Fouad saw his mother standing in the far rocks. His father pointed and smiled. The Jinn swirled around her, whirlwinds of blue and red. ‘She’s making it all up,’ his father said. ‘There’s nothing to come home to, no blankets, no hot water, no chocolate, no comforts, and neither of us can hide, right? We’ll both kill again. No fairy tales. Just a madness for God.’
He was dreaming, of course, but even though he felt the bed beneath him and the tape wrapped around his ribs, he could still see his father, his mother, and the rocks. The dark outlines of the small room gradually came into focus through the edgy pall of the painkillers. A picture of a helicopter hung on one wall, and another of an A-10 Warthog hung over his bed. These were his Jinn. They had plucked him out of the desert.
His intercom chimed and he got out of bed to answer. It was David Grange, who had been on the rescue chopper, inviting him to a late night coffee in the mess hall. His chest did not hurt much. He got dressed with only a few twinges.
The mess hall was brightly lit and nearly empty. Two hundred aluminum tables stood in neat rows under a concrete roof that could have covered a football field. David Grange, short and pug-nosed, on the edge of plumpness, shook his hand and asked Fouad if he wanted cocoa or coffee.
‘Tea, white, please,’ Fouad said. Grange went through the long bars before the cafeteria station and brought back two cups. He set one on the table before Fouad.
‘You’ve impressed the hell out of Trune and Dillinger,’ Grange said. ‘And me, for what its worth. Who else has spoken to you?’
‘The doctors. The officers who debriefed me.’
‘You did a remarkable thing out there. You helped us put a big chunk of the puzzle together. Do you have any idea what’s happening? What’s happened in the last few days?’
‘No,’ Fouad said. ‘I have been pretty dopey. I’m still having dreams.’
‘Well, that will happen after trauma. We’re moving you up a few steps. Right now, everyone’s scrambling to get a piece of Iranian nuke pie. But…’ Grange regarded Fouad through amused eyes. ‘It was an accident. The Iranians were moving their warheads at Shahabad Kord and one of them got triggered. Right now, that’s not the official story, because some of our generals want to play this hand for all its worth. But it’s an accident—a wet match fizzle, compared to what we’re after. You look a little woozy. Still following me, Fouad?’
Grange pronounced his name perfectly.
‘I am okay,’ Fouad said. ‘What has happened?’
‘Israel may have foiled an anthrax attack. We thought someone was after Jews, maybe Jerusalem, so no surprise there. But Vatican authorities and Interpol have busted a ring of Jihadists preparing to launch a bioweapons attack in Rome. They never got their payload—an interruption in the supply. It’s worse than we thought. Someone’s after major religious cities. All of them. We don’t know why, but now at least we know who—we’ve ID’d one of the conspiracy, maybe the main guy.’
Grange stood. ‘Drink up. I’ll introduce you to some fine young men. They’re eager to meet you.’
Rebecca sat next to Hiram in the limousine. Traveling with the director-designate to headquarters would have once made her heart go pitty-pat, but now she was bone-tired and worried sick.
It’s going to happen, and this time it’s going to be worse.
Something new, some invention or variation nobody could anticipate. Jesus Christ, high schools and junior colleges have gene assemblers now—they can
make
viruses from scratch.
Her mind raced, trying to go through all the possibilities.
Two young, prime hunks of FBI beef, sitting on the drop seats, gave her their best critical stares. Rebecca had been working the phones and all her connections throughout the day and most of the night before. Her slate chimed.
The call was from Frank Chao at Quantico.
‘What’s up, Frank?’ she said, shoving herself into a seat corner.
‘You tell me. Trying to be of service, pulling in a few favors…but what I’ve got is weird. No hits on any criminal database, and I’ve been through them all. However, I’ve run some outlandish DNA searches, and your Arizona blood not only proves paternity to the Patriarch’s wife’s unborn baby…but it could be a match to someone who died in 9-11.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Not. I scored a hit from a theoretical DNA match list constructed to help people find relatives in the World Trade Center. Fortuitously, that database isn’t closed, and obviously
it points toward the Memorial Park database from 9-11, but I don’t want to go there without solid backup.’
‘What do you mean, theoretical?’
‘Statistical ranges of DNA markers that could represent victims. Relatives of missing persons gave DNA samples to the Medical Examiner’s teams working on DM tissue samples held in refrigerated trailers at Memorial Park. Those databases are closed to us, of course.’
‘I know.’
