Echo of War (23 page)

“Hold on,” Tanner replied. “You said the only ones who went down to the hospital level were Simon and his squad leaders.”

“You have to understand,” Root said “Anton adored my grandfather. The boy had lost his entire family to the war—his mother, father, and sisters. Until Simon came along, Anton had been wandering, only half-alive. My grandfather fed him, gave him some clothes and some kindness. From then on he followed Simon everywhere.

“When Simon first realized what they'd found, he called up the ladder and told the rest of the men it was a TB hospital and that they should stay topside until he and the others were sure they hadn't been infected. That was good enough for the men, but not Anton.

“On the third night, Anton climbed down the ladder and started looking for Simon. Of course, when my grandfather found him, he knew he couldn't send him back up. Anton was terrified; he didn't understand what was happening. All he knew was that something invisible was killing everyone down there—including him and Simon and all the men he'd come to call his family. To reassure him, Simon explained everything.”

“Why didn't they just burn the samples?” Cahil asked.

“Part of it was fear and part of it was uncertainty,” Root replied. “This was 1918. Look at it from their perspective: the idea of something so small that not even the most modern microscopes can see it? Something so tiny that it's dwarfed by the very same ‘invisible bugs' Pasteur said were the cause of all disease? Imagine the average bacteria is the size of a football; in comparison, a virus would be a grain of sand. That's what they were dealing with. It was completely alien.

“Not only didn't they understand Kestrel, but they didn't feel like they could trust anyone with it. They chose what they thought was the best course: Take Kestrel with them, hide it, and guard it with their lives until something could be done about it.”

“Something can be done about it,” said Oliver. “Why haven't you told anyone about this? You were the DCI, for god's sake. Couldn't you have turned it over to the right people and made sure it was destroyed?”

“You really think the world has changed that much? We've dropped atomic bombs, used nerve gas and anthrax, tested hallucinogens on our soldiers. Short of doing it myself—which was impossible—how could I have been certain Kestrel had been destroyed? Besides, the truth is, we've kept Kestrel safe for almost a century. That might sound arrogant to you, but for me it's pragmatism.”

McBride said, “I think we're missing the big question here. Your grandfather took those samples out of that bunker over eighty years ago. Wouldn't the virus be long dead by now?”

“When my father passed responsibility for Kestrel on to
me, I was fascinated and horrified. I wanted to learn everything I could about it. I read every biology and medical textbook I could get my hands on. At the University of Kansas I got my degree in virology with a minor in biochemistry.”

Cahil whistled softly. “How many people know that?”

Root smiled. “It's not a secret, but it is a private passion. I wanted to understand what I was guarding; I wanted to understand what had taken over my grandfather's life, and then my father's. I knew I couldn't study Kestrel in a scientific setting. Something that lethal needs a level four biohazard facility; you don't just walk into one of those, say ‘look at what I found' and go about your business. Word would have spread.” Root paused, then turned to McBride. “Sorry, I'm rambling. What was your question?”

“It's been over eighty years. Wouldn't Kestrel be dead by now?”

“Don't count on it. By all scientific standards a virus isn't even alive. Essentially it's nothing more than a speck of genetic material inside a protein shell. Viruses can't grow or divide on their own. They reproduce by hijacking another cell and rewriting its DNA to reproduce more virus. When a host infected by a virus dies, the decomposition process kills the virus as well. Without that, viruses go into a state of dormancy; in essence, they put themselves into suspended animation until some signal—so far, no one knows what that is—tells them to come to life again and start working.

“Another thing: Don't forget how small a virus is, and how fast they reproduce. Two hundred million can fit on the head of a pin. In the space of eight hours, a single virus can hijack and reprogram enough cells to create ten thousand copies of itself. Multiply that by two hundred million and you've got trillions of viruses born in the space of an average workday.”

“Which most healthy human immune systems can deal with,” said Tanner.

“Sure. They do it every day, in fact. That's what's so damned scary about Kestrel. Instead of fighting off the invasion, an infected system just sits by and lets it happen.”

“Isn't that what HTV does?” Oliver said.

Root shook his head. “HIV is an immune
deficiency
disease. With HIV—or any autoimmune disease for that matter—the body's ability to defend itself is compromised, but it's still there. With Kestrel, there is no defense. It's as if the immune system doesn't even know it's under attack.”

“I'm lost,” Oliver said. “Are you saying Kestrel disables the immune system?”

