Blood List (30 page)

"Why these four?"

He couldn't hear the reply over the clatter of the gurney wheels against the tiled floor.

"Yeah. There's some order from the CDC or something. Some sort of killer flu." Her voice was sad. The man asked a question Gene couldn't hear.

"I don't know," she said. "I've only been home twice since all this started. It's bad out there, you know?"

The clattering stopped with the movement. His stomach lurched.
Elevator.

"What about you?" the woman asked.

The man grunted. "I live in Marin County. I haven't been home in most of a week. My kid's almost three, got to be missing me big time, and my wife's convinced I'm going to die in a giant fireball."

"Wow." The reply was as automatic as it was stupid. "That sucks."

"Sure does. The sooner this is over, the better."

"Yeah. And the sooner the feds catch those racist assholes and hang them by their balls, the happier we'll all be."

The elevator dinged a final time and came to rest. Gene heard the doors open, then he was on the move again. In the distance he heard the muffled drone of a helicopter. It got louder by the second, until it filled his world with throbbing sound and utter blackness.

Voices he couldn't understand yelled over the noise. He felt the gurney being raised, then rolled. A sliding rush marked the closing of the helicopter door, then he lifted from the earth.

Unlike Doug, Gene had never minded flying. He'd always found it relaxing. What he liked most about it was the view. This experience was different. The only sensations were unpleasant.

The noise was incredible. His body shook with the pounding beat. His stomach lurched with every change in motion. His left knee itched, and he knew he couldn't scratch it. Even his thoughts were unpleasant.
Do we know these people don't work for Emile Frank?
It would be just wonderful
if, instead of being rescued, they were just minutes from being weighted down and dropped into the ocean.

Gene wondered if it was possible to spontaneously develop a simultaneous fear of the dark, drowning, enclosed spaces, infectious diseases, and flying.
If any experience would do it, this would be it.
He added paranoia and profound pessimism to his list of encroaching mental conditions.

The helicopter touched down with another lurch to his stomach.
Even if they do drown us, this day can only get better.

Rough hands lifted him from the gurney. The world dropped out from under him, and he almost wet himself.
This is it. We're dead.
He hit the ground and suppressed a groan of pain.

"Careful! We don't need postmortem trauma!" It was the woman who'd injected Doug. "Just load them on the plane gently and be on your way."

"Sorry," said the female voice. "I thought he'd be stiffer."

"Rigor mortis is temporary. If you were good at your job, you'd know that. Now hurry up."

"Bitch," the girl muttered.

Two pairs of hands lifted him into the air and out of the helicopter. He felt himself hoisted, carried several dozen steps, then dumped onto something hard that sounded like metal when his head hit it.
I guess gentle means something different when you're handling a corpse.
He hoped that Doug and Carl were getting better treatment. Three more clangs marked the arrival of the other body bags.

Gene heard what sounded like a large van's sliding door. It closed and muffled the sound of the helicopter outside. He tried to quiet his breathing, but it was hard to do with an oxygen hose stuffed in his mouth.

Five minutes later the world lurched into motion. A minute more and he felt thrust. They had to be on the plane.
Here we go.
The moment the wheels left the tarmac, the Bangladeshi woman unzipped his bag. She stared down at him with cold brown eyes and tore the breathing apparatus from his mouth.

"I am Doctor Nazeem binte Saleh. Your nervous friend is fast asleep. The paralytic I gave him will dehydrate him. He'll wake with a bad headache and will be needing a lot of water. Welcome to life outside San Francisco, Agent Palomini. We'll be touching down in approximately six hours." She handed him a blanket.

He looked around the airplane. The cabin was empty except for Doctor Saleh and two of the doctors from the morgue, plus Carl, Doug, and the corpse. Doug slept in his body bag, the zipper down far enough that he could breathe easily. Carl stretched and let out an enormous yawn. It looked like he'd been napping. "Put your clothes on, Carl," Gene said, as he reached for his own. Gene's attention turned back to Doctor Saleh.

"Tell me, Agent Palomini, why was all this necessary?"

Gene buttoned his shirt. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Maybe someday, but certainly not today. Or tomorrow." He let the implication hang in the air.

