Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (2 page)

Chewing that over, he sketched a rough salute to Diaz and drove toward the
parking lot. The prospect of being caught in a riot was not especially
appealing. Not when he was in New
Mexico on what was supposed to be a vacation.

Strike that, Smith told himself with a lopsided grin. Make that a working
vacation. As a military medical doctor and expert in molecular biology, he
spent most of his time assigned to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort
Detrick, Maryland. His
affiliation with the Teller Institute was only temporary.

The Pentagon's Office of Science and Technology had sent him to Santa Fe to observe and
report on the work being done in the Institute's three nanoteclmology labs.
Researchers around the world were locked in a fierce competition to develop
practical and profitable nanotech applications. Some of the best were right
here at Teller, including teams from the Institute itself, Harcourt
Biosciences, and Nomura PharmaTech. Basically, Smith thought with satisfaction,
the Defense Department had given him an all-expenses-paid ringside seat to
scope out the century's most promising new technologies.

The work here was right up his alley. The word nanotech carried an
incredibly wide range of meanings. At its most basic, it meant the creation of
artificial devices on the smallest of imaginable scales. A nanometer was just
one-billionth of a meter, about ten times the size of an atom. Make something
ten nanometers across and you were still looking at a construct that was only
one ten-thousandth of the diameter of a single human hair. Nanoteclmology was
engineering on the molecular level, engineering that involved quantum physics,
chemistry, biology, and supercomputing.

Popular science writers painted glowing word-pictures of robots only a few
atoms across prowling through the human body—curing diseases and repairing
internal injuries. Others asked their readers to imagine information storage
units one-millionth the size of a grain of salt yet able to hold all human
knowledge. Or dust motes that were actually hypercapable at-

mosphere miners, drifting silently through polluted
skies while scrubbing them clean.

Smith had seen enough during his weeks at the Teller Institute to know that
a few of those seemingly impossible imaginings were already hovering right on
the edge of reality. He squeezed his car into a parking space between two
behemoth SUVs. Their windshields were covered in frost, evidence that the
scientists or technicians who owned them had been in the labs all night. He
nodded appreciatively. These were the guys who were working the real miracles,
all on a diet of strong black coffee, caffeinated soda, and sugar-laced vending
machine snacks.

He got out of the rental car, zipping his jacket up against the brisk
morning air. Then he took a deep breath, catching the faint smell of cooking
fires and cannabis on the wind wafting across from the protest camp. More
minivans, Volvo station wagons, chartered buses, and hybrid gas-electric cars
were arriving in a steady stream, turning off Interstate 25 and heading up the
access road toward the Institute. He frowned. The promised multitudes were
assembling.

Unfortunately, it was the potential dark side of nanotechnology that fed the
terrified imaginations of the activists and Lazarus Movement zealots gathering
outside the chain-link fence. They were horrified by the idea of machines so
small they could freely penetrate human cells and so powerful that they could
reshape atomic structures. Radical civil libertarians warned about the dangers
of “spy molecules” hovering unseen in every public and private space.
Crazed conspiracy theorists filled Internet chat rooms with rumors of secret
miniaturized killing machines. Others were afraid that runaway nanomachines would
endlessly replicate themselves, dancing across the world like an endless parade
of Sorceror's Apprentice enchanted brooms—finally devouring the Earth
and everything on it.

Jon Smith shrugged his shoulders. You could not match wild hyperbole with
anything but tangible results. Once most people got a good close look at the
honest-to-God benefits of nanotechnology, their irra-

tional fears should begin to subside. Or so he
hoped. He spun sharply on his heel and strode toward the Institute's main
entrance, eager to see what new wonders the men and women inside had cooked up
overnight.

