Kittredge didn’t object. He felt curiously relieved. He had a pro on his side. At least, momentarily so, as Fleischer’s pointed caveat had made clear.
But Kittredge decided he would gladly take all the help he could get. He lacked the skills to succeed in a game like this one. The evening’s events had taught him one thing for certain: If he stayed on his own, he would wind up dead.
52
Jim Firth sat in the parking lot of the cargo ramp at Reagan International. His rented panel van idled, its heater fighting off the February chill outside. Last he’d heard, the cargo flight was on time, but it was due to arrive ten minutes ago. He wasn’t worried — traveling over the Atlantic ocean subjected one to the whims of the jet stream, a high altitude air current with speeds often in excess of one hundred miles an hour. Heading from east to west invariably involved a sizable headwind, and delays weren’t uncommon.
He felt tired and a little anxious. Firth hadn’t had much involvement in the previous day’s operation, but he’d certainly been sufficiently involved to earn himself a conviction. He hoped it didn’t come to that. He hoped the outbreak would appear to be caused by the natural movement of people to and fro, the way all outbreaks happen. At least, all legitimate epidemics began that way. He took a deep breath, thinking for the thousandth time how much he hoped there was no problem with the drug shipment, and with the drug itself. He didn’t want a single death on his conscience, much less thousands of them. Or worse.
Someone rapped on the passenger side window. Firth jumped. His head snapped toward the noise, and it all got much, much worse when he saw who was knocking. A cop.
The policeman had sunglasses on, with large, mirrored, clichéd lenses like Tom Selleck wore in that Eighties cop show. The cop knocked with his nightstick on the window, four more raps, louder, more insistent than the first time.
Firth gathered himself. He was just a guy waiting on a shipment to arrive. No problem. No big deal. He motioned for the cop to come around to the driver’s side, and he started rolling down the window.
The cop shook his head, expressionless, mirrored lenses reflecting the logo of the rental van company each time his head reached its leftmost stop. He rapped again.
Was he even a cop? Firth saw a badge on his chest, but he couldn’t tell if it was for one of those bullshit security guard companies who dressed their people up like policemen for greater on-scene credibility. But those guys were often fat and dumpy, and this guy seemed anything but. Firth noticed his thick, powerful hand as it gripped the nightstick.
Firth cursed. Best not to mess with the guy, just in case he was the real deal. And even if he was just a rent-a-cop, the guy could clearly cause problems. Firth didn’t need problems.
He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over to reach the passenger side window. The van didn’t have power windows, so he began to twist the crank, annoyed by the exertion and the cop’s refusal to come around to the proper side of the van to have a conversation.
Firth had made three or four complete revolutions when he saw a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye. Was there something black and rectangular in the cop’s other hand? Firth hadn’t yet twisted his head far enough to get a good view when his world exploded in an electric light. His brain vaguely registered his arms and legs thrashing uncontrollably, shins pounding painfully into the steering column and the underside of the dashboard, the muscles in the small of his back contracting and cramping uncontrollably, arching like an insect frying on hot pavement.
An instant later, nothingness overtook him.
53
The morning hadn’t started well for Dr. Fred Farnsworth, head of the infectious diseases directorate at the Centers for Disease Control. He’d received a speeding ticket on his way to work at the sprawling CDC facility outside of Atlanta. The cop was a jerk about it, too, some self-righteous prick who felt the need to lecture him on road safety. Farnsworth was doing ten over, and you’d have thought he’d run over a pregnant lady.
He arrived late due to the road safety lecture, and found on his desk a sheaf of paper that he recognized instantly as a set of lab results. Washington DC General Hospital, the header said. The type was obscured slightly, making it clear that DC General had faxed these pages to the hotline. Farnsworth’s team had screened the results, obviously, and had determined that these particular labs were important enough to start his day with.
“Dear God,” Farnsworth muttered, looking at the report. “It got out.”
