by Marc Cameron
“What’s not to love?” Guttman smiled. “Who wouldn’t get a kick out of killing Nazi zombies? A bunch of guys in my squadron play all the—”
“You know, Guttman,” Thibodaux said, rubbing his jaw with a hand the size of a pie pan. “I got a friend out there, all by his lonesome self in parts unknown, facing some real-life shit that would make your zombie games look like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. You might consider showing some attention to your duties at hand.”
Guttman, flustered, snapped his personal laptop shut without another word. He glanced at Mahoney, blushing like a schoolboy taken to task in front of a pretty girl.
Thibodaux rose quickly from his chair and strode to the large wall map of the Middle East. He tapped the tiny red dot with a forefinger the size of a sausage between Riyadh and the Persian Gulf. Al-Hofuf, Saudi Arabia.
“Can your bird use its cameras to zoom in or something so we can see how he is? I don’t know ... infrared maybe, like on those Tom Clancy movies.”
Guttman sighed, seemingly relieved Thibodaux had decided not to chop his head off. “Sorry, sir. No can do. If Damo was a conventional drone buzzing over a third world country with little in the way of defense we’d be able to get some images. Saudi Arabia would shoot one of those down in a heartbeat. But she doesn’t work that way. She floats around up there in stealth mode, out of the picture and out of radar contact—until we need her.”
Damo was a new and highly classified UAV. Far beyond the Predator and Reaper drones being used to run recon missions blasting away at insurgent compounds from Kirkuk to the wild and wooly Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, Damo was not supposed to be anything but a few sketches on a Northrop Grumman engineer’s drawing board. Three generations past the officially still experimental X47B Pegasus, the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier launch-capable Unmanned Combat Air System, Guttman’s UCAS, was more properly known as the AX7 Damocles. Particularly useful for its ability to loiter unnoticed above an enemy for long periods of time, Damocles could be suspended overhead, ready to strike like the mythic sword hanging by a horse hair. In reality, it had been in operation for well over a year, based out of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Though most UAVs were piloted by officers, the AX7 was launched from the back of a Boeing 747—out of sight of snooping eyes and video cameras—and then controlled by a new generation of gamers from the enlisted ranks whose proficiency test scores had been off the charts. In the hands of a skilled computer dweeb with the right equipment, Damocles could be controlled from anywhere in the world.
Staff Sergeant Guttman was the king of computer dweebs. He checked the systems monitor, touching the screen with a plastic stylus, then made a note on his clipboard.
“I don’t know what your friend is out there looking for. That’s way above my pay grade, but I can only bring Damo down and into the open if I get the order from that phone.” He nodded toward a black handset on the stainless counter beside his joystick and stylus. “If I get the order, Damo is armed with four Tomahawks. But until that phone rings, I can’t ...”
Thibodaux raised his big hand. “We get it, kid. Why don’t you just chill and kill some more Nazi zombies... .”
Megan stood to go look at the map, to do something, anything but sit and wait.
Then the black phone on Guttman’s desk began to ring.
CHAPTER 29
If given the choice, Quinn preferred quick, decisive movement over a lengthy deliberation. It allowed him the freedom to respond to gut feelings. More times than not, such action gave him the clear advantage. There was no doubt Dr. Suleiman had heard the pistol shot from outside the killing room. It was, after all, the fitting conclusion of his execution order. Jericho knew Suleiman was the professional, the one he would have to kill first, but when he sprang into the hall the chief veterinarian was gone.
The desk guard was on his feet, looking toward the double doors. Quinn put a quick double tap between his running lights. The startled man hardly had time to look up. His body spun to the ground in the particular corkscrew fashion of one who is brain dead before they fall.
Without a pause, Jericho rushed for the doors.
Dr. Suleiman met him in a head-on attack, crashing into him with the full weight of his body. The veterinarian was well groomed, but he knew how to fight. He smashed down with both fists in a well-delivered haymaker that sent the pistol skittering across the dimly lit room and out of reach.
