Lethal Misconduct (16 page)

It took Price a few seconds to find his voice. “This is worse than I thought.”

+++

Washington, D.C.

Sen. Thompson hung up the phone and gazed out his office window. He watched as cars eased by, the tired pace a constant in the nation’s capital. Thompson wondered what those Americans would think if they knew they were driving by a man who would soon ensure their safety, possibly for all time.

He’d come to see himself as the savior America needed. With increased pressure from around the world, his country was desperate for help. It wanted an answer just like it had wanted the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima. So many Japanese lives lost, yet so many Americans saved from invading the Japanese homeland.

This was his Hiroshima and Nagasaki all rolled into one. The research Cromwell was overseeing was only in its infancy, the first phase the crudest and most lethal. Merrifield had promised more innovation after the first launch. Better tools. More insidious. Deathly quiet.

Thompson believed in sacrifice. He’d never served in the military, but he respected the men and women in uniform. In fact, it was because of their sacrifice that he’d set out on this path. The trick was to use it without being its mastermind, at least to the world. He’d probably be drawn and quartered should his involvement be made public, but that wouldn’t happen. He, Cromwell and Merrifield were the only ones who knew.

Merrifield would keep his mouth shut for money and glory. Cromwell would do it because he was a good soldier, even if Thompson couldn’t make him a general. The money would help.

Thompson didn’t relish the destruction they were about to rain down, but it was all part of the plan. After all, could there be peace without a little bloodshed?

Chapter 27

Washington, D.C.

2:25pm, April 10
th

The Situation Room was eerily still. Cal, Dr. Price and Jonas waited for the president to say something. They’d driven up from Charlottesville in a convoy, the rest of Cal’s team now waiting outside. They were ready should the president give an order, which more than likely he would.

“Are you sure?” asked the president.

“Yes, sir,” said Dr. Price.

“You’re actually telling me that somehow, a rogue Army colonel has developed a biological weapon right under our noses?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Explain to me how it works, Doctor.”

Price began. “In a nutshell, they’ve figured out how to reverse my cure and use it as sort of a cancer magnet, a magnifier. Instead of getting the cancer to assimilate with a human body, their serum actually triggers a chain reaction. Everyone has dormant pre-cancer cells living in them, and we don’t fully know why some people’s become activated and others’ don’t. Merrifield’s discovery triggers the cancer cells and accelerates their growth, exponentially. It’s like a series of explosions going off in your body. To make matters worse, they’d also figured out how to target based on race.”

“How the hell do they do that?” asked Zimmer.

“Merrifield’s specialty is DNA mapping. He figured out a way to hone in on a specific DNA marker. He’s started with race.”

“So you’re saying that the drug may not affect me, but it could affect someone of Asian descent.”

“Yes, Mr. President. Now, it might not be the broader Asian race, that could be all of us seeing as how we’re all related, but it would be a small subset that he’s somehow parceled out of the larger gene pool.”

“I’ll take your word on that, but there still seems to be the issue that most biological weapons have: deployment. Is Cromwell planning on going around injecting people with this stuff?”

Dr. Price’s face colored. “No, sir. I…it was actually part of my research that helped them. I initially made the vaccine to be taken orally like the Colombian tribe had done. Its potency was the same as if I’d given it to them intravenously.”

Travis spoke up next. “That’s all good if you can make people drink it, but other than contaminating a city’s water supply, that type of deployment doesn’t seem like that big of a risk.”

Price looked at Cal, who nodded for him to continue.

“Actually, they could,” said Price, his face grave. “If I didn’t loath what he’s done, I’d call Merrifield an otherworldly genius. In the time he’s had to develop this solution, he’s not only figured out how to make it smart by targeting a person’s DNA, but he’s also figured out how to make it proliferate. He’s made it contagious.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said the president.

“I saw the evidence, and you know I’m not a science whiz,” said Cal. “This stuff is bad news. Dr. Price is right. If it weren’t so illegal and so deadly, it would be genius. But you haven’t even asked the most important question yet.”

“And what’s that?” asked the president.

“Ask us who they’re targeting.”

The president’s eyes narrowed. “Who are they targeting?”

“Arabs.” 

+++

Col. Cromwell had a world map spread out on the corner table in his office. He’d been one of the few to foretell the rise of Islamic radicalism, easily predicting its spread through the Middle East and now seeping into poor third world countries. The atrocities of 9/11 gave it a face.

He could remember getting the news about the World Trade attack during a fact-finding mission to Nigeria. He’d never felt so far away from his home, and yet, he wasn’t surprised.

Other countries understood the threat. They’d battled it for centuries. The Israelis, the Brits, hell even the French. America was the new kid on the block, its citizens still naive to much of the horrors the rest of the world faced. In America, if you were hungry, you could go to the government for a hand out. In America, if someone threatened you, you assumed the police could handle it.

Cromwell knew evil. He’d seen it all over the world. While he’d busied himself with battling unseen diseases, he always kept his eye on the horizon, waiting for the next terrorist strike. It was inevitable. The United States stepped on too many toes. Not that it shouldn’t, but the lapse of strength shown by the last president left a void that terrorists were only too happy to fill.

Col. Cromwell believed in a strong America, one who could not only dole out humanitarian aid, as he had through the years, but could also crush those who sought to keep their fellow man under foot. The new breed of terrorists was the evil he secretly wished to destroy.