‘In those instances where they couldn’t retrieve DNA from hairbrushes, tooth brushes, biopsies or whatever to match to victims, a researcher in a contract corporation planned to generate statistical marker links to match living relatives and severely reduced samples. Heat, water, decay—pretty nasty conditions. Some of the bits were recovered from the tummies of raccoons and rats scavenging the Fresh Kills site where they dumped the rubble. They’d trap them and—’
‘I didn’t need to know that, Frank.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You have a hit with a
theoretical
victim of 9-11.’
‘Right.’
‘So it could lead us to a relative,’ Rebecca said, ‘or to a statistical nobody—a bogus projection.’
‘Both are possible.’
‘All right. Let’s get Memorial Park.’
‘Let’s us, you mean, or let’s me? That’s sacred ground, Rebecca. I’d rather continue with every other database, military, hospital workers, whatever, before I tackle Memorial Park.’
Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut. Their footing was not good. If they tried something that audacious…‘How long will it take?’ she asked.
‘A few days. A week, if I don’t get priority time on the computers. And I won’t, you know that. I’m just squeezing my searches in between the cracks.’
The Arizona trooper’s body had been moved away from the rig. The glove was a Hatch Friskmaster.
‘Law enforcement, Frank. Narrow it down to recruits and graduates from the last twenty years.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘More than a hunch, less than a certainty.’
‘Will do.’
She pocketed her slate, then removed it, turned it off, and showed it to the agents flanking Hiram.
‘Thanks,’ said the agent on the left, his jaw muscles clenching. ‘Is your Lynx active?’
‘No,’ Hiram said testily. ‘We are off the grid.’
William walked beside the young doctor through the high school gymnasium. Beds and portable curtains had been erected around the hundreds of patients who had spilled over from the main hospital. The doctor was bleary-eyed from hours of admitting and running tests. William had told him nothing about what he had learned in the last three hours; he was in listening mode, fully aware that everything he thought he knew was wrong.
‘It’s got to be the biggest outbreak I’ve ever heard of,’ the doctor said. ‘We’re getting back diagnosis after diagnosis, and all of them are coming up with the same indicators—CT scans show early spongiform lesions in the brain, we can isolate prions, the prions appear to be able to transform lab tissue cultures—all of which confirms the clinical symptoms, the mental and in some cases physical deterioration. But hundreds of cases in one town? And growing by twenty or thirty every day? Not to mention throughout the county…and now, the state.’
The doctor pulled back a curtain and let William look in on a middle-aged woman. She was sitting up on her cot, reading an old, tattered
Smithsonian,
and looked up with a puzzled smile and shifting gaze.
‘Good evening, Mrs. Miller,’ the doctor said.
‘Good evening.’
It was three in the afternoon.
‘We met yesterday,’ the doctor said.
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘This is William, from the government, Mrs. Miller.’
‘Can he help me find my husband?’
‘Your husband is waiting for you at home, Mrs. Miller.’
‘Oh.’
‘Can you tell me where you were born?’
‘No,’ she said, eyes piercing. ‘Have you found my birth certificate?’
‘Do you remember your children, Mrs. Miller?’
‘I have children, yes.’ She tracked between William and the doctor, like an actor hoping for a cue from the wings.
‘And their names?’
‘I’ve written them down. I know my children’s names, of course. Just look.’ She took a notebook from a metal table and began flipping through it. ‘Here they are. Nicholas and Susan and Karl.’
‘Thank you. And your religion? Where do you go to church, Mrs. Miller?’
She referred to the notebook again. ‘First Ohio Evangelical Lutheran. My husband is a deacon. My youngest son sings in the choir.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Miller.’
‘I’d like to go home soon, Doctor.’
‘We’re working on that. I’ll check back in a couple of hours. Do you need more magazines or books, Mrs. Miller?’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, smiling. ‘These are just fine.’
The doctor pulled back the curtain and walked to the double doors at the end of the gym. He held up Mrs. Miller’s patient chart and biographical data for William to read. ‘A lot of our patients began making notes to hide their symptoms from their families. Yesterday, I switched Mrs. Miller’s notebook with that from a woman across the aisle. Mrs. Miller is a Southern Baptist, Agent Griffin. And those magazines and books are the ones she was given a week ago. She’s re-read them at least three or four times. To her, they’re still fresh.
Some of our patients have portable DVD players. They watch their movies over and over again—if they can remember how to use the players.’
William looked down the aisle and listened to the quiet. For the most part, the patients seemed contented, even happy.
