He stroked the blue vial and found that it had cooled. The quarantine was scheduled to begin in less than six hours, and the streets were filled with Americans hurrying to buy enough beer, potato chips, and DVDs to last a week. His heart told him that the time to act was now, but his mind hesitated. The vial had not had the requisite thirty hours to reach maximum potency.
It will have to do, he thought, and resolutely opened the vial of the Hybrid virus.
The death of Oliver had slowed everyone and everything, except for Phil’s mind. He kept running scenarios in his head, calculating how many more people would die with each second, minute, and hour delay. It had taken more than a day for the government bureaucracy to decide how to get him safely to Los Angeles and then another four hours to arrange for secure transport. Phil had become a national risk and a national treasure, both of which required a twenty-car entourage.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said to Rodney Patton through his face shield as they cruised down the 405 with a police escort. Phil was wearing a level-four contamination suit, complete with his own purified air source and a team of technicians to insure that it worked. “There’s too much going on around me to get a clear picture of what’s going on out there.”
“What do you need?” Patton screamed back.
“To be by myself,” Phil screamed. The cacophony of voices, opinions, and worry flooded every space in his head.
“There’s no way anyone is going to let you go out solo. That suit alone requires two people to make it work right.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Phil came very close to swearing from pure frustration.
Patton just shook his large head.
“We don’t have the time for this,” Phil said, and then there was a series of muted explosions. Cars ahead of them and behind them began to careen in every direction. Hoods, hubcaps, engine parts flew all around them. “Keep driving,” Phil yelled to their driver as their black suburban accelerated through the growing pile-up. “Just another day in L.A. traffic,” Phil said to Patton.
“Bullshit!” The big black man said, but his face had broken out into a grin from ear to ear. Ron Benedict looked back at them with a scowl on his face.
“You really shouldn’t have done that, Doctor,” he scolded Phil. “These bastards have infiltrated every level of our government; and after what happened in New York, you can bet your ass that they know that you’re here and what you can do.”
“Then let me do it,” Phil yelled back at Benedict, who glanced over at Patton and then finally turned back to face forward.
“Keep going,” he said to the driver.
It took them forty-five minutes to complete the first of twenty-four grids and Phil had reached his limit. “This is taking too much time. We need to use a helicopter.”
No one had wanted to accept the responsibility of putting Phil in a helicopter that was making slow circuits over America’s second largest city. Benedict had pushed for one, but had been overruled at almost every level. “You have to convince them that this is going to take too much time,” Phil had to yell to be heard.
“Tell them he forced you,” Patton added.
Benedict hesitated for a moment and then reached for his cell phone. Ten minutes of arguing, punctuated by long periods of silence, the assistant director of the FBI closed his phone and took a deep breath. “It’s going to take at least an hour for the attorney general to sign off on the presidential order. So while they worry about the niceties, we are going to misappropriate a helicopter.” Benedict turned and faced Rucker. ”This better be worth my pension.”
Thirty minutes later, the three men were skimming across the rooftops of East L.A. in a police helicopter.
“He wants you to slow down,” Patton said as Rucker started to motion with his arms. They couldn’t get him a headset without breaking the suit’s air seals, so Patton had worked out some signals with the pathologist. “Hover, right here.”
Phil began to scribble a note and passed it to Patton. “Can you drop us any lower?” Rodney asked the pilot. The LAPD pilot nodded and dropped down low enough that grass and dust began to fly through the open window.
Phil listened with his mind—there had been something here, but it seemed remote. He was here—gone now; Phil quickly wrote and showed it to Patton.
The big man frowned and the search went on. Seven more times, Phil had them pause and nearly land, but each time the spore had grown cold.
“We’re going to need to refuel,” the pilot told Benedict after nearly two hours of the yo-yo flying. Patton twirled his finger in the air for Phil who nodded that he understood.
Phil couldn’t shut out his companions growing frustration and panic, and reached for the pad of paper, which had slipped between his seat and Patton’s; he was just straightening up when he felt it again, only stronger. He grabbed Patton’s arm so hard and suddenly that the big man yelped.
“Son of a bitch!” Rodney screamed, while trying to pry Phil’s gloved hand from his forearm. Benedict looked back at the sudden commotion, and it took him a moment before he understood.
“Stop!” he yelled to the pilot. “Hold this position.”
Phil was writing again, and Rodney was rubbing his injured arm.
“That’s some grip he’s got,” Patton said to Benedict as Phil finished his note. “He wants to land there.” Phil was pointing at the tallest building in a cluster of tall buildings. A circled H marked a helipad.
“That can’t be right. That’s the Federal Building,” the pilot said.
“Shit,” said Benedict.
“Son of a bitch,” replied Patton. “This should have been the first place we looked.”
The pilot flared the helicopter and bumped to a soft landing. Phil was out a moment after the skids had touched down. “He’s here,” he yelled to Ron Benedict through the roar of the blades and his isolation suit.
