Bioterror

by Tim Curran

  “Would you care to share that information, Elizabeth?”

  “No, I would not. What I would like to know is what happens next. BioGen is active and Pershing is unleashing his beast…but there’s another stage, another level. I want to know what that is. I cannot align my resources until I know what the endgame is.”

  More silence. Mr. Brown was either carefully considering what she said, pros and cons, tactical advantages and political blowback…or he was about to clip her wings and leave her out in the cold.

  “And what makes you certain there is another level?” he wanted to know.

  Elizabeth’s turn for silence. Well, she started this. If she backed down now, she would appear weak, conflicted, insecure. A captain who was no longer steering her own ship. And before The Collective, she could not be those things. She knew she must always be confident, almost supernaturally so. But on the other hand, if she pushed too hard and too far…well, she wouldn’t live to regret it.

  Before answering, she studied a report on her desk. It had come from 3Eye. Mostly speculation, fanciful projection. But buried in there somewhere was a grain of truth.

  “I’m confident there is another level,” she said. “And I believe that our friend at the NSA knows what it is. I’ve made myself clear on this in the past—he likes to talk, he likes to brag, he likes to overinflate his place in the scheme of things.”

  “And?”

  “And word has it that he’s been hinting around about a certain classified project up in Alaska. Do I need to mention it by name?”

  “No, I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Word reaches me that it’s about to go live.”

  “And that…eh…comes from our NSA friend?”

  “Indirectly.”

  She could hear him breathing on the other end. The sense she got was not that he was going to clip her wings, but that he was nervous, possibly even scared.

  “And you think we’re leaving you out of it?”

  “Yes, obviously.”

  “And we should be more forthcoming?”

  “I trust you. I’ve done everything I could to further our cause. I have the distinct feeling you don’t trust me,” she said. “I don’t like that. Not after what I’ve sacrificed.”

  She expected more dramatic silence, but she got none. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps we’ve underestimated your usefulness. Let me speak to my associates. If they agree, there will be full disclosure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yes, well. It’s high time we met face to face. I’ll be in contact.”

  She sat there for some time, thinking, wondering. Professionally, she was excited at the idea of advancing beyond her present station. But her instincts—well-sharpened and sensitive from years upon years of survival—were warning her.

  Be careful.

  Full disclosure can be a very dangerous thing.

  It’s not always good to know too much.

  But she couldn’t back down. Again, it would make her look weak. She had to go through with this even if her nerves were on edge, her stomach turning, and her instincts screaming at her.

  If they bring you in, it means immense power.

  Or—

  It means you’ll be killed.

  CHICAGO, W. ROOSEVELT:

  FBI FIELD DIVISION, 9:20 A.M.

  In retrospect, Danny Pasquel did not see where he was doing anything wrong. It wasn’t like he was selling state secrets or had become a mole for organized crime. Gabe Hebberman was an old friend. He was basically a sleeze publisher and would be the first to admit as such…but he was handy and had infinite resources and contacts. Pasquel had found Gabe handy in more than one investigation. Sometimes you had to repay favors, give a little to get a little. That’s how things worked.

  Pasquel was an FBI Assistant Special-Agent-in-Charge with a good clean record and he was being groomed for bigger and better things. So when Pohlman came up to his desk and said, “Hey, Danny. Let’s take a walk,” right away he expected trouble.

  When Special Agent-in-Charge Pohlman took you for a walk it usually meant you fucked up something and Pasquel honestly could not think of a thing. He had just been appointed to the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force for his work busting up an Islamic extremist group that had plans to detonate bombs in the Sears Tower. He was well liked and respected.

  Then Pohlman took him for a walk.

  When they got outside, casually walking side-by-side up the sidewalk, SAC Polhlman said, “I need to talk to you about a phone call you took.”

  “Sir?”

  “Gabe Hebberman.”

  “Gabe? What about it?”

  Pohlman told him that Hebberman’s name was on a watch list and when somebody at the Chicago Division took a call for him…then later called him back…it sent up red flags all over the system.

