The Devil's Pitchfork (32 page)

“It’s a letter box,” Johnston said.

“Yes. They call their mailboxes suites so it might give the owner the appearance of having an office suite.”

“Do they have a computer—”

”Not that I have found yet, but wait a moment.”

Johnston knew better than to rush Vogel. The man understood the urgency, but he needed to lead Johnston through things step by step.

“We are also looking for biological cabinets—hoods, they call them—that can be used in biosafety level 3 or 4. The manufacturers of these are very few, and in the United States, even fewer.”

“Is it possible they bought them from outside the country?”

“Possible, but unlikely if they are doing what you think they are doing. Why bring such a device through customs and immigration controls? Why risk a possible red flag and the amount of paperwork necessary? Understand my reasoning?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“This company—” Another window on a second computer screen. “—Beckman ... manufacturers a limited number of theses types of biological cabinets. They re-circulate the air within the facility only, not outside the facility. They have sold five of them in the last eighteen months. One to Fort Detrick. Two to the CDC. One to the University of Arizona. And one to—”

He tapped a key. Johnston read the invoice. “Biosynthetica, Inc. Damn. Same address?”

“Oh no,” Vogel said. This was shipped to the Frederick Airport where it was picked up personally by representatives of Biosynthetica, Inc.” Vogel cut again to another screen, this one indicating a pickup of a large freight container delivered from the Beckman manufacturing facility in Houston.

“Jesus.” Johnston’s heart sank.

“Ah,” Vogel said. “We are on the trail, my...” He smiled. “
Comrade
. We are on their trail. You see, though we do not have access to the UPS Store computer, they did not pay for this biological cabinet with cash. They used a credit card. A corporate credit card with Citibank Visa.”

“It has a mailing address,” Johnston said, heart racing.

“Ah. UPS Store in Essex. The same drop box. However ...”

Johnston looked at him, waiting.

“However,” Vogel repeated. “This credit card has some very interesting activity on it.”

“It’s being paid.”

Vogel brought up the Citibank Visa computer system. Johnston didn’t want to think about the security they must have and how easily Vogel had gotten through it. “From an account in Geneva, Switzerland, Banque Diamantaire Anversoise (Suisse) S.A. That would take some time, I’m afraid. No, back to Citibank Visa. You see, they have been buying vehicles—Humvees and motorcycles and panel vans. These are interesting, but I’m afraid they are a dead end. No, what interests me is this—” The man’s finger pointed to a line in the Citibank Visa listing. It was a reference to another credit card.

“What’s that?”

“A second line of credit. For another company related to Biosynthetica, Inc. It is for a company called TFA Holdings, Inc. They have a corporate headquarters in Sioux Falls, Iowa.”

“Address?” Johnston demanded, starting to lose his patience.

“Another UPS Store. It does not matter. I believe it’s a mail drop for a shell corporation. TFA Holdings owns four companies.”

He brought them up on the computer. Angelika Research, Inc. JavaJones Materials, Inc. RAC, Inc. Andarbek Industries, Inc. “They are all incorporated as off-shore accounts, they all have credit and, as far as I have been able to tell, do not actually exist except as these corporations. However...”

Johnston waited. There was something in Vogel’s manner that indicated that this might be worth waiting for.

“However,” Vogel said. “Andarbek Industries, Inc. claims to be involved in warehousing non-perishable food products to be distributed to small stores—your so-called mom-and-pop fast food stores.”

Johnston looked confused.

“Andarbek Industries, Inc. appears to have leased a large warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia from TGLM Properties,” Vogel said.

“A large warehouse,” Johnston repeated.

Vogel brought up an address and a map of Alexandria. “
Ja
. I would check this out, James. But very, very carefully.”  

52

The Fallen Angels’ Headquarters

D
EREK, LYING WITH HIS
own blood smeared on his face, didn’t have long to wait. Only a few minutes after slumping to the cot he heard a noise at the door. It swung open and a blue spacesuited figure stepped in and crouched over him. In one quick motion Derek hooked his arm behind the figure’s legs and swept them out from under him. With a cry the figure crashed to the floor, thrashing awkwardly in the clumsy spacesuit.