“Without being able to test it myself, I can't be sure, but I have a theory, something I've toyed with for the past ten years. Anytime there's an infection in the human body, the first defender on the scene is what's called a microphage—essentially a mutated white blood cell designed to hunt down invaders and eat them. Microphages distinguish between what's foreign and what's ‘us' by looking at its shell—its protein coat. If it belongs in the body, the proteins display the right chemical signature. Wrong signature, it gets attacked and eaten.

“I think,” Root continued, “the first thing Kestrel does on entering the body is hijack a host cell, decipher the signature of its protein coat, then change its own coat to match.”

“A disguise,” Tanner said.

“A
perfect
disguise. The protein signature is all the immune system cares about. Now invisible to the host system, Kestrel latches onto a microphage and rides it until it comes across an infection.”

Cahil said, “A viral ambulance chaser.”

“An apt description. While the microphage is busy eating the foreign antigen—say for example, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease—Kestrel hijacks one of them, rewrites its DNA, and tells it to start reproducing. Here's the key: I don't think Kestrel tells the cell to reproduce more of
Kestrel,
but more of itself—along with the protein disguise Kestrel adopted when it entered the body.”

Tanner said, “And so the next crop of baby Legionnaires are all wearing a coat that tells the immune system, ‘Don't attack us'.”

Root pointed a finger at him. “Exactly! And so on and so on until the disease overwhelms the body. Whatever the disease, Kestrel allows it to go unchecked; as far as the immune system knows, it's not even under attack.”

“You get a cold, the cold kills you,” Cahil said.

“Yes and no,” Root replied. “As the immune system gets overwhelmed, opportunistic diseases pop up—foreign bodies that were already present, but had been suppressed by the immune system.”

“And Kestrel does all this regardless of the disease?” McBride asked.

“It's not picky. If it's foreign, Kestrel will use it. I have a hunch it capitalizes on major infections since that's where a lot of microphages congregate. To use Ian's metaphor, the more ambulances at a scene, the better.”

Tanner suddenly felt very tired. In the space of twenty minutes they'd gone from a German freelance terrorist and a kidnapping to this … nightmare. He said, “I don't mind telling you, Mr. Root, your story scares the hell out of me.”

“Good. It should.”

“I want to discount it, but I can't. You have to know: Whatever it takes, we have to keep this thing away from Svetic—and anyone else for that matter.”

“I know. She's my wife. I have to try.”

Tanner nodded. “Then we better come up with one hell of a plan.”

But of the two outcomes,
which counts more
?
Tanner thought. There was nothing to think about, he knew.
One life in trade for millions
?
Or more
?
By any measure,
it was a fair trade.

Langley

Tanner's call went first to Dutcher and Oaken, who immediately drove to CIA headquarters. When they walked into Sylvia Albrecht's office, Len Barber and George Coates were already waiting.

“What's he got, Leland?” Sylvia asked.

“He didn't say; but judging from his tone, it's big,” Dutcher said, glancing at his watch. “It should be any time now—”

As if on cue, Sylvia's intercom buzzed. She pressed the button. “Yes.”

“Call for you on secure five.”

Sylvia disconnected and pressed another button. “Albrecht.”

“It's me,” Tanner said. “I'm secure on my end.”

“Here, too. You're on conference; everyone's here. Where do we stand?”

“Neck deep in a swamp,” Tanner replied. “The
Barak
is here and so is Litzman. We made contact with Susanna.” He passed along her information about Svetic, then said, “We decided it was time to push Mr. Root for some answers. He broke down and gave us the whole story. To be honest, part of me wishes he hadn't.”

Having rehearsed and distilled the story in his mind, Tanner highlighted Root's tale, from his grandfather's discovery of the bunker, to how Root believed Kestrel worked. “The kidnapping of his wife was never about money,” Briggs concluded. “It was about Root himself and Kestrel.”

Len Barber said, “This can't be real. It's just too … fantastic.”

“I believe him,” Tanner said. “I sat two feet from him while he was telling the story. Trust me, it's real. Besides, can we afford to not believe him?”

“Good god,” Sylvia murmured.

Coates said, “He's right. We have to assume it's all true. Briggs, I'm not understanding something: Why the hell didn't Root destroy Kestrel a long time ago? It sounds like he understands the thing fairly well, and given his power he could've done it twenty years ago.”

“Hard to say,” Tanner replied. “Part of it's fear; part of it's probably dedication. This legacy has been passed down through his family for eight decades. There also may be some complacency on Root's part. He said it himself: Whether we agree with their methods, they've kept Kestrel safe for a long time. Until now, it's worked.”

