A Heartbeat Away

by Michael Palmer

  “Nothing about the explosion will derail our plans for a rapid resolution to this challenge,” Allaire had told a meeting of the leaders of Congress.

  Ellis wouldn’t believe him until she had questioned Sean O’Neil. It took a little prodding, but finally the agent revealed that the explosion had killed a pilot, copilot, and a decoy of the virologist who had been chosen to develop an effective treatment for the virus that was threatening them.

  Clearly, the president had nothing. His iron-fisted quarantine was born out of panic, which meant that Harlan Mackey’s death was no accident.

  Ellis tensed. This was Genesis who was contacting her. She felt absolutely certain of it. If they were to provide her with the cure, she would assume the stature of a savior.

  Destiny.

  Ellis studied the sheet of demands again. They were ridiculous—over the top. Under normal circumstances, any lawmaker championing a bill with these provisions would be committing political suicide. But these were hardly normal circumstances.

  Genesis had organized the legislative demands into three broad categories: national security, immigrant rights, and privacy.

  The national security mandates called for the immediate cessation of unchecked spying on ordinary Americans, as well as the abolishment of the Patriot Act, and a rewrite of the ECPA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The impact of such a bill would be profound. It would make it illegal to monitor communication on the Internet. Wiretapping, in all but the most extreme cases, would be abolished. And the legislation currently in committee to establish a national ID program would be scrapped.

  Who are these people? Ellis wondered again.

  In addition to the security demands, they called for the dismantling of the immigration and naturalization service, ending all discrimination against immigrants, along with sweeping changes that would essentially erase our borders with Mexico and Canada. They also insisted on the installation of consumer privacy protections, which would make surveillance camera footage a civil rights violation unless it was related to preventing robbery.

  This was truly toxic legislation.

  But what we have all been exposed to was equally toxic as well.

  These demands were coming from Genesis, Ellis concluded. And although she did not personally support any of their proposals, given the circumstances and the stakes she could champion the effort nonetheless. Flexibility was at the very heart of good politics. Once she was sworn in as president, the country would see only a hero—a hero who had done what their elected leader could not.

  Even if I were to succeed in passing this legislation, Ellis typed, you could not meet your obligation. I am not the POTUS and therefore, not elected to lead the country, or sign this bill into law.

  You are third in the succession order, came the reply. With our help, there will be no one for you to succeed.

  Ellis felt another jolt of adrenaline. Her mind danced with images of her taking the presidential oath—images of such vivid and glorious detail that she believed, for just a moment, they had actually occurred. Genesis sounded as if they had the resources to make it happen. She had to take the ride. There was, however, one glaring problem that still needed to be addressed.

  It must be me who secures the treatment, she typed.

  The exchange that followed occurred in rapid succession.

  Genesis: Your job is to get the legislation passed. We’ll provide the drug. You can decide how to explain where it came from.

  Ellis: But this will take work. What if Allaire’s virologist succeeds before my legislative work concludes.

  Genesis: We told you, the virologist is dead. We saw to that.

  Ellis: That is incorrect. He is very much alive. You succeeded in blowing up a helicopter. But with a decoy on board, not him.

  Genesis: Interesting. In that case, we know the man’s location. The matter will be resolved. And you will become the president. Bank on it.

  CHAPTER 32

  DAY 4

  1:30 P.M. (CST)

  Matt Fink had been a pilot in the South African Air Force before he became a mercenary, opting for more close-up work and much more money. Now, he banked a sharp right turn, extended the Learjet 40XR’s landing gear, and then rechecked his instrument panel for any needed course corrections. He slowed to 140 knots and extended the wing flaps to decrease the aircraft’s stalling speed. The Lear was a joy to fly compared to the stiffer JAS Gripen fighter he had piloted in the service.

  Clear skies and no strong crosswinds made for perfect flying, and a bright Kansas sky gave Fink a clear view of the runway. He repositioned his headset microphone to continue the arrival sequence with air traffic control at the Garden City Regional Airport.

