Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (6 page)

“This is shaping up to be one hell of a mess, Colonel,” a familiar
voice said grimly from behind him.

Frank Diaz came forward from his post by the door. Today the ex-Ranger
noncom was wearing a bulky bulletproof vest. He had a riot helmet dangling from
one hand and a twelve-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun slung over the other
shoulder. A bandolier held a mixed assortment of CS (tear gas) shells and solid
slugs for the shotgun.

“What has these people so revved up?” Smith asked. “President
Castilla and the media aren't due here until the day after tomorrow. Why all the outrage now?”

“Somebody offed a couple of Lazarus Movement-types last night,”
Diaz said. “The Santa Fe PD found two bodies stuffed into a Dumpster. Down behind that big outlet mall on Cerrillos Road. One was stabbed,
and the other had a broken neck.”

Smith whistled softly. “Damn.”

“No kidding.” The Army veteran hawked and spat. “And those fruitcakes
over there are blaming us.”

Smith turned to look more closely at him. “Oh?”

"Apparently the dead guys were planning to cut through our fence last

night,“ Diaz explained. ”For
some big act of civil-fricking-disobedience. Naturally the radicals claim
we must have caught the two of them and slaughtered 'em. Which
is all bullshit, of course. . . ."

“Of course,” Smith agreed absently. He ran his eyes over the
stretch of chain-link fence in sight. It seemed perfectly intact. “But
they're still dead, and you're the designated bad guys, right?”

“Hell, Colonel,” the ex-Ranger noncom said. He sounded almost
aggrieved. “If I knocked off a couple of punk-ass, eco-freak infiltrators,
do you think I'd be stupid enough to just dump them in some trash bin behind a goddamned
shopping mall?”

Smith shook his head. He could not stop a quick grin from flashing across
his face. “No, Staff Sergeant Diaz. I really do not believe you would be
that stupid.”

“Damned straight.”

“Which still leaves me wondering, who was that stupid?”

■

Ravi Parikh kept his attention focused closely on the highly magnified image
on his monitor. The semiconducting sphere he was looking at seemed well within
its design specs. He zoomed in even closer, scanning the front half of the
nanophage. “I cannot find a problem with this sensor array, Phil,” he
told Brinker. “Everything is just where it should be.”

Brinker nodded wearily. “Which makes ninety-nine out
of the last hundred.” He rubbed at his eyes. “And the one
flawed build we've found so far didn't form a sensor array at all, which means
the onboard power source would never have gone active.”

Parikh frowned thoughtfully. “That is a nonfatal error.”

“Yeah, for the host, at least.” Brinker
stared into the monitor gloomily. “But whatever ran wild in Mouse Five was
pretty damned fatal.” He fought off a yawn. “Man, Ravi,
this gig is like looking for a single needle in a haystack the size of
Jupiter.”

“Perhaps we will get lucky?” Parikh suggested.

“Yeah, well, we've got. . . oh, say . . .
forty-seven hours and thirty-two minutes to do it in.”

Brinker swiveled around in his chair. Not far away stood the head of the
Secret Service team assigned to secure their lab ahead of the president's
visit. He was a big man, well over six-foot-six and probably weighing 250
pounds, most of it in muscle. Right now he was busy watching two members of his
unit carefully place what they called “anti-bugging” and “hazard
detection” devices at various points in the lab.

The scientist snapped his fingers, trying to remember the agent's name.
Fitzgerald? O'Connor? Something Irish anyhow. “Uh, Agent Kennedy?”

The tall auburn-haired man turned his head. “The name is O'Neill, Dr.
Brinker.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Brinker shrugged. “Well, I just wanted to
thank you again for letting Ravi and me stay
here while your guys do their stuff.”

O'Neill smiled back. The smile did not reach his bright green eyes. “No
thanks are necessary, Dr. Brinker. None at all.”

■

“LET LAZARUS
LEAD! NO TO DEATH! NO TO NANOTECH! LET LAZARUS LEAD!”

Malachi MacNamara stood close to the speakers' platform, near the very heart
of the angry, shouting throng. Like those around him, he rhythmically jabbed
his fist in the air in rage. Like those around him, he joined each deafening
chant. But all the while his pale blue eyes were busy scanning the crowd.