‘What we’re experiencing here is like nothing I’ve ever heard of,’ the doctor said. ‘It combines elements of Alzheimer’s and CJD—Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. It strikes all ages, like variant CJD. But it’s fast—it acts in weeks or months, not years. And it’s epidemic. We may have three or four thousand cases in the next few weeks. They can’t go home, they can’t work, they just wander off if we don’t watch them day and night. That requires twenty-four-hour care, one-on-one nursing. We’re already past our breaking point. We’re not a rich county, and federal funding for this level of care has become nonexistent. But let’s not focus on the money. Where in hell are we going to find that many
nurses
?’
Charles Cahill, the outgoing director, was a short dapper man with a cap of prematurely white hair, a short wide nose, and perfect teeth. He firmly shook Hiram Newsome’s hand and then Rebecca’s and led them down the fifth-floor hallway to the Center. ‘Congratulations, Hiram. I can’t think of a better choice.’
Hiram shook his head. ‘I haven’t met with the President yet. And there’s still the meat grinder—vetting and confirmation.’
‘Oh, you’ll be confirmed,’ Cahill said. ‘Talk radio bastards are already calling you a liberal wienie special-ordered to tear down the agency. That’ll endear you to Josephson.’ He winked at Rebecca. Cahill was younger than Hiram Newsome but looked older. He was renowned for his shoes—he always wore two-tones, white and brown, highly polished.
The Strategic Information and Operations Center at Headquarters—SIOC, or just the Center—had been redone three years before. Half of its operations had been moved to the sixth floor, reducing its footprint by half on the fourth and fifth floors—and now, once again, the FBI had a command center that actually did look as if it belonged in a high-budget thriller—two stories high, walls of glass and polished steel, floating projections of data and video that circled the room like ghosts, and the ability to access a twenty-four-hour bank of analysts who could look up
and process anything available on information networks around the world.
The door to SIOC opened at Cahill’s approach. The room beyond was like a dark cave, deserted. ‘I’ve got a few minutes before my next meeting and I thought we might spend it in here,’ Cahill said as he walked around the room, rubbing his hand on the leather chairs. He smiled. ‘This place can make you believe you know all there is to know.’
‘Where do you want us? Rebecca’s the majordomo on this.’
‘So I hear.’ Cahill seated himself in one of the audience chairs, leaving Hiram to assume the Throne—a large black chair mounted on a three-step riser, with the best view of every display. Rebecca stood in a spotlight where the second ring of the circus might have been—the room was almost that large. ‘Makes you feel like a little girl about to give a recital, doesn’t it?’ Cahill asked.
‘We could move elsewhere,’ Hiram suggested.
‘Wouldn’t think of it. Sitting here helps you understand our problems better than anything. We so much wanted to be movie stars. Pretty soon, if we don’t do something, and fast, we’ll just be extras without any lines. Rebecca, don’t get all choked up by the glitz.’
‘I gave my files to the data logger, sir. They should be coming up shortly.’
‘And here they are,’ Cahill said. ‘My last chance to control the vertical, control the horizontal. News, here you go—the Magic Wand is easy to learn.’ He raised a small silver remote.
‘No, sir,’ Hiram said. ‘It’s Rebecca’s show.’
‘So it is,’ Cahill said. ‘Begin.’
‘Amerithrax was a punk, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Compared to what we’re facing now, what he did to this country was trivial.’
On video and slides, sheep, cows, baboons, monkeys, and
chimpanzees died awful deaths. She discussed the creation of antibiotics-resistant anthrax in the FSU—the Former Soviet Union—and showed downwind casualty charts from the accidental 1979 outflow of powder-fine anthrax at Sverdlovsk. Next, she flashed the files of U.S. weapons experts who had been the target of FBI suspicions in the years following Amerithrax. She concluded this segment by saying, ‘Compared to the thousands of tons created in Russia and shipped off to Resurrection Island, the five letters mailed in 2001 were no worse than a mosquito bite on an elephant. But the elephant flinched and it got pretty damned expensive. So Amerithrax was an extremely effective punk, and we never caught him. Now, we think he—or someone with his knowledge and expertise—has surfaced again. We think he and his partners are trying to sell genetically modified anthrax to antagonists in the Middle East. Not necessarily to use against us—though that’s a possibility, of course. But to use against each other. The Israelis have recently arrested and sequestered a group equipped with crude but effective bioweapons apparently shipped from the United States—fireworks shells that match the description of those that could have been produced at the farm of Robert Chambers, the Patriarch.
