Seawolf Mask of Command (72 page)

Dhann paused to steady his nerves, knowing this was the critical moment. It still wasn’t too late. He could return the dish. No one would ever know. A single thin strip of red tape provided a security seal on the petri dish. If he opened the dish the seal would be snapped, and anyone looking at the dish would know someone had accessed the contents without authorization. But the researchers weren’t scheduled to be back in the lab for another thirty-six hours, which meant, with karma on his side, he would have almost two days before his treachery was discovered.

His hands were trembling. He couldn’t possibly perform the simple, necessary steps with shaking hands. He had to be precise. He couldn’t afford the slightest mistake.

Dhann forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths. He needed to be calm. In his life, he’d worked with virtually every deadly bacteria and virus known to man, and he’d never broken a sweat. Now the inside of his biohazard suit felt like a tropical forest. He was literally dripping with nervous perspiration.

He set the USAMRIID sample inside his cabinet out of view. The work area was designed to protect him and the world from anything he might be working on. Although his gloved hands could reach inside the cabinet, his face and body were protected by a shatter-proof view screen. Air ducts sucked air into the cabinet itself and then through a series of HEPA filters so any airborne particles wouldn’t be able to escape into the rest of the laboratory. Therefore, by necessity, the cabinet was relatively enclosed, meaning only someone looking directly over his shoulder would be able to see the petri dish.

Dhann glanced at his colleagues, needing to be certain he wasn’t being observed, but they were absorbed in their own work. He checked the observation room, separated from the lab by heavy safety glass. It was empty.

Dhann opened his hand and saw the Eppendorf tube with his transfer medium waiting. His rapidly dying humanity was screaming within him. Don’t… don’t do it! Return it. Take a leave of absence. Think about the consequences!

But those who’d ruthlessly slaughtered his family hadn’t considered the consequences. Dhann had identified his dear family in the morgue. He’d seen the effects of the monstrous act. His children’s bodies ripped and torn, poor little Amita barely recognizable as human from the blast that had disfigured her. The terrorists had never paused to think what their act might unleash, what horrible justice would be the reckoning of their crime.

He took a final deep breath to steady himself, set the tube down, and picked up the petri dish containing his messenger of justice. As expected, the security seal broke as he twisted the lid. He set the dish back inside the cabinet and picked up a plastic transfer loop. He opened the wrapper and removed the sterile loop. The slender handle led to a tiny loop hardly visible to the human eye. Then, he briefly brushed the transfer loop across the bacteria culture. With his naked eye, he could see nothing on the tip of the loop. But thirty-five years of experience as a biological engineer told him there would be hundreds, maybe even thousands of microscopic spores on the transfer loop.

He set the petri dish down and picked up the Eppendorf tube. He’d used similar tubes more often than he could count. Since his days in high school biology he’d been opening and closing similar tubes hundreds of times a day. It was as natural to him as any action could be. He positioned it between two fingers of his left hand and opened it with a simple flick of his thumb. Dhann hesitated, knowing he had to be careful not to contaminate the outside of the tube. It was absolutely vital that nothing touch the outside of the tiny tube.

He took another steadying breath and then carefully placed the hoop of the transfer loop inside the tube and into the transport broth. He didn’t need to swirl it, but he did so just the same, making a few minute sweeps with the hoop to transfer as many spores as possible. He carefully removed the transfer loop and, using his thumb, resealed the vial.

Dhann felt sweat trickling down his spine and stinging his eyes as he looked back into the cabinet at the innocent-looking vial. He knew its potential. Dhann briefly marveled at what nature had wrought. No man could have created something so biologically perfect. Deceptively simple. The elegant design. Virtually immortal. It could survive extremes of temperature. It could exist without sustenance for hundreds of years in a dormant state. Yet so horrific when aroused from its slumber.

Man fancied himself a killer… but Dhann knew better. He understood only too well the amateurish nature of man’s feeble ways. Nature was death’s true master.

He closed the petri dish, doing his best to line up the broken tape, hoping no one would see his crime. He returned the dish to the incubator. He knew the consequences if caught. If someone, by chance, noticed the broken seal too soon, his carefully laid plan would be foiled. But, he reminded himself as he closed the incubator, he’d surrendered himself to karma. If it was his fate to be caught before his horrible plan came to fruition, then he would be thankful for the mercy of the fates.