He called an emergency meeting. He told his team to get ready to deploy to DC. They’d leave as soon as the logistics were in place. The first response team was to fly out as soon as the meeting ended, and the supply truck was to leave as soon as possible thereafter.
“One in a coma, one with less than an hour of life expectancy, four more cases brought in by car and ambulance just this morning.” His face grew dark. “All children.”
He paused to let that sink in. Saving lives never required additional motivation for his team, but they felt an added urgency with a disease that seemed to be hitting children hardest. Also, aside from his team’s desire to save children’s lives, the media frenzy would be double or triple its normal level, which was already plenty shrill.
“It’s transmitted by contact,” Farnsworth continued, certain he had his team’s undivided attention. “Blood and fluids, including aerosolized suspensions. Coughs and sneezes are deadly. We’ll need full biohazard precautions.”
He saw grave nods all around the table.
“I’ve seen this one up close,” he said. “The mortality rate is nine out of ten. I personally know of only one kid who has survived infection. The rest have died horribly. I don’t need to tell you how serious this bug is.”
A junior team member raised his hand. “Any etiology you can pass along?”
Farnsworth nodded gravely. “It’s a superbug. We’ve unintentionally bred it in hospitals. Antibiotic overuse, combined with antiseptic overuse. The NIH has sealed off a wing to care for patients and try to isolate it. They’ve received patients with variants of this thing from three different hospitals now.”
“And it’s now in DC?”
Farnsworth nodded gravely, the implications obvious. The deadly bug was spreading.
“Okay,” Farnsworth said. “This is a bad one. Let’s get on it before it kicks our ass.”
The team filed out of the room, and Farnsworth returned to his office, a nagging thought hounding him every step of the way. Farnsworth couldn’t help but wonder whether the epidemic had started with one vial full of a little girl’s blood stolen from the NIH hospital in New York. For his friend’s sake, he hoped not.
54
The policeman and his accomplice were technically off duty, though one couldn’t tell by the uniforms they wore. Moonlighting, in broad daylight, which was actually not disallowed provided it was run through the department first. They’d signed out the cruiser and driven to the airport to provide security for the arrival of an extremely important shipment. At least, that’s how the report would read, should there ever be occasion for a report, and it would match the request he’d filled out and submitted through channels in advance.
In reality, the two cops were a long way past The Line. The state took a dim view of kidnapping, on duty or off. Theft was also looked down upon.
But truth was definitely in the eye of the beholder. Behold the badge, small people, and step aside quietly. They — and their client — were counting on the psychological impact of two armed police officers in order to pull off what they were being paid to do.
The big cargo jet taxied to a stop at DC’s Reagan International. Moments later, the ear-splitting whine of the jet engines gave way to the ear-splitting whine of the auxiliary power unit, and then to silence. The flight crew disembarked and walked inside the shipping operations building without so much as a nod to the cop and his partner. They didn’t give a shit, the cop noted. Fly from A to B with whatever junk was in the cargo bay. Th
at was the flight crew’s job, and they didn’t really care one way or another how things went on either end.
It was the loading and unloading crew that received the cops’ attention, anyway. “I’m afraid we’ll need to have a look inside the boxes,” he told the crew foreman.
The foreman looked at the policeman. “I’m sorry, officer, but I can’t let you do that. Not without a warrant.”
“These items haven’t cleared customs yet.”
“You’re not a customs officer,” the foreman said, eyeballing the DC Metro badge, the taser, and the nightstick.
“You’re very observant. Now step aside, sir.” The cop flashed a piece of paper in front of the unloading crew foreman. It was a forgery, of course, because there was no warrant.
But the crew foreman didn’t know that. And he had a guilty conscience. He knew what they were smuggling, and who was supposed to take possession of it. “I need to get our ops supervisor out here,” he said, turning to walk away.
