The Hades Factor

Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

PROLOGUE

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7:14 P.M., Friday, October 10

Boston, Massachusetts

Mario Dublin stumbled along the busy downtown street, a dollar bill clutched in his shaking hand. With the intense purpose of a man who knew exactly where he was going, the homeless derelict swayed as he walked and slapped at his head with the hand that was not clutching the dollar. He reeled inside a cut-rate drugstore with discount signs plastered across both front windows.

Trembling, he shoved the dollar across the counter to the clerk. “Advil. Aspirin kills my stomach. I need Advil.”

The clerk curled his lip at the unshaved man in the ragged remnants of an army uniform. Still, business was business. He reached back to a shelf of analgesics and held out the smallest box of Advil. “You'd better have three more dollars to go with that one.”

Dublin dropped the single bill onto the counter and reached for the box.

The clerk pulled it back. “You heard me, buddy. Three more bucks. No ticky, no shirty.”

“On'y got a dollar ... my head's breakin' open.” With amazing speed, Dublin lurched across the counter and grabbed the small box.

The clerk tried to pull it back, but Dublin hung on. They struggled, knocking over a jar of candy bars and crashing a display of vitamins to the floor.

“Let it go, Eddie!” the pharmacist shouted from the rear. He reached for the telephone. “Let him have it!”

As the pharmacist dialed, the clerk let go.

Frantic, Dublin tore at the sealed cardboard, fumbled with the safety cap, and dumped the tablets into his hand. Some flew across the floor. He shoved the tablets into his mouth, choked as he tried to swallow all at once, and slumped to the floor, weak from pain. He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and sobbed.

Moments later a patrol car pulled up outside the shop. The pharmacist waved the policemen to come inside. He pointed to Mario Dublin curled up on the floor and shouted, “Get that stinking bum out of here! Look what he did to my place. I intend to press charges of assault and robbery!”

The policemen pulled out their nightsticks. They noted the minor damage and the strewn pills, but they smelled alcohol, too.

The younger one heaved Dublin up to his feet. “Okay, Mario, let's take a ride.”

The second patrolman took Dublin's other arm. They walked the unresisting drunk out to their patrol car. But as the second officer opened the door, the younger one pushed down on Dublin's head to guide him inside.

Dublin screamed and lashed out, twisting away from the hand on his throbbing head.

“Grab him, Manny!” the younger cop yelled.

Manny tried to grip Dublin, but the drunk wrenched free. The younger cop tackled him. The older one swung his nightstick and knocked Dublin down. Dublin screamed. His body shook, and he rolled on the pavement.

The two policemen blanched and stared at each other.

Manny protested, “I didn't hit him that hard.”

The younger bent to help Dublin up. “Jesus. He's burning up!”

“Get him in the car!”

They picked up the gasping Dublin and dumped him onto the car's rear seat. Manny raced the squad car, its siren wailing, through the night streets. As soon as he screeched to a stop at the emergency room, Manny flung open his door and tore inside the hospital, shouting for help.

The other officer sprinted around the car to open Dublin's door.

When the doctors and nurses arrived with a gurney, the younger cop seemed paralyzed, staring into the car's rear, where Mario Dublin lay unconscious in blood that had pooled on the seat and spilled onto the floor.

The doctor inhaled sharply. Then he climbed inside, felt for a pulse, listened to the man's chest, and backed outside, shaking his head.

“He's dead.”

“No way!” The older cop's voice rose. “We barely touched the son of a bitch! They ain't gonna lay this one on us.”

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Because the police were involved, only four hours later the medical examiner prepared for the autopsy of the late Mario Dublin, address unknown, in the morgue on the basement level of the hospital.

The double doors of the suite flung wide. “Walter! Don't open him!”

Dr. Walter Pecjic looked up. “What's wrong, Andy?”

“Maybe nothing,” Dr. Andrew Wilks said nervously, “but all that blood in the patrol car scares the hell out of me. Acute respiratory distress syndrome shouldn't lead to blood from the mouth. I've only seen that kind of blood from a hemorrhagic fever I helped treat when I was in the Peace Corps in Africa. This guy was carrying a Disabled American Vets card. Maybe he was stationed in Somalia or somewhere else in Africa.”

Dr. Pecjic stared down at the dead man he was about to cut open.

