The Cassandra Compact c-2

by Robert Ludlum

  Numb and exhausted, Smith somehow managed to drive himself to Bethesda. Walking into the house, he dropped his clothes on the way to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stood under the hot, stinging spray.

  The pounding water drowned out the screams and explosions of the night. But no matter how hard he tried, Smith couldn't erase the image of Richardson's car slamming into the blockade, the fireball erupting, the sight of Richardson and Price, human torches.

  Smith stumbled into the bedroom and lay down naked on the covers. Closing his eyes, he set his soldier's mental clock and let himself be swept away into a long, dark tunnel. He felt himself floating end over end, like an astronaut who'd lost his tether and was doomed to tumble endlessly through the cosmos. Then he felt something bump him and with a start woke up to discover that he was clawing for the gun on the night table.

  Smith showered again and dressed quickly. He was heading for the door when he remembered that he hadn't checked his phone messages off the secure cell. Quickly he scanned the list and discovered a note from Peter Howell. Something was waiting for him on his computer.

  Smith fired up his machine, ran the encryption program, and downloaded the file Howell had left. Reading it, he was stunned. After making a copy, he saved the text in a secure file and typed in a quick E-mail Howell would get on his mobile phone: Job well done ― and better. Come home. Drinks are on me. J. S.

  As dawn broke, Smith left the house and drove through the empty streets to the west gate of the White House. The guard checked his ID against the computerized list and waved him through. At the portico, a marine corporal escorted him through the silent corridors of the West Wing and into a small, cluttered office where Nathaniel Klein rose to greet him.

  Smith was startled by Klein's appearance. The head of Covert-One hadn't shaved and his clothes looked as if they had been slept in. Wearily, he indicated that they should sit.

  “You did a tremendous job, Jon,” he said quietly. “People owe you a debt of gratitude. I'm assuming you came through unscathed.”

  “Bumped and bruised but otherwise intact, sir.”

  Klein's wan smile faded. “You haven't heard a thing, have you?”

  “Heard what, sir?”

  Klein nodded. “Good… That's good. That means the blackout is holding.” He took a deep breath. “Eight hours ago, Harry Landon, mission director at the Cape, was told that there was an emergency onboard Discovery. When he managed to reestablish voice communication, he learned that… that the crew was all dead except for one member.”

  He looked at Smith sadly and the tremor in his voice betrayed his loss. “Megan's gone, Jon.”

  Smith felt his body stiffen. He tried to speak but couldn't find the words. The voice he heard didn't seem to belong to him.

  “What was it, sir? A fire?”

  Klein shook his head. “No. The orbiter is functioning perfectly. But something ripped through the craft and killed the crew.”

  “Who's the survivor?”

  “Dylan Reed.”

  Smith raised his head. “The only survivor? We're sure?”

  “Reed's gone through the entire craft. Everyone is accounted for. I'm sorry.”

  Smith had lost people before to sudden, violent death. He knew that his reaction was typical of a survivor: his mind flashed on the last time he'd seen Megan in that coffee shop near the NASA compound in Houston.

  Now she was gone. Just like that.

  “Landon and the rest of NASA have been tearing out their collective hair,” Klein was saying. "They still can't figure out what went wrong.

  “How did Reed survive?”

  “He was in one of those suits they use on space walks. Apparently he was preparing some experiment.”

  “And the rest of the crew were in their normal work outfits, the overalls,” Smith said. “No protection gear.” He paused. “You said there was no fire, that something ripped through them.”

  “Jon―”

  “Megan told you that she saw someone with Reed just before the launch,” Smith cut him off. “You already suspected a link between Treloar and Reed…” He thought for a moment. “What did the bodies look like?”

  “Landon said that Reed described them as bloated, covered with sores, bleeding from the orifices.”

  Smith felt a tingle as the connections snapped together in his mind.

