Biowar db 2, p.25
Biowar db-2, page 25
part #2 of Deep Black Series
“Did Kegan make this thing?” asked Dean.
“The conference call will begin in thirty minutes,” said Rubens. “Be ready.”
“We will be,” said Dean, grabbing hold of Lia’s arm.
* * *
“The bacteria is definitely man-made, and was definitely designed to resist penicillin-related drugs,” said Dr. Chaucer. “Its transmission is through bodily fluids, or at least we’re guessing it is. The cat was a host. What we don’t understand is how it gets from the skin into the bloodstream, since there didn’t appear to be bites. But it’s not as contagious as, say, a flu virus would be.”
“Does that mean it wasn’t intended as a biological weapon?” asked Dean.
“Impossible to say. Frankly, if you were trying to use an agent like this as a weapon, you wouldn’t want it to be too contagious; otherwise you’d eventually die from it yourself.”
“Unless there was an antidote,” said Dean.
“Right.”
“And there is one.”
“We don’t know that yet, Charlie,” said Rubens.
“It still very possibly was an accident,” said Lester, who was speaking via a secure connection on a military aircraft headed back to the States. “We haven’t completed the autopsy on the cat, but the most likely course would have the cat catching it from the man who had been killed at Dr. Kegan’s, then infecting the others. If the man had it and was carrying it when he arrived, that would explain the cases outside of Athens.”
“Probably the two men in New York City sheltered him,” said Segio Nakami. “If they shared drinking or eating implements, had sex, any sort of intimate contact like that.”
“Gorman didn’t sleep with the cat,” said Dean sarcastically.
No one laughed.
“The effect of the host on the organism remains to be seen,” said Chaucer. “Again, we’re making guesses here based on incomplete data.”
Dean leaned back in the chair, his legs resting on the floor. Lia had her shoes off and was running her feet up and down them, teasing him.
“Is it always fatal?” asked Dean.
“Not enough cases to tell,” replied Lester. “So far, though, the answer has been yes. Of course, in terms of a disease outbreak, we’re at a very early stage — an incredibly early stage. We’re basically there at birth. That’s unheard of.”
“Maybe we’re not,” said Rubens. “It’s possible this has struck before and hasn’t been recognized.”
The experts began talking about that possibility. For Dean, the real question was whether Kegan had invented the bacteria.
And if so, why?
Money.
No.
Why?
He wouldn’t have.
“There’s a two-week gap in Kegan’s whereabouts six months ago that we’re looking at,” said Segio. “If we can find another outbreak, we might link the two.”
“Excuse me, what did you say?” asked Dean.
“It’s possible that Dr. Kegan was working on the bacteria elsewhere,” said the Desk Three analyst. “Because while he could have used the facilities at either his school or the Hudson Valley lab, we’ve come up with nothing definitive there.”
“He may just have been very careful,” said Chaucer.
“He wouldn’t do this,” said Dean.
No one spoke for a moment.
“The other theory would be that UKD came up with it,” said Segio finally. “And that for some reason they believed Dr. Kegan could cure it. And that they need a cure. The man in his house must have been their emissary. Instead of going with him, Dr. Kegan killed him.”
That didn’t fit particularly well, Dean thought. The people who had contacted him didn’t refer to the incident at all.
“We have linked the people who contacted you to UKD, Charlie,” added Rubens. “Thanks to Hercules. His actual name was Fedor Mylonas and he was a scientist and professor in Athens until a few years ago when he was involved in a pornography scandal with one of his students. Radoslaw Dlugsko contacted him roughly six weeks ago and he seems to have been doing some work for him. His area is bacteria, but the Greek military has a file on him, so he must have been familiar with weapons programs in some way.”
“Dlugsko is the arms dealer?” asked Lia, looking at Charlie.
“That’s his main claim to fame,” said Rubens. “He also runs a lucrative business selling stolen antiquities.”
“He has the bacteria?” asked Dean.
“We’re in the process of figuring that out.”
“How does Thailand come into this?” asked Dean.
“That’s where Kegan seems to have gone,” Rubens told him.
“Why?”
“Perhaps seeking a cure or an antidote. But we were hoping you might shed some light on his specific whereabouts,” said Rubens. “He’s been there before, but we haven’t found any photos or anything of that nature among his personal belongings. Did he mention any area in particular?”
“Yes,” said Dean. “Long time ago. When he was just out of school.”
“When he was just out of school?”
For the first time since Dean had met Rubens, the Desk Three director seemed surprised. Dean told him about Kegan’s stint as a WHO doctor. Apparently his resume did not list his months in Thailand along with his longer stays in Malaysia and the Philippines.
“Interesting,” said Rubens.
“What time were you talking about?” Dean asked.
“He was there eighteen months ago,” said Rubens. “For two weeks.”
“You sure? Eighteen months ago — I think he would have told me.”
“As far as ever going back to Thailand, were there other times?” asked Rubens.
Dean shook his head, looking at Lia. “Not that I know.”
