Black Harvest (The PROJECT)

by Lukeman, Alex

  She took a card from her pocket and handed it to him. "This number is secure. It will reach me at any time."

  "You will hear from us." Yakov made a slight bow and walked away.

  Lamont got up and walked over.

  "You think they'll cooperate?"

  "I don't know. It's in their best interests."

  "Never thought we'd get in bed with the Russians."

  "Bad analogy, Lamont. It's a chess game, not a one night stand."

  "Whatever you say, Director. As long as we're not the ones who end up getting screwed."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A silver and blue Lear Jet turned at the end of Dansinger's private runway and taxied toward a sun-baked hanger. A white limousine waited near the hanger doors. DCI Lodge gazed out the port window. The Texas panhandle stretched away into shimmering, hazy distance.

  Dansinger's research compound took up several hundred acres. It was surrounded by a tall metal fence topped with razor wire. Signs picturing a red lightning bolt marked the fence at regular intervals. Rows of large, identical one story buildings marched along one side. Each was painted light tan. Each had a rounded green metal roof. A perfect grid of paved roads separated the buildings. A black security vehicle patrolled between them. It reminded Lodge favorably of a concentration camp, except the buildings concentrated plants, not people.

  Harold Dansinger waited by the limo as Lodge descended from the plane. He looked tan and fit under his white Stetson.

  "Wendell, good to see you. Smooth flight?"

  "Very smooth, Harold, thanks. I'm looking forward to our meeting."

  "I think you'll be pleased."

  A driver held the door for them. They got in the back of the car. Dansinger pushed a button. An opaque partition rose behind the driver.

  "We can talk freely."

  "Demeter?"

  "We're waiting for the spring planting to take hold. Another week or so should be about right. We monitor the area daily."

  Lodge nodded. "Efficient. It's one of the things I appreciate about you, Harold."

  The limo drove toward one of the buildings. Each was the length of a football field and half again as wide. The car turned right and then left. It continued toward the back of a building with a large number 1 painted on the side. The car stopped by a plain door. Lodge and Dansinger got out. Dansinger slid a card through a slotted reader and opened the door.

  They entered a room like executive boardrooms everywhere, except there were no windows. A long, polished table of wood. Comfortable leather chairs. An overhead projector mounted on the ceiling. Lighting that illuminated without being intrusive. Walls papered in soothing tones. Thick carpet on the floor. A remote control rested on the table.

  Dansinger walked to a large sideboard of polished oak. It was set with decanters and glasses of cut crystal.

  "Drink?"

  "Single malt, if you've got it. Neat."

  "I'll join you." Dansinger poured the drinks. The two men sat down.

  "I've prepared a short presentation for you. I thought you'd like to see Demeter in action."

  He picked up the remote and pressed a button. A screen descended at one end of the room. The lights dimmed. Dansinger pressed again. The video appeared. It showed the interior of one of the large buildings and a broad field thick with green plants. Overhead, bright UV lighting simulated the sun.

  "This is one of our test facilities for wheat. We have others for barley, corn, rice and millet. Also for leafy vegetables like cucumbers. The surface you see here is about one and a half acres."

  "Is this one of your engineered crops?"

  "No. This is natural, grown using standard methods. Just like the crops in the target area."

  On screen, a man entered the room through an airlock. He wore a white hazmat suit and carried a jar with a red label. It could have been taken from the spice rack in anyone's kitchen. He uncapped it and shook some of the contents over a small area. Black specks drifted down over the young plants. He put the cap back on the jar and exited the room.

  "Airborne?"

  "Yes. Notice that he used a very small amount of material. Now the video will go into time lapse mode. About one minute a day. What you will see takes approximately ten days."

  The frames of the video began to flicker through the first day. The lights dimmed as the cycle followed the sun. Not much happened. The plants were green and vibrant. Lodge could almost sense the life pushing up out of the soil.

  The morning of the second day dawned. The plants were still green.

  On the third day something had changed. A hint of yellow had appeared in the green. Plants were affected in all directions.

  On the fourth day a broad swath of yellow had spread outward into the field. Patches of yellow were beginning to appear farther away. Some of the plants were turning brown.

  By the fifth day, it had reached the center.

  By the sixth day, the entire field was infected.

  By the tenth day, the field was dead.

  Dansinger used the remote to turn off the projector and raise the lighting. The screen retracted into the ceiling.

  "I've been working on this for two years. The genetic code of the virus has been altered to greatly accelerate reproduction. The original virus devastated ancient Mesopotamia. That was just grains like wheat. Demeter will attack the other crops I mentioned as well. The beauty is that the virus has a finite life cycle. Once the damage is done, it dies."

  "No permanent damage?"

  "None. It was one of the requirements. The outbreak will begin in the Ukraine and spread throughout the old Soviet Union. I estimate two to three months before total crop failure over the entire region. There will be famine. The people will riot. Moscow will not be able to contain it and national and regional governments will collapse. Once it's over, we'll step in with food and seeds for the new crops. And, perhaps, a bit of military assistance as needed. Russia will be finished."

  "Is there an antidote to this?"