  “I got three calls from Washington, Danny,” Pohlman said. “Friendly calls…but stern.”

  “Sir…are you telling me my phone is tapped?”

  Pohlman sighed. “Danny, this whole goddamn building is tapped. The NSA is listening in on everything. When you got a call from Hebberman, their computers immediately ID’d it because he’s on a list.”

  “Gabe? Christ, he’s harmless.”

  “What did he want, Danny? The NSA knows what you guys talked about, but I’d like to know.”

  “Sir, it was hardly anything. You know Gabe. He’s a contact. One hand washes the other. He wanted me to run a couple names through the system…let’s see…” he dug out a notebook from the inside pocket of his suit coat “…Shawna Geddes and Harold Niles. He wasn’t specific about what he wanted with them, just that they were connected with something he was running down.” Pasquel shrugged. “I suppose, sir, you’re going to tell me I can’t be using Bureau resources on things like this.”

  SAC Pohlman smiled. “No, Danny. I know how it works. I played the game for years. Assets are assets. You have an impressive record and don’t think they’re not aware of it in Washington. A favor for a favor, like you say. It just so happens that this time, your friend’s name got the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security all worked up. He’s being watched in connection with a possible terror cell.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Pohlman arched his eyebrow and no more. “That’s not for us to decide. We have to play ball. So do me a favor and break off contact with Hebberman. He calls, you’re not in. It’s the right thing to do. The people who called me can make trouble, Danny. A lot of trouble. And we don’t want that, do we?”

  Pasquel sighed. “Of course not.”

  “Good.”

  “I suppose this is going in my file?”

  “Of course not.”

  Like hell it won’t, Pasquel thought.

  NEGEV DESERT, SOUTHERN ISRAEL:

  BIR SHIVA DETAINMENT CAMP

  4:14 P.M. ISRAEL TIME

  The Israelis took no chances with Wing #6, for it was here in this pale two-story building that some of the nation’s greatest enemies were housed: Fatah dissidents, Hamas terrorists, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants. The building was circled by razor wire and an electrified fence. Guards with automatic weapons patrolled the perimeter.

  Isser Shabbat was waved through and into the building where he was greeted by a guard in a pale blue uniform. The guard looked very beleaguered, telling Shabbat that they had a Hamas hunger strike going on and about a dozen appeals from the Palestinian National Authority to deal with. Not a good day. Though, Shabbat figured, there was probably no such thing as a good day in this place.

  He was led down a concrete walkway to an interrogation room. Inside, Abu Zakari was tied to a chair. His legs were shackled. He was bloodied, beaten, mumbling prayers beneath his breath. The confidence that Shabbat had seen in him at Ben Gurion had evaporated. It had been drained off as if someone had opened an artery and maybe they had at that.

  When he saw Shabbat, simmering black hate filled his eyes.

  “And how a
re we faring?” Shabbat put to him, grinning broadly. “I’m told you do not wish to speak to us?”

  Zakari kept staring at him. “Ah..ila jaheem ma’ik,” he said in Arabic, telling Shabbat to go to hell.

  “You can do better than that,” Shabbat said. “Come now. Talk to me. Your Hebrew is perfect and I know it. Probably much better than my Arabic. Let us talk. You’re going nowhere. You will be in this place for many years. You might as well tell us why you were going to England.”

  Zakari just stared.

  “You have a wife and two sons. Shall I have them brought here for the amusement of the other inmates?” Shabbat asked him. “Or does such a thing mean nothing to you animals of the West Bank?”

  Zakari swallowed. In perfect Hebrew, he said, “I am a man of God. I am a man of peace.”

  “As am I. Ask any of the Islamic trash I have killed. They will concur that I am a man of peace.”

  Zakari began to pray again.

  “If you are a man of peace, please explain this to me.” Shabbat set a tiny vial on the table before Zakari. “We found this inserted into the handle of a disposable razor. It was ingeniously hidden and x-rays would not have picked it up. But we of the Mossad have more intensive methods.” He picked the vial up. It was made of plastic. Inside was a tiny, fleshy object curled like a grub. “This is very interesting. The x-rays would not harm this little horror, eh? Which means by the time you arrived in London, the little beast would still be quite active…yes?”

