Vector

by Robin Cook

  “What about the ceiling?” Laurie asked.

  Jack shined the light up between the joists. Almost immediately the tiny flashlight began to dim.

  “Uh oh,” Jack said. “I’m afraid we’re about to be plunged back into darkness.”

  No sooner had he said that than the light brightened for a moment and then rapidly dimmed again. A minute later it went out altogether.

  ______________

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Thursday, October 21

  9:15 A.M.

  Mike Compisano let his pale blue eyes rise up the face of the imposing forty-two-story Jacob Javits Federal Building. Its immensity intimidated him, as did the power of the authority it embodied. At the same time, its authority angered him.

  Mike had become a skinhead because of the rage he felt as a member of a society that had left him behind like so much flotsam in the wake of a speeding ocean liner. From his perspective, the African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians he’d been with in high school had more opportunity than he had as a true American thanks to affirmative action and a bunch of other screwy programs. And as Curt had pointed out to him, it was the government the federal building represented that made it all possible.

  Unconsciously, Mike’s hand slipped into the pocket of his baggy trousers. He fingered the smoke bomb he was to set off in the vent. He understood in a way he didn’t completely comprehend that he was about to play a critical role in striking back at the people who had robbed him of a future.

  Mike eyed the bureaucrats rushing past him to enter the building. They were the ones responsible for the mess the country was in. He would have preferred to stop one and smash his arrogant face had not Curt warned him not to make a scene.

  Mike checked his watch. Finally it was nine-fifteen. He’d been standing in front of the building since eight-forty-five, trying to keep warm. He was dressed in the only suit and tie he had. He’d tried to brush his short blond hair to the side and make it lie flat, but it had refused to cooperate. It was standing up like a bristle brush.

  Mike took a breath and started off. He was nervous and his heart was beating fast. He wanted so much to succeed, and was afraid something would go wrong.

  The first challenge was security. Mike lined up and passed through the metal detector. To his chagrin it sounded.

  “What’cha got, sonny?” one of the uniformed security men asked.

  Mike nervously dug a hand in his pocket. He came up with a short, stubby screwdriver. He was worried a coin wouldn’t work on the vent.

  “So, you’re planning on doing a little screwing today, huh,” the man said with a chuckle.

  Mike nodded. He was directed to come through the metal detector again without the screwdriver. There was no signal.

  “Good luck,” the security guard said. He handed the tool back to Mike.

  Relieved at not being asked any questions about where he was going, Mike took the elevator to the third floor. As he disembarked he could hear the noise and feel the vibration of the machinery. He walked down the hall as Curt had directed, heading straight for a men’s room. It was exactly where Curt had said it would be. Mike entered, according to plan.

  Unfortunately, the last booth was occupied. Mike had to bide his time. He washed his hands for lack of anything else to do and waited. Finally the man came out. He eyed Mike briefly before washing his hands and exiting.

  Mike went into the stall and closed and locked the door. The vent was just above his head. With the screwdriver he got the cover off without difficulty. Standing on the toilet he could look into the duct. It went straight in for about three feet and then angled off.

  As instructed, Mike took out the smoke bomb. He lit a match and then touched it to the wick. It caught immediately. With a sideward flick of the wrist, he tossed the bomb into the vent. It ended up coming to rest at the point the duct angled off. Mike could see that it was already putting out smoke: a lot of smoke.

  After replacing the vent, Mike left the stall and returned to the hallway. Back at the elevator he pushed the button and waited. It took only a moment to get down to the ground floor. Just as he was exiting the elevator, the building’s fire alarm sounded along with a recorded announcement played over and over: everyone should leave the building via the nearest stairway.

  Enjoying a sense of accomplishment, Mike went out the main entrance along with a handful of other people. Those trying to enter were told they’d have to wait until the alarm was investigated.

  In the plaza directly in front of the building, a congregation began to form. Cigarettes were lit and strangers began to converse. As the minutes passed, the group grew in size as people continued to stream from the exit. Mike joined the burgeoning crowd but kept to the street-side periphery.

  Within five minutes approaching sirens began to sound. A few moments later two fire trucks rounded the near corner and quickly pulled to the curb directly in front of the building. The first truck had “FDNY Engine 7” stenciled in gold letters on its side.

  Mike looked at his watch. It was nine-twenty-nine. Glancing back at the lead fire truck, he saw Curt emerge from the passenger side of the front seat. He was dressed in full turn-out gear, which included his combination Nomex and Kevlar jacket, matching pants, leather helmet, and boots. Strapped to his back was his Scott pack in its harness with the face mask in easy reach. In his hand was a black rubberized canvas bag.

  Steve got out from the back seat carrying a red high-rise bag. Together they ran for the entrance ahead of all the other firefighters.

  Mike turned and set out for the subway and the ride home. It made him feel proud to have been part of something that Curt had said might possibly save the country.

  _____________

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Thursday, October 21

  10:15 A.M.

  “What time do you think it is?” Laurie asked.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Jack said. He stretched and groaned. “I know I slept for a while. Did you?”

