Finn and Camp looked at each other in utter amazement. Finn got up. “I’m gonna hit my roll. Early morning coming.” Finn placed his dirty cup in the ammo box and found his place against the back wall of the room as the rest of Operation Detachment Alpha were winding down with iPods and PS3 portable play stations so they could play combat war games until they fell asleep.
Camp moved closer to the fire as Omid stoked the flames.
“So tell me Omid, why do you do this? For the money?”
His brown eyes fixated by the fire, Omid smiled and shook his head.
“I love my country. I love the Iranians and the Persian people. I would gladly die for my land. The revolution in 1979 hijacked the soul of the Iranian people and plunged all of us into a black hole of religious fundamentalism under the Ayatollah Khomeini. But we have never lost hope; there will be a Persian Renaissance…someday…inshallah.”
“Before or after you drop nukes on Israel?” Camp asked with no hint of pleasure in his voice.
“You Americans,” Omid scoffed as he kicked a small branch into the fire pit. “You still have a Cold War mentality. You still act like Kremlinologists, you read the tea leaves, listen to the rhetoric as sabers rattle and then try to interpret events with no evidence at all, no understanding at all.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve got inspectors from the IAEA and satellite imagery of your nuclear facilities and our intel is somehow tea leaves, interpretation without evidence? Give me a break.”
“You miss the point. You churn out college graduates who can make video games, manage museums and run hamburger stores. Do you study philosophy? Do you study religion? Do you understand history? No, you study for jobs so you can buy big cars, get fat and use credit cards.”
“You’re right, Omid. I’m just a dumb, fat American with a Visa card and a Cadillac. Enlighten me!”
“Of course they are building nuclear weapons…of course they plan to bomb Israel…and if possible, they will bomb you with long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles and with bombs inside cargo containers at your ports. You know all of this, yet still, you know nothing.”
“They? You may be playing double-agent for some quick cash, but ‘they’ is ‘you’, Omid, whether you like it or not.”
“That’s where you are wrong, Camp. That’s where your leaders have made major miscalculations. Iran has two governments, two populations of people. There is no unitary structure or sovereign power that makes our decisions. There are many competing factions within Iran. Yet you continue to say ‘Iran will do this’ and ‘Iran will do that’. The formal government was stolen from the people during the last election and is still run at Ahmadinejad’s pleasure. But the religious and ideological command is the domain of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”
“Is this supposed to be new information?”
“Power is decentralized. Everyone is vying for power in Iran, even the Russian mafia, even Muqtada al Sadr in Iraq. You think one voice in Tehran speaks for all Iranians? You think one threat from Tehran is a threat from every farmer, teacher, mother and child? You know nothing.”
“Sorry, Omid, but nut jobs run your country hell-bent on destroying Israel at any cost. Any way you slice it, Islamic extremism runs rampant and unchecked both in Iran and throughout your proxies like Hezbollah. You may have some romantic notion of a Persian Renaissance after a nuclear winter, but as far as I’m concerned, you still view us as the Great Satan, and you still want death for the infidels. It’s in the Holy Koran, Omid; it’s in your book. Look it up and read it.”
Omid grew silent and shrugged his shoulders. He closed his eyes as though he was praying.
“Yes, Camp, it’s in there. I can’t deny that. Some fanatics and terrorists believe they must help Allah, that it is their duty to purge the world of infidels. But the vast majority of Muslims are content to let Allah solve all of that in the next life. Are you a good Christian?”
Camp reflected on his answer for several seconds. “I believe in God. I used to go to church; at least I did when I was a boy. I try to do the right things, but – I don’t know – I’m not sure I’m a very good Christian.”
