Eden Plague - Latest Edition (11 page)

“Somebody finally reported the feces impacting the rotating oscillating device, and the Agency is waking up. The helo probably has ELINT gear on board. Our timeline just got shorter.” Electronic Intelligence equipment would try to find their transmitters, cell phones, anything that radiated.

“How much shorter?” Daniel asked.

“At a guess? I’d say we should have twelve hours, less if I transmit on anything but the Harris net.” He meant our frequency-hopping secure tactical radios, almost impossible to detect or intercept.

“Well, shut it all down!” cried Larry, looking around as if for an off switch for the gear. He started to move toward the main power cable running to the lone outlet in the barn.

“Leave that alone!” Vinny yelled. “We already shut off the transmitter. Don’t panic.”

Larry stopped, looked sheepish.

Vinny went on, “I’d say fifty-fifty they find us at all. They probably have us to within two to four hundred square miles right now, but unless we transmit, they have to do it the hard way – with people. That means identifying your acquaintances, friends and family, you know, six degrees of separation stuff. Nodal analysis. Then they have to dig through everyone’s records, and even digitized stuff isn’t necessarily textual data.”

Blank looks.

“Like if it’s a document that’s been scanned in, but wasn’t generated on a computer – it’s just a picture. Needs a lot of processing power and human-in-the-loop to dig stuff out. If it’s a handwritten document they might miss it entirely except by a human. How much manpower do you think they have devoted to this?”

“You tell me,” Zeke said.

“Well…if it’s just one bigwig in the Agency, he could probably form a small team of three or four analysts and set them to work without drawing any attention. So…it’s a crap shoot. At least twelve hours, more likely several days, and like I said, they may never make the connection to Zeke’s wife’s maiden name.”

“What about HUMINT?” asked Spooky. He meant human intelligence. Boots and eyeballs. “If they come here and ask the sheriffs, ask people.”

“No way,” said Vinny. “That would take forever. There are at least five thousand residences within ten miles of here. Besides, people around here aren’t going to tell tales to a stranger, or the Feds.”

“Okay,” started Zeke, “we tear it all down. We can’t risk being caught. Take it all apart, pack it up. And everyone pull your batteries from your cell phones if you haven’t already. Dan, your van is going into the lake. Sorry, but it’s the only vehicle they have positive ID on. Spooky, you have to park the Porsche somewhere, it’s too noticeable. We’ll use the other four SUVs. Pack everything in there. And rip out your lo-jacks, your GPS units, everything that can be traced. Come on people, chop-chop.” Zeke clapped his hands.

There was a flurry of activity, as everyone tore down and packed all the gear. Boxes went from vehicle to vehicle, all sorts of cases and high-tech-looking containers. Daniel wondered what all they had besides weapons and Vinny’s commo gear.

He cleaned out the van really well, took the plates off and tried to sanitize it. Spooky helped. They couldn’t get rid of every identifying mark and number, but the more they could slow those guys down, the better. He put all his stuff in the Land Rover, his long gun case, his ruck and his aid bag. One or two men in each vehicle meant they had plenty of cargo room.

Zeke took the van, Spooky fired up his Porsche, and Skull drove the Jeep as the recovery vehicle. An hour later they came back in it, having sent the van into the lake in a hidden cove. If they were lucky it would be months before anyone found the site.

In the meantime DJ had cooked some food, trying to use up everything that they couldn’t bring along. He laid a huge spread, knowing he’d eat a lot of it, and the others wouldn’t be too far behind. Stuffing their faces, between bites the talk naturally turned to the coming operation.

“How soon do we go?” Daniel threw out. “And how?”

“Qui Audet Adipiscitur,” quoted Skull.

Daniel furrowed his brow at Skull. “Latin?”

“Who Dares, Wins. The motto of the SAS.” He meant the Special Air Service, British special forces.

“You mean you think we should go in fast and hot.”

“Yes.”

Daniel nodded, thoughtful.

Zeke looked at him, then at Skull. “I agree, to a point. And I think I want the treatment.”

“What?” That caught Daniel off guard.

“Hey, I’m the oldest one here, I’m getting fat, my feet are flat, my cholesterol is high, I got a hernia, and it ain’t gonna get any better. And we have to do this right and do it fast, for Ricky’s sake if nothing else. I’m willing to take the risk.”

