Free Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White Page B

misted mirror. He slathered shaving cream over his jaw, pulled a trail through the creamy froth with his razor, rinsed the blade and took it to his face again.
    As the steam once again started blurring the edges of the clearing he’d rubbed on the glass, Rex’s mind drifted back in time, back to that day he’d first seen her in Marumba, that small pocket of troubled country nestled between Sierra Leone and Liberia, near the Ivory Coast.
    She’d been in that bar, celebrating with a raucous crowd of foreign journalists and photographers. She’d just broken a story about illegal diamonds being smuggled from Sierra Leone through Marumba.
    He’d been downing beer, internally seething over the botched lab raid and his wasted time.
    Rex had been just hours away from doing a deal with the Plague Doctor himself. It had taken him months of undercover work to infiltrate the Marumba research lab that posed as pharmaceutical plant. He’d won the confidence of the Plague Doctor who’d then given Rex a tour of his facility. Once in the lab, Rex saw the extent of his evil. Most of his experiments with biological agents like the plague, hemorrhagic fevers, anthrax, e-coli or HIV had been carried out on dogs and baboons.
    He knew for certain then that the Plague Doctor had been responsible for an Ebola outbreak in Kenya that had killed hundreds. He could also be linked to an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease in animals in Britain.
    The doctor personified evil, and he sold his secrets to the highest bidder, to the country or army with the deepest pockets. He was a scientific mercenary in the biological weapons war and he had no conscience.
    Rex had almost had the proof he needed, almost had access to the Plague Doctor’s new genetic research on ethnic bullets. A few more hours and the Bellona Channel would have had evidence in hand, knowledge it could use in the fight against the proliferation of biological weapons worldwide. Knowledge Bio Can Pharmaceutical could in turn use to create antidotes.
    The CIA had also been watching the lab, aware of the Bellona Channel’s work. It wasn’t unusual for the two organizations to cooperate. But then Mitchell had blown the whistle too early and the troops had moved in.
    The result was a fire, a raging white-hot blaze, an ecological nightmare. Everything in the lab was burned. But there were no biological agents found in the fire-safe refrigeration unit in what was the Biosafety Level 4 sector and most of the staff had escaped—including the Plague Doctor.
    Rex dragged the razor over his skin, cursing the CIA agent under his breath. He swore again as he nicked his skin with his blade.
    It was as if Mitchell had deliberately tried to thwart the Bellona Channel and facilitate the escape of Dr. Ivan Rostov.
    It was in that bar, after the disastrous raid, that he’d first seen Hannah. She’d been leaving for Ralundi the next day. Rex also packed his bags that night. But he didn’t ship out to Canada as planned. When the pink copper sky over the Marumba mountain range promised dawn, he’d left for Ralundi, a small town on the Marumba coast, telling himself he needed a break.
    That decision six years ago to leave for Ralundi had cost him his heart.
    Rex splashed cold water over his face and ran his hand over his jaw, testing the result of his shave. He wondered if Hannah had had any luck with the Vancouver library.
    He opened the bathroom door and was greeted by cool early-evening air billowing the gauzy curtains out from the French door. He didn’t see her. He didn’t need to, he could sense she wasn’t in the room.
    He stalked over to the open French doors and pushed aside the pregnant drapes. “Hannah?”
    There was no one on the balcony.
    He whirled round and stormed back into the room. “Hannah!”
    She had gone.
    He swore as he opened the door into the hallway. Nothing but silence along the empty corridor.
    He muttered an expletive and yelled down the row of room doors.