The Widow's Strike

by Brad Taylor

  She removed her scarf, feeling sick to her stomach. The woman nodded and smiled. A man behind the desk waved her on, and she entered immigration, confused by the whole process.

  She stood in line behind an affable man with an English accent. He attempted to strike up a conversation.

  “They’re serious about the flu, aren’t they?”

  She nodded weakly, afraid to open her mouth.

  “I come here all the time, and I always wonder, if I had a cold, would they keep me out? How can they tell the difference between bird flu and the common cold with just a temperature check?”

  She nodded again, the conversation hammering home how little she knew of the world.

  Bird flu? What on earth is that?

  38

  Kurt Hale fiddled with the Proxima projector, mindlessly adjusting the focus yet again. It didn’t help him make a decision, but it did kill a little more time.

  Ten minutes until the council update. Or what may forever be known as the first spontaneous combustion of the president of the United States.

  The video-teleconference with Pike in Singapore had been over for more than two hours, and he still couldn’t decide what catastrophe he should broach to the Oversight Council first: the fact that Pike’s team had ignored orders and unilaterally attempted an Omega operation against an agent of a sovereign country—and failed—or the fact that that same agent was now running loose with a lethal and highly pathogenic genetically engineered bioweapon.

  Maybe lead off with the one Iranian we did manage to catch, along with the fact that we have no support assets in country to exfiltrate him.

  The thought made his head hurt. Jesus. What a goat rope.

  He remembered his last conversation with the secretary of state, Jonathan Billings, and knew he was going to get roasted—although at the end of the day, he stood behind Pike’s actions. The only thing Pike could have done differently was alert the police when he realized he was following the doctor. Instead, he’d attempted an interdiction with his team, and Kurt understood the decision.

  Given Pike’s status in the country, he couldn’t call the police himself without an avalanche of repercussions and questions to answer. He would have had to call back to the Taskforce, then have them inject the doctor’s location into the CIA network, followed by the station alerting their liaison. In other words, lose the doctor yet again.

  No, Pike had made the right call. If he’d stood on the sidelines, the doctor would have been killed, and they’d have no idea what they were up against.

  At the end of the day, hunting humans was an imperfect science. The target was usually someone who had lived on the run for a while, honing his survival instincts and wanting to live to fight another day. You just couldn’t predict every outcome. The unexpected happened, and you either rolled with the punch or ceased to exist. Operations weren’t video games with checkpoints that you could attempt over and over until you found the perfect solution, although he’d have a hard time selling that to this crew. Most of the Oversight Council had no idea what the Taskforce did to accomplish missions and lived in a zero-tolerance world.

  A world that doesn’t exist.

  The door opened and the members of the council all began to file in, right on time. Last was the president, who said, “Hey, Kurt. These emergency meetings are getting to be standard procedure. From the message you sent out, this sounds like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tell me that was just your way of ensuring we all showed up.”

  As everyone took their seats, over the scuff of the chairs, he said, “Sir, you know that saying ‘I’ve got good news and bad news’?”

  “Yeah.”

  The room now quiet, Kurt said, “Well, I’ve got bad news and worse news.”

  For the next forty-five minutes the council said not a word as Kurt laid out what he knew, some members’ mouths actually dropping open as the briefing continued. Kurt finished and waited for the bloodletting.

  It began—and ended—with Billings. “I told you we should have never let Pike’s team go to Singapore. He’s nothing more than a hammer that sees everything as a nail. What the hell are we going to do with a captured Iranian asset?”

  President Warren, in a tone that reminded everyone in the room of his position, said, “Seriously? That’s what you care about? Cut the bickering. Forget the operation. That’s the least of our worries. This has the potential to make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a bad day on the golf course.”

  Billings turned red but said nothing. Ignoring his discomfort, President Warren continued. “Let’s take it from the top, starting with the virus.” He turned to Chip Dekkard. “You work in pharmaceuticals. What’s your assessment of the danger if it gets out? How bad can it be if we know it’s coming? If we prepare?”

  To Kurt, Chip looked pale and slightly green, like he was about to be sick. Even a little dazed. He took a moment, then responded. “Sir, if what Kurt says is true, it’s going to be catastrophic if released. We simply don’t have the production capability to ramp up enough antiviral medication to slow the onslaught. The demand will be huge. And there is no vaccine. We won’t be able to even begin production until we isolate the virus, which means someone has to get sick first.”

  “So someone gets sick. Then we get the vaccine. How long before that’s accomplished?”

  “Six or eight months.”

  The room broke into a low buzz, and Kurt heard various members talking about what they could do in the meantime. How they could prevent a panic and stabilize for six months. Chip cut them off.

  “People, you’re not listening to me. This isn’t going to be a particularly bad flu season. It’s going to be a catastrophic wipeout that the world has never seen. H5N1 has a seventy percent mortality rate. The only thing it didn’t have was the mutation to get around the human species. If this virus has that ability—and I’m not trying to be over-the-top—we’re looking at the death of hundreds of millions of people. The entire collapse of our health care system followed by our economy, then quite possibly our country.”