  “I think so,” Laurie said. “It’s amazing how difficult it is to judge the passage of time, especially when you can’t see anything.”

  They had eventually sat down diagonally from each other on the concrete floor with their backs against the respective walls. There wasn’t room to lie out straight.

  “I can almost talk myself into seeing daylight when I stare up at the ceiling,” Jack said.

  “We’ve got to get out of here before nine-thirty if there’s to be any chance of stopping the firemen before they get into the federal building and disperse the anthrax.”

  “I don’t like to be pessimistic,” Jack said. “But as Yuri said, we could be in here for several days, maybe even longer now that he’s been shot. I think he planned to call and have us rescued so he could be sure he got the credit he coveted.”

  “Wait a second!” Laurie said.

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” Jack answered.

  “Shush,” Laurie said. “I think I heard something.”

  They both held their breaths while they listened. They could just make out a distant yet distinct series of thuds coming from above.

  “I think that’s someone knocking on the door,” Laurie blurted.

  They both scrambled to their feet. In the utter darkness, they collided, then began shouting for help at the top of their lungs.

  Simultaneously, they fell silent with their ears ringing from each other’s shouts and their own echo. Once again they strained to listen.

  “They had to have heard us,” Laurie said.

  “It probably depends on how much background noise there is outside,” Jack said.

  Next they heard the faint but definite sound of glass breaking. A moment later, there were faint sounds of footsteps across the floor above.

  In a chorus Jack and Laurie again yelled for help. Jack groped for the door, then began pounding on it. Suddenly the light went on. Then they could hear muffled voices of people descending the stairs to the basement. A
few minutes later there was the sound of splitting wood followed by a thump. The sound of the voices increased in volume. Whoever it was had gained access to the entry room to the lab.

  Jack knocked against the door. “We’re in here,” he called.

  No one answered, but there was a scraping sound as if a crowbar or some other implement was being forced behind the hasp. Again, there was the sound of wood splitting, only this time it was louder.

  “I have no idea who this is,” Jack whispered to Laurie.

  “You don’t think it’s...”

  Laurie didn’t have time to complete her sentence. The harsh, creaking noise of the hasp being pried out of the door was followed by the door’s being pulled open. Surprised but grateful, Jack and Laurie found themselves looking into the face of a not-so-happy Warren. Behind him was Flash.

  “Oh, thank God!” Laurie said. She lunged forward and threw her arms around Warren.

  Warren peeled Laurie’s arms from around his neck while glaring at Jack. “Having to rescue you from weird situations, especially ones involving dead people, is starting to get to me.”

  Laurie pulled herself away while wiping tears of joy from the corner of her eyes.

  “What time is it?” Jack demanded.

  Warren looked at Flash and shrugged. “And this is the kind of thanks we get! The man wants to know the time.”

  “It’s important!” Jack said urgently. “What time is it?”

  Warren consulted his watch and told Jack it was quarter after ten.

  “Oh, God!” Laurie said. She pushed Warren aside and headed for the door out of the entry room. Jack was right behind her.

  “Watch out, up there,” Warren shouted up the stairs. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Laurie reached the top of the stairs and went directly to the kitchen phone. Jack came up behind her.

  “Who should I call?” she demanded.

  Jack thought for a moment. “Let me,” he said. Laurie gave him the receiver. He punched in 911 and immediately asked for Stan Thornton, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management. He said it was a matter of extreme emergency. Knowing Stan Thornton’s elaborate communication setup, Jack was confident he’d get him quickly.

  Warren and Flash joined them in the kitchen. Yuri’s body was half in the kitchen, half in the living room. The splatter against the refrigerator had coagulated and had turned brown.

  “Are you guys going to give us an explanation or what?” Warren asked. He was still exasperated.

  Both Jack and Laurie held up their hands for him to be quiet.

  “Look at this,” Warren said to Flash while throwing up his hands. “We come all the way out here, save their asses, and they treat us like this.”

  But Flash wasn’t listening; he was preoccupied by his brother-in-law’s body. Yuri’s face was frozen in an expression of perpetual surprise, with his eyes wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling. In the middle of his forehead was a perfectly round hole the size of a marble.

  Meanwhile, Stan Thornton came on the line. Jack quickly identified himself and then cleared his throat before saying, “I think you might be facing your biggest challenge. Find out if there was a false alarm at the Jacob Javits Federal Building around nine-thirty!”

  “Should I do it right now or you want me to call you back?” Stan questioned.

  “Do it right this second!” Jack said. “I’ll hold on.” Jack held up crossed fingers. Laurie grasped them and closed her eyes in prayer.

  Jack could hear Stan connecting himself with the Fire Commissioner. During the momentary delay, he told Jack that he believed there had been an alarm, and that he’d been told it was a false alarm caused by an apparent malfunctioning smoke detector. Seconds later, the Fire Commissioner confirmed it.

  “Okay!” Jack said urgently, trying to organize his thoughts. “Call someone at the federal building! Anybody! Ask if the fire annunciator panel has been switched off and if there’s been a sudden appearance of powder in the building.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Stan admitted. He used another telephone line to connect himself with rapid dial to the building’s security department. Moments later he was back on the phone with Jack.

