by Tim Curran
But one thing he didn’t like to talk about was Section 5 or the things they’d done in Vietnam, Beirut, Central America, Africa, the Gulf, and numerous other places. He denied, even to himself, that he knew anything of Project Coldfire, Project Razortooth, Project Spearhead, or even Project Lazarus or Nightshade or Laughing Man.
And Project BioGen itself simply made him ill and always had.
“I hate it,” he told Brigadier General Walter Sleshing earlier that night. “I hate this entire thing.”
DDI Sleshing, like VanderMissen himself, was one of country’s truly informed men. “It seemed necessary at the time, Chuck. You know that. If it had worked... shit, those ragheads would have beaten themselves.”
VanderMissen knew that.
But what he’d always disliked about biological operations was that the weapons themselves were unpredictable, they did not respect territorial boundaries. And they sure as hell didn’t care what uniform a man was wearing or if he was wearing one at all.
VanderMissen and Sleshing had gone out to dinner and then they’d tried—ineffectively—to get drunk. But it just wouldn’t work. There was too much cooking on the back burner and it was getting harder and harder day by day to contain the stink. Their dinner turned into a skull session about how to protect their own asses now that it seemed they were being hung over the fire for a slow, even roasting.
Now they were back at Bolling and still no closer to a resolution to the country’s problems and the shadows they felt moving around them.
“I never liked S5, but it wasn’t my decision,” VanderMissen admitted. “When they threw BioGen on the table it made me sick, the very idea of it. I knew it was coming from CBT. I just knew it. If it’s dirty, that goddamn bitch Liz Toma usually has her hand in on it. But I supported it, didn’t I? Because politically and professionally I had little choice. I was the DNI and I would remain so as long as I played ball. I knew it was wrong, but I played ball anyway. But I never foresaw something…something like this.”
Sleshing nodded. “We knew the risks. We had the statistics for an outbreak. We knew there was a chance... but nothing to this extent.”
Sleshing rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. Like VanderMissen, he was beginning to look very much like an Egyptian mummy—all wrinkles, worry lines, and seamed flesh.
“Listen, Chuck,” he said. “There’s no point in going over this. The shit, as they say, has hit the fan. We’ll handle it.”
VanderMissen just stared at him. “Do you really think so?”
Sleshing simply sighed. Too many people and too many agencies in the labyrinthine network of the federal government and military were getting involved now. The outbreak—and the blowback from it—simply wasn’t containable. He’d gotten word that the FBI were arranging a call-down, which was a meeting of experts and feds, everybody from the Bureau’s NSD (National Security Division) to the CDC’s EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service) to the Navy’s BDRP (Biological Defense Research Program) to biohazard specialists from USAMARIID and suits from the Public Health Service, as well as leading civilian specialists in biotechnology, medical pathology, and weaponized biological agents. The meeting was to be held at the FBI Command Center. And when it was, the shit would really hit the fan.
“What are you getting from the teams?” Sleshing asked, ignoring the question.
“Only a few casualties. Things are going well. So far we haven’t had any episodes in the civilian sector. If one of those things pops out of someone in a hospital, I don’t think our shovel will be big enough to clean up the mess.” Then he uttered a weak laugh that was the clear despondent sound of defeat. “You know, I almost hope one will. I almost hope this mess gets blown up right in everyone’s faces. God knows we’d deserve it.”
Sleshing looked at him for a time, then said, “Chuck, if this thing gets out of hand we’ll be offered up as sacrifice. You know it and I know it. The writing’s already on the wall. If it comes down to it, if they try to take a bite of my ass, those bastards are gonna find me tough and stringy.”
Over dinner they had developed a strategy of sorts. If they were offered up, they were going to bring enough dirty secrets to the table that no one would escape unscathed. From the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the White House itself, they’d all be wearing the same pie on their faces. VanderMissen fully realized that if and when that happened that their enemies would be extremely dangerous. The power they wielded and the resources at their disposal were awesome and more than a little frightening. They were not the sort of people you crossed in Washington and lived to tell the tale…but public outrage would be such by that point that the power brokers would find themselves quite neatly emasculated.
VanderMissen hoped it would not come to that.
But he had his doubts. For already some questions were being asked—under the table and behind closed doors as yet—but the smell was definitely in the air. Sleshing had told him that General Holzencamp, the CENTCOM J-2, Chief of Intelligence, and Vice Admiral Dahn of SOCOM, the Special Operations Command, were already sniffing around. The ERTs themselves were activated by DCI Pershing’s direct order…but the CIA was notorious for its inability to keep a secret and with that many ERT operators mobilized at once, well, it was bound to leave ripples in the special ops community.
VanderMissen shook his head. “Thing is, Walt. I don’t trust Bob Pershing and I never have. Same goes for Colin Paulus. I see those two together in bed over this.”
“Add General Mason to the list. Every time I’m in the same room with those three I get the damnedest feeling they’re up to something, that they know something I don’t.”
“We need some assets of our own.”
“It can be arranged if it comes to that,” Sleshing told him. “But we have to move carefully. We already have too many damn teams in the field.”