“Say again?”
“He’s here.” Phil’s voice was still muffled even though the pair had moved away from the helicopter. Patton trailed behind, blocking out some of the rotor noise. “He works in this building,” he said, pulling open a door. A powerful stream of mental energy compelled him down a flight of stairs.
“Dr. Rucker, it’s safer to take the elevator,” Benedict called after him, but all he got in return was a series of unintelligible noises that under the right circumstances could have been words.
“Yeah, he’s always this way,” Patton said in answer to Benedict’s questioning look. “After you,” he said, and Patton followed the Assistant Director of the FBI down the stairs.
Phil had gone down seven flights before he started checking the floors individually. At first, he would just open the fire door and stand there for a moment. By the twenty-fifth floor, he was walking the circuit of the floor. When he opened the door to the twenty-third floor, he stopped and turned to his two escorts. “In here,” he said, and they followed him into the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management with their weapons drawn. A number of people began to stand and challenge them, but they were immediately silenced when Benedict introduced himself. Phil just kept walking until he came to a small corner office. Phil read the nameplate: Joseph Rider.
“Is this the guy?” Patton poked his head into the empty office.
Phil didn’t hear him. He had wheeled around and was striding towards a young black woman. He almost made it, but the isolation suit wasn’t designed for running. Phil fell face first into a file cabinet and cracked his faceplate. The young woman screamed and dropped the phone. “She’s warning him!” Phil yelled, struggling to his feet.
Benedict saw the crack and lifted his weapon. “No one move! Everybody down on the floor, now!” Patton had also raised his weapon, and the two panned across the room. “Dr. Rucker, are you still secure?” asked Benedict.
“No leaks, I’m fine. Lower your weapons. They’re not involved.” Phil was back on his feet and had picked up the phone. Joseph Rider, aka Izhan Ahmed, had already hung
up. “Where is he?” Phil addressed the cowering woman.
Adrienne Mays just stared back at the man in the space suit, shaking. The two men with guns and badges came up from behind the spaceman, and that terrified her even more.
“I am Ronald Benedict, assistant director of the FBI, and we need to find Joseph Rider.”
“He j-just left for the airport not five minutes ago,” she stammered. The two cops exchanged a look of panic. The woman added, “He’s not going anywhere. They’re setting up a command center there.”
It seemed reasonable, since the airports were going to be empty very soon. “What did you tell him?” Patton asked, wondering how accurate Rucker’s senses were. It seemed awfully coincidental that she just happened to be on the phone with the man they were looking for.
“I just told him that some people were here with guns. He said that he was calling our security force.” Adrienne could sense Patton’s suspicion. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she pleaded.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Phil said to both of them. “Call him back,” Phil said to the crying woman.
“What do I tell him?”
“Anything, it doesn’t matter, just get him on the phone.”
She looked confused, but it was a relatively easy task, so she moved closer to the desk. Phil had obligingly backed away. She picked up the phone with a shaky hand and dialed the number. Benedict reached over and hit the speaker button.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang. “Damn it,” Patton said. “Tell us exactly what you told him.”
It was sad but necessary, and on the whole inevitable; but Rider liked his boss, and a part of him regretted that circumstances required him to shoot the man in the head. It had also been fairly messy, and he was glad that he had a different car to switch to.
He wondered how the Americans had discovered him, and he feared for the others. If they could find him after all the extra precautions he had taken, the plan was in real jeopardy. When he had first arrived in the United States three years ago, he’d never met with Avanti’s contact, choosing instead to create his own identity. It wasn’t difficult, especially in Los Angeles, and especially with a good deal of cash. He had paid well and within a month had seamlessly stepped into the persona of Joseph Rider. He had been a model citizen ever since, so how had they found him? He drove down the emergency lane with his lights and flashers on, soon-to-be-dead faces gaping at him from cars stuck in a hopeless traffic jam.
In some ways he was glad. They were forcing him to revert back to the original plan—at least partially. Even with an anonymous, unmarked vehicle, he had little chance of distributing enough of the complexed paper across the Los Angeles Basin before being caught; so he would adapt. The quarantine was still three hours away, and the grocery stores and malls were still packed; if he hurried he could hand-deliver the virus to hundreds and probably thousands of Americans who would then take the infection home and spread it further. It wouldn’t have the impact that they had original hoped, but combined with a strategic distribution of the viral-impregnated parchment, he would devastate Southern California. Professor Avanti estimated less than five grams would infect the entire Basin; the blue vial had more than fifty, and Rider was certain that he could distribute at least half.
He pulled into his driveway, and his neighbor gave him a half-hearted wave as she carried supplies into the house. A toddler, dressed in pink and adorned in bows, followed her in. He left the car running and quickly ran inside. Before the song on the radio had changed, he was backing out of his driveway for the last time, a small crash-proof case sitting next to him.
