Quantico

by Greg Bear

  William peered down at the boxes. ‘HAZMAT team?’

  ‘Of course,’ Matty said. ‘We put the officer and any locals who had touched the fragments under observation and ran tests. I’m sure you’re dying to ask…Did we find anthrax?’

  ‘Just dying,’ William agreed.

  ‘Well, we’re not, and neither is anybody else. There was perchlorate residue, poly-B, aluminum powder, some glass beads, talc, fine white sand, and…this’ll sound familiar…’ Matty looked a challenge.

  ‘Yeast,’ William said.

  ‘Damn. You’re brighter than I remember. So, can you tell me why we’re here? Why somebody would bother to shoot fireworks filled with yeast all over a small town?’

  ‘What kind of yeast?’

  ‘Regular kind. I’m no expert. But it’s pretty fine.’

  ‘Was the yeast killed by the heat?’

  ‘Not according to our analysts. They’re growing some right now back in Cincinnati. I’d say most of it blew right out of the tubes and spread out from the point of origin, not far from that curb over there. Are these like the tubes the Patriarch’s family was packing?’

  William nodded. ‘They look right,’ he said. ‘Any ideas about motive?’

  ‘The Patriarch’s kids are rampaging across America, shooting off their damned yeast shells, and thereby telling us they could just as easily use anthrax. Ransom notes to follow.’

  William frowned. ‘That would explain a lot, but we haven’t heard word one from any of the others.’

  ‘Then maybe these were duds. Maybe they didn’t work the way they planned. SAC’s on my butt about getting a piece of Patriarch pie. Your confirmation could really set me up here.’

  William walked along the line of boxes. Yeast at the farm, dozens of pounds of it spread over the trees. Yeast in the printer cartridges. Yeast everywhere, but no anthrax—not even BT or some other more suitable anthrax substitute.

  ‘Any guess what altitude they exploded?’ William asked.

  ‘Anywhere from five hundred to three thousand feet,’ Matty said.

  ‘I assume you’ve already checked up on supremacist churches in town.’

  ‘There aren’t any. No Nazis, either. Just schnitzel.’

  ‘How about you—have you gone to church?’

  ‘Not yet, but there’s plenty to choose from.’

  ‘Synagogues?’

  ‘Not a one,’ Matty said.

  ‘Anybody check how far the yeast might have spread?’

  ‘Why? It’s yeast.’ Matty grinned. ‘Might give our young ladies itchy privates. Is that what you’re worried about?’

  William shrugged. ‘My father mentioned Silesia on his hospital bed.’

  Matty tightened like a race horse at the post. ‘In what connection?’

  ‘There might have been a map or fragment of a map in the Patriarch’s barn. Griff asked us to check out Silesia. It wasn’t in the final report because there wasn’t any anthrax, nobody could make sense of it, and…well, they weren’t interested in the fireworks angle. Griff told us there were lots of churches. He seemed to think that might be a motive, that the Patriarch wanted to kill both Jews and mainstream Christians.’

  ‘I’m interested, you can bet on that.’

  ‘I don’t know if anybody kept my father’s scrawls. I doubt it.’

  ‘Sounds like a bad lapse of judgment,’ Matty said.

  ‘Well, now it does,’ William said. ‘But that’s all there was.’

  ‘Why didn’t you check it out?’

  ‘We were shut down. You know that.’

  Matty nodded. ‘Question is, will this be enough to reopen?’

  ‘I’d sure like to know why someone gets his jollies by flinging yeast.’

  ‘Could we re-interview your father?’ Matty asked.

  ‘You can try. His thinking fades in and out. He doesn’t remember a lot of things.’

  ‘Doesn’t know where his keys are?’ Matty asked. ‘It’s a pattern. That’s what happened to the deputy who first checked out the Patriarch. He’s on disability leave. Happy guy, from what I hear.’

  I’m telling you, some of it I just don’t remember! They’re putting stuff in my food. This place is making me crazy.

  Jeremiah Chambers, the Patriarch’s son—

  Griff. And now, the Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy, William tried to remember his name—Markham, Kerry Markham.

