Bioterror

by Tim Curran

  The swarthy man’s name was Isser Shabbat and he was a twenty-seven year veteran of Mossad, Israeli intelligence, and currently a member of the elite and shadowy Kidon, an ultra-secret arm of the Mossad which handled its most delicate and dangerous tasks: assassination, abduction, sabotage, and infiltration of high-security installations. That he killed for his country using everything from silenced weapons to knives, car bombs to injected nerve agents was a fact. He routinely and quite ruthlessly hunted down Palestinian terrorists and Hamas insurgents and agents of Islamic Jihad.

  But you would not have suspected it.

  With his twinkling blue eyes, round face, and easy smile he was someone’s favored and kindly uncle. He was harmless. And he had spent many years cultivating this persona that made him the perfect chameleon that immediately adapted to its environment and became part of it.

  Today, Shabbat was waiting for someone.

  So far, he had not shown.

  But it was early. The flight to Heathrow in London would not leave for another hour or more and there was plenty of time. And if Shabbat had learned anything in these past twenty-seven years it was patience.

  He looked over at the man in the lounge. The man caught his eye but no more.

  Back to his newspaper. Back to waiting.

  The man Shabbat was waiting for was a very dangerous fellow. Though his true name was Abu Zakari, he would be traveling with an expertly forged set of documents that would identify him as Saul Lavonik, an Israeli national and software designer. He would pass through security quite easily just as he had been trained to.

  But Shabbat would not let him get that far.

  For Mossad knew who and what he was. Abu Zakari was a confederate of Mahmoud Al-Kassin, an Islamic militant and the number three man in Hamas. He lived secretly on the West Bank, running a fanatical underground terror network and overseeing a factory that produced car bombs and IEDs. Al-Kassin’s activities were largely supported by the extremist Iranian Pasdaran Quds Force, though, of late, Al-Kassin had broken off with them and taken up with Sheikh Sa’ad al Khalafari’s organization which promised to bring down the west in a most peculiar and novel fashion.

  And it was to this end that Abu Zakari would depart to London.

  Shabbat kept watch as he always kept watch. He was the eagle in its high nest and hawk of the desert. When he woke each day, he accepted that it might be his last. But if he died, he knew, he would die knowing satisfaction that he had been a constant irritant to the mujahideen in their campaign for innocent blood.

  A group of girls passed by him, all teenagers fulfilling their compulsory National Service obligations. They spread out and began to ask impatient people in the queues a barrage of silly questions, the answers to which they had little interest in.

  The man in the lounge looked over at him.

  He blinked twice.

  It was enough.

  Shabbat saw Zakari and continued to read his newspaper. Zakari would walk right past him and that would work fine. Shabbat waited, humming beneath his breath. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his target getting closer and closer. Mere feet away, Shabbat could see the arrogance and absolute confidence of the Hamas killer. He carried death with him and was only too happy to release it upon the unsuspecting.

  When Zakari made to pass by him, Shabbat stuck out his foot and tripped him. Zakari went down and came up quickly, shrieking curses in Arabic. Shabbat hit him twice and he did not get up again. By then a crowd began to gather and airport security rushed in. A look at the ID cards of Shabbat and his Mossad partner made them realize this was none of their concern.

  By then Zakari had been handcuffed and dragged to his feet. “Au'dhu Billahi Min ash-Shaitan Ar-Rajeem!” he cried as he was dragged from the terminal and Shabbat smiled thinly, gripping his elbow all that much harder. “Yes, my friend, ask your god for protection. Where you are going, you will need it.”

  LOUISVILLE, KY: UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

  8:02 A.M.

  When Dr. Gilbeki returned after a refreshing two-week vacation in his native Calcutta—always glad to visit, thankful he did not have to stay—he was whistling. A happy, contented man, he was anxious to get up to Pediatrics and see how a few of his patients were doing. Although his wife told him to leave his work behind, he had thought of little else while he was gone.

  Then he saw the police cars, ambulances, and unmarked gray vans parked out front of the hospital. Wooden barriers had been erected at every drive that said POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS. There were lots of TV vans around with aerials and the cops were keeping them at bay. What intrigued Gilbeki the most were the men in black windbreaker jackets and sunglasses…and the others in white plastic biohazard suits.

  It didn’t look good at all.

  As Gilbeki tried to pull into the physician’s parking lot, one of the men in the windbreakers stopped him. “Sir, this hospital is under quarantine. You need to leave.”

  “I work here,” Gilbecki told him.

  “Can I see some ID, sir?”

  Gilbeki, not unused to such things in his native country, silently complied.

  “Okay, Doctor. Pull into the lot.”

  After he had parked, the man in the windbreaker came over to him, identifying himself as a member of Homeland Security. “You’ll need to talk with Mr. Swenson.” He pointed to one of the drab unmarked vans. “He’ll answer all your questions.”

  “Why is the hospital under quarantine?”

  “An infectious outbreak, sir.”

  “Of what?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Well…really,” Gilbeki said to him. “Is it a virus?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say. I can only tell you that the hospital is currently under a decon operation.”

