“What color?”
He looked at her, trying to see her in the dark. “Color?”
“The kitchen . . .”
He closed his eyes, wishing he could take back so many words. “It’s still yellow. Just like you left it.”
She was quiet for so long, then, “Thank you . . .”
“For what?” he said, looking down at her, telling himself that the pool of blood beneath her was not getting larger.
“For getting me out of there . . . I didn’t want to die alone . . .”
“You’re not going to die.”
She made a sound, a laugh, he thought. “Always were a good liar.”
“Don’t . . .”
“Promise me . . .”
“What?”
“You’ll finish this. LockeStarr . . . the Network . . .”
He tried to answer, couldn’t, and swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I will.”
He held her closer, bent down, breathed in the scent of her hair, trying to remember the good times of their marriage before it had disintegrated. All he could think of, recall, was that photo on his desk, of them skiing. She loved the thrill, reveled in the competition, the very things that made her a great agent. But when it came to relationships, she was clueless—not that he was much better—and as he looked back, he realized there weren’t very many good moments during their time together. Even though he’d tried to deny the fact, they both knew early on that the marriage was doomed.
That didn’t make this any easier, he thought, stroking her cheek, telling her to hang on, help was coming soon.
Her breathing seemed labored, shallow. It was too dark to see her face. But he knew he was losing her. He’d seen death, heard it, and right now, he could feel her life slipping away. And all he could do was sit there, hold her, be there for her. Eventually the pool of blood below her stopped spreading. She took her last breath and he didn’t move.
And Donovan kept driving.
Chapter 74
December 19
ATLAS Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
There was no funeral for Becca. Griffin wanted to say good-bye alone, and so he’d taken her ashes, flown to Gstaad, and scattered them from the slope where they’d last gone skiing the year before she’d left him. It was, Sydney had learned from Tex, Becca’s favorite spot. The place she’d loved best, and one of the last happy memories Griffin had of their marriage.
And so it was that, a week later, when Syd arrived in Washington, D.C., for the debriefing on the mission, she didn’t expect to see him there. Even so, when she and Carillo walked into the meeting room, saw Tex seated at the table, and no sign of Griffin, she was disappointed. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t sure what she’d say to him, she thought as Tex pulled out the chair beside his so that she could sit. He smiled at her, then eyed Carillo. “What? No donuts?”
“Ate ’em before we got here.”
Tex looked at Sydney. “You eat donuts?”
“Any chance I get,” she said as Marc and Lisette walked in, followed shortly by McNiel and Pearson.
McNiel looked at the clock. “Thorndike called, said he’d be late, so we might as well get started, since he already has this report from Pearson. The Bureau served the search warrants on the San Francisco office of Hilliard and Sons Laboratories, and the DST did the same on the Paris office as well as Luc’s château,” he said, referring to the French equivalent of the FBI, the Department of Territorial Safety/Security. “And,” he continued, “I thought you might like to see this.” He opened up a French newspaper, the headline reading simply, “Espionnage.” Below it, a photo of Luc being led from the château in handcuffs.
“Bertrand as well?” Tex asked.
“Without incident,” McNiel said, and it seemed the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. There wasn’t a person seated there, Sydney included, who didn’t wonder if Griffin wouldn’t attempt to exact revenge on both men for the death of his wife. Especially considering the fact neither had been arrested right away and were merely kept under surveillance until after the search warrants were served.
“Moving on,” he said, pushing the newspaper aside to read his agenda, “Olivia Grogan will apparently survive to stand trial with her father, so expect subpoenas to be forthcoming, unless they decide to plead out.”
“Not likely,” Marc said. “Olivia, unfortunately, is saying her father is innocent, she worked alone, and that Cavanaugh was on her payroll. She also admitted to hiring the two hit men who came after Izzy, and who killed Cavanaugh. Of course she and her father both refuse to give up the names of other Black Network members.”
“Job security,” Carillo said, just as the door opened. Sydney glanced up, expecting Thorndike.
It was Griffin. He appeared tired, worn, the circles beneath his eyes darker. He looked over at her, and though he didn’t smile, she had the feeling that her presence was welcome, that maybe he was glad to see her.
And then he walked into the room, handing a folder to McNiel, saying, “My finished report on Amsterdam and France.”
“Thanks,” McNiel said, taking the paperwork. “We’re just starting the debriefing if you want to stay.”
“Actually, I came to apologize. To Marc,” he said. “For compromising your safety. I should have been there as ordered.”
“Had it been Lisette,” Marc said, clasping him on the shoulder. “I would have done the same.”
The two shook hands, and then Griffin left. And how could she blame him? To sit there during the remainder of the session, hearing after the fact that Becca was a hero? That everyone had been wrong about her? The recovered flash drive contained everything she’d claimed and more, crippling LockeStarr completely. As disappointed as Sydney was that Griffin did leave—primarily because she had no idea when, if, she’d see him again—she couldn’t blame him. That, she thought, as she left the meeting, was too much to ask of any man.
