The Pandora Deception--A Novel

by David Bruns

  “Be seated, everyone. Please.” The president was dressed in a tuxedo. He had just come from a state dinner with the president of France. He shot a glance at the secretary of state.

  “What’s the status of Egypt and Sudan?”

  Although the secretary was dressed for the state dinner, she had been in the Situation Room for the entire meeting prep.

  “Stable for the moment, sir. The Sudanese have agreed to keep their distance from the site of the raid. Once we briefed them on the true identity of the Mahdi, the Egyptians agreed to stay on their side of the border. For now.” She shot a glance at the screen and said in a wry tone, “Mr. Riley is about to add a layer of complexity to the issue.”

  The president engaged Don on the screen. “It seems our investment in the new Emerging Threats group is about to pay off.” His practiced smile seemed a little brittle.

  Judith Hellman, the director of national intelligence, answered for Don. “The situation with the Mahdi terrorist organization has taken a turn, sir.”

  The most powerful people in Washington shifted in their seats. Hellman was flanked by the secretary of state and Roger Trask, the director of the CIA. On the other side of the table, the vice president sat at the president’s right hand, reading glasses low on her nose. Next to her were the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, all attired for the state dinner.

  “Proceed, Don,” Hellman said.

  Don could see her watching the room, assessing the mood of the other attendees. This was the worst kind of intelligence briefing to use as the foundation for action. They had a large amount of circumstantial evidence that fit a narrative, but almost zero hard proof. Intelligence work was about connecting the dots, but there was always someone out there who could make a different picture from the same information.

  Careers were made—and lost—over these kinds of decisions.

  Don cleared his throat and motioned for Janet to show the clips of the captured bioweapons research lab. “Four days ago, United States forces secured the headquarters of the Mahdi, the terrorist who has been operating in the Nile River basin for the past six months. We discovered a biosafety-level-four research facility, which was being used to manufacture biological weapons.”

  The president squinted at the screen. “That looks like a pretty sophisticated operation. You said this was in the middle of the desert?”

  “Yes, sir,” Don said. “In Sudan, about a hundred kilometers from Khartoum. The lab is a modular design. It was purchased via a front company in Switzerland and shipped piece by piece to Sudan, where it was assembled by this man.” Janet flashed up a picture of the CEO of Recodna Genetics. “Jean-Pierre Manzul was a former French DGSE operative. Based on intel recovered from the raid, we know he was the person in the Mahdi videos.”

  “So, we caught him then?” the president asked.

  “Manzul is dead, sir, but the threat is still very active.”

  “How was it funded?” the vice president asked. Her dress for the state dinner was a black evening gown and a stunning diamond necklace that glittered when she moved.

  “We’re still getting to the bottom of that, ma’am,” Don said. “But the headline is that at least part of the funding came through an Israeli hard-right nationalist known as Haim Zarecki.”

  “This is going to be about Iran, isn’t it?” the secretary of state said. “Goddamn Zarecki. The Israelis should have muzzled him years ago.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Don said.

  Don nodded to Janet to put up a picture of Talia Tahir. “All of the scientists at the facility were either killed or detained, except for this woman, Dr. Talia Tahir, formerly a field researcher with the World Health Organization. Dr. Tahir’s past suggests a deep personal hatred of Iran. We believe she and Manzul conspired to use the Mahdi’s attacks to conceal a much larger plan to attack the country of Iran.”

  “You’re telling me that the Mahdi was a cover?” the president said.

  Don nodded. “We believe the Mahdi attacks were designed to distract the intelligence community from small-scale testing of biological weapons.”

  The president directed a sharp look at Judith Hellman, whose face had gone still. “Explanation, Director?”

  Hellman’s face reddened, but she kept her chin high. “It appears that the Mahdi was giving us what we were looking for, sir. A rogue terrorist network with just enough connections to Iran to seem plausible. The discovery of the bioweapons lab leads us to believe that the only purpose of the Mahdi was to distract intelligence agencies such as our own from the real goal.”

  “In other words, we got taken.” The president’s lips pressed into a firm line. “Tell me more about this Dr. Tahir.”

  “Her parents were killed in Lebanon by a Hezbollah bomb when she was twelve years old,” Don said. “We believe this is the primary motivator for her actions. Our narrative suggests this plan has been years, perhaps decades in the making. She formed a relationship with Manzul and together they conceived of a secret bioweapons research lab in the Sudan. They secured funding from entities in the region who would like to see the balance of power shifted away from Iran. They convinced a group of leading scientists that they were actually preventing the proliferation of bioweapons by using a Red Team–Blue Team approach.”

  “Let me guess,” the president said. “There was no Blue Team?”

  “There was no Blue Team, sir.”

  “How much weapons-grade biomaterial does she have?” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs asked.

  “That’s the good news, sir,” Don said. “In our estimate, she has only one sample. In airborne form, it could contaminate the room you’re in, but not much more. The real damage would be done by person-to-person contact, after the initial infection. From what we’ve been told, this Pandora virus has near-perfect lethality.”

  “Do we know where she plans to use this weapon?” the vice president asked.

