‘Sounds good. What’s your story, then?’
Darren said, ‘Pretty damn simple. I wanted to do like you did. Check out what other people were doing about Final Winter.’
Monty grimaced. ‘Let me guess this time. Nobody’s doing a damn thing.’
Darren nodded. ‘Just found one contemporary reference, from a week ago, when Adrianna got the clearance from the Colonel to proceed. Besides that. . . nothing.’
Monty raised his coffee cup and then, as if he’d changed his mind, lowered it to the desk. ‘Don’t like this, don’t like this at all.’
‘Me neither.’
‘What do you think’s going on?’
Darren said, ‘Maybe Adrianna’s got bum info. Or maybe people higher up aren’t taking her seriously. Or maybe this damn thing is so secret and need-to-know that nobody else, ah, needs to know. Could be a lot of things.’
Monty said, ‘Lot of things, none of them good. Look, Adrianna should be back from Memphis tomorrow. I think it’d be time for a meeting, don’t you think? I want to feel good about what we’re doing and right now I don’t feel good at all.’
‘Sure ... unless, well,’ and Darren found himself laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Unless Adrianna’s working for them. The enemy. Then saying something tomorrow might be bad for our health. But she doesn’t fit the profile.’
‘And what profile is that?’
‘Angry Muslim male.’
Monty nodded, ‘Yeah. Thank God for that.’
‘True,’ Darren said, not sure if he even believed in God. But still, it wouldn’t hurt. ‘Thank God for that.’
~ * ~
Now Vladimir and Imad were in a rocky area of Wyoming, flat sand and scrub brush and sharp peaks and not a hell of a lot else. Along the way Imad had stopped for a few short naps, and the Russian was amazed at how these naps had re-energized the youth. Imad had also driven the truck and its cargo with ease, impressing even Vladimir with his skill. He had said something and Imad, almost shyly, had replied, ‘You learn a lot, driving in Damascus and Yemen. My uncle, once he moved us away from Canada, he owned a trucking company. He taught you once, and he taught you again with the end of his belt if you failed him in any way.’
Despite everything else, Vladimir was impressed with the young man. It certainly took skill to drive such a big rig, and to drive it on such a poor road, just dirt and rocks, indicated a rare talent. They had gotten here with the aid of a detailed map provided along with the other documents and, as before, the map had been right to the point, indicating a turnoff from the interstate near a town called Dayton, and yet another turnoff that had led to this dirt road.
‘Up ahead,’ Imad said. ‘We will have gone two point three miles. I see where we are supposed to go.’
Vladimir nodded, saw the spot. There was a large expanse of rocks and boulders that rose up to the left, in a sort of overhang. Imad maneuvered the truck underneath the overhang and switched off the engine. The sudden lack of noise made Vladimir’s ears ring. Imad opened the driver’s-side door and got out, and Vladimir followed from his own side. The dirt crunched underneath his boots. It was hot and the air was dry and still. He shaded his eyes from the sun and looked out. Nothing. He looked up at the overhang of rocks. Good choice. Hidden away from any prying eyes, whether it were a Cessna or a Predator or a Keyhole satellite thousands of miles up.
Vladimir said, ‘Feel like home?’
‘What?’ Imad said, coming over next to him.
‘The desert. Doesn’t it feel like home?’
Imad laughed. ‘What do you think, all Arabs are Bedouins, longing for the simple life of tents and camels and oases and the shits? No, thank you. I like the cities and I like electricity and flush toilets. And I’d like to get this job done before this damn air dries out my face.’
‘All right, then. Let’s get it done.’
They went to the rear of the truck, where Vladimir unlocked the sliding door. It clattered up and again he and Imad dumped the brightly colored boxes of Chinese toys onto the dirt. This would be the last time they would have to use these damn plastic trinkets. The black plastic cases came out and Imad unsnapped the lids, propping them open. Vladimir looked at the equipment nestled in the gray foam, and Imad said, ‘Who are they?’
‘What do you mean? Our paymasters? Our bosses?’
‘Yes,’ Imad said. ‘Who do you think they are?’
Vladimir said, ‘Does it really matter?’
‘No, not really,’ Imad said. ‘It’s just that…well, whoever they are they must hate America very much.’
Vladimir reached down to help the boy take the equipment out. ‘Then they have plenty of company, don’t they?’
~ * ~
Alexander Bocks was in his office with two members of the Tiger Team and Randy Tuthill, who was sprawled out in one of Bocks’s chairs and who didn’t look very impressed with what he had heard. Earlier, Adrianna had protested that she only wanted to make the presentation to the General and no one else, and he had not allowed that. He had said, ‘Randy knows my aircraft better than I do, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to pull this off without his say-so. Miss Scott, Randy stays or you can find yourself another airline.’
