The Dragon Factory

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Scratch that, First Sergeant. We have a more pressing problem.”

  “Sir?”

  Church told him about the NSA. “It’s possible you men are off their radar because you’ve been operating with Bureau credentials, but now that this has happened the bloodhounds will be running.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “As soon as Captain Ledger surfaces we’ll find you some air transport and the three of you will head west. We’ve lost track of the Denver team and that incident may be separate from this—and it may be a lot more important,” Church said. “I want you two to vanish. Get off the radar and stay off until you make contact with Major Courtland, Captain Ledger, or myself. Don’t get taken. You may use any methods short of lethal force.” He read off a string of possible locations and made Top read them back. “Go to each one in order. Wait ten minutes. If Captain Ledger does not come, proceed to the next one until you rendezvous. He’ll have further instructions.”

  “Yes, sir.” Top paused. “But what about Big Bob? We were going to go to the hospital once Jerry Spencer gets here.”

  “Agent Spencer will neither need nor want your help, First Sergeant; and as for Sergeant Faraday . . . he’ll be protected. I have some friends in Wilmington who will watchdog him. I want you and Sergeant Rabbit to get mobile and get gone most riki-tik.”

  He hung up.

  Bunny, who had leaned close to eavesdrop, stepped back and looked at Top. “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “I don’t know, Farmboy, but the man said to get our asses into the wind, so let’s boogie.”

  Bunny lingered for one moment longer, first looking at the bodies sprawled in the motel room and then turning to gaze at the smears of blood where Big Bob had gone down.

  “Son of a bitch must pay,” Bunny said.

  Top nodded. “Hooah.”

  Then they were gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cotonou, Benin

  Six days ago

  Dr. Arjeta Hlasek sat back in her chair, her pointed chin resting on the tips of steepled fingers. Her expression was a patchwork of doubt, concern, and alarm. The two doctors who sat on the other side of her desk looked road worn and deeply stressed, their eyes hollow with exhaustion. Both of them sat straight in their chairs, their hands fidgeting on the stacks of test results and lab reports they each had on their laps.

  “I . . . don’t know what to say,” began Dr. Hlasek. “This is disturbing to say the least, but what you’re describing . . . Well, I don’t know.”

  The younger of her visitors, Dr. Rina Panjay, leaned forward, her voice low and urgent. “Dr. Hlasek . . . we’ve done the tests. We’ve had blind verification from two separate labs, and they verify what our own tests show.”

  “She’s right, Arjeta,” agreed Thomas Smithwick. “And I can understand your hesitation. I didn’t believe it, either, when Rina first told me. I ran every kind of test I could think of—most of them several times. The lab work doesn’t even vary; it’s not like there’s a margin for error here.”

  “But,” Dr. Hlasek said, half-smiling, “a genetic disease that has mysteriously mutated into a waterborne pathogen? There’s no precedent for something like this.”

  Smithwick paused, then said, “There wouldn’t be . . . not outside of a biological warfare facility.”

  “You think that’s what you’ve found? A new bioweapon that somehow escaped quarantine and has gotten into the water supply in Ouémé? That’s a lot to swallow, Thomas. Who would do such a thing? Moreover, who would fund research of that kind? It’s absurd; it’s fantasy.”

  “Haven’t you been listening? We have over three hundred infected people right now,” snapped Dr. Panjay, and then suddenly regretted her tone of voice. Dr. Arjeta Hlasek was the Regional Director for the World Health Organization and a major political force in the United Nations. She was one of Switzerland’s most celebrated doctors and had three times been part of teams nominated for the Nobel Prize. Hlasek was not, however, a patient or tolerant person, and she wilted Panjay with a blast from her ice blue eyes.

  Dr. Panjay dropped her eyes and stammered a quick apology.

  “Arjeta,” said Smithwick in a mollifying tone, “my young friend here is exhausted. She’s been in the thick of this, caring for dozens of patients at her clinic and doing fieldwork to collect samples and helping to bury the dead. She’s running on fumes right now.”