Then he returned the scalpel to the tray. “Maybe we'd better call the director.”

“And call Infectious Diseases, too,” Dr. Wilks said.

Dr. Pecjic nodded, the fear naked in his eyes.

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7:55 P.M.

Atlanta, Georgia

Packed inside the high-school auditorium, the audience of parents and friends was hushed. Up on the bright stage, a beautiful teenage girl stood in front of scenery intended to depict the restaurant in William Inge's Bus Stop. Her movements were awkward, and her words, ordinarily free and open, were stiff.

None of that bothered the stout, motherly woman in the first row. She wore a silver-gray dress of the kind the bride's mother at a formal wedding would choose, topped by a celebratory corsage of roses. She beamed up at the girl, and when the scene ended to polite applause, her clapping rang resoundingly.

At the final curtain, she leaped to her feet to applaud. She went around to the stage door to wait as the cast emerged in twos and threes to meet parents, boyfriends, and girlfriends. This was the last performance of the annual school play, and they were flushed with triumph, eager for the cast party that would last long into the night.

“I wish your father could've been here to see you tonight, Billie Jo,” the proud mother said as the high-school beauty climbed into the car.

“So do I, Mom. Let's go home.”

“Home?” The motherly woman was confused.

“I just need to lie down for a while. Then I'll change for the party, okay?”

“You sound bad.” Her mother studied her, then turned the car into traffic. Billie Jo had been snuffling and coughing for more than a week but had insisted on performing anyway.

“It's just a cold, Mother,” the girl said irritably.

By the time they reached the house, she was rubbing her eyes and groaning. Two red fever spots showed on her cheeks. Frantic, her terrified mother unlocked the front door and raced inside to dial 911. The police told her to leave the girl in the car and keep her warm and quiet. The paramedics arrived in three minutes.

In the ambulance, as the siren screamed through the Atlanta streets, the girl moaned and writhed on the gurney, struggling for breath. The mother wiped her daughter's fevered face and broke into despairing tears.

At the hospital emergency room, a nurse held the mother's hand. “We'll do everything necessary, Mrs. Pickett. I'm sure she'll be better soon.”

Two hours later, blood gushed from Billie Jo Pickett's mouth, and she died.

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5:12 P.M.

Fort Irwin, Barstow, California

The California high desert in early October was as uncertain and changeable as the orders of a new second lieutenant with his first platoon. This particular day had been clear and sunny, and by the time Phyllis Anderson began preparing dinner in the kitchen of her pleasant two-story house in the best section of the National Training Center's family housing, she was feeling optimistic. It had been a hot day and her husband, Keith, had taken a good nap. He had been fighting a heavy cold for two weeks, and she hoped the sun and warmth would clear it up once and for all.

Outside the kitchen windows, the lawn sprinklers were at work in the afternoon's long shadows. Her flower beds bloomed with late summer flowers that defied the harsh wilderness of thorny gray-green mesquite, yucca, creosote, and cacti growing among the black rocks of the beige desert.

Phyllis hummed to herself as she put macaroni into the microwave. She listened for the footsteps of her husband coming down the stairs. The major had night operations tonight. But the stumbling clatter sounded more like Keith Jr., sliding and bumping his way down, excited about the movie she planned to take both children to while their father was working. After all, it was Friday night.

She shouted, “Jay-Jay, stop that!”

But it was not Keith Jr. Her husband, partially dressed in desert camouflage, staggered into the warm kitchen. He was dripping with sweat, and his hands squeezed his head as if to keep it from exploding.

He gasped, “... hospital ... help ...”

In front of her horrified eyes, the major collapsed on the kitchen floor, his chest heaving as he strained to breathe.

Shocked, Phyllis stared, then she moved with the speed and purpose of a soldier's wife. She tore out of the kitchen. Without knocking, she yanked open the side door of the house next to theirs and burst into the kitchen.

Capt. Paul Novak and his wife, Judy, gaped.

“Phyllis?” Novak stood up. “What's wrong, Phyllis?”

The major's wife did not waste a word. “Paul, I need you. Judy, come watch the kids. Hurry!”

She whirled and ran. Captain Novak and his wife were right behind. When called to action, a soldier learns to ask no questions. In the kitchen of the Anderson house, the Novaks took in the scene instantly.

