The Poseidon Initiative Read Free

to sell to someone else who had that goal. She said nothing.
    “We want for you to continue your good work. In particular, we’d like you to focus on an antidote to STX. You don’t have one yet, do you?”
    She shook her head. “I only just developed the STX product.”
    “We would like an antidote. We will pay you a visit again in seven day’s time. Perhaps here. Perhaps at your house. Perhaps somewhere else. Have the antidote ready or you will be truly sorry.”
    Jasmijn turned red with anger despite her inner voice telling her it would be best to let these thugs leave with no further interaction. “I have no idea if that’s even possible!”
    The terrorist turned around to the vat on the dolly and produced something that looked like a fancy squirt gun. When he turned around again he was wearing a gas mask of some sort over his balaclava. His two associates put one on as well. He tossed an identical one to Jasmijn. “Put it on.”
    He did not offer Nicolaas a mask. He shook the pressurized squirt device and strode back into the lab until he stood over the fallen research assistant, now in a sitting position clutching both feet.
    “What are you doing?” Jasmijn shrieked. “Do not play around with this substance!”
    He shook his head as one of the terrorists aimed his automatic weapon at her.
    “This is not play. Perhaps you are lying to me and you already have an antidote.” The man with the squirt gun thing aimed its fat nozzle at Nicolaas’ head. Nicolaas put his hands up in protest, sputtering nonsensical syllables.
    “I don’t have an antidote!”
    “Then this should incentivize you to develop one within the next few minutes.”
    The masked terrorist pulled back on a plunger attached to the device and a plume of fine mist was ejected from the nozzle onto Nicolaas’ face.

TWO
    Bethesda, Maryland
    Tanner Wilson picked up the secure line in the second-floor study of his modest suburban house.
    “Tanner here.”
    “I couldn’t do it, Tanner. I couldn’t do it…” He was just able to recognize the female voice on the other end of the line before it broke into uncontrolled sobbing. His expressive eyes — one white and the other black due to a condition called heterochromia — took on an intense glint as he flashed on good times years ago, then spoke into his handset.
    “
Jasmijn
? Is that you?”
    The reply was prefaced with sniffling. “Yes. I’m sorry, I know it’s been years. I didn’t know who else to call.”
    “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
    He didn’t mean the question to come from a relationship standpoint, and hoped that wasn’t what this was about. At the same time, she was once a close friend of his and he wanted to help.
    “I’m…” She fell apart again. “I’m okay. But my lab assistant’s dead.”
    Tanner sat up straighter in his desk chair. “When? What happened? Where are you?”
    “A couple of hours ago. I couldn’t save him in time, Tanner. I tried…I tried so hard…It was so awful and horrible…”
    “Jasmijn, where are you right now?”
    “At my place in Netherlands.”
    He’d never been there before, so he couldn’t picture it. But he could envision her face, her soft skin, sparkling blue eyes and silky blond hair.
    “Slow down and tell me what happened from the beginning. Take a deep breath. Okay?”
    She did. First she told him about her cancer research with STX and how lethal the stuff was. And then she related to him the masked terrorists breaking into her lab. Tanner interrupted to ask how many of them there were. He slid a notepad in front of him and picked up a scrimshaw pen made from whale ivory that she had given him many years before. He took notes as Jasmijn continued to lay out what had happened to her. He broke in at one point to ask if she could see their skin color.
    “They were clad head to toe in black. The skin around some of their eyes was dark, some light, but they all spoke Dutch.”
    Jasmijn went on as Tanner scratched on