by Tom Clancy
“Nope,” Sergeant Tomlinson said for the rest. “If somebody comes in and tries to fool with this? . . .”
“You stop him, any way you have to. And you call for help on your radios.”
“Roge-o, boss,” George said. Homer Johnston nodded agreement.
Chavez and the other two went back outside. The stadium had filled up, people wanting to see the start of the marathon . . . and then what? Ding wondered. Just sit here and wait for three hours? No, about two and a half. That was about the usual championship time, wasn’t it? Twenty-six miles. Forty-two kilometers or so. One hell of a long way for a man—or woman—to run, a daunting distance even for him, Chavez admitted to himself, a distance better suited to a helicopter lift or a ride in a truck. He, Pierce, and Noonan walked to one of the ramps and watched the TVs hanging there.
By this time the runners were assembling for the crowded start. The favorites were identified, some of them given up-close-and-personal TV biographies. The local Australian commentary discussed the betting on the event, who the favorites were, and what the odds were. Smart money seemed to be on a Kenyan, though there was an American who’d blown away the record for the Boston Marathon the previous year by almost half a minute—evidently a large margin for such a race—and a thirty-year-old Dutchman who was the dark horse among the favorites. Thirty, and a competitor in an Olympic competition, Chavez thought. Good for him.
“Command to Tomlinson,” Chavez said over his radio.
“I’m here, Command. Nothing much happening ’cept this damned pump noise. I’ll call you if anything happens, over.”
“Okay, Command out.”
“So, what do we do now?” Mike Pierce asked.
“Wait. Stand around and wait.”
“You say so, boss,” Pierce responded. They all knew how to wait, though none of them especially liked it.
“Christ,” Killgore observed. “You sure?”
“You want to drive out and see?” Maclean asked heatedly. Then he realized that they’d have to do that anyway, to collect the body for proper burial. Now Maclean understood Western funeral customs. It was bad enough to see vultures pick a deer’s body apart. To see the same thing happening to a human being whom you knew was intolerable, love for Nature or not.
“You say he was shot?”
“Sure looked like it.”
“Great.” Killgore lifted his phone. “Bill, it’s John Killgore. Meet me in the main lobby right away. We have a problem. Okay? Good.” The physician replaced the phone and rose. “Come on,” he said to Maclean.
Henriksen arrived in the lobby of the residential building two minutes after they did, and together they drove in a Hummer north to where the body was. Again the buzzards had to be chased off, and Henriksen, the former FBI agent, walked up to take a look. It was as distasteful as anything he’d seen in his law-enforcement career.
“He’s been shot, all right,” he said first of all. “Big bullet, right through the X-ring.” The wound had been a surprise for Hunnicutt, he thought, though there wasn’t enough of the man’s face left to tell, really. There were ants on the body as well, he saw. Damn, Henriksen thought, he’d been depending on this guy to help with perimeter security once the Project went fully active. Somebody had murdered an important Project asset. But who?
“Who else hung out with Foster?” Bill asked.
“The Russian guy, Popov. We all rode together,” Maclean answered.
“Hey,” Killgore said. “Their horses were out this morning, Jeremiah and Buttermilk were both in the corral. Both unsaddled and—”
“Here’s the saddle and bridle,” Henriksen said, fifteen feet away. “Okay, somebody shot Hunnicutt and then stripped the tack gear off his horse . . . okay, so nobody would see a riderless horse with a saddle on it. We have a murder here, people. Let’s find Popov right now. I think I need to talk to him. Anybody see him lately?”
“He didn’t show up for breakfast this morning like he usually does,” Killgore revealed. “We’ve been eating together for a week or so, then taking a morning ride. He liked it.”
“Yeah,” Maclean confirmed. “We all did. You think he—”
“I don’t think anything yet. Okay, let’s get the body into the Hummer and head back. John, can you do a post on this?”
This seemed a cold appellation for a dead colleague, Killgore thought, but he nodded. “Yeah, doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard.”
