In a duffle coat and a fur hat, McLeod met them in the lobby. He threw his arms around both of them, wrapping them in a warm embrace. When he finally released them, he wagged a finger reproachfully. "Shite! Why is it that I can't leave you two alone for five minutes without a building falling on you?"
"Guess we're lost without you, Duncan," Gwen said, genuinely pleased to see him. "Anyway, how did you know about that?"
McLeod pointed at Haldane and grunted. "Him!" He shook his head. "Called me from the airport. The man can't keep a secret." He winked playfully at Gwen. "You know he kisses and tells, too."
Gwen reddened slightly and cursed herself for reacting like a schoolgirl. She turned away from the others and limped over to the elevator.
Another security guard escorted them from the elevator into the Department of Homeland Security. Despite being a Sunday morning, Gwen was pleased to see that the department was half full. She led Haldane and McLeod down a corridor, past several empty cubicles, and into her private office. Once seated around her desk, Gwen and Noah took turns updating McLeod on the raid in Somalia and the result. With his coat on and hat in his lap, McLeod's face contorted in rapt attention as he sat and listened.
After they were finished, McLeod said, "Kabaal is dead. Good riddance to him. But what about this Sabri fellow?"
"Hopefully, he was inside the building when it collapsed," Gwen said.
"Hopefully," McLeod echoed distantly.
Haldane nodded. "They're collecting DNA from the scene, but we may never know if be was there or not."
McLeod lifted his hat and put it back on top of his tousled red hair. "Or we might know soon."
"Meaning?" Gwen demanded.
"Well, I think it's safe to assume that, technically, you haven't met the terms of the ultimatum from the Brotherhood of One Mean Bugger--or whatever the hell they call themselves," McLeod said. "And if this Sabri bastard is still alive..."
Gwen's jet lag was catching up to her. "I haven't heard of any new viral outbreaks, yet," she snapped.
"Me neither," McLeod agreed. He adjusted his hat. "But you Americans are so damn secretive, you'd probably keep denying it until you were the last two left standing on this frozen continent."
Haldane showed a tired grin, while Gwen looked as if she fought off a grimace. "What is the situation with the rest of the world?" Haldane asked.
"Surprisingly, not bad when it comes to the Gansu Flu," McLeod said. "It's quelled in the Far East. Neither London nor Vancouver has reported a new case in three days. The scattered outbreaks in Europe are contained. Even in Illinois, the news is better. I think there were only a handful of new cases yesterday."
Haldane leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on Gwen's oak desk. "Maybe, we're winning for a change," he said.
McLeod held up two sets of crossed fingers. "Providing the U.S. Army didn't drive past an 'army of martyrs' heading the other way, Haldane, you could be right."
With the same lights-flashing police escort as on their last trip, a limo picked up Haldane and Savard and rushed them over to the White House.
Two somber Secret Service men ushered them through the West Wing down to the same Situation Room where they had sat less than thirty-six hours earlier, but a much smaller group attended now. Aside from General Fischer and Andrea Home, only the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security plus the Directors of the CIA and FBI were present.
Ted Hart frowned at Gwen as she walked into the room. "Gwen, I hear you came very close to getting yourself killed over there. That is the last time--"
Gwen raised a hand to cut him off. She brought the other to her chest. "I swear, Ted, never again."
Appearing less than satisfied, he shook his head angrily. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when the President strode into the room.
Without acknowledging any of the others, he sat down at the head of the table. "Thank you for coming," he said, staring ahead at the far wall. "Before we begin I would like to request a moment of silence to recognize those brave young Americans who gave their lives this morning to protect the safety of all our citizens." He bowed his head and closed his eyes, but he didn't speak another word. Gwen knew that the quietly religious man was deep in prayer.
After a full minute of silence, he said, "Okay, thank you. Dr. Home will lead the discussion from here..."
"Mr. President," Gwen spoke up from halfway down the table and all heads turned to her.
"Yes, Dr. Savard?" he asked with a mildly perplexed expression.
"I promised one of their comrades that I would tell you that the U.S. Rangers who died in Somalia were great Americans. Each and every one of them."
He stared at her for several moments before his face broke into a paternal smile. "And you have my promise that I will recognize them as such. Each and every one of them."
"Thank you, Mr. President," Andrea Home began. "Most of us watched in this very room the video feed from Operation Antiseptic. Drs. Haldane and Savard were even on-site," she said, and Gwen thought she caught a fleeting disapproving glance from the NSA. "I've asked General Fischer just to give us a short debriefing on the operation."
Fischer climbed to his feet "Don't know if 'short debriefing' is in my vocabulary, but I'll try," he said with a pained smile. He went on to give a concise review of the logistics of the operation and how it played out up until the point of storming the building.
"Once we had secured the immediate perimeter of the building, we had no choice but to go in," Fischer drawled. "Our boys and girls would have been sitting ducks waiting outside the building any longer, taking on fire. Besides, you--" he said with slight implication in his tone, but looking at no one in particular--"wanted visual confirmation of their nest and laboratory." He hung his head low. "As you know, the building was booby-trapped with high-potency explosives. Our people didn't stand a chance once inside." He looked up, his eyes burning with wounded pride. "But the Seventy-fifth Rangers Airborne Regiment and the rest of our military achieved the objective over there. We got their leader, and not one terrorist escaped the operation."
"Thank you, General." Home said earnestly. She turned to Ted Hart. "Mr. Secretary, can you enlighten us as to the state of Homeland Security?"