The foreman suddenly got a face full of pavement. A heavy knee dug into the small of his back. Handcuffs ratcheted around his hands. “You have the right to remain silent, sweetheart,” the police officer hissed in his ear. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
The cops rounded up the second and third men on the loading crew. They used zip ties on the third man, having run out of handcuffs. They lined up all three men side-by-side and face-down on the tarmac. They ignored the protests about lawyers and whatnot, the usual bullshit.
The leader strode to the TSA agent manning the gate. After a brief word with the agent, the gate swung open.
The cop waved in a panel van. It was a different panel van than the rental truck that contained Jim Firth’s comatose form. The side of this particular truck read Prizer Pharmaceuticals: For a Healthier World.
The boxes had to be removed from their pallet in order to fit on the truck, but the Prizer crew accomplished the task in just under five minutes. The TSA agent opened the gate again to let the truck depart. It turned north on the frontage road, and the two cops watched it disappear over the promontory that marked the passenger entrance to Reagan International.
The two officers shared a satisfied smile. They strutted back to the group of prone men shivering on the cold tarmac. “There’s been a mistake,” the lead cop said. “Your arrest warrant has been rescinded.” He unfastened their handcuffs while the second cop sliced through the zip-ties binding the third load crewman’s hands together. “You are free to go, but I would advise against going far. The district attorney is fighting to have your warrants reinstated.” It was all bullshit. But a uniform and a confident tone could convince nine out of ten people that the sky was yellow.
The two policemen walked nonchalantly from the cargo area, climbed in their cruiser, and drove off. Easy money. And fun. Like crooked officials the world over, they enjoyed screwing with people.
55
Viktor Kohlhaas felt tension mounting inside of his chest. It was half past four in Paris. Firth was due to check in from DC half an hour ago. Firth was never late. Ever. And Firth understood what was at stake.
Everything was at stake. All that Kohlhaas had sacrificed. It was a cliché, but Kohlhaas had long ago figured out that when people who had attained lofty heights spoke of what had been sacrificed in the process, they weren’t speaking of the endless hours spent slaving away toward the goal, or missed milestones in their children’s lives, or broken marriages, or estranged friends. Those things were a given, but they weren’t what people meant.
The sacrifice that people spoke of was the gaping hole in their souls, dug millimeter by millimeter in a million little deals with the devil. Each was a little bit horrendous in and of itself, but together, those compromises of the fundamental fabric of one’s self hollowed a person out until there was nothing left but a practiced smile and empty, tired eyes. “I hardly recognize him,” was a common refrain among former friends and now-distant family.
It was this sacrifice that Kohlhaas thought of as he contemplated, despite his better judgment, all of the things that might possibly have gone wrong with the shipment. It was one hell of a litany.
He dialed Firth’s number again. It went straight to voicemail, again. Perhaps Firth was out on the tarmac at this very instant, Kohlhaas, thought, securing the shipment and preparing to transport it to the staging area, a nondescript and somewhat dilapidated warehouse in a shitty part of DC. Kohlhaas hoped that was what was happening.
He tried another number. Albert LeBeque’s cell phone rang, but wasn’t picked up. LeBeque had departed for DC the day prior as well, ostensibly to attend the last day of the summit on infectious diseases put on by the Johns Hopkins crowd to raise congressional awareness. Really, LeBeque was there to oversee the progress in stemming the tide of the Synergique-created epidemic, to handle any kind of medical or pharmaceutical issue that might crop up with the untested antibiotic therapy they’d spent the past year secretly developing. It was plausible that LeBeque might be hard at work getting the staging area set up for Firth’s arrival, or that LeBeque had decided to go to the conference earlier in the day than they had originally planned.
Kohlhaas forced himself to breathe. There was nothing he could do at the moment, and fretting did no one any good. He briefly considered going home, but thought of the giant, empty house and the loneliness it represented, and decided he preferred his office.
But worry was getting the best of him. He flipped on the television in his office to give his mind something else to chew on while he waited for Firth to send word regarding the shipment.