  "There is, stored in the Utah facility. It was another requirement. No one will be able to develop it in time."

  Lodge sipped his drink. "It's too bad about Wilkinson."

  "Yes. Regrettable. It was a hard decision."

  The two men considered their regrettable decision for a second or two.

  "Rice will have his hands full. We have a good chance of getting our man into the White House."

  "You're a visionary, Harold. You should be President."

  Dansinger laughed. "Oh, no. Much better to be in the shadows. It's always been that way for people like us."

  He finished his drink. "You did well with those scientists, Wendell. Campbell was too close."

  "Harker and her people are still looking for the urn."

  "Ah, the urn. It has been in my family forever. Let them look. They'll never find out what happened to it."

  "How did your family get it?"

  "You know my ancestors were from Germany? Back then they lived in Erfurt. It was quite a place, one of the big medieval cities. Rigidly Catholic. The name was Danzinger back then, with a 'Z'. Anyway, there was a wave of emigration from Bulgaria around the middle of the eleventh century. Mostly Greeks who had become unpopular in the Slavic makeover of what had been Thrace. Some of them were pagans. The smart ones converted. Those who didn't were killed or driven away."

  "And the urn?"

  "One of my ancestors was on the town council, an influential merchant. He acquired the urn from one of the less fortunate Greeks in return for his conversion and his life."

  "And it was never opened?"

  "No. It amused my family to keep it sealed. Sort of a family legend. The curse of a goddess, all that. They were wealthy, they didn't need the money the gold would have brought. The urn was a powerful symbol of their wealth. Nothing clinked inside, like coins or jewels, or I'm sure it would have been opened. When they emigrated to the States, the urn came with them."

  "But you got curious."

 
Dansinger nodded. "I knew the story, of course. I thought about it. I decided it was time to open it and see what was actually in there. It contained spores, just as Campbell suspected after he found those tablets. One thing led to another. Now we have Demeter. I'm sure the goddess would be proud."

  Lodge swirled whiskey in his glass, drained it. "I've dreamed of this for years. Moscow finished for good. It will be a great day."

  Dansinger reached for the bottle of single malt, poured two new drinks. He raised his glass.

  "To the dream."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Billy Elroy worked as a janitor for Dansinger Enterprises. It was a pretty good job. He had health insurance, a 401K, two weeks off a year, sick days if he needed them, and $13.50 an hour, 40 hours a week, time and a half for extra hours. Some people thought Billy wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack, but he was smart enough to know a good thing when he saw it. Working here was a good thing. He was careful about what he pilfered.

  He never took anything important. An extra package or two of toilet paper. Soap. Sometimes a little food from one of the refrigerators in the lab. Billy liked a good salad with his barbecued ribs, and a lot of times he had an assortment of greens to choose from. No one ever missed a bowl of salad fixings.

  Billy worked the last shift, from four in the afternoon to midnight. He liked the quiet of the big place after everyone had gone home. There were other janitors, of course. Everyone usually got together in the main cafeteria around eight for their meal break. The cafeteria was closed at night, but people brought their own food. Machines provided hot coffee, snacks and sodas, if you wanted something.

  At the end of the break everyone went their own way. From meal break to quitting time, Billy worked alone. His job was building four, including the meeting rooms and the lab. Each building had it's own laboratory, where Dansinger's plant geniuses did their thing. Billy had a key card that granted access.

  Billy had a regular routine. He always started with the meeting rooms. Then he'd move on to the bathrooms and halls and offices, then the lab to finish up. The lab had the refrigerators. He never had to go in the largest part of the building. Billy didn't know exactly what went on in there, except it was where they experimented with growing things. He didn't really care. He was just grateful he didn't have to clean it.

  He finished ten minutes before the end of his shift, which gave him time to see if there were any goodies in the fridge. Five huge refrigerators lined one wall of the lab. He ignored the first four. They held test tubes, vials, small round dishes with weird stuff. Nothing edible. Sometimes the fifth had good things in it.

  This time the fifth had nothing green. It was filled with row upon row of pepper jars filled with black grains, just like the ones in the store. They had blank red labels, waiting for whatever would identify the contents, like Cayenne or Black Pepper or Chili.

  He was almost out of pepper at home. Billy liked a lot of pepper on his food. He chose a container from far in the back of the lower shelf. He opened the lid and shook a little on his hand to make sure. Fine black grains settled on his palm. He sniffed it and sneezed. Pretty fine grind, but it would do. No one would miss one jar. He put the jar in his pocket.

  Time to go home. It was Friday. He had two weeks of vacation coming. Tomorrow he was headed to Nebraska to visit his brother and help with the spring planting.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Elizabeth hadn't heard from Yakov. She was worried. What if Vysotsky went to his boss? Anything might happen then.

  Stephanie came in.

  "The Pentagon. I found something."

  "What have you got?"

  Steph sat down. "They really had this buried. That place is like a Chinese puzzle box. I had to go through four separate revolving firewalls, each one worse than the one before."

  Elizabeth waited.

  "They have a war game scenario called Black Harvest."

  "What's it about?"

  "Occupying Russia."

  "You have got to be kidding."

