Jericho 3 (11 page)

“Captain Henry, we need to get Miriam loaded into an MRAP and over to the clinic on Lightning,” Camp yelled as chaos in the ER became more intense.

“Roger that, we should be ready in 30 minutes,” Henry said as he applied loose bandages to the new incision on Miriam’s right arm.

“We don’t have 30, gotta be now. No ambulance, sirens, or lights, and no urgency as we move through the checkpoint.”

“Roger.”

“They’re going to have plenty of fireworks to respond to in a few minutes.” Camp walked out the back door of the ER to look for a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle he could borrow for a quick ride.

FOB Lightning – XO’s B-Hut

Paktya Province, Afghanistan

C
olonel Kierkendahl paced back and forth in front of his desk as Camp, Finn and PAO Dawkins sat around his conference table.

“You walk onto my base and start blowing up Afghan hospitals like you’re Dustin Hoffman or something. Who the hell do you think you are, Campbell?”

“I wasn’t the would-be suicide bomber, colonel. That was the interpreter your boys cleared, vetted, housed and fed for the last four years,” Camp said with obvious contempt.

“We’ve got all of the Afghans on Thunder in full code red, Lightning is on lockdown, and I’m stuck here with the mission creep producers of Wag the Afghan Dog. What am I supposed to do now?”

“I’d wait it out, professor. Never know what snake might crawl out of the hole on his belly to claim responsibility,” Finn replied with a not-so-subtle jab at the Minnesota National Guardsman and his day job at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Dawkins’ cell phone rang.

“Got it. Thank you,” she said as she ended the call. “RTA just ran the story. Photos are up on TV, and Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera are running it shortly.”

“Running what?” Kierkendahl demanded as he pounded his desk.

“Suicide bomber detonates at the Paktya Regional Hospital, undisclosed number of Afghan soldiers, locals and American military killed,” Dawkins said as she recited some of her copy.

“That’s it! I’ve had enough of this wild, wild west crap from you two. I want you off my FOB first light tomorrow.”

Finn and Camp looked at each other and smiled.

“Oh how we’d love that, colonel,” Finn said sarcastically, “but no can do.”

The colonel’s desk phone started to ring.

“Colonel Kierkendahl…yes, yes good afternoon General Ferguson…yes, sir…they’re in my office right now…so you’ve been briefed?…yes sir, but do you realize what these two have…come again, sir?...Roger that, sir.”

Kierkendahl hung up the phone and sat down in the chair behind his desk and swiveled around so that his back faced the others. He sat silently for several seconds then exhaled loudly.

“Let me know what you need. My assets are at your disposal.”

Dawkins looked over at Camp and Finn with astonishment as Camp stood.

“What about Miriam the Terp?” Camp asked Colonel Kierkendahl.

“You mean the one RTA is reporting as dead? You saved her life then killed her off for the entire world to see. Looks like she’s your problem now, Captain Campbell. Dismissed.”

National Interagency Biodefense Center

BSL-4 Facility

Fort Detrick, Maryland

A
 crowd of 14 protesters with signs and posters were gathered outside the main gate to Fort Detrick as Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines pulled her Jeep Wrangler into the checkpoint queue. The Jeep window was already down so Raines could hand her credentials to security when a protester started shouting at her.

“Rot in hell, lady, you animal killer!”

Raines never looked at the young man who was hurling the venomous insults.

“Here we go again,” she complained quietly as her nails tapped the steering wheel.

Dr. Groenwald was doctoring up his grande mocha with a double shot of espresso at the atrium coffee bar in the Integrated Research Facility when Raines walked up.

“Good morning, Colonel Raines. I would have gotten you a tall skinny if I knew you were here already.”

“Who sent the greeting committee?” Raines asked as she got in line.

“Pardon me?

“The animal rights protesters at the gate…is today PETA day?”

Groenwald put the plastic lid back on his cup after three more packets of raw brown sugar and stood in line next to Raines.

“No, they’re not just the domestic protesters
du jour
this time. Seems like we have an international operation today,” Groenwald said with a lowered voice.

“International?”

“This crew is from SHAC, kissing cousins to the hooligans in London.”