  “I had a message from Peter Howell,” he told Klein. “He had a long chat with Herr Weizsel. He was so cooperative that he insisted on taking Peter back to his apartment, where he accessed the Offenbach Bank's computers through his laptop. It seems that Ivan Beria had a long and profitable relationship with the bank, especially when one client employed him exclusively: Bauer-Zermatt A.G.”

  Klein was stunned. “The pharmaceutical giant?”

  Smith nodded. “Over the last three years, Bauer-Zermatt made a total of ten deposits into Beria's account, two of the last three just before the Russian guard and Treloar were eliminated.”

  “What about the third one?” Klein demanded.

  “That was for the contract on me.”

  After a moment's silence, Klein said, “Do you have proof?”

  As though he were moving a piece in for checkmate, Smith pulled out a floppy disk. “Proof positive.”

  Klein shook his head. “All right. Bauer-Zermatt is ― was ― paying Beria for assassinations. These included the Russian guard and Treloar. That links Bauer-Zermatt to the stolen smallpox. But there are two questions: why would Bauer-Zermatt want the smallpox? And who at the company authorized the hits and the payments?” He pointed to the disk. “Is there a name?”

  “No name,” Smith replied. “But it's not hard to guess, is it? Only one man could have authorized the use of someone like Beria: Karl Bauer himself.”

  Klein's breath whistled through his nostrils. “Okay… But finding Bauer's fingerprints on the authorization to use Beria, or on the payments themselves, that's another matter.”

  “They won't exist,” Smith said flatly. “Bauer's much too careful to leave such an obvious trail.” He paused. “But why would he want the smallpox to begin with? To make a vaccine? No. We can already do that. To play with it? Tweak it genetically? Maybe. But why? Smallpox has been studied for years. It can't be used as a battlefield weapon. The incubation period is too long. The effects are not a hundred percent predictable. So why would Bauer still want a sample? Want it so badly that he would murder for it?”

  He looked at Klein. “Do you know how people die from smallpox? The first symptoms are a rash on the roof of the mouth, which then spreads to the face and forearms, then to the rest of the body. The pustules erupt, scabs form, erupt again. Eventually, there's bleeding from the orifices…”

  Klein stared at him. “Just like the shuttle crew!” he whispered. “They died the way smallpox victims do! Are you saying Bauer got the stolen smallpox onboard Discovery?”

  Smith rose and tried to dispel the image of Megan, how she had died, her last, terrible moments. “Yes. That's what I'm saying.”

  “But ―?”

  “In space ― in microgravity ― you can reengineer cells, bacteria, virtually anything in a way that can't be done on earth.” He paused. "We wiped smallpox off the planet but we kept two sets of samples ― one here, one in Russia. Ostensibly, we did this because we could not bring ourselves to eradicate a species into extinction. The truth is darker than that: we never knew when we might need it. Maybe years from now we would find a way to convert it into a weapon. Or if someone else did, we'd have enough material with which to produce a vaccine ― hopefully.

  “Bauer didn't want to wait years. Somehow he discovered a process he thought would work. Maybe he was fifty or sixty percent of the way there, but he couldn't finish. He couldn't be certain. The only way to prove that he was right was to arrange for an experiment in a unique environment where bacteria grow like lightning. He needed to do it onboard the shuttle.” Smith paused. “And he did.”

  “If you're right, Jon,�
� Klein said tightly, “that means Dylan Reed is his handmaiden.”

  “He's the only survivor, isn't he? The director of NASA's biomedical research program. The guy who was conveniently suited up when all hell broke loose.”

  “Are you suggesting that Reed murdered his own crew?” Klein demanded.

  “That's exactly what I'm saying.”

  “Why, for God's sake?”

  “Two reasons: To get rid of any possible witnesses, and…” Smith's voice broke. “And to run a controlled experiment on human test subjects to see how fast the virus would kill.”

  Klein slumped in his chair. “It's insane.”

  “Only because whoever devised it is insane,” Smith said. “Not raving, not foaming at the mouth. But insidiously, malignly insane. Yes.”

