He took a step back and spoke with dulcet voice that flowed about the tiled room.
“You are a very clever man, Dr. Khorasani.”
With effort, Kamran lifted his head to look at him.
“By now you will have surmised your interrogators are suffering miserably. It is a wonderful method of revenge, I must admit. The pathogen is remarkably unpleasant. And so quick to incubate. I wonder if that was deliberate?”
The man inspected his own hands, staring down his prodigious nose at his finely trimmed nails.
Kamran spoke. “Who are you? Where is this place?”
“You may think of me as your host,” the man said. “And you are among august company. You are sequestered where Ovid himself spent out his final days.”
Kamran’s brow creased.
“All in good time, Dr. Khorasani. For now, I have questions of my own. To begin, can I assume that you exhibit no symptoms of the pathogen?”
“I … I require treatments. Please, I need them,” Kamran pleaded.
“And yet you remain contagious. Fascinating. You are, as the Americans say, a Typhoid Mary. You will forgive the expression. I have diagnosed hemorrhagic fever, which was to be expected. After all, we brought you here. Can you confirm for me that this is the family Filoviridae?”
Kamran nodded.
“Ebola or Marburg?”
Kamran closed his eyes and whispered, “Marburg. A novel strain.”
The man grinned. “How wonderful. It seems the rapid incubation was indeed deliberate. A remarkable accomplishment. More than I expected. You are being most helpful, doctor. A pity you were not more forthcoming.”
His smile vanished.
“But this is as old as history itself, is it not? You, a Persian. I, a Greek. Have we not been adversaries across time? Let us expatriates shed these ugly histories and become friends.”
He rapped on the door. When it opened, he handed Kamran’s blood to a figure wrapped in white protective gear.
“Let us get something more nourishing in you, and we may continue our discussion in more comfort.” He looked over his shoulder. “There will be precautions, of course. Your presence makes many of my associates uncomfortable. They know so little about these things, whereas I am quite familiar.”
His striped shirt and white hair disappeared behind the closed door, and Kamran sat once again alone in the room, feeling he had lost grip on anything resembling sanity.
◆◆◆
Within an hour, the masked figures returned. While one sanitized and changed the bandage on his arm and a stubborn cut under his eye, the other laid a pair of white trousers and a long tunic in his lap and dropped a pair of slippers on the floor at his feet. From their masks, they mumbled instructions he couldn’t understand. They spoke English as the Greek had. It seemed the beatings would end, though any thought of instilling more fear into his captors seemed impossible. As his fear of pain receded, his anxiety welled, and his guts quickened. His breath shortened as they pressed his wrist for a pulse and removed his soiled shirt, which he had worn since he first left Russia.
Kamran dressed with effort. The freshly laundered shirt filled his throat with a pleasant scent, a comfort that made him acutely aware of his own miserable state. Cautiously, he stood and steadied himself as he tied the drawstring at his waist.
One of his masked caretakers shepherded him toward the wall with unintelligible commands. The other placed a covered plate upon the metal chair, then collected his filthy clothes in a black plastic bag. They left, and Kamran approached the meal they provided.
Steam seeped from the plate’s rim. He kneeled before the chair and removed the cover. The savory smell of a flank of chicken on a bed of rice overwhelmed him. They left no fork or knife, so he tore at the chicken with both hands and shoved bites into his mouth. Eating stung his swollen lips, but every bit of the tangy chicken was worth the effort. It warmed him and set his nose and mouth to watering. When he had eaten every bite and grain, he gnawed on a thin bone, then placed the plate beneath his chair.
The cracks of sunlight on the paneled door darkened. Kamran wondered at them in a daze as he lay on the hard floor digesting his meal. He wondered too late if they had drugged or even poisoned the food. He didn’t care.
With the crank of a motor, the overhead door rose, and long lights and shadows filled his makeshift quarantine. Outside was a paved ramp. A white van with opaque windows eased its way down to the doorway. Kamran propped himself on his elbows and caught a glimpse of men in jackets and sunglasses wandering at the top of the ramp, their arms resting casually on submachine guns that hung from their shoulders.
The van doors opened. A familiar face with a thin mouth and gaunt cheeks appeared. His captor Andrei leaned out from the rear of the van and motioned to him with a quick dance of his fingers. Kamran shuffled to the van. Along each side of the interior was a flat bench that straddled the wheel wells. A black metal cage cordoned the rear from the driver’s cab. Andrei stood near the cage and lit a cigarette. The driver complained to Andrei through the surgical mask that covered his face. Andrei glared at the man and blew gray smoke out his nostrils. He sat at the bench on the right and pointed at the opposite bench for Kamran to sit.
Kamran pulled himself up into the van’s compartment with his aching arms. He sat as far from Andrei as he could manage, an arrangement he suspected they would both find agreeable.
With another puff of smoke, Andrei snapped at him. “Are you helpless? Close the doors.”
Karman tugged on each door and slammed them shut.
