Bioterror

by Tim Curran

  God, if he could just have a taste. Just one taste—

  He realized then that Bertie was no longer holding his hand. She was lying there on the floor and he couldn’t be sure of anything. Had she really been holding his hand? Had she been talking to him? Or was he just out of his head again?

  The knowledge of it made him sick. It made him weak inside with terror. She’s been sick for hours now, you idiot. You had to drag her up the last few flights of stairs. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember how sick she got?

  He went over to her, kneeling at her side. He didn’t want to touch her, and, at the same time, there was nothing he wanted more. He whispered her name and held her hand. It was clammy and he did not like the feel of it.

  She had the worm.

  He knew she had the worm.

  “Oh, Bertie not you,” he sobbed. “Oh, for the love of Christ, not you. I looked my whole life for you and now that I’ve found you… not this, not this.”

  He put a hand to her swollen belly and he knew for certain. He could feel the sick, dirty heat coming from inside her, generated by the evil thing that owned her now.

  If she’s got it, you should get away from her before it’s too late.

  But there was no way in hell he was doing that. He would stay with her. He would hold her and protect her. She was the only rose he’d ever held, and he was not about to let go of it.

  WASHINGTON DC:

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  12:43 A.M.

  "I’ve got people crawling up my ass any given hour of any given day, burying me alive in facts and figures and projections,” the President of the United States said to Adam Tiggman, White House Counsel. “And now that I need intel and I need it right goddamn now, I’ve got nothing.”

  “Well, we’ve got what Chuck VanderMissen brought us. That’s a beginning.”

  The President paced back and forth. “Which is general as hell.” He shook his head. “Bob Pershing a traitor? I just find that a little hard to swallow. I’ve known him for years. If you had asked me yesterday what an example of a patriot was, I would have pointed to Bob. But this… I just don’t know.”

  “It’s a strong possibility, Mr. President,” Charlie Goade, the FBI Director said. “Certainly worth pursuing. At this juncture, regardless of loyalties, we don’t dare overlook anything.”

  The President nodded. “Still… Bob Pershing.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first deception out of Langley,” Tiggman said.

  “Or the last,” Goade put in.

  “Okay, okay,” the President said.

  He, like everyone else in the room, was more than aware of the FBI Director’s animosity concerning the CIA. Hell, it pretty much went with the job.

  The President paced faster, wringing his hands. “Somebody’s got their crosshairs drawn on this administration and I plan on finding out who. If it’s Bob Pershing, then I’ll hang his ass.”

  Secretary of State Arlene Rabin watched the three of them sparring through steepled fingers. “Point being, Mr. President, what Chuck VanderMissen brought us is enough to raise more than a few eyebrows, I think. There’s also whispers at the JCS about General Mason and at NAV/INT and SOCOM concerning Admiral Paulus. Something’s in the wind and it stinks.”

  She didn’t push it any farther than that because she knew the President as well as any and if you pushed too hard—he pushed back. He was hurting. She knew that. Deep inside, he was hurting. There had been many, many threats to the country since its inception… but never from within. Not like this. Foreign enemies could be handled, but when you had to purge trusted friends, members of your own cabinet and agency heads, it became very complicated and genuinely disturbing. That in itself was bad, making a confident leader like the President unsure of himself and fearing reprisals from every direction, but both the Vice President and Gus Costello had been close personal friends. And right now, he needed the both of them like never before.

  This sort of thing would have been a nightmare at any time, but with what the country was facing right now, it was an atrocity.

  Tiggman cleared his throat. “It’s easy in a situation like this to let our emotions rule the day, but let me caution you, Mr. President, that proceeding calmly and with a clear head is very important—”

  “C’mon, Adam,” Goade said, “somebody might be trying to take over this fucking country.”

  There it was said. It was put into words. No more dancing around the perimeter of the beast—a blade had been thrust into its guts.