VanderMissen nodded. “Pershing’s got something going on under the table. I know it. You know it. And if you need more evidence, I just got word through my contacts that he’s calling in another asset.”
“Who?”
“Tommy Quillan,” VanderMissen said, chewing the words slowly.
There was silence after that. For a moment.
“He’s turning that psychopath loose domestically?”
VanderMissen nodded. “Quillan’s in Afghanistan right now,” he said. “He’s been on the trail since the Syrian Incident.”
Sheikh Sa’ad’s trail went cold in Syria. Quillan, through his numerous contacts, had traced Sheikh Sa’ad’s movements to Afghanistan. It was now believed in the upper echelon of the American intelligence community that there had been a splintering between Sheikh Sa’ad’s al-Qaeda and his Iranian Pasdaran advisors. It was also believed that Project BioGen’s technology had been spirited away by Sheikh Sa’ad to Afghanistan, perhaps to keep it out of the hands of the Pasdaran. Something which was both good and bad for in this case it was truly hard to say who was the lesser evil of the two.
“Quillan’ll get him, if it’s not a ruse,” DDI Sleshing said. “That slimy bastard might be slithering towards the Pak-Iranian border as we speak.”
“We’ve got pretty good HUMINT on this,” VanderMissen said. “I’m confident. But Quillan…it bothers me…why would Pershing bring him in out of the cold?”
Pause. “I suppose the hunt for Sheikh Sa’ad could be carried out by his confederates. That part I understand. But if Pershing’s bringing Quillan over here, it means he’s expecting some heavy wet work. ”
VanderMissen looked pained. “That’s what scares me.”
NORTH CHICAGO: VA HOSPITAL
2:44 A.M.
"Tell me something, Stein.”
McKenna and he were sitting in a van in the parking lot, waiting. They had chosen a nice little corner, well shadowed by the overhanging branches of several giant spruces. It gave them a good view of Marcus Grimes’ Toyota truck.
“Tell me why you decided to continue with this nightmare,” Mckenn
a said to him. “Was it the Old Man? Afraid of a trip to The Resort?”
Stein smiled. “It was the right choice for the time being. I’d rather be hunting worms than be fed to them.”
“And you think the Old Man would do that?”
Stein just looked at him and he knew the answer. Of course, he would do it. This was a man who was ordering the deaths of veterans nationwide because they may or may not have come into contact with the parasites. What were a couple ERT Blackpool operators? Just more meat to be splashed about to cover the trail that started in Iraq and, no doubt, led straight to highest positions of power in the land.
“The Old Man is a sadist and we both know it,” Stein said. “I don’t pretend to be a Boy Scout. Obviously. But next to him, I’m a virgin. So are you. He’s the asshole who oversaw the BioGen Project and that’s something else that scares me.”
McKenna looked at him.
“That he admitted to us the entire thing. When’s the last time you received background like that? I’ve been all over the world on dozens and dozens of ops and mostly I never had a clue why I was doing anything…now the Old Man trots out all the dirty secrets and admits his complicity in the entire thing.”
“And?”
“And I think when this is wrapped up, we’re going to be a security risk. I think we’ll be taken care of.”
McKenna had actually been thinking along the same lines, but he was glad Stein had voiced it. As he had learned from his years with the Company, there was no such thing as paranoia in clandestine operations. Your worst fears were often true. They would be killed. Some cleaners would get the job and it wouldn’t be something messy like a gun, but something much more subtle…cyanide in their coffee, arsenic trioxide in a donut. Suicide in a motel room. There were limitless ways.
McKenna’s pained sigh answered that. “I want out.”
“So do I. And when the time’s right, we’ll get out.”
“And when will that be?”
“You’ll know. And so will I. Right now, we’ll do what we’re told and act like good little soldiers. It’s the only thing to do,” Stein explained. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that in times of trouble a wise man holds his tongue?”
“No. But I like it.” McKenna repeated it to himself. “Makes sense. Who said that? William Shakespeare?”
“William Shatner for all I know.”
McKenna and he got a good laugh out of that one. It felt good to laugh.
“Tell me, though, Stein. Level with me.”
“About what?”
“About all of this crap. What you think.”
Stein held his head back and stared at the ceiling of the cab. “What I think? What I think is that this entire affair really broke my faith in the people we work for. I guess I never trusted the Company. And I sure as hell never trusted this S5 bullshit. Any organization this secretive has to be up to no good. And, lo and behold, I was right.” He laughed dryly, angrily. “And now this shit. A covert op that went sour. And we have to clean up the mess before there’s a goddamn worm in every man, woman, and child in the good old US of A. I think it’s a fucking atrocity. It makes me sick, that’s what.”
McKenna nodded. “How could they fuck up like this? I just don’t get it.”
“Because they’re too ambitious, my friend. Too fucking ambitious. Those bastards are developing evil technologies that they’re not smart enough to handle.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Unless,” Stein said, “we only have half the story.”
“Meaning?”
“Suppose what’s happening is no accident.”