He returned to his cabinet and sterilized it, taking the contaminated transfer loop and disposing of it properly. He’d been in the lab barely ten minutes, and he knew his colleagues would take note of him leaving after such a short stay.

“Everything okay, Dr. Singh?” one of them asked via the headsets that allowed them to communicate despite the totally enclosed suits.

Dhann had expected someone to notice him leaving after only a few minutes in the lab, and he’d prepared an excuse.

“Yes,” he replied and waved toward the two fellow researchers. “I must have eaten something that has disagreed with me.”

The others nodded in understanding in their bulky pressure suits. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I ate at that new burrito joint just off the campus last week. I thought I’d never get out of the bathroom.”

Dhann nodded his head in mock understanding, waved goodbye, exited the laboratory, and entered the first of two showers. It took eight minutes of first a chemical shower and then a rinse to disinfect the suit itself. He exited this shower, removed the suit and left it behind in the suit room. He then stripped naked for the final shower, keeping the tiny vial hidden from view in the palm of his hand. He knew what would happen to him if so much as a single spore was on the exterior of the vial. One spore, barely four microns from tip to tip, would be all it would take. He wasn’t on the team scheduled to experiment with the Ames strain, thus he wasn’t—yet—on the regimen of antibiotics necessary to provide any protection from the perfectly harmless-looking mixture sealed inside the tube.

He scrubbed his body with the strong, antibacterial soap. Once certain he was bringing no unwanted pathogens with him, he stepped from the shower, towel dried, dressed, and then returned to his office, knowing that he was still not out of danger. He could still be caught. The broken USAMRIID seal would, quite likely, be noticed the moment the incubator was opened. Of course, they might assume someone had simply been clumsy. But this was unlikely. Everyone who worked at the lab had been meticulously trained on safety procedures. What was truly ironic, Dhann thought as he reached the elevator, was that he was one of the few people certified to train people to work in the laboratory. He had actually served at the lab’s biosafety officer for a year.

Karma.

He reached his office and went to the gym bag he carried to and from work every day. He carefully slipped the Eppendorf pipette into the metal sleeve of an ink pen. The metal sleeve would further protect the vial from damage during transport. Plus, it would be perfect camouflage. He then secreted the pen in his gym bag, hiding it within a sweaty set of gym clothes. For two months he’d been exercising at work every day, and he knew the security guards who searched his bag when he left the facility would never root through his sweat-soaked gym clothes. He closed the bag and then removed his lab coat for the last time and withdrew into his lavatory where he paused briefly in front of the mirror, barely recognizing the ashen face reflecting back at him. Then, with the enormity of what he had done washing over him, he turned, fell to his knees, and retched into the commode.

*

Dhann left his office and returned to the lobby, intent on leaving early. He’d chosen this day because he had no afternoon classes and could leave campus without being noticed. The security guards, as expected, were waiting at the entrance. He was still sweating, but instead of alerting the guards to his crime, his pale complexion and sweat-covered skin actually reinforced his assertion that he wasn’t feeling very well when they asked why he was leaving earlier than usual.

He stepped through the metal detector as a guard searched his bag, conveniently ignoring the bundle of gym clothing. They bid him a good afternoon and he exited the building, stepping out into the bright sunshine. He walked the short distance to the parking lot, almost numb and overcome with a strange, almost out-of-body feeling. It was as if he were simply observing everything instead of acting as a willing participant.

He reached his car and set the gym bag on the passenger seat beside him. His hands shook as he fumbled with the key. He paused, considering his crime, and the—as of yet—potential his actions would now unleash. He’d been careful. There was no electronic trail to follow. No phone calls. No e-mail messages. He’d never committed a crime in his life until this moment, but it seemed only logical that the authorities would be able to track him via his cellular phones and by e-mail. But he had considered this, too, and he would leave his cellular phone behind in his car.

The plane ticket out of the country was in the glove box; his suitcase was in the trunk. He’d considered selling his house, but that would have attracted too much attention. He’d liquidated all his retirement accounts and other investments, and his wealth was now hidden off shore where—he hoped—it was beyond the reach of the FBI, the CIA, and whoever else would soon be looking for him.

Dhann took a few steadying breaths and after three attempts managed to slip the key into the ignition.

He had a plane to catch.

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