Jericho crouched, springing forward like a lineman, using the strength of his legs to drive the Arab backward with the point of his shoulder toward a white marble support column. Flailing out with both hands, Suleiman dragged a tapestry off the wall, bringing the heavy woolen rug down on top of both men. Quinn rolled away, struggling to push free from the tangle of thick cloth. When he got to his feet, he saw a smiling Suleiman holding the thick dowel that had been used to support the tapestry. Five feet long and an inch in diameter, the wooden staff made a formidable weapon in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.
“I do not know who you are,” Suleiman panted, a fleck of spittle forming at the corners of his twisted mouth. “But I think you are no Kuwaiti horse buyer... .”
Quinn stood facing him, slightly bent at the waist, arms loose at his sides, body quartered away. “I am a messenger,” he said in Arabic.
Suleiman raised an eyebrow, dropping his shoulder slightly. “What sort of messenger?”
Feinting with his left hand, Quinn drew Suleiman into a rushed attack. Rolling past the first blow, he caught the doctor on the point of his chin with a brutal upward strike from his elbow. Stunned, Suleiman let go of the staff with one hand but kept a death grip with the other, letting the end hit the ground. Quinn grabbed the man’s fist, and stomped hard on the angled wood, snapping the staff in the middle. The jarring shock caused Suleiman to release his hold on what was left of the weapon.
Quinn grabbed the wooden shard before it could hit the ground. It was two feet long and incredibly sharp on the broken end. Spinning, he drove the splintered point through the startled man’s neck so it came out each side like the handlebars on a motorcycle.
“That sort of messenger,” Quinn said.
Suleiman no longer a threat, Quinn was met by an empty marble room. Somewhere to his left, he could just make out the soft, eerie whirring of exhaust fans.
Where the building entrance had been sparse and utilitarian, the inner portion was palatial, complete with marble floors and stone pillars. More heavy Arab tapestries of rich maroon and gold draped stucco walls. A long, low table of rich mahogany surrounded by ornate brocade throw pillows occupied the middle of the vacant chamber. Quinn’s footsteps echoed off the arched ceiling, twenty feet above his head. A chessboard sat at the end of the low table. Squat pieces, testaments to Islam’s prohibition against statues of living creatures, sat lined up on the board and ready for play.
Quinn retrieved the Beretta from the floor and held it in tight against his waist. He scanned the room, searching for any sign of Farooq or his operation. It was a lonely but familiar feeling to be in such a hostile environment thousands of miles from home ... wherever that was.
The whirring of the fans suddenly grew louder, as if a compressor had kicked on. One of the heavy, floor-to-ceiling plum-colored drapes directly across from the low table rustled slightly, jostled by an unseen wind as if a door had opened on the other side. Quinn prepared himself for an attack, but the movement turned out to be caused by an air intake located in the marble tile behind it.
Closer inspection revealed a glass window on the other side of the curtain. When he drew the heavy cloth to one side, his breath froze in his chest. His free hand slid into the pocket of his dishdasha.
CHAPTER 30
Mahoney pursed her lips. She’d never met this Jericho Quinn but could tell from Thibodaux’s demeanor he was a good man in serious danger.
The baby-faced staff sergeant spoke into the phone for a quick moment, then pressed the hands-free button on the device.
“Damo’s got you on a shadow relay, sir—running your voice in encrypted laser bursts,” Guttman explained over the line. “The Saudis won’t even know we’re talking unless they happen to walk in on you.”
There was silence on the speaker. Guttman turned back to the phone. “You still there, sir?”
“I’m here.” The voice was surprisingly clear considering the fact that it had to travel from a cell phone no bigger than a pack of playing cards to a drone twenty-seven miles above the earth before being rebroadcast back to Langley. “How do you read me?”
“You’re comin’ in slurred and stupid, as usual, beb,” Thibodaux laughed, breathing an audible sigh of relief to hear his friend’s voice.
“Glad to hear it,” Quinn came back. “Listen, has the boss gotten hold of that plague doctor yet?”
“She’s sittin’ right beside me,” Thibodaux said.
Megan leaned toward the phone out of habit, as if closing the gap another few inches might make it a little easier for her voice to travel thousands of miles. “Megan Mahoney with the CDC.”