“Some might read your Holy Bible or listen to a preacher and conclude that you help Jesus by killing your sinners in prison with the death penalty. Some might read your Holy Bible and decide that they can help Jesus by killing doctors who perform abortions. You can argue that those words are in your Holy text, too. But do all Christians believe that? Do they all act on that? Your Holy Bible says that it is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for him to get into heaven. But you still have nice cars, nice homes, and what you call 401Ks? By any standard, American Christians are rich. Do you read that Holy text and decide to remain poor? Of course not. But it’s in your book, Camp. You can’t deny it. Perhaps most Christians are willing to let Jesus solve everything in the afterlife. Most Muslims feel the same way.”
“Omid, there’s a difference between moderate Muslims who are willing to live in peace and radical Islamic fundamentalism through state-sponsored terror.”
“You see satellite images and think you understand everything. You do not. If you did, you would act differently….if you did, you would have come to our aid during the people’s protest and the democratic uprising…if you did, then you would understand why I betray the regime so I can embrace the people. How can you be so smart, so educated, yet still know nothing?”
Omid walked away from the fire, unrolled his bed and curled up against the wall near Billy Finn.
* * *
13
* * *
National Interagency Biodefense Center
BSL-4 Facility
Fort Detrick, Maryland
Lieutenant Colonel Raines got her coffee from the atrium’s barista, scanned her security card and processed her biometric as she rode the elevator without floor buttons to her cleared location.
Groenwald’s door was open, and he was talking with a man and a woman she didn’t at first recognize, but she offered a smile and a wave as she passed by nonetheless.
“Colonel Raines? Can you join us?” Groenwald called as she did a one-eighty. The two guests stood as Raines entered.
“Special Agent Daniels,” Raines said with a bit of surprise in her voice as Daniels turned to greet her. “Nice to see you again.”
“Colonel, looks like you’ve made a full recovery,” Daniels said. “This is Agent Fallon Jessup with the bioterror directorate.”
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Raines looked over at Dr. Groenwald and explained. “Special Agent Daniels was key to the mission last year that took us through Algiers, Morocco and Yemen. He was there the night I was wounded.”
“Well, I’d like to hear the whole story some day. Colonel, can you take a seat and join us?” Groenwald asked as he pointed to the last remaining straight back desk chair in the room.
“How is Captain Campbell doing?” Daniels asked.
“The last I heard he was working on a special project in Afghanistan.”
“Well, please tell him Daniels says hello next time you speak with him.”
“Colonel Raines, Daniels and Jessup have come to us for some help,” Groenwald said.
“Colonel, we have reason to believe that scientists in Pakistan have made some major strides in weaponizing tularemia. We’ve already been in touch with General Ferguson, and he suggested we visit both you and Dr. Groenwald,” Daniels said.
“The attending physician at FOB Lightning concluded that their tularemia cases were garden variety…uncooked meat, contaminated water…the usual,” Raines said somewhat defensively.
“You’re referring to Major Banks, the physician who was abducted shortly after his conclusions.”
“Yes.”
“Agent Jessup is a Naval Academy graduate and now handles our bio desk in the region. If you don’t mind, we’d like to brief you.”
Fallon Jessup was a tall and slender blonde
, a head-spinner who wore a cute figure and carried a “back off” gaze that turned meat market heroes into playground boys. Raines had no reason to be threatened by her beauty, but she wasn’t inclined to take an intellectual backseat either. But Raines was a career officer. She didn’t like Academy “brats” that served one tour and then switched jobs for more money. Raines didn’t have much interest in former military officers who took the “one and done” career path.
“Please Agent Jessup…school me.”
Groenwald’s eyes flared ever so slightly. He had taken Raines to be a recovering pacifist. Nothing in her file suggested she could morph into a street-fight brawler that quickly.
“Well, we first recognized tularemia in the early 1900s. It was a plague-like disease in rodents and a severe, sometimes fatal, illness for humans. But it’s potential for epidemic emerged in the 1930s and 1940s in Europe and the Soviet Union. Water systems were contaminated, and tularemia was characterized by waterborne outbreaks.”
Raines cleared her throat.
“Agent Daniels, I’ve been studying the ecology, microbiology, pathogenicity and prevention of tularemia – and others – for my entire career. Did you happen to bring any useful or current information with you today?”