  Zakari continued to pray.

  “Come now, my friend. Please do not make me get unpleasant. I’ve been told that I get carried away. I become excessive in my attention to a man’s genitals.” Shabbat shrugged. “But, no matter, perhaps there is a better way, hmm? British MI6 will be very interested in what we found in this vial. Unfortunately, we cannot share it with them.”

  Zakari looked up.

  Shabbat motioned with his head. Two Mossad operatives took hold of Zakari. They wrapped a leather strap around his forehead, yanking his head back as far it would go. Another such strap was placed in his mouth, forcing his lower jaw down so that his mouth was open.

  Still smiling, kindly, compassionate, yet most pitiless, Shabbat donned a pair of rubber surgical gloves, ensuring that they fit snugly. From a small case he removed a forceps. He began to unscrew the small lid of the vial. He grasped the dormant larval worm with the forceps and brought it within inches of Zakari’s open mouth.

  No longer smiling, he said, “You have five seconds to tell me what I want to know before this little horror infests you.”

  Zakari thrashed but could go nowhere.

  He tried to close his mouth. Impossible.

  He tried to turn his head. Unattainable.

  Shabbat brought the worm closer. “Yes?”

  Zakari began to sob and plead so Shabbat placed the worm back in its vial, screwing the lid shut. “Good. Now… understand me: if I have to open that vial again, I will drop the worm down your throat. Do you understand that?”

  Zakari nodded, tears running down his cheeks.

  “Tell me,” Shabbat said.

  Knowing that he was not just betraying his Muslim brothers but Allah himself, Zakari sobbed and whined, but when Shabbat reached for the vial, he shook his head, saying in Hebrew: “It is too late! It is far too late… don’t you see? It is much later than you think…”

  WASHINGTON, D.C:

  WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

  11:07 A.M.

  DNI VanderMissen had watched it go from bad to worse so by this point, nothing was really surprising him. God knows he loved his country and the ideals it stood for…it was just the men that ran it that sometimes gave him pause (and the idiots who voted them into office). The President, he knew, was a good man, a compassionate man, a man of integrity and conscience. He could not be blamed for the scourge that was taking the country. At least not directly. That fault lay solely with the various agencies and executives who’d green-lighted this mess (and VanderMissen himself was one of them, may God help him). Regardless, POTUS was tasked with cleaning up the mess.

  If such a thing were even possible.

  And Charles VanderMissen was beginning to have his doubts.

  The men and women gathered in the Situation Room were the muscle behind the National Security Council Intelligence Committee: the secretaries of state and defense, the directors of the CIA, DIA, ONI, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President’s military and intelligence advisors, a few high-ranking medical and scientific specialists, the President and Vice President. All of them presided over by Gus Costello, the National Security Advisor.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Costello said. “I want to thank each and every one of you for coming. I honestly can’t think of a more dire set of circumstances than the ones we face now.”

  Everyone quietly picked up their NSC estimates and briefs. All of which were well-thumbed by that point, but they looked anyway, more than a few a little pale at the predictions within.

  “The question is, as always, how are we going to handle it?” Admiral Paulus, the Director of Naval Intelligence asked.

  “We want to proceed with the least amount of collateral damage to this country, this office, and the people who’ve put their trust in us,” Arlene Rabin, the Secretary of State said.

  There were a few murmurs to that.

  General Mason, the JCS Chairman, cleared his throat. “You all know me. You know I don’t dick the dog. I come right out and say what’s on my mind. So…the sooner we declare martial law the better. I want congressional power to deploy our combined forces domestically. We need more than the National Guard and reserves here. And we need to move on this goddamn yesterday.”

  “Hold on,” Robert Pershing, the DCI said. “Let’s not be hasty.”

