Sunday traffic on Greenwich Street, seventy-three floors below where Merkur stood, was moving at a decent pace. Darting in and out of traffic, toy-like taxis sporting garish colors delivered tourists to the curbs near the North and South 9/11 Memorial pools—somber monuments to that awful day in September when the two towers once standing there fell to box-cutter-wielding fanatics aboard two hijacked commercial jetliners.
Shifting his gaze to the orange and yellow trees dotting distant Battery Park, Merkur addressed COO Martin Underhill, the man responsible for ZP’s day-to-day operations.
“How the hell does a sensitive package from the CDC in Atlanta that’s destined for a biosafety Level-4 Army base in Maryland find its way to a university biology lab in Middletown, Indiana?”
Swallowing hard, Underhill ran a hand through his close-cropped gray hair. “Somebody in the chain of custody dropped the ball.”
“That somebody dropped more than that!” Merkur barked. “Have you caught the news?” He went on before Underhill had a chance to answer. “It’s really hitting the fan. Zone Five’s Regional Response Team was scrambled. They set up mandatory evac centers and are administering ‘inoculations’ of saline solution.” He took a deep breath and turned to face his old friend. “My contacts in Washington say the first responders are stretched so thin that there’s high probability of Romero jumping the fence. The Middletown quarantine is just hours old and already video shot by MU students and others is showing up on YouTube. They’re being scrubbed as fast as they appear … but that’s not enough. There’s no way established protocol is going to fly. Nobody will believe this is an act of homegrown terrorism.”
“The local fixers tried that angle?”
“No,” conceded Merkur. “They kind of reverse engineered the whole thing. Twisted the facts and embellished where necessary to make it look as if the bus attack was the work of a lone wolf shooter. To explain the escaped virus and casualties in and around the university they’re saying the shooter continued his rampage there.”
“I’m guessing this fairytale started with a nudge from higher ups at Detrick.”
Merkur nodded. “Hell,” he said, planting one hand high up on the window, “I’ve lost track of who all is involved. As far as enacting protocol? We’re so far down the rabbit hole now we couldn’t sell protocol even if we had access to a hundred more crisis actors and Middletown’s chief of police on our payroll. Everything that’s being done now is proving to be no more effective than treating a malignant brain tumor with aspirin.”
“So it’s on us to get rid of the evidence on our end.”
Merkur shook his head, the vein snaking his temple pronounced and throbbing. “Affirmative. Dollars to donuts,” he replied, “like a bag of dog shit on fire, the blame will eventually land on our doorstep and we’ll be the ones stomping it out.”
Underhill made a face. “At least it wasn’t the aerosol model.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” Merkur conceded, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “Still, the genie is out of the bottle and far from contained.”
“What about the Department of Defense? Or the folks at AMRIID? Won’t they acknowledge their culpability in all of this if we point to them?”
Shaking his head, Merkur said, “They have firewalls of plausible deniability to hide behind.”
“You’re right,” Underhill said, the sweat from his underarms creating dark half-circles on his maroon Polo. “There’s no way they’ll fall on the sword let alone take some of the blame to help keep us from being dragged before a House Select Committee.”
“I’ve watched some of those YouTube videos,” said Merkur, nervously adjusting his tie. “Those soldiers manning the checkpoints are not Indiana National Guard. Those hard-eyed men are off the books contractors molded in the same vein as the CIA’s SOG.”
“SOG?”
Merkur unbuttoned his navy blazer and shrugged it off. “Special Operations Group,” he said.
“Like their SAD, only more clandestine, right?”
Merkur shook his head side to side. “Not the same animal, Martin. SOG operates under the Special Activities Division. SOG’s made up of Tier One operators drawn mainly from Delta, Seal Team 6, and Marines who’ve served as Force Recon or MARSOC.” He tossed his blazer on a chair and began to roll up his sleeves. “Those soldiers on the videos are not SOG.”
“Who are they?” asked Underhill.
