by Marc Cameron
Forrester blinked bleary eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. He did not move.
“Right away, man,” Scott barked. “I can not emphasize containment enough here. You’re dismissed to go make your calls.”
The admiral leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of closed eyes. “I need to brief the President in five minutes. Let’s hear some options, people.”
CHAPTER 8
4 September
Captain Steve Holiday drew a breath from his oxygen mask through clenched teeth. Samantha, the lead flight attendant, was dead. Perky Liz, who’d just been showing off photos of her little boy’s first birthday, was dead. Four of the remaining nine crew members were having trouble standing, and from all accounts, two of those would be gone in a matter of minutes. He’d deployed emergency oxygen masks for the passengers but lied when he announced that doctors had advised this would help staunch any further spread of the mysterious illness. No one was telling him a damn thing.
Beside him, slouched in the right seat, Karen Banning had figured out she was dying. A pile of tissues at her feet was stained with the steady flow of blood that dripped from her nose and came up with every raw, spasmodic cough. He’d tried to comfort her with a pat on the shoulder, but she jerked away, shrieking in pain at his touch. Any pressure against her skin threw her into agony.
Once-smooth skin hung loose and lifeless off her cheekbones. Dull eyes bounced oddly in all directions as if hung on the end of cartoon springs. It was the stuff bad dreams were made of.
The few unaffected passengers had barricaded themselves in the upper deck, outside the cockpit, and threatened to roll a beverage cart down the stairs at anyone who tried to come up the stairs from below. A look at the video monitor that viewed the back galley showed a surreal scene of dangling yellow oxygen masks, slumped bodies, and exhausted passengers shuffling zombielike to and from overflowing restrooms.
Holiday switched off the monitor, surprised by a sudden squawk on the radio.
“Northwest Flight 2, this is United States Marine Corps F-18, Nickel Five-Five hailing on one three one point one”
Holiday bounced a fist off his knee and nearly howled in delight. “Hot damn, Nickel Five-Five, it is good to hear a friendly voice.”
“Northwest 2 switch to Tango Niner-Niner.”
Holiday complied. It was an encrypted frequency, used during hijackings.
“You there, Nickel Five-Five?”
“Roger that, Northwest 2.”
“Outstanding,” Holiday said. “I’ve got an airplane full of dying people, and to top that off, we’re having radio trouble. Think you could relay for me?”
“Happy to, sir,” the F-18 pilot answered back. “I’m a half mile off your starboard wing.”
Holiday passed on details about the crew’s medical condition, the rapid spread of the illness, and the latest update on the number of dead.
“I’m switching to a military frequency,” the fighter said after he’d repeated the information coolly. “Be right back, sir.”
“You know where to find us,” Holiday chuckled.
He shook his head at the luck of it all—running into an F-18 pilot at thirty-four thousand feet over the Atlantic. But as the quiet thrum and muted green glow of the cockpit closed in around him, he thought of his friend and first officer sitting only inches away with her eyes wobbling around in their sockets like loose marbles. Holiday realized luck was pretty damned scarce.
The Marine fighter pilot from the Roosevelt gave the group a curt radio briefing on what he’d learned from Captain Holiday. Megan had worked with the military many times and was used to their deadpan delivery. She supposed it was trained into them, but they always sounded bored when talking to civilians.
The news was grim. Everyone on the video link sat in stunned silence as the F-18 pilot recounted the way the virus had burned through half the passengers in the last hour.
With nothing more to tell, the fighter pilot signed off to resume contact with Northwest 2.
Lt. General Norton leaned forward, clutching what was left of his thinning gray forelock. He looked like a young boy stumped by an unanswerable test question. “We thought 9/11 was bad... .”
“General,” Megan said. “Don’t misunderstand what I’ m—”
Randall cut her off. “We talked about a worst-case scenario like this well before 9/11. There is only one alternative here.” The general slapped the flat of his hand on the table for effect. “And we all know what it is.”
