Capitol Reflections (26 page)
Her pacing picked up speed.
The only working hypothesis Gwen could come up with was ludicrous: the FDA was protecting tobacco companies.
But maybe “protect” wasn’t the right word.
Had Big Tobacco first cowed the feds by getting the courts to declare cigarettes off-limits to FDA regulation and then done the unspeakable—juiced up the product to hook even more smokers? It was true that Big Tobacco often played it close to the edge. One company tried to circumvent regulation only ten years earlier by growing many of its plants in South America, outside FDA jurisdiction. The plants had extremely high nicotine levels and were used to regulate the chemical’s strength in particular brands by using greater or lesser amounts of the South American leaves in their blending process.
Were tobacco companies once again experimenting on customers and causing the occasional seizure breakout in the process?
She had to admit the scenario seemed unlikely. Chemical additives interacted with each other, and such interactions were part of FDA scrutiny. There had to be some larger picture here—maybe larger than she could imagine—that involved government, big business, or possibly even intelligence agencies. Gwen ran the options through her mind. Maybe terrorists had infiltrated the tobacco industry. Maybe the federal government was secretly working with Big Tobacco to eliminate some toxic ingredient from its product without alarming an already vulnerable post-9/11 populace. But maybe not.
“Next,” Gwen said to herself, “I’ll be going online to read the latest news from Area 51. I must be losing it.”
For each question that came to mind, Gwen thought of a hundred more. There were numerous hypotheses, most of them outrageous, but no answers seemed to fit. She would need the help of someone who knew how to work back channels and take some shortcuts. It couldn’t be Jack. He tended to be rather conservative in his investigative techniques, a product of his many years of government training and service. Gwen needed someone who was willing to take a few risks and think outside the box.
She knew who that someone was. She did not know, however, whether she was ready to see him again, even under these circumstances.
“What are you doing?” Jan asked as Peter parked the van in a strip mall a mile away from the CDC.
“I’m going to use a jamming program and then boost the gain on my wireless equipment. I still have the frequencies I need to access BioNet. We won’t have another opportunity unless I act quickly.
By tomorrow night, they’ll have discovered the new gate—if they haven’t already. The reverse probe has probably alerted them that I’ve been tampering with their equipment.”
Jan’s face fell.
“This may be game, set, and match,” Peter warned, “but I’ll leave it up to you. It’s your call.”
Jan sighed. “How long will it take?”
“Ten minutes. Fifteen tops.”
“Go for it,” she said resolutely. “But make it quick.”
“Okay then. I’m going to have BioNet send a different file to the Panamanian address. This time, I’m going to try to see where the little bugger goes. There may be an automated program running down in Central America that bounced the seizure stats somewhere else. Afterward, I’ll erase our night’s activity, plus I’ll make the uploads and downloads run backward so that the final destination, if there is one, won’t ever see that he or she received mail.”
“All right, but hurry.”
Once again accessing BioNet, Peter located a file on avian flu. He gave the system various commands to upload the file and send it to 9546transfer@panama/transpac.gub.
“The screen’s changing!” Jan exclaimed.
“It certainly is. We’re watching the file on avian flu that I downloaded to Panama/Transpac get uploaded to a new destination. Look.”
“Holy shit,” whispered Jan, gazing at the screen. “The seizure stats were forwarded to Rockville.” Jan dashed off an e-mail to Gwen, notifying her of the Panamanian address and its cyber connection to the FDA.
“It’s time to roll,” Peter declared. “We’ve done all we can do for now.”
“I’m feeling light-headed,” remarked Jan, rubbing her temples. “Did we eat dinner tonight? I can’t even remember.”
Peter coughed. “I think we—”
Jan was growing lethargic, her lips quickly developing a ghastly bluish color.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, Peter turned to the door and pulled on the handle. It was jammed.
“The bastards work quickly—I’ll give them that much,” he uttered while reaching into the back and grabbing a laptop.
Peter’s coughing worsened as Jan passed out on the floor of the van. Grasping the three-pound laptop firmly, he turned his head to the right and slammed the PC against the driver’s window on the left. The safety glass merely cracked, turning it into a flexible but intact sheet with a thousand veins running through it. Peter’s arms and legs grew heavy and his thoughts became disjointed. He knew his strength would be gone in a matter of seconds. Tightening his grip on the laptop, he crashed it against the splintered glass again and again, until parts of the glazed sheet finally started to peel away.
Peter reached through and tried the handle of the truck. It was frozen.
“Gonna do it … the … hard … way,” he groaned.
With his bare hands, he grabbed chunks of glass and yanked as many as possible from the window’s grooves. By the time he was finished, his hands were soaked with blood. He craned his head out the window. Gasping, he took a deep breath. Then another. Then he hurled himself through the jagged opening and fell to the ground, his head bouncing hard against the asphalt.