She rode the elevator down with Tex and Carillo to the lobby, and when the door opened, Griffin was there waiting.
For her, she realized.
She walked up, and he said, “I was wondering if we could talk a few minutes?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, just as Thorndike walked in the lobby door.
He seemed taken aback at the sight of Griffin. “I’m, uh, sorry about Becca. About everything . . .”
Griffin tensed beside her. It was several seconds before he responded, and she had the feeling he was mentally counting to ten, before he finally asked, “Who did you bury in her grave two years ago?”
“No one,” Thorndike said. “The casket was empty.”
Griffin stood there, his jaw clenched. And then he took a breath, as though trying to calm himself. “I wanted to kill Luc. Go back there and put a bullet through his head, your investigation be damned.”
Thorndike nodded. “I’m glad you didn’t. Becca was a hero. She would’ve—”
Griffin slammed his fist into Thorndike’s face.
Thorndike staggered back, falling into the row of chairs against the lobby wall. Everyone froze, staring as Thorndike sat there, stunned, reaching up to run his hand across his jaw. And then Carillo made a show of examining his watch. “Geez. Look at the time . . .” he said, heading toward the door. “Late for a meeting . . .”
“Yeah,” Tex said, hurrying out after him. “Forgot all about that.”
And Thorndike picked himself up, crossed the lobby, keeping a wide berth around Griffin as he walked to the elevator and got on.
Sydney looked at Griffin, who took a breath, as though some weight had been lifted from his shoulder. Finally, she asked, “So what did you want to talk about?”
“Nothing in particular.” They stepped outside, the sun shining on the dirty, melting snow. “Just wanted to talk.”
“Nice hook, by the way.
”
“Thanks.”
Talking, she thought as they walked down the sidewalk, was a good thing.
Fact or Fiction?
The Cold War may have ended decades ago, but the lethal remnants from that era remain a very real and present danger to all mankind should they fall into the wrong hands. Perhaps one of the most frightening aspects is that one of these threats, a potential bioweapon, can’t be seen with the naked eye, and by the time anyone recognizes it, it’s too late.
What is it? Smallpox.
Back in the day, children were vaccinated against smallpox, not because of any bioweapons concerns, but because, like many other diseases, it sometimes happened in the natural course of life. But this is one case of man versus nature where the scientists fought it and won.
Like many readers, I bear a small, unusual scar from the smallpox vaccination on my upper arm that looks like someone branded me with the round tip and pins from a computer accessory plug. My children, however, do not have such a scar. Smallpox was eradicated because of the successful vaccination program, and the last known naturally occurring case of the disease was in Somalia in 1977.
Fast forward to the present day and the fact that no one—not even those who were once vaccinated—is immune to smallpox, a disease which carries the distinction of being the single biggest killer in human history. Should it somehow rear its ugly head, perhaps find its way out of the freezers in Russia or the U.S.—where the only known laboratory stocks are held—and into the hands of terrorists, the devastation to human life is unimaginable.
There isn’t enough vaccine to go around.
My mind started spinning with the basis of a plot, and I worried about the smallpox stockpiles that somehow ended up being unaccounted for. The world’s scientists decided not to destroy the remaining viruses, because there was still that nasty but less lethal monkey pox floating around that could mutate into a deadlier form. They needed to keep those stockpiles handy for studying, just in case. But in this world we now live in with the very real threat of terrorism, what would happen if one of those missing and unaccounted for smallpox strains ended up in the wrong hands? What if someone combined it with another virus, perhaps an even deadlier virus, thereby rendering any existing vaccination ineffective? Would anyone be foolish enough to release such a virus on the world? More important, would anyone be foolish enough to create such a virus?
The answer to that last question is yes. In fact, it has already been done, at least according to Ken Alibek, a former Vector scientist from Russia. Around 1990, Russian scientists from a bioweapons program known as Biopreparat worked to turn the already extremely deadly smallpox virus into a more lethal and virulent form by altering the DNA or the RNA from that virus and another deadly virus, then splicing them together to create a recombinant chimera virus. (“Chimera” derives from Greek mythology, a monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.) Since smallpox happens to be a virus that is amenable to genetic engineering, it was a natural choice. The other virus, it seems, was chosen simply for its fear factor: Ebola. Although this has been denied by other Vector scientists, Alibek reports that this Ebola-smallpox chimera, known as blackpox, or hemorrhagic smallpox, was created for use as a bioweapon.
Of course the biggest problem with bioweapons happens to be the dispersal method, since heat (especially if disbursed by missile) and exposure to the sun (unless one ensures it is disbursed at night) actually degrades the bioweapon, often rendering the biological agents ineffective. Add to that the deadliness of throwing this new blackpox out there in the wild—how does one stop the unstoppable?—thereby endangering the entire human race, well, it probably isn’t the first choice of those countries capable of creating such a weapon. (Heaven forbid any current or genetically-altered diseases make it into the hands of radical terrorists.)