“Nine-one-one?” Judy Novak reached for the telephone.

“No time!” Novak cried.

“Our car!” Phyllis shouted.

Judy Novak ran up the stairs to where the two children were in their bedrooms getting ready to enjoy an evening out. Phyllis Anderson and Novak picked up the gasping major. Blood trickled from his nose. He was semiconscious, moaning, unable to speak. Carrying him, they rushed across the lawn to the parked car.

Novak took the wheel, and Phyllis climbed into the rear beside her husband. Fighting back sobs, she cradled the major's head on her shoulder and held him close. His eyes stared up at her in agony as he fought for air. Novak sped through the base, blasting the car's horn. Traffic parted like an infantry company with the tanks coming through. But by the time they reached the Weed Army Community Hospital, Maj. Keith Anderson was unconscious.

Three hours later he was dead.

In the case of sudden, unexplained death in the State of California, an autopsy was mandated. Because of the unusual circumstances of the death, the major was rushed to the morgue. But as soon as the army pathologist opened the chest cavity, massive quantities of blood erupted, spraying him.

His face turned chalk white. He jumped to his feet, snapped off his rubber gloves, and ran out of the autopsy chamber to his office.

He grabbed the phone. “Get me the Pentagon and USAMRIID. Now! Priority!”

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Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

PART ONE

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Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

CHAPTER ONE

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2:55 P.m., Sunday, October 12

London, England

A cold October rain slanted down on Knightsbridge where Brompton Road intersected Sloan Street. The steady stream of honking cars, taxis, and red double-decker buses turned south and made their halting way toward Sloan Square and Chelsea. Neither the rain nor the fact that business and government offices were  closed for the weekend lessened the crush. The world economy was good, the shops were full, and New Labor was rocking no one's boat. Now the tourists came to London at all times of the year, and the traffic this Sunday afternoon continued to move at a snail's pace.

Impatient, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jonathan (“Jon”) Smith, M.D., stepped lightly from the slow-moving, old-style No. 19 bus two streets before his destination. The rain was letting up at last. He trotted a few quick steps beside the bus on the wet pavement and then hurried onward, leaving the bus behind.

A tall, trim, athletic man in his early forties, Smith had dark hair worn smoothly back and a high-planed face. His navy blue eyes automatically surveyed vehicles and pedestrians. There was nothing unusual about him as he strode along in his tweed jacket, cotton trousers, and trench coat. Still, women turned to look, and he occasionally noticed and smiled, but continued on his way.

He left the drizzle at Wilbraham Place and entered the foyer of the genteel Wilbraham Hotel, where he took a room every time USAMRIID sent him to a medical conference in London. Inside the old hostelry, he climbed the stairs two at a time to his second-floor room. There he rummaged through his suitcases, searching for the field reports of an outbreak of high fever among U.S. troops stationed in Manila. He had promised to show them to Dr. Chandra Uttam of the viral diseases branch of the World Health Organization.

Finally he found the reports under a pile of dirty clothes tossed into the larger suitcase. He sighed and grinned at himself--- he had never lost the messy habits acquired from his years in the field living in tents, focusing on one crisis or another.

As he rushed downstairs to return to the WHO epidemiology conference, the desk clerk called out to him.

“Colonel? There's a letter for you. It's marked `Urgent.' ”

“A letter?” Who would mail him here? He looked at his wristwatch, which told him not only the hour but reminded him of the day. “On a Sunday?”

“It came by hand.”

Suddenly worried, Smith took the envelope and ripped it open. It was a single sheet of white printer paper, no letterhead or return address.

Smithy,

      Meet me Rock Creek park, Pierce Mill picnic grounds, midnight Monday. Urgent. Tell no one.

B

Smith's chest contracted. There was only one person who called him Smithy--- Bill Griffin. He had met Bill in third grade at Hoover elementary school in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Fast friends from then on, they had gone to high school together, college at the University of Iowa, and on to grad school at UCLA. Only after Smith had gotten his M.D. and Bill his Ph.D. in psychology had they taken different paths. Both had fulfilled boyhood dreams by joining the military, with Bill going into military intelligence work. They had not actually seen each other in more than a decade, but through all their distant assignments and postings, they had kept in touch.