  Mein stared at him. “Bauer…”

  “And Richardson, Price, Treloar, Lara Telegin…”

  “To nail Bauer, we need hard evidence, Jon. We can try to trace his communications―”

  Smith shook his head. “There's no time. Here's the way I see it: we assume there's a bioweapon onboard the shuttle and that Reed is in control of it. Bauer and his accomplices will want to destroy all the evidence of what happened up there. Also, I'm sure that we'll find no evidence of any dealings with either Richardson or Price. But Bauer still has to make sure that the shuttle comes down safely. He has to get Reed and the sample out of there. When is NASA bringing down the orbiter?”

  “In about eight hours. They have to wait for an atmospheric window to open in order to land it at Edwards Air Force Base in California.”

  Smith leaned forward. “Can you get me in to see the president ― right now?”

  * * *

  Two hours later, after speaking with the president, Smith and Klein found themselves in the small conference room next to the Oval Office. While they waited for the president to finish his meeting, Klein received a call from the Cape.

  “Mr. Klein? It's Harry Landon at mission control. I have that information you were asking for.”

  Klein listened in silence and thanked Landon. Before hanging up, he asked: “What is the status of the descent?”

  “We're bringing her down as gently as we can,” Landon replied. “I have to tell you, we've never done anything like this ― outside of simulations, that is. But we'll get our people down. You have my word on that.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Landon. I'll stay in touch.”

  He turned to Smith. “Landon called everyone in the Black Book ― and someone who Reed personally asked for.”

  “Let me guess. Karl Bauer.”

  “On the money.”

  “Makes sense,” Smith said. “He'd want to be on-site when Reed comes down with his baby.”

  Klein nodded and pointed to the closed-circuit monitor that suddenly showed a picture. “Showtime.”

  * * *

  Despite the nest of worry lines and crow's-feet, the president, seated behind his desk, projected an image of authority and control. As he waited for the last member of the working group to arrive, he surveyed the individuals around him.

  The Central Intelligence Agency was represented by Bill Dodge, cool, austere, his expression betraying nothing as he leafed through the latest update from NASA.

  Martha Nesbitt, the national security adviser, sat next to Dodge. A veteran of the State Department, Marti, as she was called, was famous for the speed with which she assessed a situation, formulated a decision, and got the ball rolling.

  Opposite her was the secretary of state, Gerald Simon, picking nonexistent lint off his hand-tailored suit, a ritual indicating that he was racked by indecision.

  “I hope you've had time to gather your thoughts,” the president said. “Because under the circumstances, we have to make the right decision the first time around.”

  He looked around the group. “As of now Discovery will reach its `window' to reenter the earth's atmosphere in approximately one hour At that point, it will be another four hours before it begins its descent procedure. Seventy-five minutes later, it will land at Edwards. The question before us is simple: do we allow the craft to land?”

  “I have a question, sir,” Martha Nesbitt spoke up. “At what point do we lose the ability to destroy the orbiter?”

  “There's really no such cutoff point,” the president replied. “The fact that the shuttle carries an autodestruct package of high explosives has, for obvious reasons, never been publicized. However, using satellite relays, we can activate the mechanism at any point between the orbiter's present position and touchdown.”

  “But the package, Mr. President, was really designed to blow the orbiter in space,” Bill Dodge said. “The whole point being not to introduce any contaminants into our atmosphere.”

  “That's true,” Castilla agreed.

  “What's also true is that we have no idea what really happened onboard Discovery,” Gerald Simon weighed in. He glanced around the room. “Five dedicated people are dead. We don't know how or why. But one is still alive. On the battlefield, we always bring out our dead. And if there's a survivor out there, we damn well go out and get him.”

  “I agree,” Marti Nesbitt said. “First of all, according to the latest information, the orbiter is sound, mechanically speaking. Second, NASA is still checking into what could have taken down the crew. Rightly, they're focusing on the food and fluids supplies. We know that bacteria grow very rapidly in microgravity. It's entirely possible that something that is harmless on earth mutated in a grotesque way and overpowered its victims before they could respond.”