  Don took a deep breath and nodded to Janet to put up the next series of images.

  “This is the city of Qom in Iran. Considered the holiest city to Shiite Muslims, Qom is located approximately a hundred and fifty kilometers south of Tehran and has a population of about one point two million people. In four days, it will be the site of a conclave of all the senior leaders of the Iranian government.”

  The president put his face in his hands. “I see where this is going.”

  “Yes, sir,” Don said. “Our best estimate is that Dr. Tahir plans to deploy the Pandora virus during this event.”

  The secretary of defense interrupted. “How serious a threat do you think this is, Mr. Riley? This woman barely escaped with her life from that Marine raid. She knows half the free world is looking for her. Why would she risk going to Iran of all places?”

  Instead of answering, Don signaled Janet to put up the image of the murdered scientists from the research lab. The room was silent.

  “Are those people?” the secretary of state asked.

  “These four people were Tahir’s coworkers at the lab,” Don said. “People she lived and worked with for months. She infected them with a dangerous strain of the Ebola virus and left them to die. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Tahir is a committed terrorist.”

  “And that was the Pandora virus?” the secretary of defense said.

  “No, sir,” Don replied. “Pandora is worse. Pandora is a chimera virus. Through gene editing, the Ebola virus has been amplified and merged with a paleo-flu virus harvested from a corpse thousands of years old. That means we have nothing like it in our inventory. It might take scientists months, maybe years, to come up with a vaccine. By then, Pandora could be all over the planet.”

  Don had hit his stride now, signaling to Janet to show the picture of the aerosol device. The stainless-steel container was shown next to a soda can for size comparison.

  “The sample taken from the lab fits into a device such as this one. By our best estimate, this container will keep the virus viable for as much as
two weeks once it is sealed inside. The device also serves as a deployment mechanism with an integrated timer and aerosolizer. In the case of the murdered scientists, a similar device was hidden in the room and deployed using the timer.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the chairman said. “You could hide that in a water bottle in a meeting room.”

  “Exactly, sir,” Don said.

  “Okay, Mr. Riley,” the president said. “You’ve successfully scared the crap out of us. Tell us what happens if Dr. Tahir manages to get close to the Iranian leadership.”

  “According to the one remaining scientist, the Pandora virus has a fourteen-day incubation period,” Don said. “During that time the infected individual will show no symptoms but will be highly contagious. If even one infected person got onto a plane, this could become a worldwide epidemic in a matter of weeks.”

  “Doing nothing and letting the Iranians figure it out for themselves is not an option then,” the vice president said.

  “State,” the president said, “what if we tell the Iranians everything? Tell them there’s a crazy woman out there with a biological weapon and a massive grudge? How does that play out?”

  The secretary of state stared at the table for a few seconds. “I think there’s two possibilities, Mr. President. One, the Iranians consider this an act of aggression—it would not be hard to concoct a story to blame us—and launch an attack. The second possibility is even worse.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The Iranians believe us and they capture Dr. Tahir and the Pandora virus. Iran with a biological weapon is not in the United States’ best interest, sir.”

  The president chewed on the edge of his lip.

  “We have a plan, sir,” DNI Hellman said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “We recommend a two-person team,” Don said. “One will come from my group, a computer specialist with the ability to access video surveillance in the area. The other would be a field agent to secure the virus and deal with Dr. Tahir.”

  The president addressed Hellman. “Do we have those assets in place in Iran?”

  “We don’t plan to use existing assets, sir,” Don said. “These are clean skins. We’re concerned about Mossad.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “The Israelis were instrumental in helping us track down the Mahdi headquarters,” Don said. “They know almost as much as we do about what’s going on. Our concern is that the Israelis might try to steal Pandora for themselves.”

  “Remember Stuxnet, sir,” Hellman said. “The Israelis might see this as an opportunity to gain the upper hand in the region.”

  “If we try to use one of our in-place assets in Iran to pursue Dr. Tahir,” Don said, “we could be tipping off the Israelis to her location.”

  “You have someone in mind for this mission?” the president asked.

  “I do, sir,” Don said. “Active FBI agent with the right security clearances and speaks Farsi like a native.”

  The president looked at Hellman. “Read her in. The last thing we need is the Israelis pissing in our pool. Our interests may not be in lockstep on this issue. We need the best possible chance of success.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hellman said.

  The president shut his briefing book. “Thank you, Mr. Riley, you may proceed with the planning for this covert action. Now on to the next order of business.”

  “Next order of business, sir?” Don said. “That’s all I have.”

  The president leaned onto his elbows. “Your plan assumes success. What happens if you fail?”

  The secretary of defense spoke up. “Sir, in the event of a biological-weapons release within the city of Qom, our recommendation will be a full-scale tactical strike.”

  “Mr. President,” the secretary of state began, “you can’t seriously be considering—”

  The defense secretary interrupted. “If this weapon is released, make no mistake about it, we will be at war with Iran. According to Riley, if we wait even a day, thousands of people could be infected. Within a few weeks, it’s possible the entire leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran could look like those bodies we just saw. Who will we even talk to at that point? Worse still, the virus would be spreading around the world.” He crossed his arms. “If the CIA’s covert action plan fails, our only option is a first strike on Iran. Period.”