Now Lazarus Movement volunteers were moving through the mass of protesters,
handing out new signs and posters. Eager hands grabbed at them. MacNamara
pushed and shoved his way through the jostling, agitated mob to get one for
himself. It carried a much-enlarged and hurriedly color-copied photo of Paolo
Ponti and Audrey Karavites—a picture that must have been taken very recently
indeed, because they stood sil-

houetted against the white peaks of the Sangre de Crista Mountains.
Scrawled above their young, smiling faces in bold red letters were the words: THEY WERE MURDERED! BUT LAZARUS LIVES!

Still chanting, the pale-eyed man nodded to himself. Clever, he thought
coldly. Quite clever.

■

“Jesus Christ, Colonel,” Diaz murmured, listening to the sound of
raw hatred spreading through the mob outside. “It's like feeding time at
the goddamned zoo!”

Smith nodded, tight-lipped. For a moment he wished he was armed. Then he
shook the thought away. If things turned ugly, fifteen 9mm rounds in a Beretta
clip were not going to save his life. Nor had he joined the U.S. Army to shoot
unarmed rioters.

The sight of flashing lights out on the access road attracted his attention.
A small convoy of black SUVs and sedans was moving slowly up the access road,
steadily forcing its way through the swelling crowds. Even at this distance,
Jon could see angry fists being shaken at the vehicles. He looked over at Diaz.
“You expecting reinforcements, Frank?”

The security guard shook his head. “Not really. Hell, barring the
National Guard, we've already got every unit available within fifty
miles.” He peered closely at the oncoming vehicles. The lead car had just
pulled up outside the gate. “And that sure ain't the National Guard out
there.”

The Army veteran's tactical radio squawked suddenly, loud enough for Smith
to hear it.

“Sarge?” a voice said. “This is Battaglia, at the gate.”

“Go ahead,” Diaz snapped. “Make your report.”

“I've got some more Feds here. But I think there's something really-screwy
going on. . . .”

“Like what?”

“Well, like these guys say they're the Secret Service advance
team. The only one,” the other guard stammered. "And there's a
Special Agent

O'Neill down here who's madder than spit because I won't open the gate for
him."

Diaz lowered his radio slowly. He stared at Smith in utter confusion. “Two Secret Service teams? How the hell can there be
two goddamned Secret Service teams?”

A shiver ran down Jon's spine. “There can't.”

He fumbled through the inner pocket of his leather jacket and tugged out his
cell phone. It was a special model, and all
transmissions to and from the phone were highly encrypted. He punched a single
button, triggering an auto-dial emergency sequence.

The phone on the other end rang once —just once. “Klein here,” a
quiet voice said calmly. The voice belonged to Nathaniel Frederick Klein, the
reclusive head of Covert-One. “What can I do for you, Jon?”

“Can your people patch into the Secret Service's internal
communications system?” Smith demanded.

There was a brief pause. “Yes,” Klein replied. “We can.”

“Then do it now!” Smith said urgently. “I need to know the exact
location of the presidential advance team for the Teller Institute!”

“Wait one.”

Smith cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear, temporar-ilv
freeing both of his hands. He looked at Frank Diaz, who was watching him with a
strange expression of disbelief. “Did your boss give that first Secret
Service unit your tactical radio frequencies?”

“Yeah. Naturally.”

“Well, then, Staff Sergeant,” Smith said coolly, “I'm going
to need a weapon.”

The former noncom nodded slowly. “Sure thing,
Colonel.” He handed over his Beretta. He saw Smith check the
pistol's magazine, slap it back in, pull back its slide to chamber a round, and
then flip the decock-ing lever to safely lower the hammer, all in a series of
smooth, fast motions. Both Diaz's eyebrows went up. “I guess I should have
figured out that you were more than just a doctor.”

Fred Klein came back. “The advance team headed by SAIC Thomas O'Neill
is presently just outside the Institute's main gate. They report that the
security personnel there have refused to admit them.” The head of
Covert-One hesitated. “What precisely is happening out
there, Jon?”

“I don't have time to explain in detail,” Smith told him.
“But we're looking at a Trojan Horse situation.
And the damned Greeks are already inside the gates.”

Then suddenly he and Diaz had even less time than he had imagined.

The fake Secret Service agent he had seen guarding the main doors was moving
out into the open. And he was already swinging the muzzle of his submachine gun
toward them.

