Pandora's Legion s-1

by Harold Coyle

  Three other Muslims chose to fight.

  One popped up behind a wicker chair fifteen feet from the door. Breezy’s front sight settled on the man’s torso and the operator pressed the trigger. Six rounds impacted the target. Got ‘im!

  The AK shooter slid down the back of the chair; Breezy’s muzzle followed him, as per doctrine.

  Across the room, another jihadist was already shooting. His suppressed Uzi clattered a long burst at Delmore. Two 9mm rounds clipped the big man, but were stopped by his Kevlar vest. He returned fire, advancing in a combat crouch: two bursts. One to the chest, one to the head. The target collapsed and sprawled in a spreading pool of blood.

  “Clear!”

  “Clear!”

  The entry team followed its well-rehearsed minuet, two pair “running the walls” while the third duo secured the first room. Breezy and his partner held the survivors at gunpoint, ensuring that the men on the floor made no furtive movements.

  With weapons raised, the operators spread out, searching behind furniture and opening doors.

  A thin, bearded man emerged from the middle room. He raised a revolver toward Breezy, who saw him one second too late. Breezy’s adrenaline spiked as he realized he could not beat the drop. He did the only thing he could: he fell to the floor and rolled for cover.

  Bosco saw the threat at the same time, but distance lent options. He shouted “Wodariga!” as he raised his MP-5.

  The target ignored the stop command.

  Bosco got a flash sight picture and held the trigger down. It was a quick and dirty burst, and he knew that it went high. But two rounds connected as the man was turning to the greater menace. Gouts of blood erupted from the Pakistani’s left arm and shoulder and he stumbled backwards, losing his balance and falling on his back. The Webley clattered to the floorboards.

  “Clear!”

  “Holy shit!” It was Breezy’s tail man, checking the first shooter near the door. “Six torso hits and this dude is still breathing.”

  “Cuff him!” Breezy was on his knees, fighting his way back to standing. He did not realize it yet, but he had not breathed in fifteen seconds. He forced himself to inhale, bringing fresh oxygen to his bloodstream.

  More “clear” calls came from the back of the building. The second team emerged, slung weapons, and began cuffing the prisoners.

  Breezy bent over the bearded man with the shoulder wounds. Looking at Bosco, the ex-paratrooper murmured, “Thanks, man.”

  The victim lay on his back and raised a bloody hand. “Friend,” he rasped. “I am a friend.”

  Breezy was taken aback. He did not expect anyone to speak fluent English. Then he recovered. “Yeah, everybody’s my friend when they been shot.” Breezy whipped out a tie wrap from his belt.

  The man raised himself on an elbow. “Dr. Padgett-Smith. I must talk to her.”

  Sharif saw that the English woman’s name registered with the American. Keep the initiative. “Please! I know about the Marburg virus!”

  Breezy stood up, still holding the tie wrap. Obviously the man at his feet had valuable information. The operator spoke into his headset. “Frank! We got a virus connection here. Send in Doc Smith!”

  * * *

  Fifty meters outside the house, Leopole turned to CPS. “Doctor, you’re wanted inside. Evidently there’s some information about the virus.”

  As the immunologist trotted toward the building, Leopole alerted the entry team. “CPS is inbound. Copy?”

  “Copy that,” Breezy replied.

  Moments later Carolyn Padgett-Smith stepped inside. She made her way around the corpses and the bound prisoners being searched. Breezy motioned to her. “Over here, Doc. This guy knows you!”

  “What?”

  Sharif looked up at the figure approaching him. Despite the full biohazard suit, he saw that the features were feminine.

  He held his left shoulder with his right hand, propping himself on his left elbow. Apparently he was in pain. She knelt beside him.

  The veterinarian inhaled deeply, savoring the moment. He lowered his voice, knowing she would have to come closer. “Dr. Padgett-Smith?”

  She was on both knees, leaning toward him. He saw the large, violet eyes that had caught his attention on the website. I have her!

  “Yes. I am Carolyn Padgett-Smith. Who are you, and how do you know about the Marburg?”

  The wounded man gave her a crooked smile. She wondered why he looked at her that way. She began to turn toward Breezy, standing behind her.

