BioKill (4 page)

Chapter Four

The American Airlines
Boeing triple seven touched down at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in the early afternoon, New York time. Lilburn and Dr. Crawston were met by an officer of Homeland Security who whisked the pair through Customs, cutting red tape.

It was seven degrees Fahrenheit warmer than London. Springtime in New York was a perfect time to visit: the summer crowds had yet to arrive, it was warm enough to enjoy the outdoors yet cool enough to be comfortable. New Yorkers warmed to the change in conditions, and Central Park was busy, with thousands taking in the relaxed atmosphere of its eight hundred and forty three acres of paths, lakes and open spaces; a blissful retreat from the hustle and bustle of the inner city.

The pilot of the EC120 five-seater helicopter had already set the rotors in action warming up for his flight to Albany, an hour away. The jet black helicopter with its distinctive shrouded tail rotor, looking like a ducted fan, waited patiently for its V.I.P. passengers.

The downdraft of the whirling noisy rotors plucked at Evangeline’s jacket.

“Take this first seat here, ma’am, buckle in and enjoy the flight.” The pilot helped Evangeline into the rear of the cockpit as Lilburn entered from the door opposite.

“Slightly different from the last aircraft, I must say,” Evangeline raised her voice to compensate for the noise of the helicopter.

Lilburn pointed at the headset. “Put the headset on, it’ll be easier to hear.”

Adjusting the set to sit comfortably on her head, Evangeline spoke into the mike. “How’s that?”

“Much better, these choppers are very quiet but it still helps to wear the set. Once the pilot gets in and shuts his door it’ll be better still. Now what was that you said?”

“I was saying before that this is totally different from the last aircraft.”

Lilburn nodded. He didn’t do small talk.

With everyone buckled in the pilot throttled up and the helicopter lifted off the ground, spun forty-five degrees then headed skyward, in a northerly direction.

Lilburn looked out the window over his left shoulder, past Evangeline, towards the west. As they started to gain altitude, he could see the Atlantic Ocean falling away from sight, the rooftops and spires of Brooklyn growing smaller and smaller.

The helicopter flew a direct route to Albany. From her seat Evangeline watched the city’s suburbs pass by opening to the green forests and pastures further inland, past beautiful blue expanses of lakes and the mighty Hudson River which they seemed to follow, past the state borders of Connecticut and Massachusetts in the distance.

“Landing in ten minutes, folks.” The pilot interrupted their respective thoughts.

Albany, the capital of the state of New York, appeared before them. Sitting on the west bank of the Hudson River, the CBD was dominated by a small group of tall buildings, whose presence reigns over the surrounding area. Approximately three miles northwest, the headquarters of The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services sat next to Washington Avenue. The EC120 touched down on one of its many rooftop landing pads.

Lilburn unbuckled his safety belt. “Follow me; someone will take care of your bag.”

Inside the third floor artificial lighting illuminated the large central command center, where the masses of intelligence gathered was correlated, formalizing the countermeasures and disseminating the result as instructions to agents in the field. Only problem was, for this specific mobilization there was very little intelligence to go on.

The operations room was crowded, and humming. The room was a hive of activity with men and women talking on telephones, computers and headsets. Large inbuilt screens along one of the walls showed maps, others appeared to be transparent glass, coated with polymer film, providing interactive touch screens, with people in front of them, discussing their contents in muted, intense tones.

A short stout man in his sixties with an air of authority looked up, alerted to their arrival. He nodded, finished what he was saying to the group around him, then approached them, his hands extended. “Good to see you made it, Matt. I would have been pulling my hair out, if I had any, if you hadn’t brought back the good doctor.” Allan Hall was at least five inches shorter than Lilburn, but inch for inch emanated the power of a rhinoceros in full charge… with a thick skin to match.

“Director, I would like to introduce Dr. Evangeline Crawston. Dr. Crawston, Allan Hall, Director of Counter Terrorism.”

“So pleased to meet you.” Evangeline offered her hand.

“Good firm grip, I like that in a lady!” The director’s voice was deep and gravelly. “Come with me — I want to introduce you to our Director of Emergency Management.” Director Hall spun around and proceeded to one of the interactive screens, barking out an instruction to a staff member as he walked. Evangeline found herself having to quicken her steps to keep up.

