Well, that was the truth. The war might have been over for everyone else, but not for him, not for Vladimir Zhukov, he who had the same last name as the famed Marshal of the Soviet Union, Giorgiy Konstantinovich Zhukov, who had led millions of Red Army soldiers to crush Hitler and destroy the fascists...and whose own people, decades later, would allow the Germans to reunite and become one again. And who would later toss in their lot with the capitalists, with the West, with those who would have crushed them if the spirit had moved them.
He looked around at the buildings, the roadways, at all the hustle and bustle of what appeared as progress. Some progress.
Vladimir finished the coffee, tossed the cup to the ground. One more piece of garbage to join the others. And speaking of garbage, here he came, his comrade, his partner, who was to help him in this very last battle. A Freightliner tractor-trailer truck, bright red, with no trailer behind it, roared its way into the parking lot, Imad sitting proudly behind the wheel, smiling like a trained chimp from the famed Moscow State Circus, showing off his talents. Imad parked the truck and switched off its engine. Vladimir went over to join him. Imad opened the cab door, leapt out, still grinning.
‘See? I told you I could drive this. Not a problem, no problem at all.’
‘So you can,’ Vladimir said, looking over the truck, seeing that the tires appeared to be in good shape, the bodywork was clean and recently washed. ‘And you rented this for the agreed amount of time?’
‘I did,’ Imad said proudly. ‘One full month. They were eager to rent it. There were many more in the lot, but I chose the best one.’
Vladimir got on his knees, examined the truck’s under-side. Nothing blatantly out of place, but he was not a mechanic, nor was he a diesel-truck driver. Which was why he was burdened with this child to accompany him. A gift from his mysterious benefactor. He got up, brushed gravel and dirt from his knees. A cold wind was blowing, smelling of salt and exhaust.
‘And the paperwork? You used the proper credit card, the proper identification?’
Imad’s smile faltered. ‘Of course I did. Do you think I am a fool?’
‘I don’t know,’ Vladimir shot back. ‘You tell me. The first time your friends tried to take down the World Trade Center, one fool went back to the rental agency, to get back his deposit for the truck that carried the bomb. That led to his arrest and the arrest of many others, and it s only because the Americans wanted to arrest you instead of kill you that you fools succeeded the second time around. Will you do that here, Imad?’
‘No,’ Imad said, his face darkening. ‘No, I will not. And remember this, my friend: despite whatever that “fool” did, we did come back. We came back and we did it right. So don’t forget that. No one else has.’
Vladimir shook his head. ‘No, it has not been forgotten.’
Imad grabbed his upper arm. ‘And do not forget this. My own cousin ... my own cousin, I did what had to be done. I did what I was ordered to do. The poor boy...all he wanted to do was to come to Canada and marry a Canadian girl and someday own a small restaurant. And I infected him with that awful anthrax and dumped him off at a hospital like a bag of shit, so that whatever must be done is happening. So don’t doubt me.’
Vladimir shrugged off the boy’s touch. ‘I don’t doubt it. Just do your job.’
‘And you do yours, Russki. You do yours.’
‘I shall,’ Vladimir said, walking back to the motel room. ‘And get your belongings ready. I want to be over the border by nightfall.’
Imad kept up with him, now smiling, like a man who would cheerfully feed you a sumptuous meal and then strangle you later that night. Imad said, ‘Very well. Over the border at nightfall, all to defeat the enemy.’
‘Yes,’ Vladimir said, finding himself finally agreeing with the child. ‘To defeat the enemy.’
~ * ~
Montgomery Zane was driving to his Tiger Team office when his pager started vibrating at his side. He grabbed the pager, toggled it, and then read the text message. He shook his head. A hell of a fucking time for a trip. He looked ahead, found a place to turn around, and did just that.
No Tiger Team visit today.
~ * ~
Brian Doyle looked out the window of the Delta airliner, saw the city of Memphis and the Mississippi river unfold beneath him. Elsewhere in the cabin was the Princess, Adrianna Doyle, looking very quiet and unflappable over there by the other aisle, and behind her sat a very unhappy and apparently nervous Dr Vincent Palmer. Although they traveled on the same flight, there were rules against sitting together, probably to prevent some idle chitchat that could be overheard by either a New York Times reporter or a terrorist cell leader, both of whom were hated to different extents within the Tiger Team management.
Below Brian the view of Memphis seemed to tilt up and down as the aircraft descended. He hated flying. Not that he was some Luddite who thought that transportation progress had ended with the arrival of the steam locomotive; no, he just hated being strapped into a thin aluminum tube and having his life completely in the hands of a pilot he had never met, a mechanic whose work he didn’t know, or an aircraft assembler who might or might not have had a bad day when putting together an intricate piece of machinery.
So there you go. He much preferred to have his life in his own hands, thank you very much, and being in control of the situation. Being 30,000 feet above the earth in the hands of somebody else didn’t strike him as being in control.