  “Garden City Tower, LXJ183 is eight miles out entering a left downwind for the visual three-two,” Fink said.

  “LXJ183 is cleared to land runway seventeen, winds three-four-zero at five to ten.”

  “Cleared to land, LXJ183,” Fink repeated the instruction.

  The wheels touched down with barely a bump and Alex Ramirez, who had passed the flight from Baltimore in the copilot’s seat, stood with the aircraft still in motion.

  “I’ll head back and get the weapons and gear ready,” he said.

  “The Cessna’s waiting for us,” Fink answered. “I want to be airborne within an hour.”

  The two men had worked together for years, and had handpicked the team for the Genesis job. Ramirez, who’d had his face cut nearly in two in Rwanda, was sharp and dependable, and the absolute best with any sort of electronics, or any kind of garrote. He was also a vicious infighter, who had disposed of the Capitol security guard Peter Tannen quietly and efficiently, thus earning himself this trip to Kansas.

  Fink taxied to a smooth stop at the location assigned to him by the controller. Then he powered the engines down and confirmed the cockpit radio was off as well. Cain expected him to check in, and that conversation was not one he could afford to inadvertently broadcast to Garden City’s air traffic tower.

  He made contact with his employer through a high-tech push-button phone.

  “We’ve landed at Garden City Regional, ready for phase two,” he said.

  Seconds later he heard a beep and Cain’s baritone voice.

  “What’s your ETA to Kalvesta?”

  “We’re forty miles west. Once we get the paperwork done, we should have our first visuals of the facility within an hour.”

  “Very good,” Cain replied. “You’ll be able to send me photographs?”

  “Yes. Cain, let me go in. I know I can get to Rhodes and finish this once and for all.”

  “Negative,” Cain said. “This is a reconnaissance mission only. We dismantled our surveillance of the facility after the lab was closed down. I need to see how it’s been resurrected before we make our next move. But I promise you, Fink, you’ll get your chance soon enough. We can’t have Rhodes messing things up at this stage.”

  “Roger and out.”

  The mercenary snarled and returned the phone to the front pocket of his fleece-lined flight jacket. The blown missile strike at the Capitol wasn’t totally his fault, but he was the one with the visual, and he was the one who pulled the trigger. He took great pride in his near-perfect record of mission successes. He would wait for Cain’s kill order, but not for too long.

  Ramirez had unloaded the duffel bags of equipment and weapons, and was waiting for Fink on the tarmac when he deplaned.

  “Stay here, sport,” the older man ordered. “I’ll go sign for the Cessna.”

  Five minutes later, the killer was seated in a small wood-paneled office in an outbuilding near the air traffic control tower. The portly rental agent across from him, Jim Kinchley according to his desk plate, turned down a small portable television that was broadcasting the latest CNN news report from the Capitol.

  “Crazy stuff happening out there,” Kinchley said.

  “Crazy,” Fink agreed.

  “Well, I got your fax and was able to g
et started on the paperwork. Just need to finish up the rental agreement is all.”

  The documents Fink had used to rent the Learjet from Baltimore-Washington airport included his own pilot’s license with the name changed, and a master forgery of one for Ramirez, who couldn’t fly anything more complex than a paper airplane, but was needed to fulfill the requirement for two pilots. Only one would be needed now for the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

  This was a stealth operation and Fink took every precaution to ensure there were no mishaps.

  “So, Mr. Keegan,” the agent said, “how long will you be using the one-seven-two?”

  “I don’t know,” Fink replied. “Does it matter?”

  “Have to put a specific time on this here form.”

  “Well then, put down two days.”

  Fink fixed the man with a baleful look that made him agree to the vague answer without objection.

  “Mind if I ask what sort of business you’re in?” Kinchley quickly pointed to a line on the rental agreement. “It’s required, you see.”

  Another hard stare.

  “Debt collector,” Fink said.

