Biowar (35 page)

Obviously, his strength was returning, he realized. The lady in the village had cured him.

“So, Sandy, are you going to give me the combination on these?”

“I was thinking I’d make you guess.”

“Let’s see, twelve numbers. Ought to take me what, three years?”

“Well, you must be feeling better. You’re starting to joke around again.”

“Still hurts when I laugh, though.”

The runner gave him the combination. Inside one of the lockers was a new battery unit for the com system. Once he had it on, he lay back on the bed, listening to Chaucer talking about possible vectors and epidemic surges—and the miracle of penicillin.

“What we’re not sure of yet is whether the disease was engineered to be resistant to specific antibiotics,” he added, “or if it was made to be vulnerable to just this one.”

“How can you tell?”

“We may not be able to,” said Chaucer. “You don’t seem to have much of a rash,” he added.

“Am I supposed to?”

“In the natural version of the disease, yes. How are your joints?”

“Stiff.” Tommy looked at the undersides of his forearms and wrists. “I have some dark things like welts on my arms. Blotches. Raised a little.”

“Very minor compared to the natural version. I wonder if that was programmed in. The arthritis seems milder too, but it may get worse.”

“I have arthritis?”

“The joints swell up. You’ll get better. It seems as if the disease was engineered to increase some of the earlier effects of the disease, but it’s not clear whether that diminished the after-effects or if the designer did that on purpose for some reason. I’d love to talk to him—after he’s put away. Anyone who can do this is pretty dangerous.”

“Bottom line here, though, is I’m going to be okay?” asked Karr.

“If what the woman gave you was made from what Kegan was looking for, then it’s a good guess. Drinking a cup of that would be just like taking a shitload of penicillin.”

“That a scientific measure? Shitload?”

“It’s between a tablespoon and a gulp,” said Chaucer.

“How long am I in for?”

“Well, we’d like to keep you isolated for a few weeks while we work all the possible permutations out.”

“Weeks?” Karr laughed.

“We may settle for less. According to the tests, you’re no longer contagious. But—”

“Why is there a
but?”

“We don’t have much experience—we don’t have any experience really—with this specific disease. We’re really still learning about it.”

“I’ll make you a deal. You set me free and I’ll go back and grab some more of this stuff. We can cure the world.”

“It’s not my call,” said Chaucer.

“You do want the stuff, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Tommy—we have the translation of those snippets you recorded,” said Telach, breaking in. “She told you there were other people who have the same thing, and that the liquid she gave you would cure the disease in just a few hours. Tommy, I have to talk to Mr. Rubens about this, but she mentioned another white person was in the area recently. It may have been Dr. Kegan.”

72

Dean watched the Mossad agent watch Lia as she got off the bus and retrieved her luggage. Both Dean and the Art Room had checked around for a trail team but found no one. According to Telach, Lia’s supposed status as a tourist of dubious background shouldn’t attract all that much attention from Mossad, since the Israeli secret service had all of the important arms networks in Syria pretty well figured out; even Deep Black had trouble getting things in and out of the country without the Israelis knowing about it.

Trouble
being a relative term.

But if that was the case, what was up with Yacoub?

“She’s getting into the taxi,” Dean told Rockman. “Yacoub’s behind her,” he added. “Getting his own cab.”

“Yeah, we see it. All right. You’re at the same hotel. She’s Five-fourteen; you’re Three-twelve. Already preregistered. Give her five minutes, then go on.”

“You don’t want me to trail them?”

“The hotel’s only a mile away. She won’t get lost,” said the runner. “If you burn your cover we’re going to have to start from scratch. Let her go on.”

Dean waited three minutes before telling his driver to go along to the hotel. Even so, it appeared that Lia beat them by a considerable margin; she’d checked in and was upstairs before Dean got to the front desk.

The desk clerk’s English was passable, and after handing over his credit card, Dean found himself being led by a bellhop to the elevator.

“Charlie—where’s Yacoub?” asked Rockman in the elevator.

“Don’t know.”

The bellhop turned and gave Dean a puzzled glance. He smiled.

“Something’s up.”

