Killer Without Remorse: Thriller

By Jack Raymond

Killer Without Remorse: Thriller

by Jack Raymond

 

The size of this book is equivalent to 206 paperback pages.

 

The lives of thousands upon thousands are threatened when a sect of madmen decides to bring death and destruction to the metropolis of New York.

FBI agent Jesse Trevellian and his team don't have much time to thwart this plan - because the end is near and supposedly unstoppable...

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Apr 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215023716

Book preview

1

New York 1998

The muzzle flash flickered blood-red from the silencer of an automatic. The shot was barely audible. There was a short 'plop!' and the snarling German shepherd was writhing on the ground. A short twitch and the animal lay motionless on the cold asphalt.

The uniformed guard jerked up his submachine gun. The man's face widened in horror. Before the security man could fire his weapon, it popped a second time.

A red dot formed on the guard's forehead and quickly grew larger. The man staggered. Then he hit the ground lengthwise. He landed heavily on the asphalt.

Two masked men stepped out of the darkness of the night.

They wore dark clothes and balaclavas that left only their eyes exposed. One of them was armed with an automatic, on the barrel of which there was an elongated silencer. Over his shoulder hung a sports bag.

The other carried an Uzi-type MPi.

The man with the automatic pointed at the dead guard.

We have to pull the dead man out of there. He's right in the light, he whispered.

Okay.

They walked up to the body, grabbed it by the arms and dragged it out of the glow of light emanating from the exterior lights of the three-story building complex.

MADISON GEN-TECH was written in large neon letters on the flat roof of the cuboid complex.

They laid the dead man in the shade of a large flowerpot. They did the same with the dog.

The building complex was widely cordoned off by a high fence. The two masked men still had a considerable distance to cover to reach the site of the MADISON GEN-TECH company. Almost four hundred meters, where their only protection was darkness.

They were lucky that the guard had only crossed their path on the way back.

The hardest part of the job was done long ago....

Now they just had to make sure that they left the MADISON GEN-TECH site as unnoticed as they had entered it.

Otherwise, it was all for nothing in the end.

If someone discovered the dead guard, all hell would break loose here from one second to the next. Large spotlights would swing around and search the area. That was not allowed to happen.

Come, said the man with the automatic.

His left hand pressed the sports bag against his upper body.

He was already about to start a spurt.

But before it came to that, he froze in mid-motion.

Freeze, drop your weapon! a hoarse voice shouted.

Two guards with drawn revolvers stood barely a dozen yards from the two masked men. One of the guards muttered something into a walkie-talkie.

The masked man with the Uzi did not hesitate for a second. He simply shot at it. One of the guards screamed and fell to the ground. The other threw himself to the side, fired his revolver twice without hitting.

An alarm siren sounded.

The headlights circled...

Dogs barked through the night.

Exactly that scenario had occurred, which the two masked men had tried to avoid.

Come on, to the gate! the masked man with the silencer weapon shouted hoarsely.

The main gate was in the exact opposite direction from where the two men had climbed through the fence. But it was just closer. Considerably closer.

And that could possibly be the salvation.

They ran off, across a completely empty, asphalt lot that served as a parking lot for MADISON GEN-TECH employees during the day.

The two masked men ran and shot wildly.

The dog barking became louder.

The security people shot back. Voices could be heard from different sides. Then the sound of engines. A car was started. The headlights had the fugitives constantly in their relentlessly bright cone.

One of these headlights was shredded by the hail of bullets from the Uzi.

Every lantern the masked man could catch was shot.

It got a little darker.

The guy with the automatic took out a radio from his jacket pocket.

To the main gate, Tom, he whispered. Did you hear me? To the main gate!

Okay, it came back from the radio.

The masked man said, Don't drive close, you hear? There's going to be a pretty big bang...

They had reached the gate and were panting.

The man with the Uzi turned around, ripped the magazine out of the gun and replaced it with a new one. The figures of guards could now be seen from all sides.

They were carrying dogs and MPis.

A jeep roared up.

The man with the Uzi did not hesitate for long.

A burst of fire from his gun burst the front tires of the vehicle in quick succession. The driver braked, struggling to keep control of the vehicle....