Clearly there needed to be a genetic alteration to the genetic alterations to make sure this new deadlier virus can be controlled. Or, in the case of those who hope to make a heartier weapons-grade virus, an alteration to allow it to withstand the high temperature should it be dispersed via missile. But where does one find such a virus that can be manipulated so readily?
Enter the (fairly) new theory that life may not have begun with a big bang in space, but at the opening of the world’s deepest hydrothermal sea vents, which are teeming with newly discovered viruses and bacteria that thrive in temperatures exceeding 600 degrees Fahrenheit. One need only to splice them into the chimera viruses, altering them even further, whether to allow the weaponized viruses to live at such extreme temperatures or to eradicate themselves after a certain time period to render them ineffective. Maybe it hasn’t yet been done, but the science is there, and the point is, it can be done. There are numerous scientific articles on hydrothermal vents and the new life found there, each one fascinating. For further reading on genetically altering viruses for bioweapons, I recommend Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek and Stephen Handelman. And for more information on smallpox, delve into The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story by Richard Preston.
Happy reading.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at
Robin Burcell’s
THE BLACK LIST,
the next suspenseful thriller featuring
FBI Special Agent Sydney Fitzpatrick,
coming January 2013
FBI Special Agent Tony Carillo tossed his keys on the table in the entryway of his condo, dropped his coat over the back of the sofa, then walked into the kitchen. It had been one of those days, the sort where what could go wrong, did go wrong, starting with the arrest of the bank robbery suspect, who decided to run at the last minute—right into an oncoming SUV.
Carillo opened the fridge, anticipating the leftover Christmas turkey dinner that his neighbor Mrs. Williams sent over, when he heard a rustling noise coming from the spare bedroom he used as his office. He quietly closed the refrigerator door, drew his gun, then stepped into the hallway, careful to avoid the one spot in the hardwood floor that creaked as he made his way to the back of the house. He paused just outside the office door to listen.
There it was again. The sound of rustling papers.
Finger against the trigger guard, he swung into the room.
His wife looked up, saw the gun, her eyes going wide as she dropped a book. “Tony . . .”
“What the hell are you doing here, Sheila?” he asked, holstering his weapon.
“I—I was just looking for something to read.”
He saw the envelope addressed to his former partner, Sydney Fitzpatrick, still sealed, thank God. Sheila wasn’t exactly known for keeping out of things that didn’t belong to her. “I mean what are you doing here. In my house.”
“It’s our house.”
“Until your lawyer finishes sucking me dry,” he replied, casually straightening the papers, making sure the envelope was covered. “You need anything else to help him accomplish that? Blood type? DNA sample?”
“This isn’t easy for me, Tony.” She tucked a long strand of blond hair behind her ear, her hand still shaking, probably from seeing him pull a gun on her. “I’d like to speed things along, especially now that I’m getting married.”
“Word to the wise, Sheila,” Carillo said, walking out of the room, trying to keep his temper in check, as she followed him out. “Wait for the divorce to be final before you tie the knot. Less problems that way.”
“You’re such an ass.”
“What are you really doing here?” He entered the kitchen, stopped in front of the refrigerator, then looked back at her.
She turned away, unable to meet his gaze.
“I need a place to stay until Trip gets out of jail.” Jefferson Colby III, or Trip, as Sheila called him, was her current boyfriend. A real piece of work, this
one, having been arrested for allegedly embezzling money from his employer, a charity no less.
Carillo eyed the six-pack of Sierra Nevada on the shelf, figuring it wasn’t nearly enough. He grabbed a bottle, closed the door, then faced her. “No.”
“Aren’t you going to offer me a beer?”
“No, because you’re leaving.”
“I can’t. There are people after Trip. They might come after me.”
“So Trip is guilty of stealing money from his employer?”
“No. Of course not. But you don’t understand.”
“You’re right. So fill me in.”
“The charity he works for. He thinks it might be a front for some criminal thing.”
“A criminal thing? Really, Sheila? Something beyond the fact Trip was skimming money from it?”
“It’s like I’m talking to a brick wall! Why do I even bother? They set him up.”
“Of course they did.”
“At least talk to his friend in Washington, D.C., Dorian Rose.”
“What is that? The name of a ship?”
“His friend who got him the job.”
He took a long drink, wondering where she was going with this.
“I’m serious.”
“Dorian Rose. Washington, D.C. Anything else?”
Sheila narrowed her gaze, took a frustrated breath, and said, “Dorian Rose works for a sister charity in Washington. One of his and Trip’s friends was killed in a car accident after he found some discrepancy in the books and reported it. I mean, it was a real accident, so they don’t know, but before he died, he told Dorian to have Trip call his brother-in-law in England and have him see if the same thing was going on there.”
“What thing?”
“I have no idea. Whatever it was, Trip thinks it’s going on here. And now Trip’s brother-in-law won’t call him back, and then Trip was arrested, and I think I’m being followed.”
Carillo stared at her a full second as what she was saying sunk in. “And you, of course, decided to keep all this from me because . . . ?”
The Dark Hour Page 34