Dean reached across and pressed the elevator button for the fifth floor even though the bellhop had already pressed 3.

“Go on to your room,” said Rockman. “We’ll give you more instructions.”

The door opened on 3. Dean reached into his pocket and took out some of the Canadian money he was carrying, stuffing it into the bellhop’s hand.

“Go,” Dean told him. “I’ll be along. Go.” He reached to hit the DOOR CLOSED button.

“Charlie, what are you doing?” asked Rockman. “Go into your room. Stick with the program.”

By the time the elevator opened, Dean had taken out the small Sig pistol he’d been given as a personal weapon. He ran down the hallway toward Lia’s room, rapped twice on the wooden door—then used his leg to kick it open. He dived to the floor, rolling around the empty room.

“She’s not here,” said Dean.

“No kidding,” said Rockman.

“Where is she?” asked Dean, jumping up.

“Look, Charlie, this is a complicated situation. We don’t have time to explain everything to you,” said Telach.

“Screw yourself, Marie,” he said, running back into the hall.

73

Rubens stared at the grid position screen, which showed Lia moving out of the hotel.

“Are we sure of Yacoub Bahir Ben Rahimat’s loyalties?” Rubens asked Telach.

“The only way we can be sure is to ask Mossad.”

Rubens did not want to risk the loss of one of his people. And there were definitely points to be gained in telling a fellow intelligence agency that one of its foreign agents was more foreign than it believed. But inadvertently tipping the Israelis off to the bacteria would have untold consequences. He couldn’t do so without Hadash‘s—and the President’s—direct authorization, and probably consulting with State as well.

If he were Secretary of State, what would his call be?

“Keep a close eye on the situation,” he told Telach. “I’ll talk to the Israelis.”

“Boss?”

Rubens turned and looked up toward Chafetz.

“Yes, Sandy?”

“What are we doing with Tommy? I have him on the helicopter, but you said to wait for your approval. Can he go over the border or not?”

Rubens looked at Telach. “The doctors cleared him?”

“They say he’s no longer contagious. It’s also a pretty good bet that the people up in that village were already exposed, and have some sort of immunity. He wanted to be part of the team going north, but I told him he needed your okay.”

Rubens turned back to look at the map indicating where Lia was being taken. He found following two halves of the operation invigorating—switching from one segment to the other kept his mind fluid.

He’d have to talk to Mossad and make sure about Yacoub Bahir Ben Rahimat. Which meant talking to Hadash. Which would also give him an opportunity to sound Hadash out about Marshall and asking directly about the Secretary of State matter. Hadash was sure to have a considerably more developed perspective than Brown had had—and be much more willing to discuss it. The National Security Advisor might use fewer words and yet prove twice as revealing.

What if he found that Marshall had succeeded in buying off Hadash himself? A Hadash veto—that would truly stop him.

Good God—
Hadash?

The operation to gather the drug had to proceed one way or another. Karr was their best bet at getting the antidote. The villagers would trust him.

“Have Tommy go ahead,” Rubens told Telach. Then he pointed to the map. “Help Mr. Dean trail Lia, but please put a collar on him. You’ll do well to remind him of the line between personal initiative and running amok. It looks from your screen that he’s tearing through the hotel. That won’t make his cover story any more believable.”

74

Karr wrapped his hand around the strap next to the seat in the back of the Sikorsky. He was all alone in the chopper, one of several precautions the doctors had asked him to follow just in case they were wrong about the tests and he was still contagious. The NSA op was supposed to keep several feet from everyone he came in contact with, not touch them, and not let them touch anything he touched. He wore gloves, a special set of rubber boots, and layers of pants and shirts that were supposed to keep his sweat from contaminating anyone.

“How you feeling, Typhoid Mary?” asked Chafetz.

“Just dandy,” he said. “Even had solid food for lunch.”

The helicopter banked so sharply Karr nearly fell out of his seat. A Thai patrol had run north a few minutes before and Puff/1 was flying shotgun just ahead, but the guerrillas had already demonstrated that they were adept at taking down flying objects. It took nearly twenty minutes to weave across the border and reach the village. Karr stared out the window. It was a good thing he was feeling better, though; the zigzag route would have done a number on his stomach otherwise.