From the rear of the van, he could see nothing outside. Ahead, he stole glimpses of cypress trees that lined a long drive and rows of grape vines beyond. The setting sun faded orange to their left and the van coursed its way onto wider paved roads where Kamran could hear passing vehicles. I am here just inside this van, he thought. Can’t you find me? No one would even know to look. Perhaps his interrogators had spread the virus to others, and they would attract attention. It would explain why they moved him. As his thoughts raced, he realized the consequence of his fanciful hope. Someone else would suffer as his interrogators had and perish in fever and blood. It was better that no one looked for him. A darker thought stirred. Perhaps this was what he deserved for what he had done.
The driver steered toward the sunset on an open highway. They drove until full night consumed the summer sky and the hazy glow of a large city loomed ahead. The driver orbited the city at a distance until he veered from it and the van climbed mountain roads into the immutable dark.
Andrei stayed still, moving only to reach for another cigarette in his jacket. He moved like a snake, slow and deliberate. His eyes were open slits that sometimes shifted toward Kamran. Once past the city, the driver tapped at the radio and discotheque music filled the compartment. At last Andrei spoke, his lips hardly moving.
“Turn off that shit music.”
The driver’s thick arm reached again for the radio and the music grew louder. Andrei tapped the stub of his cigarette on the bench beside him. He stood to grasp the cab’s cage and lean toward the driver. Again he spoke, this time hushed. Kamran couldn’t hear him. Andrei returned to his seat and again leaned his head against the van wall. The driver turned off the radio and gripped the wheel tightly, his head focused on the mountain road.
Kamran’s eyes fell heavy. The van stopped, and he jerked awake, suddenly aware Andrei was gone. The rear doors opened, and bright light formed a brilliant halo around a masked figure clad in protective gear. Squinting, Kamran followed the figure through a steel door marked with a triangle of warning symbols alerting fire risks, caustic materials, and biohazard. He thought of the biohazard symbol as he entered and how he had become the warning incarnate. The hazard coursed through his bloodstream.
They walked down a long hallway lined with glass windows and dark rooms. Steel doors with slender vertical windows fortified the labs. In each sealed room, Kamran saw a vaguely familiar arrangement of countertops a
nd lab supplies. Behind him trailed the stomping feet of his captors. Andrei entered the hallway carrying a bulging plastic bag at his side.
At the end of the hall, the man in protective gear waved a magnetic card over a gray panel, and the stout door responded with a click. As he entered, Kamran stole a glimpse of his captor’s face on the ID card. The tiny photo showed the face of a smiling man in spectacles in need of a haircut. His name was obscured by a blue-gloved thumb.
They had arranged the room for him. The counters were bare, one inset with a single gooseneck sink. Along the side wall was a cot much like the one he slept in the last several nights, though here was a luxury—a pillow wrapped in a vinyl case. The wall showed faint angular smudges where a calendar or poster once hung. Quiet consumed the sterile room, save for the dull thrum of fluorescent lights overhead.
Andrei entered, and Kamran backed away with his arms crossed.
“You will begin your work soon,” Andrei said.
He wanted to say no, that he would do no such thing. That they could all rot. That he would rather die. It was, of course, a lie. They would know it to be so.
He nodded.
“What did you think? You and your little plan to run away like a little coward. Did you think there was ever a reporter waiting of you in Istanbul? Did you think no one would notice? That no one would find you?” Andrei laughed aloud and made a little mocking sound. “That part was easy. Like breathing. You are not so clever. Just a coward. And where could you go, huh? To home? To the Paris? You are nothing to them. To anyone, you stinking coward.”
Andrei sniffed the air, disgusted.
“If it were up to me, I’d put you back on that plane and let you spread that fucking disease all over the world yourself. For you and everyone to choke on.”
Andrei tipped the plastic bag he carried and dumped its contents on the floor. He left, and Kamran heard a click as the door locked shut. The men moved down the hall beyond his sight.
Tears welled in Kamran’s eyes. He held his breath and knelt on the cold tiles, fighting his deepening shame. There before him rested his last possessions. They gave him someone else’s clothes. Not new, but cleaned and pressed, though now they lay crumpled in a heap on the floor. A new undershirt and his old shoes were scattered nearby, and he scooped them together next to his small leather case.
He opened the case and found within the last vial of his antigen. He did not think he would see it again. He was battered and weak, his immune system susceptible. Never had he experienced stress like this. Without the tablets he’d made himself, he would eventually succumb to the virus. The thought that disease still lurked within him, waiting to attack his body like a carnivore from within, made him tremble. With the medicines returned, he had a shallow hope to survive.
Whoever the white-haired man was that spoke to him, he understood the need. The man said they would talk again. The offering was his work.
Kamran gathered his things around him. Then he noticed a lone object just under the cot. He knew at once what it was, and he crawled over to it. It was his watch, the object of such focus for him as they beat him. He clutched the gold watch in both hands as he leaned into the cot and buried his face into the folded blanket to muffle his sobs.
Chapter 6: Long Shot
Vienna, Virginia
3:58 a.m., Friday, May 10
Paul Corso woke minutes before his alarm sounded and flicked the switch to off before it roused Janey beside him. The alarm hadn’t made a single noise in years. His need for sleep lessened with age. By routine, his body had become accustomed to the early hour, his mind plotting out the day as he woke. He sat at the edge of the bed for several minutes, chin resting on the heel of his hand while a dozen thoughts coalesced. Outside his bedroom window he heard the calm rustle of maple leaves. He and Janey preferred the window open as soon as the season allowed. Far off, the beltway awakened with steadily rising stream of white noise.