Derek leapt over him, sprinting into the main part of the laboratory. A second spacesuited figure stood momentarily paralyzed before racing toward the door. But no one could run fast in a spacesuit and Derek was on him in a second, catching the figure from behind, bringing his arm around the neck of the spacesuit and spinning around and hauling the figure with a spine-cracking thrust over his shoulder. The figure crashed to the laboratory floor and lay motionless, the helmet of the spacesuit at an odd angle.

Derek returned to the first spacesuited figure, who was climbing to his feet. He recognized the features of Dr. Kim Pak Lee through the visor of the helmet, eyes wide in panic. Derek rushed  him as the Korean desperately tried to reach a laboratory bench. Derek intercepted him, grabbing the spacesuit material in both hands and slamming the scientist to the floor. It was no contest, really. With nimble fingers Derek detached the helmet and yanked it off Lee’s head.

“Not in here!” Lee hissed. “This is Level 4.”

“Life’s a bitch,” Derek said, pressing his forearm into the Korean’s neck. “Now, you’re going to tell me what your plan is.”

“I will not!”

“You will!” he said, applying more pressure to the scientist’s neck, mindful of how this had gone horribly wrong with Irina Khournikova ... or Nadia Kosov.

“No! It is too late. The Fallen has already begun. You cannot stop it!”

“Where is he?”

Lee clamped his mouth shut. Furiously, Derek tried to think of something he could say or do that would make the man talk. His gaze roved over the laboratory equipment on the counters and on the open shelves. He locked in on a glass bottle. It said H
₂
SO
₄
on the label.

He hauled Lee to his feet and dragged him over to the counter. With one hand holding Lee, he picked up the bottle of sulfuric acid in the other. He uncapped the glass stopper.

“I’ll start with your eyes,” he said.

Lee blinked.

“And I’ll burn off your face. And make you drink it. But believe me ... you’re going to tell me what you’re doing with Chimera. Where’s Coffee? Where’s The Fallen?”

The scientist couldn’t take his gaze off the bottle. Already the fumes were making his eyes water. “Fallen ... is gone.”

“He has Chimera?”

Lee did not answer. Derek spilled a drop of the concentrated acid on the Korean’s forehead. It smoked.

Lee grimaced and writhed in agony.

“I tell you, I tell you.... It’s too late for you to stop it.”

Derek put the bottle aside.

“It’s burning! Make it stop! Please, make it stop!”

Derek snatched a bottle of water off the counter and rinsed the acid off Lee’s face. There was a red burned mark on the man’s forehead.

“Talk.”

Lee took a deep breath. “We are going to start over. We are going to start what you call Armageddon.”

“How?

“Chimera.”

“Where is Fallen? How many have been sent out? Where?”

“Fallen first. Just a little while ago. Then one at a time over the next day. Each with an aerosol canister that looks like a Coke can.”

Derek waited. Lee looked triumphant, smug at being able to talk of their plan. He continued. “International flights. Different countries. We are to release the virus in the airplanes just before we land in the new countries. Then we catch a flight to our ... meeting place.”

“Which is where?”

Lee shook his head. “You cannot stop our plan. But you have been vaccinated. You can join us. But only if we trust you. And we don’t trust you.
I
don’t trust you.”

Derek considered forcing the issue, but didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Which airport? Where is Coffee—Fallen—flying to?”

Lee smiled, a dreamy look in his eyes. “It will start in France.”

“Which airport?”

Lee smiled again, the expression in his face unsettling.

“Which airport?” Derek repeated.

Lee shoved him away with all his strength. Before Derek could stop him the Korean seized the bottle of sulfuric acid and poured it down his throat. With a shriek the bottle dropped the floor and splintered into a million pieces. Lee thrashed on the floor, spewed blood and held still.

53

Washington, D.C.

