Текст книги "Gideon's Corpse"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

68

Simon Blaine followed Captain Gurulé into the Level 4 facility. He felt curiously calm, almost serene. It was a pure delight how beautifully everything had worked, how all the pieces fell into place, how everyone had played to perfection their assigned roles in the drama—the politicians, the press, even the public. It seemed effortless, but of course it was the result of years of meticulous planning, finding the right people and carefully enlisting them, running scenario after scenario, formulating backup plans and secondary backup plans, and playing out every possible move to the endgame and then selecting the best line of attack. All that hard work, all that time and money, was now paying off.

The only wild card had been that fellow Gideon—damn him—who not only had shocked Blaine deeply by coming around asking questions so early in the investigation, but had then seduced his impressionable daughter and dragged her into the situation in a most unfortunate way. Still, Alida, like Blaine himself, was resourceful and would survive. And once he had his hands on the smallpox and had carried out the plan, she would understand everything. She would of course see his point of view—she already did in general terms—and would be at his side as she had always been before. Always. They had an unbreakable father-daughter bond, something rare in this world.

“Sir?” The captain held out an air hose dangling from the ceiling for Blaine to attach to his suit. “It locks in with a clockwise twist.” He demonstrated the movement on his own suit.

“Thank you, Captain.”

As he snapped the hose in place, Blaine heard the faint hiss of air, which brought with it a scent of freshness mingled with the smell of plastic and latex.

“Who was that man back there?” he asked the captain, his voice muffled by the plastic hood.

“I didn’t get a good look at him. Don’t worry, he’s not one of the scientists with security access to the vault.”

Blaine nodded. He had put an enormous amount of trust in the captain, and it was not misplaced. Captain Gurulé was USAMRIID’s most outstanding young microbiologist, vaccinologist, and biodefense researcher, one of the very few people with the clearance to access the smallpox virus. A dazzling man holding both an MD and a PhD from Penn, with uncompromising political views, competent, highly effective—the perfect ally. Courting him had been a very slow and painstaking process, but it had been absolutely critical to the plan.

The lab was virtually empty, as they knew it would be. It was true their every move was being recorded on video, but by the time anyone looked at those videos the whole world would already be aware of what they had done. The terrorist nuclear threat had done its job to perfection.

In a few minutes, they had reached the back of the facility where the Variolawas stored in cryogenic suspension, locked in a biosafe inside a walk-in vault. The door to the vault was of stainless steel and identical to a bank safe-depository, modified by USAMRIID for its current, deep-freeze purpose. It was, Captain Gurulé had explained, used for storing the most dangerous, exotic, classified, or genetically engineered microbes.

At the vault door, Captain Gurulé pressed in another code, swiped his card, and turned a tumbler. The door swung open on electronically powered hinges, and they entered. A sudden burst of condensation from the vault’s forty-below temperature clouded their visors. Blaine could start to feel the cold already creeping in. Heavy coats stood on a rack by the door, but the captain waved him past them. “We’ll be out of here quickly,” he said.

The door automatically shut behind them with a deep boomand the click of tumblers. Blaine stood still a moment, waiting for his visor to clear. Then he glanced around.

The vault was surprisingly spacious, with a large central area of stainless-steel tables. They walked past a number of biosafes and cabinets, then passed through a locked door into the inner cage of the vault. Against the far wall, bolted into a framework of angle iron, stood a small biosafe set apart from the others, painted bright yellow and covered with biohazard symbols.

“Please remain standing back, sir,” said the captain.

Blaine held back, waiting.

The captain approached the biosafe, yet again entered a code, and then inserted a special key into a slot on the front. When he turned it, a yellow light began to blink in the ceiling of the vault and a low alert sounded, not loud but insistent.

“What is that?” Blaine asked, alarmed.

“Normal,” said the captain. “It lasts as long as the biosafe is open. There’s no one on the other end checking up on it.”

Inside the safe, on racks, Blaine had a glimpse of the so-called pucks—the white, cryogenically sealed cylinders—that contained the deep frozen, crystallized Variola. He shuddered a moment, thinking of the lethal cocktail each puck contained: the immense amount of pain, suffering, and death enclosed in every one of those little cylinders.