  “My name is Saeed Sharif. But I am known to you as Dr. Ali.”

  Before she could react, the man raised himself more, reached behind him with his right arm, and brought it forward.

  Carolyn Padgett-Smith felt a sudden, sharp pain below her left hip. Startled and confused, she looked down. She saw a 3cc syringe protruding from her suit and realized what had happened. Then she looked closer. It was a large-gauge needle and the plunger was three quarters of the way down.

  Without thinking, she drew the Hi-Power from its holster and pushed the muzzle beneath the man’s right eye. She pulled the trigger three times, then dropped the pistol.

  She looked up at Brezyinski, who was astounded at the previous few seconds. His MP-5 was still at low ready. Her voice was a whisper. “My god, he just killed me.”

  Carefully, Padgett-Smith withdrew the syringe from her hip. The resistance told her what she already knew: her muscle had absorbed the contents, creating suction that resisted withdrawal.

  CPS called over her shoulder. “Jeffrey! With me!”

  Holding the syringe level with her left hand, she levered herself off the floor with her right and slowly walked to the rear of the house. Malten followed, uncertain what the doctor wanted him to do.

  “Close the door,” she said. As he did so, she laid the syringe on a wood table. Then she said, “Help me off with this.”

  Malten set down his weapon and stepped to her. He noticed that her hands trembled as she rotated the bubble helmet. He said, “I’ll get it, ma’am.” He wanted to call her Carolyn but thought better of it.

  With the helmet off, she pulled the tape from her left wrist and Malten removed the right. She pulled off the outer gloves, then turned around. He tugged the orange suit off her shoulders and freed her arms. “All the way down,” she said.

  Malten undid the tape around the ankles and pulled off the lower half of the suit. Down to her scrubs, she quarter-turned again and untied the pants, pushing them to her knees. With her left side to him, she covered herself with her right hand and pulled up the scrub top with her left. “What’s it look like?”

  Jeffrey Malten realized that CPS had probably chosen him because he was a medic, but he still had to force himself to concentrate. He knelt down, looking at the reddening skin where the needle had penetrated, three inches below the hip bone. “It’s intramuscular, Doctor. I don’t think it got a vein.”

  She rubbed the spot; it still stung. “Small blessing,” she said. “If only I… I hadn’t…” Her voice cracked and she stifled a sob.

  Feeling vastly helpless, Jeffrey Malten reached down and pulled up her scrub pants. He tied the strings for her and stood up. Her arms went around his neck and the tears came. That was bad enough. Then she began crying openly, without any effort to hold back.

  The former SEAL hugged her close, feeling the hot tears run down her cheeks.

  * * *

  Leopole made the call to Black Team. “We have positive items for pickup. Start your approach now.”

  In the lead Mi-17, Terry Keegan descended toward the designated LZ, marked by yellow smoke. He told Eddie Marsh to remain in the holding pattern: no sense risking both birds on the ground at once. There was little wind so he set the Hip down with the nose pointed north, port-side door facing the house about seventy meters away. With his Pakistani copilot staying on the controls, Keegan unstrapped in anticipation of a quick briefing.

  Leopole scrambled aboard and picked up a headset behind th
e cockpit. He gave Keegan a thumbs-up. “We have three items and one priority passenger.”

  Keegan’s eyes widened in the red light. “We got the doctor?”

  “Well, yes and no. Let’s go discreet.”

  Leopole pulled off his headset and exited the helo. Keegan double-checked with the warrant in the left seat, then joined the ops officer thirty yards from the Hip.

  “What gives, Frank?”

  Leopole leaned close. “We got Ali alright, but he’s dead. He stuck Padgett-Smith with a needle and she thinks it’s Marburg. She’s pretty shook.”

  “Holy shit! How’d that happen?”

  “I’ll tell you when we RTB. Main thing is, Terry, we have three prisoners and I’m sending Carolyn back with you. There’s nothing we can do for her because of the incubation period. But I want to get her out of here ASAP in case she shows symptoms sooner than expected. She said she wants to talk to a colleague in London as soon as possible — apparently a homeopathic researcher. In any case, we need to get her to London immediately.”