Mahoney took a deliberate breath, mentally kicking herself. In her haste to point out how bad a hemorrhagic virus could be, she’d made this sound like the end of the world. “Gentleman, plea—”
“I have to agree with General Randall.” It was Norton’s turn to cut her off. His voice was hollow and he spoke without looking up.
Admiral Scott nodded slowly, as if passing judgment. Everyone on the video con went quiet. At length, he turned to his aide.
“Get our F-18 pilot on the horn again, please.” That order given, he turned to face the monitor again. “Dr. Mahoney, you were saying?” Even on the plasma screen, the man’s blue eyes locked on to her, missing nothing.
“It’s vital that we all understand something, Admiral.” She cleared her throat. “Though this incident is bad, it is not the worst possible scenario.”
Scott’s aide turned to call the F-18 pilot, but the admiral flicked his hand, motioning for him to hold.
“And exactly what would the worst be?” the admiral asked.
All eyes on her again, Megan smoothed a hand down the front of her dress, nodding. As a scientist she’d always been more comfortable surrounded by deadly germs than politicians and bureaucrats; she found them more predictable. Her Georgia accent came on thicker when she was nervous and it was honey sweet at the moment. “For one thing, hemorrhagic fevers—like Ebola—tend to burn themselves out, in many cases killing their victims before they have a chance to spread to anyone else. Faster is not necessarily better for a virus’s longevity. If the illness aboard Northwest 2 was implemented by a terrorist cell, then they succeeded in something remarkable only by making it airborne.”
“Still pretty damned terrifying,” Randall said.
“There’s no doubt,” Megan continued. “This scares the hell out of me ... and it would cause a tremendous amount of panic. But we could more than likely isolate something like this almost as quickly as it began—especially now that we know what to look for.”
“So?” Randall threw up his hands. “That’s supposed to make us feel better—that we are ‘likely’ to be able to contain it?”
Megan clenched both fists beneath the table, out of the camera’s view. Randall was getting under her skin, so she focused on Admiral Scott. “First, viral pandemics aren’t something to screw around with. In the early nineteen hundreds Spanish flu killed more Americans than Vietnam, Korea, and both World Wars combined.” Megan spoke slowly so imbeciles like Randall could understand. “AIDS is able to infect so many because it is insidious. It kills slowly. In fact, a carrier can infect hundreds of others without showing any signs they are contagious. If an airborne virus such as the one on Northwest 2 were to shift, or be caused to shift into something that killed a little more slowly ... it wouldn’t even show up on our radar until it’s gone too far to stop. In the deadly disease business we even have the name for such a bug—Pandora.” She paused to let her words sink in. “Once she’s out of the box ... there would be no stopping her. That is the worst case.”
Admiral Scott sat motionless for a long moment. “Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Mahoney. Dr. Willis, I know you’re busy with your duties in Colorado. I’d like Dr. Mahoney to get herself to Washington on the next available flight. We should discuss this face-to-face. Now, if you all will excuse me, I need to have some words with our F-18 pilot.”
The plasma screen in front of Megan switched off and the limousine went dark.
CHAPTER 9
“You out there,
Nickel Five-Five?” The 747 pilot’s voice crackled over the Super Hornet’s radio.
“Go ahead, sir.” The young Marine turned his head to the left and watched the heavy airliner glide against the lumpy backdrop of white clouds. They traveled at the same speed and the big bird appeared to hang motionless in the air.
He’d allowed his fighter to inch closer and was now less than two hundred yards off the 747’s wing, flying behind and slightly above. It was a position he called owning—though in a weapons platform as sophisticated as the F-18 Super Hornet, he owned all he could see and then some.
“Call sign Nickel ... one twenty-second Crusaders, right?”
“Aye, sir,” the fighter pilot said, snorting. He was genuinely impressed. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you a Marine?”
“Negative, son,” the 747 pilot came back. “United States Navy.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the fighter jock chuckled. “Didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.” He wished the brass would come back and tell him what was going on. This chatting with a bus driver was going to get old fast.
“Good one, Marine. I’ll let that slide since you happen to outgun me. Not to mention the fact that I’m partial to the airframe you’re flying.”