Now get on with it! the guy with the Uzi shouted at his accomplice.

The latter took out a cuboid object from the inside pocket of his jacket. He tore off a piece of protective foil from an adhesive strip and attached the thing to the lock of the main gate. Then he pulled out a bolt from the cuboid object on a metal ring.

As if at a secret sign, both masked men took a step back.

A detonation followed.

The flames rose brightly. A wave of pressure and heat spread. The gate burst open. With a kick, the man with the automatic opened it, while his accomplice fired wildly with the Uzi. He kept the guards at a distance.

A car emerged from the darkness.

The two masked men ran toward it.

The man with the automatic stopped short and hurled an egg-shaped object at the pursuers. They had no chance at all to recognize what it was in time.

Around a hand grenade.

The detonation was terrible. A murderous mushroom cloud of flames turned night into day for terrible seconds. Screams echoed through the cold night.

Meanwhile, the masked men had reached the car. They tore open the doors and got in. The car sped away with screeching tires.

2

The crime scene was in New Rochelle, north of the Bronx. In the middle of the night, I and my colleague Milo Tucker had been roused from our sleep and sent here together with several other special agents of the FBI.

I had only heard the bare essentials over the phone.

Unknown persons had committed a robbery on the premises of the company MADISON GEN-TECH.

A case that potentially touched on national security.

We would learn more details at the scene.

We were among the last to arrive. Our colleagues Agent Orry Medina and Clive Caravaggio were already waiting for us when we entered the MADISON premises.

The area was almost hermetically sealed off by uniformed personnel. Some of them were police officers, but there were also members of a private security service, which apparently had to ensure that no unauthorized persons were on the premises of MADISON GEN-TECH.

Some men in white disease control suits caught my attention. Since the suits bore the company emblem of MADISON GEN-TECH, I assumed that they were employees.

Do you have any clue what's going on yet, Orry?, I turned to Agent Medina.

All that is certain is that at least two perpetrators entered the company premises and fired wildly when they were noticed. One of the guards has been murdered. We also have several injured guards.

Does anyone know what the perpetrators were looking for here? asked Milo.

They got into the labs, Orry opined.

I couldn't get the disease control suits out of my head.

If this was the normal working uniform in the laboratories of MADISON, it could only mean that highly dangerous substances were handled there...

Meanwhile, more FBI agents arrived. Forensic experts above all. The entire area had to be searched thoroughly so that we could follow up even the smallest clue to the perpetrators.

When Milo and I tried to enter the MADISON building, we were denied access by a man in a gray suit and thick glasses.

You can't come through here, he said, waving his arms around. On his lapel was an ID card with a photo and name. After that, his name was Dr. John Tremayne.

I held out my service card to him.

Special Agent Jesse Trevellian, FBI. We can very well go in here, I said politely but very firmly.

No, you can't, Tremayne replied. At least not if you value your life and the lives of many others...

Who are you?

Dr. Tremayne. I'm employed in this lab...

I shrugged my shoulders. Enlighten me about what's going on here! I demanded.

The intruders, it seems, have penetrated a very sensitive area of our microbiology laboratories. An area where the highest security is imperative. If they have destroyed something there, then...

What are they working on there?, I asked.

Tremayne looked at me. His face looked wrinkled and cold.

He seemed to be thinking. Then he said, I don't know if I'm authorized to talk to you about this.

You are, I explained. And if you delay our investigation, there will be consequences.

A man with a half bald head appeared behind Tremayne. He was quite portly. His face was serious.

Tremayne turned to face him.

Dr. Ressing...

Everything seems to be safe, Ressing said. The lab area can be entered... He looked at us.

Who...?

My ID card answered his question. He nodded.

Come on, sir!

3

We put on gauzy white overalls over our everyday clothes.

Dr. Ressing smiled wanly as he noticed our skeptical looks. These suits are not for your protection. They're to prevent you from carrying any microorganisms or dust particles into the labs that can destroy years of our work. He shrugged.

Unfortunately, these uninvited visitors were less than considerate...

What are you working on?, I asked.

MADISON is a company that has made a name for itself in the field of genetic engineering, Ressing explained.