When the idea had come to blend his new specialties with his ultimate desire, Cromwell jumped at the chance. Not only had Price’s discovery been miraculous, but through a bit of imagination, Cromwell was given the ability to fulfill his dream.

Some men dreamt of wealth and power. Others spent their days whoring and polluting their bodies with foreign substances. Cromwell wished for revenge.

He saw every action he’d taken in his pursuit as a necessary step in accomplishing his task. If the civilized world wanted to stamp out extremism, the way to do it wasn’t one by one. The best way, the way that would strike fear in the hearts of even the most radical extremists, was through something so invisible and so deadly that the most devout of followers would have no option other than to question their faith.

Yes, their women and children would have to die, but that was the price Cromwell was willing to pay. Us or them. You could not negotiate with terrorists. You could only kill them.

His hand swept across the coated map and he imagined the disappearance of every Arab in the Middle East, and then the world. While at first repulsed, countries would soon repopulate those areaa. Like the Earth healing from a deep scar, so would the civilized world.  They would come to realize that evil breeds its own death.

He was so close to holding all the power, to making his enemies kneel and ask for forgiveness just for a chance to live. Cromwell would not give it. There would be no remorse, just as there would be no quarter given to his enemy. This was a fight to the death, and Col. Gormon Cromwell meant to pave the way with the bodies of his foes.

Chapter 28

Washington, D.C.

4:07pm, April 10
th

The alert went out quietly, the heads of Federal law enforcement agencies notified first. No names were given and the specific threat was never mentioned. That meant only one thing: the White House believed there was a very real chance of an insider attack, something catastrophic.

Cal had tried to dissuade the president from pressing the panic button, but he’d been overruled. There were too many things that could go wrong. What if Cromwell’s weapon got out? What if they’d already shipped? What if, what if, what if…

Cal didn’t like what ifs. He’d learned in the Marine Corps that you could ‘What If’ a plan to death, because everything changed when the battle was met. He had the ominous feeling that the same thing was about to happen. Cromwell was too smart. He’d probably put contingencies in place just in case he was discovered.

A scheme of this magnitude went beyond simple monetary gain. Cromwell had something to prove and Cal would bet his life that the Army colonel would gladly go down swinging.

They’d located Cromwell at his office and were waiting for confirmation from MSgt Trent, who was posing as an NIH investigator, that he was still there. If he was, the president had authorized a joint operation with the FBI to take Cromwell into custody. Four teams were waiting around the block for Trent’s signal, Cal among them.

The call came a moment later over the radio.

“He’s not here,” said Trent

“Does anyone know where he went?” asked Cal.

“His secretary said he’d be out for the day. Early dinner and then a meeting.”

It would’ve been too easy. Cal hoped Cromwell hadn’t been tipped off. If he had, they’d just missed their chance.

+++

Malik Vespers drove with practiced precision, weaving in and out of Beltway traffic, slowing, then speeding. Never too fast, always in control. Cromwell sat in the passenger seat of their third vehicle, seething.

He’d received the urgent call just as he was outlining the final phase to Vespers. It was Senator Thompson who’d alerted him of the danger.

“You need to disappear for a while,” Thompson had said.

“What happened?”

“They’re passing word down from on high about a new threat. The way they’re talking, it has something to do with an insider. Are you sure no one’s been watching you?”

“You can never be one hundred percent sure, but we’ve taken the appropriate precautions,” Cromwell answered, not convinced that he was in any real danger. He wasn’t a novice. “Why do you think this is linked to me?”

“Let’s just say the words NIH and biological weapons were thrown around. I had to pull some teeth just to get that much.”

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Okay. I’ll take off for a while. You know how to find me.”

They’d left the office through the underground garage, in a vehicle normally used by interns. Small, nondescript, and thankfully with tinted windows, the GM knock-off made the perfect first getaway vehicle. If anyone was watching, they’d be looking for his personal car, or possibly the pickup truck Vespers drove.

He thought as Vespers drove. There was only one person who’d have to the nerve to out him: Hunter Price. But how had Price gotten the word out? It didn’t matter. What mattered was protecting his project at all costs. Cromwell was more than willing to give his life as long as he could deploy his weapon first.

If only Merrifield could speed up the process. Luckily no one knew about the facility or what was going on inside. He and Dr. Merrifield were the only ones who knew how to make sense of the data being mined by the teams at the Fredericksburg facility.

Vespers was just getting off at the Seven Corners exit when Cromwell’s phone dinged. A text.

Cromwell read the message and smiled. He’d just gotten his answer.

+++

“Pack everyone up. We need to get down to Fredericksburg as quick as we can,” said Cal over the operational radio.

“We’ve got the pilots warming the birds up, Mr. Stokes,” said the FBI agent assigned to lead the Bureau’s contingent. The man had been told to give Cal and his men anything they needed.

“Good.” Cal hoped Cromwell hadn’t gotten too far ahead of them. If they lost Merrifield, the president was going to lock down the whole east coast. He hoped for a little bit of luck.

+++

Dr. Merrifield hurried through his office, packing the few items he thought he’d need. Cromwell’s message had been clear: GET OUT NOW.

Merrifield knew what that meant. Someone had found out about his research. Just like Cromwell, this project had become more than a job for the French-born scientist. Sometimes he lay awake at night dreaming of his drug’s spindly tendrils reaching out into the world, repaying the people who’d not only attacked his new home, but had also infiltrated his native country to an alarming degree.