  “The answer to both questions is positive,” Stan said. “Apparently there’s fine powder everywhere. What is it?”

  “Anthrax!” Jack blurted. “Weaponized anthrax!”

  “Good God!” Stan exclaimed. “Where are you? How do you know about this?”

  “I’m in a cottage at Fifteen Oceanview Lane in Brighton Beach,” Jack said. “There’s a dead Russian émigré on the floor. He was killed by a New York City fireman who’s a member if not the leader of a militia called the People’s Aryan Army. The Russian had built a lab here. In the garage is a pest control truck charged with more anthrax. There’s a laboratory in the basement with, I believe, a fermenter filled with anthrax culture. We’ve been imprisoned in a basement storeroom until just a few moments ago.”

  “Good Lord,” Stan said. “Are you contaminated?”

  “Most likely no,” Jack said. “The Russian knew what he was doing, and he wanted us alive. Also the lab has a negative pressure ventilation system that must be properly filtered.”

  “All right, stay there!” Stan ordered. “Do not leave the house. We will come to you. Understand?”

  “I suppose,” Jack said. “I thought it best to get back to the morgue. I’m here with Dr. Laurie Montgomery. The morgue is going to need all the help it can get.”

  “After you’ve been deconned,” Stan said. “For now stay put. We’ll be there in minutes to secure the area.”

  The line went dead.

  Jack shrugged his shoulders, hung up the phone, and sighed. “We missed it,” he said with a voice that broke. Laurie put her arms around him and hugged him. He was choked up, and tears came to her eyes in sympathy.

  “Hey, man,” Warren said. “I think you better tell us what’s happening here.”

  Jack nodded and took a deep breath. He started to speak but had to fight off more tears. After another sigh, he got ahold of himself. “Warren, I told you the next time someone had to be saved, it was my turn to save you.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not as stupid as you are, Doc.”

  “If you’d only gotten here an hour earlier.”

  “So now it’s my bad,” Warren commented.

  “No, I don’t mean to imply that,” Jack said. “Believe me, I’m thankful you came at all.”

  “I had to wait to see if you two were going to show up at work,” Warren said. “When you didn’t, I thought maybe something strange had happened. I saw early this morning that my wheels weren’t back, and I knew from Spit you hadn’t come back to the neighborhood, but hell, I thought maybe you two shacked up at a hotel or something, making up.”

  “I wish that’s what this evening had been about,” Jack said. He looked at Laurie.

  “Me, too,” she added.

  ____________

  TWENTY-SIX

  Thursday, October 21

  12:45 P.M.

  Stan Thornton had not been exaggerating when he said they’d be there in minutes. Jack, Laurie, Warren, and Flash had barely had time to sit themselves down on Yuri’s couch and chairs when local firemen in class A hazmat suits showed up outside to cordon off the area and empty the neighboring houses of their occupants. It seemed surreal for those inside to watch all the activity because none of the firemen approached Yuri’s house.

  Sometime later, the percussive beat of helicopters hovering above filled the air before they slid off to land on the nearby boardwalk at the beach. A half hour after that, a group of men appeared in more serious-looking biological containment suits wielding HHAs, or hand-held assay instruments. This group split, with half going into the garage and the other half coming into the house. Several of those going into the garage were bomb experts checking to make sure there was no triggering device in the pest control truck.

  Those that had
come into the house briefly introduced themselves before spreading out to the various rooms and going down to the basement laboratory. They ignored Yuri’s body. Ten minutes later the leader of the house group met in Yuri’s kitchen with his counterpart from the garage. They conferred briefly before the leader of the house group used a hand-held radio device to communicate with a distant command post, presumably in Manhattan.

  “We’ve got two hot areas,” the man said. “The agent in the pest control truck is definitely weapon-grade anthrax. That is confirmed. There is no triggering device. The lab has two active fermenters with anthrax cultures. There’s a jury-rigged pulverizer contaminated with anthrax powder. There’s also a hood similarly contaminated. There’s an active negative pressure ventilation system with HEPA filters in place. There’s no contamination in the rest of the house. Over.”

  Jack and the others couldn’t hear the response because the man held the radio up to his ear. They saw him nod a few times, then verbally agree before signing off with the typical “over and out.”

  He came directly over to the group. His face was mostly hidden by the glare of the clear plastic face mask.

  “All of you are to leave the house,” he said. “In the alleyway, turn to the left. Pass under the caution tape. That divides this hot area from the warm area beyond. Where the alley joins Oceanview Avenue you will see a decon tent. It’s red; you can’t miss it. They will be waiting for you.”

  The group got to their feet and started toward the front door.

  “Thank you,” Laurie said to the man, but he didn’t respond. He was already on his way back through the kitchen on his way to the basement.

  “Man, they are serious,” Warren commented as they walked down the front walk.

  “For good reason,” Jack said. “This is the real thing. New York could be seeing casualties in the tens of thousands, if not more.”

  “Shit, man,” Flash complained. “I told you guys this Yuri was a bad mother. You should have let me come out here and taken care of him.”