“I’m looking at some pretty bad stuff here, Doctor.”
“Can you describe it?”
“Roger that,” the voice said. “I’ve got what looks like two airtight rooms behind glass observation windows. The rooms are divided down the middle.... That wall looks to be airtight as well, but I can’t be sure from where I’m at. They’re set up like hospital wards but—” Quinn’s voice stopped abruptly.
Mahoney opened her mouth to say something, but the big Cajun held up his hand to shush her.
“He could be handling ... a problem,” Thibodaux whispered. “He stops talking, we stop talking.
There was a muffled pop on the line that reminded Megan of a large metal pan being dropped to the ground. Garbled voices followed, and then two more pops in quick succession.
Quinn came back on the line, calm as if he’d just gone to answer the door. “Had a couple of visitors,” he said simply. “I could sure use your help, Jacques. They keep popping up every time I try to get the job done.”
“I wish I was there, l’ami,” Thibodaux said. “I hate sittin’ on my thumbs stateside while you get to play World of Warcraft with the bad guys.”
“Dr. Mahoney.” Quinn’s voice was somber again. “I’m thinking this is some kind of a test facility where they could watch their experiments with the disease progress. No one has tended to the people in these rooms for quite a while. It looks like a horror movie in there. The sheets are filthy ... blood everywhere.”
“How many?” Mahoney heard herself ask. She had seen Ebola wards firsthand in Africa and could imagine what the rooms looked like.
“Five,” Quinn said. “It’s hard to say, but I’m pretty sure three are Americans ... some of our missing soldiers. I think one of them is dead already... .” The unmistakable sound of a sniff came across the line. “There’s a little girl in there ... maybe seven years old. She’s still moving, but I think the woman next to her is dead.... Anything I can do to help her, Doc? Could I put on a mask or something and go in there?”
There was an earnest goodness in the voice that stopped Mahoney’s heart in her chest. To be sent on this sort of mission, he had to be a capable and dangerous man. She hadn’t expected any semblance of mercy.
She looked helplessly at Thibodaux.
“He’s got a little daughter of his own,” the Cajun whispered. “He’d never say it, but it kills him to be away from her.”
Mahoney nodded, understanding. Her jaw set in a firm line. “Listen to me,” she said. “This is going to be hard... .” Her voice caught as she imagined this man, this father, standing on one side of a filthy glass window, separating him by mere inches from a child in unimaginable agony. She took a deliberate breath and plowed ahead, staring at the floor, unable to look Thibodaux in the eye. “It’s a horrible thing ... but you’ve got to leave her in there. From what we know so far, these poor souls are infected with a highly contagious, airborne variant of a hemorrhagic virus. If it were to get out, thousands ... hundreds of thousands would die. You must not go anywhere near them, mask or no mask.”
Mahoney’s eyes welled with tears. She hated to cry in front of people, fearing they might see it as a sign of weakness. A look at both Thibodaux and Guttman’s glistening eyes showed her she had nothing to worry about in that regard. That didn’t make what she had to do any easier. Though a death sentence had been pronounced on the victims in the lab long before her conversation with Jericho Quinn, she was the one pushing for a fast execution. She tried to console herself with the tired rationale that such an end would be more humane, but the grim truth was that such humanity didn’t matter. The virus could not be allowed to escape the confines of that lab.
“Your only option is to destroy that place.” She shivered as she said the words. “Believe me, it’s the kindest thing you could do for the child.”
“I hear you, Doctor.” Quinn’s voice came across the speaker again, full of composure now. “Jacques, get Palmer on the line. Let him know I’ve got three photographs for him. I’ll send them your way as soon as I get to a pickup point.”
“Roger that,” Thibodaux said, raising a dark eyebrow. “Photographs?”
“Yeah,” Quinn said. “Head shots, like these guys make when they prepare their last will and testament ... right before they strap on a vest full of nails and explosives—martyr portraits. There were five of them, but I’ve taken care of two of the problems since I came to the lab... .”
“You have names?” Thibodaux asked
“Afraid not,” Quinn said. “Just photos. But I also have a small case, about the size of a box of rifle ammo. Looks like it’s supposed to hold twenty glass vials about two inches long each. There are only seventeen left in the case and they’re all empty. Don’t know about the other three... .”