  William stood in front of the table and the boxes, not moving a muscle. He had just felt a sour foreboding, like guilt for a mistake he had yet to make. Matty was watching him. ‘Can I set up in the trailer…or here?’ William asked. ‘I’d like to make some calls.’

  ‘As long as you share, and I mean everything,’ Matty said, ‘you’re welcome to join our little circus.’ He reached in his coat pocket and handed William a green bottle: gingko biloba tablets. ‘Try some. Whole town’s popping them like candy.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Incirlik Air Base Turkey

  Fouad saw his mother standing in the far rocks. His father pointed and smiled. The Jinn swirled around her, whirlwinds of blue and red. ‘She’s making it all up,’ his father said. ‘There’s nothing to come home to, no blankets, no hot water, no chocolate, no comforts, and neither of us can hide, right? We’ll both kill again. No fairy tales. Just a madness for God.’

  He was dreaming, of course, but even though he felt the bed beneath him and the tape wrapped around his ribs, he could still see his father, his mother, and the rocks. The dark outlines of the small room gradually came into focus through the edgy pall of the painkillers. A picture of a helicopter hung on one wall, and another of an A-10 Warthog hung over his bed. These were his Jinn. They had plucked him out of the desert.

  His intercom chimed and he got out of bed to answer. It was David Grange, who had been on the rescue chopper, inviting him to a late night coffee in the mess hall. His chest did not hurt much. He got dressed with only a few twinges.

  The mess hall was brightly lit and nearly empty. Two hundred aluminum tables stood in neat rows under a concrete roof that could have covered a football field. David Grange, short and pug-nosed, on the edge of plumpness, shook his hand and asked Fouad if he wanted cocoa or coffee.

  ‘Tea, white, please,’ Fouad said. Grange went through the long bars before the cafeteria station and brought back two cups. He set one on the table before Fouad.

  ‘You’ve impressed the hell out of Trune and Dillinger,’ Grange said. ‘And me, for what its worth. Who else has spoken to you?’

  ‘The doctors. The officers who debriefed me.’

  ‘You did a remarkable thing out there. You helped us put a big chunk of the puzzle together. Do you have any idea what’s happening? What’s happened in the last few days?’

  ‘No,’ Fouad said. ‘I have been pretty dopey. I’m still having dreams.’

  ‘Well, that will happen after trauma. We’re moving you up a few steps. Right now, everyone’s scrambling to get a piece of Iranian nuke pie. But…’ Grange regarded Fouad through amused eyes. ‘It was an accident. The Iranians were moving their warheads at Shahabad Kord and one of them got triggered. Right now, that’s not the official story, because some of our generals want to play this hand for all its worth. But it’s an accident—a wet match fizzle, compared to what we’re after. You look a little woozy. Still following me, Fouad?’

  Grange pronounced his name perfectly.

  ‘I am okay,’ Fouad said. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Israel may have foiled an anthrax attack. We thought someone was after Jews, maybe Jerusalem, so no surprise there. But Vatican authorities and Interpol have busted a ring of Jihadists preparing to launch a bioweapons attack in Rome. They never got their payload—an interruption in the supply. It’s worse than we thought. Someone’s after major religious cities. All of them. We don’t know why, but now at least we know who—we’ve ID’d one of the conspiracy, maybe the main guy.’

  Grange stood. ‘Drink up. I’ll introduce you
to some fine young men. They’re eager to meet you.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Washington, DC

  Rebecca sat next to Hiram in the limousine. Traveling with the director-designate to headquarters would have once made her heart go pitty-pat, but now she was bone-tired and worried sick.

  It’s going to happen, and this time it’s going to be worse.

  Something new, some invention or variation nobody could anticipate. Jesus Christ, high schools and junior colleges have gene assemblers now—they can make viruses from scratch.

  Her mind raced, trying to go through all the possibilities.

  Two young, prime hunks of FBI beef, sitting on the drop seats, gave her their best critical stares. Rebecca had been working the phones and all her connections throughout the day and most of the night before. Her slate chimed.