“Got a little time in an F-18, sir?”
“A little,” the 747 pilot said. There was something faraway in his voice. “Mind if I ask your name, son?”
He really hated when these old geezers called him son. “Stoner, sir, Captain Brad Stoner.”
“They got the Crusaders flying off Rough Rider now?”
Stoner snorted again. This guy knew a lot more than an ordinary bus driver. Rough Rider wasn’t the ship’s real name—the President had co-opted that one—but the folks lucky enough to serve aboard the Roosevelt still called her that from time to time. “Aye, sir, we’re on our way home from the Persian Gulf. You spend time aboard the TR?”
“Fair amount.”
Man, this dude was cagey. “May I ask your name, sir?”
“Holiday,” the 747 pilot replied. “Steve Holiday. I was likely retired before you graduated high school.”
Why did that name ring a bell?
“What squadron were you with before you retired, sir?”
“Flight Demonstration,” Holiday said.
“Captain Steven Holiday of the Blue Angels? That’s you, sir?”
“My friends call me Doc,” Holiday said.
“It’s an honor to fly the same patch of sky with you, Captain Holiday,” Stoner gushed in unabashed hero worship. “I had a model of your F-18 hanging from my ceiling when I was a kid. I still got a poster you signed at the Oshkosh air show. Wait until I tell the guys in my squadron.”
Stoner had dreamed of being a Blue Angel from the time he was in the seventh grade. He wanted to say more, but the radio squawked.
“I’ll be right back, sir. I’ve got HQ on the other freq.”
“Roger that, son,” Holiday’s voice crackled. It was breathless, as if he’d just finished a long run. “Glad you’re here, Marine.”
The USS Theodore Roosevelt relayed an encrypted patch from the Pentagon to the F-18 Hornet. Only five people were privy to the ninety-second conversation. By the time it was over, Brad Stoner thought he might cry.
“You ... hangin’ in there, Captain Holiday?” Stoner’s throat convulsed.
“Roger that.”
“Listen ...” Stoner shook his head, trying to focus on the instruments in front of him. “Sir ...”
Holiday, ever the warrior-gentleman, saved the distraught younger pilot from having to explain himself. “Say, Brad ... I did some thinking while you were gone... .” His voice flickered like a failing light. “You might want to know that my good friend and first officer just passed away... .” He coughed. “The way she went wasn’t pretty.”
“Captain—”
Holiday cut in. “They still strap a Slammer on those birds?” A Slammer was the AIM 120—the big sister to the Sidewinder Air Interceptor Missiles the Super Hornet carried at the end of each wing.
“They do indeed,” Stoner said in a reverent whisper. Holiday gave a ragged cough. “I gotta tell you, Brad, I never considered myself a coward, but I don’t relish the thought of dying like my friend just did.... You hear what I’m saying?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Outstanding—”
“Captain Holiday, would you do me the courtesy of looking out your starboard window?”
Stoner maneuvered his F-18 twenty yards off the jumbo jet’s right wing. He turned on the cockpit light, flipped up his helmet visor, and snapped a crisp salute. He held it for a long moment as tears welled in his eyes.
Across the dark void of sky between the two men, in the cockpit bubble of the 747, Navy Captain Steven “Doc” Holiday returned the gesture.
“A small favor, Brad?”
“Name it, sir.”
“This is gonna be awful hard on my wife... .” His cough was more ragged now. “If you ever get a chance ... her name’s Carol. Tell her you met me once—and that all I ever talked about was her.”
“Aye ...” Stoner couldn’t finish.
“Tallyho, Marine—” Holiday broke into a coughing fit and cut radio contact.
Stoner pulled back on the stick, gaining the altitude and distance he’d need to carry out the admiral’s order. On his console, a small light reading A/A—air to air—blinked red.
He’d never be able to tell anyone what he was about to do—nor would he want to.