The descent continued, the ground getting closer and closer, and Brian couldn’t help himself, he closed his eyes for a moment as the wheels hit the runway. In control. The past several months, being at the beck and call of Adrianna and her bosses, that sure didn’t meet the definition of being in control, now, did it?
After long minutes of wading through the people exiting the aircraft, each juggling a piece of carry-on luggage, and passing the poor flight crew with their robotic ‘’Bye now’ - and did they do that because some marketing whiz a thousand miles away thought such greetings would mean a point five percent increase in return flyers? — he joined Adrianna and the not-so-good doctor outside the jetway. Adrianna nodded to him and Vincent just looked miserable. He was holding a silver metal case in one hand. Brian went up to him, grasped the doctor’s left wrist for a moment, and said, ‘The joys of technology, doc, am I right?’
Victor looked surprised. ‘What? What do you mean?’
Hand still on the doctor’s wrist, Brian tugged at a thin steel cable running from the handle of the case to a handcuff hidden under the shirt sleeve. Brian said, ‘Back in the bad old days, there was a thick chain running to the case. Now it’s just a thin steel cable. Harder to spot. But still, it’s easy enough to get the case off your wrist.’
‘How’s that?’
Brian couldn’t help himself. ‘Just use an axe. That’s all.’
Adrianna said, ‘Brian ...’
Vincent said, ‘But I was told the cable was resistant to all cutting devices.’
Brian grinned. ‘Who said anything about cutting the cable? All it’d take to get the case away is to cut off your hand.’
Adrianna came around, grabbed his upper arm. ‘Come along. No time for games, Brian.’
Despite it all, he enjoyed her touch. ‘You got it, Adrianna. No time for games.’
~ * ~
They exited the terminal, got into a cab, and the cabbie snorted when he heard the address from Adrianna. ‘Man, what a waste of time ...’
Brian was sitting in the front, letting Adrianna try to cheer up the doctor. ‘Don’t worry, pal. We’ll give you a big tip, just the same.’
‘You will?’
‘Sure,’ Brian said. ‘Unlimited expense account. For any-thing and everything we want. Even if it’s for a cab drive a couple hundred yards away.’
The cabbie got them out into the steady flow of airport traffic. ‘Must be nice, throwing money around like that. You guys must have one hell of a job.’
Brian said, ‘Pal, you h
ave no idea.’
~ * ~
Alexander Bocks stood alone in his office, looking out the window at the collection of hangars and outbuildings that belonged to him at the Memphis International Airport. Oh, lawyers and bankers and accountants would put up a hell of an argument, saying that these structures did not belong to him, they belonged to AirBox and a bunch of subsidiaries and stockholders and this and that, and Bocks would nod at all the right places and then say, fuck you, they’re mine. They weren’t there before I started, and they are there now, and they belong to me.
He raised a hand, touched the window, felt the vibrations that came from the jet engines and ground equipment and luggage handlers. He pressed his hand tighter against the glass, as if trying to remember well what the sensation was like, what it was like to stand here and feel that thrumming sensation against your skin, that sensation that meant decades’ worth of work and dreams were finally being fulfilled, that he had something he could call his own, something that in a very few hours would—
The door opened. Bocks dropped his hand as if he was a twelve-year-old boy caught in a bathroom by his mom, a copy of her Cosmo magazine in his hands. He turned and Elizabeth stood there, Elizabeth Bouchard, a retired warrant officer from the Air Force, who had taken early retirement to come join him at this crazy venture, to go after the big boys at UPS and FedEx, and who was now a very wealthy woman, stock options and all, but still preferred to come to work every day for the general.
He said, ‘I really wanted some quiet time, Liz.’
‘I know, sir, but you have a visitor.’
Bocks went over to his desk, to the clear piece of square Lucite that stood up six inches and which held his day’s schedule, like the menu of some restaurant or something. He glanced down, then looked up and said, ‘First appointment isn’t for an hour. Who is it?’
‘An Adrianna Scott. With two associates.’
‘Tell her to go away.’
Liz came forward, her fiftyish body still looking uncomfortable in civilian clothes, like she should be wearing BDUs instead of a ridiculous pants suit from Talbots, and she passed over a business card. He looked down, saw the woman’s name and the very familiar emblem and main phone number of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Bocks handed the card back to her. ‘Sorry, I don’t go all weak in the knees anymore when unannounced visitors from Langley turn up. Tell her to make an appointment. Preferably for next week.’
Liz held the card and said, ‘She asked me to say something to you.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Sky Fall, sir,’ she said. ‘She told me to say “Sky Fall”.’
Now there’s irony for you, Bocks thought, for when Liz said those two words something indeed made his knees quiver for a moment. Good goddamn. Well, another day shot. And the possibility was now there for a whole host of nasty days ahead.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Show her and her associates in. And be prepared to cancel everything else for today.’
‘Today?’ Liz replied. ‘Are you sure? I mean, it looks like—’
‘Yes,’ Bocks said, heading back to his desk. ‘Everything. And no phone calls, Liz. And give me a minute before you show them in.’
