Chapter 42

42

Pau Rangi Island

The Bismarck Sea

The barren, rocky island was littered with a couple of abandoned fishing villages and a crumbling pier that had once serviced the now rusted wreck of an ancient cannery. Pau Rangi, despite its dystopian appearance, bore the Maori name for "paradise." But it was hell that the Vendor was planning to unleash.

The private island had been purchased in the 1970s by a fictitious real estate corporation his family had controlled for decades—the same one that had acquired the Island of Sorrows.

The Vendor was deep in the bowels of the volcanic island in a lab inside one of several caves beneath the surface. He stood on the other side of thick glass protecting him from the invisible cloud of death swirling inside the warehouse-sized and climate-controlled test chamber. Neurotoxins were a relatively old technology and nearly all of them would kill in an enclosed space. The Vendor had bigger plans.

A system of computer-controlled fans, heaters, and overhead misters were deployed in the test chamber, set to duplicate the conditions at a very specific geographic location: Guam. The Pacific island's climate patterns had been perfectly mimicked on a day-to-day basis for the last month. Today's test had been the best so far.

The Vendor counted seven corpses. Four of those men had died nearly instantly; the other three took several minutes longer. Fifteen minutes after the release of the neurotoxin, three survivors were still breathing, but they were on the ground, convulsing. They would expire soon.

When the Indonesian pirates landed on Pau Rangi last week, the Vendor had no doubt they were a gift from his ancestors. After all, his grandfather had conceived of the original plan. The fact he was dead was no impediment to his interest in its success. Today's test in realistic conditions confirmed it.

It was one thing to kill rodents, small animals, or even captured pirates in a controlled environment. But the Vendor had a much larger target in mind, in the form of the island of Guam. It was America's most important naval base in the South Pacific and home to thousands of civilian and military personnel. His plan had been years in the making and he was leaving nothing to chance. He knew an attack wouldn't take place in ideal experimental conditions. He needed to be certain it would succeed in the real world. Today's test was his final proof of concept.

"How soon before sufficient quantities will be produced?"

"Two weeks, at most," the scientist said. He was a German national heading up a small international team of researchers, each with a criminal history and hunted by their respective governments.

"You have exactly one hundred sixty-eight hours until launch."

"What happened to our original timeline?"

"It has been changed."

The Vendor had known for months that the Americans were bringing an advanced network of air and missile defenses online to protect its most important base in the region. But his intelligence sources indicated the air defense network launch date had been accelerated considerably. Within eight days, Guam would have the most impenetrable airspace in the world. If the Vendor hoped to carry out his plan, he needed to make his attack before then.

"I can't change the laws of physics, sir. It would take a miracle."

"I believe in miracles."

"I can't. I'm a man of science."

"Then put your faith in the three-million-dollar bonus I will pay to you personally, along with the half-million-dollar bonus to each of your team members, if the deadline is met."

The German smiled. "Well, then. Hallelujah!"

The Vendor darkened. "And carefully consider the agonizing consequences if you fail."