by Marc Cameron
Giving everything one last look, he gingerly touched the handles on the oxygen and then the acetylene bottle, giving them a twist until he heard an audible hiss from each.
Peeking out the storage room, he looked up and down the alleyway and, seeing no one in the failing light, shut the door behind him. He’d give the purple mud ten minutes to dry in the stifling heat.
Then he’d need to make a phone call.
“What do you mean he is here?”
Sheikh Husseini al Farooq slouched in air-conditioned comfort in the back seat of a black Lincoln Town Car limousine. Slender fingers clutched a car phone so tightly his manicured nails turned an opaque blue. His normally purring voice rose a half an octave. “I am here. How could such a man gain access to the Kingdom?”
“This I do not know,” Zafir said on the other end of the line. “But I am sure he is there. I tried to call Dr. Suleiman, but there was no answer. Security does not pick up either. I have already sent men to check, but I beg of you, my sheikh, leave the area at once. I fear it is not safe-”
“Nonsense,” Farooq cut him off. He pushed the button on his door console and the tinted window hissed down a few inches. A warm breeze hit him in the face, rich with the sweet odor of horses and new-mown hay. Farooq loved horses, the smell of them calmed him as much as a drug. “Stop worrying, my friend. I am surprised he made it this far. That is all. This is a beautiful evening. The sun sets on our beloved oasis, and, Allah willing, we are as safe as-”
The air suddenly grew thick, heavy, as if stacking up against itself. A terrific roar filled the dusky night. The limousine shook as if in the jaws of an earthquake. Alarms screeched all across the university parking lot. Grains of sand began to rain down as a black column of smoke enveloped his precious laboratory. The squeal of horses filled the void of the explosion.
Terrified Arabian horses bolted in every direction, snorting, tails flagging in blind panic. White-robed students poured from shattered glass doors and concrete buildings, surprised from their evening classes. Some stared in awe at the smoldering crater where Farooq’s laboratory had once stood. Some ran after the loose horses, spurred on by anxious professors and stable hands anxious to get the expensive animals back under control before they killed themselves.
None of the horses wore halters. This, along with their crazed attitudes from the explosion, made them almost impossible to capture. Each horse had a gaggle of at least five students chasing vainly after it, ropes or feed buckets in their hands, like a pack of inefficient dogs. But, as Farooq peered over the rim of his tinted limousine window, he saw one man trotting easily beside a muscular blood bay. Both hands holding the horse’s flowing mane in a firm grip, the man moved in a loping cadence alongside the prancing animal. In four quick strides, the bay surged from a trot to a canter, stretching out its neck as it changed gait and effectively yanked the man up and onto its back in one beautiful, fluid movement. In a fleeting instant, horse and rider disappeared into a swirling cloud of dust and blowing debris.
If ever there existed a man who could come as a thief into the Kingdom and produce such an explosion right under their very noses… the man on the blood bay horse would be him.
“My sheikh?” Zafir’s frantic voice snapped Farooq back to his cell phone. “Are you there? I hear screaming. What has happened?”
“We have copies of the video records from the laboratory on our remote server?” Farooq’s voice grew quiet as he struggled to control his breathing.
“Of course,” Zafir said.
“Very well. I will review them.”
“I will come at once.”
“You have another mission.” Farooq sighed. “Our timeline is already set in motion. I will have Raheem retrieve them. I fear our medical project is no more…”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“No more?”
Farooq ground his teeth. His nostrils flared. “I must know who did this to me,” he spat. “I will deal with him in my own way.” He rolled up the window and rested his head against the cool leather seat, suddenly exhausted. “In any case, your duty is before you, my friend. Your time is far spent. The others should have already moved. In the end, our saboteur has done nothing but take a few pawns. The American devils do not realize it, but with our opening moves, the game is already won.”