The captain carefully removed one puck from its rack and examined the numbers etched into its side. Nodding to himself, he then took another, identical puck out of his biosuit pouch and placed it in the empty slot in the rack.

One puck was all that was needed. They were designed to keep the virus sealed, in a deep freeze, for at least seventy-two hours—which allowed more than enough time to accomplish their goal.

The captain shut the safe, locked it, and the beeping stopped. He brought the puck over to one of the stainless-steel tables. Blaine knew what he had to do next, and he held his breath in anticipation. It would be a delicate operation.

Laying the puck on the stage of a stereozoom microscope, the captain examined its surface for at least five minutes before making a small mark on it. Then he took a scalpel from the pouch of his biosuit and, with surgical care, cut a small tile of white plastic from the puck. Contained within that tiny piece of plastic, Blaine knew, was a tracking microchip.

The captain flicked the plastic piece to the floor and kicked it under the yellow biosafe with the side of his shoe.

Blaine shivered again. His fingers were already growing numb from the cold. The captain seemed immune.

“I’ll take that, if you don’t mind,” Blaine said, pointing at the puck.

The captain handed it to him. “Be very, very careful, sir. If you drop it, the world as we know it ends.”

A moment later they emerged from the vault, and were forced to wait once again for their visors to unfog. It took longer this time. Even so, everything was ticking along like clockwork.

They made their way back through the lab until they had reached the decontamination showers and air lock. The shower accommodated only one person at a time, and the captain entered first. The automatic door rumbled shut; Blaine could hear the hissing sound of the chemical decontaminants spraying down the captain. The sounds stopped; the outer door opened with a whoosh of the air lock. A moment later the inner door opened to admit him to the shower. He stepped inside and was momentarily engulfed in a blast of chemicals, while a metallic voice instructed him to raise his arms and turn around. Then the door opened and he stepped into the ready room—to find the barrel of a gun pressed immediately against his visor.

“Give me the smallpox,” said a voice Blaine recognized as that of Gideon Crew.

69

Stone Fordyce heard the chopper before he saw it: a UH-60 Black Hawk, coming in low and fast from the east. He had moved to the far end of the parking lot, near the gates to the motor pool, and he took refuge from the rotor wash behind a Humvee on blocks. The Black Hawk slowed and turned, touching down on the tarmac of the nearly empty lot. Fordyce waited for the craft to settle. As the rotors spun down, the cabin door opened and six SWAT team members hopped out, wearing full body armor and carrying M4 carbines. A moment later a civilian stepped down and Fordyce was startled, and encouraged, to see that Dart himself had come along. More proof that calling Dart had been the right choice.

He watched as they moved out of the backwash and gathered near the doors of the building.

Fordyce straightened up and came out from behind the car, showing himself. Dart saw him and gestured him over.

Fordyce jogged up to the group of soldiers, who fanned out in a semicircle as he arrived—a lieutenant, a warrant officer, and four specialists.

“Are they still inside?” Dart asked, stepping forward.

Fordyce nodded.

“And Crew? Where’s he?”

“Still down in Level Four, as far as I know. As you requested, I’ve initiated no contact.”

“Any sign of activity? Confrontation?”

“No.”

“Any other security involved? Alarms or alerts?”

“Nothing as far as I can tell. It’s been as quiet as a tomb here.”

“Good.” Dart checked his watch. “They’ve been inside for almost fourteen minutes, by my reckoning.” He frowned. “Listen, Agent Fordyce. You’ve done a fine piece of work. But your job is now done and I don’t want anything, and I mean anything, going wrong. We’re going to let the professionals handle it from this point on.” He extended his hand. “Your sidearm, please.”

Fordyce slipped it out of its holster, held it out to Dart butt-first. But even as he did so, he was surprised at the request. “Why do you want it?”

Dart took the weapon, examined it, racked a round into the chamber, then raised his arm and pointed the gun at Fordyce’s chest. “Because I’m going to shoot you with it.”

