by Hank Parker
He found a rusting petrol can tucked behind the forklift seat, uncapped and smelled it, and poured a couple of gallons into the tank. On the third try, the motor sputtered, backfired, and caught. Loud, badly out-of-tune engine sounds reverberated off the walls. If his captors were anywhere near, they’d come running. And if they weren’t nearby they’d surely have lookouts watching the building. He’d have to move quickly. He revved the engine and pointed the forklift toward the front door.
The machine didn’t go very fast and Angus was scared guards would discover him before he reached the wall. But in what felt like hours, but was only a few seconds, the forklift reached the loading dock door and tore it off its hinges. Because of how slowly the lift was moving, Angus was able to jump off before the machine propelled off the dock to the pavement below.
The loud crash finally brought the guards.
As Angus struggled to his feet after his leap off the forklift, he saw two men moving toward him at a dead run. “Itigil kung nasaan ka! Stop where you are!” shouted the first man in Tagalog.
Angus quickly dropped back to the ground and rolled toward the forklift just as he heard the loud retort of a gunshot. The forklift now screened him from the men. That would give him an advantage. Even though they would know he wasn’t armed, they’d have to approach cautiously. Most likely they’d split up and come around the lift from opposite sides. He had maybe thirty seconds to consider his options. The most sensible course of action was to simply surrender. That should assure his survival, at least for the time being. But they’d lock him up again, even more securely than before. And he’d have no way of saving Curt and Mariah.
He decided to fight.
He remembered the screwdriver in his pocket. A weapon, after all. His agency training had taught him how to kill with flimsier objects than a screwdriver, especially if he had the element of surprise. But two armed men at the same time? Then he saw the petrol can lying on the ground next to the forklift.
He reached for the can, unscrewed the top, and sprang to his feet. In less than a second he took in the scene. Guard one rounding the forklift on the left, perhaps ten feet away, arm extended, gripping a pistol. Guard two on the other side, slightly farther away, apparently unarmed. Without hesitating Angus propelled himself toward the first man and hurled the open gas can toward the man’s head. Even as he registered the quick sequence of events that followed—the can hitting the man square in the face, diesel fuel splashing into his eyes, a scream, a gunshot that apparently went wild—Angus was already tackling the man, locking his left arm around the man’s neck, retrieving the screwdriver with his right hand, driving it into the man’s right eye, feeling the man go limp. Angus grabbed the man’s gun and turned just as the second man leaped at him, clutching a knife.
Angus fired, fired again, and quickly rolled out of the way. The second man fell and lay still, blood beginning to ooze from his open mouth. Angus shakily stood up, pocketed the gun and the knife, and surveyed his surroundings. He appeared to be in an alley lined with low buildings that looked like more warehouses. He heard the sounds of traffic at the far end of the alley, where he figured a main road must cross. There were no nearer noises, but the gunshot would have carried some distance. It was time to get out of there. Before leaving, he searched the pockets of the two dead men, found some cash, and pocketed it.
Forcing himself to walk at a normal, unhurried pace, to avoid attention, he moved down the alley to the main road, flagged down a jeepney, and climbed aboard. First stop: U.S. embassy.
* * *
As they followed the soldiers along the narrow jungle path to the guerrilla camp, Curt could feel Mariah distancing herself from him, and he thought he knew why. He’d found her half-naked, tied to a tree, on the verge of being raped. She had to be a bundle of raw nerves, of conflicting emotions—lingering terror, gratitude that he’d rescued her, shame to have been found so helpless, so vulnerable, so exposed. It would take time for her to recover psychologically, and Curt resolved to be as gentle and supportive as possible.
He also assumed that Mariah was reacting to the violent gun battle and, especially, to seeing him shoot and kill two men right in front of her. Sooner or later, he figured she’d ask the question, the one about the first person he’d ever killed. Mariah had a way of probing into him. And if he answered, there’d be more questions, questions he could never answer, not even to her.