  “I appreciate the diligence and dedication,” said Dr. Hlasek with asperity. “Still . . . I find this rather a lot to swallow. Our organization is built on veracity. We’ve had bad calls in the past that have weakened public trust, and weakened financial support.”

  Smithwick shook his head, his own patience beginning to erode. “This isn’t like the cock-up with the Ebola scare last year. This is a real crisis backed by irrefutable evidence.” He took his entire stack of notes and thumped them down on Hlasek’s desk. “This is immediate and it requires immediate action.”

  The Swiss doctor blew out her cheeks and studied the papers and then the two doctors.

  “Understand me, Thomas . . . and Dr. Panjay,” she began in a measured tone. “I will act. But this needs to be handled with the greatest of care. What you’ve just put on my desk is a time bomb. If you’re right about this—and I warn you now that I will have another laboratory verify these test results—then we will act, but this could blow up out of control very easily. Between political and religious tensions and the shoddiness of the public health and education systems, we are going to have to plan how to release this information.”

  “But people are dying!” urged Panjay.

  “Yes, they are,” agreed Hlasek, “and more are going to die before we verify the results and map out a protocol for handling this. However, if we don’t move with the greatest care then many, many more will die in the ensuing panic. Thomas, you’ve seen this happen; you tell her.”

  Smithwick nodded and patted Panjay’s hand. “She’s right. A panic breaks down the lines of communication that are, quite literally, the lifelines for the people. You’ll not only have masses of people fleeing blindly, which would make effective treatment impossible, you’ll also see warlords and criminals raiding our supplies for treatments, food, pure water . . . no, Dr. Hlasek is quite correct. This needs to be handled correctly or we’ll have thrown gasoline onto this fire you’ve discovered.”

  Panjay turned away to hide the tears that jeweled her eyes. Her mind was filled with the faces of all of the people in the village where she ran her clinic. Half were already dead, the rest sick. She understood what Hlasek and Smithwick were saying, could accept the reality of it, but just as certainly she knew that it was a death sentence for everyone in the village. Maybe for everyone in the region.

  She could feel the eyes of the other doctors on her, and though it cost her to do it, she nodded her acceptance.

  “Very good,” said Hlasek. “I’ll make the necessary calls to get things in motion. We need to make sure that everyone else who knows about this is brought into our confidence. It’s important that everyone be made to understand the vital importance of keeping this quiet until we’re ready to move. Who else have you told?”

  “Just the people in the village,” Panjay said thickly. “And my two nurses. They’re at the clinic.”

  “I don’t mean to be indelicate,” said Hlasek, “but what race are they? This disease affects sub-Saharan blacks, as you know. We’ll need to rely on those persons who are not likely to become infected; otherwise we’ll lose our workforce. Our ground troops, so to speak.”

  Panjay cleared her throat. “Both of my nurses are African. Black African. One from Angola, the other from Ghana. We’ve taken every prophylactic measure—”

  “I’m sure that will be fine. I’ll call them myself at the clinic. And we’ll get a truckload of supplies out this afternoon.”

  She stood up. “Dr. Panjay, Dr. Smithwick, you probably think I’m a heartless monster, but please let me assure you that
I appreciate the seriousness of this, and I respect the work you’ve put in here. I also want to thank you for bringing this directly to me. We will work together to do whatever is necessary to get in front of this dreadful matter.” She extended her hand and they all shook. Hlasek remained standing as Smithwick and Panjay left.

  When they were gone, Hlasek sank back into her chair and stared at the stack of lab reports for a long minute. Then she picked up her phone and punched a long international number.

  “Otto?” she said when the call was answered. “We have a problem.”

  “Tell me.”

  She told him everything that Panjay and Smithwick had told her. The man on the other end of the call, Otto Wirths, listened patiently and then sighed.

  “That was careless, Arjeta. We shouldn’t be at this point for three days.” He made a clucking sound of disapproval. “You’re sure that only four people know about this? The two doctors and the nurses?”

