Biowar (16 page)

“Are you suggesting you’re coming back here with tits?” asked Chafetz.

“Just giving you a heads-up, that’s all.”

His pistol lay in the dirt at the side of the road where it had fallen, but the truck and the two men he’d shot were gone. There was no one outside the warehouse.

They’d left the garage-style door open. Karr checked for booby traps with his glasses and handheld. He found none.

A wire grid had been used in the building as a protection against bugging devices. It was relatively primitive but still good enough to render Karr’s com system unusable inside. He had to go back outside to talk to Chafetz.

“Hey, I found Pound,” he told the runner.

“We’ll have a chopper there in ten minutes.”

“Uh, hold on a second,” said the op. “Half the back of his head’s missing. Stinks pretty bad in here, so I think he’s been dead awhile.”

23

Rubens glanced at his watch, waiting as Lia made her way down into the castle. On the floors above him, two dozen intelligence analysts were combing through databases of intercepts, using the castle and location as nexus points in a comprehensive search to turn up information about who had contacted Dean. The problem wasn’t so much getting information as sorting through it. They knew UKD must be involved—and yet they had no direct link. As for Dlugsko, the NSA had decent information that he was in Krakow.

Taking a sauna with two young assistants of the nubile persuasion, actually.

“They researched Kegan pretty well,” said John Gides, one of the NSA scientists tasked to act as Dean’s advisors. “The work he did on flu viruses is pretty obscure.”

“Actually, they did a very superficial job,” said Rubens. “They knew nothing about Mr. Dean. They never tested his cover story.”

Rubens considered what this meant. The operation had money and resources, and presumably they had done some checking on Dean, found him listed in the databases. They hadn’t gone beyond that for one of two reasons—either there wasn’t time or they had dealt with Kegan enough in the past to trust him, at least at a minimal level.

More likely the latter than the former. If so, then Kegan would have money from them somewhere that had not yet been discovered.

His people would have to work harder to find it.

“Did the way the questions were asked suggest anything to you?” Rubens asked the scientist.

“What do you mean?”

“Were they read, or memorized, or something a man such as yourself might ask at a chance encounter?” Rubens realized the scientist hadn’t considered that. “Replay the conversation and consider that. There would be a limited number of people who would be able to ask such a question and understand an answer, correct?”

“Dean didn’t really answer.”

“Yes, but that suggests that the person listening was looking for more than the simple information, which to me suggests that he does know the scientific information very well, and he asked the question more to see how his subject responded—as you would if you were asked to judge whether a person was authentic or not. On the other hand, someone working with a checklist, as it were, would make sure the blanks were filled precisely.”

Gides nodded, though Rubens could see he wasn’t completely following.

“The interrogator already believed Dean was authentic. He had checked his background while he was being transported,” explained Rubens. “But he knows the subject matter. Or rather, he’s familiar with the subject matter, but perhaps not the real details. So once he senses familiarity, he has no need to go further—he’s looking for results. This suggests a scientist, but perhaps one whose specialty is in a slightly different area. A problem.”

“Why?” asked Gides.

“A problem for us in that it widens the pool of possible candidates. A problem for them in that they might not know precisely ...”

Ruben’s thoughts trailed off as his words did. Of course they weren’t the experts Kegan was; that would be the whole point of dealing with him. He had a small piece, tantalizing but not a real fit.

Rubens turned and saw Telach, raising her hand at the front of the room.

“Keep thinking, Doctor,” he told the scientist. “Something will occur to you. Perhaps the subscriber lists of the journals where the articles were published.”

“Can we get those?”

Rubens smiled indulgently; scientists could be such children. “We can get anything. Talk to Johnny Bib.”

Telach paced uncomfortably at the front of the room.

“Is it UKD or someone else?” Rubens asked her.

“Oh. We’re not sure,” she said, slightly distracted. “The helicopter was leased. We’re trying to figure out by whom. That should give us an answer.”

“You can’t trace the connection through the castle?”

“As far as we can tell, no one asked permission to use the castle. It’s owned by a state museum and they seem to use it solely for functions and whatnot.”