As they traipsed through the jungle he thought back to the first time he’d taken the life of another human being. Mogadishu, Somalia, late 1992. His first mission as an Army Ranger. The United States was supplying food to the starving, war-torn city. He was in command of a platoon whose task was to protect the airlift from blocking efforts by warlords and gangs. On a sun-seared October day he was accompanying a rifle squad on a patrol, and without warning a small, thin Somali wearing a dark T-shirt and ball cap emerged from a doorway, his rifle raised and pointed at the lead member of the squad. Curt fired off a quick burst and dropped the Somali before the ambusher could get off a shot. He warily approached the body, feeling no emotion at first, not even satisfaction, just a dull sense of having performed as expected. Then he saw what he’d done.
His first kill was just a kid. Curt knew it was hard to tell age in this part of the world. Most people looked older than they were. Even teenagers might have passed for late twenties. But the boy who lay in a crumpled heap at Curt’s feet, arms flung out to the sides as if in supplication, could not have been more than thirteen. Curt had aimed at his victim’s chest—this was the first time he’d fired his weapon at another person and he couldn’t bring himself to go for a head shot—so the boy’s face was unmarred and strangely peaceful. His eyes were open and his mouth had formed a small circle as if his last word was “Oh.”
The other Rangers had searched and secured the area and then gathered around Curt. No one had spoken at first. Curt hadn’t been anticipating anything like congratulations, or even an acknowledgment of what he’d done. After all, it was expected—and he was an officer. But the other men would have checked the body, would have seen that the KIA was just a boy. Finally, the squad leader, a corporal a couple of years older than Curt, had turned to him with a look that was both sympathetic and apprehensive and asked if the squad should move out.
Curt had nodded assent and told the corporal that he first needed to take a leak. He’d ducked behind a building, bent over, and puked. By the time he’d rejoined the squad a minute later, he’d pushed the incident out of his mind. And there it had stayed, buried, except sometimes in the vulnerable, early predawn hours.
“Everyone hold up.” Alvarez had stopped in the trail and was pointing ahead. Grateful for the interruption to his thoughts, Curt scrutinized the dense foliage and made out a large thatch-roofed hut that nearly blended into the jungle. The building looked deserted but smoke still curled from dying cook fires, giving off the smell of burned rice.
Alvarez motioned for silence. He sent two soldiers to scout it out.
The soldiers reported that the building seemed to be abandoned. Alvarez signaled to Mariah and Curt to follow him.
* * *
Doctor Vector passed through customs and immigration at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, and walked slowly through a mass of noisy people greeting arriving passengers, doing his best to suppress a hacking cough that had grown much worse on the flight from the States. He carried a small bag with a couple of changes of clothing and a toiletry kit, and an oversized briefcase with a panel separating an upper section with a foam pad and some innocuous paperwork from a lower level that contained disguised, sophisticated weapons that would never set off any metal detectors or arouse the suspicions of inspectors.
Vector had swallowed two more ribavirin pills in the plane’s restroom before the aircraft had begun its pre-arrival descent. He had enough of the antiviral pills to last another week, just enough time to complete the missi
on. He knew, because he’d waited too long to start the course of ribavirin, not knowing until it was too late that he’d been exposed to Kandahar, that the medication could do little more than delay the inevitable. But that would be enough. All he needed was to buy some time. To summon all that remained of his fast-dwindling reserves of energy. And to do all he could to hide his symptoms from others.
But disguising his illness was becoming more and more difficult. The coughing was bad enough. Now he was frequently spitting up blood and his eyes were bloodshot. A rash had broken out on his upper body. He was so weak that he had to stop frequently to catch his breath.
He joined the taxi line outside the airport, and willed himself to be patient as he waited his turn. When he finally reached the head of the line and approached the waiting cab, a well-dressed European-looking man dashed in front of him and began to open the cab door. Vector screamed at him and roughly pushed him aside. The man stumbled, caught his balance, and swiveled toward Vector, his fist raised. A nearby Filipino policeman rushed over and positioned himself between the two men.