“Okay, you get the feet,” Bill said next, bending down and trying to avoid touching the parts the buzzards had feasted on. Twenty minutes later, they were back in the Project. Henriksen went up to Popov’s fourth-floor room and used his passkey to get in. Nothing, he saw. The bed hadn’t been slept in. He had a suspect. Popov had killed Hunnicutt, probably. But why? And where the hell was that Russian bastard now?
It took half an hour to check around the Project complex. The Russian was nowhere to be found. That made sense, since his horse had been found loose that morning by Dr. Killgore. Okay, the former FBI agent thought. Popov had killed Hunnicutt and then skipped. But skipped where? He’d probably ridden to the interstate highway and thumbed a ride, or maybe walked to a bus stop or something. It was a mere twenty-five miles to the regional airport, and from there the bastard could be in Australia by now, Henriksen had to admit to himself. But why would he have done any of that?
“John?” he asked Killgore. “What did Popov know?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did he know about the Project?”
“Not much. Brightling didn’t really brief him in, did he?”
“No. Okay, what did Hunnicutt know?”
“Shit, Bill, Foster knew everything.”
“Okay, then we think Popov and Hunnicutt went riding last night. Hunnicutt turns up dead, and Popov isn’t anywhere to be found. So, could Hunnicutt have told Popov what the Project is doing?”
“I suppose, yes,” Killgore confirmed with a nod.
“So, Popov finds out, gets Foster’s revolver, shoots him, and bugs the hell out.”
“Christ! You think he might—”
“Yes, he might. Shit, man, anybody might.”
“But we’d got the ‘B’ vaccine in him. I gave him the shot myself!”
“Oh, well,” Bill Henriksen observed. Oh, shit, his brain went on. Wil Gearing’s going to initiate Phase One today! As if he could have forgotten. He had to talk to Brightling right away.
Both Doctors Brightling were in the penthouse accommodations atop the residence building, overlooking the runway, which now had four Gulfstream V business jets on it. The news Henriksen delivered wasn’t pleasing to either of them.
“How bad is this?” John asked.
“Potentially it’s pretty bad,” Bill had to admit.
“How close are we to—”
“Four hours or less,” Henriksen replied.
“Does he know that?”
“It’s possible, but we can’t know for sure.”
“Where would he have gone?” Carol Brightling asked.
“Shit, I don’t know—CIA, FBI, maybe. Popov’s a trained spook. In his position I’d go to the Russian embassy in D.C., and tell the rezident. He’ll have credibility there, but the time zones and bureaucracy work for us. KGB can’t do anything fast, Carol. They’ll spend hours trying to swallow whatever he tells them.”
“Okay. So, we proceed?” John Brightling asked.
A nod. “Yeah, I think so. I’ll call Wil Gearing to give him a heads-up, maybe?”
“Can we trust him?” John inquired next.
“I think so, yes—I mean, hell, yes. He’s been with us for years, guys. He’s part of the Project. If we couldn’t trust him, we’d all be fucking in jail now. He knows about the test protocols in Binghamton, and nobody interfered with that, did they?”
John Brightling leaned back in his chair. “You’re saying we can relax?”
“Yeah,” Henriksen decided. “Look, even if the whole thing comes apart, we’re covere
d, aren’t we? We turn out the ‘B’ vaccine instead of the ‘A’ one, and we’re heroes for the whole world. Nobody can trace the missing people back to us unless someone cracks and talks, and there’re ways to handle that. There’s no physical evidence that we’ve done anything wrong—at least none that we can’t destroy in a matter of minutes, right?”
That part had been carefully thought through. All of the Shiva virus containers were a two-minute walk from the incinerators both here and at Binghamton. The bodies of the test subjects were ashes. There were people with personal knowledge of what had happened, but for any of them to talk to the authorities meant implicating themselves in mass murder, and they’d all have attorneys present to shield them through the interrogation process. It would be a twitchy time for all involved, but nothing that they couldn’t beat.