  With the papers signed, and an inspection completed, he taxied the aircraft over to where Ramirez was waiting. The Cessna was airborne forty-five minutes from when they had touched down. Not wanting to burn fuel on a long ascent, Fink leveled out at four thousand feet, and proceeded on an easterly course that took him over a barren, flat patchwork of square and rectangular brown fields flecked with snow.

  The Kalvesta facility came into view forty minutes after takeoff. Ramirez peered through the lenses of his high-powered Brunton binoculars and made some initial observations while they were still several miles away.

  “I’ll need to get closer to take any useful pictures, but from what I’m seeing we’ve got ourselves a mini Fort Knox,” he told Fink. “Lots of manpower, lots of guns, and lots of fencing.”

  Fink retrieved his phone to report that initial assessment to Cain, when his cockpit radio sparked to life.

  “Unidentified aircraft, you are flying in restricted U.S. military airspace. Alter course heading two-seven-zero and maintain at least ten miles from point north thirty-eight degrees, three minutes, thirty-four seconds; west one hundred degrees, seventeen minutes, eleven seconds.”

  It was not a smart move to have passed so close. Clearly with so much at stake, including his own life, Allaire was moving quickly.

  Fink altered their course without hesitation.

  “Roger that and all apologies,” he said into his headset. “Was unaware of any military activity here. Changing to a heading of two-seven-zero as instructed.”

  “Thank you, aircraft. And have a pleasant day.”

  Fink switched the radio to intercom mode, cursed out loud, and then spoke to Ramirez via their headset microphones.

  “For now is right, there, sport,” he said. “We’re going to have to make this a ground operation.”

  “No problem,” Ramirez replied, with the binoculars still pressed to his eyes.

  The Cessna completed its sharp turn to course correct and again leveled off. Ramirez no longer had visual of the facility that was now directly behind them. But moments later, he tapped Fink on the arm because something else had caught his attention.

  “Take a look,” Ramirez said, passing over the binoculars.

  The heading change had put the Cessna directly above a red Ford Taurus that was pulled over on a particularly barren stretch of road, just five miles from the entrance to the Kalvesta facility. Fink piloted the plane with his knees as he studied the scene below through the binoculars.

  “You see?” Ramirez asked.

  Fink nodded.

  “Not a lot of traffic on this road at this hour,” he said.

  “Or any hour, I would bet.”

  “Not every day you see somebody being helped out of the trunk of a car either.”

  “Not every day,” Ramirez agreed. “Doesn’t look like she was in there unwilling either.”

  “Not if after you get out of the trunk, you jump into the front seat like she just did.” Fink handed the binoculars back to Ramirez. “Can you get a plate number from here?” he asked.

  “I can.”

  Fink took out his phone.

  “Cain, it’s Fink. You read me?”

  “I’m here,” Cain answered.

  “Can you run a license plate for me?”

  “Give me the numbers.”

  Fink kept the Taurus in view while he recited the plate numbers to Cain. The Taurus had pulled back onto the road and was continuing west on Route 156. A few minutes later, Fink’s phone beeped.

  “The car is registered to the Kalvesta lab tech Melvin Forbush,” Cain said. “What’s going on?”

  Fink explained the situation.

  “Follow him. The no-fly zone tells me enough about security. Getting to Rhodes is going to take some planning.”

  “Roger that.”

  Fink increased the plane’s altitude, but not so much that he lost sight of the car as it traveled past Garden City and turned south onto U.S. 50.

  “Anything of interest on Fifty South?” Fink asked.

  Ramirez checked his map and said, “The only thing between here and Cimarron is Garden City Regional Airport.”

  “Well then,” Fink said, “it looks like we’ll be returning the plane sooner than we planned.”

  CHAPTER 33

  DAY 5

  11:00 A.M. (EST)

  Angie’s odyssey from Denver was something of a nightmare. Engine problems delayed the flight for several hours, and then canceled it altogether. By the time she arrived in Midtown Manhattan it was nearly eleven in the morning. She used the time before her noon meeting with Sliplitz to buy some toiletries, makeup, a large Giants T-shirt, and a pair of yellow sweatpants, which she packed inside the carry-on she had borrowed from Melvin.

