The Devil's Pitchfork (19 page)

There were a dozen representatives from various emergency response units, the director of FEMA and a handful of civilians he suspected were from the National Science Counsel. He wasn’t wild about that. In his years in the military he’d hated dealing with scientists. Ask five scientists the same question, you were likely to get five different answers. He remembered during the Gulf War asking his scientific advisors what the most dangerous biological or chemical agent Iraq might use on the Coalition troops.

One had said anthrax.

Another confidently claimed botulin toxin.

Yet another said VX gas.

The fourth asserted smallpox.

Exasperated, Johnston had turned to Derek Stillwater, who, at that time a captain, had not offered an opinion.

“Well, Captain?”

Derek had said, “Whichever one they use, General. The one they use, that’s the most dangerous one to the Coalition troops.”

Johnston had decided on the spot that this Captain was worth keeping around.

In the White House conference room, Johnston glanced at his watch and wondered how things were going for Stillwater. He also wondered why he hadn’t heard from Sam Dalton, his Deputy Director.

After Stillwater’s last contact and the information regarding Richard Coffee, Dalton had made a few calls to the CIA and the Pentagon to try and shake loose a few more hard facts. None had been immediately forthcoming, so Johnston, exasperated, had suggested Dalton head over to the Pentagon or to Langley and do the shaking in person. “Put the full weight of the White House behind it, goddammit.”

He hadn’t heard from Dalton since. Or Stillwater.

The door opened and everyone in the room rose to their feet as the President of the United States entered, followed by the National Security Adviser, the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA. This was, thought Johnston, as top level a meeting as you could get. Except, he added with a frown, the director of the Department of Homeland Security had not been included in this tet-a-tet. His and the President’s meeting had been face-to-face an hour ago and it had been as frank and politics-free as it was possible to get. He hoped the President listened to him. If he did, he thought, it would be a first time. He had told the President that he shouldn’t wait for this bug to get lose, that he should act as if it already was. Don’t worry about a panic, he had counseled. Act as if there’s a possibility that a lethal virus with a twelve-hour incubation period has been let loose on the American public. Then act accordingly.

Johnston did not think President Langston would listen. His appointment to the post of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security had been a political maneuver to appease members of the Republican Party who feared that Langston’s emphasis on the economy and on downsizing the military made him look weak. They had encouraged Langston to place an experienced military man in the domestic position to give the appearance of a strong stance on thwarting domestic terrorism, yet relegating the outspoken General to a relatively innocuous political posting.

Even though his office was currently in the West Wing, Johnston was acutely aware that he was not in the inner circle. And furthermore, Langston did not like him personally and went out of his way to neutralize whatever clout he might have.

The President, a sandy-haired man in his late-fifties, sat. Everyone followed suit.

“A you know,” President Langston began, “our country has come under attack by a terrorist organization. I’ll let Director Boardman fill you in on the details. Fred, you have the floor.”

FBI director Frederick Boardman was a round-faced, chubby man in his early-sixties. He looked like a guy who ate chocolate chip cookies and milk before bed, doted on his grandchildren and listened to easy-listening stations on the radio. All of which were true. He was also a former attorney general with a cut-throat grasp of beltway politics who had spent much of his career locating and identifying the closeted skeletons of the nation’s elite. He also, Johnston reflected, had only a nodding acquaintance with civil liberties. Under the circumstances that might be a good thing, but only if he could let his ruthlessness win out over his political tendencies.

Johnston remembered something Derek Stillwater had said during a lecture on pandemics. “Politicians don’t understand infectious disease. From the earliest history, politicians were slow to react to epidemics. Whether it was bubonic plague in the 10
^th
or 16
^th
centuries, flu in the 1920s or HIV in the 1980s. They always, without exception, wait too long to act.”

Broadman said, “At 11:43 A.M. today, an organized assault by three vehicles containing four men each breeched the security of a Pentagon-funded biological warfare research facility, U.S. Immunological Research. A team of highly trained commandos penetrated the facility, entered a Level 4 Biohazard Containment area and stole approximately a dozen vials containing a genetically engineered virus.” The FBI Director went on with his talk, describing what almost everyone in the room already knew. After ten minutes he paused, took a sip of water and continued.