So Randy had stayed, right through a repeated briefing about the upcoming anthrax attack and the options the Tiger Team and the intelligence community had reviewed and rejected - save for one, the clandestine immunization of a large chunk of the American population. At that little gem of information, Randy had raised an eyebrow and looked over at Bocks.
‘So because of anthrax, the union got dental?’ he asked.
Bocks said, ‘What use is anything if the anthrax gets through?’
Randy shook his head. ‘What a cluster-fuck. All right, then, why am I here?’
Bocks looked to Adrianna, who looked over to Doctor Palmer, who was pale and seemed to be sweating. Palmer cleared his throat and said, ‘A section of the Centers for Disease Control has been working on the airborne immunization system for some time. The canisters with the vaccine are almost completed. They look like this.’
He reached down to the floor, pulled up his small case, opened it up. He pulled out the green canister - about the size of a large thermos bottle - and passed it over to Randy. The mechanic turned it around in his big hands and said, ‘The vaccine will be contained in this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it safe?’
Bocks felt uneasy, knowing that this was going to be a tough one.
No one answered.
Randy looked at each of them.
‘I said, is it safe?’
Bocks said, ‘Doctor Palmer? If you please?’
The doctor looked like he was in the dock of a courthouse. He said, ‘Like any type of vaccine, there will be side effects. The vast majority of the population exposed won’t suffer any ill effects, or if they do, it will be minimal. There will be others - statistically, only a few - that may suffer severe effects.’
Randy said sharply, ‘Up to and including death, right?’
‘Correct.’
Bocks said, ‘It’s tough, Randy. But there doesn’t appear to be any other option.’
Randy sounded grim. ‘Of course there’s always another option.’
Adrianna said, ‘And what do you suggest?’
The mechanic kept on turning the canister in his hands. ‘Killing the fuckers over there, instead of waiting for them over here. That’s a better option.’
Bocks felt his breathing relax. Randy was going to be okay. Sure enough, his chief mechanic changed the subject with the next question.
‘How will it be controlled?’
Palmer said, ‘Entirely automated. There will be a two-part radio-altimeter switch. When the aircraft rises to a certain altitude, the canister will be activated. When the aircraft descends to a certain altitude, the canister will cycle open, and the spraying will commence.’
Randy said, ‘And where in hell
do you expect this to go? Duct-taped on an outside wing?’
Back into the case the doctor went, and he came out with a bunch of documents. He leafed through them until he pulled one out. Doctor Palmer said, ‘AirBox flies the Boeing MD-11 aircraft, configured to haul cargo. It has twin Pratt and Whitney engines, and associated with these engines you have two air-conditioning packs. One for each engine. Correct?’
Randy said, ‘You’re doing fine, doc. Go on.’
Palmer said, ‘These air-conditioning packs take hot air from the engines, pass it through a heat exchanger, and it’s then compressed and cooled. This air is used to pressurize the cabin and cool the air in it. With each air-conditioning pack, there is an exhaust system. We’ve examined the schematics. There is a way of installing the canisters such that they bleed into the exhaust system. Entirely automatic. Nothing to be controlled from the cockpit.’
Bocks looked at the expression on Randy’s face, wasn’t sure what was going on there. He said, ‘Doctor, if you could, please pass over the schematics to Randy. I want him to have a look at it.’
The papers went over. Adrianna sat there, hands folded. She seemed tense, coiled. Bocks could not imagine the pressure the woman was under. Randy flipped through the pages, grunted a couple of times, and then flipped through the pages again, more slowly. Outside, the sound of a jet taking off made the windows rattle for a moment.
Randy said, ‘General, it looks like it can be done...but where’s the Supplement Type Certificate? You can’t just add something to an aircraft without an STC from the FAA.’
Bocks said, ‘Miss?’
Adrianna said, ‘We’ll take care of the FAA.’
Randy shook his head. ‘Maybe so. But Jesus, somebody there’s gonna raise hell about us doing something like this. I mean, doing this without—’
Adrianna interrupted. ‘Like I said, we’ll take care of the FAA. The question I have is, can security be maintained? We can’t have scores of mechanics installing the canisters and then talking about it later. There has to be some way of keeping this confidential.’
Bocks said, ‘Don’t worry about my crews. My big question is the time-line. What are you looking for in terms of aircraft?’
Adrianna said, ‘Forty. We determined that with forty of your aircraft, we can successfully complete the immunization of about seventy-five percent of the urban population. The intelligence information we have indicates a half-dozen of our largest cities are targeted, as well as Washington DC.’
‘What the hell happens to the other twenty-five percent?’ Randy asked. ‘They get written off?’
