Project Nirvana by Stefan Tegenfalk Page B

“I was consumed with rage against those who were to blame for the deaths of Anna and Cecilia.” He caught his breath.
    “You mean the members of the court that allowed Sonny Magnusson to continue to drink and drive?”
    Leo nodded.
    “I understand,” the old man said; something resembling pity appeared in his weary eyes.
    “I wanted them to feel the same loss and grief that I felt. To experience the loneliness and that bottomless emptiness.” Leo’s breathing was more laboured.
    “Rest now,” the old man said sympathetically, and slapped his knees.
    “I wanted more than just that,” Leo continued after a brief pause. His voice was steadier now. “I wanted to go further. They had to know what it felt like to kill their loved ones. To bear not only the grief, but also the guilt.”
    The old man listened intently. “Did that give you the right to kill innocent bystanders?”
    A brief pause. “I believed so.”
    “But not now?”
    Leo shook his head and sank to the floor.
    “You still haven’t given me an answer.” The old man held up his hands in exasperation.
    “What drove me was the satisfaction of seeing the guilty suffer as I did. Tossed into a pit of despair, which they had dug themselves. To be responsible unintentionally for the death of someone you love is the worst pain you can experience. In my ignorance, I believed that vengeance would heal my shattered world. I wanted to fill them with the same sense of loss. Perhaps I also hoped that . . .”
    “Did you have help?” the old man interrupted.
    Leo nodded.
    “Who helped you?”
    “Some others in the field of biogenetic DNA research – spread around the world.”
    “Do they have access to the drug now?” Martin instantly blurted out.
    The old man glared at Martin, irritatedly.
    “No,” Leo replied. “I lied about the research. They worked only with fragments, bits of the whole project. I alone had the total overview. As a reward, their names would be included in the research report, something scientists view as a sign of success. Without the internet, it would have been impossible to do.”
    The old man nodded in admiration. “Very smart,” he said and laughed. “You would have done well in our line of work.”
    “As I understand it, you’ve developed something quite extraordinary,” the old man continued. “How did you manage to do it? You can’t have managed to develop the theory just from a sheet of paper and an idea?” The old man was shrewd. They probably already knew about his work with the Germans.
    “I developed the compound from an already existing substrate. I assume you already know about Dysencomp.”
    The old man nodded again.
    “We have been very meticulous in our investigations about you.”
    “With parts of the substrate we developed for the Germans, it was relatively simple to create a compound with the characteristics that I was looking for. Certainly, it took thousands of development man-hours, but the basic building blocks were already in existence.” Leo was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. He was shaking from the cold that was permeating every part of his body.
    “What type of compound is it?”
    Leo did not hear the question. The old man began to fade slowly into the room. Sounds and voices echoed off the walls. Suddenly, everything went black.
    “Quickly,” the Mentor ordered. “Get him conscious again.”
    The man from Dignitary Protection quickly produced smelling salts. He opened the bottle and pushed it under Leo’s nose while holding a hand over his mouth. Leo twitched a few times, but remained unconscious. The bodyguard tried to shake some life into him, but was unsuccessful.
    “We are losing him,” he said, with an anxious look in his eyes.
    Mjasník parked thehire car so that he had a good view of the main entrance farther down the street. Sooner or later, the flat owner would come home. Mjasník also had a view of the windows over the entrance staircase. He had already found