  Gilbeki shrugged and made his way over to the van, moving along the police barriers where other men in windbreakers kept a close eye on him. He was nearly there when a young, attractive woman in a skirt leaned over the barrier.

  “Excuse me…are you hospital staff?”

  “Um…yes…I’m Dr. Gilbeki, pediatrics.”

  “Could you tell us what’s going on?” she asked. “A lot of us have family members in there and these Nazis won’t let us in to see them.”

  Gilbeki shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, miss. I have only arrived just now and am told the hospital is under quarantine.”

  “Quarantine for what?”

  “That I do not know and no one is telling me.”

  “But—”

  “All right,” one of DHS men said. “I warned you before about approaching the barriers. Now back away.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Back away, ma’am.”

  She did, calling him a few unsavory names in the process and returning to the others as a cop came and ordered her to stay back or he would put her under arrest for inciting a riot.

  The DHS man led Gilbeki over to the van. “That woman is a newspaper reporter, sir, and I’m going to have to ask you not to talk with any of them.”

  He was brought to the van and taken inside. There was a command-and-control station set up in the back. Two or three DHS agents were tapping away on laptops.

  “Dr. Gilbeki?” said a man with a white crewcut. “We have a situation here and I’m sure you’ve heard a few things by this point.”

  “I have patients on fifth floor,” he said.

  “And we’re going to make sure you see them. Right now the hospital is being decontaminated. We’re getting patients out as fast as we can and moving them to other facilities. We definitely need your help.”

  “I’m ready to go in.”

  “First you’ll need Level D Personal Protection Equipment, PPE Four.”

  “Yes, fine. I’ve had HAZMAT training.”

  “Excellent. Now all you have to do is sign this release.”

  Gilbeki looked at the form on the clipboard. It was a copy of the Official Secrets Act.

  CHICAGO, RIVER NO
RTH:

  THE WAREHOUSE, 8:29 A.M.

  "It’s going to start coming apart now,” Stein said as he sat in the little makeshift lounge, his eyes crusty from lack of sleep, his nerves still jangled from the operation at the tenement.

  “What do you mean?” McKenna said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  McKenna stared blankly at the TV screen. The volume was off. They had CNN on and things were happening. Hospitals were under quarantine. People were missing. The National Guard was on the move. Federal agents were arresting people and SWAT biocon teams were raiding houses and apartment complexes. Rioting had broken out in a few cities with more expected. People were afraid. They knew something was going on but they weren’t being told what. By tomorrow, both Stein and McKenna knew, things would reach crisis stage. It was not good.

  “The lid’s about to blow off this whole mess.”

  “You think so?” McKenna said.

  “You don’t have eyes?”

  McKenna said nothing for a time, then: “What do you think about all this? I mean, honestly?”

  “I think it’s dirty and ugly. That’s what I think.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “Do?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you and me. What should we do?”

  Why the hell is he asking me that again? Stein wondered. Day by day he was getting a real bad feeling about McKenna. He couldn’t exactly put a finger on what it was but the guy was bugging him. He kept asking the same questions. That’s what bugged Stein. He had been playing this game too long not to recognize when he was being played.

  But McKenna?

  Would McKenna be up to something? Trying to test his loyalty? To what end?

  But that was obvious. Stein had told him more than once how they should just get out while they still could. If McKenna had mentioned any of that to Cave then…then the both of them might be up to something. Something like amassing a file on him and that would mean a trip to The Resort for brain-scrubbing.

  Stein was not naïve by any means.

  He knew the sort of cut-throat pond he swam in. There were sharks everywhere and no one was to be trusted. That was intelligence work, the nature of the game. And the kind of thing they were doing now—cleaners, assassins—and the people they were hooked up with—the Old Man and S5—made things even more sketchy and dangerous than usual. He honestly didn’t believe that any of the team members would walk away from this, not knowing what they knew. Even if the worms were contained there was still the fact that they had been terminating infected veterans, killing on order.

  That was politically volatile stuff.

  And it wouldn’t be the first time that cleaners were cleaned.

  Stein let himself relax. He lit a cigarette and tried to be nonchalant as possible. McKenna was essentially a hothead. People like that were easy to play. Time to bait him.

  He pulled off his cigarette. “What do you think about all this?” he said.

  “I think like you. It’s a mess and I’ll be glad when it’s done.”

  “What if it’s not done?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what if it keeps getting worse and worse and the worms are everywhere. What will you do?”

  McKenna shifted, but gave nothing away. “What will you do?”

  “I like your idea.”

  “My idea?”

  “Sure. About saying fuck the Company and S-Five and XI and just running.”

  “That wasn’t my idea!” McKenna said. “That was yours! You’re the one who keeps talking about it!”

  “Sure. But it was your idea in the first place.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Stein shrugged. “That’s what I remember.”

  McKenna was breathing hard. “Are you questioning my loyalty?”

  “No, I’d never do that. But if we’re being listening to—and we probably are—then I’ll bet somebody is.”

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA:

  CIA CRISIS CENTER

  8:51 A.M.

