“Can you sit on him?” Bloch said.
“No, time is critical,” he said.
“Then bring him in, but Morgan, there’s something you have to know first.”
As Bloch briefed him, Morgan’s heart hammered in his chest. “Morgan, remember the only thing we know for sure is that she hasn’t checked in. This is Alex, and she’s with Karen. They could simply be doing their jobs.”
“But you don’t know where they are,” he said.
“No,” she conceded.
“That sounds like missing to me,” Morgan replied. He felt the burn of that hyper alertness that came with an important mission. This time it was mixed with something else, an extra layer of anger and a touch of fear.
This was Alex.
Unfortunately, he had nowhere to direct those feelings. So for now, he had to push all of that down. Whatever happened he couldn’t let how he was feeling show. It wouldn’t help to scare Jenny more than necessary.
“Jenny, there is a bit of a situation—”
“You’re worried,” Jenny said. It was a statement, not a question. “What has happened with Alex?”
“Nothing. She’s on a mission, undercover, in a very safe environment. And she’s with another agent, Karen O’Neal. HQ has lost contact and they are trying to re-establish it now.”
“That’s not true, or you’re not telling me everything,” Jenny said. She was remarkably calm, but there was an edge to her voice. Morgan knew he had to come clean.
“She is undercover at Berkeley as a student, investigating the possibility of a radical organization on campus. Zeta software showed it as a potential, future trouble spot. They are just there collecting information.”
“Berkeley…” Jenny said thoughtfully. “What department at Berkeley?”
“Bio-chemistry,” Morgan said.
“Isn’t that where that Dr. Apocalypse teaches?” Jenny asked.
“Doctor who?” Dobrynin said.
“Some crazy professor who says that the only way to save the Earth is for a disease to wipe out people,” Jenny said.
“How do you know about him?” Morgan said.
“His lecture went viral,” Jenny said.
“And he’s a biochemistry professor?” Dobrynin asked.
“Yes,” Morgan said.
“Bozhe moi,” the Russian said.
Morgan didn’t know what that term meant, but the Russian’s tone told him enough.
Jenny turned to Dobrynin. “So the plans for a deadly virus get stolen by terrorists and then those terrorists show up in the U.S. Now Alex has gone missing while she’s investigating people who say they want…Oh my God,” Jenny said. She took a deep breath and then added, “You two are the professional spies here, but am I missing something?”
No one answered. All three of them were thinking the same thing. Of course, it could all be a coincidence. There was only one problem: Morgan knew that it wasn’t.
“How long until we reach your headquarters?” Dobrynin asked.
Morgan did a quick calculation and said, “Half hour.”
It was too long, but that couldn’t be helped. No, that wasn’t exactly true. They could get a head start on part of this.
He dialed the phone and put Bloch on speaker.
“Bloch here,” she said.
“I’m in the car with a former KGB agent named Valery Dobrynin.”
“I know the name, and a little about him,” Bloch said.
“He ran security for a project in the 1980s…”
When the conversation was over, Morgan stepped on the gas. There was almost no traffic and it was time to find out how fast this car could go on the open road.
As it turned out, it could go pretty fast.
* * * *
The students were quiet except for some low sobbing and the occasional whimper. There had been no talking since the Chechen leader had backhanded two students for doing so.
Margaret was sitting next to Spellman, who kept a wad of tissues to his face. The gash on his cheek seemed to have stopped bleeding. It would need stitches—quite a few of them—but Alex doubted that would happen any time soon.
She and Karen shared the occasional surreptitious look and hand motion, enough to say to each other that now wasn’t the time. Alex didn’t know if the time for them to act would ever come, but there had to be a better time than now, when they were trapped in close quarters with four gunmen.
Though it was only mid-afternoon, the light in the bus was dim. There were LED lights that ran the length of the walkway at the center of the bus. The terrorists had also insisted on keeping on all of the overhead lights above the seats. They clearly wanted to be able to keep an eye on their…what? Prisoners? Hostages? Slave laborers?
The students weren’t allowed to speak or move, which meant they couldn’t
make plans to overpower their captors.
Normally, Alex’s first thought would be to make a break for an emergency door or one of the windows to jump out when the bus slowed or stopped. The problem was that steel plate had been welded and bolted over the emergency doors as well as the two exit hatches in the ceiling. The Chechens had also covered all of the windows with some sort of sheet aluminum.
With time and makeshift tools, the windows would be her best shot at getting out of the bus, but Alex didn’t think the armed terrorists would give her much time to jimmy or tear at the aluminum.
As a result, the only way out of the bus was up the center aisle, past the five men with guns, through the door to the driver’s compartment, and then through the door outside.
Without emergency exits it would be tough for the students to get out of the bus if there was a crash. Of course, even so, a crash would be about the best outcome they could hope for, at least in the short term.