“The SHAC Seven are out of jail now, right? Is this part of the same old crusade?” asked Raines.

“Not really. Shall we sit?” Groenwald motioned to an empty couch. “Looks like some of the peaceful groups are trying to recruit a bit of the fringe in order to add some bite to their bark. Another 15 are over at Aberdeen Proving Grounds this morning as well. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection has gone to great lengths to ramp up their intelligence gathering, especially on the issue of transporting research animals. They’ve even blogged about a top secret shipment we received last month. Animal Aid is now making in-roads in the states, even mounting a campaign against the American Cancer Society and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer folks. Worse than that, the public believes what they tell them.”

“Why Aberdeen?” Raines asked.

“Vervet monkeys, mostly. SHAC got a hold of some training video a couple of years ago, and every few months they pull it back out to gin up discontent.”

“Nerve agent training, wasn’t it? I thought the Army stopped doing the training program with vervets several months ago.”

“They did. But protesters aren’t inclined to let facts get in the way of a TV news camera and some potential donations now are they? Then they got wind of a USDA report that mentioned 94 guinea pigs and 54 rats. Nothing unusual, all by the book really, but written by a clueless science geek who forgot the reports are public domain. His written report came across like he was a heartless bastard.”

“BIO or CHEM?” Raines asked.

“Chem for these. They were checking lethal doses for inhalation. You don’t know what’s really lethal until, well, you know. Anyway, the guy cites a 1984 Clement and Coperman study in his report and asserts that even though the chemical agent-induced convulsions and death that did not necessarily mean the animals went through any pain or suffering. Well, they certainly weren’t enjoying a Saturday afternoon playing in the park! The American Humane Fund gets the report, goes international with all of the animal rights underground, some groups align, and today they trot out the vervets. When the Army denies, it comes across as the liar.”

Raines took another pull on her latte.

“I don’t like the use of guinea pigs and rats, but how would they like us to protect our troops, or the innocent Kurds in Anfal, or the Serbs or any other group? So why Detrick, why today?”

“Aerosolized inhalation. A young community newspaper reporter has apparently been getting some pillow time with one of our scientists who apparently forgot he had an oath along with a single-scoped, polygraph security clearance when he just happened to mention that we would be conducting aerosolized Ebola tests on primates this week. Front page story in the
Bethesda Weekly
this morning; local citizens are going nuts.”

“I don’t subscribe.”

“Well, there are plenty of copies around today so help yourself. It’ll be unusually quiet as everyone speculates as to the identity of our sex offender with the big mouth.”

“Pretty remote, isn’t it?”

“What?” Groenwald asked, as they got up and headed for the elevator.

“That a band of terrorists could aerosolize Ebola effectively as a WMD? They’d have to get the appropriate strain of the disease pathogen and know how to handle the organism correctly. They’d have to grow it in a way that would produce the appropriate characteristics, and then they’d have to store the culture and scale it up to production capacity. Aerosolized or not, dispersing a perfectly lethal recipe for inhalation and widespread destruction is next to impossible.”

“That’s what we thought, too, until three weeks ago. An Illinois company gets an order for two commercial misting machines for pesticides, something called SkitoMister. The municipality in Hamburg, Germany buys them for mosquito control. Hamburg takes delivery last April just in time for mosquito season. But there’s a problem. The two 101-pound machines are nowhere to be found in the maintenance garage when the mosquitoes start to hatch. The city officials get busy with other work, get sloppy and finally file a police report in September. The Bundespolizei contact the American company to verify shipping and get the serial numbers. Next thing you know BPOL says the serial numbers showed up at a port in Jakarta, Indonesia. The local Polri checks out the importer who quickly compensates the Indonesian National Police with an appropriate bribe and confesses to shipping both machines black market to Islamabad.”

Stunned, Raines asked, “Oh my God, could this really work? I mean, do they have the competence to formulate the organisms to really be able to facilitate aerosolized particles?”

The elevator door opened and Groenwald swiped his card as did Raines. They both did their biometric scans and the elevator without floor buttons closed and climbed to their floor.

“That’s the million dollar question, Colonel Raines. We’re not running a Dark Winter or a Top Off, but that’s why we’re testing aerosolizers this week.”