  “Yes. They came to me first.”

  “How long before anyone else is likely to make the same kind of report?”

  “I don’t know . . . it’s still confined to the Akpro-Missérété Commune. I can quarantine it quietly. Say, two weeks. Three at the outside.”

  “We only need a week,” he said, “but we need the full week. Find out what hotel the doctors are staying in.”

  “I don’t want any of this to land on me, Otto. Headlines won’t help.”

  Otto laughed. “An electrical fire in a cheap hotel in Cotonou will barely make headlines even in Cotonou. And as for the nurses . . . something will be arranged.”

  “Do whatever you have to do, but keep me out of it.”

  Otto chuckled again and disconnected.

  Dr. Hlasek hung up the phone and stared at the stack of reports. Then she stood up, straightened her skirt, picked up the reports on the sickle-cell outbreak, and carried them over to the paper shredder.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland

  Saturday, August 28, 10:13 A.M.

  Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 47 minutes

  I drove randomly for another hour, then pulled in behind a Cineplex and swapped license plates with another car. I stopped in a McDonald’s to wash up as best I could, and then I closed myself in a toilet stall, leaned against the wall, and tried to sort this out. The reality of what was happening caught up to me again, and shock outran adrenaline. My hands were shaking and I forced myself to go still and quiet, taking long, deep breaths until the panic eased its stranglehold on my nerves.

  I was on the run from the NSA, and there was a real possibility that the whole DMS could get torn down. If that happened I was screwed. I’d already passed up the opportunity to start at the FBI academy. My old job with Baltimore PD was probably still there if it came to that, but a bad report in my jacket wouldn’t do much for my career.

  The main thing, though, was that since I’ve been running Echo Team for the DMS I’ve seen a much bigger picture of the world and how it works—and of the major wackos who were trying to burn it down. The DMS was doing good work here; I knew that for a fact. Hell, even I was doing good work here. Having this organization destroyed would do a lot more harm than just screwing up my career path. How could the Vice President not see the value of the Department of Military Sciences? Hell, we’d saved his wife’s life less than two months ago.

  I guess my problem was that I found it hard to buy that the Vice President was doing this because he believed Church was blackmailing the President. That didn’t feel right. Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but it seemed to me that there had to be some kind of hidden agenda.

  Of course, there was about one chance in a zillion that I’d ever find out what it was. Maybe Church would, if he wasn’t in jail. I tried calling him but got no answer. Swell.

  The smell of the bathroom brought me back to the moment and I washed my hands again and left the grungy little room. Outside I bought a sack of burgers and a Coke, then got back in the car and drove to Druid Hill Park in northwestern Baltimore. I parked the car and walked into the park, wolfing down the burgers to put some protein in my system. After wandering around to make sure that I had nobody dogging me, I sat cross-legged on one of the tables inside Parkie’s Lakeside Pavilion and pulled my cell.

  This time Church answered on the second ring. He never says “hello.” He simply listens. You called him, so it’s on you to take the conversational ball and run with it.

  “I’m having a moderately trying morning, boss,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  I told him. “What’s the status on my team?”

  “I’ll tell you, Captain, but in the event that anyone is within visual range of you I want you to keep everything off your face. This isn’t good news.”

  He told me about Big Bob Faraday. There was no one else in the Pavilion, but I kept it off my face. I also made sure to keep it out of my voice, too, but inside there was an acid burn working its way from my gut to my brain.

  “These were Russians?” I asked, and from the tone of my voice you might have thought I was asking about last season’s baseball scores. “Care to explain how my team gets ambushed by Russian shooters in Wilmington?”

  “We’re short on answers today. We’re running their prints through NCIC and Interpol. Too soon for returns, but I suspect we’ll get something.”

  “Since when does the NSA hire out hits to the Russians?”

  “They don’t, and as of now we have no evidence of a connection between Wilmington and the NSA other than the bad luck of this happening on the same day as the Veep’s run at the DMS.”

  “You don’t think they’re related?”