  Keegan nodded. “Concur. I’ll make arrangements as soon as we offload at base.”

  Breezy and three other operators emerged from the house, herding the captives. The men were bound and blindfolded, directed to the Hip and helped aboard. Two were wounded, requiring extra assistance. Finally Jeff Malten appeared with Padgett-Smith grasping one of his arms.

  Feeling like an intruder, Leopole caught her attention. “Doctor, we’re going to get you to London just as soon as we can. But we need to know if you found any biohazard in there.”

  She took a moment to focus on the American. In the Hip’s strobing light her face alternately flashed red and dark, red and dark. Leopole felt as if her eyes were sunk in deep sockets like trapped animals regarding a dangerous world from their dens. “I found two syringes, including the one that…” Her voice trailed off. She cleared her throat and added, “Both are in the transport box with Omar.”

  Leopole patted her arm. “Okay, thanks… Carolyn.”

  She walked past Leopole and boarded the helo. Keegan noticed that Malten had to fasten her seat belt for her.

  As the twin Klimov turboshafts spooled up and the Hip got light on its wheels, Omar Mohammed sprinted to the LZ. He lurched to a halt and waved animatedly. “I wanted to say good-bye to her.”

  Leopole regarded his Muslim colleague. “You can say good-bye back at base.”

  Mohammed looked at the receding Hip. “Perhaps.” He turned to Leopole. “I wonder if I will ever see her again.”

  31

  SSI OFFICES

  Michael Derringer took the call from Quetta. His first comment was a heartfelt “Oh, my god.” For three minutes he jotted notes as Leopole explained the situation. Then he signed off.

  Ten minutes later Derringer convened a meeting in the boardroom.

  “Okay, here’s the hot wash from Frank. We’ll have details later.” He inhaled, cleared his throat, and began. “Our team was spotted closing in on the house. The Marburg cell was better organized and equipped than we anticipated, and maybe that’s my fault. We should have treated them with more caution.

  “Anyway, there was a brief firelight before our guys kicked in the doors. Four al Qaeda operatives were killed; three captured. No serious casualties on our side. Somehow — it’s still uncertain — Ali or Sharif was able to hide a syringe. Maybe because he was seriously wounded. He convinced our people that he was friendly and asked for Carolyn by name. When she arrived, he jabbed her with a needle.”

  “Oh, no.” Sandy Carmichael’s voice was hushed, fervent.

  “Unfortunately, Carolyn reacted in self-defense and shot him dead. At that moment he posed no further threat, and we should have been able to interrogate him. As it was, I don’t suppose we can blame her very much. She believes she’s likely to die, and she knows what that means.”

  Joe Wolf leaned forward. “Mike, do we know what’s actually in the needle?”

  “Not yet, but it stands to reason. Carolyn is analyzing the contents while waiting for a ride home.” Derringer folded his hands on the tabletop. “I’ll tell Phil Catterly and I suppose he should call Charles Padgett-Smith.”

  Sandy asked, “How soon can she get to England?”

  “Oh, Frank’s arranging that. Probably the quickest way is commercial air. She seems to have an attachment to Jeff Malten and he’ll travel with her. I told Frank to make it first class.”

  Wolf returned to business. “Okay, but what do we know about the bio threat? Is it over or not?”

  Derringer consulted his notes. “Omar conducted a field interrogation on each of Ali’s men. None of them admitted knowing about the lab or the virus carriers. They may be telling the truth. One of them indicated that Ali’s deputy is still at large, and the Pakis are following that angle.”

  “That’s not much to go on, Mike.”

  “Yeah, I know, Joe. But it’s what we have for the moment. Frank said that his Pakistani liaison officer will take up where Omar left off. Ah, I suggested that no SSI personnel be present, if you know what I mean.”

  QUETTA AIRBASE

  Major Rustam Khan gestured to Leopole and Mohammed. The three ducked into an unoccupied office in the hangar and Khan closed the door.

  “There are two others.”

  “Two what?” Leopole shook his head, perplexed.

  “Oh, no…” Omar Mohammed considered the options and defaulted to the worst.