  "No. Of course it's hypothetical."

  "Sure it is. Unless they decide to implement it."

  "It's a detailed plan based on one key element, catastrophic crop failure across the entire country. It assumes collapse of the government, chaos and famine. That provides an opportunity to enter Russia as the good guys bringing food and relief. Of course, supplies have to be protected by troops and the logistics to back them up. The phrase they use is 'Humanitarian Advisors'."

  "They do turn a good phrase, don't they. Who can argue with that?"

  "There's more."

  "There always is."

  "Guess how they propose to restore the food supply?"

  Elizabeth reached for her pen. "Seeds." She began tapping. "Dansinger."

  Steph nodded.

  "Any mention of Demeter?"

  "No. But the association seems obvious. Demeter must be a plan to initiate the crop failure. Black Harvest is the follow up."

  "Lodge and Dansinger are going to do something to cause it."

  "Demeter's curse. Something that kills crops and causes famine."

  Harker thought about it. "Campbell finds the reference to the urn. He doesn't know anyone has it, he just wants to find it. He also doesn't want the Pentagon to know about it. He tells two people, everyone dies."

  Steph brushed a speck from her shoulder. "Dansinger and Lodge didn't want anyone following up on it. Even though it disappeared more than two thousand years ago."

  "Dansinger must have it. If anyone could use old virus material to create something new it would be him. He's got brilliant geneticists working for him."

  "Lodge would be able to plant those bombs. But how did he know about Campbell?"

  "He must have someone at CDC, Steph. Someone working with Campbell who knew Wiesner and Campbell were working on a bio-warfare program. Or maybe someone in the Pentagon."

  "It still doesn't explain Gelashvili coming after Selena in Greece."

  "I think Lodge sent him. He's gone to a lot of trouble to keep everyone away from that urn. It was a mistake."

  "How so?"

  "If he'd stopped after he killed Campbell and the others, it would have ended there. He probably thought it would. He couldn't have known McCullough would call Selena and give her a copy of those tablets. Somehow he knew she'd talked with McCullough and got worried. By sending Gelashvili and going after us he raised the ante."

  "How would he know about Selena and McCullough?"

  "I don't know."

  "What do we do next, Director?"

  "We wait for the team to get back. And we wait to hear from Vysotsky."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Besida Gelashvili paced back and forth in Zviad's study. The day was sunny. She could see children playing in Gorky Park. Damn him. Damn all of them. Damn Iosif for getting himself killed. She couldn't gain control of the organization without him. The vultures were already circling and she was a disposable liability. She knew too much. She needed to get out of Moscow. Her daughters were young, no threat to anyone. They were safe but she wasn't. She felt her belly, where Iosif's baby was growing. She thought about what she'd take with her.

  A servant came into the room. He was nervous.

  "What is it?"

  Before he could answer, three men entered the room. One of them held up his identification. A round, gold badge. In the center, a five pointed star surrounding a blue lined globe. A banner of red, blue and white spread under the star and globe.

  SVR. Not FSB, but foreign intelligence. Besida forced herself to remain calm.

  "Besida Gelashvili?"

  "Yes."

  "You will come with us."

  "What..."

  One of the men took her arm. "Shut up. Come with us."

  A black Mercedes waited outside. The men pushed her into the back seat. One sat on either side. No one spoke until they reached SVR headquarters.

  "Get out."

  The men took her inside, down a long
flight of steps, into a dingy corridor. They weren't gentle about it. One of them pulled open a door.

  "In there." He shoved her into the room. The door shut behind her.

  A narrow metal shelf extended from one wall. There were no blankets or sheets. There was a toilet without a seat. It smelled of urine and shit and vomit. There was no window. The walls were concrete. There was nothing else in the room.

  For the first time since she was a child, Besida felt real fear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The team filled Elizabeth's office. Harker told them about the Pentagon scenario. She briefed them on the approach by Yakov. She still hadn't heard from Vysotsky.

  "Now you're all up to speed. Ideas?"

  "What about the President," Nick said. "Have you let him know?"

  "I don't have anything to give him, no proof. He's waiting to see if I come up with something."

  "He doesn't know about the Russian approach?"

  "He doesn't need to know."

  Lamont rubbed his arm. "Lodge was bad enough. Now it's the Pentagon?"

  "We can't be certain of that. But it's likely. Maybe not official."

  "Someone setting up a convenient option that just happens to be handy?"

  "That's what I think. A war game scenario is only a scenario, a possibility. The Joint Chiefs wouldn't do this. They don't like Russia, but they wouldn't kill millions of people and march in with an undeclared war under the guise of humanitarian relief."

  "Millions?" Ronnie said.

  "If the crops fail in Russia it will cause famine." Nick tugged on his damaged ear. "They're not equipped to handle something like that. Hell, we aren't equipped for something like that. The Federation would fragment. It would be chaos. Civil war."

  "Time for assumptions?" Selena looked around the room. "We've done this before. It worked out pretty well."

  She seemed fine. Nick focused on the task.

  "Okay. Assumption number one is that Lodge and Dansinger want to unleash a lethal crop virus against Russia soon. The spring crops are just coming up."