“My god,” said Len Barber. “The arrogance to think—”

Sylvia cut him off. “Briggs, where are the Kestrel samples right now? Trieste?”

“Innsbruck, Austria. The Bank of Tirol.”

“Are you telling me this thing has been sitting in a vault for the past eighty years?”

“Safe-deposit box.”

Given the unusual nature of both his unit and his mission, Tanner explained, Root's commanders had given him tremendous discretion in where they operated. Taking advantage of that, after leaving the bunker Root led his team east out of Bosnia, dodging Serbian guerrilla units until they reached the Dalmatian coast, which was by then controlled by the Allies. Leaving the men behind in Split, Root, Villejohn, Frenec, and Pappas boarded a freighter bound for Kerkyra, Greece, where Pappas's family had been living for 150 years. Root and the others buried the canisters of Kestrel in the wine cellar of the Pappas house, then returned to Split, collected the rest of the team, then linked up with their division, in Brindisi, Italy.

Ten months later, on Thanksgiving Day 1918, as the last of the defeated German troops were pulling out of Alsace-Lorraine, Root, Frenec, Villejohn, and Pappas returned to Kerkyra, collected the Kestrel canisters, and traveled to Innsbruck, Austria, where they placed them in a safe-deposit box in the Bank of Tirol.

As Tanner finished, Sylvia said, “Unbelievable. To think Kestrel sat in that bank as the Nazis marched through Austria … It gives me a chill just thinking about it. Why in god's name didn't Root's father move it?”

“According to Root, like most of the world, his father didn't take Hitler seriously until it was too late. By the time he realized Germany was going to invade, there was nothing he could do but sit back and watch and pray the Nazis didn't plunder the bank.

“Three months after World War Two ended, Root's father and the other descendants of the Dark Watch met in Innsbruck to make sure Kestrel was safe—which it was—then parted ways again.”

“How many are left?” George Coates asked. “Of the original Dark Watch members, I mean. How many sons and daughters?”

“None,” Tanner replied. “Jonathan Root is the last one. Unless you count Svetic.”

“Which we have to,” Dutcher said. “Obviously Anton Svetic passed the secret down to his heirs just like the others. Problem is, this Svetic obviously has other ideas for Kestrel.”

There was a long ten seconds of silence, then Coates said, “We have to get this thing, bring it back here, and turn it over to Fort Dietrich,” he said, referring to the home of USAMRHD, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. “I don't especially like playing the bastard, but if we have to sacrifice Amelia Root to secure this thing, I say it's a small price to pay.”

“Unless you're her or her husband,” Tanner said.

“What're you saying? We play Svetic's game and hope it goes our way?”

“What I'm saying is, let's try to save this woman. If in the end it comes down to a choice, I agree: better her life than give Kestrel to Svetic.”

Barber said, “I agree with George on this. Compared to what's at stake, Amelia Root is a side issue. In fact, we can't afford to delay; we need to start making calls.”

“To who, Len?” Dutcher asked. “Who do we trust with this? If it's the authorities in Europe, how're they going to react when they hear a former director of the CIA has been using their backyard to store a doomsday bug?”

“Who the hell cares how they react? If this thing gets loose, none of it will matter. At the very least we need to send some people over there to deal with these canisters.”

Coates said, “And how do they go in? In biohazard suits? Unless we're prepared to turn Kestrel over to whoever's got jurisdiction, we've got to do this ourselves—and do it in the gray.”

“He's right,” Dutcher replied, then said to Sylvia, “Truth is, I can't fault Root's reasoning for keeping Kestrel secret. Whether it's us, or Iraq, or some radical terrorist group living in a cave, we haven't exactly been circumspect when it comes to WMD. Unless we recover these canisters ourselves—and destroy them ourselves—we can never be sure. Every flu outbreak, every flare-up of cholera or malaria or West Nile virus … we'd be wondering if it's Kestrel, and whether it's going to stop at a thousand people, or keep going to kill millions—or more. For my part, that's not something I want hanging over my grandchildren's heads.”

Barber opened his mouth to protest, but Sylvia raised a hand, silencing him. “First of all, we shouldn't even be having this conversation. This belongs in front of the president.” She paused, sighed. “But God help me, I'm not sure. What would he do? Who would have his ear? Could I convince him to have this thing destroyed, or would he listen to some armchair warrior who thinks Kestrel should be kept alive and studied?”

Coates said, “If Root is right about how it works, there may be some merit to that. The medical implications alone could be enormous.”

Barber said, “Something to consider.”

“No,” Dutcher said.