Deadly Epidemic in DC? The headline floated next to a news station talking head. Kohlhaas turned up the sound. His heart sank immediately. Two children had died. Twelve more were in critical condition. Thirty-two had been admitted to area hospitals with similar symptoms. “These infections show a remarkable genetic similarity to pandrug resistant bacteriological infections we’ve encountered in a very small number of hospitals in the country,” said a tall, skinny man with an aquiline nose. The caption beneath his picture identified him as Dr. Fred Farnsworth of the Centers for Disease Control.
“We’re doing everything possible to make these children as comfortable as we can while we search for a safe and effective treatment option.”
The CDC man’s statement was obviously meant as reassurance that the nation’s best and brightest were on the job, Kohlhaas knew, but it was artlessly crafted and had precisely the opposite effect. The CDC guy had just confirmed that the nation’s best and brightest had no clue whatsoever about how to fight the disease, and they didn’t know how to stop its spread.
The color was completely gone from Kohlhaas’ face. “Where the hell are you!” he shouted, gripping his phone with such force the plastic squeaked in protest as Jim Firth’s phone again went straight to voicemail.
Kohlhaas felt woozy. LeBeque’s estimates about the disease’s deadliness had been tragically optimistic. Children are dying. God help us.
He sat heavily in his chair. “Barnes!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, aware of the slightly maniacal note in his voice. “Get Barnes in here!”
His secretary scrambled. He heard her speaking quickly on the phone. Moments later, he heard the heavy thuds of Franklin Barnes’ footsteps clomping into his office. “What the hell is going on?” Kohlhaas shouted as his head of security entered his office.
Barnes held his arms out from his sides, palms facing Kohlhaas, a quizzical look on his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Where the fuck is the shipment?” Spittle flew from his mouth and alighted on his chin. “Where the fuck is Firth? Where the fuck is LeBeque?”
Barnes frowned. “Is something going on?”
Kohlhaas’ face was red with rage. “Where are they?” he howled.
Barnes flayed his hands from his sides again. “How the hell would I know?”
“You’re my chief of security,” Kohlhaas spat. “It�
�s your goddamn job to know!”
“Listen, Viktor,” Barnes said, anger evident in his voice. “You kept me here. Here, in Paris, where I would be absolutely worthless to everything going on in DC. Now you’re telling me something went wrong? What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you I told you so? Well, I fucking told you so!”
Barnes turned on his heel and left.
“Find them!” Kohlhaas yelled. He collapsed back in his chair, chest heaving, embarrassed about completely losing his cool, but feeling himself slip ever further toward panic.
He ran his hands through his hair, something he hadn’t done for years, because of how decidedly un-executive such a gesture looked, because it communicated exhaustion and exasperation and ineptitude and defeat, and those were things that Kohlhaas did not permit to enter his life or his consciousness. His breath wavered, and his insides felt like they were gripped by a giant fist. His left arm hurt. Was he having a heart attack, on top of everything else?
Breathe. He forced himself to fill his lungs, to hold his expanded chest for a moment, to let the breath out slowly. He willed calmness back into his psyche. Whatever was going on, he would deal with it. He would figure out a way through, and he would carry the day.
He took another deep breath, and then another, and he felt his usual state of mind returning, that calm confidence that had seen him through so many crises. It was exceedingly unprofessional of him to have lost his cool in front of Barnes. He needed to get it together, to formulate an effective strategy in light of the new circumstances.
56
Kittredge eyed Gunther Fleischer in the afternoon light. The two men sat in Fleischer’s small but tastefully decorated space above the butcher shop, of which Fleischer had been proprietor and owner for four decades. It was a long time to be carving up dead mammals, and Fleischer had made it clear to Kittredge in the predawn darkness that Fleischer’s tools hadn’t just been used on livestock. Fleischer had no qualms about slicing up dead primates, either, and Kittredge found himself shuddering at the thought.
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