Merkur poured Scotch from a crystal decanter into matching high ball glasses. Passing one to Underhill, he went on, “I’ve heard them called Omega Teams. Usually only whispered. They’re the bad apples who’ve been busted doing things unbecoming to their oath to flag and country. They’re basically an army of bad hombres with outstanding skillsets. And to avoid being sent to Leavenworth, they’re willing to do anything that’s asked of them. No questions.”
Underhill took a sip of Scotch. “Does Congress know about them?”
Merkur shook his head. “Best kept secret in Washington. Hell, in the whole world.” He drained his Scotch and reached for the decanter. “The simple fact that the powers that be brought them on line to cauterize this wound means it’s burn bag time for us. Only a matter of time before you, me, and the entire Romero project disappears from the face of the earth.”
“Burn bag?”
“It’s a metaphor, Martin.” Merkur sat down hard on the chair behind his desk. Steepling his fingers, he flicked his eyes to the wall-mounted television. The crawl below the senator droning on about the upcoming election was still attributing the attack on a city bus in Indiana to a lone, drugged-up gunman. Merkur was shocked to see that the handful of follow-on stories made no mention of the MU biology department, or, for that matter, anything to make him think ZP’s escaped virus was doing damage beyond that already reported. Furthermore, speaking to how tight the lid was being shoved down on all of this, there was no mention of the civilian detention centers or alphabet agencies likely on their way to further lock down Middletown.
All was well in the world of James Merkur until he read on the crawl a mention of an agency-wide operation along the lines of Jade Helm 15—the multi-branch special-operations drill that had conspiracy theorists and right wing radio all abuzz the summer before.
Underhill was reading along. Once the words had cycled off the screen, he exhaled sharply and said, “Statewide drills in Indiana and Ohio? That’s no coincidence.”
“It’s out of control,” said Merkur in a funereal voice.
Underhill planted both hands on Merkur’s desk. “What do we do about the stockpiles here?”
Rapid-fire, Merkur said, “Get Victoria in an Uber. Then call Carson and see how far out he is.”
Underhill’s face was flushed bright red. “If the phony drill fails to contain Romero”—he paused and drained his second Scotch in as many minutes.
Merkur finished his thought. “Then all of the aboveboard government research money is gone. And we can expect to kiss the backroom briefcases full of cash goodbye as well.”
Underhill began pacing the carpet. “What if it does boomerang back to us?”
“If we get fingered for this, ZP stock will be worthless come opening bell tomorrow.” Merkur pounded his fist on the desk blotter and let fly a few expletives.
Underhill stopped pacing. “We were sunk the second Romero got out, weren’t we?”
“Damn it, Martin. I need you to have a little faith. And grow some balls.”
“You’re betting on the bad apples?”
“They’ll play a big part in the drill. It’ll do two things: provide them cover. And keep the media at bay. I have a strong feeling they’re going to corral Romero.”
“You had to name it that, didn’t you, James?”
“If the shoe fits,” Merkur said, reaching for the phone on his desk. He punched the key connecting him directly to the security desk in the lobby below.
Underhill’s hands shook as he extracted his smartphone and placed a call to Carson Peet, p
ersonal head of security to James Merkur.
While Underhill was setting the in-house cleanse in motion, Merkur got the lone guard on the line and ordered him to disable all pass cards of ZP employees not already in the building. He finished by asking the guard to personally escort his administrative assistant, Victoria Davis, upstairs when she finally arrived.
Seeing his boss return the handset to its cradle, Underhill muted his phone. “Carson is briefed and just a couple of minutes out. Victoria is balking at coming in on her day off. Says she’s on the verge of throwing up. What do you want me to tell her?”
“Brown bottle flu is no excuse,” Merkur said. “Put her on speaker.”
Underhill fumbled with his phone for a second before finally locating the microphone icon on the glass screen and giving it a tap. “You’re on speaker with me and Mr. Merkur.”
There was no immediate reply.
“This is James,” said Merkur, sounding annoyed. “Cut the crap, Miss Davis. If you want to remain the highest-paid person in this company without a doctorate, I expect you to board your ride when it arrives. Leave your pass card at home. You won’t be needing it. The guard will let you in.”