“Do you have any idea what something like this could do for immunological research? For genetics? It could put us light-years ahead.”

“Some things are best left alone, George. If we start toying with Kestrel, where does it end? I'll say it again: Who do we trust with it? All it would take is one accident, one slip-up; some idiot with an ax to grind or too many bills to pay so he decides to sneak a little out. We're talking about hundreds of millions of Kestrel particles on the head of pin. There's no inventory system in the world secure enough to handle something like that.”

Sylvia said, “Briggs, we haven't heard your take on this.”

“As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to talk about. If you're giving me a vote, it's this: No matter what it takes—Amelia Root's life, my life, Cahil's life—we collect Kestrel and destroy it—all of it.”

“Then why not cut to the chase?” Barber said. “Forget Amelia Root. Go to Innsbruck, get Kestrel, and come home.”

“I doubt it would be that easy,” Tanner said. “Think about how much planning Svetic has put into this: the kidnapping, the false trail of evidence, the stand-in for Amelia Root, the sacrifice of his own man just for authenticity's sake … I wouldn't be surprised if Svetic's had Root under surveillance since he landed in Trieste. When he walks into the Bank of Tirol, they'll be watching.”

“Then leave it in the bank and wait it out,” Coates said. “We can hunt Svetic down, take him out, then retrieve the samples at our leisure.”

Sylvia considered this, then said, “Sounds reasonable. Briggs, you're the man on the ground. What do you think?”

“The sooner we get this done, the better. Listen: We've been careful since we've been here; the chances are good Svetic believes Root is alone. Aside from Root, Svetic is the only man left alive that knows about Kestrel. We know where he's going to be, and when. Let's make that work for us.”

“Explain.”

“While Root is waiting for Svetic to call, we go on to Innsbruck, pick our place, lay an ambush, and hit Svetic when he comes for the exchange. In the space of a few minutes we can free Amelia Root, remove Svetic from the equation, and bring Kestrel home.”

“Bold,” said Len Barber. “And risky.”

Tanner replied, “We passed ‘risky' a long time ago, Len. There aren't many words for where we are now. Sylvia, we can do this. More importantly, I believe now is the time.”

Sylvia looked across her desk at Dutcher, who simply nodded. She said, “Keep your phone handy, Briggs. We'll be back to you within the hour.”

Trieste

Tanner disconnected, laid his phone aside, then leaned back in his chair and yawned. He looked across to Oliver and Cahil; McBride was still sitting with Root at the Grand Duchi.

“What's the verdict?” Cahil asked.

“They're debating. Barber and Coates want to wait.”

“What's there to debate? We've got the guy here, right now.”

“I told them.”

Oliver said, “Sylvia's got a lot of weight on her shoulders. Hell, by law the decision shouldn't even be hers to make.”

“She knows,” Tanner said. “But Leland said it: How do we know anyone else would do the right thing? For my part, I'd rather be strung up for destroying Kestrel than not do it and always be looking over my shoulder.”

Cahil chuckled. “You know, I'm betting Typhoid Mary wasn't very fond of her name.”

“A safe bet,” Tanner agreed. His sat phone trilled. “That was quick,” he said, then answered.

It was McBride: “Briggs, I'm at Root's hotel. He's gone.”

Tanner bolted forward in his seat. “What?”

“Root's gone.”

The former DCI had given him the slip, McBride explained. An hour earlier the room phone had rung. Root answered, listened for a moment, then said, “Sorry, you've got the wrong room.” A few minutes later he asked McBride to go to the corner restaurant and get him something to eat, claiming the hotel's room service was awful. When McBride returned he found a note from Root saying he'd gone down to the sauna room. Suspicious now, McBride hurried downstairs, but Root was nowhere to be found. “I checked with the concierge,” McBride finished. “Root came downstairs right behind me and hailed a cab. My god, I never thought he'd … What in god's name is he thinking?”

He's not,
Tanner thought.
He got the call,
they scared him,
and he panicked.

Better than anyone, Root knew what was at stake and had surmised Tanner's orders would be prioritized accordingly: The recovery of Kestrel was paramount; everything else was incidental. In his desperation, Root had convinced himself he could not only rescue his wife, but also keep Kestrel safe in the process.

“I'm sorry, Briggs,” McBride said. “It never occurred to me that he'd try it.”

“Not your fault, Joe. We all missed it.”

He disconnected, hurriedly explained the situation to Cahil and Oliver, then dialed Langley. As the phone started ringing, he thought,
Innsbruck
…
twenty minutes by air.

Root could already be on the ground.