McKenna sighed. “Yeah, it did occur to me.” He shook his head. “It’s getting too complicated, too dirty. When this op is done, we walk. No better, we run.”
Stein laughed cynically. “You know, I’ve seen some insane shit, took part in some real dirty games in the name of security. But this... this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. This is big. This is huge. XI isn’t going to just pat us on the back if and when this ends.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the Company can’t afford security leaks here. Do you have any idea what the taxpayers would say about all this? It would be the mother of all shitstorms. Something like this would be enough to pull the government right down. No, when this is done, we’ll be retired. And not to some brainwashing clinic.”
McKenna just sat there in stony, prolonged silence.
“Besides,” Stein pointed out, “I don’t think this is going to end. You saw that fucking worm? Did it look like something that’s just going to lay down and take it? Hell no. It looked like what it was: A creature mean enough and smart enough to survive. To breed. To overcome. They designed it to be like that.”
“It wasn’t supposed to breed,” McKenna said weakly.
“But it did and I don’t think we can stop it. If there’s as many out there as they’re saying, this country, this world’s in some very deep shit.”
McKenna couldn’t or didn’t want to understand what he was thinking. Worms. They were just worms. They really couldn’t spread that fast. There was no way. Stein was just being a fatalist. That’s what.
“There,” Stein said. “There’s our boy.”
They got out of the van and made a big show of hurrying towards the hospital entrance. Then they slowed, looking confused.
“Excuse me, buddy,” McKenna said to the hunched-over black man getting into the Toyota. “Could you tell me where the front desk is?”
Grimes coughed sickly. They both knew he had it.
“Yeah... yes... you go into that door there...” he began. “Right over there by the sign...”
The man was so weak and disoriented Stein could hardly believe they let him walk right out the door. But that’s what they were doing. Apparently, Grimes had been bitching for the past two days about getting released, despite his ill health. The Old Man had made a phone call and Grimes got his wish. And in the middle of the night yet. But it had to be that way.
It wasn’t safe to snatch people in broad daylight.
Particularly in a hospital parking lot.
It was much simpler to do it by night. To slip up behind your target and give them a shot of gas in the face. And that’s exactly what they did with Grimes. A taste of the gas and off to la-la land he went, slumping right into Stein’s arms.
“Easy as pie,” Mckenna said.
Then the woman on the passenger side—the woman they had not known was even there—started screaming.
Then it got ugly.
CHICAGO, NORTH SHORE:
EN ROUTE 4:45 A.M.
Harry and Shawna were driving to Gabe Hebberman’s house in Kenilworth. After the events at Shawna’s building, they’d driven around in confused circles for some time, the both of them absolutely silent, brooding and worrying.
“Why are they setting me up, Harry?”
“I just don’t know.”
She chewed her lip. “But, Harry... God... these things don’t happen... they don’t happen to normal people.” She hugged herself, still shaking a bit. “I don’t even know what I saw for chrissake! Why the hell don’t they leave me alone?”
“I hate to say it…sounds like an old movie…but you know too much.”
“I don’t know anything!”
“They think you do.” He shrugged. “Listen, I’ll tell you what I think happened. They saw you nosing around, they ran your plate. They found out you work for the Trib…or did…and they started to sweat. Whatever it is they’re up to, obviously they don’t want the press involved.”
“I don’t work for the paper anymore. Have you forgotten?”
“I know that. They probably ran your plate like I said, got your social security number and ran you through the database at the IRS or something. As far as last years’ tax returns go, you work at the Trib.”
“Shit,” she said. “I don’t believe this.”
Harry was watching her in
the glow of the dashboard. Her face had that sallow, wasted, empty-eyed look green soldiers got on their first patrol when they finally saw some real killing and realized it was no game. Harry knew that look very well. He’d covered plenty of wars. He’d seen that look on his own face for the first time in 1992 when he’d witnessed the aftermath of an IRA car bomb attack on a Protestant pub in Londonderry. He remembered the rubble, the smoke... the bodies. The police pulling out human remains from the wreckage, some of whom were children who’d been sleeping in an upstairs flat. Burned beyond recognition, their tiny bodies were curled in obscene fetal positions from the inferno. He’d vomited all over himself and hadn’t been able to sleep for three days. But in the mirror... yes, in the mirror that night, his face had had the look: skeletal, wizened. After that when someone asked him when he’d lost his virginity he told them he’d lost it in Londonderry.
Shawna had the look about her now. She’d probably never seen a butchered corpse before. Particularly of someone she knew. Once the look settled in, it never really left. Your eyes were forever glazed.
He supposed it was probably even worse for her.
Not only had she seen a hacked body, but some very, very bad people were going out of their way to make it look like she was a killer. And the really sad, twisted thing about it all was Jill Morell had meant nothing to them. She was just a convenient piece of meat to be slit and chopped to further their deranged ends. And who would do such a thing? The mob? The police? Some maniacal secret sect? No. None of the above.
These were the sort of acts people with absolute power committed.
People who didn’t have to worry about being brought to trial.
Harry knew these people. They carried a smell of corruption about them. The higher up the ladder of power they went, the stronger the smell.