“Okay.” John Brightling looked at his wife. They’d worked too hard and too long to turn back. They’d both endured separation from their loves to serve their greater love for Nature, invested time and vast funds to do this. No, they couldn’t turn back. And if this Russian talked—to whom, they couldn’t speculate—even then, could those he talked to stop the Project in time? That was scarcely possible. Husband-physician-scientist traded a look with wife-scientist, and then both looked at their Director of Security.
“Tell Gearing to proceed, Bill.”
“Okay, John.” Henriksen stood and headed back to his office.
“Yes, Bill,” Colonel Gearing said.
“No big deal. Proceed as planned, and call me to confirm the package is delivered properly.”
“Okay,” Wil Gearing replied. “Anything else I have to do? I have plans of my own, you know.”
“Like what?” Henriksen asked.
“I’m flying up north tomorrow, going to take a few days to dive the Great Barrier Reef.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, don’t let any sharks eat you.”
“Right!” was the laughing reply, and the line cut off.
Okay, Bill Henriksen thought. That’s decided. He could depend on Gearing. He knew that. He’d come to the Project after a life of poisoning things, and he, too, knew the rest of the Project’s activities. If he’d ratted to anybody, they would not have gotten this far. But it’d have been so much better if that Russian cocksucker hadn’t skipped. What could he do about that? Report Hunnicutt’s murder to the local cops, and finger Popov/Serov as the likely killer? Was that worth doing? What were the possible complications? Well, Popov could spill what he knew—however much or little that might be—but then they could say that he was a former KGB spy who’d acted strangely, who’d done some consulting to Horizon Corporation—but, Jesus, started terrorist incidents in Europe? Be serious! This guy’s a murderer with imagination, trying to fabricate a story to get himself off a cold-blooded killing right here in Middle America . . . Would that work? It might, Henriksen decided. It just might work, and take that bastard right the hell out of play. He could say anything he wanted, but what physical evidence did he have? Not a fucking thing.
Popov poured a drink from a bottle of Stolichnaya that the FBI had been kind enough to purchase from a corner liquor store. He had four previous drinks in his system. That helped to mellow his outlook somewhat.
“So, John Clark. We wait.”
“Yeah, we wait,” Rainbow Six agreed.
“You have a question for me?”
“Why did you call me?”
“We’ve met before.”
“Where?”
“In your building in Hereford. I was there with your plumber under one of my legends.”
“I wondered how you knew me by sight,” Clark admitted, sipping a beer. “Not many people from your side of the Curtain do.”
“You do not wish to kill me now?”
“The thought’s occurred to me,” Clark replied, looking in Popov’s eyes. “But I guess you have some scruples after all, and if you’re lying to me, you’ll soon wish you were dead.”
“Your wife and daughter are well?”
“Yes, and so is my grandson.”
“That is good,” Popov announced. “That mission was a distasteful one. You have done distasteful missions in your career, John Clark?”
He nodded. “Yeah, a few.”
“So, then, you understand?”
Not the way you mean, sport, Rainbow Six thought, before responding. “Yeah, I suppose I do, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich.”
“How did you find my name? Who told you?”
The answer surprised him. “Sergey Nikolay’ch and I are old friends.”
“Ah,” Popov managed to observe, without fainting. His own agency had betrayed him? Was that possible? Then it was as if Clark had read his mind.
“Here,” John said, handing over the sheaf of photocopies. “Your evaluations are pretty good.”
“Not good enough,” Popov replied, failing to recover from the shock of viewing items from a file that he had never seen before.
“Well, the world changed, didn’t it?”
“Not as completely as I had hoped.”
“I do have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“The money you gave to Grady, where is it?”
“In a safe place, John Clark. The terrorists I know have all become capitalists with regard to cash money, but thanks to your people, those I contacted have no further need of money, do they?” the Russian asked rhetorically.
“You greedy bastard,” Clark observed, with half a smile.
