Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (21 page)

It was personal for Vinko now. He’d make sure it would be no different for Lana Elkins.

LANA SAT WITH HER
injured leg propped on a hassock in the living room. She had two wounds from the fragments that had ripped into her calf, which were now closed with twelve stitches. The surgeon said the cuts were deep, down to the bone in one case, and insisted that she keep her leg elevated for four days.

She worked effectively enough from the couch, where she glanced up periodically to see if the breeder and dog trainer, Ed Holmes, had arrived yet. 

Bob Holmes’s son had been aghast to learn about Jojo, but relieved that the young Malinois would survive, the latest report from the veterinarian’s office. Ed Holmes had phoned Lana last night to say he’d be bringing her a replacement.

“Which one?” Emma had asked when Lana got off the phone.

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“He had two other younger dogs, I’m pretty sure.”

There was Ed now. Lana saw Robin greeting him in the driveway, where the FBI agent had just completed another circuit around the house. The dog by Ed’s side looked heftier than Jojo. Actually, he looked … older.

Robin escorted Ed and the hound into the living room.

Better than a butler
, Lana thought of Robin, smiling to herself.

Ed introduced himself as Don walked in from the kitchen. He’d been anxious, too, about Jojo’s successor.

“You’re kidding,” Don said, staring at the hound. “That old guy?”

Lana thought Don sounded insulting, but before she could come up with some meliorating words for Ed, Don turned to her and said, “Do you know who this is?” He gestured at the dog.

“No.”

“This is Cairo, the dog that helped take down bin Laden.”

“Seriously?” Lana was now staring at Cairo, too.

“He’s the best I’ve got right now,” Ed jumped in. “The demand is very high. The navy took my two younger ones,” he added with a knowing nod to Don. “Cairo’s not as fast as he once was, but he’s smart, experienced, and has a better sense of people than any creature, including humans, that I’ve ever met. Thing is, he’s not a family dog. He’s all business. Think of him as a battle-hardened grandfather who can’t suffer fools, and you’ll pretty much know what Cairo’s all about. And
nobody
cuddles up with Cairo. Just feed him, air him, and he’ll secure the premises.”

“So we have a celebrity guard dog?” Lana said.

“Lower case c,” Ed replied. “Don’t go dining out on stories about him, though. There’s a price on his head, and I understand there’s a pretty hefty one on yours, too, so you don’t want some enterprising jihadist aiming for a twofer with both of you in this place.”

Ed did introduce Cairo to her. Lana petted him. He appeared to tolerate her touch, but that was about it. And he barely glanced at Lana, eyes on his new digs. Emma got a reintroduction, and asked if Cairo still high-fived.

“Sure,” Ed replied.

She and Cairo slapped palm and pad.

While Don, Emma, and Ed gave Cairo the tour of the house and grounds, Robin remained in the living room long enough to ask Lana how she was doing.

“Fine. Do you need anything?”

“No, nothing. I’ll leave.”

She didn’t mean to be curt, but realized that must have been how she’d sounded. As he exited the front door, Ed, Emma, Don, and Cairo returned through the kitchen.

“I brought along special senior dog food for him,” the breeder said. “You can pick it up at Whole Pet Central in Rockville when you run out. Or from us if you happen to be up in our neck of the woods. Thing is, don’t ever let anyone else try to feed him but you two and Emma.” He went on to brief her about the importance of Cairo’s rigid feeding regimen. “Now, if you’re going on vacation—”

“We won’t be taking any vacations for the foreseeable future,” Lana interrupted.

“I hear you,” Ed said. “Nobody is. Not even the President’s taking any time at Camp David. I’ll go get that dog food from my truck. Just remember, Cairo does not cuddle.”

Lana didn’t need a reminder. Cairo looked all business to her, like most of the SEALs whom she’d gone into battle with.