  “Yes, I fear so,” Khan said. “Our, ah, interrogation of the prisoners confirmed it. Two young men left Sharif yesterday or the day before.” He shrugged. “The information is somewhat contradictory…” Mohammed could well imagine the reason for the informants’ lack of unanimity, given the likely methods of interrogation.

  Leopole’s frustration was audible as he blew the air from his lungs. He sagged against a desk. “Just when I was starting to think we’d wrap things up and head home.” He looked at the Pakistani. “What do we know about these two?”

  Khan unbuttoned his chest pocket and produced a paper. Leopole noticed that the meticulous officer rebuttoned the flap. “We have names, or partial names, but they are likely false. Remember that for months we only knew Sharif as Ali. Descriptions are similar enough to be accurate but they are also generic. Mid to late twenties, slight build, one short beard and one longer. ‘Regular features,’ whatever that may be.”

  Mohammed’s mind was racing, trying to play catch-up. “Very well, Major. We have two suspects, presumably infected with the virus. They have one or two days’ lead on us. Perhaps both reports are correct: Sharif may have dispatched them on consecutive days to different destinations.”

  Leopole was upright again. “Did the prisoners see them together or separately?”

  “I shall have to consult the transcript. But I thought that you should know this much immediately.”

  Leopole looked at Mohammed. “Omar, we won’t get to bed anytime soon. Major Khan and I’ll get on the horn to Buster Hardesty while…”

  The Ph.D. was on his way out the door, checking his watch. “I’ll call headquarters. The admiral should be in the office about now.”

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  Dr. Phillip Catterly arose early, he had not slept much after receiving the call from Derringer. Finally he threw off the covers, eased himself out of bed, and slid into his slippers. It would be dawn in barely an hour, and he wanted to reach Charles Padgett-Smith before Britons left for work.

  Catterly descended the stairs to his office and closed the door. He took his time dialing the international number, and fidgeted while the phone rang. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. He fingered his pajama top. Why’n hell do they put collars on PJs?

  At length a British voice answered. “Hallo?”

  Catterly inhaled, then exhaled. “Charles? Hello! This is Phillip Catterly”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Catterly in Virginia. I’m a colleague of…”

  Recognition dawned. “Oh yes! Phillip. Carolyn has mentioned
you. Terribly sorry — I’m not at my best before breakfast.” While Catterly formed the words in his mind, he could almost sense Charles Padgett-Smith putting two and two together. “Phillip, Carolyn is not here. But I expect you know that.” The voice remained level, controlled. But there was an urgency. “Is there…”

  “She’s coming home, Charles. I want to give you the flight information.”

  “Oh. Awfully good of you. I have pen and paper.”

  The American carefully enunciated the flight number and arrival time. Padgett-Smith repeated it and began to ring off.

  “Charles, there’s something else. Ah, something you need to know.”

  “Yes?”

  Catterly inhaled again. Then he began to speak.

  HEATHROW AIRPORT

  Carolyn Padgett-Smith had barely hugged her husband before she made a phone call to a homeopathic researcher. Meanwhile, Malten offered to collect the luggage. Charles waited until his wife was on the phone, then caught the American. “Mr. Malten, please…”

  “Mr. Malten’s my father, sir. Call me Jeff.”

  An appreciative nod. “Done. If you call me Charles. I’m not been knighted, you know.”

  Malten unzipped a smile. “Sure thing.”

  Padgett-Smith’s face turned immediately sober. “How is she? I mean, emotionally.”

  “She didn’t talk much during the flight.” The commando shrugged. “She took a couple pills and slept most of the time.”

  “But you must have some idea…”

  Malten’s gaze went to the polished floor. He was seeing events days and weeks old, things that Charles Padgett-Smith would never glimpse. “Well, your wife is one hell of a lady. She’s humped a ruck with us when it was uphill in both directions. She shot it out with bad guys in the mountains and she helped find the specimen that put us on the terrorists’ trail. She never complained, got along with a bunch of male chauvinists, and far as I know, she did everything asked of her. But after the needle, she sort of collapsed.” Malten paused, frowning in concentration. Then he said, “No, that’s not right. More like deflated. The spirit just went out of her. She’s got to be worried sick but she won’t say so. At least, not to me.”