The Devil's Pitchfork (12 page)

Far off, muffled, he heard sirens. Good.

He crawled out from under the Jeep and surveyed the garage. The lights had been blown out by the explosions, but the scene was lit by the flaming vehicles and dozens of smaller fires caused by the incendiary debris. Squinting through the acrid, billowing smoke, he picked his way toward the vans.

He stepped on something, nearly twisting his ankle as he caught his balance. Glancing down he saw with horror that he had stepped on the severed torso of one of the ERTs. Vomit rose up in his throat, but he clamped down on his emotions. This was not the time to lose his cool.

He knelt next to the remains and peered at it. Not enough light. Fishing in his pocket, he came up with his key chain and a small flashlight attached to the ring. Pushing his thumb down on the switch, a narrow beam of yellow light cascaded over the body. The tag on the tattered coveralls said RODRIGUEZ, T.
Oh God.
Pilcher hung his head, eyes stinging from emotion and smoke.
Oh Tres
, he thought.
How am I going to face your family? Oh dear God!

Using the flash to illuminate his route, he stepped over and around dismembered limbs and scraps of scorched meat, the stink of the burning vans and flesh driving deep into his sinuses. It was like standing at the gates of hell. Finally, he was as close as he could get, heat roaring off the burning vehicles. He circled the perimeter, searching for survivors. He didn’t find any.

He turned back to see an ambulance race through the entrance to the second level. Within moments airport security guards and fire crews were swarming the site. He sifted through the growing throng, looking for a familiar face, trying to identify the guy who would take over the scene.

He saw a smooth-faced man in fire gear shouting into a radio. The fireman had clean, angular features, a strong cleft jaw and dark snapping eyes. He was good looking enough to be the poster boy for firefighters or a male model. Pilcher thought he looked too young to be in charge of airport fire control, but he was clearly the one in charge here.

Holding his ID badge in front of him, Pilcher approached, coughing into his hand. The fireman turned when he saw Pilcher and quickly waved over an EMT, who came at a dead run.

“Take care of this man.”

“I’m FBI,” Pilcher shouted. His voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance, his ears affected by the blasts. The fireman’s voice sounded like a whisper. Pilcher coughed again and spat black phlegm onto the ground.

“Sir—”

”I’ll brief you,” Pilcher shouted. “This is a national security issue.”

The fireman waved him to follow. Pilcher leaned against a fire truck. He forced himself to be calm, to tell the man what had happened in a logical, chronological order. As he talked, a crew of firefighters began to spray foam on the vans. He stared, not speaking, thinking,
We’ll never get useful evidence off those things
.

The next time Pilcher checked his watch, he realized it was dead, the crystal a spider web of cracks. He must have hit it on the ground when he fell.

The EMT insisted he sit for a few minutes, gave him a water bottle to drink from and a canister of oxygen. The EMT daubed gingerly at Pilcher’s face with a damp rag. “How close were you, sir? You’re burned. Looks like a sunburn. Not too bad. If it gets worse or you start to feel a lot of pain, get to a doctor. Don’t want an infection.”

No, Pilcher thought. Wouldn’t want an infection.

“And your eyebrows are singed.”

“I’m alive.” Pilcher greedily sucked on the oxygen, thinking that he wanted to go home and turn this mess over to someone else. But he knew he couldn’t. He felt a responsibility to the original investigation, tracking down the people who stole the virus. And now these monsters had murdered his friend and a whole team of FBI agents. Not it was personal. He thanked the EMT for his care, kept the water and asked him for his watch.

“What?”

“I need a watch. Mine’s busted. How much for yours?”

The EMT had curly black hair and a thick black mustache. He was built like a marathoner, thin and lanky. Pilcher put him in his early twenties. The guy didn’t understand what he wanted.

Pilcher held up his badge. “FBI. I’m commandeering your wrist watch. Give it to me.”

Slowly the EMT figured out what Pilcher was getting at. He unhooked his cheap Swatch sports watch from his wrist and handed it over.

Pilcher strapped it on. He handed the kid his card. “Call me when this is over. I’ll get it back to you with a check for a hundred bucks. Thanks.”

He strode past the ambulance, looking for his people--those who survived.

He found three of his agents near the stairwell. They seemed surprised to see him.