• • •

Lana’s leg wounds paled in comparison to the shocking medical nightmare unfolding down south. The ISIS fighters who’d surrendered so readily in Oysterton, Louisiana, at the End of Summer Jamboree had apparently infected themselves with smallpox well ahead of the attack. So they had, in fact, carried ashore suicide bombs—their own bodies—and spread the deadly contagion to more than a hundred of the men, women, and children who’d crowded around them during the perp walk to take photos, including tons of selfies and videos. Also infected the same day were the news crews, reporters, and sheriff’s deputies who’d proudly paraded their prisoners past all the lookie-loos.

The sheriff himself was stricken with the disfiguring disease; his exposure came after he’d insisted on taking selfies with the handcuffed and ankle-chained men en route to Camp Blanding in central Florida. Now the terrorists he’d treated like trophies he’d bagged on a big-game-hunting expedition were on the verge of killing
him
. In turn, the sheriff had infected countless others by glad-handing constituents in his boisterous bid for November reelection. The polls were unlikely ever to open for the incumbent sheriff: His voter-ready smile on the campaign trail had been replaced by deeply scarred features on what now appeared to be his deathbed.

All the stricken were housed in isolation units in poorly equipped and vastly overwhelmed rural hospitals in Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. Parts of east Texas had also drawn close scrutiny from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The sheriff was in the same hospital as Jimmy McMasters and the pert piccolo player rescued by the boat racer in the early moments of the beachside invasion. The eighteen-year-old band member had spent many hours smacking skin with Jimmy and exchanging vital bodily fluids, ensuring her own infection and that of five family members, including two older brothers who now promised to tear Jimmy “limb from limb for violating our sister.”

In the past twenty-four hours, she had broken out with the mouth sores that presaged the full onslaught of the disease. She was also running a 104-degree fever.

Jimmy was doing better—so far. His doctors described him as having the constitution of a rhino. Considering what the girl’s brothers wanted to do to him, he wished he had the hide of that creature as well, though it might not be needed: The furious pair now appeared unlikely to last long enough to fulfill their heartfelt vow. But Jimmy wasn’t past the disease’s danger zone yet, and his Kato Kaelin physical charms were succumbing to more pustules with each passing day.

Jimmy sat up in bed and watched a cute nurse exit the room now occupied only by him; a young man had died at sunrise, only an hour ago.

Jimmy could hardly believe how fast his downfall had come. Not only the smallpox and death threats from piccolo’s thuggy brothers, but also his descent from national hero to national goat in a matter of days. Masochistic though it always proved to be, he tuned into the
Today Show
, where much of the viewing audience was now fixed on Matt Lauer’s battle against smallpox, for which millions blamed Jimmy. NBC’s executives stoked the audience’s anger by replaying, at least once a show, the moment when Lauer had introduced Jimmy, only to have the sturdy good ol’ boy pull the sharply dressed host to his feet for a Louisiana-style bear hug.

Why’d I do that?
Jimmy shook his head in regret. He really liked Matt the man. And then he’d gone and fucked him over but good.

The video came right up, as if on cue.

Sheeeee-it.

“Right there,” Lauer’s excited female co-host gushed. “That was when poor Matt got infected, according to his doctors. Right when that boat guy grabbed him.”

Boat guy? I don’t even have a name anymore?

“Doctors say that was point of contact,” the co-host added, shaking her head as she looked directly into the camera.

The beautiful woman could not have sounded more disgusted if she’d been describing the vivisection of a pregnant pig.

The entire news division of the Peacock Network—from multi-million-dollar anchor monsters to the lowliest interns—was now isolated on three floors of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, scrutinized daily by roving teams of medical professionals looking for any signs of sickness—just like the audiences for the NBC’s news shows.

Jimmy glared at the screen. Hugging Matt had been such a great moment for him. How was he to know he’d been contagious?

He’d sent an email apology to Lauer. Jimmy hadn’t heard back. Didn’t expect to. Lauer was said to be running a high fever with pustules weeping pus all over his body. Jimmy figured a simple “I’m sorry” wasn’t going to cut it with Lauer. He wondered if he should go to Lauer’s funeral … if it came to that. Maybe even speak as a great admirer and newfound friend.