‘Very good, sir,’ she said, walking out. Bocks sat down in his chair and then let his head rest in his hands, started rubbing at the temples, and closed his eyes real tight. In this position, he thought that the vibrations had returned, but no, it was probably just an illusion, make-believe - which he desperately hoped was what this entire day would become.
~ * ~
Adrianna Scott walked into the general’s office, Victor and Brian right behind her. There was the quick exchange of handshakes, and she said, ‘General, allow me to introduce my two associates. Doctor Victor Palmer, of the Centers for Disease Control, and Detective First Class Brian Doyle, of the New York Police Department.’
The general looked fit and trim, like most military men she had ever known, and as she expected the mention of Brian’s rank brought a quick smile to his face. ‘NYPD? What are you doing here? Going to come after me for some unpaid parking tickets in the Big Apple?’
Brian smiled back at him. ‘It can be arranged. If you’d like.’
‘What’s that? Arranged to be arrested, or arranged to be let loose?’
‘Whichever makes sense,’ Brian said. The general laughed and they sat down and Adrianna was so glad she had worn the longest skirt she owned, for her legs were really trembling with the tension of being this far along. Before leaving on the trip she had taken a dose of acrimophin, a beta blocker that was supposed to ease her racing heart, but she guessed that she should have taken another dose, for her heart rate was roaring right along.
She took a quick glance around the office, saw something that surprised her, and the general picked up on it, right away. ‘Something wrong, Miss Scott?’
Good for you, Adrianna thought. Don’t underestimate this one, don’t even come close to having him think you’re bullshitting him, because it could collapse and end right now, with her on a flight to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and all those years of dreaming and working would be gone in an instant.
‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘it’s just that I find your office...well, different.’
The general eased back a bit in his leather chair. ‘Different how?’
She nodded in the direction of the solitary framed photo, up on the wall. There were bookcases full of books and what looked to be a tiny bar in the other corner, but just the one photo, of a young man with big ears in an Air Force enlisted man’s uniform, looking very young and very serious. Over the many years the chemicals in the photo had faded out, giving the man’s skin a greenish-yellowish tinge, but she could still recognize a young Alexander Bocks.
Adrianna said, ‘Where’s everything else?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The plaques, the photos, the—‘
‘—framed photos, framed certificates, all that framed crap,’ Bocks said back to her. ‘Yeah. The ego wall. Look at me shaking hands with the President. Look at me with the Pope. Look at me, getting pinned when I became a general. The hell with that.’
Bocks swiveled in his chair and said, ‘See that? That’s a skinny kid with big ears who grew up in a small town called Arapahoe, Nebraska, and who knew he didn’t want to farm like his father and grandfather. So he joined the Air Force and worked hard and the Air Force found a place for him, educated him, sent him around the world a few times and made a man out of him. That’s the only thing that’s on my wall. To remind me where I came from, to remind me what I had to do to get here.’
Adrianna stayed silent as Bocks moved his chair back. His gaze was now focused right on her. ‘All right. You didn’t travel here unannounced to admire my empty walls. You need something. You used a coded phrase, telling me who you are and establishing your bona fides. You’ve got my attention, miss. Use it well.’
She nodded. This was where it was going to pay off, for she had been practicing this presentation for months - years, even! - and being so close, she wasn’t going to fail. She said, ‘General, we need your help.’
‘How?’
‘We’re going to be attacked in just under three weeks, simultaneously and across the country. Major metropolitan areas. Our best guess is that the twenty largest population centers have been targeted.’
‘Nukes?’
‘Anthrax.’
‘Delivery system?’
Adrianna said, ‘Teams of four or five operatives in each city. Each has a vehicle, a rental car or truck. They have weaponized airborne anthrax virus in baggies. Delivery system is absurdly simple. Drive into each major city and drop Baggies off at intersections, where foot and vehicle traffic will spread the spores.’
Bocks’s gaze never wavered. ‘Casualties?’
‘Horrific. Tens of millions of deaths within weeks. Total collapse of economy and government. We—’
He held up his hand. ‘Don’t need to go into
any details. And you need my assistance? How? Transport of medical supplies? Evacuation? What the hell can I do that the government can’t?’
Adrianna said, ‘Doctor Palmer will explain, sir, if you permit.’
‘Go ahead.’
Now it was Victor’s turn, and Adrianna was even more nervous. During the past few days, Victor — never a calm one to begin with - had become more erratic. He did his job just fine, but there’d been a day or two when she’d noted a patch of stubble on his face where he had missed shaving. And food stains on his shirtsleeves. And a frayed necktie. Telltale indications of stress that had never been there before.
But he rose to the occasion as he opened up the silver case, removed a dark green canister with the yellow stenciled markings, and started talking. Though Victor’s voice was a monotone, Bocks paid rapt attention to details of the experimental vaccine, the spraying mechanism, and the radio-altimeter switch that both armed and triggered the canister’s operation. Victor’s briefing went on for eleven minutes exactly, and when he was done and had replaced the mock-up canister in the metal case the only thing audible was the sound of the aircraft, out in Memphis, taking off and landing.
Final Winter Page 21