  She slept in short bursts on the flight from Denver, awakening damp with perspiration from dreams reliving her clandestine departure from Kalvesta. The adventure began with a problem—Melvin reported that all vehicles leaving the compound were being inspected. After scouting the search procedure for more than an hour, he came up with a plan based, not surprisingly, on something he had seen in a movie.

  The key was timing. In fact, she and Melvin practiced their maneuver half a dozen times in a secluded corner of the parking area. They were down to less than ten seconds beginning to end when she finally proclaimed they were as good as they were going to get.

  First, Angie, holding an armload of blankets as an excuse in case someone stopped her, concealed herself against the wall of the bungalow closest to the main guard post. Melvin, positioned by the hood of his Taurus, waited for the trunk to be checked and closed, and then began coughing violently, and crying for help. Academy Award–worthy, he would later call his performance.

  “My asthma!” Melvin called out, pounding on the hood. “I’m choking.… Inhaler … in glove compartment.… Help me!”

  The soldier conducting the inspection set aside the mirror he had been using to examine the underside of the car, and raced to Melvin’s aid. At that moment, Angie moved quickly across the fifteen-foot space separating the bungalow from the rear end of the Taurus. Keeping low, she unlocked the trunk with Melvin’s spare key and opened the trunk eighteen inches. Then she shoved in the blankets and followed them through the small opening.

  “Damn,” she murmured reverently, when she felt the car accelerate and realized that Melvin’s plan had worked.

  Six miles in the trunk—that’s what Melvin told her it would be. Six short miles before he felt comfortable they would be clear of the facility and any patrols, and he could get her out and into the passenger seat. Despite being propped with pillows and the blankets, and having tested the space out, Angie felt the gnawing pangs of claustrophobia set in the moment she closed the trunk from the inside.

  There had to have been a better way, she was thinking one moment.

  I can do this
, she was thinking the next.

  Her discomfort would have been even more acute had she known that five minutes out, Forbush’s cell phone had lost any signal.

  By the time they had passed what Angie felt had to be the six-mile mark, her dry-mouthed anxiety had mushroomed into an air-hungry panic. She began to hyperventilate. He forgot the deal! Melvin’s going to drive the whole way with me in here!

  She tried calling him and then lit her flashlight, which had only a brief calming effect. Next she pounded on the trunk’s underside. Nothing. The car motored on, jarring her from side to side as her breathing grew even more rapid and shallow. At one point, they slammed in and out of a huge pothole, snapping her teeth through the inside of her cheek.

  More time passed and she began imagining terrible things—being buried alive and smothered to death; being kidnapped, and even raped. When Forbush finally released her from the trunk, she learned that they had traveled less than two miles when they hit the huge pothole, nothing near the five miles she had guessed.

  Never again, was all she could think as Forbush helped her to her feet and into the passenger seat. Never again.

  Angie fought back the urge to call Griff. They had little doubt that nearly everything they did at the lab was being monitored. She shuddered at the notion of how compressed her world had become. The constant scrutiny, the airlocks, the elevator, the biohazard suit, the trunk. The claustrophobia of what had recently been a carefree existence in one of the most fascinating cities in the world had actually shaken her confidence. She expressed those feelings to Melvin, who did his best to be supportive. But there were obvious limits to the man’s ability for empathy. For now, she would have to gain strength from Griff’s final words to her.

  I believe in you.

  In contrast to the sleepy Garden City airport, the terminal at JFK was a near gridlock of travelers. Angie was jostled by several of them as she followed the signs to ground transportation. One of them, a lean and swarthy man wearing sunglasses, had been on the flight from Garden City to Denver, as well as on the flight from Denver to New York. He muttered an apology as he passed her, then hurried away, a cell phone pressed to his ear.