Jericho guided the big bay with his knees, pointing it toward a throng of white-robed students who milled under rows of palm trees and the buzzing glow of streetlights. Stars peeked intermittently from a brilliant indigo sky through clouds of smoke and falling ash. The horse, a strong-willed gelding, was a flighty one. Jericho had passed on the chance to make his escape on a Palomino mare that had looked much gentler. His ex-wife was a blonde so he’d decided to take his chances on the brunette.
He glanced at the TAG Aquaracer on his wrist as he slid from the prancing animal. He took a loose lead rope from a waiting student and slid it over the sweating horse’s arched neck, looping it around the animal’s nose to form a makeshift figure-eight halter. He handed the end to the astonished student with a smile and slight bow. The train to Riyadh left in two hours.
He still had time for a shower.
CHAPTER 32
14 September DNI Alternate Offices Army Navy Drive Arlington, Virginia
Mahoney rolled an empty glass vial back and forth in her open hand, holding it up to study in the soft glow of Win Palmer’s green desk lamp. They knew so much about these terrorists… and still, they knew so little.
The Director sat behind his desk, thinking deeply. Beyond him, slouched on an overstuffed couch along the far wall, Quinn nursed a can of Diet Coke. Thibodaux sat across from him, looking at a loose stack of photographs from Farooq’s lab.
“We need to tell Sergeant Meeks’s family something,” the big Cajun said, “even if it’s a lie. Let them know their boy’s not lost out there… missing forever.”
“In time,” Win Palmer agreed. “When this is over. Right now, what we have to worry about more than anything is panic-and I’m not speaking only of the population. You’d be surprised at how often I hear the term ‘absolute containment’ used from the Gang of Five in our little briefings.”
Megan scoffed. “That’s what they called the solution to their problem with Northwest 2-‘absolute containment.’”
Palmer gave a somber nod. “What happened there is not something anyone is proud of, Ms. Mahoney. But most believe it was a necessary evil.”
“How much about this does your Gang of Senators know?” Thibodaux asked.
“They don’t know everything,” Palmer said. “But they do know about the virus. Two very influential generals have spent a considerable amount of time bending their ears with an endless list of the deadly possibilities. Carpet bombing the hell out of any area that the virus shows up in has been discussed as a more than viable option-even here in the U.S. I don’t mind telling you, these people are scared out of their wits.”
Quinn leaned back, swallowed up in the burgundy cushions of Win Palmer’s couch. “Then we have to stop these guys first.” Tendons in his arms bunched as he sipped on his can of Diet Coke. He was still rumpled from traveling through a dozen different time zones in three days and though he’d recently shaved, already sported a healthy five o’clock shadow. He looked up at Mahoney from the glossy color copies of the martyr photographs he’d brought back with him from Al-Hofuf.
“What do you think, doctor? Could they transport enough virus in that vial to hurt us?”
“More than enough,” she said. A shiver crawled up her back and left both arms tingling. She held the vial-within-a-vial up to her eye, between her thumb and forefinger. “This holds about ten cc’s-a scant two teaspoons. Considering the fact that the sprayed droplets of a single sneeze appear to be enough to pass the virus, I’d say they could put enough liquid in here to kill half the Eastern seaboard before we could contain it… if we could contain it…” Her voice trailed off.
Thibodaux chimed
in.
“Stuff this deadly,” he mused, rubbing his thick jawbone. “They’d want to be careful not to let it out of the bag in their own sandbox. It’s one thing to infect your enemy, but if it’s as deadly as you say it is, this could wipe out the entire Middle East without too much of a problem. Those guys always looked a little on the sickly side to me anyhow.” He pointed to the photographs. “The ones transporting the virus might end up as martyrs, but I’d lay odds the higher-ups in their chain of command have other plans besides killing off half of Islam.”
Jericho tossed his empty Coke can in a wastebasket beside the sofa. He looked up at Palmer, who sat behind a mahogany desk, freckled fingers steepled in front of his ruddy face, elbows on a leather desk blotter, listening.