Downstairs he made coffee from the French press Janey had given him for Christmas last year. He thought of it as pretentious at first. Too elaborate for his needs. But it became his fondest vice, a first and best cup he savored before each sunrise. While the coffee seeped, he thumbed through emails for any updates from Kay. He had left her last night while she coordinated with the Office of Technical Collection on the mobile phone records. Pierce’s discovery in Batumi gave them enough leverage for today’s briefing to keep the operation alive.
Meanwhile, another team had verified the hijackers named Khasan Kagirov and Abdul Islayev. The two of them moved together in insurgent circles after the second Chechen war. They still needed to confirm the others in the attack, working back through Kagirov’s associates. But that took time. For now, his teams could only gather their intelligence, piece by piece. Everything pointed to the Chechens as fighters, not fanatics. But things had a way of changing in Chechnya, never for the better.
He moved to the office with a steaming mug in one hand and the day’s Washington Post in the other. He stood in his boxers and wrinkled undershirt sipping his coffee with the paper spread out on his father’s old oak desk, a relic from his law firm. Paul’s hair was too long—a wiry mess from fitful sleep that he flipped from his brow as he adjusted his reading glasses. He scanned the headlines out of habit. Syria roiled in chaos. News that the president sent a carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf caught his eye. It was likelier to provoke responses from Iran than quell them. He saw the shifting connections between each article, but the piece on Iran didn’t even mention the situation in Syria. At least the Giants acquired a veteran receiver who might shake things up.
He looked up to see Janey standing in the hall in her satin pajamas. Her face was pale. Faint freckles dotted her neck. Her hair fell over her eye and down to her shoulders. She kept it blonde, probably for his sake. It suited her, but he didn’t mind the gray either.
“Well, what are you doing up?”
He put down his coffee and approached her with his arms wide.
“I wanted to see you.” She yawned.
“That’s my girl,” he said and held her for a while. “Want some coffee?”
“I just might.”
They shuffled into the kitchen together and he poured her the rest of his French press.
“You know, you might actually use that robe I bought for you,” she said with a sleepy look. “With you strolling around in the house like that, the Ericsons are going to have a good laugh looking in your office window.”
“Janey, if anyone’s looking at me at four in the morning, they deserve what they get.”
“Big day today? Working late?” she asked.
He shrugged. She already knew he would.
“You need to shave.” She scratched his chin and then perched on a stool with her mug in her hands.
Paul made them both toast while she planned out her weekend. He would forget most of what she said by the time he got to Langley, but dinner tomorrow after mass sunk in. He marveled at her energy and wondered how he’d ever been graced with a woman who stayed with him through all the years.
◆◆◆
At eleven minutes past the hour, Paul glanced around at the dozen faces that filled the briefing room. Those he knew by name looked bored, some sipping lattes from the Starbuck’s downstairs. Those he didn’t recognize wore anxious expressions awaiting their debut before the Director and the intense scrutiny of their supervisors.
Next to him, Kay Linh propped her elbows on the long conference table and flicked her pen on the laminate top. She focused on her brief’s executive summary, reading it for what he guessed was her fifth time in twelve minutes. Her lips moved as she read. Her black hair had lost its normal lustrous sheen, and she constantly pushed it behind her ear without success while she read. He noticed a white smudge on her slacks and realized that she wore the same outfit from the day before.
Director Frank Drummond entered the room from a side door that set into the wood paneled wall. A polka dot tie wagged before hi
m as he paced across the room. His deputy—a man half again his size—trudged immediately behind.
“Good morning, everyone. Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s pick it up right away.” At the end of the table Drummond found a leather chair and propped himself at the edge of its seat, arms spread on the table. “Harley, take a seat.”
Deputy Director Harley Gilchrist stood near the back wall. His burly frame nearly blocked a bulletin board covered with photos and placards that a pair of analysts had pinned there minutes earlier. The younger analyst craned her neck to see her handiwork in hopes it wouldn’t be lost.
“Sorry, Frank. My back’s already sore today. I’d just as soon stand for the moment,” Harley said.
“Suit yourself. Suzanne, get us started.”
Suzanne Tasker cleared her throat. “Of course, sir. As you know, we have multiple targeting operations in and around Georgia. We have confirmed the identities of two of the Chechen hijackers and identified three others. These three here appear to be related. They’re maternal cousins of the apparent leader, Khasan Kagirov. We don’t have any names for this fifth man in the photos, but we should be able to connect him to the others. However, this man—that’s number six in the images you have, sir—does not appear to be Chechen. We think he’s probably Russian, but we don’t yet have any details on him. Now, the Georgians have connected some of these men to Doku Umarov and fighting in the second Chechen conflict. They may be one of the many jamaat under Umarov’s so-called Caucasus Emirate. If so, this is their first action against soft targets in the region.”
The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller Page 7