The only thing that kept the bus from total silence was the occasional mutterings of their captors. There was also, incongruously, music coming from the driver’s compartment. She assumed it was Chechen. It was surprisingly upbeat, like Eastern European pop music. But the music was low enough that they could hear the outside world.
This told Alex something important. The terrorists preferred they did not see where they were going or how they were getting there, but in the end they didn’t care that much. And that meant, of course, that the Chechens intended to kill them all.
Naturally, the terrorists wanted to make sure they didn’t try to escape—and it appeared they were succeeding in that regard. However, the men didn’t seem to care that the students had seen their faces and would be able to identify them after the Chechens were finished with them. Obviously, that was because for the passengers on this bus, there would be no after.
Or course, the terrorists assumed they were dealing with soft college students. They would underestimate Alex and Karen. It wouldn’t be much of an advantage but it was something.
In a way knowing that their captors intended to kill them was another advantage. It freed Alex to consider options that would be too risky to try otherwise.
Yes, the students and Professor Spellman were probably sheep. But even sheep, when cornered, would fight. Alex knew she was no sheep, and she suspected Karen wasn’t either.
Whatever happened, she would enjoy giving the Chechens a surprise or two.
She did her best to guess their speed (about sixty with a few patches of moderate traffic) and their time on the road (about an hour, though it was hard to be sure without a watch or a phone).
And then they hit traffic, stopping and starting for a few minutes.
She wondered how long it would be before they were missed. On Monday, Spellman wouldn’t show up for classes, and neither would twenty students in the same major. Friends and roommates might start missing them tonight, if not this afternoon.
Would Jason miss her? They were supposed to have lu
nch. Would he make a report to someone? Unlikely. He would probably think she had stood him up. That upset her. She didn’t want him to think that.
Especially if she didn’t make it out.
Alex didn’t finish the thought. She would have to get out of here to make sure she could apologize to him personally.
Girlfriends and boyfriends of the students would be the first to get antsy. They might even make a report to campus security. When that happened, Zeta would be on it immediately.
But even if there was a report by dinnertime, they could be 250 to 300 miles away. That would mean a search area that was as much as 2500 square miles in size. Even with all of Zeta’s resources—both what they had, and what they could borrow or hack. And that nearly impossible search process would only start if Zeta got the message they had been taken.
Alex doubted she could count on any lucky breaks. She had to assume reasonable professionalism on the part of the terrorists. They would likely have taken precautions against security cameras.
Unfortunately for the students, the white bus they had been ushered onto was not only non-descript but identical to a number of other buses she had seen on campus, coming and going. That, she was sure, was not an accident.
Even if campus security caught the bus on camera leaving the university, it wouldn’t send up any flares. No, she would have to assume they were on their own. They would have to escape, or get a message out. Failure was not an option.
If they failed, they all died.
Traffic stopped them cold and the Chechens began arguing.
That amused Alex. They hadn’t counted on traffic.
Then there was noise from inside the driver’s compartment. It was a knock. One of the guards opened the door to the compartment. Alex could see the driver dealing with someone outside. He was clearly annoyed as he tried to wave whoever it was off, but he or she kept knocking.
Who was it? The police?
Karen gave her a look. Maybe this magical mystery tour would be over before it began. If it were a policeman, and even if the Chechens somehow got away, there would be a report—a trail to follow.
One of the armed men called up to the driver, who yelled something back. And then the person outside just knocked harder.
Finally, the man she thought of as in charge—who had done all of the talking at the lab—called out and the driver reluctantly pulled on the lever that opened the door.
A male figure bounded up the stairs. “I’m looking for Alex Morgan, we were supposed to—”
It was Jason and he stopped talking when he saw the multiple guns pointed at him.
He scanned the bus until his eyes locked on hers. “Alex…” he said.
Chapter 18
“I can have someone drive you home,” Morgan said to Jenny as they pulled into the underground garage at Zeta.
“Dan, I’m not leaving until we know that Alex is safe,” Jenny replied.
Morgan started to argue but saw his wife’s expression and dropped it. A plain white van pulled in behind them. Two agents opened the side door and Dobrynin stepped out.
The van had met them on the way to take the Russian into HQ. Dobrynin had made the last leg of the trip in the van’s darkened interior—thus keeping Zeta’s location a secret.
Worldwide emergency or no, there were security protocols. Even though Dobrynin was his…Enemy? Rival? Friend?
None of those were quite right.
He turned to the agents and said, “Run the memory card he gave you over to Shepard. He knows it’s coming.”
One of the agents was off down the stairs. Morgan, Jenny, and their Russian guest headed straight for Bloch’s office. She waved them in while talking on the phone.
“Jenny,” Bloch said simply. She paused and then said, “We’re doing everything we can.”
“I know, Diane,” Jenny replied.
“And we don’t actually know anything. I’m going to assume that wherever she is, Alex has the situation in hand.”
Morgan gestured to the Russian next to him and said, “This is my…associate Valery Dobrynin.”