Underhill looked on, lips pursed and losing color.
Voice filled with defeat, Victoria capitulated and broke the connection.
“Alert the Uber driver that there’s one hundred dollars extra in it if the fare gets here within the hour. Time is not on our side.”
As Underhill contacted the Uber driver, Merkur’s eyes were drawn to the television where a live shot was now gracing the screen. The network’s field reporter was standing sideways and gesturing at the long line of military vehicles rolling by behind him. His mouth was moving but the television was muted. Still, Merkur got the gist and was convinced more now than ever that things had just gotten way more complicated.
The camera panned from the reporter to show a wide open field where a helicopter was just landing. “That’s being broadcast nationally. Only a matter of time before the cat is officially out of the bag,” Underhill declared, his face blanching. “I’ll have the chemists begin destroying the stockpiles.”
Merkur tore his eyes from the television and fixed a stare on his number two man. “I pulled the trigger on that hours ago. But we’re saving some as insurance. Just in case we have to remind some people that we’re all in this together.”
“What about the ambulatory specimens?” asked Underhill.
“They’re already on it downstairs,” answered Merkur. “We’re keeping the freshest one.”
“You’re having the lab personnel bag them without Carson’s supervision?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “It didn’t end well last time.”
“That’s a risk we have to take,” Merkur replied icily. “Have Carson start moving them to the garage when he gets here.”
Underhill nodded. “How many chemists are on hand?”
“Skeleton crew of six.”
“Thank God this isn’t a normal workday,” said Underhill. “No way we could keep this quiet with a full floor shift.”
Merkur paced to the south-facing windows. Settling his gaze on an L-shaped landing pad jutting out into the East River where a black and gold helicopter was landing, he said, “Carson and his team just touched down.”
Chapter 23
The hallway went dark as the inside of a coffin the second the doors sealed shut behind Tara and Riker.
“Up ahead and on the left,” she said, thumbing on the iPod and activating the flashlight feature to light their way.
“I remember,” said Riker, slowing his gait and letting go of her hand. “Let’s hope it isn’t locked or—.”
“Occupied,” said Tara, finishing the thought for him just as a shaft of light lanced from the nearby room and the door sucked inward.
The siblings came to a complete halt and pressed their backs to the wall.
Holding the iPod to her chest to extinguish the light, Tara whispered ahead. “What now, Mister Let’s Go Right?”
Wanting nothing more than to remind her that Mom’s urn was likely in one of the nearby rooms, Riker instead pressed a finger to his lips, then splayed two fingers and with them made a stabbing motion toward his eyes.
Wait and watch.
Message received. Tara knelt and craned to see past her brother’s slightly bent knees.
From a dozen feet away, ensconced in a modicum of shadow, the sibling duo watched a male soldier step into the hallway and spin back around toward the door. The stocky thirty-something held a flashlight in one hand and keys in the other. As he struggled to get a key in the lock, a radio came alive with a hiss of white noise and a harried male voice said, “Hall … we really need those extra flex cuffs.”
Trying rather unsuccessfully to become one with the cool cement wall, Riker noted that the soldier’s sidearm—likely a Beretta M9—was still snugged into its drop thigh holster. Then the soldier turned his way slightly and he caught a glimpse of the rank insignia affixed to his camouflage fatigues. The twin black vertical bars sewn into the removable patch were hard to miss against the mostly muted green and light beige of the Army’s latest permutation of its combat uniform.
An officer?
Captain, no less.
This sudden revelation took some of the sting out of what he was about to do.
Thanks to two of Riker’s strides being equal to three or four of a normal man’s, he was at the captain’s side the exact moment the shorter man was turning his way and bringing the radio up to his lips.
From her spot down the hall, Tara observed her brother’s near silent approach. Halfway to the soldier, she saw his arms rise up vertically over his head. As absurd as it was considering what her brother was about to do to the soldier, Tara pictured a referee signaling a touchdown.