Guttmann’s mouth fell open. “You think the three people in your martyr photos are bringing that virus to the U.S. in those vials?”
Mahoney ignored the young sergeant. “Can you give me a better description of the vials?” she said.
“Glass ... maybe a hard plastic ... clear ... about the size of a tube of lipstick. Each vial has an inner glass container, slightly smaller, that fits inside the larger. Both have screw-on tops with rubber seals.”
“You could get a hell of a lot of virus in a vial that size,” Thibodaux mused. “Couldn’t you, Doc?”
Mahoney nodded slowly, making some notes as she spoke. “Depending on the culture medium you’d need to keep it viable, enough to infect thousands—maybe more.”
“That settles it,” Thibodaux said, smacking his huge hand on the table. “Jericho, get the hell out of there and let us blow that place to kingdom come.”
Guttmann stepped in front of his control panel, guarding it. “I can’t ... I mean ... I couldn’t fire the Tomahawks without permission,” he stammered. “I’d need authorization for that from way higher up than you. This is only supposed to be a surveillance op... .”
“He’s right,” Quinn said. “A missile would destroy the place but start a war with the Saudis at the same time. If we destroy the evidence they’ll have a hard time buying off on our claims of a deadly virus. Besides, I still haven’t found Farooq. Give me an hour. That’ll give you time to get your permission. In the meantime, I have an idea that might solve our problem. If you don’t hear from me in an hour and five minutes, bring your little buddy out of orbit and zap us to Hell.”
“Okay, l’ami,” Thibodaux sighed. “An hour and five it is, but be sure to give yourself plenty of time to scoot out of there. I’m afraid Mrs. Miyagi will take away my new toys if you get yourself killed. I’m getting’ sorta attached to that Beemer.” His words were frivolous, but his face was creased in worry. He leaned forward against the counter, resting his face in his big hands. “No shit, Jericho. Be careful.”
“I’ll talk to you again in an hour.”
“Roger that,” Thibodaux said, straightening up with
a groan. “I’ll call Palmer.”
Mahoney paced to the map as the line went dead. She put her finger on the small dot over the oasis city of Al-Hofuf.
“Here there be dragons,” she whispered to herself.
Quinn stuffed the photographs inside his dishdasha, outside his T-shirt and facing away from his skin so he wouldn’t ruin the images with sweat. He’d need them preserved as well as possible if they hoped to get any sort of ID on the terrorists that remained alive.
As he walked past the second observation window, he noticed a black intercom box on the wall between him and the three soldiers. He almost passed it by, but one of the men stirred on a filthy cot. In his early twenties, the boy was soaked in sweat, blinded by the ravages of his disease. His name tag read MEEKS—the missing Air Force TACP from Fallujah.
Jericho pushed the button, swallowed hard before he could speak. “Sergeant Trey Meeks ... we’re here to take you home.”
Meeks tried to rise, but, too weak, made do with tipping his head toward the noise. “Who’s there?” His pitiful croak ripped at Quinn’s heart.
“Another American ... OSI,” Quinn said, resting his head against the wall. “Hang on for a few minutes more and I’ll take care of everything.
“Air Force?”
“You bet,” Quinn said.
“An American,” the boy sighed. Exhausted from the effort of just a few words, he fell back against his sodden cot, wracked with spasmodic coughs. When he finally calmed, he turned back toward the window and blinked serenely. Though blind and covered with unimaginable gore, the corners of his cracked lips turned up in the slightest hint of a smile. “I knew you’d come.”
CHAPTER 31
Thirty-five minutes later, Jericho stacked the last fifty-pound bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on top of a pile as high as his chest. The barn’s cramped storage room was thirty feet from the lab’s outer wall, but he didn’t want to risk moving explosives back and forth across the open ground. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all—an American, smack in the hotbed of Middle Eastern terrorism, manufacturing an IED—an improvised explosive device—much like the sort insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan used to kill U.S. troops almost every day. Like the bombs they used to kill thousands in a Colorado shopping mall.