  The secretary of defense snorted, “Come on. We had the flu epidemic in 1918—while we were in the middle of World War One. That didn’t cause any country to fall apart, and that was with hundred-year-old medical practices.”

  Chip said, “I’m glad you mentioned 1918. You talk about modern medicine, but there’s a flip side to being modern. They also didn’t have modern automobiles and certainly didn’t have air travel. It was much harder for that flu to get around then, and yet it did. In two years that pandemic killed more Americans than all the foreign wars we have ever fought combined. It killed upwards of five percent of the entire global population. And its mortality rate was between ten and twenty percent.”

  When nobody responded, his voice became shrill. “Do you hear what I’m saying? One or two out of every ten that got it died. This virus is going to kill seven. And it’s going to spread faster than we can contain it. If it gets out, it will make 1918 look like an outbreak of the common cold.”

  He leaned back in his chair again, saying, “In fact, the only good thing we have going for us is that H5N1 is so deadly, it might kill the host before it has a chance to spread.”

  Nobody said a word, struggling to cope with the magnitude. The director of the CIA broke the silence.

  “If that’s true, why on earth would the Iranians even use it? If there is no vaccine, it’ll eventually reach Iran and wipe them out as well.”

  Someone muttered, “Because they’re crazy.”

  “No they’re not,” the director snapped. “They’re definitely operating on a different agenda, but they aren’t crazy. They protect the regime at all costs, using logical cost-benefit calculations. Hell, their quest to become nuclear is for that exact reason.”

  Kurt said, “Maybe they don’t know what they’ve got. Or maybe Malik doesn’t understand the damage it
could cause. He’s not a doctor or anything. The bottom line is that they have the virus. The only questions left are whether they’ll use it and whether we can do anything about it.”

  Billings said, “I’m inclined to agree with the CIA on this. They won’t use it if they realize the cost. I think it’s just a deterrent, a cheap nuke. We should take this slow and easy, not push them into something we’ll regret.”

  The SECDEF exploded, “Have you lost your mind? No way am I letting that bunch of loonies hold the key to Armageddon.”

  Chip surprised Kurt by shouting a follow-up. “I agree! We need to kill this general and get the virus back. Ensure it’s destroyed.”

  The only thing that guy has ever said at a council meeting was questioning whether we should go after an Iranian. Now he’s bloodthirsty?

  President Warren held up his hands for silence. “We don’t know their intentions, but we do know they have it. I’m inclined to let the Taskforce continue to track, but not for a blanket Omega operation. Let’s sort it out. Get more information, then come back and reassess. Kurt, do you even have anything to go on?”

  “Very little. We tracked the general’s phone immediately, but it ended up being under the seat of a cab. The driver couldn’t remember who had left it. We found the hotel of the Iranian we’d caught, and doing some linkage work by hacking the registration computer of the hotel, we think we know the names the other two are using. They both took a flight that left Singapore directly to Hong Kong. It’s not a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s all we have at this point.”

  “What about that other Iranian? What are we doing about him?”

  “I’d like to exfiltrate both him and the doctor back here. Get some debrief and interrogation going. Apparently the doctor was working on a vaccine, and he might be able to jump-start any research that becomes necessary. I’m just thinking worst case. I can do it, but I’ll need some help from the CIA station. There’s a US Navy base at Sembawang, in the north of Singapore. We have some assets I can use in Malaysia for a waterborne pickup, but I’ll need help getting the package on the base and through the indigenous guard force security.”

  President Warren glanced at the DCI, and he nodded, saying, “I can get that done.”

  President Warren said, “Okay, make it happen. Billings, I want you to put Cailleach Laboratories under a microscope. Who owns it, who runs it, and who made the call to create the virus. Somebody at State had to clear its credentials for work in Singapore. I want to know who it was and why.”

  Chip Dekkard cut in. “Sir, I can do that if you want. It doesn’t sound like these guys followed procedure anyway, so the State Department will probably have less luck than me, given my connections in the private sector.”

  Billings said, “Sir, he’s right. I guarantee that all of the credentialing is on the up-and-up.”

  President Warren said, “All right. Chip, you got that ball. Thanks. I appreciate the help without the government paycheck. Final thing: I want the CDC read onto the potential threat. Don’t give out any specifics. Just get them on war footing. On the lookout for an outbreak so we can mitigate the damage, using the minimum information you need to justify it. Whatever you do, don’t go overboard on the threat. Just give them enough to get them prepared for what’s coming.”

  He paused until he had everyone’s full attention and then said, “People, the biggest threat right now is panic. Maybe the Iranians intend to use the virus and maybe they don’t. Either way, the word gets out and we’ll have an epidemic of fear that’ll match the actual release of the virus. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is to breathe a word of the true facts until absolutely necessary. If I hear anyone on this council is out stocking up on Tamiflu, you’ll regret ever working for the government. Understood?”

  He went from face to face, getting a somber nod from each member.

