Biowar (41 page)

The work on germ warfare, though he’d stopped working in the field, suggested the possibility, and his early experience with the disease had made him familiar with the organism. Still, he had worked on it off and on for many years before discovering precisely how to do it.

And then he had hesitated. Not until the cancer did he decide. He had needed help, however, to get the disease to the guerrilla camp. He was fortunate that many of those who had known him when he was a young man owed their lives or their loved ones’ lives to him. Mr. Bai had been one.

Kegan had not told Bai or anyone else what precisely he was doing. Yet somehow the Pole found out. When he contacted Kegan, he panicked and alerted the FBI and CDC.

“He had someone with the people Bai sent to the camp before you arrived,” explained Karr. “He simply watched what was going on. He could tell from some of the items you ordered through Bai the nature of things. I mean, what’s a hotel need petri dishes for, right?”

Kegan nodded and continued. He came to Thailand himself; posing as a sympathetic member of Amnesty International, he visited the guerrillas and poisoned them, lacing their food and drinking water. He was gone before the disease took hold.

He had to make sure it had worked, and so he sent his assistant there to check on rumors of disease.

“It worked, but you didn’t get everyone because of the cure. So you had to go back. But your money was spent; you needed connections. So you talked to the Pole,” suggested Karr.

Kegan nodded.

“I had already begun to negotiate when the guerrilla arrived to kill me,” said Kegan. “Fortunately, he stood out rather starkly in Athens, New York.”

“The man who came to your house—”

“They found my assistant here and probably tortured him. I’m not sure what’s happened to him, but I’m sure he must have been the link, not Bai.”

“Wait—you were negotiating?” asked Karr. “You were talking to the Pole, the guy with the company UKD, right?”

Kegan nodded. “I had no other way of getting money. I had already put two mortgages on my house.”

“You sold him the bacteria in exchange for his help.”

“I gave him one of the strands that had failed. I promised the medicine as well,” said Kegan. “The Pole can’t kill anyone. The strains are useless. They cause slight stomach discomfort. They show up in subjects, but they’re not fatal. I’m not a fool, Mr. Karr. I don’t hate the human race. I just hated the people who killed Krista.”

92

Now what the Syrian had told Lia earlier made sense—Marie Telach jumped to the panel, punching the line to the piloting area.

“Malachi. Malachi. Abort! Abort!”

She could see on the screen that the timer had drained to five seconds.

“Marie?”

“Abort,” she repeated.

“Once I’m authorized I’m only supposed to abort on Mr. Rubens’ orders. You already confirmed the order.”

“Stop now, Malachi,” she said, her voice calm and cold. “Stop. My authority.”

“If I abort, I still have to destruct. No second chance.”

“Abort
!
Now!

There was a pause. The timer had hit 0.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Inside the piloting pod, Malachi and Whacker didn’t speak until they were ready to start the destruct.

“Counting down,” said Whacker.

“Roger that.”

“I need your voice,” said Whacker, meaning that Malachi had to give the verbal authorization or the F-47s would not blow themselves up.

“Just a second,” said Malachi. He nudged Bird 2 so that it was lined up to hit the water as it destroyed itself. “Barry Manilow sucks fish.”

“That’s it?”

“You have to repeat word for word.”

“Barry Manilow sucks fish.”

The screen flashed red.

“Confirmed,” Malachi told the computer. “Destruct one. Destruct two.”

The aircraft blew up. The feed reverted to a feed from a Space Command visual satellite that Malachi had selected earlier as a default.

“Barry Manilow sucks?” asked Whacker.

“See? I knew you were a fan.”

93

“How do I know you’re telling the truth about the bacteria?” Karr asked Kegan.

“Why would I lie?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not.”

“So prove it,” said Karr.

“Test the bacteria strains. Buy some from the Pole and test it. I’m sure he’ll sell it. He sells everything.” Kegan shrugged. “He was useful.”

“He wasn’t a friend?”

“I don’t have many friends.”

“I know one. Charlie Dean.”