  “We could always try a full confession,” Charles Goade, the FBI Director said. “Spill the beans. Tell the public that it was a horrendous error in judgment that set this monster loose and now it’s in the hands of foreign extremists.”

  “Now wait a minute,” the Secretary of Defense said. “Quite a few of us were involved. Personally, people, I don’t like the idea of being offered up as a sacrificial lamb.”

  “He’s right,” Costello said. “I wasn’t involved then, but do we really want the public to find out about this… this atrocity? Do we want the dirty laundry of Section Five made public? The repercussions could be devastating.”

  “Maybe it’s high time,” Pershing said.

  They all looked at him. It was totally out of character, for nobody swept more dirt under the carpet or covered his ass as expertly as did the Director of the CIA. He wouldn’t have gotten where he currently was if he was a man of truth and they all knew it.

  Admiral Paulus and General Mason were staring at him.

  “What I mean is, maybe the time has come for full disclosure,” he said, knowing and knowing full well that everything that was being said was recorded and his position would be a matter of record.

  “I don’t see that helping matters,” the Vice President said.

  But the President was considering it; they could all see that.

  Gus Costello stood up. “This is more than just a matter of national security,” he told them. “From all indications the outbreak is poised to become global. We need to carefully consider this and assess the possible damage to this country and our international position.”

  “Meaning,” General Mason said, “if we want any friends when this is done, we better cover our asses with both hands.”

  “Agreed,” said the Secretary of State.

  Costello looked down the long table at all the expectant faces. “We’ve just gotten word from Israeli Mossad that Abu Zakari, a known Hamas agent, was attempting to smuggle worm larva out of Tel Aviv and into London.”

  “Jesus,” DDI General Sleshing said. “That’s all we need.”

  “The point being, gentlemen,” VanderMissen piped in, “is that this might have started with a
colossal fuck-up on the part of those involved in the ground level development and deployment of BioGen, but it’s beyond that now. Maybe we could have contained this had it only been our own soldiers and Marines infected. Maybe. But, as I said, it’s beyond all that now. The cat, so to speak, is out of the bag. Iranian Pasdaran somehow, some way, managed to harvest the technology. And now that technology has been stolen from them by Sheikh Sa’ad al Khalafari. I imagine the Iranians are pissed…no matter. BioGen will not recognize borders and if what we suspect is true, the Iranians will soon get all the firsthand knowledge of the parasites they want.

  “Regardless, the worms will soon be everywhere. Our own forces brought BioGen back with them where it cooked for a number of years before becoming active. And now Sheikh Sa’ad has worsened the matter by spreading BioGen to a variety of terrorist organizations. Hamas is a fact. Al-Qaeda is a near certainty. Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are probable as well as every extremist Shi’a group you can think of. These are facts. And now we have reason to believe that a variety of hardcore Islamic militants have entered this country illegally and are, and have been, spreading BioGen in nearly every major city in conjunction with terror sleeper cells. The same goes for Canada, South America, the UK, Europe, Russia, Asia…dear God, this is out of control.”

  “You’re absolutely right on every count, Chuck,” Costello said. “So let’s not worry about explaining the origins of this mess. In light of an absolute global pandemic, they really don’t matter. As far as we’re concerned, it was started by terrorists and that’s where we’ll leave it.”

  “So where does that leave us?” the Secretary of Defense said.

  “Straight in the shitter,” Mason grumbled.

  “And to think,” General Sleshing said, “I thought things we’re going to get better after SEAL Team Six popped fucking Bin Laden.”

  “It’s your call, Mr. President,” Arlene Rabin said.

  The President was deeply pained by it all. Sickened, worried, frustrated, and most of all angry about what he considered to be an absolute lack of ethics by S5, lack of judgment by his own administration, and reckless ambition by many of those at the table. “Yes,” he said, “it is my call and it’s a call, by God, I don’t want to make. But I don’t honestly see where I have a choice. We need perception management here or this entire country is going to come down around us with the rest of the world following in short order. We’ll have to give the terror threat—which is real anyway—the hard sell. The origins no longer matter. We need to get this under control right now.”