■

Two hundred meters outside the chain-link fence, Malachi Mac-Namara sat
cross-legged on a colorful Indian blanket laid out in the shade of a juniper
tree. His pale blue eyes were open, but he sat calmly, without moving. The
Lazarus Movement followers camped close by were convinced that the lean,
weather-beaten Canadian was meditating—restoring his mental and physical
energies for the crucial struggle ahead. The retired Forest Service biologist
from British Columbia
had already won their admiration by forcefully demanding “immediate
action” to achieve the Movement's goals.

“The Earth is dying,” he told them grimly. “She is drowning,
crushed beneath a deluge of toxic pesticides and pollution. Science will not
save her. Technology will not save her. They are her enemies, the true source
of horror and contagion. And we must act against them. Now.
Not later. Now! While there is still time . . .”

MacNamara hid a small smile, remembering the sight of the glowing faces
fired by his rhetoric. He had more talent as an orator or an evangelist than he
ever would have imagined.

He observed the activity around him. He had carefully chosen this vantage
point. It overlooked the large green canvas tent set up as a command center by
the Lazarus Movement. A dozen of its top national and international activists
were busy inside that tent—manning computers linked to its worldwide Web sites,
registering new arrivals, making banners and signs, and coordinating plans for
the upcoming rally. Other groups in the TechStock coalition, the Sierra Club,
Earth First!, and the like, had their own headquarters
scattered throughout the sprawling camp, but MacNamara knew he was in precisely
the right place at precisely the right time.

The Movement was the real force behind this protest. The other environmental
and anti-technology organizations were only along for the ride, trying
desperately to stem a steady decline in their numbers and influence. More and
more of their most committed members were abandoning them to join Lazarus,
drawn by the clarity of the Movement's vision and by its courage in confronting
the world's most powerful corporations and governments. Even the recent
slaughter of its followers in Zimbabwe
was acting as a rallying cry for Lazarus. Pictures of the massacre at Kusasa
were being offered as proof of just how much the “global corporate
rulers” and their puppet governments feared the Movement and its message.

The craggy-faced Canadian sat up just a bit straighten

Several tough-looking young men were heading toward the drab green tent,
making their way purposefully through the milling crowds. Each carried a long
duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Each moved with the wary grace of a
predator.

One by one, they arrived at the tent and ducked inside.

“Well, well, well,” Malachi MacNamara murmured to himself. His
pale eyes gleamed. “How very interesting.”

The White House, Washington,
D.C.

The elegant eighteenth-century clock along one curved wall of the Oval
Office softly chimed twelve o'clock noon. Outside, ice-cold rain fell in sheets
from a dark gray sky, spattering against the tall windows overlooking the South
Lawn. Whatever the calendar said, the first portents of winter were closing in
on the nation's capital.

Overhead lights glinted off President Samuel Adams Castilla's titanium-frame
reading glasses as he paged through the top-secret Joint Intelligence Threat
Assessment he had just been handed. His face darkened. He looked across the big
ranch-style pine table that served him as a desk. His voice was dangerously
calm. “Let me make sure I understand you gentlemen correctly. Are you seriously
proposing that I cancel my speech at the Teller Institute? Just three days
before I'm scheduled to deliver it?”

“That is correct, Mr. President. To put it bluntly, the risks involved
in your Santa Fe
trip are unacceptably high,” David Hanson, the newly con-

firmed Director of Central Intelligence, said
coolly. He was echoed a moment later by Robert Zeller, the acting director of
the FBI.

Castilla eyed both men briefly, but he kept his attention focused on Hanson.
The head of the CIA was the tougher and more formidable of the pair—despite the
fact that he looked more like a bantam-weight mild-mannered college professor
from the 1950s, complete with the obligatory bow tie, than he did a
fire-breathing advocate of clandestine action and special operations.

Although his counterpart, the FBI's Bob Zeller, was a decent man, he was way
out of his depth in Washington's
sea of swirling political intrigue. Tall and broad-shouldered, Zeller looked
good on television, but he should never have been moved up from his post as the
senior U.S. attorney in Atlanta. Not even on a
temporary basis while the White House staff looked for a permanent replacement.
At least the ex-Navy linebacker and longtime federal prosecutor knew his own
weaknesses. He mostly kept his mouth shut in meetings and usually wound up
backing whoever he thought carried the most clout.