The race started on time. The fans cheered the marathon runners as they took their first lap around the stadium, then disappeared out the tunnel onto the streets of Sydney, to return in two and a half hours or so. In the meantime, their progress would be followed on the Jumbotron for those who sat in the stadium seats, or on the numerous televisions that hung in the ramp and concourse areas. Trucks with remote TV transmitters rolled in front of the lead runners, and the Kenyan, Jomo Nyreiry, held the lead, closely followed by Edward Fulmer, the American, and Willem terHoost, the Dutchman, the leading trio not two steps apart, and a good ten meters ahead of the next group of runners as they passed the first milepost.
Like most people, Wil Gearing saw this on his hotel room TV as he packed. He’d be renting diving gear tomorrow, the former Army colonel told himself, and he’d treat himself to the best diving area in the world, in the knowledge that the oceanic pollution that was harming that most lovely of environments would soon be ending. He got all of his clothing organized in a pair of Tumi wheeled suitcases and set them by the door of the room. He’d be diving while all the ignorant plague victims flew off to their homes across the world, not knowing what they had and what they’d be spreading. He wondered how many would be lost to Phase One of the Project. Computer projections predicted anywhere from six to thirty million, but Gearing thought those numbers conservative. The higher the better, obviously, because the “A” vaccine had to be something that people all over the globe would cry out for, thus hastening their own deaths. The real cleverness of it was that if medical tests on the vaccine recipients showed Shiva antibodies, they’d be explained away by the vaccine—“A” was a live-virus vaccine, as everyone would know. Just a little more live than anyone would realize until it was a little too late.
It was ten hours later in New York, and there in the safe house Clark, Popov, Sullivan, and Chatham sat, watching network coverage of the Olympic games, like millions of other Americans. There was nothing else for them to do. It was boring for them all, as none were marathoners, and the steps of the leading runners were endlessly the same.
“The heat must be terrible to run in,” Sullivan observed.
“It’s not fun,” Clark agreed.
“Ever run in a race like this?”
“No.” John shook his head. “But I’ve had to run away from things in my time, mainly Vietnam. It was pretty hot there, too.”
“You were there?” Popov asked.
“A year and a half’s worth. Third SOG—Special Operations G
roup.”
“Doing what?”
“Mainly looking and reporting. Some real operations, raids, assassinations, that sort of thing, taking out people we really didn’t like.” Thirty years ago, John thought. Thirty years. He’d given his youth to one conflict, and his manhood to another, and now, in his approaching golden years, what would he be doing? Was it really possible, what Popov had told him? It seemed so unreal, but the Ebola scare had been real as hell. He remembered flying all over the world about that one, and he remembered the news coverage that had shaken his country to its very foundations—and he remembered the terrible revenge that America had taken as a result. Most of all, he remembered lying with Ding Chavez on the flat roof of a Tehran dwelling and guiding two smart-bombs in to take the life of the man responsible for it all, in the first application of the president’s new doctrine. But if this were real, if this “project” that Popov had told them about were what he said it was, then what would his country do? Was it a matter for law enforcement or something else? Would you put people like this on trial? If not, then—what? Laws hadn’t been written for crimes of this magnitude, and the trial would be a horrid circus, spreading news that would shake the foundations of the entire world. That one corporation could have the power to do such a thing as this . . .
Clark had to admit to himself that his mind hadn’t expanded enough to enclose the entire thought. He’d acted upon it, but not really accepted it. It was too big a concept for that.
“Dmitriy, why did you say they are doing this?”
“John Clark, they are druids, they are people who worship nature as though it were a god. They say that the animals belong in places, but people do not. They say they want to restore nature—and to do that they are willing to kill all of mankind. This is madness, I know, but it is what they told me. In my room in Kansas, they have videotapes and magazines that proclaim these beliefs. I never knew such people existed. They say that nature hates us, that the planet hates us for what we—all men—have done. But the planet has no mind, and nature has no voice with which to speak. Yet they believe that they do have these things. It’s amazing,” the Russian concluded. “It is as if I have found a new, mad religious movement whose god requires our deaths, human sacrifice, whatever you wish to call it.” He waved his hands in frustration at his inability to understand it.