He stepped out of the helicopter, steadied himself with a huge breath of air, and started toward the hamlet. He nodded at the Thai military people who’d put down earlier; all of them were wearing surgical masks. Contrary to popular belief, the masks offered little, if any, protection against most infections and were undoubtedly of little value here, where the disease was spread through saliva coming in contact with the skin. It was difficult, however, to argue with the psychological value.

The doctors reasoned that, since Karr had already been here, it was unlikely that he would infect any of the villagers even if they were wrong about him being contagious. Nonetheless, he followed the protocol they had outlined, making sure to stay at least six feet from them. The doctors with the company fanned out, preparing to administer tests to see if anyone had been infected earlier.

“I came for a refill,” said Karr, smiling and waving as the Burmese nurse appeared from the village. She was frowning; Tommy quickly gathered that she was suspicious of the soldiers.

As Karr started to explain why he was back, Chafetz warned him that the interpreter wasn’t translating his words properly. He dismissed the man and began trying to repeat what the Art Room Thai expert told him to say. But his pronunciation left a great deal to be desired, and while it greatly amused the nurse to be called “a young cake,” Karr realized after a few minutes that he wasn’t going to be able to talk to her this way. Finally he hit on a solution.

“You have a Burmese language selector on Speaker ID?” he asked, referring to the neural Net program that could translate intercepts in real time.

“Of course,” said Rockman.

“Why don’t you use it to translate my questions into her language, then beam the characters down to my computer?”

“I don’t know if that’ll work.”

“Well, find out,” said Karr, smiling at the nurse.

He gave up asking technical questions and started asking the woman about herself. Her face turned sad; she told a story about being chased out of Loikaw due to her husband’s profession nearly thirty years before.

“What was his profession?” Karr asked.

“He was a doctor,” the translator told him, relaying what she said. “Anyone educated, they were persecuted. The way she’s talking about him, he’s long dead.”

Karr nodded as the woman added details about her family and friends, all lost. He might not understand the words she used, but the meaning of what she said was clear, and even his naturally buoyant spirit was weighed down with the tragedy of a life torn to bits by a dictator’s paranoia.

“We got it,” said Rockman. “We have the character set and we can make it work. We’re just double-checking everything before downloading. You’ll have to put the unit down and walk away from it. Tommy? Hey, are you there?”

“I’m here,” said the agent somberly. “Go ahead.”

75

By the time Charlie Dean figured out where the back stairs were, Lia had already been packed into a car. He got out of the hotel just in time to see the vehicle, a small white Toyota, pull off. Dean ran after it like a madman. A motor scooter shot out of the intersection on his left as he ran into the street. Dean thought the man was coming to knock him down; by the time he realized he wasn’t, he’d already thrown himself at the bike. Dean, driver, and vehicle tumbled to the pavement. Dean grabbed the teenage boy who’d been riding the bike and tossed him away like a candy bar wrapper. Then Dean scooped up the scooter and took off in the direction of the car carrying Lia.

“Turn left at the second intersection,” said Rockman.

“Why did they take her?”

“We’re not sure, Charlie. It may be routine; it may be more interesting; we’ll have to see how things go. She’s not in any danger.”

“Bull.”

“Charlie, you have to trust us,” said Telach. “Just relax. Slow that bike down. You’re going to crash.”

“Screw that.”

“Look, we can see the situation from here. We know what’s going on. We’ll tell you where to go.”

“You think you can see better than I can? You think your satellites and intercepts and fancy gear tell you everything?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Part of him knew he was reacting emotionally—something that was not merely unprofessional but potentially deadly. If he’d still been in the service, a phalanx of Marine noncoms would have lined up to kick his butt. You followed orders; you stayed with the program. Otherwise, you died and your friends died.

On the other hand, his service and experience, in Vietnam especially, had taught him to be skeptical of superiors, especially ones who tried to micromanage situations. The Art Room was all about micromanaging, in his opinion.