the left. He fell to the right, dead. A second later, Levi was at the door.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Fine," she shouted, as she turned towards the back of the lab, "I think there's one more in here."
Levi moved up the inside wall while Karina crept up the outside wall, clearing between the ruined work tables as they went until they reached the desk in the corner. The computer monitor had bullet holes in it and was knocked over and the front of the desk had several more holes through it. Behind the desk, next to an overturned chair, was a scrawny young man, doubled over on the floor, holding his stomach. His white shirt was covered in blood that seeped through his fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding bullet wound in his gut. He coughed up blood as they walked over to him.
Levi kept his pistol aimed at the young man and asked, "Who are you? Where is Leukin?"
The man gasped for breath between coughs and said, "He's gone. The virus is gone."
"Where?" Levi shouted.
The man gritted his teeth, refusing to answer.
Levi placed his boot over the man's hands and began to press in on his abdomen. He started screaming in pain, which turned into a bloody, hacking gurgle as Levi kept putting pressure on his wound. After a few agonizing moments he lifted his boot and the man rolled on the floor in pain, spitting up blood.
"You're as good as dead," Levi told him, "Leukin used you and left you to deal with the aftermath. Whatever payoff he promised you, you will never see, I can guarantee that. Unless you want to die right there, you had better start cooperating."
He ground his teeth again in fury until Levi started lifting his foot over the man's abdomen, at which point he cried, "Alright! He sold the virus to Urchenko; he's the man who set up all of this."
Karina looked at Levi and said, "Andru Urchenko, he's a brutal warlord who has been trying to overthrow the government in Edonia and reinstitute a dictatorship; he is an animal," She looked at the young man writhing on the floor, "but not reckless. How does he plan to control the T-Virus?"
The man weakly nodded at the desk and said, "It's all in the files on the hard drive. There are summaries of what we created in those folders, the first true biological weapon."
"We'll have the computer sent to headquarters", Levi told Karina, "but we need to follow the virus." He looked down at the man again and asked, "Levi hired a smuggler, yes? How do we find him?"
"He is a Ukrainian. Leukin picked him so he could transport the virus by land. That's all I know about him."
"When did he leave?" Karina asked.
"This morning," the man replied, choking in pain.
"Where did Leukin go?" Levi asked.
The man just shook his head, wheezing and gasping for air.
"We should follow the virus. We can fly to Edonia in just a couple of hours and try to pick up the smuggler at the border," Karina told Levi.
"I'll call HQ and have an ambulance sent immediately," Levi suggested, holstering his pistol and starting back towards the door, "See if you can do anything for him."
She nodded and quickly patted the man down for weapons before reaching around to her trauma pouch and removing the contents. She peeled his sticky hands away from the wound and stuffed a wad of cotton gauze in it. He shook and wretched at the pain. She slid her hands beneath him to check for an exit wound, but found none, so she started wrapping a large abdominal dressing around him. As she was tying it he said something, but his voice was so weak she had to lean in to hear what he was saying.
"It's unstoppable," he choked, "the perfect weapon."
She tightened the knot with a jerk and he winced, his eyes rolling back, and passed out. She stared at him for a few moments, making sure that he was still breathing before she started gathering the folders and the computer hard drive. She and Levi waited until an ambulance and the police showed up. They instructed the police not to disturb the scene until a team of medical specialists from the B.S.A.A. arrived to contain everything and help sterilize the laboratory. The two agents got a ride to their car from an officer and got back on the road, headed for the airport. They barely had time to repack their gear and clean up before they were boarding a small jet for Edonia.