He wished he could do something to make amends, anything that would make people stop comparing him to Typhoid Mary. One guy on TV even called him “Smallpox McMasters.” Jimmy swore he’d go to the caliphate himself and spit in the furry faces of ISIS leaders if he had half a chance. But he was unlikely to slip past the end of the corridor, where armed guards kept patients in and visitors out.

You’re not going anywhere. You’re sick, dude.

As if to confirm his status, he walked into the bathroom to check himself in the mirror. 
Yup
,
still got it
. Not too bad … considering. Like a bad case of acne. His fever this morning had even dropped to ninety-nine, which by smallpox standards was nothing. Staring at his reflection, he knew that getting laid night after night by hero groupies had ended. He was contemplating that dark, lonely future when he heard a
Today 
Show
report that fifteen ISIS fighters were battling right at that moment to take control of a poorly defended BP oil rig platform a couple hundred miles off the Mississippi coast.

Jimmy stumbled back to his bed to see helicopter footage of the heavily armed fighters seizing weapons from BP’s defeated security force. Out came the big knives.

Oh, Christ.

No, the network would never show … But they did, and then another head rolled. Those ISIS monsters were tossing them into the Gulf like coconuts. Bodies, too.
What the fuck!

And they were hoisting their big black flag with the white circle and weird writing.

Three men on the BP crew had been spared. The reporter in the helicopter said the man in the middle—bald, portly, and wearing nothing but his undershorts—was the platform’s chief engineer. The other two were oil workers. A statement from the attackers, just received in news centers around the world, said the terrorists intended to blow up the well. “We will make the five million gallons from BP Horizon look like a puddle. We will sabotage every emergency device that could cap the well. The Gulf will be poisoned forever.”

To underscore their point, a crew of ISIS suicide bombers had taken the chief engineer’s family captive and threatened to cut off the heads of his three children if he didn’t comply with their wishes in the next seventy-two hours.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Jimmy said to the TV. “Everything’s going from bad to worse.”

He stared at BP’s three men standing under the Gulf’s brutal sun. They looked shiny from sweat. He knew how hot it got out there. He’d even worked on a BP offshore oil rig for three weeks before he’d been fired for partying in the rec room with a pair of exotic dancers he’d smuggled aboard. BP’s execs were
very
touchy about regulations after the Horizon fiasco. So Jimmy did know something about their operations.
Probably
just enough to be dangerous
, he thought.

But then Jimmy realized that knowing just enough to be dangerous might be just enough, indeed.

• • •

Lana checked on Holmes’s condition almost hourly. The deputy director was still in the ICU, still not permitted visitors. His longtime executive assistant Donna Warnes said his condition was grave. She’d sounded weepy when Lana had spoken to her by phone. That Donna was upset worried Lana, and not just for deep personal reasons. The interim deputy director sitting in for Holmes, Marigold Winters, was clearly vying to remain his replacement
and
had already made strong efforts to coerce Galina to leave CyberFortress and come to work for the NSA.

Winters, dubbed “Flowers” by her many male friends at the agency, hadn’t even had the decency to consult with Lana before telling Galina that Louisiana Senator Bob Ray Willens was prepared to introduce a bill that would force Galina to work for the NSA for seven years from the time she was granted political asylum by the U.S. The legislation already had twenty-five co-sponsors in the Senate, 151 in the House.

Flowers’s move didn’t shock Lana. The pair had started at NSA the same year, but while Lana’s cyberskills had moved her up the agency command quickly, her envious antagonist had refined a different set of talents: she’d become a consummate in-house backstabber and power grabber, and a demagogue of the first order, casting aspersions on some of the most talented Arabic-speaking experts in the intelligence community. She’d drummed up enough suspicion on the “questionables”—her term—to drive them out of government work.