CHAPTER 10
7 September, 1100 hours
Al-Hofuf, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Husseini al Farooq never traveled unless accompanied by at least two of his three most trusted men—and Zafir knew he was favored above all. Ratib and Jabolah had grown up with the sheik, and indeed these two men were considered family. But Zafir had proved his loyalty when he lost three fingers of his left hand saving the sheikh from an assassin’s sword. For the lowly Bedouin, Farooq reserved a trust beyond that given even to his closest brother.
At forty-one, Zafir was ten years the sheikh’s junior. Where the master was short and neat with finely chiseled, almost feminine features, the Bedouin was tall and unkempt. His black hair swept from a high forehead in a wild mane, revealing dark eyes that pinched into a permanent scowl. He looked as if he’d just ridden a fine horse to death only to walk the remainder of a long journey—every step in service of his master.
Today, he was dressed, as were Farooq and the other seven men at the meeting, in the dazzling white cotton dishdasha of a Saudi businessman. Unlike the others, Zafir’s face twitched and his body ached for the rougher robes of the Bedouin. He took a sip of strong coffee, letting the bitterness and familiar bite of cardamom soothe his nerves. As always, he kept a wary eye on all those near the sheikh.
Dictated by long tradition, Farooq, as the host, had ground the beans in front of his guest and served the coffee himself.
“The Americans are reeling,” the sheikh said as he served a tiny cup to Malik, a fat man from Baghdad. “They are full of self-righteous indignation over our little bombing at their shopping mall. But they believe bombing is all we know how to do. They believe us to be weak and ignorant.”
The men sat on quilted cushions around a low mahogany table piled high with fruit, flat bread, and al-kabsa—a dish of rice and spiced lamb. Malik had hogged nearly all the dates, though no one but Zafir appeared to notice.
“They think us inferior because we choose to live in a desert and keep control of our women where they cannot.”
Each man at the table nodded in somber agreement. Nassif, the dapper first deputy to the Saudi foreign minister sipped his coffee, but all there knew he agreed. A man of his standing would have never met with the sheikh unless they had already come to some accord. The fat Iraqi snorted over the last two dates he’d shoved in his mouth, highly offended that anyone would think him inferior.
Farooq continued, “The Americans are bad players of che
ss. They have failed to see the mall bombing for what it was, the push of a pawn. They believe their ultimate win is inevitable merely because they have the greater number of pieces on the board. And that is exactly what I want them to think. For now, we will play their game—”
“I have heard,” Malik, the Iraqi, interrupted, wiping thick hands on a linen napkin as his spoke, “that the Prophet—may Allah be pleased with him—forbade the playing of chess.”
Several of the men at the table, all adherents to the strict Wahabi sect of Islam, nodded in agreement. Nassif, the deputy minister, kept his thoughts, if he had any, to himself.
Haziz al Duri, a wealthy hotel owner from Riyadh, put a hand to his goatee. “Indeed Ali—may Allah be pleased with him—said chess was gambling—worse even than backgammon.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” the Iraqi shook his jowly face. “It was Ibn Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—who said it was worse than backgammon.”
“Gentlemen, please.” Farooq raised his hand and smiled meekly. Only Zafir saw the twitch in his left eye that revealed his true displeasure with the Iraqi. “Though I am certain chess has value to the mind and is indeed halal if it does not cause us to miss prayers or gamble, I speak here only of a figurative game. Perhaps we might save our discussion of such merits for a later time.”
“I have pledged my assets to the effort,” Malik said. “I wish to see the Americans crumble as much as anyone.”
“And your generosity is appreciated,” Farooq said. “Our latest operation in France was only a test, but it was far more successful than we’d imagined it would be.”
“But we have heard nothing of consequence in the news,” the merchant from Riyadh said. “Only that an American airliner crashed into the ocean. I fail to see how that is a success.”
Farooq took a deep breath, then held it for a moment before exhaling through thin nostrils. “Again, if I might compare our work to the strategy of chess without beginning a debate. The American news reports the plane crashed, but I believe the Americans shot it from the sky. The U.S. is frightened because they believe they know what we are up to. At the same time, they believe they have won, because the French killed our Algerian brothers and took the contents of their lab. They are certain to think us incapable of anything more intelligent than infecting an airliner.