The Director of National Intelligence leaned back in his chair, as if to study the nine-foot ceiling as he spoke. “Exceptional work, Jericho-bringing these photographs back. We’ve uploaded them into Immigration and Customs Enforcement, TSA, the Bureau, and every other facial-recognition database we have. Hopefully, ICE or State will nail these bastards as they’re coming in. Biometric programs aren’t foolproof, but if one of them uses an ATM or smiles at the right camera, we should be able to get a preliminary location.”
“Still just the two names?” Thibodaux asked, dwarfing an office chair across from Jericho. He hadn’t been traveling, but it was clear from the dark circles under his eyes that he hadn’t slept much either.
“Just the two younger ones,” Palmer said. “Both are under thirty and appear to come from poor Bedouin families. Hamid is the jowly one. The one with the mole beside his nose is Kalil.” The DNI shrugged. “We’re running the unsub through Interpol and State. Defense found a picture that’s a possible match, but they can’t seem to locate the damned file with a name.”
“The old fella looks like a mean son of a bitch,” Thibodaux sneered, scooping up the martyr photos. “This mole ought to make it easier for your biometrics to key on ol’ Kalil. Damn thing looks like a dog tick…”
“Maybe,” Palmer said. His voice was calm, but worry lines stitched a high forehead. “I hate to say it, but until we get some kind of nibble, there’s not much we can do. You all may as well go home and get some rest. I have a feeling you’re all going to need it.”
Mahoney moved closer to Quinn, sitting on the couch beside him. He’d taken several digital images of the lab and they were spread out on the coffee table in front of him. She was close enough to smell the soap from his recent shower. His dark hair hung in loose ringlets, still damp. He had the look of a freshly bathed wolf, clean from all the blood but with the deadly look of a recent kill still smoldering in his eyes.
Mahoney had never been around someone who exuded such charisma. Her scientific brain told her it was chemical, but her emotions didn’t care where the feelings sprang from. They were just as strong. She let go of a stupid, fleeting wish that she’d worn something less severe than khakis and a white button-down.
Jericho Quinn was a handsome man, there was no denying that. He was shorter than the big Marine by a good four inches, but tall enough. A little on the gaunt side with hungry brown eyes to match the hollows in his cheeks. Athletic arms strained against the tight sleeves of a black polo. A curl of dark hair visible above the third button said he was no chest-waxing metrosexual. Quinn was a square jawed, five-o’clock-shadow-by-noon man’s man. He oozed danger, but something in her primordial self woke up and screamed that this was the kind of man who would protect her and their cubs…
Mahoney shivered in spite of herself. Afraid it was visible to the others, she feigned a sneeze.
She thumbed through the lab photos from the coffee table, eager to take her mind off thoughts of Jericho Quinn. Though taken through thick glass, the images were of surprisingly good quality and the torment on the victims’ faces was all too evident.
Mahoney studied the drawn face of the poor child, horrified by what she saw. She glanced up at Jericho, showing him the photograph. “Didn’t you say their eyes looked… flat, I think you said?”
“Ummhmm.” He nodded. “The way you described Ebola, I’d assumed it was part of the disease.”
Megan looked at the photo of the girl again. She took a small magnifying glass from the table and ran it over the other faces.
“Oh, my…” she gasped. The muscles in her jaw tensed and bunched as she fought the urge to vomit. “One of the virus samples I have back at Fort Detrick is made up almost entirely of aqueous humor-the fluid from inside the human eye. It looks as though they were trying experiments with a portable medium for the virus other than blood.”
Thibodaux’s brow furrowed. “Oh ye yi! You mean to say those bastards sucked the juice out of that little one’s eyes?”
Mahoney dropped the photos back on the table. “Her and all the rest.”
The big Cajun doubled both fists and stared hard at Jericho. “I hope you took care of the ones that done this, Chair Force…”
“Working on it,” Quinn said.
“Well.” Thibodaux rose slowly to his feet. “This is gonna be a pleasure.”
Kim called before they made it out of the lobby. Mahoney had remained behind to make a few phone calls of her own on Palmer’s STU phone. Jericho waved Thibodaux on. “I’ll meet you back at Miyagi’s,” he said as he took the call. Instead of going on without him, the big Marine went outside and sat on the steps, unwilling to leave a man behind for any reason.