“See if it’s been rented in the past,” suggested Rubens. “Maybe there would be a connection. A mention in a local newspaper. Scan for stories, then have someone chat up the editors or reporters. They might know. A society page. Or business,” said Rubens. “Give it to Johnny Bib’s people if your staff is too busy. It’s more strategic information anyway.”

Rubens checked his watch. He was due upstairs to talk to the Director.

“Tommy wants a word,” said Telach. “He’s found the lab assistant who was working with Kegan.”

“Excellent,” said Rubens. “Finally, something useful.”

“Not really. He’s missing a good part of his head.”

Rubens sighed, then punched himself into the circuit. Karr’s relentlessly cheerful voice greeted him.

“Bodies falling all over the place,” said the op. “Hey, you know, Thailand’s kind of an interesting place. Little on the warm side, though.”

The op had determined that Pound had been killed elsewhere and moved quite a while ago, “judging by the stench.” He wanted Rubens’ okay to alert the Thai authorities.

“Let us do it from here, anonymously,” said Rubens. “How did he die?”

“Bullets all through his body. Something’s been eating him, though, so it’s hard to tell exactly what. Getting kind of dark over here, too. You want me to grab a bullet or something?”

He might have used the same tone to ask if Rubens wanted a cheerful souvenir of the visit. The interesting thing about Tommy Karr, thought his boss, was his relentless good humor, a trait that did not seem to come from artificial stimulation of any kind. Perhaps they should conduct some tests to understand it.

“That won’t be necessary,” Rubens told the field op. “Return to Bangkok and get some rest.”

“On my way.”

As the line snapped off, Rubens realized the advice might apply to him as well; it had been well over twenty-four hours since his head had touched a pillow.

The need to sleep was an absolute annoyance. The NSA official had reduced his quota to four hours per twenty-four and could shift them around within a forty-eight-hour block without impairing his performance. But without using drugs—a remedy he studiously avoided—there was no effective way to reduce this quota. Short power naps, caffeinated drinks, dogged determination—all were ultimately useless.

If he was willing to accept subpar performance, of course, he could go nearly four days without sleep. The question was whether it was worth it—a question made pertinent by the reminder on his calendar that he was supposed to go to the gala at the Kennedy Center this evening.

Where he would see the lovely and highly connected Ms. Marshall, who had somehow managed to convince George Hadash to support a ridiculous and useless proposal.

Why?

As yet an unanswerable question, which meant it was doubly in his interests to go.

Assuming he could stay awake during it.

“Segio Nakami has an update on the people who were following Tommy,” said Telach, interrupting his train of thought. Nakami was an expert cryptologic mathematician who ran the team in Johnny Bib’s place; he was considerably less eccentric than Johnny Bib, though in fairness he was also much younger.

“Segio? Where’s Johnny Bib?” asked Rubens.

“He went to New York.”

“What?”

“He wanted to check the books in Kegan’s library. Something just doesn’t fit, and since it was too much trouble to get the books here, he decided to go himself.”

“What? When did he leave? What plane is he on?”

“Johnny wouldn’t fly. He took Amtrak, I’m sure.”

Rubens remembered his yoga, forcing his gaze to remain calm and purposeful.

“Should I speak to Segio?” he asked Telach.

She shrugged. “They have a connection between the silk exporters and an Islamic guerrilla group known as the Crescent Tigers. The Tigers have a long history, stretching back thirty years, most of it in Myanmar. At one time they were pretty potent, but they’ve been losing ground to newer fanatics. They may even have dispersed. In any event, there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the hotel and this group. They may have staked out the hotel looking for Kegan.”

“What about with UKD or the people who took Dean?”

“Nothing yet.”

“All right,” said Rubens. “I’m going upstairs. Update me if you get anything new.”

“We will.”

When he reached his office Rubens was still debating whether he might be best off going home and sleeping. He had just lifted the blanket from his desk when his external phone buzzed.

“Rubens.”

“This is Dr. Lester over at CDC.”