Kegan smiled weakly. “You know Charlie?”

“Yeah. I work with him.”

Kegan looked surprised. “Charlie?”

“He found the dead man in your house. He’d come up to see you.”

“Charlie? Is he—oh. God.”

“He’s all right. Turns out he hates cats.”

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Tell him yourself. Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here. I got a helicopter waiting. Get you home—”

Kegan shook his head. “Too late now.”

“Nah.”

“I’m afraid it is.” The scientist pulled the pistol up from below the blanket.

“It’d be better for everybody if you didn’t shoot me,” said Karr, though he was wearing the carbon boron vest beneath his shirt.

“Everybody?”

“Well, me.” Karr laughed. “What do you think?”

“Tell Dean it was all in the wrist.”

“What was that?” asked Karr.

Rather than answering, the doctor put the gun into his mouth and fired.

94

Rubens reached the Art Room as the birds disintegrated.

“What’s the situation?” he asked Telach.

“I aborted the strike on the hospital.”

“What?”

“Tommy found Kegan. The Russian strain is a fake. So was the Syrian. We have the lab tests,” said Telach.

“You countermanded my order without calling me?”

“I had five seconds to make a decision. I made it.”

Her lower lip trembled slightly as she continued, but the tremor wasn’t anything near as bad as the other day. Rubens listened without interrupting, realizing even before he heard all of her reasoning that she had made the right decision.

With all its high-tech gear, satellites, and fancy gizmos, at its core Deep Black was no different from any other organization. Its success depended on the ability of its people to make judgments and execute at the moment of crisis. Rubens knew that; his main asset as head of Desk Three, his real ability, was in finding the people who could do that. He had personally selected everyone in this room and all of the field ops as well. He was a phenomenally good judge of character.

So how had he failed to figure out what Marshall was up to?

A momentary blip, a necessary reminder that he was not perfect.

To be humble was the most difficult and yet important task, one he would struggle with his whole life.

Telach, too, had struggled. But she was over it, beyond whatever had troubled her.

“Very well,” Rubens told her as she finished. “You did well:”

“Thank you, boss.”

Her voice seemed uncharacteristically tender. Rubens turned away quickly and looked around the Art Room. “Where do we start?”

Nearly twelve hours later—after debriefing the teams, calling the President, calling Hadash, spending a long lunch with Brown—William Rubens leaned back in his office chair and closed his eyes. He’d come upstairs to see to his paperwork so he could take the next few days off, but even the most routine memorandum was beyond him. Dr. Lester called him to confirm that the epidemic had begun to abate, with no new cases reported in the past twenty-four hours. The first shipment of the medicine was just arriving from Thailand; many of those already infected would die, but the disease itself no longer presented the outsize threat they had mobilized against.

“Due to your people,” added Lester.

“Yes,” said Rubens. “Thank you.”

A moment after he hung up, the phone rang again. He looked at the receiver for a second, then reached over and picked it up.

“Rubens.”

“Marshall.”

“Yes?”

“You’re very good,” she said. “Far better than I gave you credit for.”

Another time, he might have strung her along for a while, but now he simply said he was tired.

“You had lunch with Lincoln?” she asked.

“Admiral Brown happened to have an appointment with him.”

“Which you arranged?”

Rubens didn’t answer. He had, in fact.

“And you urged him not to resign.”

“I told him he would be a fool.”

“Do you actually think you can influence him?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You told him you didn’t want the job?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. And apparently loudly enough to have several people nearby hear.”

“What was the purpose of that? Some sort of trick?”

“To remove temptation,” he said.

“You honestly don’t want to be Secretary of State?”

Of course he did. But he couldn’t.

“No,” said Rubens.

“I take it this means you’re holding to your position regarding biometric IDs.”

Actually, he had gone beyond that, drafting a detailed memo on the proposal and who stood to gain from it, along with financials on the two companies that included information about key stockholders. The memo—unsigned and mailed from Reston, Virginia—would find its way to the professional gossipmonger tomorrow. A payback, and an investment.