‘Our new Amerithrax may be using a particularly seductive lure. He claims that these anthrax shells carry germs modified to attack only Jews. Apparently, he’s managed to convince a number of Muslim extremists. They’ve tested his germs in Iraq at two locations, Baghdad and Kifri. Just off the BuDark wire service,’ Rebecca added, looking up. ‘One of our agents, Fouad Al-Husam, was rescued after being shot down in northern Iraq. He delivered autopsy samples to an army assessment unit in Turkey. They came from the bodies of Kurdish Jews exposed to anthrax spores. Weaponized and genetically modified Ames-type Anthrax has been confirmed as their cause of death. We believe the victims were detained and dosed by Sunnis operating in
the area, militants connected to a string-puller and money guy named Ibrahim Al-Hitti.’
Cahill nodded. ‘Up-to-the-minute. Continue, Agent Rose.’
‘While no expert believes it is possible to manufacture a germ that uniquely targets an ethnic group, we can’t discount the possibility that the anthrax has somehow been modified to be selective. We’ve charted a genome from the samples obtained in Kifri.’
The diagrammatic ghost of a spiraling and twisted circle of DNA, with two smaller satellite circles, floated to the right and center of Rebecca’s position. ‘In both samples, Baghdad 1 and Kifri 2, they found genes artificially inserted in one of two small circular plasmids—genes that code for bioluminescence. They are triggered by the activation of toxin genes on both plasmids. Our experts say this would have made the lesions on the Baghdad victims glow in the dark—red, then green, just before they died. Oddly, the same genes in the Kifri specimens are not activated. In the Kifri anthrax, a modified Ames strain, there are other, unfamiliar genes inserted in the main chromosome. They may be dummies meant to fool Al-Hitti’s scientists, or they may in fact serve a real and destructive purpose. We just don’t know—yet.’
‘Have we got any of these samples, to do our own workup?’ Cahill asked.
‘No,’ Rebecca said. ‘The Baghdad samples are currently being analyzed in Europe. The Kifri samples are in Turkey. The Israeli samples…well, relations are icy at the moment, and not just because of Shahabad Kord.’ She looked up.
‘There are many reasons for Israel to be angry,’ Cahill said. ‘Their intelligence failures are the equal of our own. Go on, Agent Rose.’
‘Our prime suspect may have been involved in the murder of a state trooper in Arizona. He left behind DNA evidence, blood, saliva, sweat, and skin cells. We have a description of a tall blond American with one blue eye and one green eye,
in both the Patriarch case and the Israeli attempt. Apparently, our suspect fathered a child on one of the Patriarch’s wives.’
Cahill humphed and buried his chin in one hand.
‘We haven’t finished our search against available DNA databases to establish his identity.’ She wasn’t about to mention the mismatch between the skin cell DNA and the blood, much less the 9-11 connection, until it was all much more solid.
‘How old do we think your suspect is?’ Cahill asked.
‘Best guess, somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five years old,’ Rebecca said.
‘Experienced sort of fellow,’ Cahill mused. ‘Able to move around the Middle East, sell a bill of goods, which means speaka da lingo, Arabic at the very least…the gift of bad gab, in Baghdad. That doesn’t fit any FBI profile of Amerithrax I’ve ever read.’ He sat up and leaned forward. ‘Hell, if you find him, recruit him. News, what do you want me to do?’
‘Give Rebecca the authority to re-open the investigation I authorized in April. The international connection makes this a major hot potato.’
‘We’re a sizzling steak surrounded by hot potatoes. Some are hotter than others. Agent Rose, pardon me for being blunt, but your puzzle pieces are too far apart. They don’t join up. Israel doesn’t have any evidence for an American connection, other than hearsay from suspects “under duress”. I’ve never relied on confessions under torture. I’ll go along with evidence of anthrax in Iraq, but hell, maybe someone found Saddam’s old stockpiles.’
‘Saddam never used the Ames strain,’ Rebecca said.
Cahill shrugged. ‘We don’t even have proof the Israelis have found anthrax in their fireworks shells. No anthrax was detected in Washington state, and none in Arizona. So where’s the connection to Amerithrax? If fresh product is being made here, why can’t we find even a trace? And how is it being delivered through the tightest security in modern times?’