Hart cleared his throat with a harsh cough. "It goes without saying that the alert level is still on 'code red.' Our borders are closed to all commercial travel. We have extra law enforcement and emergency services standing by in every region of the nation."
"Mr. President," the nondescript, bespectacled Director of the FBI chimed in. "We have every available field agent on the street working with the local law authorities."
Ted Hart nodded. He looked over in Gwen's direction with a raised eyebrow. "Dr. Savard, can you update the status of the new drug treatment?"
"Potential treatment," Gwen emphasized. "The manufacturing plant is up and running. We'll continue at it twenty-four/seven, but we're at least six days away from production."
Aaron Whitaker spoke up. "No question. Our military did us proud over in Africa." He saluted General Fischer with a tap over his bushy eyebrow. "Although we got Kabaal, we haven't confirmed we nailed Abdul Sabri. So I think we had better operate under the assumption that we have not eliminated this particular terrorist threat. And even accept the possibility that their army of terrorists is already on our soil."
Though Gwen did not like the belligerent Secretary of Defense, she nodded fervently in agreement with his point.
"Mr. Secretary, that is exactly what we are assuming," Ted Hart said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Katherine Thomason raised a hand.
"Yes, Madam Secretary?" Home said.
"I understand. And I agree with the others." Thomason closed her eyes and nodded solemnly. "But we may never know exactly who among the terrorists died in that Somali lab."
"Your point, Madam Secretary?" Home asked.
"Say, by the grace of God, days pass ... weeks pass ... and we see no signs of the virus. Just how long do you propose that we run the country as a fortress?"
The President leaned forward and tapped his touching fingers against his chin, which he often did right before intervening in a conversation. "Katherine, America will be a fortress until the moment we believe it safe to be otherwise." His eyes narrowed. "And not one second sooner."
CHAPTER 37
GLEN ECHO HEIGHTS, BETHESDA, MARYLAND
When Noah awoke in his guest bedroom, he realized he had slept past The Brotherhood's midnight deadline for troop withdrawal and right through until late Tuesday morning. Though he knew the ultimatum was moot after the raid on the Somali base, like most other Americans, he still anxiously anticipated the deadline's passing.
When he saw that it was already 10:21 A.M., he reached for the portable phone and dialed Gwen's cell number.
"You just waking up?" Gwen asked in amazement.
He recognized from her light tone that nothing ominous had happened during his sleep. "Weird, huh?" he said. "I find a one-day round-trip to an African war takes a toll on my body. Maybe I'm low on melatonin." He chuckled. "No word?"
"Nothing," she said. "But no news is definitely good news in this case. How are you?"
"Fine," he said, standing from the bed and walking to the mirror over the dresser. "More to the point, how are you?"
"A little sore, but it's mainly my ankle. Otherwise, okay."
Haldane paused. Up until this moment their days had been so preprogrammed through this crisis. "So, um, what's next?" he asked, studying his face's dense stubble in the mirror and noting how much more hollow his cheeks had become since the appearance of the Gansu Flu.
"We prepare for the worst. And we hope to hell it doesn't happen." She paused. "I don't know, Noah, but something feels incomplete, you know?"
It wasn't until she spoke the words that he realized they encapsulated his feelings, too. "Exactly," he said.
"Let's meet in my office in a this afternoon to review where we stand, okay?"
"Done."
Haldane hung up the phone and headed for the shower.
Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, Noah met Anna in the hallway. "Morning." She offered him a cup of tea along with a coy smile.
"Hi." Noah accepted the cup, feeling an unexpected level of discomfort at what had once been a morning ritual for them. "Chloe at preschool?"
"Yeah." Anna smiled. "It was all I could do to stop her from waking you this morning."
"Thanks." He forced a smile, but his unease didn't let up.
She pointed at the deep abrasion that ran along the inside of his left thigh and down to his ankle. "I thought you said nothing happened to you on your African trip."
Haldane shrugged.
She folded her arms across her chest and frowned slightly. "Chloe is going to need her dad for a lot longer, you know?" she said with a trace of bitterness.
"I didn't choose any of this," Haldane snapped.
Anna shrugged and then said in a smaller voice, "You didn't choose a nine-to-five stay-at-home job either."
Haldane held up his palms. "But if I had, everything would be perfect between us, right?"
"I ... I didn't mean that," she stammered. Her face flushed with anger. "I just want things to be right again for Chloe. For us! And you don't seem to want to help me much with that."
She turned to leave, but Noah stopped her by gently catching her wrist. "Anna, I know how hard you're trying to do what's right," he said. "But I don't believe you even know what you want."
She started to say something, but Noah cut her off. "And, Anna, truth is I don't know what I want anymore either," he said softly.
After spending much of the day in a teleconference with Jean Nantal at the WHO, Haldane and McLeod arrived at Gwen's office in the midaftemoon. Noah couldn't deny his disappointment to see that Alex Clayton already sat in the chair across from her, looking very much at home with his Armani sports jacket unbuttoned and hands folded behind his head.
In jeans and a sweater, Gwen sat behind her desk, her face creased with a look of concern. "Hi," she greeted them distractedly.
After they took their seats around the small conference table, McLeod nodded to her. "Gwen, what's the matter? You look like you're still carrying part of a building on your back." But Haldane noticed the genuine concern behind the Scotsman's quip.
"A couple of developments," Gwen said gloomily. "Alex, why don't you start?"
He pulled his hands off his head and shrugged. "We just got the preliminary report from the army pathologist who did the autopsy on Hazzir Kabaal."
"Let me guess," McLeod said. "He's not dead, after all?"