Daniel shouldn’t have been surprised. The payoff looked too big, too rich, to ignore. “Anyone else?” He asked around, challenging.

Skull shook his head. So did the rest, though more slowly.

“Not yet,” said Nightingale. “What if it makes my…makes me not be able to…you know.” He looked down at his crotch.

Everyone burst out laughing, but it was a legitimate question. They just didn’t know anything about the side effects.

 “Well, I haven’t noticed any problems.”

“I don’t see any women around here to test yourself on.”

The next few suggestions were vulgar; warriors can be rough-spoken. After the laughter died out and everyone had pretty much finished their dinners, Zeke drained his beer and said, “Well?”

Everyone stared expectantly at Daniel. “Well what?”

Zeke held out his hand, palm up. “Bite me.”

“Oh, man…this is creepy,” Daniel answered. “Maybe we should just cut our thumbs and mix our blood.”

Zeke shook his head. “We don’t know that would work. We do know this does. Bite me.”

“Bleah, bleah,” Daniel did his best Dracula. “Okay.” Grabbing his hand he bit Zeke, slobbering on the wound a bit for good measure. “Yech. I’d make a bad vampire.” The skin tasted like cheap after shave, which meant really, really horrible. To his credit Zeke hadn’t flinched, just rubbed the bloody spots a little and looked.

“It took a little while. Overnight, for me. Don’t expect anything before that, except to get unusually hungry and sleepy,” Daniel put in.

Zeke shrugged. “Que sera, sera.”

They cleaned up, locked up and moved out.

Daniel called his neighbor Trey with a clean phone on the way. “Hey Trey, Dan here.”

“Hey, man. Glad you called. There is a truck parked in your driveway. It says Dominion Power on it, but I saw four guys get out and they went in your side door. Which seems weird since I know you’re not home, and it’s after hours. You want me to call the police?”

Daniel really didn’t want him to. He actually wanted them to clean up the body, if that was what they were doing. He hoped they weren’t setting up a frame for Jenkins’ murder. He pushed that thought away.

“No…Trey, it’s some classified stuff, national security. I think these guys are bad guys but I don’t want to tip them off. I’ll just report it myself, okay? Don’t get involved, they might be dangerous.” He didn’t think Trey would. He was a nice guy, but not the adventurous type.

“Okay, man, your call. You got a number I can reach you on?”

“No, sorry, I’m moving around. I’ll call you now and then, okay?”

“All right now. You take care.” He hung up.

Daniel pulled out the batteries and tossed the phone out the window when they crossed the next river. It traced a sweet arc downward to splash fifty feet below. Then he went to sleep.

He woke up when their convoy was pulling into Outdoor Mountain near Richmond, a mecca for the hunting, fishing, and nature sporting crowd. A hundred thousand square feet of gear, from the smallest lure up to bass boats and ATVs, and guns and ammo.

Lots of guns and ammo. They did some shopping.

They didn’t actually buy any guns. That takes a background check, ID, and an hour or two of waiting even if your record is clean. They couldn’t be sure any one of them wasn’t on some watch list somewhere.

Ammunition, however, can be purchased like candy in Virginia. Echoes of carpetbaggers and Reconstruction and the Federal city right on its northern border kept Virginia’s gun laws libertarian. Thomas Jefferson, native Virginian, had said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” A few million Virginians stood quietly ready to prove him right if the Feds ever tried to take their liberty and the guns they protected it with.

Daniel picked up a few things he wanted to try out, a few things he thought would be useful. They all did. Then they drove on, well stocked.

The sun was coming up the next morning over Onancock as they deployed around the apartment complex where the Integrated National Strategies people lived. It turned out that they all had units at a place called Seaside Acres, built in the last ten years, cookie-cutter. Made it easier to recon. Made it easier for their security people to keep an eye on their own guys too.

Zeke, Spooky and Daniel sat in the Land Rover, parked down the street from the apartment complex’s single gate. Zeke was munching on his fourth ham-and-egg croissant. They figured the XH had taken hold. He was cheerful.

They’d already watched one little nerdy-looking guy get into a black Suburban driven by a big Hispanic minder. The Suburban was parked just inside the gate, by the leasing office. It was easily visible from the angle the guys had chosen.

“That’s Arthur Davidson, virologist. The heavy is Miguel Carrasco, former Texas Ranger.”