  “Our investigation so far points toward a Russian-based terrorist group known as The Fallen Angels. They are not, as far as we’ve been able to tell, usually more than illegal weapons merchants. They acquire weapons, from small arms to missiles to weapons of mass destruction, and sell them to whoever can afford them.”

“So you don’t think this group’s intention is to immediately use this ... this Chimera?” The speaker was Admiral Steven Lancaster, one of the Joint Chiefs.

Director Boardman hesitated. “We’re still developing a profile. We don’t have very much information on this group.”

“Why is that?” asked one of the blue suits Johnston assumed were science advisers.

Richard White, the Director of the CIA, spoke up. His diction was clean and careful, a reflection of his East Coast moneyed background and two years at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. Tall and angular, his thick hair had the unnatural blackness of dye. He tended to tilt his head back and peer along his long aristocratic nose through gold-rimmed glasses perched there. “Because,” he said, “they have not fallen into our sphere of activity. By and large they have been an internal Russian problem, believed to be associated with the Chechen rebels.”

General Johnston stared at Richard White, wondering whether the CIA had ever heard of The Fallen Angels.
He
hadn’t. He was supposedly privy to all intelligence relating to homeland security, though the CIA, NSA, DIA and the other dozen intelligence-gathering agencies had a tendency to define that in varying ways. It was possible that, because The Fallen Angels were, in fact, an internal Russian problem, the CIA hadn’t seen any reason to provide anything about them to Homeland Security. Or, equally possible, the CIA had once again been caught with their pants down around their ankles, butt firmly planted on the potty while the world’s bad guys came knocking at their door.

White and Boardman batted information back and forth for a while, before President Langston asked Colonel Zataki what USAMRIID was doing about Chimera.

In his soft voice, Zataki said, “There were earlier versions of Chimera, some of them non-lethal, that we’re testing on monkeys to see if they can be used as vaccines. We should know by morning if any of them are effective that way. If they are, we’ve put in place ways to manufacture it in massive quantities for emergency use, should Chimera be let loose on the public.”

“And if they aren’t?” asked President Langston.

Colonel Zataki said, “The CDC has been alerted to be on the lookout for any signs of the illness. They are on a full alert. I also suggest that the national guard and the military be put on full alert. Hospital emergency rooms are already being informed. Any patients coming in with the symptoms of Chimera will need to be placed in isolation immediately and concentric rings of isolation created around the subject. I’m sure that Fred Richards can fill you in more.”

Voices started to babble, raised in a chorus of responses to these emergency actions. President Langston cleared his throat and the hubbub subsided. “Colonel Zataki, thank you. Do you and Dr. Richards feel that this Chimera presents a clear and present danger to the American public? Should we, in fact, treat this as a national healthcare crisis?”

“Mr. President,” Colonel Zataki said. “We should treat this as the start of Armageddon.”

There was a rise in the volume of background conversation, broken by the National Security Advisor, who snapped, “Colonel Zataki, this is not a forum in which melodrama is appreciated.”

Colonel Zataki eyed Taylor James calmly. “Ms. James, no melodrama was intended.”

“I agree with Colonel Zataki,” said Dr. Richards, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“So do I,” Secretary Johnston said. “You need to take this seriously.”

“Seriously?” said Taylor. “You’re talking Armageddon. How seriously can we take it when you insist on referring to it as if it were a movie? We don’t want overstatement or melodrama. We want scientific fact. We want--”

“We’re talking a bioengineered virus,” Zataki interrupted in his cool voice, “with an apparent one hundred percent fatality rate within twelve hours. It is one hundred percent infectious, as far as we know, can be communicated via air, touch or in food or liquids. Imagine, if you will, that one person is infected with Chimera. If that person has minimal contact with people, he or she will probably infect twenty or thirty people in one day. Also, if the subject coughs or spits or bleeds onto a surface, that surface will become infectious. It’s not known how long Chimera can survive outside its host. We’ll test for it, but we don’t have time. None of us has time to make assumptions, especially
conservative
assumptions, about the danger of this virus. Meanwhile, those twenty infected individuals, the second ring of infection, are infecting anywhere from twenty to hundreds of people. This isn’t smallpox with an incubation period of two weeks. This germ is fast, Ms. James. It will burn through the population like a wild fire.”