  SecState Rabin shook her head. “No, Charlie, Adam’s right. We can’t go off half-cocked rattling our sabers and pissing people off. Particularly powerful, connected, and well-placed people like Pershing, Mason, and Paulus. This country is facing a dire threat from the parasites. We’ve never been in such a terrible state. If the aforementioned are innocent, we can’t afford to lose their support. We’re going to need them.”

  “So what then?” Goade wanted to know.

  “So we gather our intelligence and confirm our sources before we go off half-cocked. We must be judicious.”

  Goade uttered a cynical laugh. “We’re talking treason here. We’re talking a goddamn military overthrow of the country.” He sighed. “Do you know what’s going on out there? We’ve got armed uprisings, riots. The media is feeding off it and fanning the flames. The people out there are scared. Their faith in this administration is wavering. If they get wind of this…Jesus H. Christ. The time for action was yesterday. The country needs a strong man right now. Someone fearless. A leader.”

  “But not a despot,” Tiggman said. “Not a dictator. Martial law has already been called. The country is holding its breath and the world is watching. What happens in the next few days is critical. We must proceed carefully or our enemies have already won.”

  Goade just sighed. The President looked angry. The shit was coming from every direction now. In a national emergency, the commander-in-chief was very reliant on his inner circle and now even that had been compromised.

  Tiggman went on. “What I mean is that history will be made in the coming days. We need to be careful. The last thing we need is to further weaken the infrastructure of this country and the faith of its people by launching a series of purges.”

  He was talking common sense and they all knew it. This was a time for clear heads. The President considered everything, still pacing, still thinking, fighting against his own inner turmoil.

  “All right then,” he said. “We move on this quietly and covertly, but we move. I want every one of you to begin making some inquiries. Adam, I’m tasking you with digging as deep as you can with this. I want to know who’s loyal and who is not. That’s imperative. Right now I’m suspicious as hell about not only the CIA and NAV/INT but the NSA and the Joint Chiefs, maybe even SOCOM. Let’s get on this, people, and head it off at the pass.”

  “Yes. Mr. President,” Tiggman said.

  “It won’t take them long to realize they’re in our sights,” the SecState said.

  “So be it,” the President said. “If I find anyone that’s taking advantage of this crisis for personal gain, any hint of duplicity or sedition, I’m going to make an example of them. And I don’t give a good goddamn who’s standing behind them.”

  Everyone in the room could read between the lines on that. There were power players in DC, corporate lobbyists and big money snakes that slithered in the darkness. The President was ready to drag them out into the light and expose them before the American people. It was unprecedented…and dangerous.

  But long overdue.

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA:

  CBT CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS, 12:59 A.M.

  My God, they’re really doing it.

  As the intelligence rolled in and the details of the Vice President’s assassination and the death of Gus Costello piled up, Elizabeth Toma sat behind her desk in stunned silence. This was The Collective, she knew. This was how they played the game. They were grabbing the country via Pershing and h
is conspirators. It was no longer just talk; it was happening.

  She thought of the President.

  She thought of all that she knew.

  She thought about what she should do as a loyal American and knew she didn’t dare get involved. Not now. It had gone too far.

  And let’s face it, you’re bought and paid for.

  In her mind, she thought of Astrid who had been the only real friend, real confidant she’d had in many years. The Collective had taken Astrid from her. She would never forgive them for it. In the back of her mind, she entertained highly satisfying revenge fantasies that she knew she never would have the guts to turn into reality.

  Regardless, something had to happen.

  “Assholes,” she said under her breath. “They need to pay for what they’ve done.”

  CHICAGO, WEST TOWN:

  WICKER PARK, 1:07 A.M.

  When the pizza guy knocked at the front door, Shawna didn’t hesitate to open it. It was just a delivery guy, what harm could he possibly be? Which just proved that her paranoia wasn’t as well-developed as it should have been.

  “Nobody ordered a pizza,” she said.