The cat fight was on as Dr. Groenwald and Special Agent Daniels were reduced to mere spectators.
“Colonel, I understand that you are an expert in the confined safety of a biocontainment laboratory, but I’m talking real world here. In World War II both the Soviet Red Army and the German Wehrmacht forces suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties from infectious diseases.”
“Oh my gosh,” Raines said expressionless.
“A former Soviet scientist and defector – Kanatjan Alibekov – asserted that the Soviets used tularemia as a causative agent during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 and 1943.”
“A biological weapon,” Daniels said hoping to add a layer of depth and texture to the history lesson. “But once unleashed, it killed as many Russians as it did Germans.”
“Folks, based on the clinical cases and the nature of the pathogen we all studied from Stalingrad during vet school, I must tell you that I disagree. It was a natural outbreak.”
Raines stood abruptly and reached for her brief case.
“Millions died in the siege of Stalingrad, Colonel Raines,” Fallon Jessup said with a burst of fury. “For some of us in this room, we’d like to prevent a reoccurrence of that disaster.”
“Listen Jessup, I didn’t raise my hand and put this uniform on to see anyone die, so don’t lecture me.”
“Kanatjan Alibekov was the former deputy director of the Soviet Russian Biopreparat. He claims that tularemia was deployed against Nazi troops during the battle of Stalingrad. Hundreds of thousands of tularemia infections quickly arose at the beginning of the siege and there was a high – more than 70 percent – pulmonary involvement among those infected with tularemia from both sides, suggesting man-made air-borne dissemination.”
“That’s the biological weapons part,” Daniels added.
“Geez, you two must be a real hoot on a Friday night glued to the history channel. Listen, I’d really love to stay and listen to more. I’m sure you have some fascinating stories about food and dysentery from Valley Forge as well, but I’ve got to get back to some current work on hemorrhagic fevers.”
“Colonel Raines…please sit down,” Groenwald said softly. Raines was shocked more by the verbal evidence of his spinal column than by the command itself. She sat.
“Listen…I apologize for being abrupt,” Raines said, “but history reveals that the Rostov region already had 14,000 confirmed tularemia cases long before the siege of Stalingrad. With all due respect, mosquitoes carried the pathogens, and what the mosquitoes didn’t cause initially, inhalation of dust from the unharvested straw in the fields completed the delivery of the toxins. I’m sure your Soviet defector has enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame, but it was a natural outbreak of tularemia. Regardless, we already have vaccines and antibiotics.”
“Colonel, we have vaccines for laboratory workers like you. That’s all. Do you really think we have enough vaccine doses or even antibiotics for a city of five million people if there’s an outbreak?” Daniels asked. “The numbers of casualties could easily overwhelm existing capacity to treat both the sick and the worried well. Hell, colonel, in the 1950s we put tularemia in aerosol cans. But nobody messed with this stuff like the Soviets.”
“Your scenario is highly unlikely, Agent Daniels. Sanitation and pest control is far more advanced than in the fields of Stalingrad in 1942.”
“In 1982, the Soviets developed a vaccine-resistant recipe for tularemia,” Daniels countered.
“And in the 1990s the Russians asserted they destroyed their tularemia stockpiles,” Raines added.
“And of course we all believe the Russians.”
The room was silent. Daniels had a valid point.
“Colonel, in the now defunct US bio-weapon program, tularemia was weaponized by freeze drying bacteria-laden slurry and muting it into a flue powder for aerosol delivery,” Jessup said.
“Whoa, another info gem. Who knew!”
“The Soviets had an aggressive BW program during the Cold War. So did the United States. We had massive stockpiles of tularemia. The Soviets had 52 clandestine sites employing 50,000 people. They were producing as much as 100 tons of weaponized smallpox every damn year. Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov ran their program in the Kirov Oblast, a town of 470,000 people west of the Ural Mountains along the Vyatka River. Colonel Raines, Kirov is a 36-hour ride on the Trans-Siberian railway connecting to the Trans-Caspian and on into Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.”