Hanson was a completely different case. If anything, the Agency veteran was
too adept at playing power politics. During his long tenure as chief of the
CIA's Operations Directorate, he had built a firm base of support among the
members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. A great many
influential congressmen and senators believed that David Hanson walked on
water. That gave him a lot of maneuvering room, even room to buck the president
who had just promoted him to run the whole CIA.

Castilla tapped the Threat Assessment with one blunt forefinger. “I see
a whole lot of speculation in this document. What I do not see are hard
facts.” He read one sentence aloud. “
'Communications intercepts of a nonspecific but significant nature
indicate that radical elements among the demonstrators at Santa Fe may be planning violent action
—either against the Teller Institute or against the president himself.'”

He took off his reading glasses and looked up. “Care to put that in
plain English, David?”

“We're picking up increased chatter, both over the Internet and in
monitored phone conversations. A number of troubling phrases crop up again and
again, all in reference to the planned rally. There's constant talk about 'the
big event' or 'the action at Teller,'” the CIA chief said. “My people
have heard it overseas. So has the NSA. And the FBI is picking up the same
undercurrents here at home. Correct, Bob?”

Zeller nodded gravely.

“That's what has your analysts in such a
lather?” Castilla shook his head, plainly unimpressed. “People
e-mailing each other about a political protest?” He snorted. “Good
God, any rally that might draw thirty or forty thousand people all the way out
to Santa Fe is
a pretty damned big event! New Mexico
is my home turf and I doubt half that many ever showed up for any speech I ever
made.”

“When members of the Sierra Club or the Wilderness Federation talk that
way, I don't worry,” Hanson told him softly. “But even the simplest
words can have very different meanings when they are used by certain dangerous
groups and individuals. Deadly meanings.”

“You're talking about these so-called 'radical elements'?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And just who are these dangerous folks?”

“Most are allied in one way or another with the Lazarus Movement, Mr.
President,” Hanson said carefully.

Castilla frowned. “This is an old, old song of yours, David.”

The other man shrugged. “I'm aware of that, sir. But the truth doesn't
become any less true just because it's unpalatable. When viewed as a whole, our
recent intelligence on the Lazarus Movement is extremely alarming. The Movement
is metastasizing and what was once a relatively peaceful political and
environmental alliance is rapidly altering itself into something far more
secretive, dangerous, and deadly.” He looked across

firmed Director of Central Intelligence, said
coolly. He was echoed a moment later by Robert Zeller, the acting director of
the FBI.

Castilla eyed both men briefly, but he kept his attention focused on Hanson.
The head of the CIA was the tougher and more formidable of the pair—despite the
fact that he looked more like a bantam-weight mild-mannered college professor
from the 1950s, complete with the obligatory bow tie, than he did a
fire-breathing advocate of clandestine action and special operations.

Although his counterpart, the FBI's Bob Zeller, was a decent man, he was way
out of his depth in Washington's
sea of swirling political intrigue. Tall and broad-shouldered, Zeller looked
good on television, but he should never have been moved up from his post as the
senior U.S. attorney in Atlanta. Not even on a
temporary basis while the White House staff looked for a permanent replacement.
At least the ex-Navy linebacker and longtime federal prosecutor knew his own
weaknesses. He mostly kept his mouth shut in meetings and usually wound up
backing whoever he thought carried the most clout.

Hanson was a completely different case. If anything, the Agency veteran was
too adept at playing power politics. During his long tenure as chief of the
CIA's Operations Directorate, he had built a firm base of support among the
members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. A great many
influential congressmen and senators believed that David Hanson walked on
water. That gave him a lot of maneuvering room, even room to buck the president
who had just promoted him to run the whole CIA.