A noise, shockingly loud; a burst of white; and Fordyce was punched backward, the round striking him square in the breastbone and knocking him to the asphalt. He had never in his entire life been so surprised, and as he stared wide-eyed into an impossibly blue summer sky, he was unable to process what had happened to him even as the last of his life fluttered out, blue rushing to black.

70

With the barrel of the Python on his visor, Blaine froze. Taking advantage of this, Gideon reached quickly down to the biopouch of the man’s bluesuit, unsnapped the flap, and slipped his hand inside. His fingers closed over the still-cold disk, which he removed and placed in his own pocket with care. Keeping the gun on Blaine, he unsealed the hood of his own bluesuit and pulled it off, allowing him to see and breathe better.

“Gideon,” was all Blaine managed to say, in a quavering whisper.

“Lie facedown on the floor next to the captain, arms extended over your head,” said Gideon, more loudly than he intended.

“Gideon, I want you to please listen—” Blaine began, his voice muffled by the hood.

Gideon pulled back the hammer of the Colt. “Do as I say.” He tried to control the shaking of his hands. The idea of killing Alida’s father was horrifying, but he knew the situation was far too critical for him to show any weakness.

He watched as the older man lay on the floor, arms extended. They were both still in their bluesuits, their weapons holstered underneath. Disarming them was going to be awkward, and the captain in particular had the look of a dangerous opponent. Keeping the revolver aimed at him, Gideon took out his cell phone with his other hand and called Fordyce.

After a few rings it switched over to voice mail.

He put the cell phone away. Fordyce was somewhere out of range—which would explain why he’d never gotten the agent’s call. He would have to deal with this himself.

“Captain,” he said, “remove your hood with one hand, keeping your other hand extended above your head and in sight at all times. If you try anything, I’ll shoot to kill.”

The captain complied.

“Now you, Blaine.”

As soon as Blaine got his hood off, he began to talk again. “Gideon, I want you to hear me out—”

“Shut up.” He felt sick, tried to master the shaking of his hands. He turned back to the captain. “I want you to stand up slowly. Then, with your left hand, remove your bluesuit, keeping your right arm extended from your body and in sight at all times. If you so much as twitch, either of you, I start firing and won’t stop until you’re both dead.”

The captain complied and—a credit to his intelligence—didn’t try anything. Gideon was absolutely serious about killing them both, and they must have sensed it.

When the bluesuit was off, Gideon had the captain lie back down on the floor, then searched him, recovering a 9mm sidearm and a knife. He tied the captain’s hands behind his back with some surgical tubing that was lying on the adjacent lab table.

He turned to Blaine. “Now you. Take off your suit just like the captain.”

“For Alida’s sake, listen—”

“One more word and I’ll kill you.” Gideon felt himself flush deeply. He had been trying to keep the whole awful question of Alida out of his head. And here her father was playing that card right up front—the bastard.

Blaine fell silent.

When the bluesuit was off, Gideon searched Blaine, snagging the man’s firearm—a beautiful old Colt .45 Peacemaker with staghorn grips—and tucking it into the waistband at the small of his back.

“Lie back down.”

Blaine complied. Gideon tied his hands with more surgical tubing.

What was he going to do now? He needed Fordyce. Having seen Blaine and the captain enter, Fordyce would surely be on his way down as backup—wouldn’t he? Why wasn’t he here? Had they already had a run-in with him on their way in? Impossible. They had arrived calm, fresh, unsuspecting. Had someone detained Fordyce?

It didn’t matter. He needed help. It was time to call Glinn.

He took out his cell phone. Just then, he heard sounds in the hallway beyond: the heavy running of boots. He took a step back as the doors burst open, soldiers in tactical uniforms rushing in, weapons at the ready.

“ Nobody move!” cried the soldier on point. “ Drop your weapon!”

Gideon suddenly found himself completely outnumbered; six automatic weapons were pointed at him. Jesus, is this why Fordyce isn’t here?he wondered. They must have seen us on the monitors, sent in an interdiction squad.He froze, unmoving, hands extended, keeping the Python and the captain’s 9mm in sight.

A second later Dart stepped in. He looked around, taking in the room.

Gideon stared at him. “ Dart?What’s this?”

“It’s all right,” Dart said quietly to Gideon. “We’ll take care of things from now on.”