Smith reacted instantly, diving to one side. He landed flat on the steps
with the Beretta already extended in both hands and on-target. Diaz threw
himself the other way.

For a split second the gunman hesitated, trying to pick out the biggest
threat. Then he swung the MP5 toward the uniformed guard.

Big mistake, Smith thought coldly. He flipped the safety catch off and
squeezed the trigger. The Beretta bucked upward in his hands. He forced the
pistol back online and fired again.

Both 9mm rounds slammed home, tearing flesh and shattering bone. Hit twice
in the chest, the gunman went down in a heap. His submachine gun clattered to
the pavement and a widening rivulet of blood trickled down the steps.

Smith heard a car door open behind him. He looked back.

Another dark-suited man had climbed out of one of the two black SUVs parked
along the drive. This man had his SIG-Sauer pistol out and it was aimed
squarely at Jon's head.

Smith swung round in a frantic attempt to bring his own weapon to bear,
knowing that it was no use. He was too slow, too far out of position, and the
dark-suited man's finger was already tightening on the trigger. . . .

Frank Diaz fired his shotgun at point-blank range. The blunt-tipped CS gas
round struck the second gunman right under the chin and ripped

his head off. Tumbling now, the tear gas shell
bounced off the SUV and exploded high in the air—sending a puff of gray mist
drifting east, away from the building.

“Shit,” Diaz murmured. “Nonlethal
ammunition, my ass.” The ex-Ranger noncom quickly reloaded his
shotgun, this time with solid slugs. “Now what,
Colonel?”

Smith lay flat for several seconds longer, scanning the Institute's wide
doorway for more enemies. There were no signs of movement. “Cover
me.”

Diaz nodded. He knelt, aiming at the door.

Smith belly-crawled up the steps to where the first dead
gunman lay. His nose twitched at the hot, coppery smell of blood and the
uglier stench of voided bowels. Ignore it, he told himself grimly. Win first.
Regret taking life later. He put the Beretta on safety and shoved it into his
belt, at the small of his back. Moving fast, he scooped up the MP5.

The sentry's surveillance radio gear caught his eye. It would be very useful
to know what the bad guys were up to, he decided. He stripped the lightweight
radio set off the other man's belt and fitted the tiny receiver into his own
ear.

“Delta One? Delta Two? Reply, over,” a
harsh voice said.

Smith held his breath. This was the sound of the enemy. But who the hell
were these people?

“Delta Section? Reply, over,” the voice
repeated. Then it spoke again, issuing an order. “This is Prime. Delta One
and Two are off-line. All sections. ComSec enable.
Mark. Mark. Now—”

Abruptly the voice vanished, replaced by static. Smith knew what had just
happened. Once they realized their communications were compromised, the
intruders inside the building had switched to a new channel, following a preset
plan and rendering this radio useless to him.

Smith whistled softly to himself. Whatever the hell was going on here, one
thing was absolutely clear: He and Diaz were up against a force of stone-cold
professionals.

Inside the quiet, clean confines of the Harcourt Biosciences Lab, the tall,
auburn-haired man frowned. The early arrival of the real Secret Service advance
unit was a possibility he had anticipated in his mission plan. Losing the two
men he had left guarding the Institute's main entrance was a somewhat more
serious complication. He spoke quietly into the small radio mike attached to
his suit coat lapel. “Sierra One, this is Prime. Cover the stairs. Now.”

He turned to the men under his direct command. “How much
longer?”

The senior technician, short and stocky, with pronounced Slavic features,
looked up from the large metal cylinder he was wiring into a remote-control
circuit. He had clamped the cylinder to a desk next to the lab's
floor-to-ceiling picture window. “Two more minutes, Prime.” He
murmured into his own mike and listened intently. “Our sections in the
other labs confirm they, too, are almost finished,” he reported.

“Is there a problem, Agent O'Neill?”

The green-eyed man swung round to find Dr. Ravi Parikh staring at him. His
colleague Brinker was still engrossed in his analysis of the failed nanophage
trial, but the Indian molecular biologist looked suspicious now.

The big man donned a reassuring smile. “There's no problem, Doctor. You
can go on with your work.”

Parikh hesitated. “What is that piece of equipment?” he asked at
last, pointing to the bulky cylinder beside which the technician crouched.
“It does not look much like a 'hazardous materials detector' or whatever
else you have said you are placing in our lab.”