Now I’ve done it, thought Vector. Uncontrolled anger and aggressiveness could be telltale symptoms of Kandahar. He should have prepared himself for such a reaction, done all he could to suppress it. He forced himself to be polite to the cop.
After admonishing both of them, the policeman affirmed that the cab was Vector’s and that the other man should join the end of the line. Vector breathed a sigh of relief, entered the taxi, and gave an address to the driver.
* * *
When they entered the hut, Mariah saw that the interior was dry and comfortable, with walls and a floor of tightly spaced bamboo splits. A large, dark hardwood table with a dozen chairs occupied the center of the main room. There was a two-way radio and other electronics equipment in the corner. She watched as Alvarez pried the lids off several wooden boxes.
“Ammunition, grenades, claymores,” he announced. He turned to Mariah. “Let’s have a look around. Keep your eyes open for anything of possible interest.”
Mariah wasn’t sure what to look for. She didn’t see any documents and she doubted the insurgents would have left any incriminating information behind. She stood by the doorway and scanned the room, looking for anything that seemed the slightest bit unusual.
She immediately spotted something out of place—a reed mat with brightly colored geometric designs lying on the floor near the communications equipment. She couldn’t imagine the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas being concerned with aesthetics in their jungle hideout, and the mat didn’t appear to be in the right position for a prayer rug. She walked over to it and slid it to one side with her foot.
The bamboo flooring beneath had been cut in a large square. She called to Alvarez and Curt.
“Good eyes,” said Alvarez, taking in what she’d found. He pulled a long, straight-edge knife from a leather sheath hanging from his waist. He slipped the tip of the blade under a cut section of the bamboo and pried upward until he could fit his fingers under the flooring. As he began to lift, metal subflooring came into view.
“Better stop there, Lieutenant,” said Curt. “Who knows what’s under that thing. Might want to move your men back. Mariah, you too.” After the soldiers and Mariah had moved outside the hut, Alvarez carefully removed the bamboo section, exposing a hinged, square steel plate secured by two heavy-duty screws. He backed off the screws and swung the plate up, revealing a set of stairs descending from the opening. He turned to Curt, with a questioning look on his face.
Curt shook his head and joined Mariah outside the hut. He told her what they’d discovered under the flooring and asked her to help him search the surroundings. They soon found a large vent pipe, partially obscured by vegetation. “Looks like we’re dealing with an underground lab,” said Curt. He walked back to the hut, followed by Mariah.
Curt opened the duffel bag they’d brought from the States and he and Mariah rigged up a makeshift containment chamber by erecting a polyethylene enclosure directly above the steel plate. They entered the enclosure and sealed it tightly to the floor with duct tape.
Within the cramped enclosure they put on portable biohazard suits packed in the bag. Each suit was equipped with a full hood and battery-operated respirator, which was basically a fan that pulled air through a HEPA filter into the hood, assuring that the air was purified for breathing. Fully charged, the batteries should last at least four hours, but Curt knew that it had been several days since they were last charged and that the tropical heat and even moderate exertion could reduce their run time. They’d have to work quickly.
He retrieved a small sack from the duffel bag. The sack contained a set of tools, more polyethylene sheeting, a package of swabs, test tubes, ziplock bags, and two sets of disposable surgical scrubs. If they became exposed to any pathogens down below, they’d have to leave their biohazard suits behind, decontaminate as well as possible, and change into the scrubs.
He directed his flashlight into the opening. The steps led down to a large metal door. Curt began to descend the steps, aiming his flashlight ahead, followed closely by Mariah, who closed the hatch behind them.
* * *
Not until he arrived at the entrance of the U.S. embassy in Manila did Angus begin to breathe more easily. The cab ride from the warehouse area had taken nearly thirty minutes in heavy traffic and narrow, congested streets, a half hour that had seemed more like half a day. Angus had carefully watched the surroundings the whole trip, frequently turning to look behind him, but hadn’t seen anything that looked even remotely threatening. Still, his stomach had been in knots the whole trip.