“Where’s Fordyce?”

“Waiting by the chopper. He called me without telling you, explained everything. Said you wanted to go it alone. And I see you’ve managed quite well. But now we’re here to take over.”

Gideon stared at him.

“Don’t be concerned, I know all about it—Blaine, the proposal for the novel, the plan, the smallpox. It’s over now, you’re in the clear.”

So Fordyce hadmade the call after all. And Dart had listened—to the point of coming himself. Amazing. Gideon felt his whole body relax. The long nightmare was finally over.

Dart glanced around. “Who has the smallpox?” he asked.

“I do,” said Gideon.

“May I have it, please?”

Gideon hesitated—why, he was not entirely certain.

Dart held out his hand. “May I have it, please?”

“When you secure those two and get them the hell out of here,” Gideon said. “And then I think the smallpox needs to go straight back into its vault.”

A long silence. Then Dart smiled. “Trust me, it’s going right back where it belongs.”

Still, Gideon hesitated. “I’ll put it back myself.”

Dart’s face lost some of its friendliness. “Why the difficulty, Gideon?”

Gideon couldn’t find an answer. There was something about this that didn’t feel quite right; some vague feeling that Dart was being a little too friendly, that he’d come around to Gideon’s viewpoint a little too easily.

“No difficulty,” said Gideon. “I’d just feel better seeing it go back in the vault.”

“I think we might arrange that. But if we’re going in the lab, you’ll have to disarm. You know—the metal detector.”

Gideon took a step back. “The captain here went in with his 9mm, no problem. There wasn’t any metal detector.” He felt his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. Was this bullshit? Were they lying to him?

Dart turned toward the soldiers. “Disarm this man now.”

The rifles came up again. Gideon stared. He made no move.

A lieutenant stepped forward, drew his sidearm, and placed it against the side of Gideon’s head. “You heard him. Count of five. One, two, three—”

Gideon handed over the Python, the 9mm, and the Peacemaker.

“Now the smallpox.”

Gideon looked from Dart to the men. The expression on their faces was more than unfriendly. They were looking at him as if he were the enemy. Could it be they still believed he was a terrorist? Impossible.

Nevertheless, something felt very wrong.

“Call the director of USAMRIID down here,” Gideon said. “He must be on the premises. I’ll give it to him.”

“You’ll give it to me,” said Dart.

Gideon looked from Dart to the soldiers. He was unarmed and really had no choice. “All right. Tell the lieutenant to back off. I’m not doing this with a gun pressed to my head.”

Dart made a motion and the lieutenant stepped back, keeping his pistol leveled.

Gideon slid his hand into his pocket, his fingers closing over the puck. He slipped it out.

“Easy now,” said Dart.

Gideon held it out. Dart stepped forward to take it, his hands closing over the puck.

“Kill him,” said Dart.

71

But Dart had spoken too soon. Gideon clamped his fingers around the puck and turned abruptly, checking Dart hard with his shoulder, while at the same time extending his hand with the puck over his head.

“Don’t shoot!” Blaine cried, from the floor. “Wait!”

Gideon stared at Blaine. There was a sudden silence. The lieutenant didn’t fire. None of them did. Dart seemed paralyzed.

“Drop your weapons,” Gideon said. He cocked his arm as if to throw the puck and Dart jumped back, the soldiers following his cue, alarmed.

“Don’t throw it, for God’s sake!” This came from Blaine, still lying on the ground. He rose awkwardly to his feet. “Dart, you reallyscrewed up,” he said angrily. “This isn’t the way to deal with this situation.”

Dart was sweating, his face white. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing this mess. Cut this off.” He held out his wrists.

Dart obeyed, using a scalpel to cut off the surgical tubing.

Blaine rubbed his hands together, fixing Gideon with his deep blue eyes but speaking to the captain. “Gurulé, you can get up now, too. We don’t need to keep up this pretense any longer.”

Full comprehension dawned in Gideon’s mind as the captain rose to his feet, his dark eyes flashing with triumph. He was staggered by the realization: Dart and Blaine were co-conspirators.

Blaine turned to the soldiers. “Lieutenant, you men, damn you, lower your weapons!”