  He then looked at Kurt. “Get to Hong Kong. Give me some good news for a change. I’d like the highlight of our next meeting to be something better than our only hope is that the virus kills so quickly it’ll mitigate its own spread.”

  39

  Malik entered the dingy elevator, jostling between two middle-aged Indian men and an Australian backpacker with a braided beard. Assaulted by the stale odor of cigarettes, he felt his feet sticking to the floor like it was coated in flypaper.

  A small price to pay.

  Unaware of the depth of the penetration or knowledge the enemy now held, he’d had Sanjar locate a cheap hostel that took cash. One that wasn’t a stickler for recording passports.

  Sanjar had found exactly that inside an indoor flea market, a maze that wound around not unlike the souks of his home. Just off Nathan Road on the Kowloon side of the harbor, it was actually six or seven different hostels, each one taking up a floor. All housed what he would charitably call frugal travelers, from touring college students to men such as the Indians in the elevator with him. Malik decided they’d stay here until he could obtain new identification, which was what he was doing now.

  Leaving the elevator, he slipped through the flow of people in the narrow hallway of the market, hearing at least four different languages and passing stalls that sold everything from T-shirts to Internet time.

  He turned north on Nathan Road, and the world became much more homogenous, a river of people, all Asian. He walked up a few blocks, keeping pace with the foot traffic around him. He passed a subway station spilling people onto the street, a seemingly endless stream adding to the current of the human river. Had he not been preoccupied with the upcoming meeting, he might have studied the people flowing south on the opposite side of the street. Might have cataloged them as a precaution. Might have saved himself some trouble later.

  * * *

  Retro and I exited the subway station and took a moment to get our bearings. Hong Kong was about as crowded a city as I had ever been in, but luckily it was fairly compact, unlike the urban sprawl you see in the United States.

  Retro saw a sign pointing the way to the ferries at the harbor only a few blocks away, and we began walking south, toward our target.

  We’d gotten the go-ahead to transition to Hong Kong and had squeezed the only lead we had: the two names we believed were associated with the Iranian we had caught. Unfortunately, neither had panned out. Once they left the aircraft, they simply disappeared, like I figured would happen. There was no known registration at any hotel we could find. We’d flown anyway, waiting on the forensics of the cell phone we’d captured with the Iranian.

  By the time we had arrived, the forensics had been completed, and the phone had little to offer, having only spoken with three other handsets: the doctor’s, the general’s phone we found in the cab, and an unknown number, presumably belonging to the countersurveillance that had saved the general at the park. We tried to track it, but it was off the grid, more than likely thrown away because of the compromise.

  Digging further, building the spiderweb, we had scrubbed the connections from the unknown phone and hit a potential lead.

  Outside of cab companies and the other phones we already knew, it had called a number of low-grade hostels on the Kowloon peninsula, with five located in one building and two in another on the eastern edge of the peninsula. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had.

  The two on the eastern edge were a tick above slum land and had databases we could hack. Our target names weren’t registered, which meant little in the greater scheme of things, but I decided to concentrate on the other five. They appeared to be cash-and-carry-type affairs, with nothing on the Web.

  I could have split up the team, focusing on both targets, but that would have left me without the ability to react immediately to what we found. On the other hand, while focusing on one would allow me to start immediate surveillance, it would get me nothing if we were on the wrong target.

  Ordinarily, this type of mission would have been old hat, and w
e would have had the luxury of a slow, deliberate process. Here, I felt the press of time—and the threat of a global pandemic. At times like this I wondered if I wouldn’t have made a good shoe salesman.

  Jennifer and Decoy had conducted a reconnaissance and found that the five hostels were serviced by the same elevator; each hostel was on a separate floor deep inside a claustrophobic market catering to foreigners. Retro and I were going to emplace a wireless covert camera in view of the doors, then we were going to pull old-fashioned stakeout work, keeping eyes on the door 24/7 in the hopes of spotting our quarry.

  * * *

  Malik saw a sign for Kowloon Park and crossed the street, still headed north. He passed two men speaking Urdu and wearing taqiyah skullcaps and knew he was close. He crossed Haiphong Road and saw his destination: the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre. He studied it as he approached, looking for anything that didn’t seem to fit. He saw nothing alarming.

  He passed through the wrought iron gate and marched up the stairs as if he had been there a hundred times before, not wanting to encourage anyone to be helpful because he appeared to be new. Not wanting anyone but his contact to remember him at all.

  Using his memorized instructions, he moved through the building until he reached a small sitting room in the back. Pushing through the curtain, he recognized the man inside. A cleric who worked for the mullahs themselves. And he didn’t look particularly happy.

  “General. Come in. Sit down.”

  Malik did as he asked, saying, “I’m surprised to see you. I hope my request in Singapore wasn’t mistaken as something needing the attentions of someone as important as yourself.”

  “From what you told us, it was no mistake.”

  “The plan is proceeding perfectly. I couldn’t very well fly the vials in my carry-on bag.”

  “Perfectly? Do you know what happened to Roshan?”

  “Yes. He was arrested. Don’t worry, he won’t talk. Even if he does, he has no knowledge of the overall plan.”