“Doctor, good morning,” said Rubens. “I’m afraid we don’t really have anything new yet. If you care to check back in a few hours—”

“I have something new, something important,” said Lester. “We have two people sick in an upstate New York hospital with an undiagnosed disease. It has some flu symptoms, but it’s accompanied by what look like bruises or welts to the body. One of the internists thought it was
E. coli
food poisoning and then Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but so far the tests have proved negative and we’re still working on figuring it out.”

“E. coli?”

“I don’t think that’s a good bet myself. They’ve looked at Coxsackie B virus as well, but the tests haven’t come back. Many times these sorts of reports turn out to be overblown. Personally I’d think it was just random food poisoning except for this: one of them is Achilles Gorman, the BCI investigator who was handling the Kegan case. And the other is one of the crime-scene people who went over Dr. Kegan’s house. Both men have run fevers over one hundred and five. It doesn’t look good for either of them.”

24

Dean heard birds—thousands and thousands of them.

Pigeons, cooing.

They fluttered into the air, then landed again.

Cooing, a short flight, cooing.

He woke up and found himself sitting on a park bench, head hanging backward on his shoulders. It hurt when he raised it; his eyes couldn’t focus—the world had gone gray. He started to get up, then stopped, feeling his face. The sunglasses were perched at the very edge of his nose; he took them off, breathing slowly, regaining his consciousness. A clock began to gong in the distance. It was 7:00 P.M.

Dean slid his head down beneath his knees, letting the blood rush in, waiting out the fog in his brain. He adjusted the glasses but said nothing, unsure whether he was being watched or not.

Pigeons flocked nearby, attracted to the crumbs thrown by an elderly woman at the next bench over.

He got up, still unsure where he was, and began walking to his left. A large group of people were gathered at the intersection of two paths, listening as a tour guide described the significance of the statue at the intersection. Dean began to move to the left when someone bumped into him so hard he spun back and knocked into someone else; together they fell down.

“Um Verzeihung bitten! Entschuldigung!”
said a short Asian woman, helping up the person he’d knocked over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please excuse me.”

Lia.

Dean adjusted his glasses, listening as she spewed out a long string of German at the woman, whose expression indicated she hadn’t a clue what Lia was saying.

“I apologize,” said Lia to him. He could tell she wanted him to act as if he were a stranger.

“It’s all right.”

“Did you drop that?”

He looked at the ground. There was an envelope. He picked it up, turned it over. There was handwriting on it, Lia’s:

YOU’RE BEING FOLLOWED.

“I don’t think it’s mine,” he said, handing it back.

“It’s not mine,” she said. He tucked it in his pocket. “You’re American?”

“Yeah.”

“You live here?”

Dean pushed the glasses, waiting for someone to say something in his ear.

“No,” he said finally.

“Oh,” she said, as if losing interest. She turned to go.

“Wait.”

Dean caught her arm. Lia turned at him and gave him a look that would have withered a mugger.

“I, uh—want to get some coffee?” he asked.

“No thanks,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.

He watched her start away, not sure exactly what he was supposed to do. Then he decided to act naturally, as if he really were trying to pick her up. He loped after her and grabbed her arm from behind.

She swung around, her arms pulled back defensively, an inch short of flattening him.

“Look,” she said loudly. “Leave me alone. If you want coffee, you go get it yourself. There must be a million coffee shops on that boulevard where you can pick up some lonely tourist. Get out of my face.”

Lia swung around indignantly and stalked off.

She’s good, Dean thought to himself.

Then he realized that her tirade had drawn the attention of others nearby. He held his hands out apologetically.

“I wasn’t trying to pick her up or anything,” he said.

Half of the dozen or so people nearby nearly choked with laughter. The rest looked as if they might take him on themselves.

Dean ambled in the direction that Lia had given him. He found a coffee bar but realized he had no Euros, only a few pounds and dollars. He went back toward the comer, where he had seen the outside kiosk for an ATM. As he reached into his pocket for the wallet, he found the envelope Lia had dropped. There was an address in the left-hand corner—27 Sitzung.