Now it was Hiram’s turn to weigh in. ‘Diplomatic Security and others are already making a big push overseas, through BuDark. We have agents in the thick of it. FBI headquarters can provide support here. Charles, re-opening this investigation puts us in a good position if BuDark delivers. And BuDark is working on the President’s nickel, after both DS and the CIA started tracking anthrax reports in the Middle East. FBI should be seen supporting her initiative. We should be forward thinking.’
Cahill was wearing his best poker face, but Rebecca’s hopes fell. He wasn’t even gumming the hook.
‘We’re talking inkjet printers, right?’ He shook his head. ‘Even before I was director, I never put much credence in that theory. Last spring, I let Hiram play out his cards and watched you get shot down all over again. Anthrax is bad news in more ways than one, no pun intended, Hiram.’
He stood and walked around the circle of seats, then down the short flight of steps, stopping in front of Rebecca. ‘I worked Amerithrax. I was with the team that bird-dogged Hatfill. I even flew to Zimbabwe in 2003 to investigate a twenty-five-year-old anthrax outbreak. Ten thousand infections, almost two hundred deaths, and the Rhodesian government—Project Coast—might have been involved, but after all that time, we couldn’t tell. Hatfill was a cowboy with African connections, a big ego, and a padded résumé. We couldn’t hang Amerithrax on him or anyone else—but that doesn’t mean we were wrong. Ultimately, it was a heart-breaker.’ Cahill looked up at Rebecca in the spotlight. ‘I’ll admit, this does sound like something from Project Coast—modifying germs and developing poisons to kill opponents of apartheid, to selectively target blacks or reduce their fertility, to eliminate the black man’s food supply. That’s still my bet for Amerithrax—some crazy weapons master with South African or Rhodesian training. I’d love to make Hiram happy—maybe he’ll increase my retirement. But frankly, I still don’t see it.
Push the pieces closer together. Find some domestic anthrax. When News comes aboard, formally, he can take all the risk he wants. For now, though, it’s still my call. And I say: not proven.’
Hiram escorted Rebecca to the parking garage. ‘Maybe Senator Josephson is right. Maybe we’re caught in the same loopy thinking that makes us screw up over and over again.’
‘What if we don’t have a few weeks or a month?’ Rebecca fumed. She reached into her purse and switched on her slate, in case Frank called, or anyone else who was still brave enough to work with her.
Hiram slid into the limo and made room for her. ‘We’re not done,’ he said. He stared at the seat backs. ‘I’ll be betting everything on one roll of the dice. My career, this case, everything.’
Rebecca did not feel the need to speak up and add to Hiram’s burden. He knew the stakes as well as she did.
‘What we know is like a thick fog, but it’s real.’ He leaned forward and told the driver, ‘Get me Kelly Schein at the White House. Chief of Staff to the President.’
The two agents ran to join them in the limo but Hiram waved them aside. ‘We’ll be fine,’ he announced, and levered the heavy door shut. The agents stood outside, angry and dismayed, visible through the phonebook-thick bulletproof glass.
The limo pulled away.
‘I don’t think anybody here trusts me, Rebecca,’ Hiram said. ‘The President picked me to replace Cahill. They’re asking, why? Maybe the droolers on talk radio are right and I’m a traitor.’
Rebecca’s slate chimed. She swore under her breath and pulled it out.
‘What are you, bad news central?’ Hiram asked.
She had two messages. The first header said she had a
message from Frank Chao at the Academy.
Pretty wild,
Frank had typed in the subject line.
Call ASAP.
She scanned the second, a voice/text message from William Griffin with accompanying graphic. The text message listed twelve names. She recognized eight—all of them agents and other law enforcement personnel that had been on the Patriarch’s farm before or when the barn blew, including Erwin Griffin and Cap Benson. Below the list:
Long-term recall. Some dementia. Exposure at farm.
The graphic showed what looked like dispersal patterns laid over a town map—of Silesia, Ohio. She arrowed through the entire graphic. Within a grayed parabolic plume almost six miles long and extending outside the town lay hundreds of red dots. Around the plume spread dozens more purple dots. No labels.
‘It’s from Griff’s son,’ she told Hiram, and showed him the graphic and the list. Then she played back the message.
‘
Rebecca, it isn’t anthrax. That’s just a ploy
,’ William said, his voice hoarse. ‘
It’s potentially a lot worse. Whoever he is, he doesn’t want to kill. He may not be a terrorist—he probably doesn’t even care about the terror.
‘
He’s targeting our memories. He wants us to forget
.’
The driver interrupted over the intercom. ‘I have Kelly Schein, sir.’