The call was short, a simple session where Kim filled him in on Mattie’s newest achievements. This time, she’d been accepted to play in the prestigious Anchorage Youth Orchestra. His ex-wife never actually chastised him directly. Instead, she let the implications of his absence do the work for her, praising the great achievements and success of their daughter, in spite of the absences brought on by his “important job” and “save-the-world” overseas missions. She was extremely skillful at slowly beating him to death with backhanded compliments. “She’s doing amazingly well, considering she misses her dad so much…” It was Kim’s way of saying Mattie would be playing in Carnegie Hall if only Jericho were there to cheer her on. Still, he beamed at the news. At five years old his little girl was a musical prodigy on the violin. Kim was an excellent violinist in her own right; years of dedicated practice had seen her play in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. She had a permanent seat with the Anchorage Symphony and had over twenty students of her own. But privately, Jericho felt Mattie’s superhuman ability had more to do with inheriting his talent at languages. Music was, after all, just another language. He said nothing of this to Kim, more than happy to let her take the credit. Instead he listened quietly and told her he loved her. There was no way to tell her what he was actually doing. She’d never know he’d gone to Saudi Arabia-he wondered if she’d care if she did.
“You doin’ okay, Chair Force?” Thibodaux asked as he and Quinn walked across the parking lot toward their bikes, a stone’s throw from the Pentagon.
“I’m all right,” Quinn said. “A little worried about my daughter, that’s all.” The whir of a thousand cicadas droned from the surrounding greenery, in harmony with the memory of Kim’s parenting sermon that still buzzed in his head. A dazzling afternoon sun reflected off hundreds of parked cars. The evening rush hour had already begun, clogging the arteries that fed D.C. proper. The Jefferson Davis Highway and 395 had slowed to a lethargic trickle.
“I don’t like to get in another man’s business,” the Cajun said, “but you appear to be a mite conflicted-and in my experience conflicted men are apt get themselves killed.”
Jericho felt his stomach tighten. It was difficult enough to gain the trust of an operator like Thibodaux. The last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize it with screwed-up thoughts of ex-wives and dying home fires. They had a job to do and a high level of trust between them was vital. The best way to engender that trust was to be honest.
Quinn stopped and looked up at the big Cajun. “Before Palmer recruited us, I told my wife I’d qu
it.” Saying the words was like throwing up on the dinner table, then waiting for a reaction.
Surprisingly, a huge grin spread across Thibodaux’s face. “Hell, we all promise ’em we’re gonna quit every once in a while. Just like they promise us they’re gonna lay off the brownies while we’re deployed.” He shrugged and began to walk toward the bikes again. “I make all kinds of promises to get in her panties.”
Quinn laughed. “I wish I’d thought of that last time I was in Alaska.”
“It ain’t even a lie if you mean it at the time.” Thibodaux winked.
“You’re away from home as much as I am,” Quinn said, relaxing by degrees as they walked. It felt good to be able to talk to someone. “And you still decided to have a big family?”
The Cajun looked out over the Potomac. “I dunno. My child bride wanted to have a mess of kids. It was all part of the deal from the get-go with her. Who was I to say no when the process is so damn enjoyable?”
Quinn sighed. “Yeah, Kim was always on my back trying to have more kids.”
Thibodaux stopped in his tracks. “Well”-he chuckled-“if she was on your back, it’s a wonder you even had the one.”
“I’m serious, Jacques,” Jericho said. “You seem to have the family warrior thing all figured out.”
Thibodaux resumed his long strides, thinking a moment before he spoke. “My granddaddy once told me there was only two things in the middle of the road: a yellow stripe and a dead possum. I don’t want my boys to stand anywhere near the middle of the road and I figure the best way to guard against that is for them to see me fight for what I believe in. Besides,” he said, “I don’t know if you are aware, but there’s a war on.”