“Oshkosh? Either way I’m sure it’s a lovely trip.”
“Ashgabat is on the Iranian border. Colonel Raines, why would the Russians send boxcars of tularemia to Ashgabat? Why would they send a lethal bacteria, weaponized or not, to the border with Iran? Let’s just blue sky this for a minute, shall we? Let’s say the Russians are looking to make some cash. And let’s say a bad state actor is interested in buying tularemia – rabbit fever – just because they know the world will blame it on a natural outbreak caused by mosquitoes and rodent dust inhaled from dirty grass and straw, just as you assert even now that it was a natural outbreak in Stalingrad way back then. Hell, you may be the first one to stand up and exonerate the Iranians, assuring the world that the outbreak was natural. That, Colonel Raines, is what we’re looking at. If you’d shut up for six seconds you might, in fact, get schooled.”
Agent Fallon Jessup finished with a flurry and added the exclamation point. Raines was silent for a few seconds.
“How do we know it’s tularemia and that it’s headed for Turkmenistan?” Groenwald asked.
“We’re on that train right now,” Daniels said, “and the shipment is verified.”
“The Iranian connection?” Raines asked.
“Pure speculation at this point as we try to connect the dots. But Ashgabat is a relatively large transportation hub; trains and trucks, all just 21 unfettered miles to the northern Iranian border,” Daniels said.
“General Ferguson is in the loop?” Raines asked.
“He’s been briefed and in turn he’s passed the intel on to the Alpha Team heading up Camp’s mission.”
Raines glared at Special Agent Daniels.
“What mission?”
Daniels looked over at Jessup, and they both fell silent.
Raines got up and paced over to Groenwald’s white board. She pulled out a black marker and began to draw.
“Two SkitoMisters are sold by an Illinois company to the City of Hamburg, Germany. The machines go missing and are reported stolen. A port in Jakarta, Indonesia records the serial numbers and a black market importer hocks them to a buyer in Pakistan. Now a Russian train carrying Cold War stockpiles of tularemia along with a CIA informant on-board is heading for the Iranian border. Whether or not the tularemia can be aerosolized is irrelevant because we have no capacit
y during three to five days of an outbreak to meet the medical demands of people infected with rabbit fever. The world can logically blame nature and poor sanitation for tularemia. One nation collects cash for an old bio-weapon while another state kills, or at least terrorizes, millions.”
The room was silent as Raines continued.
“So let me guess…you want to see if we can create an aerosol version of tularemia? Better than our Rabbit-Fever-In-A-Can from the 1950s. You want something toxic, effective and lethal – not garden variety – but pandemic and widespread.”
“Something like that…we need to know what they might try,” Jessup said.
“You want me to play Terrorist Raines and cook up something they might reasonably cook up. Existing vaccine doses and antibiotic supply? I’m sure you’ve done the numbers…what do we have?”
“We’re working on that part,” Daniels said begrudgingly.
“And ground zero for all of this? The target? Let me go way out on a limb…Israel?”
FOB Lightning
Paktya Province, Afghanistan
Captain Henry walked into the Level One clinic carrying a handful of letters from the post office. He made his way through the Ambien slug-line at the counter, and set the mail down on the exam bed before walking down the 40-foot corridor toward Miriam’s room. A young specialist was finishing his shift guarding her door.
“Anything new?” Henry asked.
“Sir, she’s taking her walks up and down the hallway as you requested. She seems to have a good appetite and slept most of the night.”
“Thank you, specialist. Hit your rack and get some sleep. We’ve got her until the night duty guard comes in.”
Henry opened the door and entered the room. Miriam was sitting in a chair and reading the same four-month-old newspaper from Kabul that she had read a hundred times before.
“Good morning, Miriam. I understand you slept well and are getting some exercise.”
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