  “I agree.” The president held up his hand to stop the secretary of state from further discussion. He shot a look at the chairman. “Admiral, move the Teddy Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group as far north in the Persian Gulf as you can without being too obvious. Prepare a first-strike package for Qom and let’s hope to God we don’t have to use it.”

  The president jumped to his feet with a wide smile. “Thank you all, but I need to be going. My French counterpart will be wondering where I’ve been.”

  The room stood as one. On the other side of the world, in a secure VTC room, Don and Janet stood also. The president’s gaze leaped across the distance to Don.

  “Mr. Riley—Don,” the president said. “Put up that picture again. The one with the bodies.”

  Janet searched the images and sent it to the viewscreen. The corpse closest to the camera had long blond hair and fair skin that looked more like bloody clay now.

  “I want everyone in this room to imprint this picture in your brain. If we fail, this is what could happen to the people you love. These are the stakes.”

  The only sound was the faint hiss of the phone line.

  The president’s smile returned like a light switching on.

  “But we won’t fail, will we, Don?”

  CHAPTER 48

  Athens, Greece

  Don Riley waited at the bottom of the stairs of the Gulfstream V jet. He was wearing a dark blue blazer over a pair of khakis and a polo shirt and he chewed on his thumbnail. A black SUV with diplomatic plates idled on the tarmac behind him.

  “Welcome to Athens, ma’am,” Don said to Liz Soroush with a mock salute.

  Liz hugged him as hard as she could. “Don, I knew it was you behind all this.”

  “We’re short on time, Lizzie,” he said into her ear.

  “Of course.” She released him and they walked to the SUV together. “You lost some weight, I see.”

  “I’d like to say it was because of my workout routine,” Don said, “but it’s mostly stress.”

  When they were in the car, Liz reached over and held his hand. “It’s good to see you, Don. Really good.”

  Since her move to Minneapolis with the kids, Liz felt as if she’d lost touch with the anchors of her former life. She missed the reminders of Brendan. He squeezed her fingers.

  “Ditto. How are the kids?” He shot a look at the driver. She knew he wouldn’t talk about why she was here until they were in a secure location.

  “Ahmad is trying to fit into the Minnesota culture by playing ice hockey. Not going so great, I have to say. I was told by one mother that if your kid isn’t on skates by the time they’re four, you’re considered a lost cause.” She laughed. “Beth, on the other hand, is doing fabulously well in volleyball. It’s a huge sport up there.”

  She looked out the window. The SUV made excellent time through the sun-drenched streets of Athens. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of the Parthenon. She’d never been to Greece before. She and Brendan had always said they’d go when things calmed down. Liz drew her attention back to Don.

  “Brendan’s parents are great. We bought a house only a few blocks from them so the kids can go over whenever they want. We got a dog, too.…” She sighed. “It’s great, really it is.”

  She studied Don’s profile. “You know, I still miss him? It sorta pisses me off, really. If I was the one who was gone, I’m sure he would’ve moved on by now, right? But I can’t seem to get there.”

  Don focused on something outside the window. “You know that’s not true, Lizzie. He was a mess without you.”

  The car pulled up to the gates of the embassy and stoppe
d while a security guard scanned the undercarriage of the vehicle. Like all United States embassies, the building looked like a fortress.

  Once the car had parked, Don hurried her through a back entrance and down into the basement. “We’ve got a SCIF set up down here.” He paused to scan his ID badge at a door, then pushed it open for her. “I brought some friends with me, too. They want to say hello.”

  The small room held only four workstations facing a large wall screen. Behind the stations were the three people she still thought of as midshipmen, even though they were all now commissioned officers.

  “Liz!” Janet got up first and hugged her. Dre and Michael waited for their turn.

  Liz felt a rush of nostalgia at their greeting. The last time she had seen them all together was shortly after Brendan’s funeral service at the Naval Academy. Intense emotions of that day echoed in her mind.

  Don cleared his throat.

  Liz wiped her eyes. “It’s time for the great unveiling. The only clue I have about why I’m here is that someone handed me a tablet with a language program to refresh my Farsi on the trip over.”

  The mention of the Iranian language shifted the mood in the room.

  “Liz, you’re about to be briefed into Operation Pinpoint,” Don said, his voice calm and professional. “As you’ve correctly guessed, it involves Iran and is extremely time-sensitive.”

  Janet had the wall screen running and ran slides for Don as he explained the background of the operation. Liz’s mind reeled as she saw pictures of the underground research lab and the murdered scientists. He finished the brief with the picture of Dr. Talia Tahir. She was a striking woman with exquisite blue eyes and a confident air. Liz found it hard to believe she was a mass murderer.

  “You’re sure she’s going to be in Qom in three days?”

  Don nodded. “This is her best chance before the virus expires. The search history we uncovered from the Mahdi’s computer tells us this is her target.”

  “You need a more experienced agent for this, Don.”