Her frown deepened. With a flick of her wrist she produced a business card, severe black lettering on a creamy taupe background. "When someday comes, you will tell me."

He took the card out of her hand, put it in his shirt pocket, and smiled. "I'll do that."

She smiled brightly then. "Yes, you will."

Carl walked over and sat on the plane floor between them.

"Nice nap?" Gene asked.

He leaned back, spoke around a yawn, "Either I'm especially tired, or those bags are especially comfortable." He looked over at Doug. "He's still asleep, huh?"

Doctor Saleh gave Gene an inquisitive look, then turned to Carl. "He is well drugged. Make sure to get plenty of liquid in him when he wakes up."

Carl smiled enthusiastically. "Will do." He looked at Gene. "Hey, where are we going?"

With a smirk, Gene turned to Doctor Saleh.

"Atlanta. You'll be disembarked at CDC headquarters and taken to Govind's lab." She stretched her index finger toward the body bags. "In those."

Carl looked at Doctor Saleh. "What then?"

"Then you're no longer my problem, and Govind owes me a very large favor."

February 9th, 8:22 AM EST; Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex, WMD Division; Washington, D.C.

Emile Frank's direct line rang. The caller ID read "White House." The FBI had been hounding him for days for his source on the nuclear-weapons tip, and he was tired of hiding behind "need to know." Suppressing a sigh, he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. "Doctor Frank."

"Hi, Emile," said the pleasant male voice on the other end. "This is Trubb. Or is it Palenti? I don't remember which one I am."

Emile went cold. He kept his voice neutral. "You're on a secure line?"

"Duh," Paul Renner replied.

"What can I do for you, Mister Renner?"

"What you can do is give me every piece of information you have involving your research on heroin addiction."

"And why would I do that, Mister Renner?"

"Because if you don't, I'm going to kill you. And call me Paul."

Emile paused. "You might find that more difficult than you think, Mister Renner."

"Oh, please," Renner said. "I know where you live, where you work, what you drive, and I have your travel itinerary for the next two months. Do you honestly believe that the extra security you have lurking around your house is going to stop me?"

Emile closed his eyes. "So my choice is life in prison or you kill me? I think I'll take my chances."

"I have no interest in ruining you," Renner said. "I don't care what happens to you one way or another."

"Then why would you want the research?"

"It doesn't matter." Renner's voice was tense.

"Yes," Emile said, "it does. It matters a lot. So either you're going to tell me, or this conversation is over."

Silence. Emile began to sweat.

"Mister Renner?"

Paul Renner's voice was flat. "My father was one of your patients."

Oh, shit.
"I see," Emile said.

"I don't think you do," Renner said. "But I'm going to have to insist. Your research. All of it."

"And you'll leave me alone? You'll leave my family alone?" Emile hated the desperation in his voice.

"You give me everything you have, everything, and you can go on living your life as if nothing ever happened. After you do whatever you're going to do to Palomini's team."

"Where do I drop it?" 

"Get out of your eight-thirty meeting and get your car. After you've retrieved the information from wherever you have it, go home. There's a scrubbed cell phone in the drawer of your nightstand, under the old newspapers where you kept that unlicensed pistol. I'll give you instructions from there."

I'm going to fire every one of those meat-headed sons of bitches.
"All right," Emile said. "I'll have the files in fifteen minutes, but they're going to be heavily encrypted. I'll deliver them to you and will send you the password as soon as I'm safely away. Then you and I are done. Finished. Permanently."

"You'll call me with the password within twenty minutes of the exchange." The line went dead.

Emile disengaged the magnetic failsafe on his bottom drawer, opened it, and pulled out an external hard drive.
This should have made me rich.
He locked the drawer and headed out, an excuse on his lips.

Doug watched Dr. Frank though his binoculars. "He's heading to his car, alone," he said into the mini-COM that Sam had set up. "A blue Volvo, Virginia tags. Seven-Echo-Three-Zulu-Charlie-One."

"Roger," Gene replied.

Doug pulled down the binoculars and put his car in drive. "He's heading south. Stay behind me and out of sight." In his rear-view mirror, Gene's car pulled out from two-hundred yards behind him.