“What happened?” Agent Sara Magnusson asked. Red hair, blocky build, dark suit. Pilcher had worked with her before. She was like a moray eel—once she clamped on she wouldn’t let go of a case.

“Booby trapped. I’m betting explosives with a mercury switch. When the van was tilted enough, it set it off. The explosion set off the other two. Anybody done a head count?”

Magnusson nodded. “Four ERTs, three truck drivers and two agents. Three airport security guys. We thought you were dead.”

Twelve, Pilcher thought. Plus the four at the Scully’s house and twenty-eight at U.S. Immuno. A total, so far, of forty-four. If that didn’t indicate these terrorists’ intentions, nothing did.

“Media here?”

John Yenor nodded. Middle-aged and chunky, Yenor was slow and steady. He was a veteran agent with no apparent ambitions beyond being a good field agent. “We decided they have to wait. We needed to know what the situation up here was.”

“You’re the agent-in-charge,” said the third agent, Benjamin Sanchez. Aggressively handsome, dark and Latina, Sanchez was a Harvard Law School grad. He clearly
did
have ambitions beyond being a field agent.

Pilcher took a deep breath, but started to cough when he did. When he got it under control, he pointed at Magnusson. “What’s that?” She was clutching an evidence bag under one arm.

“Oh. Security tapes. We got ‘em.”

They all stared at her. Pilcher was the first to find his voice. “What? Explain.”

Magnusson couldn’t contain her grin. “Parking garage security tapes. I was watching the one from this level when the vans blew up. I made sure I collected them before I ran up here.”

Pilcher nodded. “Good. What’ve we got?”

She seemed to nearly vibrate from excitement. “I watched the three vans come in and what looked like twelve men get out. They didn’t head for the stairs or the elevators. I think they were going to different vehicles already parked here.”

“That was on the tape?” Sanchez asked, dark eyebrows raised.

“Not this one. But I’ve got all of them. We can even see faces.”

Pilcher nodded, also excited. “Okay.” He took another deep breath and was again wracked with harsh coughing. He hawked up phlegm and spat. Gray now, not black. He guessed that was an improvement. “Sorry. Magnusson, get those tapes to SIOC. I’ll call Spigotta and tell him you’re coming. He’ll have a lab guy waiting. Good job.”

She just stood there. “Go,” he snapped. She nodded and took off at a run.

“Sanchez, call Newman. He’s coordinating the media. You’ll handle the press here.”

Sanchez clearly liked his assignment. His lean face split into a wide grin. “Yes sir.”

“Go.”

Sanchez went, phone already pressed to his ear.

Pilcher turned to John Yenor. “Get on the phone and get an ERT team out here to get the vans. Get people picking up the security and road cameras in a five-mile radius of this airport. We need to figure what direction these bastards headed. Also, call ATF, I want this parking garage swept for more bombs.”

“Yes sir.” Yenor didn’t need more prompting. He headed off toward the stairs, punching numbers on his phone.

Pilcher leaned against the doorway to the elevators, heart pile-driving in his chest. A wave of nausea swept over him and again he bit it back. No time. Turning, he strode over to where he could get a clean signal and, leaning over the concrete wall looking out at the city lights, he called Spigotta at SIOC.

“I’m glad you called. I’ve got—”

Pilcher interrupted and described the situation. He waited patiently through the senior agent’s cursing. When he wound down, Spigotta said, “It’s a diversion.”

“Yes,” Pilcher agreed. “I think so, too. We may gets leads off it, though. Magnusson’s on her way with the tapes.”

“I’ll have the lab on standby.”

Pilcher filled in Spigotta on his other actions.

“Good,” Spigotta said. “Good. Very good, Aaron. Okay. I’ve got something I need you to do. Turn over the reins to ... Sanchez is busy with the press?”

“Yes.”

“Yenor then. I need you to track down Frank Halloran. We’ve got some questions for him that came up during the background checks. If he’s not at U.S. Immuno, track him down ASAP.”

“I’m in Frederick. There should be agents closer to Baltimore.”

“I’ve got a feeling about this, Aaron. I want
you
to talk to him. You up to it?”

That was the question of the day. Pilcher thought of his friend Tres Rodriguez, blown to pieces. “Yes sir.”

