Robin Cook - Death Benefit

Table of Contents

ALSO BY ROBIN COOK

Cure
Intervention
Foreign Body
Critical
Crisis
Marker
Seizure
Shock
Abduction
Vector
Toxin
Invasion
Chromosome 6
Contagion
Acceptable Risk
Fatal Cure
Terminal
Blindsight
Vital Signs
Harmful Intent
Mutation
Mortal Fear
Outbreak
Mindbend
Godplayer
Fever
Brain
Sphinx
Coma
The Year of the Intern

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Copyright 2011 by Robin Cook

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ISBN : 978-1-101-55367-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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To all the foster children

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A writer needs a lot of friends: At least this writer does. These are the friends that dont mind fielding a call, often out of the blue, and being asked a question of fact or preference, or being willing to read an outline or character study and lend an opinion. You all know who you are, and thanks. Of course theres always Joe Cox, who knows more about law and business than Ill ever know, and Mark Flowenbaum, a real forensic pathologist. And, of course, theres Jean Reeds Cook, who is a great reader and doesnt allow me any slack. Thank you all.

PROLOGUE

KRASNOYARSK, RUSSIA
MARCH 14, 2011, 4:22 P.M.

P rek Vllasi touched his right forefinger to the scar on his upper lip, where the cleft had been crudely repaired when he was an infant. It was something he did without thinking many times each day, more often when he was under pressure. Right now, standing in a filthy room on the tenth floor of a derelict Soviet-era tower block in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk, he was getting more nervous by the minute.

Prek checked his watch again and looked over at Genti Hajdini. Genti was leaning against a foldout table, periodically yawning as he worked on a fingernail with his pocketknife. Every time he saw Genti, Prek was slightly taken aback by the straight lines of his lieutenants beaky nose. From this angle, it looked more like the sharp end of a hatchet. Yes, he was sure the Chechens were coming, Genti had just told him for the tenth time. Good people back home in Albania had vouched for this outfit. Even though he could feel it, Prek checked the Makarov pistol stuck in his belt at the small of his back. The Puma bag containing 500,000 euros was on the floor. Genti had brought the guns and money hidden in a truckload of Turkish fruit hed driven deep into Russia. No wonder he was tired.

There was nothing else to do but wait.

It was freezingthe temperature had topped out at twenty below and the sun would be gone in an hour and a half. Outside, the sky was the same dirty color as the buildings and the ground. Prek started pacing around the large room, what must once have been a communal area in the apartment block that sat just outside town. Prek was a meticulous man; hed read up about Krasnoyarsk. Forty miles or so down the Yenisei River was the town of Zheleznogorsk, better known by its old Soviet name, Krasnoyarsk-26. This was a closed city, home to factories handling God-knows-what exotic and dangerous materials to make God-knows-which agents of destruction. Weapons-grade plutonium had been produced in three nuclear reactors there, the last of which had just recently closed. For years the Soviets simply dumped the radioactive waste from the nuclear plants straight into the river until they thought better of it and drilled hundreds of wells to pump the deadly sludge underground. Prek knew there was as much radioactivity as a hundred Chernobyls humming away in the caverns around here, another reason hed be happy to get out of this place.

Quietly, two men walked in. Wiry and rugged-looking, they wore identical black overcoats. Genti looked up.

Artur? Nikolai?

One of them stepped forward until he was ten feet from Prek. Im Artur, he said, and gestured back to his companion. Thats Nikolai.

Prek looked back and across to Genti, who nodded. These were the names he had been given: Artur Zakoyev and Nikolai Dudaev.

This is a lot of money youre asking for, Prek said in Russian.

This stuff isnt easy to get, said Artur. If its easy to get, why do you need us? What do you want this for, anyway? You making a big boom somewhere? Artur grinned. He was referring to the fact that the substance could be used to make triggers for nuclear weapons.

Prek winced. Hed seen better teeth on a mule.

What we do with it is our business, said Prek. How do we even know its genuine? It needs to be good, not some old shit you had lying around in a warehouse.

You have to trust us. Thats why you pay us. You have the money?

Prek looked down at the bag and kicked it toward Artur. Prek glanced at Nikolai standing behind his boss and to his right. Thats the second time hes looked at his watch , Prek said to himself. Artur stepped forward and went down on his haunches, his hands in front of him. Everyone knew the drill: they kept their hands down and in plain sight by their sides. Artur unzipped the bag and pulled out a brick of hundred-euro notes and flicked through it with his thumb. Prek saw Nikolai glance at his watch again.

Hes waiting for someone, thought Prek. He looked at Genti, who was watching Artur counting money. Hes waiting for someone and theyre late.

Now you have to trust me, said Prek. He was in a hurry. The moneys all there so Ill take the merchandise.

Artur stood up and held up his hands.

Okay, okay. His right arm still aloft as if he were taking an oath, Artur reached into his right coat pocket with his left hand and pulled out a small object. Prek rocked forward and back on his heelshed had no time to react but he knew Genti could shoot both Chechens in the head in a second. This wasnt a gunit was a small aluminum vial about three inches long and an inch around. Prek moved forward, took the vial, and put it in his pants pocket. Nikolai said something Prek didnt understand and without another word, the Chechens turned and were gone, Artur clutching the bag with the money.