A hesitation, and then Dart said: “Do it.”

The lieutenant obeyed and his men followed.

“Give me my sidearm,” rumbled Blaine, holding his hand out to Dart.

Dart handed him back the Peacemaker. Blaine hefted it, opened the gate, spun the cylinder to make sure it was still loaded, and tucked it into his belt. The 9mm was restored to the captain.

While this was going on, Gideon remained standing with the smallpox still poised threateningly over his head, his arm tense. He spoke quietly. “I’ll smash this on the ground if you alldon’t lay down your weapons. On the ground. Now.”

“Gideon, Gideon,” Blaine began, shaking his head, his voice quiet. “Will you please listen to what I’ve got to say?”

Gideon waited. His heart was hammering in his chest. If he starts talking about Alida…

“Do you know why we’re doing this?”

“Blackmail,” said Gideon. “I read your book proposal. You’re just in it for the goddamn money.”

“Ah, I see,” said Blaine chuckling. “You have no idea, noidea, how wrong you are. That was merely a trifle, a plot point for a book. None of us is after money. We couldn’t care less about that. We’ve got a much more important use for the smallpox. Something truly beneficial to our country. Would you like to hear it?”

Gideon remained tensed like a spring, his arm cocked. But something perverse inside him wanted to hear what Blaine had to say.

Blaine gestured at Dart. “You see, I’ve used Myron, here, to vet my book ideas from time to time. And it was he who told me that this idea, Operation Corpse, was too good for a book. It was something we could actually accomplish.”

Gideon said nothing.

“I’m telling you this because I’m pretty sure you’ll want to join us. After all, you’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. You will certainly understand. And…” He paused. “It seems you love my daughter.”

Gideon flushed again. “Don’t bring her into it.”

“Oh, but I will…I will.”

“Blaine, you’re wasting time!” said Dart.

“We’ve lots of time,” said Blaine calmly, turning back to Gideon with a smile. “What we don’thave time for is an accident. Frankly, Gideon, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who’d be able to smash that on the ground. And kill millions.” He raised an eyebrow inquisitorially.

“I will if it keeps it out of your hands.”

“But you haven’t heard yet what we plan to do with it!” This was said in a genial, protesting fashion.

Gideon said nothing. Blaine wanted to have his say—let him.

“I was in the British intelligence service known as MI6. Captain Gurulé here is CIA. Dart is not just involved in NEST but has also worked for a black agency at DIA. Because of our mutual background in intelligence, we all know something you don’t, which is this: America is secretly at war. With an enemy that makes the old Soviets look like the Keystone Kops.”

Gideon waited.

“The very survival of our country is in the balance.” Blaine paused, took a deep breath, and began again. “Let me tell you about this enemy. They are single-minded. They are sober, extremely hardworking, and highly intelligent. They have the second largest economy in the world and it is growing at five hundred percent the rate of ours. The enemy has an immensely large and powerful military, they have advanced space weapons, and they have the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world.

“This enemy saves forty percent of what they earn. They have more university graduates than America has people. In the enemy’s country, more people are studying English than there are English speakers in the entire world. They know all about us and we know almost nothing about them. This enemy is ruthless. They operate the last imperial, colonialist power on earth, which occupies and brutalizes many of the formerly independent countries surrounding it.

“This enemy has brazenly and openly stolen trillions of dollars of our intellectual property. In return, they send us poisoned food and medicine. They don’t play by the rules of international law. They are corrupt. They oppress freedom of speech, oppress the free exercise of religion, and murder and imprison journalists and dissidents on an almost daily basis. They have openly cornered the market in those strategic metals critical to our electronic world. This enemy, having little oil, now dominates the world’s technologies and markets in solar, wind, and nuclear power. As such, they are on track to become the new Saudi Arabia. This enemy has accumulated almost two trillion of our own dollars through unfair currency and trade practices. If dumped on the world market, this sum would be enough to annihilate our currency and wreck our economy in a single day. Basically, they have us by the bollocks.

“Worst of all: this enemy despises us. They see how we conduct business in Washington, and they’ve concluded that our democratic system is an abject failure. And they think we Americans are weak, lazy, whiny, self-important global has-beens, inflated with a false sense of entitlement. In this, they are probably correct.”