“That’s where Tommy’s working on locating him?” asked Lia.
“Along those lines. He’s still in the bush with the Thai forces across the border.”
Dean glanced at her. Lia shook her head. It was clear that Rubens wasn’t giving them the whole story.
“What do we do now?” asked Dean.
“We’ve tracked Hercules’ travels over the past month and we’re reviewing intercepts related to those cities,” said Segio. “We’re still in the process of sorting everything out, but the theory that we have is that Hercules brought the bacteria with him to labs. We have two wire transactions that back this up, though we still need more details.”
“We’ll get them,” said Rubens. “In the meantime, we want to get people in place to move quickly once we have the details.”
“Makes sense,” said Dean.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Mr. Dean. If you feel up to traveling, I’d like you and Miss DeFrancesca to head south to the most problematic location.”
“Fine.”
“Where are we going?” Lia asked.
“Syria. Your plane should be waiting on the tarmac.”
59
Karr and Gidrey took turns humping Foster through the jungle, working their way across a pair of hills. While his com system still refused to work, Karr was confident that he was being tracked by the Art Room and figured that they’d eventually send a rescue team. The problem was to get to a place where a rescue would be easy.
They also had to stay alive long enough to be rescued.
The second time he took Foster over his shoulder, Karr nearly slipped with the weight. He got only about a hundred yards, then practically collapsed against the trees. Barely holding himself up, he slid Foster down. The Marine groaned.
“Wow,” said Karr. “I’m dizzy as hell.”
Gidrey said something that Karr couldn’t quite decipher. He slid down against the tree, trying to focus his thoughts. His body felt as if it had been pummeled.
“I can carry Foster but not you,” said Gidrey. “Maybe you’d better rest awhile.”
“If I rest I don’t know that I’m getting back up,” said Karr. He held out his hand; Gidrey pulled him to his feet.
“I’m no doctor, but I’d say you got a monster fever.”
“Really? I feel like horseshit.”
“You shoulda taken a flu shot, man. Flu shots keep that crap from happening.”
“Yeah, next time.” Karr exhaled as slowly as he could, trying to force his body into concentrating. The tiny hamlet he’d pointed them toward lay down the slope at about three o’clock, roughly two miles off. He thought of sending Gidrey there by himself but decided that wasn’t the best solution; the Art Room would be tracking him, not the Marine.
“All right, let’s go,” said Karr. “We got to get to that field near the village before nightfall.”
“Christ, it better not take us that long,” said Gidrey.
“At this point, if we get there this year I’ll be happy,” said Karr. He tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off.
60
Johnny Bib stared at the Escher print in Dr. Kegan’s kitchen, trying to work out the topographical solution to the visual puzzle. Two spheres seemed to exist within each other, but the mathematician knew this was just a metaphor for the formula that allowed a five-dimensional space to be conjured into a three-dimensional object.
Unless it was supposed to be a two-holed doughnut in four dimensions. In that case, it would be a clever reference to the Poincaré Conjecture.
Or was the artist simply depicting a doughnut and a sphere coexisting: a metaphor for the universe stated in its two essential shapes?
The secure sat phone rang as Johnny debated the point.
“Johnny Bibleria.”
“Yes, Johnny, I was hoping it would be you.”
Johnny sensed that Rubens was being satirical, but he wasn’t quite sure.
“Are you familiar with Escher?” Johnny asked him.
“Of course. Listen, Johnny, I need you to come back to Fort Meade and help out your team. We’ve been trying to link the man found there with UKD and we’re having a devil of a time. It was hard enough linking the Greek that met Charlie Dean with them, but this man. I need more information on the Dulugsko group—”
“Dlugsko,” said Johnny, correcting Rubens’ pronunciation. “It’s Polish.”
“Since you’re not coming up with anything further there,” said Rubens, “I’d like you to get back. I have a helicopter en route.”
“I was just examining this Escher print,” said Johnny. “I realize it’s a metaphor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Poincaré.”
Poincaré was a famous mathematician who had posed a simple — or seemingly simple — question about spheres. No one had been able to prove that his guess about the answer was right. It remained one of math’s great problems — but Rubens couldn’t imagine what its relevance was here. “What the hell are you getting at?”
“Two essential shapes, sphere and doughnut. They don’t go into each other.”
“I don’t need a lesson on topology, for christsakes.”
“Unrelated. Is that the metaphor? Yet they coexist.”
Baffled, Rubens said nothing.
“Was the man meant to poison him? But then it couldn’t have been our Polish friend, since he wanted something,” said Johnny, gazing at the print.
“I’m going to send a helicopter, Johnny. I want you back here.”
“A helicopter? I don’t want to fly.”
“You must. There is no other option.”
Johnny Bib closed his eyes. There was no arguing with Rubens when he spoke in that sort of tone..
“Okay,” said Johnny Bib. “But…”
“But what?”
“Would anyone mind if I brought the Escher print?”
“Take the whole wall if you have to. Just get down here.”