I
RINA
K
HOURNIKOVA SLIPPED INTO
the back of a diner only five blocks from the Hoover Building. She didn’t completely understand what had happened back there, but she was thankful. It had been a mistake to agree to come with the FBI agent, Unrau. Unrau had told them that their expertise on this Russian national was required, a woman called Irina Khournikova of the ‘T’ Directorate. Of course she had come, but it should have set off alarm bells. Somehow Coffee—Andarbek is how she still thought of him—had set her up. A house of mirrors. Andarbek had set up traps for everyone. For her, for this man Stillwater, whoever he was. But Andarbek must have feared him because so much of this operation seemed designed to ensnare Stillwater. She wondered who he was ... and where he was.

There was a pay phone at the back of the diner. The diner was filling up with breakfast eaters, what seemed to mostly be midnight workers coming off their shift, grabbing breakfast before they went home to bed. She liked this place. It reminded her of Moscow. Good solid people working, going about their lives.

She didn’t have money, but it didn’t matter. She had phone card numbers memorized. She dialed a number and waited for someone to answer. It was answered by a seven digit series of numbers spoken in Russian.

Vosem. Devyat. Shest. Pyat. Tree. Dva. Odeen
. 8965321.

She recited a series of numbers in response. Tree. Dva. Dva. Shest. Vosem. Shest. Vosem. 3226868.

“What do you need?”

“I need a pickup.” She gave the current code word for an emergency—”
v pizdu
”--and recited her address. Then, “I need information on the leasing information for an apartment.” She explained about the safe house where the false Irina Khournikova had been staying. “The FBI is probably looking into it as well, so be careful.”

“Anything else?”

“No.... Yes. A weapon.”

She hung up and slipped into the women’s room. She had no identification, no gun and, she realized, precious little time. Andarbek had gone crazy. He wanted to destroy the world. And he had the means to do it.

Her stomach churned. She turned the tap on cold and splashed water on her face, thinking of all the years she had spent trying to track down this man, the terrorist who had assassinated her lover. Each time she got close, he slipped away. Each round of investigations turned up more information, often conflicting. First he was a Chechen leader. Then he was an American CIA operative. Then he was dead. Then he was alive, running arms. Then he was a cult figure, his followers fanatically devoted to him. Each turn of the crank wound this mysterious terrorist tighter. His actions became more unpredictable, his attacks more vicious. It was no longer clear who his allegiances were to.

Well now you know
, she thought.
To himself
.

To his own brand of madness
.

She left the women’s room and slipped into a booth, the seats done in red vinyl. When the waitress came she ordered coffee and bacon and scrambled eggs and toast, hoping that the food would get delivered before her pickup arrived. The coffee came almost instantly and she sipped it, welcoming the revivifying effects. There was a TV above the counter turned to CNN. She watched it out of the corner of her eyes. Talk about the attack on the White House, how the President was on Air Force One, how the alleged assassin, Samuel Dalton, had been found killed near Rock Creek Park. The anchor speculated that Dalton had been working for someone. They did not make a connection to The Fallen Angels. No mention was made of the shootings at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, though she thought it was only a matter of time before they did.

Just as the waitress brought her breakfast, an ice-blond man in a navy blue suit came in carrying a calfskin briefcase. He surveyed the crowd, then sidled toward her and slipped into the booth. He first placed the briefcase next to her and slid a set of car keys across the Formica tabletop.

“White Ford Taurus. D.C. plate, ED47LF. Parked just up the street on this side.” He pointed. “Everything you asked for is in the briefcase, including a cell phone. Is there anything else?”

“Money and ID?”

“Taken care of.”

“Good,” she said.

The man, whose English was perfect, said, “There is a message I’m supposed to give you personally. From the T Directorate.”

She eyed him.”Yes?”

“They would very much like this matter with Andarbek to end. For good.”

“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” He nodded, got up and left. She finished her breakfast, took the briefcase to the women’s room and emptied it. A wallet with appropriate identification: driver’s license, credit cards, and cash. Everything was made out to Irene Kramer, a resident of Washington, D.C. with an address at the Watergate Hotel. There was a 9mm Glock in a belt holster with an extra magazine and a silencer. There was a passport, U.S., which she hoped she wouldn’t need, given tightened security during the crisis. There was a sheaf of papers backgrounding the safe house where Derek Stillwater had tortured the fake Irina Khournikova to death.