  The call was from Frank Chao at Quantico.

  ‘What’s up, Frank?’ she said, shoving herself into a seat corner.

  ‘You tell me. Trying to be of service, pulling in a few favors…but what I’ve got is weird. No hits on any criminal database, and I’ve been through them all. However, I’ve run some outlandish DNA searches, and your Arizona blood not only proves paternity to the Patriarch’s wife’s unborn baby…but it could be a match to someone who died in 9-11.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Not. I scored a hit from a theoretical DNA match list constructed to help people find relatives in the World Trade Center. Fortuitously, that database isn’t closed, and obviously it points toward the Memorial Park database from 9-11, but I don’t want to go there without solid backup.’

  ‘What do you mean, theoretical?’

  ‘Statistical ranges of DNA markers that could represent victims. Relatives of missing persons gave DNA samples to the Medical Examiner’s teams working on DM tissue samples held in refrigerated trailers at Memorial Park. Those databases are closed to us, of course.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘In those instances where they couldn’t retrieve DNA from hairbrushes, tooth brushes, biopsies or whatever to match to victims, a researcher in a contract corporation planned to generate statistical marker links to match living relatives and severely reduced samples. Heat, water, decay—pretty nasty conditions. Some of the bits were recovered from the tummies of raccoons and rats scavenging the Fresh Kills site where they dumped the rubble. They’d trap them and—’

  ‘I didn’t need to know that, Frank.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You have a hit with a theoretical victim of 9-11.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So it could lead us to a relative,’ Rebecca said, ‘or to a statistical nobody—a bogus projection.’

  ‘Both are possible.’

  ‘All right. Let’s get Memorial Park.’

  ‘Let’s us, you mean, or let’s me? That’s sacred ground, Rebecca. I’d rather continue with every other database, military, hospital workers, whatever, before I tackle Memorial Park.’

  Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut. Their footing was not good. If they tried something that audacious…‘How long will it take?’ she asked.

  ‘A few days. A week, if I don’t get priority time on the computers. And I won’t, you know that. I’m just squeezing my searches in between the cracks.’

  The Arizona trooper’s body had been moved away from the rig. The glove was a Hatch Friskmaster.

  ‘Law enforcement, Frank. Narrow it down to recruits and graduates from the last twenty years.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘More than a hunch, less than a certainty.’

  ‘Will do.’

  She pocketed her slate, then removed it, turned it off, and showed it to the agents flanking Hiram.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the agent on the left, his jaw muscles clenching. ‘Is your Lynx active?’

  ‘No,’ Hiram said testily. ‘We are off the grid.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Silesia, Ohio

  William walked beside the young doctor through the high school gymnasium. Beds and portable curtains had been erected around the hundreds of patients who had spilled over from the main hospital. The doctor was bleary-eyed from hours of admitting and running tests. William had told him nothing about what he had learned in the last three hours; he was in listening mode, fully aware that everything he thought he knew was wrong.

  ‘It’s got to be the biggest outbreak I’ve ever heard of,’ the doctor said. ‘We’re getting back diagnosis after diagnosis, and all of them are coming up with the same indicators—CT scans show early spongiform lesions in the brain, we can isolate prions, the prions appear to be able to transform lab tissue cultures—all of which confirms the clinical symptoms, the mental and in some cases physical deterioration. But hundreds of cases in one town? And growing by twenty or thirty every day? Not to mention throughout the county…and now, the state.’

  The doctor pulled back a curtain and let William look in on a middle-aged woman. She was sitting up on her cot, reading an old, tattered Smithsonian, and looked up with a puzzled smile and shifting gaze.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs. Miller,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Good evening.’

  It was three in the afternoon.

  ‘We met yesterday,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘This is William, from the government, Mrs. Miller.’

  ‘Can he help me find my husband?’

  ‘Your husband is waiting for you at home, Mrs. Miller.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can you tell me where you were born?’

  ‘No,’ she said, eyes piercing. ‘Have you found my birth certificate?’

  ‘Do you remember your children, Mrs. Miller?’