“Suzanna!” A woman of similar stature to Evangeline but at least fifteen years older stood standing, her arms crossed, staring at the screen. Upon hearing her name she turned towards them. “Dr. Evangeline Crawston, Director…”

“Yes, Allan, I know. Dr. Crawston.” Director Lopez looked Evangeline over with critical eyes, her arms remaining folded.

Evangeline felt as if she’d just been introduced to the back end of a brick wall. The coldness within the director’s dark eyes was a surprise. Alert now, she extended her own hand in greeting. A challenge.

Director Lopez ignored her and turned back to the screen. “Allan, we have a problem. It’s simply impossible to decide where we should deploy our resources!” Lopez sounded frustrated.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Hall’s eyes had narrowed at the little scene. He turned to Lilburn. “Go see Jones over there, he’s sorted out accommodation for Dr. Crawston, grab a quick coffee and a bite and be back here in fifteen.”

“Yes, sir,” Lilburn gently touched Evangeline’s upper arm and indicated she should accompany him. Following Lilburn’s prompt, Evangeline turned away from Director Lopez, who was steadfastly ignoring her. She was introduced to the officer, who provided her with the details of her accommodation and transport to a local hotel, after which she and Lilburn continued down to the staff cafeteria.

The coffee came from a machine, was thick, black and tasted like tar. Evangeline screwed up her nose and pushed the paper cup aside. Matt laughed, and fetched her a bottle of water.

“So you’ve now met the two senior players. What do you think?”

“I’m sure they’re extremely good at their jobs. Director Lopez is… interesting.”

Lilburn gave a short chuckle. “Interesting is right. I don’t know a lot about them… other than by reputation. I’ve met Director Hall before on a couple of assignments. Lopez I’ve only heard about.” Lilburn took a sip of his coffee. Tasted fine to him. “I was seconded here two days ago. I’m based elsewhere, and rarely get to come to headquarters I was given a briefing and the next thing I’m on a plane for London to bring you back. From here on in I’ll be working in close support.”

“And how were you so lucky to get to be my babysitter? Where does your skill set lie?”

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” Lilburn spun his paper cup around on the table with one finger. “At some point all the intelligence and speculation about what we’re dealing with will spill out from the ops room. If I have any strengths, then it’s out there in the big wide world. I much prefer it.”

“Mmm.” Evangeline smiled. “I need more information. Shall we go back into the lion’s den and find out what your country really knows?”

Reluctantly Lilburn agreed. Here he was going to have to take a back seat and let others take the lead. And that didn’t come easy.

“Good, you’re back.” Director Hall saw them reappear in the ops room, and Lilburn knew he’d been waiting. “Matt, take Dr. Crawston to the meeting room over there, I’ll just grab Director Lopez and meet you inside. We need to get the doctor up to speed.”

A closed door led to a small room, uncluttered except for a meeting table, chairs and conferencing technology. It wasn’t long before Hall and Lopez entered, shutting the door behind them. Evangeline and Lilburn were already seated.

“Let’s get into it.” Hall took the lead. “Doctor, let me expand on what you will have already been told. A couple of days ago we received reports a virulent unnamed disease was going to be released somewhere within the States, which would cause significant disruption and damage to our economy. The information came from Israeli Intelligence; and at this stage we have no reason to doubt its veracity. We’ve since learned the disease is probably foot-and-mouth. As I speak, agents are crossing the border into Rafah, located in the Gaza Strip. Apparently they know the exact place where the virus is coming from. Don’t ask me how or why — that’s between the President of the United States and his Israeli counterpart. Any questions so far, Dr. Crawston?”

“Is the virus in the States right now?” Evangeline had leaned forward slightly.

“Don’t know, we just don’t damn well know!” The frustration was clear in the director’s voice. “We need you to start an immediate profile on the terrorists.”

Evangeline nodded; she had already done some thinking on the flight. “We have a starting point. If we assume the intelligence is correct and the virus does indeed originate from the Gaza Strip, that fits what we already know, giving a high degree of possibility. Recently, with the Hamas takeover, veterinary work on control of the disease has deteriorated. The Gaza Strip has had numerous active outbreaks of the disease, which would make it relatively easy to find infected animals. The latest outbreak occurred in Rafah, which adds foundation to your intelligence. So we now need to know who or whom has an interest in seeing that disease in the States.”