“Do we have any clues on the biologicals? Ebola? Smallpox? Marburg’s?”

“No clue. But two American-made, high performance, aerosol misters, sold to Hamburg, stolen and shipped to Jakarta before black market transit to Islamabad, can’t be a good thing.”

“And the protesters?”

“Right now, the least of our worries…they’re just the detritus of our storm.”

FOB Lightning – Level 1 Clinic

Paktya Province, Afghanistan

A
 short-straw Army specialist was about to end his evening shift guarding the prisoner-patient when Camp walked through the doors of the clinic.

“Good morning, specialist. How’s our patient?”

“She seems fine, sir; she woke up about an hour ago.”

“She’s awake?” Camp asked as he moved quickly toward her private room.

“She said something all whacked out in that Afghani shit and then, all of a sudden like, she says ‘my son’ in like perfect English, you know?”

“I’ve got it from here, specialist. Go hit your rack.”

“Doc, I was wondering if you could get me some Ambien. I’m having a real hard -.”

“Big bottle behind the counter, little round blue pills, help yourself. One per night. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Miriam’s face was crusted and more swollen. Blotches of red covered her neck and forehead. Her arm was heavily bandaged from the escharotomy, but Camp could feel a pulse. The IV bag kept a constant flow of antibiotics, pain meds, sedation and fluids flowing. The intubation tube was uncomfortable, but it was better to have it in, especially if the airway should close from swelling. The Level 1 clinic on a Forward Operating Base was intended for PT sprains, colds, diarrhea, flu and Ambien. It was hardly a burn center, but Miriam was luckier than most burn patients. Camp and the medics got the fire extinguished quickly. The patient would be in recovery for several weeks; there would be scarring, but she would live.

“Miriam, can you hear me?”

Her eyes were swollen shut with bandages and ointment covering them.

A weak raspy whisper pierced the silence.

“Yes.”

“How are you feeling?”

“My son…my husband will kill him if he finds out that I lived.”

Camp walked around to the other side of her bed.

“You’re dead, Miriam…we sent reports to the Afghan media about the suicide bomber who killed herself and several others at the hospital. So relax…you’re dead.”

“I wish I was.”

“But your son may not be as lucky as you, Miriam.”

Her body writhed, and she grew agitated.

“What have you done to him?”

“Nothing yet. But I intend to hunt him down and kill him myself unless you tell me what I want to know.”

Camp heard the clinic door open. He saw Billy Finn walk into Miriam’s room just as Camp bent over toward Miriam’s ear.

Miriam became still.

“Mr. Finn is here,” she said to their mutual surprise.

“How are you, Miriam?” Finn responded though not really caring if she was feeling well or ever would.

“Your husband, Miriam, who is he? Why did he make you do this?” Camp continued the interrogation.

Miriam did not speak.

“Did he have something to do with Major Banks’ kidnapping?” Finn asked.

Miriam stayed silent.

“Does he live in Khost? Does he live there with your son and his family?” Camp asked.

She did not respond.

Camp walked away from Miriam’s bed and over to the desk phone in the room. He looked up at the phone numbers on a sheet of paper taped to the plywood wall. Pressing the speaker button, dial tone filled the room before Camp punched in the numbers.

“Task Force Duke, this is Sergeant Melendez,” said the voice on the other end.

“Melendez, you’ve got Khost in your area of operations, do you not?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Great. Operation Baby Bird is now green. Send your team over right now. Dead or alive, doesn’t matter to me,” Camp said as he pulled the handset up and disengaged the speaker phone.

“No!” Miriam pleaded as urgently as possible through the pain.

“Sir, what the hell are you talking about? You’ve reached the medical clinic at TF Duke in Khost,” Sergeant Melendez shot back into Camp’s handset and ear.

“Excellent. Let me know as soon as the mission is completed.”

Camp hung up the phone and walked closer to Miriam who was starting to twitch uncomfortably as Finn pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and held back the laughter.

“I’ll tell you.”

“Too late, Miriam, you’re nothing but a suicide bomber with a dead kid. You certainly didn’t care whose sons you were going to kill yesterday. Why should you care if your son is killed today?”