  It was all coming into focus now, DCI Pershing thought. Just as he’d always planned and perhaps even fantasized for many years. Not that he would ever admit to such. Even to himself. He was simply a man in a position of power that knew how to play the game and exploit his resources. The country was edging closer to chaos day by day and when critical mass was reached, he would play his card and seize control.

  He sipped his coffee, the caffeine making him alert and clear-headed, a predator preparing to leap.

  But not yet.

  Not just yet.

  The worms were everywhere now and that was a scary thought. He believed they could be contained but not by running covert ops. This was far too big. This would require a non-traditional approach, his advisors told him. Something overt and aggressive, a nationwide op run with the coordination of the intelligence and security services, military and police. And sitting atop that nest of vipers could only be one man.

  It would take a man with vision.

  A man with courage.

  A man who wasn’t afraid to bury his opponents.

  Such a man was Robert Pershing, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  As things stood now, DCI Pershing already had Rear Admiral Paulus of the ONI in his corner as well as Francis Mason, Chairman of the JCS. Both were men with balls, with connections, with immense power within their circles and theaters of operation and whose orbits included a veritable who’s-who of the military/industrial complex. But Pershing wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted more. He had a good feeling about Charlie Goade, the Director of the FBI and an old friend. But there were others he needed on his team—men like Roger Thorogood, the Secretary of Defense, and Arlene Rabin, the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, he knew they were both fiercely loyal to the President as was Gus Costello, the National Security Advisor.

  So that was trouble.

  If Costello wouldn’t come on board—and Pershing knew he wouldn’t—that meant Maddie Hughes, the DHS Secretary wouldn’t either.

  Trouble, trouble, trouble.

  Pershing would have to be patient and he knew it. Gordon Parks of the NSA made him nervous because he was a veteran game player and mix-master who was in deep with Liz Toma of CBT. Though he had no intel to support it, he suspected both of them of the worst possible subterfuge. He would watch them as, he knew, they watched him.

  As things stood, he knew he’d never get DNI Chuck VanderMissen or Walt Sleshing of the DIA in his corner. But then, he didn’t really want them. He had already identified them as scapegoats. When the dust settled, the evidence would point to the both of them.

  Pershing’s plan was simple.

  He would let the chaos run rampant. When it reached critical mass, he would bring in an X-RAY team to take out the President right on down to Costello and everyone in-between, including the Vice President. It would be a strike carried out with mathematical efficiency. The assassinations would be blamed on domestic terror units in collusion with Sleshing, VanderMissen, and Costello. The country would be, essentially, stripped of leadership and Pershing himself and his confederates would fill that void. Martial law would be enacted and a nationwide bio-containment op would be initiated. Along the way, certain civil liberties and constitutional rights would be stripped away as they had been with the Patriot Act of the Bush Administration and never, ever would they be returned.

  Chaos would become domestic strife and then…a land controlled by one man. A man who was particularly ambitious and assertive. A leader.

  Until then, let chaos reign.

  The time would come.

  Already, Pershing was assembling his assets on the ground and one of them was Tommy Quillan who would serve his purpose by eliminating the members of the Emergency Response Teams S5 was using. And when he was done, he would himself become a corpse. All loose ends would be tied up.

  Pershing sighed, feeling destiny within his grasp.

  He looked at a report on his
desk. Three names had gone into the system: Harold Niles, Shawna Geddes, and Gabe Hebberman. They were considered security risks. They had been seen nosing around by some of S5’s people. The Old Man wanted them contained and a kill order was put out.

  Pershing didn’t see why they mattered now.

  What could they tell of…still, if the Old Man and S5 wanted it, why not? As long as VanderMissen didn’t find out it would be just fine. And, really, it was only a matter of time before an X-RAY was ordered on VanderMissen and all the others.

  The future was beckoning.

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA:

  CBT CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS

  9:03 A.M.

  As a veteran of executive-branch politics and corporate subterfuge, Elizabeth Toma had learned to trust her instincts. Sometimes it was the only thing that saved your neck. Reams of metadata crossed her desk every day and dozens of employees, politicians, aides, and professional spooks walked through her door, flooding her with more intel, more info, some of it thinly-sourced and some of it actionable. And nearly all of it conflicting in one way or another.

  She trusted no one because she could not afford to open herself up to some of the meat-eaters she dealt with and she didn’t dare turn her back on them. Loyalty was an abstract concept from where she sat and everyone, everyone, had an agenda.

  In general, when she spoke to The Collective, she held her tongue and played the game, kept everything dry and official and never, ever exposed her true feelings. But today, she was done with that. Her back was up and when she got that way, she had no true fear.

  “The problem being, Mr. Brown, that I have the worst feeling based on information that’s been coming my way that you’re being less than forthcoming on certain matters,” she said over the phone. “I don’t care for that. I’ve been very helpful and very cooperative. I don’t care to be left out of the loop.”

  There was silence for a few moments and she knew without a doubt that she had just displeased The Collective. Good, dammit. She had reached the point where she didn’t give a good goddamn how powerful they were—she was done being an obedient, fawning follower.