I realize that, I said. What exactly is this about?

We are experimenting with genetically modified microorganisms.

For what purpose?

For example, to make new vaccines!

Then experiment with pathogens!, I concluded.

Ressing smiled. That's right. There's no other way to achieve success in this field.

I understand.

The bacterial preparations in our laboratories would be enough to depopulate the entire United States. A real Pandora's box, if you know what I mean. That's why everything here is secured like Fort Knox.

As we walked down a long, bare hallway, a young man with a pale face approached us. He wore an ID card on the collar of his white protective overalls.

Dr. Ressing! One of the CX containers is missing, the young man said in a muffled voice.

A few deep furrows appeared on Dr. Ressing's face.

Are you sure?

No mistake, sir!

My God... All color fled from Dr. Ressing's face as well. He wiped his face with a nervous movement of his hand. The horror was visible on his face. Then he looked up, straight into my eyes. A container with Pesterregern has been stolen by the burglars...

Isn't that a disease from the Middle Ages that has long since been eradicated?, I asked.

No, I'm afraid not, Ressing said. The last major plague epidemic spilled over into California from China in the 1920s. The disease is still very common today among rodents in North America and Eurasia. But since there is hardly any direct contact between humans and rodents such as rats and mice, smaller, regionally limited epidemics break out only rarely. Now and then this happens in Africa or India. Since the invention of antibiotics, however, it's no problem to quickly get such an epidemic under control.

Milo said, So you're telling us that there's nothing to worry about...

Not quite, Ressing said. He was fuming a bit.

Slowly but surely, I found it quite annoying how we had to pull the information out of his nose one by one. For some reason, they seemed to find us annoying at MADISON GEN-TECH.

So what's the deal with this missing container?, I inquired.

The plague pathogens were genetically modified, Ressing explained.

In what way?

They were resistant to antibiotics.

A sentence Ressing therefore said like a cold fish.

No movement was visible in his face.

That means there is no antidote, I said. An epidemic would be able to spread unhindered...

Dr. Ressing raised his eyebrows.

That would be a very unfavorable scenario.

I couldn't help but think of the shootout that the perpetrators had with the security forces. The thought that the container could have been destroyed in the process could only bring horror...

4

In the early afternoon, we sat in the office of Special Agent in Charge Jonathan D. McKee. Mr. McKee was the Chief of the New York FBI District and thus our direct supervisor.

Besides Milo and me, there were a good dozen other agents present, plus specialists from various fields. The FBI has scientists from almost every specialty in its ranks.

In this case, in addition to the usual specialists in forensics and ballistics, these were primarily medical doctors and biologists.

The aim was to discuss initial search measures.

FBI specialists were still examining the MADISON labs and site. Every projectile at the scene was collected and examined by ballistics.

We listened to remarks by Dr. James Satory, an epidemiologist from the National Institutes of Health.

While this was going on, a projector threw up on the wall the image of a so-called CX container as it had been stolen from MADISON. According to Dr. Satory, it was a container with special safety standards, used for the transport or storage of biologically sensitive material.

The plague pathogen is called Yersinia Pestis and is originally found in rodents, Satory then explained. Rodent-to-human transmission occurs via fleas. Between humans, droplet infection is possible - like a flu-like infection. In the great epidemics of the Middle Ages, whole swaths of land were depopulated. The disease typically proceeds like this: After an incubation period of 3-6 days, chills, fever and swelling of the lymph nodes occur. If severe, death can occur within a few days. Satory's face was very serious as he then continued, I have some data material here that the development department of MADISON GEN-TECH gave me. The contents of the CX container consist of pathogens that have been genetically modified. This means that, on the basis of animal experiments, various effects of this artificial mutation can be demonstrated: First, antibiotic resistance; second, substantially increased and accelerated mortality in the diseased organisms; and third, the pathogen now appears to have a biochemical mechanism that provides an incubation period of unusual variability.

What are the implications of that? asked Mr. McKee.

"Devastating! At least in the case of an epidemic. Of course, one cannot transfer animal experiments one-to-one to humans, but I think one can say the following: we must expect that on the one hand there will be sufferers