It was hard to say for sure, but Carrasco didn’t seem to be all that alert. Just another day on the job for him.

He got out of the vehicle again as another guy walked up. Caucasian, thin, grey and balding, thick glasses. His pants were too short and he had on a stained white shirt, and dirty leather shoes like fry cooks wear on greasy floors. “Roger Auprey. Epidemiologist. Nominated for a Nobel prize once, but apparently he has to be reminded to shower and change his clothes. Mad scientist.” One more of the watchers followed behind him.

“The guy behind him must be Rogett.” Karl Rogett, Master Gunnery Sergeant, USMC retired, Daniel remembered from his file. Looked tough as nails, like you might expect. These two hard cases seemed more focused on controlling their charges than protecting them.
I guess they expect me to run and hide, not gather up my own personal A-team – well, Zeke’s - and come after them.

Daniel really wanted this thing to go smooth, no casualties. He wasn’t sure the other guys were on the same page, despite his insistence.

Skull, Larry and Vinny were in the Cherokee, over Larry’s strenuous objections. A flashy Escalade just wasn’t any good for surveillance, so they’d parked it back at the chain motel where they were staying. They were down at the biggest marina nearby, renting a nice big pleasure boat that would accommodate everyone. If they were lucky, INS’s corporate vessel would be at the same marina. If not, it would be easy to keep an eye out for them from the water between here and Watt’s Island. The harder thing would be not to be noticed themselves.

The Suburban pulled out of the gate and Zeke, Daniel and Spooky shadowed them from well back. They drove like locals, not too fast and not too slow, and pretty soon the Suburban pull into the marina where Zeke’s guys were. Sometimes things do go smooth. For a while.

Zeke called the other vehicle on his walkie. “They’re here, look alive.”

They turned left where the Suburban had turned right, to go down to where their boat waited. They parked, schlepped their cases with various supplies and ordnance onto the boat, and loaded up.

Vinny stayed on shore. He was going to do some surveillance of everyone’s vehicles and residences. He had hinted he might try for something more than that; maybe sneakiness ran in the Nguyen family. Maybe Vinny was a younger version of Spooky in the techno-urban jungle.

Skull piloted the boat like a pro, taking them out about a mile then slowing down. They loafed along like lubbers out for a pleasure cruise. It was chilly but sunny and they bundled up and broke out the coffee thermoses and doughnuts and binoculars.

Pretty soon a nice thirty-six-footer came out of the marina and angled off to the north pretty fast, toward Watt’s Island, which could barely be seen about seven miles off. They crossed to windward of Zeke and the others doing twenty knots, going northwest, and by this time Skull had them on a parallel course at ten or so. They didn’t want to look too eager.

They watched them all the way in to Watt’s Island, a tiny patch of scrubby pines and rocks with the all-steel buildings showing quite clearly. The highest tree on the island didn’t look more than twenty feet tall. The complex was on the southeast corner, and everything looked just like it had on the satellite imagery. They could see the white Jeep parked at the pier, with someone standing next to it, smoking.

They tooled along, not too near, not too far, and observed. They watched as the cruiser pulled up to the dock next to the boathouse. Three people got out onto the pier, then into the Jeep, which drove the hundred yards or so to the tiny empty parking lot. The boat pulled away and headed back for Onancock.

By this time the guys were looking at the south side, and then the back of the complex as they rounded the island. There were no windows in the big building, but there were two in the small one facing south. They could see the helo pad, which was empty except for a short pole and a wind sock standing stiffly in the north-by-northwest breeze.

“All right, that’s enough. We don’t want to get made. Head for Tangier Island,” Zeke ordered.

Skull turned the wheel and ran the throttles up to comfortable cruising speed. Less than half an hour later they came into Mailboat Harbor and docked at the marina at the north end of the island. Slightly less conspicuous than usual in a New York Yankees cap, he paid the docking fee and got the boat topped off with fuel. He could still frighten children with a look.

They wandered around the tiny island, splitting up to act like they were interested in the little shops, museums and restaurants along Main Ridge Road. The whole piece of land they stood on was barely a square mile, the southwest-most of three sub-islands that were all that remained of historic Tangier Island. It used to be much bigger, just like Watts Island, but rising ocean levels and erosion were slowly washing it away. In a couple of hundred years it would probably be completely gone.