Bloch gave him a curt nod. “You have shown up in more than one of my reports. Now is there anything you can tell me that wasn’t in the briefing you gave me by phone?”
“Just that the Chechens who hit our facility were very well-trained. I suspect that they will take precautions not to be found.”
“Understood. And thank you for the information you provided. Perhaps we’ll get luck with one of the credit cards or with a facial recognition hit on one of the photographs,” she said.
“If they are sloppy enough to make a mistake,” Morgan said. He didn’t hold out much hope of that. It was easy enough to avoid large public places with facial recognition systems. And even if you had to use an airport or a train terminal it was possible to fool the system.
“What about finding the students?” Jenny said. “How can twenty kids and their professor just disappear?”
“Not easily,” Diane admitted.
“Any sign they were moved off campus?” Morgan asked.
“No. Some of the cameras were out, but if that many people were moved we would have picked up a truck or a small convoy on traffic cameras. No unusual vehicles came or went,” Bloch said.
“Are we sure they left or were taken off campus?” Dobrynin asked.
“Not at all,” Bloch said.
“So they could be on campus?” Dobrynin said.
“We have a small army of local resources posing as safety inspectors scouring the school. It gets slightly easier if the group wants to be found, which is by no means a certainty.”
“Alex and O’Neal would find a way to signal us or leave word somewhere,” Morgan said.
“We’re counting on that, but we have to assume there is at least a possibility that Spellman and his group are actively working with a foreign terrorist group to create a dangerous biological agent.”
“If that’s the case they will need a lab,” Dobrynin said. “They won’t stay in the school for long. And the Chechens will not want to risk themselves being recognized. They also will want to begin their project without delay. And the fact that they are in the U.S. tells me that they intend to deploy the agent or threaten to deploy it here, though I’m sure Mother Russia is also very high on their list.”
“If I understand you correctly everyone is on their list,” Bloch said.
“This is true,” Dobrynin said.
“Well I have a list of my own. Where do we start?” Morgan asked.
“We’re prepping the Tach team. We have quite a few volunteers, so the biggest problem we are going to have is finding people to stay behind to mind the store. For now Shepard is running the search from his area. If you have any ideas, talk to him. If not, he can always use another pair of eyes reviewing security or satellite footage.”
Bloch turned to Jenny and said, “We can have someone take you—”
“I want to help,” Jenny cut her off.
“You’re with your husband then.”
“I can also work,” Dobrynin said. “Who is in charge of looking for the Chechen terrorists themselves?”
“No one yet, but the job is yours. Morgan, he’s your responsibility,” Bloch said, and they were off.
They took the stairs down to Shepard’s level because it was marginally faster than the elevator. Morgan was the first to get to Shepard, who was in front of his computer station, which had racks of equipment and half a dozen monitors.
“Shepard,” Morgan called out. The young man didn’t turn away from the screen. “Shepard,” he repeated, as they got closer.
When he turned their way, Morgan saw that Shepard didn’t look so good. He’d obviously been at the computer for hours and he wore his worry on his face. Morgan knew that Shepard and O’Neal were seeing each other. Now she was mis
sing on her first undercover mission.
Neither O’Neal nor Shepard was well suited for undercover work. Morgan was sure they had basic weapons and hand-to-hand training (Bloch would have insisted on that when they joined Zeta), but they were far more valuable at their computer stations.
Still, Karen was smart—possibly the smartest person at Zeta. That had to be an asset if they were in a tight spot. And she was with Alex, who was pretty smart herself and had the training and the heart of a field agent. Between them, they should be able to handle virtually any situation.
Based on that, he would have liked to tell Shepard not to worry. And he would have told him just that, if he thought it would do any good or if he was able to follow the same advice himself.
“What do we know?” Morgan said.
“Nothing above what Bloch probably told you. Twenty students and one Professor have disappeared. Their phones are off the grid, which means they have been turned off or destroyed. But there’s no sign of foul play on campus and we have no idea how they were moved off campus—if they even were.”
“They are not there,” Dobrynin said.
“Bloch briefed me. You know the terrorists who may be involved?” Shepard said.
“I know something about them. I presume they have moved their assets by now. They are at or on the way to a lab to synthesize the biological agent. The facility will be remote and already stocked with equipment and supplies. If we can track their equipment, we can find the lab—and your people. It will be easier, of course, if they put the lab together recently. Harder, if they did it over time.”
“We’re compiling a list of lab supplies,” Shepard said.
The Russian tapped his head. “I have the list. I need a computer and an operator with access to all of the relevant commercial databases.”
“Some of that information may be flagged by Defense,” Shepard said to Morgan.
“On Bloch’s authorization,” Morgan said.
A few minutes later Dobrynin was at a workstation with six screens and one of Shepard’s people assisting him.
“What about us?” Jenny asked Shepard.
“I’ve got hundreds of hours of security footage from dozens of cameras around campus.”
Threat Level Alpha Page 15