Black Harvest (The PROJECT) (16 page)

Billy had a regular routine. He always started with the meeting rooms. Then he'd move on to the bathrooms and halls and offices, then the lab to finish up. The lab had the refrigerators. He never had to go in the largest part of the building. Billy didn't know exactly what went on in there, except it was where they experimented with growing things. He didn't really care. He was just grateful he didn't have to clean it.

He finished ten minutes before the end of his shift, which gave him time to see if there were any goodies in the fridge. Five huge refrigerators lined one wall of the lab. He ignored the first four. They held test tubes, vials, small round dishes with weird  stuff. Nothing edible. Sometimes the fifth had good things in it.

This time the fifth had nothing green. It was filled with row upon row of pepper jars filled with black grains, just like the ones in the store. They had blank red labels, waiting for whatever would identify the contents, like Cayenne or Black Pepper or Chili.

He was almost out of pepper at home. Billy liked a lot of pepper on his food. He chose a container from far in the back of the lower shelf. He opened the lid and shook a little on his hand to make sure. Fine black grains settled on his palm. He sniffed it and sneezed. Pretty fine grind, but it would do. No one would miss one jar. He put the jar in his pocket.

Time to go home. It was Friday. He had two weeks of vacation coming. Tomorrow he was headed to Nebraska to visit his brother and help with the spring planting.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Elizabeth hadn't heard from Yakov. She was worried. What if Vysotsky went to his boss? Anything might happen then.

Stephanie came in.

"The Pentagon. I found something."

"What have you got?"

Steph sat down. "They really had this buried. That place is like a Chinese puzzle box. I had to go through four separate revolving firewalls, each one worse than the one before."

Elizabeth waited.

"They have a war game scenario called Black Harvest."

"What's it about?"

"Occupying Russia."

"You have got to be kidding."

"No. Of course it's hypothetical."

"Sure it is. Unless they decide to implement it."

"It's a detailed plan based on one key element, catastrophic crop failure across the entire country. It assumes collapse of the government, chaos and famine. That provides an opportunity to enter Russia as the good guys bringing food and relief. Of course, supplies have to be protected by troops and the logistics to back them up. The phrase they use is 'Humanitarian Advisors'."

"They do turn a good phrase, don't they. Who can argue with that?"

"There's more."

"There always is."

"Guess how they propose to restore the food supply?"

Elizabeth reached for her pen. "Seeds." She began tapping. "Dansinger."

Steph nodded.

"Any mention of Demeter?"

"No. But the association seems obvious. Demeter must be a plan to initiate the crop failure. Black Harvest is the follow up."

"Lodge and Dansinger are going to do something to cause it."

"Demeter's curse. Something that kills crops and causes famine."

Harker thought about it. "Campbell finds the reference to the urn. He doesn't know anyone has it, he just wants to find it. He also doesn't want the Pentagon to know about it. He tells two people, everyone dies."

Steph brushed a speck from her shoulder. "Dansinger and Lodge didn't want anyone following up on it. Even though it disappeared more than two thousand years ago."

"Dansinger must have it. If anyone could use old virus material to create something new it would be him. He's got brilliant geneticists working for him."

"Lodge would be able to plant those bombs. But how did he know about Campbell?"

"He must have someone at CDC, Steph. Someone
working with Campbell
who knew Wiesner and Campbell were working on
a
bio-warfare
program.
Or maybe someone in the Pentagon.
"

"It still doesn't explain Gelashvili coming after Selena in Greece."

"I think Lodge
sent him
. He's gone to a lot of trouble to keep everyone away from that urn. It was a mistake."

"How so?"

"If he'd stopped after he killed Campbell and the others, it would have ended there. He probably thought it would. He couldn't have known McCullough would call Selena and give her a copy of those tablets. Somehow he knew she'd talked with McCullough and got worried. By sending Gelashvili and going after us he raised the ante."

"How would he know about Selena and McCullough?"

"I don't know."

"What do we do next, Director?"

"We wait for the team to get back. And we wait to hear from Vysotsky."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Besida Gelashvili paced back and forth in Zviad's study. The day was sunny. She could see children playing in Gorky Park. Damn him. Damn all of them. Damn Iosif for getting himself killed. She couldn't gain control of the organization without him. The vultures were already circling and she was a disposable liability. She knew too much. She needed to get out of Moscow. Her daughters were young, no threat to anyone. They were safe but she wasn't. She felt her belly, where Iosif's baby was growing. She thought about what she'd take with her.

A servant came into the room. He was nervous.

"What is it?"

Before he could answer, three men entered the room. One of them held up his identification. A round, gold badge. In the center, a five pointed star surrounding a blue lined globe. A banner of red, blue and white spread under the star and globe.