Blaine’s rolling, mesmerizing speech ceased, leaving him breathing heavily, his face slick with sweat. Gideon felt sick to his stomach, as if the words had been physically bludgeoning him. Still he held the smallpox up.

“They have the population, the money, the brains, the will, and the guts to beggar us. They have specific plans to do this. And they are in fact doing it.While America just sits on its arse, doing nothing in return. It’s a one-sided war: they’re fighting, we’re surrendering.”

The novelist leaned forward. “Well, Gideon, not every American is ready to surrender. Those of us in this room, along with a small group of other like-minded individuals, are not going to let this happen. We’re going to save our country.”

Gideon desperately tried to order his thoughts. Blaine was a powerfully persuasive and charismatic speaker. “And the smallpox? Where does that come in?”

“Surely you can now guess where that comes in. We’re going to release it in five of the enemy’s cities. The enemy’s great vulnerability is their population density and their dependence on trade. As the virus spreads like wildfire through the virgin human population, the world will impose a quarantine on the infected country—it will have no choice. We know that for a fact: response to a smallpox event is detailed in a highly classified NATO plan.”

He smiled triumphantly, as if the operation had already taken place. “With a quarantine, that country’s borders will be sealed. Everything will be stopped or blocked: flights, roads, railroads, ports, even trails. The country will remain quarantined as long as the disease is present. Our epidemiologist tells us it might be years before the disease can be recontained. By that time, the enemy’s economy will be back where it was in the fifties. The eighteenfifties.”

“They’ll lash out with nuclear weapons,” Gideon said.

“True, but right now they don’t have all that many, and not of high quality. We will take down most of their missiles in flight. A few of our cities might be hit, but then we will massively retaliate. After all, it iswar.” He shrugged.

Gideon stared at him. “You’re crazy. They’re not our enemy. This whole plan is insane.”

“Really, Gideon, you’re smarter than that.” Blaine held out his hand in a supplicating gesture. “Gideon. Join us, please. Give me the smallpox.”

Gideon backed toward the door. “I won’t be part of this. I can’t.”

“Don’t disappoint me. You’re one of the few with the brains to see the truth in my words. I’m trusting you to think about this—really thinkabout what I’ve said. This is a country that only a generation ago murdered thirty million of their own people. They don’t place the same value on human life that we do. They’d do it to us—if they could.”

“It’s monstrous. You’re talking about murdering millions. I’ve heard enough.”

“Think of Alida—”

“ Shut up about Alida!” Gideon found his arm trembling, his voice cracking, the soldiers backing away in fear as he waved the puck about.

“No!” Blaine entreated him. “Wait!”

“Tell the soldiers to lay down their guns! Now it’s my turn to count to five. One—!”

“For God’s sake, no!” Blaine cried. “No here, not near Washington. You release that smallpox, you’ll do to America what we were going to do to—”

“Look into my eyes if you don’t believe it. Tell the soldiers to put down their guns! Two…”

“Oh my God.” Blaine’s hands shook. “Gideon, I beg you, don’t do it.”

“ Three…”

“You won’t do it. You won’t.”

“I said, look into my eyes, Blaine. Four…” He cocked his hand. He really was going to do it. And—finally—Blaine saw that.

“Lower the guns!” Blaine cried. “Lay them down!”

“ Five!” Gideon screamed.

“Down! Down!”

The guns went down with a clatter, the soldiers clearly terrified. Even Dart and the lieutenant threw their weapons down.

“Hands up!” Gideon demanded.

All hands went up.

“You son of a bitch, don’t do this!” Dart yelled.

Gideon edged around, past the laboratory table, one hand still raised, the other behind his back. He had very little time. He reached the door, pushed it open with his knee. Then he spun around, took a fresh grasp on the puck, and hurled it to the floor with all his might, simultaneously darting out and racing down the hall.

As he ran, he heard the puck shatter, the broken pieces ricocheting around the ready room—and then an absolute chaos of shouting, scrambling, running, while, rising above it all, came a great and terrible roar from Blaine, like a lion speared through the heart.