“I’ll remember this, Billy.”

Rubens winced. He hated to be called Billy.

95

Dean sat fitfully as the woman at the lectern, the local village historian, recounted how helpful James Kegan had been over the years, donating money, expertise, materials, and sweat equity as the group restored one of the old homesteads for use as a museum. It was a side of Kegan Dean barely knew.

Keys had had a whole life here that Dean really didn’t know. He’d talked at the local elementary school at least once a year, brought the kids down to his lab for a tour, judged the science fair. He’d been on the library board—not with the best attendance, the head librarian had felt compelled to note, but always willing to man the refreshment table at the annual fund-raiser, a thankless task.

The church was filled with people who remembered Keys for dozens of similar thankless tasks. Dean had missed the funeral, which had been held near his research institute; the church had been filled there as well, packed with scientists from across the world. Somehow, this one, with its halting and corny speeches, felt more comforting.

No one at either service knew the exact circumstances of Kegan’s death, let alone what had led to it; Rubens had seen to that. Dean tried to thank him, but the Desk Three Director shook his head.

“It’s a matter of national security, not a favor,” said Rubens. “I don’t do favors.”

Dean smiled at the memory. Something else from the meeting came to him—a question not from Rubens but, from Marie Telach.

“Did you know him well, Charlie?”

“Once,” he’d told her.

Once.

Was it a lie? The James Kegan he knew was a bit—what was the word—patronizing toward the people who lived in the town around him.

These people didn’t really know Keys. They certainly didn’t know Dr. Kegan. But what they did know was important to them.

And the same with Dean. Keys had a hell of a jump shot once. And he was a great guy to talk to late at night, when the summer was just starting to cool down. You could talk about anything—women especially. Keys was the one person whom you could talk about love with and not feel goofy or embarrassed or part of a Hallmark ad.

It must have killed him all along. All along. Yet he’d never admitted it all.

You really didn’t know me at all, did you, Charlie Dean?

No, he thought. But he did know some things. And he’d been right in the end.

So he’d known the most important thing. At least to him.

“And now, for a few words on our friend when he was a young man,” said the minister, taking over, “I’d like to call up Charlie Dean.”

Dean got up and walked slowly to the front. The first words stuck in his throat.

You really didn’t know me, but you were a good friend anyway.

“Jimmy Keys—that’s what we called him,” managed Dean. “He had the sweetest jump shot you ever saw.”

Read on for an excerpt from the next book by Stephen Coonts

LIARS AND THIEVES

A Tommy Carmellini Novel

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Press

“Whatcha gonna do when they come for you, bad boy?”

When Dorsey O’Shea walked into the lock shop that morning in October, I was in the back room trying to figure out how to pick the new high-security Cooper locks. I saw her through the one-way glass that separated the workshop from the retail space.

My partner, Willie the Wire, was waiting on a customer. I don’t think Willie recognized her at nrst—it had been two years since Dorsey and I were a number, she had changed her hair, and as I recall he had only met her on one or two occasions—but he remembered her as soon as she said his name and asked for me.

Willie was noncommittal—he knew I was in the back room. “How long has it been, Dorsey?”

“I really need to see Carmellini,” she said forcefully.

“You’re the third hot woman this week who has told me that.”

“I want his telephone number, Willie.”

“Does he still have your phone number?”

That was when I stepped through the shop door and she saw me. She was tall, with great bones, and skin like cream. “Hey, Dorsey.”

“Tommy, I need to talk to you.”

“Come on back.”

She came around the counter and preceded me through the doorway to the shop. I confess, I watched. Even when she wasn’t trying, her hips and bottom moved in very interesting ways. But all that was past, I told myself with a sigh. She had ditched me, and truth be told, I didn’t want her back. Too much maintenance.

In the shop, she looked around curiously at the tools, locks, and junk strewn everywhere. Willie wasn’t a neat workman and I confess, I’m also kinda messy. She fingered some of the locks, then focused her attention on me. “I remembered that you were a part owner in this place, so I thought Willie might know where to find you.”