SVR. Not FSB, but foreign intelligence. Besida forced herself to remain calm.

"Besida Gelashvili?"

"Yes."

"You will come with us."

"What..."

One of the men took her arm. "Shut up. Come with us."

A black Mercedes waited outside. The men pushed her into the back seat. One sat on either side. No one spoke until they reached SVR headquarters.

"Get out."

The men took her inside, down a long flight of steps, into a dingy corridor. They weren't gentle about it. One of them pulled open a door.

"In there." He shoved her into the room. The door shut behind her.

A narrow metal shelf extended from one wall. There were no blankets or sheets. There was a toilet without a seat. It smelled of urine and shit and vomit. There was no window. The walls were concrete. There was nothing else in the room.

For the first time since she was a child, Besida felt real fear.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The team filled Elizabeth's office. Harker told them about the Pentagon scenario. She briefed them on the approach by Yakov. She still hadn't heard from Vysotsky.

"Now you're all up to speed. Ideas?"

"What about the President," Nick said. "Have you let him know?"

"I don't have anything to give him, no proof. He's waiting to see if I come up with something."

"He doesn't know about the Russian approach?"

"He doesn't need to know."

Lamont rubbed his arm. "Lodge was bad enough. Now it's the Pentagon?"

"We can't be certain of that. But it's likely. Maybe not official."

"Someone setting up a convenient option that just happens to be handy?"

"That's what I think. A war game scenario is only a scenario, a possibility. The Joint Chiefs wouldn't do this. They don't like Russia, but they wouldn't kill millions of people and march in with an undeclared war under the guise of humanitarian relief."

"Millions?" Ronnie said.

"If the crops fail in Russia it will cause famine." Nick tugged on his damaged ear. "The
y're not
equipped to handle something like that. Hell, we aren't equipped for something like that. The
Federation
would fragment. It would be chaos. Civil war."

"Time for assumptions?" Selena looked around the room. "We've done this before. It worked out pretty well."

She seemed fine. Nick focused on the task.

"Okay. Assumption number one is that Lodge and Dansinger want to unleash a lethal crop virus against Russia soon. The spring crops are just coming up."

"How would they do it?" Lamont asked. "Get it started?"

"Probably airborne. It's the best way. Anything else would take too long."

Elizabeth made a note. Something she could give Vysotsky. If he contacted her.

"What's assumption number two?"

"Number two is someone in the Pentagon is in on this," Nick said. "We have to find out who it is."

"That won't be easy. I had a heck of a time hacking in."

"We could look for personal connections, Steph. Maybe Dansinger is buddies with someone over there. Lodge is, for sure."

Elizabeth made another note. This one wasn't for Vysotsky.
She
beat a short tattoo with her pen on the desktop. "The big question is how are we going to stop them? Yakov talked about removing Lodge. He meant kill him. We can't do that. We can't let the Russians do it either. If they get worried enough, they'll try."

"How come we always end up in the middle of something like this?" Lamont said.

"Because we're super heroes, Shadow." Nick smiled.

"Yeah? Where's my cape and shield?"

"Not my fault you can't find them. You had them with you, you wouldn't have gotten shot in Khartoum."

Elizabeth waved her pen in the air. "Children. Stay on task, here."

"Maybe we could get them to make a mistake." Selena smoothed a non-existent crease in her skirt.

"Go on."

"They don't know we've figured it out. That we know as much as we do."

"We don't know that, but you're probably right."

"We could let them know."

"Make them come after us?"

"Yes."

"They already did."

"That was because we were after the urn. Maybe we should keep looking for it."

"Forget the urn
," Harker said. "I
t doesn't matter anymore.
We'll assume Dansinger has it."

Ronnie said, "We can't go after Lodge, but we can go after Dansinger. Get his attention."

"I'm listening."

"He's got buildings in Texas, right?"

"Lots of them. It's where he develops his products."

"Why don't we see exactly what he's doing down there?"

"Recon," Nick said.

"Yup. Maybe a little sabotage at the same time."

"And leave a trail."

Ronnie nodded. "Something obvious. We want him to know it was us. He'd have to react. He's not going to call the cops."

"He'll probably call Lodge."

"Works for me."

"We do this, we'll stir up a hornet's nest." Harker smiled. She looked like a mischievous elf. "I like it."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Alexei Vysotsky considered his options. The results of Besida Gelashvili's interrogation lay on his desk. She'd been persuaded to give him enough to smash Gelashvili's gang. Russia would be a better place because of it. He had his satisfaction. Now it was up to FSB. He'd already forwarded what he wanted them to see. From here on in it was their problem.