“Yes, yes. We know that, Dr. Crawston, you don’t need to tell us how to suck eggs,” Director Lopez interrupted.

“Chrissake, Suzanna, ease up!” Hall knew his fellow director was extremely ambitious and in her eyes, Dr. Evangeline Crawston would be a potential threat.

Herself no pushover, the good doctor countered with a measured smile. “Please, call me Evangeline… Suzanna.”

Lilburn sat back, amused at the power play.

Evangeline continued, her clipped British accent cool and professional. “Who or whom. It doesn’t necessarily mean this is the action of a hostile government. The threat could equally come from within. A United States citizen exercising what they deem to be a retaliatory attack on the system, or the manic fringe of an animal liberation group. Unleashing a disease like foot-and-mouth is in fact quite simple — and very cost effective. If we can eliminate that scenario then we’re one step closer to finding out what we’re up against.”

“Good point.” Hall was impressed. “Go on.”

“If the threat is internal, then start profiling citizens who have made threats to the government, ones with links to the Gaza Strip in particular but also broaden the field to countries with known foot-and-mouth enzootic…” Evangeline saw brows wrinkling. “It means
prevalent to
… countries in Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa. If it is an organization, which in my opinion it may well be, then there are a number of groups you should be interested in — al-Qaeda for a start. Although being more of an ideological group, they may not be your top priority… the other extremist groups under its umbrella may be the ones to prioritize.”

“What’s your gut feeling?” Hall was anxious to know.

“As we can narrow it down, insofar as we believe the source is from the Gaza Strip, we have the likes of Hamas, the Army of Islam, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I’d like to see some more intelligence.”

“And what about here in the States…” The first signs of a crack in Lopez’s armor.

“Have you started trawling the chat sites, social media, for key words and historical data on past threats?”

“Done that, and the process is ongoing.”

“Good.” Evangeline was decisive. “I would also suggest we ask the ever-so-cooperative Israelis to do the same. I would suspect it’s also in their interest not to see the States suffer the colossal financial implications of foot-and-mouth.”

“We have research into those cost implications.” Hall tapped a pen on the table. “Do you concur with the estimates bandied about?”

“Yes, I do, upwards of fifty billion dollars for a serious outbreak.”

Hall grimaced, as if her answer had confirmed his darkest thoughts. “Border security provisions? Suggestions?”

“Three scenarios. One: show your hand and let your border agents know of an impending threat; or two: take a more proactive approach to passengers and goods from those areas we know have ongoing infections, especially Gaza. Three: step up searches without telling border agents of the specific disease. If you decide on the former, you’ll be letting the commercial and political world know you may already have the virus — and that’ll be all it takes for competing nations to implement embargos. But if you don’t, then the chances of a successful border violation are even greater.”

“Tell us about more about the disease. What can we expect?” Hall spoke in a monotone.

“Foot-and-mouth is a highly contagious viral disease. It affects cattle, pigs, sheep and other cloven-hoof animals — also deer, elephants, giraffes, zebras — even hedgehogs. Transmission can be by a number of means: direct contact with infected animals, airborne, perhaps up to forty miles. Then you have contamination by animal feed, vehicles, human feet… the list goes on.”

Director Lopez leaned back in her chair. “Can we inoculate for it, stop it in its tracks?”

“You can — and you’ll have to if it’s found here — but that only works if you have plenty of time, which I would say you don’t. And if the world sees you inoculating, it knows you’re worried and then it’s too late. The dollar implications have already happened — the terrorists have done what they set out to do.”

Hall had a question. “How will they get it in, if they haven’t already?”

Evangeline had gone over this scenario many times in her career. “The virus can remain viable for different periods on different materials, for example, if it’s in fecal material it can last up to one hundred days. Getting it into the country is relatively easy — it just takes a few pieces of infected material to escape detection at the border, then be grown on to increase the virus. A school pupil could do it. Then it’s just a case of infecting animals. As simple as rubbing an infected piece of swab into an animal’s mouth, or perhaps making an aerosol and just spraying it on its nose.”