  “I said that we have no evidence of that. And, let’s face it, that isn’t a likely scenario.” He paused. “Actually, a lot of unusual things have happened in the last twenty-four hours, Captain. Some old colleagues of mine have died under unusual circumstances over the last few weeks, and I just got word that a close friend of mine was killed in Stuttgart yesterday.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Is that related to this NSA stuff?”

  “Again, we have no evidence of it, but my tolerance for coincidence is burning away pretty quickly.”

  “I hear you.” I sighed. “Is Big Bob going to make it?”

  “Too soon to tell. He’s at a good hospital and getting top-quality care, but he had a collapsed lung and damage to his liver, his right kidney, and his spleen. He’ll probably lose the spleen and, unless he’s very lucky, part or all of one kidney.”

  “When this NSA bullshit blows over I’m going to run this down,” I said.

  “I have no doubt. Use whatever resources you need. Carte blanche.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Losing men is hard, Captain. It never gets easier.”

  “No, it fucking well doesn’t . . . and it pisses me off that I can’t be there with my guys because of this bullshit.” I only had three active operatives in Echo Team. There were six others almost ready to join, but they were in Scotland doing some field training with a crack team from Barrier, the U.K.’s most covert special ops unit. With Big Bob down that left Top and Bunny. It made me feel like they were suddenly vulnerable.

  “For what it’s worth, you’re not the only one on the VP’s most hated list. There are two NSA agents in the hospital in Brooklyn. They attempted to forcibly arrest Aunt Sallie, but that didn’t go as they expected. Some convalescent leave and a few months of physical therapy and they’ll be fine.”

  “Ouch.”

  Church said, “There’s more, and this probably does have something to do with Wilmington. We’ve lost touch with the Jigsaw Team out in Denver.”

  “The whole team?”

  “Yes. The Hub itself went into lockdown, but Jigsaw was on a mission and went radio silent about thirty minutes before the NSA started trying to kick doors.”

  The Hub was the Denver DMS facility. I’d worked only one three-day operation with Ji
gsaw and they were very tough hombres. Their leader, Hack Peterson, was ex–Delta Force and he looked like he ate pit bulls for breakfast.

  “Do you see the NSA taking the whole team into custody, ’cause I don’t.”

  “Captain Peterson may have gotten a sniff and gone dark,” said Church. “But I have a bad feeling about it. I’d like you to head out there.”

  “When?”

  “Now. I’ll have someone pick you up at the park. You’ll recognize the driver. Be at the exit closest to I-Eighty-three, say twenty minutes.”

  “Um . . . hate to break this to you, but this might not be the best time for travel. The U.S. government seems to want my head on a pole.”

  “Cry me a river,” said Church. “I need you in Denver. I have private transport waiting in several secure locations.” He read them off to me and gave me a rendezvous timetable. “Get to one of those and head west. First Sergeant Sims and Sergeant Rabbit already arrived at the first location. I was going to have them wait for you, but just in case you’re taken I’ve sent them on ahead. They’ll meet you at the other end.”

  Son of a bitch moved fast.

  “Normally I’d wait on this and let the Los Angeles office deal with it, but they’re in lockdown and you’re the only senior officer on the streets. Besides,” he said, “the Denver thing looks like it’s going to break big.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Meaning that it’s starting to look like a DMS project. There’s a high probability it’s tied to the deaths of my colleagues overseas, and to some old cases that were supposed to have been closed a long time ago. Now it seems that we were wrong. Once you’re airborne you’ll teleconference with Dr. Hu, who will send you a feed of a video we received from an anonymous source.”

  “A video of what?”

  “I’d prefer you watch and form your own opinions, but . . . it’s compelling.”

  “Can you vague that up a little for me?” I said.

  He ignored me. “Contact me when you’ve watched it. This is a bad day, Captain, and tensions are running high. I need you to be cool. Tell your people the same thing. This other matter, the Denver job . . . if it turns out to be what I think it is, then it’s big.”