  ‘I have children, yes.’ She tracked between William and the doctor, like an actor hoping for a cue from the wings.

  ‘And their names?’

  ‘I’ve written them down. I know my children’s names, of course. Just look.’ She took a notebook from a metal table and began flipping through it. ‘Here they are. Nicholas and Susan and Karl.’

  ‘Thank you. And your religion? Where do you go to church, Mrs. Miller?’

  She referred to the notebook again. ‘First Ohio Evangelical Lutheran. My husband is a deacon. My youngest son sings in the choir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Miller.’

  ‘I’d like to go home soon, Doctor.’

  ‘We’re working on that. I’ll check back in a couple of hours. Do you need more magazines or books, Mrs. Miller?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said, smiling. ‘These are just fine.’

  The doctor pulled back the curtain and walked to the double doors at the end of the gym. He held up Mrs. Miller’s patient chart and biographical data for William to read. ‘A lot of our patients began making notes to hide their symptoms from their families. Yesterday, I switched Mrs. Miller’s notebook with that from a woman across the aisle. Mrs. Miller is a Southern Baptist, Agent Griffin. And those magazines and books are the ones she was given a week ago. She’s re-read them at least three or four times. To her, they’re still fresh. Some of our patients have portable DVD players. They watch their movies over and over again—if they can remember how to use the players.’

  William looked down the aisle and listened to the quiet. For the most part, the patients seemed contented, even happy.

  ‘What we’re experiencing here is like nothing I’ve ever heard of,’ the doctor said. ‘It combines elements of Alzheimer’s and CJD—Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. It strikes all ages, like variant CJD. But it’s fast—it acts in weeks or months, not years. And it’s epidemic. We may have three or four thousand cases in the next few weeks. They can’t go home, they can’t work, they just wander off if we don’t watch them day and night. That requires twenty-four-hour care, one-on-one nursing. We’re already past our breaking point. We’re not a rich county, and federal funding for this level of care has become nonexistent. But let’s not focus on the money. Where in hell are
we going to find that many nurses?’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  SIOC J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, DC

  Charles Cahill, the outgoing director, was a short dapper man with a cap of prematurely white hair, a short wide nose, and perfect teeth. He firmly shook Hiram Newsome’s hand and then Rebecca’s and led them down the fifth-floor hallway to the Center. ‘Congratulations, Hiram. I can’t think of a better choice.’

  Hiram shook his head. ‘I haven’t met with the President yet. And there’s still the meat grinder—vetting and confirmation.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be confirmed,’ Cahill said. ‘Talk radio bastards are already calling you a liberal wienie special-ordered to tear down the agency. That’ll endear you to Josephson.’ He winked at Rebecca. Cahill was younger than Hiram Newsome but looked older. He was renowned for his shoes—he always wore two-tones, white and brown, highly polished.

  The Strategic Information and Operations Center at Headquarters—SIOC, or just the Center—had been redone three years before. Half of its operations had been moved to the sixth floor, reducing its footprint by half on the fourth and fifth floors—and now, once again, the FBI had a command center that actually did look as if it belonged in a high-budget thriller—two stories high, walls of glass and polished steel, floating projections of data and video that circled the room like ghosts, and the ability to access a twenty-four-hour bank of analysts who could look up and process anything available on information networks around the world.

  The door to SIOC opened at Cahill’s approach. The room beyond was like a dark cave, deserted. ‘I’ve got a few minutes before my next meeting and I thought we might spend it in here,’ Cahill said as he walked around the room, rubbing his hand on the leather chairs. He smiled. ‘This place can make you believe you know all there is to know.’

  ‘Where do you want us? Rebecca’s the majordomo on this.’

  ‘So I hear.’ Cahill seated himself in one of the audience chairs, leaving Hiram to assume the Throne—a large black chair mounted on a three-step riser, with the best view of every display. Rebecca stood in a spotlight where the second ring of the circus might have been—the room was almost that large. ‘Makes you feel like a little girl about to give a recital, doesn’t it?’ Cahill asked.