61
It took two hours to walk the two miles to the village but seemed considerably longer to Karr. The pain in his body surged and then dropped off, only to surge again. His fever likewise seemed to wax and wane, occasionally replaced by violent chills. He started shaking uncontrollably as they reached the edge of the field.
“Gotta rest,” he told Gidrey. He went to sit and sprawled on the ground.
“You okay?”
“I’m real thirsty.”
“I’ll be back,” said the Marine. “Give me your gun.”
“Uh-huh.”
Karr closed his eyes, resting his head in the thick weeds. Warmth seemed to wrap itself over his face, a blanket covering his body.
His mind drifted; he thought he heard Lia calling to him.
“Hey, princess, what the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for you, asshole.”
“That’s sweet.”
“You’re dying, Tommy Karr.”
“Screw that,” said Karr, the wave of heat once more rushing up from his chest. “Just taking a nap.”
62
“They’re in a small village about seventy kilometers from the border,” said Sandy Chafetz. “One group of guerrillas seems to be following their trail, but it’s not clear.”
Rubens pressed his arms together in front of his chest. “Let’s get them out of there,” said Rubens.
Chafetz looked up at Telach, who was leaning against the runner’s consoles. The Art Room supervisor looked spent, as tired as Rubens had ever seen her.
“I’m working on it, chief,” said Telach. “The Army has all the resources over in the other end of the country.”
“What other resources are available?” asked Rubens, knowing the inevitable answer.
“CIA has some contract people. But I have to talk to Deputy Director Collins.”
The one thing that Rubens hated more than having to draw on CIA assets was having to go through Collins to get them. Collins, who headed the Operations Directorate, had been in the running to head Deep Black and still felt she should have had the job — and that the organization should have been part of the CIA.
“Boss?”
“Yes, of course, go ahead.”
“I have the Puff/1 en route. It’ll keep an eye on them until we can get in there.”
“How long?”
“Few hours maybe. I’ll know soon.”
“It’ll be nightfall.”
Telach pursed her lips.
“Why isn’t his radio working anyway?” Rubens asked.
“Most likely the battery died. The charge isn’t indefinite and he didn’t have a place to recharge in camp. Obviously, we’ll have to look into it.”
“Oh, very well,” said Rubens. “I have to go upstairs. Keep me informed.”
“Yes, boss.”
Rubens ignored her tone and left the Art Room, passing through the elaborate security chamber and the manned checkpoints to return to his office. While Desk Three operations tended to consume a major portion of his time, Rubens had a large number of other responsibilities as the number-two man in the agency. Nearly two dozen phone messages and twice as many E-mails were waiting for him on the secure systems. Several had to do with meetings he’d had to blow off and there were a fair number of useless updates on projects that were going nowhere, but nonetheless it took time to wade through them all.
One of Rubens’ administrative assistants, meanwhile, had organized a queue of reports in his secure computer system — urgent, more urgent, and ridiculously urgent. Rubens was just starting to take a look at the items in the last category when his outside phone buzzed. He picked it up and heard Sandra Marshall tell him things had gone well with the media.
“A home run,” she said.
“That’s very good,” said Rubens.
“Are you going to make the working group meeting in the morning?”
“It looks tight,” he answered. He’d already decided he’d rather try getting some sleep downstairs than sit through the session, but he was suddenly feeling as if he didn’t want to disappoint her.
“We are going to be preparing a final report on the Internet DNA,” she said. “Are you still opposed?”
It truly did pain him to have to disagree. This was, of course, uncharacteristic. Rubens examined the emotion — partly it was because, politically, it was never a good idea to step on someone’s pet project, which this obviously had become. But partly—good God—he was having actual feelings for her.
A very dangerous area.
Why should he oppose the report? The President liked the idea; it would be floated out to Congress whatever William Rubens said. All the committee wanted to do was authorize a study, after all. Why draw a line in the sand on something that surely would die eventually on its own?
Because it was the right thing to do?
“I was thinking maybe we would have dinner,” she suggested. “And I could explain my position.”
Rubens started to object.
“I had in mind my place later this evening, if that is convenient,” said Marshall. Her tone was formal, but then she added, in a voice that seemed to come from someone else, “Please?”
A strange weakness came over him. Fatigue? Misplaced lust or, worse, sympathy? Interest?
“What time should I be there?” he asked.
63
The path toward Tommy Karr’s locator took Puff/1 over the helicopter wreckage, and Malachi slowed momentarily to let the sensors get a good look at the site. It took all of twenty seconds, but it threw off the ReVeeOp’s rhythm; the slow aircraft just couldn’t synch with G*ng*f*x. He started flipping through his Mp3 index to find a better beat, heading down toward the golden oldie section before settling on Beck.
The helicopter seemed to have been taken down by a shot on the rear engine area; that argued for a heat-seeking missile. Several bodies lay near the wreckage. The guerrillas had split into two groups. One continued to harass what was left of the Thai Army unit moving in the direction of the border. The other, about a dozen men, shadowed toward Karr’s locator.
“We got what we need,” said Telach from the Art Room.