Like a bird of prey swooping in for the kill, he surged forward. There was a rustle of denim and, barely audible over the din from the room behind her, a creak of protest from the prosthesis.
Arms sweeping down and inward, he dipped slightly and wrapped the soldier in a bear hug. Plucking the shorter man off the floor, he looked her way, saying, “Take the gun, then empty his left thigh pocket.”
Finding his arms suddenly trapped to his sides and his feet no longer on terra firma, the soldier let go of the radio. There was a clatter as the plastic item bounced on the floor. A tick later, the jangle of metal on cement echoed in the hall as the keys slipped from his hands and joined the radio on the floor. Hearing a voice by his ear issue the order that would lead to him being disarmed, he swung for the man’s shins with the heel of a combat boot. Just as he was about to yell for help, one of the captor’s arms slipped down to encircle his waist, and a calloused hand clamped down hard over his mouth.
Acting on her brother’s whispered order, Tara sprinted from the shadows. Without a word, she unsnapped the strap and worked the black semiautomatic pistol from its holster. After stuffing the Beretta into her waist band—a move that was as foreign to her as anything she’d ever done—she plunged her hand into the bulging side pocket and came out with a handful of pre-looped nylon zip ties.
She quickly got one separated from the tangle and looked a question to her brother.
“Secure his wrists with one of them.”
Easier said than done, thought Tara. While the soldier’s left arm was still pinned to his side, his right was ranging around wildly, alternating between trying to pry Riker’s hand away from his mouth and reaching back and up and raking blindly for his eyes.
Tara slipped down, her back against the door, worked one loop of the makeshift cuffs over the hand on the soldier’s trapped arm and cinched it down to where it couldn’t slip off.
“Your body is in the way,” she said. “I’m going to have to cuff his hands in front.”
“Just do it,” said Riker. “He’s a squirmy little effer.”
When the opportunity presented itself, Tara grabbed the soldier’s right wrist and muscled the o
ther open end of the cuffs over his scrabbling fingers. Fighting off a rising wave of panic brought on by the realization of what she and her brother were doing, she cinched the second cuff tight.
“Get the keys and radio,” said Riker as he lowered their captive to the ground and held him close so that the sharp edges of his boots could no longer find his shin.
Drawing in a much needed breath, Tara plucked the keys and radio off the floor and rose from her crouch. Facing the soldier, whose struggles were beginning to subside, she said, “You messed with the wrong people, dude. Rikers don’t take kindly to unlawful search and seizure.”
Riker craned toward the set of double doors down the hall. Whatever was happening behind them was not good. The shouts and angry words ringing out moments ago had been supplanted by piercing screams of what sounded like women and children under extreme duress.
“No more talk, Tara,” said Riker. “Get the door open.”
Working by the light of the kid’s iPod, the simple act of finding the correct key and inserting it into the cylinder took a few seconds. Hands shaking, she threw the lock and led them all inside.
This therapy room was much larger than the ones they had been processed in. It was twenty deep by thirty long and branched off to the right. Illuminated by the faint beam Tara was sweeping around the room, the pair of waist-high tables in the center threw long shadows across the gray floor. Atop one of the tables were several boxes of syringes and dozens of bottles labeled SALINE SOLUTION. A rolling trashcan overflowing with various articles of blood-soaked clothing was positioned equidistant between the tables. And wafting from the industrial-sized vessel was the coppery tang of freshly spilt blood Riker was no stranger to.
“Ewwww,” exclaimed Tara, the beam frozen on the brimming bio hazard.
“On the table,” said Riker. “The syringes and saline solution. That’s what we were inoculated with last night. Placebo to keep the prisoners calm through the night.” Tightening the bear hug on the captain, Riker walked him to the counter at the head of the nearest training table. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he said directly into his ear. “I just want to know what the hell is going on out there. Black Beard and the others … who are they? Military contractors?” He paused, then added, “If I release you, take my hand away, will you cooperate?”
Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise Page 11