“More drama,” James said. She was a tall, elegant African-American woman with a brain like a razor. As far as Secretary Johnston was concerned, though, she was far too political an animal for this particular crisis. She said, “Mr. President—”

Taylor James broke off speaking, her eyes wide and staring. At the rear of the room, one of the people sitting there snapped his head back against the wall with a bang. A young, clean-cut man in a three-piece suit, possibly a senator’s aide or somebody from HHS, started to convulse, a foam of saliva pouring from his mouth as he arched his back and fell from the chair. Suddenly the people on both sides of the man began to twitch, drooling, convulsing, vomiting.

Secretary Johnston reacted instantly, leaping across the table, grabbing the President’s arm and hauling him from his chair. “Evacuate!” he bellowed, rushing for the door. “Evacuate!”

Colonel Zataki was right behind him, reaching for the Director of the FBI, who had started to convulse. Zataki, a small man, but strong, hefted him over his shoulder and ran through the now-open door.

With horror they saw that the hallway outside the conference room was littered with bodies.

“Outside,” gasped Johnston. “Outside.”

They raced through the hallways heading for any room with a window, an exit, anything. There were dozens of bodies in the hallways, convulsing.

Johnston felt the President lag and snarled, “Keep moving, goddammit!”

Zataki was struggling, his lungs burning, feeling the effects. He panted out, “Atropine injectors! We need—”

Johnston rushed down a flight of steps, dragging the President, and slammed shoulder-first into a fire exit and out onto the south lawn. The President fell to the ground, gasping. Johnston turned, saw Zataki stumble to his knees, dropping the Director of t he FBI. Zataki, struggling for air, pressed his fingers against the man’s neck, shaking his head.

“Dammit! VX gas! Somehow the White House was attacked with VX gas!”

25

FBI Headquarters

A
ARON
P
ILCHER PASSED THROUGH
security into SIOC, the Strategic Information Operation Center on the fifth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. There was a constant flow of agents and support staff in and out of the wedge-shaped room. There were a dozen huge screens connected to computers on the walls, dozens of agents working computers and telephones. The Bureau, Pilcher thought, was doing what it did best: marshaling information.

Agent Spigotta, his jaw muscles bunched like he had walnuts tucked in his cheeks, was glaring at one of the huge VDTs on the wall. “How many total?” he growled.

Two agents, one at a computer terminal that controlled the VDT, started counting the figures on the screen.

Pilcher stepped up. Spigotta glanced over and nodded brusquely. “You look like shit, but I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Glad to be alive.” He gestured at the screen. “The parking garage?”

“Three vans, four each,” said the agent doing the counting. She was a willowy redhead with pale blue eyes.

“I want them isolated and start working on IDs,” Spigotta growled.

Pilcher held up the stack of file folders retrieved from the D.C. apartment. “Hang on. I’ve got faces. Let’s see if we can tie them together now.”

Spigotta’s head snapped around. “What’ve you got?”

Pilcher opened the file and held up the clearest photograph of Richard Coffee. “Quite possibly the leader. Ray?”

The agent at the keyboard took a close look at the photograph and started isolating images on the screen. He was a heavyset bald man with a fringe of gray hair and wire-rimmed bifocals. His pudgy fingers flashed on the computer keys.

“There.” The redhead pointed.

“Enhance,” Spigotta barked.

The image dissolved, resolved, closed in, dissolved and resolved again. The four FBI agents stared. “Bingo,” Pilcher said. “Meet The Fallen Angel, formerly known as Richard Coffee, a U.S. citizen, former Special Forces—”