It had taken them only a few minutes to get a picture of Joseph Rider and pass it on to the LAPD and the military, which had taken over most of the city. To no one’s surprise, Rider and his boss never made it to the airport, and his boss didn’t answer his cell phone. Ten minutes later, the LAPD found his vehicle and his body. Several minutes later, the first of several police cars pulled up at the Rider residence, only to learn from his neighbor that he had just left, five, maybe ten, minutes ago. It took another twenty minutes for a hazmat team to arrive and enter the empty house, where they found nothing of use.
He has at least a thirty-minute head start, Phil calculated as he walked into the house in his own hazmat suit. He could feel Rider’s energy all around him; it lingered in his house like a familiar smell. Reisch had known this man, and known him reasonably well, but that didn’t help Phil establish a connection.
“Anything?” Patton asked. He was out of his element with this “psychic shit,” but he was trying to adjust.
“Nothing useful. I know he’s not here.”
“That much we’ve already established, Doctor,” Patton said sarcastically.
Phil looked back at the large detective, who was wearing his own isolation suit; only his was stretched far tighter. “These aren’t my rules, Patton. I know he’s close.”
“Can you tell how far away?”
“More than five miles.” Rucker played with a small lamp on his kitchen table and started to feel a vague sense of Rider’s thoughts, almost as if they had clung to the metal. He stripped off one of his gloves, and then the other. He unfastened the seals around his hood and removed that as well.
Patton had started to object, but then realized that Rucker had no need for protection. Phil fingered the lamp, and for a fleeting moment found him. It wasn’t the lamp; it was Rider himself, who had turned his thoughts back to his house, wondering if the police had arrived yet. It had happened so quickly, and it was so unexpected, that Phil didn’t react fast enough. “Damn, I almost had him,” he cursed. “He’s in an apartment or a house about eight miles that way.” Phil pointed at a spot just to the left of Rider’s refrigerator.
“Don’t move,” Patton ordered. Someone found a GPS monitor and calculated the vector.
A LAPD detective mapped it for them and then frowned. “If that’s where he’s at, he picked a damn good place to hide. There are about ten different apartment complexes in this area, as well as about a hundred low-income houses.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. He can track ’em,” Patton said, motioning to Phil. “Get us there before he moves again.”
It was supposed to be an ultra-fine powder, but instead, it was somewhat granular, like big grains of salt. Rider, aka Izhan Ahmed, started to grind the grains into smaller pieces. Time was running out. He had two full hours before all the Americans would go scurrying back to their little rabbit holes. Five minutes of grinding had managed to convert the grains of sand into something approaching a powder. It had also managed to infect him, and the warm Southern California breeze had managed to infect the other fifty residents of the Villas Del Mar Apartments with a purified form of the Hybrid virus.
He sprinkled some of the powder across the sheets of parchment and then soaked them for five minutes. They came out of the water looking like very thin linen, but ten minutes later, they looked like ordinary notebook paper. That made him happy. He checked his watch and wondered if the police had raided his house yet. It didn’t matter. They would find nothing that would lead them to him or give them any idea what he was planning next. He decided that he had another five minutes, so he went back to the mortar and pestle and began to grind up the remaining virus. When he had his fine dust, he stopped. The first blister had started to form on his cheek. It took less than ten minutes to finish his final task and leave.
It had taken them almost half an hour to travel the eight miles. The roads were packed with cars, and there were some physical realities that lights, sirens, and desperate need could not overcome. It had only taken Phil a minute to find the correct apartment complex.
“Stop! He’s already gone.” Phil yelled. “Don’t anyone get out. Keep your windows up, close your vents, and let’s get out of here. He’s infected the whole place.” The police lieutenant driving their car jerked back into traffic, and the trailing cars followed. The police captain had begun to radio instructions
to their military escort to seal off the area.
“Where is he? Where do we go?” the lieutenant asked nervously while snapping the air ducts closed.
Phil didn’t have a clear answer to either question. He couldn’t get a fix on Rider; he was close, he knew that, but he couldn’t pin him down. “What’s down this road?”
“The mall,” the lieutenant said. “It’s about two miles away, but the traffic . . . I don’t think we can get there in time.”
“Tell your dispatch people to . . .” Patton started barking out orders, but Phil had tuned him out. They were missing something, something critical.
They had made it less than two blocks before they were once again forced to stop; it almost seemed as if the lights and sirens were causing more confusion than space. Phil stared out the window, willing himself to find Rider in this mass of humanity. It should have been easy; Rider’s energy was so radically different from everyone around him. He was happy, almost blissful, reveling in the chaos that he had sown, but all Phil could feel was the terrorist’s proximity and general direction. “Stop the car,” he finally said. “We might as well walk.” A gap had opened in front of them, and the lieutenant drove as far as the bumper in front and stopped.
“The mall is a few blocks beyond the overpass,” the captain said as Patton and Phil climbed out. “I’ve got as many LAPD units as possible responding. The army is sending their helicopters, and security in the mall is looking for him as well.”
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