Bocks was beginning to admire the woman, for she had a sure touch with answering the tough questions. He had served with similar women in the Air Force, especially with those women who ran maintenance squadrons and who had ready answers and a poor appreciation of bullshit.
Adrianna said, ‘The anthrax attacks will take place in our major cities. It doesn’t make sense for an attack to take place in rural areas, so those areas won’t be treated with the immunization program. We also realize that we have a limited number of aircraft. A number will be tasked to one city. Five, for example, for the New York City metropolitan area alone.’
By now, Randy was scribbling on the back of one of the sheets of paper with a pen. Bocks waited patiently, knowing that the answer Randy was about to give was going to be the right one. It might not be an answer that the group was looking for, but it was going to be the only answer that counted.
Randy dropped his pen. ‘When do you want to fly?’
‘As soon as possible,’ she said. ‘We believe the attack will take place in just under three weeks, on May 29.’
‘We can do forty aircraft in four days, if we’re lucky, if the FAA isn’t up our ass, and if you get the canisters to us. When can you get them here?’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
‘You sure?’ Bocks asked.
Adrianna’s voice was full of confidence. ‘Guaranteed, gentlemen.’
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
For a while, the silence in the Wyoming desert was interrupted by the low hum of machinery as Vladimir and Imad worked to change what they had been driving. All exposed areas that weren’t part of the main body of the truck and the trailer - tires, mirrors, windshield, mudflaps, front bumper - had been covered by heavy-gauge brown paper and secured by equally heavy tape. It had been long, hot work, and both men had stripped off their shirts. When the paper had been secured and double-checked against guidelines from one of the black plastic cases that they had picked up in Idaho, they had continued their work. Portable spray-painting machinery and folding aluminum scaffolding had helped them to turn a bright yellow trailer with Seamarsk markings into something olive drab and military-looking.
Now Vladimir stood back, eyeing the truck and the trailer, matching it up with sample photos and schematics helpfully provided by their unseen bosses. Imad came up to him, clear plastic goggles pushed up over his head, respirator hanging around his neck. His chest was dark brown and scrawny, with a thick mat of black hair. Behind him was the scaffolding surrounding the truck, and the chugging air compressor that powered the spray gun, the compressor in turn powered by cables leading to the truck’s battery.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Are we done with this darkie work?’
‘Soon,’ Vladimir said. ‘Very soon. We let this coat dry and then we can put on the new license plates and serial numbers, and other identifying marks. Another two hours, then we’ll be done.’
‘Good, because I’m about—’
There came the sound of an engine, overpowering the noise of the compressor. Vladimir turned and so did Imad. Vladimir said something in his own language - ‘Fuck your mother’ would have been the best English translation he could have come up with - and Imad said something in his own language as well.
Coming down the dirt road was a dark brown Jeep Wrangler with oversized tires, bounding its way towards them.
‘Don’t say anything, don’t do anything,’ Vladimir said. ‘If we’re lucky, they will pass us by. There must be something in here they want. They don’t want us.’
But God and luck were not with them. The Jeep Wrangler skidded to a halt about a dozen meters away. Hanging from the rear of the Jeep was a collection of sacks and ropes, and two young men and two young women got out, talking and laughing. They wore T-shirts and sunglasses and expensive-looking sport clothes and sport footwear. They talked among themselves for a moment, and then the two men started towards Vladimir and Imad, shaking their heads.
‘Not good,’ Imad said.
‘You are correct,’ Vladimir said. ‘Not good.’
~ * ~
In his rental GMC Pontiac - and why in God’s name were so many rental cars white? Was it a global rental-car rule somewhere? - Brian Doyle sat on a side street in the Mt Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati, going over his notes for the day. The Princess had supposedly given him the day off, and he had taken the day off, but being the enterprising sort he had taken a commuter shuttle from Memphis to Cincinnati to see what he could find.
And so far, in the few hours he had been here, he had found a lot of nothing.
He scratched at the back of his head.
This part of Cincinnati was a large hill that years and years ago had been the home of the city’s best and brightest, including President William Howard Taft. But the years hadn’t played nice with Mt Auburn, and it had fallen into the urban cycle of poverty and decay. Now it appeared that it was coming back, as gentrification worked its magical market ways. The changeover in home ownership and such had no doubt led to Brian’s problems, for Adrianna Scott’s presence here was as thin as a piece of paper soaked in the rain. There had been almost nothing, nothing at all, save for two things. One came from a visit to her high school, known here as the Hughes Magnet School. The place had been a seemingly well-managed chaos of students and teachers and administrative staff, and a half-hour there had produced paper recor
ds that matched what had been in his file, save for one thing that he had been looking for. Adrianna had told him that she had come here after her parents had died, and neither the high school nor the earlier report had any record of her transfer. It was as if she had arrived out of nowhere and had slipped right into the classes without any problem.
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