  “But isn't that exactly why we can't risk bringing down the shuttle?” Gerald Simon asked. “I have to look at this from the state department's perspective. We know we have something lethal on that ship, but we're going to bring it down anyway? What kind of danger are we exposing ourselves ― and the rest of the world ― to?”

  “Maybe no danger at all,” Bill Dodge responded. “This isn't an Andromeda-strain scenario, Gerry. Or some X-file about an extraterrestrial plague that somehow invaded the shuttle. Whatever killed those people came from earth. But here, it obviously didn't have the lethal capacity. Take away the microgravity environment and the damn thing dies.”

  “You're willing to bet the country on that theory?” Simon retorted. “Or the planet?”

  “I think you're overreacting, Gerry.”

  “And I think your attitude is a little too cavalier!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” The president's words silenced the room. “Debate, questions, comments, fine. But no arguing or backbiting. We don't have the time.”

  “Does NASA have any reasonable expectation of determining what happened up there?” the national security adviser asked.

  The president shook his head. “I asked Harry Landon that same question. The answer is no. Although the survivor, Dylan Reed, is a medical doctor, he doesn't have the time, facilities, or help to conduct any kind of meaningful investigation. We have a general description of the bodies' condition, but certainly not enough to determine the cause of death.”

  He looked around the room. “There is one thing I can say for sure: Harry Landon does not believe that there's even a consideration of destroying the shuttle. Therefore, neither he nor anyone from NASA can be permitted into our discussions. Having said that, and since you've all had a chance to examine the facts as we know them, we need to take a preliminary vote. Bill, we'll start with you: salvage or abort?”

  “Salvage.”

  “Marti?”

  “Abort.”

  “Gerry?”

  “Abort.”

  As the president steepled his fingers, Bill Dodge spoke up.

  “Sir, I can understand why my colleagues voted the way they did. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we have a survivor up there.”

  “No one's losing sight of that, Bill,” Marti Nesbitt started to say.

  “Let me finish, Marti. I believe I have a solution.” Dodge turned to the group. “As you're all aware, I wear a co
uple of hats, one of them being the codirector of the Space Security Division. Prior to his tragic accident, Frank Richardson shared that responsibility. Now we've anticipated that at some point in time, a biological incident ― if that's what occurred ― might take place onboard a manned or unmanned flight. We looked specifically at the shuttle and engineered a special facility for just such a contingency.”

  “And where would this facility be?” Gerald Simon asked.

  “At our flight-testing range at Groome Lake, sixty miles northeast of Las Vegas.”

  “What are we talking about exactly?” the president asked.

  Dodge produced a videocassette from his briefcase. “It's best you all see for yourselves.”

  He inserted the tape into the VCR below the high-definition television monitor and pressed the play button. After a flurry of snow, an image of the desert came into sharp focus.

  “Doesn't look like much of anything,” the national security adviser commented.

  “Intentionally so,” Dodge replied. “We borrowed the idea from the Israelis. Given its terrain, Israel has few places to hide its strike aircraft. So they built a series of underground bunkers, with runways that don't look like runways ― and have a unique feature.”

  On the screen, what appeared to be desert floor began to tilt down at a gradually increasing angle. Dodge froze the frame.

  “This is where the runway appears to end. But underneath is a system of hydraulic jacks. The runway actually extends for another six hundred yards as it slopes into an underground bunker.”

  The camera followed the dip in the runway. On either side, a string of lights came on. As the camera descended the ramp, a huge, concrete-lined bunker appeared out of the gloom.

  “This is the containment chamber,” Dodge explained. "The walls are reinforced concrete, six feet thick. The air circulation is HEPA filtered, just like at the CDC hot zone labs.

  “Once the shuttle is inside, the facility is sealed. A special team would be waiting for Dr. Reed when he comes out and would take him into a decontamination chamber. Another team takes samples from inside the craft to determine what, if anything, is in there.”