  Stein came out of the bathroom and two men had her. A third had a gun in his hand with a silencer screwed onto the end. Before he could bring up his sidearm, it made two quick popping sounds and Stein went down, the holes in his head painting up the walls with grisly splotches of blood and skull matter.

  “Oh my God,” Shawna said.

  The killer—the pizza guy—just stared at her. He was completely composed. Not so much as a twitch. He’d just killed a guy and to him it was of no more significance than taking out the garbage or sharpening a pencil. She was sick to her stomach, shocked, confused, many things… she went limp in the arms of the other two guys, then, just as quickly, went wild, kicking and clawing and screaming. The two men fought her to the floor.

  “Gag her and cuff her,” the pizza guy said. “Put her to sleep.”

  They did so efficiently and expertly. She kept struggling until the jet injector gun shot something into her neck, then she had no cares at all.

  CHICAGO: LOGAN SQUARE

  1:23 A.M.

  McKenna was missing Stein something awful and he knew that agreeing to wear a wire and record him was just bad news. And he knew it was bad news because his new partner, Kessling, was probably doing the same thing to him now. And wasn’t that just karma? Wasn’t that poetic justice?

  Ah, you’re just being paranoid.

  They had just come from a containment operation that had been no more and no less ugly than some of the others. Kessling handled himself pretty well. He had balls and a finely-tuned cruel-streak, absolutely merciless—those kids, those poor damn kids, I couldn’t have done what he did—but he had the personality of a mango. It was all, yes sir, no sir, target is off the grid, sir, with him. Teaming with him was like being back in Afghanistan with MARSOC again, hunting ragheads in caves. Stick-up-yer-ass leatherneck jarhead bullshit.

  Not like Stein.

  Stein had good stories. Stein always had a few good jokes. Stein looked at this whole operation with the absolute cynicism it deserved. He’d been critical of it from day one and that’s what had rubbed Cave the wrong way and that led to McKenna wearing the wire and ratting on the only good friend he had left. Stein was right: it was time to get out. McKenna was thinking on joining him. Maybe getting to him before the other Blackpool hitters or ERT units closed in. Because they knew where he was and it was only a matter of time before they punched his ticket or sent him west to The Resort for some brain-scrubbing.

  Don’t be so naïve, asshole: that’s where you’re going, too, sooner or later.

  That gave McKenna the cold sweats.

  He pulled the car to a stop at the curb before a convenience store. “Why don’t you run in and get us a couple cups? Gonna be a long night.”

  “Affirmative,” Kessling said and McKenna wanted to strangle him. Affirmative, my ass. Once he was gone, McKenna stepped out of the car and had himself a smoke. He stood there, looking at the cars parked on the streets, the lights of the city. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. Yes, this was martial law. Full curfew was in effect.

  Like a fucking graveyard.

  But it was going to get worse, much worse. The stock market was dangerously volatile, seeing record losses day after day after day and with martial law, it was expected to crash like it hadn’t since 1929. The ripples were being felt globally. People were running scared. They were losing their minds. Today, they were frightened. In a week, they would be desperate. In a month, dangerous. The glue that held the country together (cash) was evaporating. And what happened when the money ran out? When the police and the military were no longer being paid?

  Then the worms win. They conquer all.

  Kessling came strolling out with two cups of steaming coffee about three minutes later. He handed one of them off to McKenna over the roof of the car. McKenna accepted it without a word and took a sip, splashed some down the front of his windbreaker and dropped his cigarette.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Stooping over to pick it up, he heard a hollow popping sound across the street and Kessling’s head blew apart in a sloppy gruel of blood and brain matter. He slumped against the car. Dropped his coffee. Then slid down the quarter panel leaving a smear of gore that looked oddly like Heinz ketchup.

  McKenna knew it was meant for him and rolled away just as another round sought him out and the driver’s side mirror literally exploded. Heavy caliber with a silencer. This is a pro. He got behind the trunk and fired two three-round bursts from his Beretta in the direction he’d seen the muzzle flashes.

  He heard feet running off in the distance.