One more immediate challenge remained: to convince the Marine guard at the embassy gate to let him through, or at least to call inside, even though he had no passport, no identification whatsoever. Angus had one thing in his favor. He remembered the phone number that Cothran had given him back in Honolulu, and chided himself. He should have had more confidence in his memory from the beginning. Then he might have avoided all this.
* * *
Mariah followed Curt down the stairs below the floor of the hut and waited as Curt cracked open the metal door at the bottom, revealing thick rubber gasketing around the edges of the entrance. They stood back and listened. After several seconds of silence, Curt opened the door completely and shined the light inside. He motioned to Mariah to follow him. They moved together along the wall of a long corridor and soon came to another closed steel door. Curt tugged it open and flipped on a light switch just inside.
Mariah’s breath caught. She was looking at a state-of-the-art biological laboratory. Here, beneath a ramshackle hut in the heart of a jungle, were stainless-steel lab benches, shelving with glassware and supplies, sinks, fume hoods, and storage cabinets with hazardous chemical labels.
She and Curt began to explore. Two large doors on one side of the room opened into a walk-in freezer and cold room. Another door led into an equipment room. Mariah was astonished at the collection of high-end scientific instruments: a flow cytometer/sorter; a high-pressure liquid chromatograph with mass spectrometer; a PCR thermocycler; a fluorometer and spectrophotometer; and image analysis/stereology inverted microscopes and a confocal microscope. A desktop computer, monitor, and printer sat on a table along one wall. A locked steel cabinet stood next to the table. Curt pried the cabinet door open with a screwdriver and revealed a portable safe with a combination lock. He removed the safe and told Mariah they’d take it with them and find a way to open it when they were back at base camp.
They found more doors leading out of the main lab. One opened into a microscopy space and another into a tissue-culture and histological preparation room. Inside one heavy steel door they discovered two generators, a large air-conditioning unit, and air-handling equipment. They opened yet another door at the far end of the main lab. Inside was a changing room with lockers. Just beyond they could see showers. This place gives the Barn a run fo
r its money, Mariah thought. Curt removed the plastic bags containing the disposable surgical scrubs and placed them in an empty locker. On the other side of the showers they found another room with biohazard suits suspended from hangers along the wall. Mariah could see a door just beyond and assumed it was the entrance to a MCL. Was it hot inside, teeming with dangerous pathogens?
She looked at Curt but couldn’t make out the expression on his face. Her breathing had shallowed out into short gasps, and she willed herself to calm down. She watched Curt walk over to the far door and pull hard on its lever to overcome the negative air pressure sucking the door in the other direction. She followed, shutting the door tightly behind her.
The first thing Mariah noticed in the lab was a complex apparatus consisting of a plastic cylinder and tubing inside a stainless-steel frame. The apparatus sat on a table. She leaned closer to read a label—FiberCell Systems, Inc.
“Do—” She’d forgotten how loudly she had to speak to be heard through the mask of her biohazard suit. She started again, louder: “Do you know what this thing is?”
“Looks like a bioreactor,” Curt said. “They manufacture vaccines—or high-density concentrations of viruses. I’ve seen one at Fort Detrick, but never would have expected something this elaborate out here in the jungle.”
Mariah leaned closer. “The cylinder is half-full,” she said. “Some kind of liquid.” She retrieved swabs from her bag, wiped the apparatus in several places, and sealed the swabs inside test tubes.
As she finished her task she saw Curt investigating a biosafety cabinet in a corner of the room.
There was a machine of some kind inside the cabinet. She didn’t recognize it but thought it looked a little like a small grinding mill. She saw Curt bring his hand up to his face mask. Was he double-checking the seal?
Curt carefully approached the cabinet and took several swab samples from the surface of the machine and surrounding area.