Spigotta told Pilcher what had come up on the background checks. Pilcher nodded and clicked off. With a deep breath of night air that didn’t make him cough, he went looking for Agent Yenor.

15

USAMRIID

L
IZ
V
ARGAS FELT ENERGIZED.
She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the helicopter ride, something she’d never done before. Maybe it was simply relief at being alive, at having survived a massacre. Maybe it was the light supper and an hour lying on a cot, dozing. Whatever the reason, she felt up to whatever happened and just wanted to get on with things.

She tapped her fingers on Sharon Jaxon’s desk, a cluttered, gray-steel government issue in a cramped, windowless office at the United States Army Military Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID. Jaxon smiled at her. She was on the phone with some guy, a boyfriend. Liz had offered to leave, give her some privacy, but Sharon waved her off, saying she just wanted to tell him they had a “situation” and she wouldn’t be over tonight.

Liz’s impatient gaze took in the office. Some of the clutter was paperwork, but a lot of it was memorabilia from parts of the world where Lieutenant Sharon Jaxon had been stationed: Asian dolls from Korea and Japan; odd bits of sculptured rock from Kosovo shaped like men with packs on their backs; aerial photographs of the Panama Canal.

“Okay. Sure. If the timing’s right, I’ll swing by for breakfast. Yeah, that too.” Jaxon laughed. “Naughty, naughty. Don’t count on it, though. I expect to be here a couple days. Yeah. Love you, too.”

She hung up, her face flushing a little pink with embarrassment. “Guys,” she said.

Liz smiled, but it was a little strained. “Good friend?”

Sharon nodded. “I’m thinking of moving in. Barring disaster, I’ll be here at Rid for the rest of my career. Dave’s a good guy. He’s a freelance copywriter, pulls in three times what I do working out of his back bedroom. Marketing materials mostly. Some ad copy. Not a scientist or in the Army, thank God. You have someone?”

Liz shook her head quickly. “No.”

Sharon reached out and touched her hand. “Hey, it’s all right. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. I’m sorry.”

Liz sighed, some of her energy seeping away. “It’s just been a bad day. I was married for three years. Mitch was an oncologist at Hopkins. He died in a motorcycle accident two years ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Liz shrugged. “Thanks. The only reason I’m being bothered by it is because of ... you know. Surviving a terrorist attack.” Tears well up in her eyes, but she wiped them away. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of all of the dead. So many of her friends, colleagues, people she talked to daily, ate lunch with. All gone.

Sharon turned serious. “If you’re not up to this, no one will think less of you.”

“If that’s possible,” Liz said bitterly. “You’re the only one who trusts me.”

Sharon leaned back in her chair, which let out a high-pitched creak. “That’s because Derek trusted you. If he went into a hot zone with you, that’s good enough for me.”

“Jeez, that guy. I didn’t know what to make of him. He got all freaked out before going into HL-4, even ... even barfed, but he told me it was just stage fright. I mean, all those good luck charms!”

Sharon smiled tightly and steepled her fingers. “How was he inside?”

“No problem. Better than me. He knew just what to do and the only time he acted even mildly rattled was when he found that playing card.”

Sharon nodded. “Let me tell you a little bit about Derek Stillwater. When it comes to hot zones—in the lab or the field—Derek is the most realistic person I’ve ever met. He knows in a way most of us don’t that one mistake can mean his death. He knows it.” Something troubling crossed her face, a combination of worry and stress. Sharon paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Derek can probably take care of himself. We have something else to worry about. Just ... you can trust Derek. In a pinch, you can trust him.”

There was something in Sharon Jaxon’s voice when she talked about Derek Stillwater that suggested they had been more than friends, but she didn’t pursue it.

“What’s taking so long?” she asked.

Sharon smiled. “Ben’s very cautious. Consider what he’s doing. You would be, right?”

Ben Zataki had taken the cultures of Chimera M13 and the cultures of Chimera M1, M2, M3 and M4 into the Level 4 suite and was inoculating them into cultures, preparing them to be injected into a batch of monkeys. He decided to do the preparations himself, then would organize the teams when dealing with the monkeys.

“Well, yes. But why didn’t he want my help?”

“You looked like you needed the rest.”

Liz sighed. Despite her second wind, her body ached and she knew exhaustion, both physical and emotional, was just around the corner. There was a knock at Jaxon’s door. “Come in.”