"Roger again. Just don't lose him, Doug. This might be our last chance at Renner."

Tell me something I don't know.

*   *   *

February 9th, 9:37 AM EST; Anacostia Park; Washington, D.C.

Paul watched from a park bench as Frank's cobalt-blue Volvo XC90 pulled into the restaurant parking lot. The air was bright and clean, and the sounds of morning traffic had faded from an insane cacophony into dull background noise. "Okay, I'm here," the doctor's voice said through his phone.

"I know. Get out of the car and walk into the park, toward the swings." A little girl shrieked with glee behind him as another child chased her across the grass. "Okay, now turn right down the jogging path."

He let Dr. Frank spot him as he got close. Paul stood and stepped forward. "The data, Emilio?" he said without preamble, his hand outstretched. Frank plucked a small paper bag from his breast pocket. He placed it in Paul's hand and jerked back. Paul chuckled.

 "This is everything, but none of it points back to me. Even if you try to connect the dots."

Paul looked inside the bag, then put it in his pocket. "I told you I don't care. Get out of here. I'll call you in twenty minutes for the password."

"You'll have it as soon as I—" He was interrupted when a blue sedan jumped the curb, followed by a white SUV. Emergency lights flashed from the dashboards of both vehicles.

Paul turned blankly back to Dr. Frank. "You set me up."

Frank cowered. "No, wait!" The bullet hit him square in the forehead. A woman screamed as the body fell. From the two vehicles poured Gene Palomini, Carl Brent, and Doug Goldman.

As the car slid to a stop, Gene bailed out with his sidearm drawn, shouting orders and using the door for cover. "Drop the weapon and put your hands on your head or we
will
kill you!"

"Watch his left hand." Doug clicked in over the COM.

Renner slowly took his left hand from his pocket as he dropped the pistol with his right. "You can't shoot me, Gene. Me holding this detonator is the only thing stopping the hundred-odd people in the restaurant behind you from being blown to bits."

Gene hesitated.

"He's bluffing," Carl said over the COM. "Let me shoot him."

Gene stood his ground. "Put your hands on your head, turn around slowly, and get on your knees."

Paul held the object out toward Doug, to give a better view. "It's military," Doug said. "It appears to be activated."

"He's bluffing," Carl said again. "I'm going to shoot him."

"Hold," Gene said.

Renner smiled. "Goodbye, gents. I have a camera in the restaurant and a couple surprises waiting along my way out of here. If you try to follow me or evacuate anyone or I even smell a cop for the next fifteen minutes, they all die." He turned and jogged down the path as Gene stood helpless.

"He's bluffing, Gene. He's bluffing." Carl's pistol tracked Renner as he disappeared through the trees. "We've got to go get him."

Gene looked back at the restaurant. The patrons inside rubbernecked at the windows to see what the commotion was all about. "We can't risk it, Carl."

Thirty minutes later, Gene, Doug, Carl, and Sam were en route to HQ in D.C. The restaurant had been evacuated and the bomb squad sent in. Gene sat in a holding room for two hours before he was told that there was no bomb in the first place.

*   *   *

February 11th, 11:02 AM EST; Fort George G. Meade; Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

Captain Sara Belonga looked at the caller ID on her desk phone. It read,
USAIC, Huachuca, AZ
. She picked up the phone on the fourth ring. "DYQ CNC." Anyone who called this number either knew what that meant or had called the wrong number. At the National Security Agency, you didn't give out information you didn't have to. Ever. Besides, only one person ever called her personal line from Fort Huachuca.

The voice on the other end was softly male, pleasant, and polite, with just a hint of Alabama to it. "Hello, Miss, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Jacob Rostan with the United States Army Intelligence Center. Is Captain Belonga in?" Sara smiled in spite of herself.

"Jake, you asshole, I mean Lieutenant-Colonel, sir, you know it's me. What's up?" She'd known Jake for two years, since she'd been assigned this post, but only over the phone. He always called her directly when he wanted something and was an insufferable flirt. They'd worked together several times on joint USAIC-NSA code-breaking problems.