  Again, Stein had been right: the cleaners were being cleaned.

  1:28 A.M.

  Getting old, that’s what. Just getting fucking old.

  Tommy Quillan hopped a fence and jogged down the alley to where his car waited. A couple of teenage toughs were lurking about out on the sidewalk in defiance of the curfew. They saw the L96 sniper rifle Quillan was carrying and ran away. Consider it your lucky day I don’t take your bloody asses out. Quillan hopped into his car and took off, putting some streets in-between him and his targets.

  Four blocks away, he pulled to the curb and broke down the L96 into its respective components and put them into their respective form-fitting compartments in a briefcase.

  He checked his encrypyted cellphone.

  Two more messages from Pershing.

  Oh, hell.

  The first was a query concerning target attrition.

  The second was to add another name to the roster.

  Good old Pershing. Not only did he want the cleaners eliminated, he wanted the command and control structure of S5 to cease to exist. Getting this new name would mean an infiltration into the Warehouse compound itself. Intriguing. Quillan began to make plans in the back of his head.

  Pershing was taking advantage of events as he always did. Behind all this was a grab for power. Whatever Pershing was doing—and with the full resources of the CIA behind him—you could be certain it had very little to do with national security and very much to do with some private agenda. That’s what Quillan liked about the CIA Director: at heart, he was nothing but a cheap fucking mercenary. Quillan knew a brother when he saw one.

  There was another text message, this time by one of his private assets. He clicked it up.

  Jsac: T, we got a positive on the Ratman. He’s on the ground in Dearborn. Out of his skull. Waiting for it.

  Well, now that was good news. Quillan felt a tingle of excitement. The only reason he’d agreed to come Stateside and do some wet work for Pershing was that it played into his hands. He’d been tracking Sheikh Sa’ad al Khalafari half way across the fucking globe, from Syria into Iraq, through every Muslim shithole in Afghanistan. Word had it that Sheikh Sa’ad had escaped into Afghanistan with the assistance of some Paki militants who, in their spare time, were Inter-Se
rvices Intelligence operatives. Quillan liked that. Probably the same cunts who shielded Osama Bin Laden before the Yanks took him out. When rumor suggested that Sheikh Sa’ad had fled to the United States, Quillan was only too happy to go Stateside under the guise of hunting some enemies of The Company for Pershing.

  Now he knew where he was.

  He had confirmed target acquisition.

  That meant that he had to catch a plane to Detroit immediately. This other business could wait. S5 wasn’t going anywhere and neither were their cleaners. But he couldn’t go out on some mad lark without Pershing’s okay. He might anyway, but it might be complicated being hunted while he was trying to hunt. And with the subcutaneous biochip transponder injected in his shoulder, it was not like he could hide…Pershing’s boys could watch every step he made via satellite.

  He brought up Pershing’s secure line. “It’s me. We got a positive of our favorite raghead. He’s in Detroit. Yeah, I know where. Approximately, mate. Just approximately.” Quillan listened. “All right. I can be in the air in an hour. This time, we tag him.”

  “I want him alive.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I have my reasons,” Pershing said. “You are to capture him and bring him here. Do you understand?”

  “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “It is. I have uses for our friend. When you get here, I have another target for you. The most high profile you’ve ever attempted.”

  Quillan grinned. “Well, now you’re talking.”

  LOCATION UNKNOWN: THE BIRD NEST,

  S5 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES FACILITY

  1:45 A.M.

  Shawna’s mind was not her own and she knew it. They had given her an injection and reality was getting fuzzy, it was beginning to fray around the edges.

  Am I even here? she thought. Am I even anywhere?

  The room was dim and the walls, even the ceiling, seemed to be made of smoky dark glass. Was such a thing possible? Did they make places entirely of glass? Entire buildings? She shook her head because nothing was making sense or maybe it made too much sense. She tried to concentrate, but her thoughts were filmy, they were wisps of smoke that dissipated in her mind’s eye.