With his last ounce of strength, Peter pulled a cell phone from his pocket and hit 9-1-1. The phone fell from his hand as his head lolled to the side. The last thing he saw before blacking out was a canister near the rear of the van. A small tube snaked its way from the small cylindrical tank of gas into the exhaust system of the vehicle where Jan lay unconscious.
Before escaping, however, Peter hadn’t had a chance to reverse the uploads and downloads. Someone would soon discover that Transpac had sent him a file on avian flu.
Someone with the address [email protected].
32
Stone-faced, the senior senator from Hawaii sat behind his desk, elbows on the armrests of his chair, fingers and thumbs of each hand matching their opposites. It was a studied pose, an expression not often seen on the face of Henry Broome IV ever since his colleague’s electoral defeat in November. He looked at Roberta Chang, his minion and mistress, as she sat on the other side of his desk, pen and steno pad poised on her crossed legs.
Roberta went over Henry’s schedule: meetings with other members from the Agriculture Committee, a one-on-one with Senator Tom DeGenovese from New York, acceptance of the responsible Stewardship Award from the Young Farmers of America, a call from the president, and a late afternoon meeting with party leaders to discuss strategy for the midterm elections.
“Can we squeeze in lunch?” asked Henry.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Me and you. A couple of hours away from the rat race. It would do us both a world of good.”
Henry knew the answer before Roberta could respond. He was aware that she’d suffered a terrible loss the previous week. But he knew something else as well. He knew when something wasn’t right, when someone was holding out on him, in business or otherwise …
Just as he’d known that Jamie Robinson was hiding something on his Apple back at Princeton.
“I’m sorry, Henry. Not today. I’m still not myself yet. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course, Roberta. I wish I could do more to help, but I suppose grief must run its course. Maybe another time.”
Roberta simply nodded her head, saying nothing.
“Okay then,” said Henry, leaning forward with a faint smile now etched across his face. “Let’s start the wheel turning and get down to business. Thank you, Roberta.”
The chief aide got up and returned to her office, her steno pad and leather day planner grasped firmly in her right hand.
Henry leaned back again, troubled. There was something on Roberta Chang’s mind other than the death of her mother. Otherwise, she would have been subdued, but she would have at least smiled at Henry occasionally or offered him a wink, something that said, “We’re still on, Henry—just give me some space.” Instead, Roberta was unusually reserved.
Henry suspected that his aide’s agenda might no longer match his own.
The elite group of six was simply known as Tabula Rasa, Latin for “blank slate.” They got the name because they did not officially exist. Neither did the group’s missions. There was no record of Tabula Rasa’s activities anywhere.
The six were recruited from various branches of the intelligence community, with backgrounds similar in covert operations and the use of deadly force. Once assigned to Tabula Rasa, operatives lost all technical association with the CIA, FBI, NSA, or Secret Service. Their training reflected their exemption from all normal rules of engagement. None of the six operatives even knew who gave them their orders, delivered via untraceable, encrypted e-mail.
The men sat in an underground room inside a building in Virginia that had no address. Outfitted in ordinary civilian clothes, they were the proverbial motley crew: one fat, one skinny, one handsome, one geeky, one dapper, and one grossly unkempt—traits that served to underscore how little they had in common. Op One, sitting in sweats, chewed on a cigar and dealt the next hand of poker.
“Menefee and Tippett have been neutralized,” Op Four bragged, picking up his cards on the metal folding table.
“Two and Five have the doctor and her husband under observation. Should we distract them from poking where they don’t belong by emptying their bank accounts?” said Op Three.
All of the men laughed.
“Just make damn sure no action is taken on them until we hear otherwise,” stated One emphatically.
“The husband’s been to New York,” said Three.
“It’s the doc that’s designated as primary,” said One, “although hubby is starting to poke around a bit. He bears watching.”
No one said a word for a long moment. Then Three broke the silence.
“I fold,” he said, throwing his cards on the table.
“I’m out,” said Four.
“Come to Papa,” said One, pulling in his winnings.
33
Gene McMurphy was puzzled. Why had Panama sent him a CDC file on avian flu? He could understand why Transpac forwarded the CDC file on seizure stats to his PC, for Drs. Maulder and Menefee fell under the heading of damage control. But what was Transpac’s interest in avian flu?
It took a few minutes for his call to get through to the small port city of Pedregal, which sat on the edge of the Golfo de Chiriqui on the Pacific coast of Panama.
“Richey, here,” said a faint voice at last.
“This is McMurphy.”
“Hi, Gene! How’s life in the States? It’s lonely down here in the boonies.” Carl Richey’s voice was interrupted by an occasional crackle.
“I’m more interested about life down in Panama, Carl. Why are you people sending me stats on bird flu?”
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