Frowning, Smith stood motionless in the stately lobby and stared down at the cryptic words.

“Anything wrong, sir?” the desk clerk inquired politely.

Smith looked around. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Well, better be on my way if I want to catch the next seminar.”

He stuffed the note into his trench-coat pocket and strode out into the soggy afternoon. How had Bill known he was in London? At this particular secluded hotel? And why all the cloak-and-dagger, even to the extent of using Bill's private boyhood name for him?

No return address or phone number.

Only an initial to identify the sender.

Why midnight?

Smith liked to think of himself as a simple man, but he knew the truth was far from that. His career showed the reality. He had been a military doctor in MASH units and was now a research scientist. For a short time he had also worked for military intelligence. And then there was the stint commanding troops. He wore his restlessness like another man wore his skin--- so much a part of him he hardly noticed.

Yet in the past year he had discovered a happiness that had given him focus, a concentration he had never before achieved. Not only did he find his work at USAMRIID challenging and exciting, the confirmed bachelor was in love. Really in love. No more of that high-school stuff of women coming and going through his life in a revolving door of drama. Sophia Russell was everything to him--- fellow scientist, research partner, and blond beauty.

There were moments when he would take his eyes from his electron microscope just to stare at her. How all that fragile loveliness could conceal so much intelligence and steely will constantly intrigued him. Just thinking about her made him miss her all over again. He was scheduled to fly out of Heathrow tomorrow morning, which would give him just enough time to drive home to Maryland and meet Sophia for breakfast before they had to go into the lab.

But now he had this disturbing message from Bill Griffin.

All his internal alarms were ringing. At the same time, it was an opportunity. He smiled wryly at himself. Apparently his restlessness still was not tamed.

As he hailed a taxi, he made plans.

He would change his flight tickets to Monday night and meet Bill Griffin at midnight. He and Bill went too far back for him to do otherwise. This meant he would not get into work until Tuesday, a day late. Which would make Kielburger, the general who directed USAMRIID, see red. To put it mildly, the general found Smith and his freewheeling, field-operations way of doing things aggravating.

Not a problem. Smith would do an end run.

Early yesterday morning he had phoned Sophia just to hear her voice. But in the middle of their conversation, a call had cut in. She had been ordered to go to the lab immediately to identify some virus from California. Sophia could easily work the next sixteen or twenty-four hours nonstop and, in fact, she might be at the lab so late tonight, she would not even be up tomorrow morning, when he had been planning to share breakfast. Smith sighed, disappointed. The only good thing was she would be too busy to worry about him.

He might as well just leave a message on their answering machine at home that he would arrive a day late and she should not be concerned. She could tell General Kielburger or not, her call.

That was where the payoff came in. Instead of leaving London tomorrow morning, he would take a night flight. A few hours' difference, but a world to him: Tom Sheringham was leading the U.K. Microbiological Research Establishment team that was working on a potential vaccine against all hantaviruses. Tonight he would not only be able to attend Tom's presentation, he would twist Tom's arm to join him for a late dinner and drinks. Then he would pry out all the inside, cutting-edge details Tom was not ready to make public and wangle an invitation to visit Porton Down tomorrow before he had to catch his night flight.

Nodding to himself and almost smiling, Smith leaped over a puddle and yanked open the back door of the black-beetle taxi that had stopped in the street. He told the cabbie the address of the WHO conference.

But as he sank into the seat, his smile disappeared. He pulled out the letter from Bill Griffin and reread it, hoping to find some clue he had missed. What was most noteworthy was what was not said. The furrow between his brows deepened. He thought back over the years, trying to figure out what could have happened to make Bill suddenly contact him this way.

If Bill wanted scientific help or some kind of assistance from USAMRIID, he would go through official government channels. Bill was an FBI special agent now, and proud of it. Like any agent, he would request Smith's services from the director of USAMRIID.

On the other hand, if it were simply personal, there would have been no cloak-and-dagger. Instead, a phone message would have been waiting at the hotel with Bill's number so Smith could call back.

In the chilly cab, Smith shrugged uneasily under his trench coat. This meeting was not only unofficial, it was secret. Very secret. Which meant Bill was going behind the FBI. Behind USAMRIID. Behind all government entities... all apparently in the hopes of involving him, too, in something clandestine.

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