Terce studied him for a few moments. Then he nodded. “Very well. I accept your assurances. For now.” The second of the Horatii shrugged. “But the mission has backfired. The Lazarus Movement will be stronger now, not weaker. Given that, do you wish to proceed further? Or should we fold our tents and steal away while there is still time?”
Burke scowled. He was in too far to back out now. If anything, it was more imperative than ever to arrange the destruction of the Movement. He shook his head decisively. “We keep going. Is your team ready to activate the cover plan?”
“We are.”
“Good,” the CIA officer said flatly. “Then we still have a fighting chance to pin what happened at the Institute on Lazarus. Trigger the cover—tonight.”
“It will be done,” Terce agreed quietly. He indicated the bound man. “In the meantime, we need to resolve this disciplinary problem. What do you suggest we do with Antonio here?”
Burke eyed him closely. “Isn’t the answer obvious?” he said. “If this man broke once under pressure, the odds are that he will break again. We can’t afford that. TOCSIN is already risky enough. Just finish him and dump the body where it won’t be found for a few weeks.”
The driver moaned softly behind his gag. His shoulders slumped.
Terce nodded. “Your reasoning is impeccable, Mr. Burke.” His green eyes were amused. “But since it is your reasoning and your verdict, I think you should carry out the sentence yourself.” He offered the CIA officer a long-bladed fighting knife, pommel first.
This was a test, Burke realized angrily. The big man wanted to see how far he would go in binding himself to the dirty work he ordered. Well, riding herd on a group of black ops mercenaries was never easy, and he had killed men before to prove himself on other operations—murders he had carefully concealed from his deskbound superiors. Hiding his distaste, the CIA officer shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over one of the ski clamps. Then he rolled up his shirtsleeves and took the dagger.
Without pausing for further reflection, Burke stepped behind the stool, yanked the bound driver’s head back, and drew the blade of the fighting knife hard across his throat. Blood sprayed through the air, scarlet under the bright bulb of the overhead light.
The dying man thrashed wildly, kicking and tugging at the ropes holding him down. He toppled over, still tied to the stool, and lay twitching, bleeding his life away onto the concrete floor.
Burke turned back to Terce. “Satisfied?” he snapped. “Or do you want me to dig his grave, too?”
“That will not be necessary,” the other man said calmly. He nodded toward a large roll of canvas in the far corner of the porch. “We already have a grave for poor Joachim over there. Antonio can share it with him.”
The CIA officer suddenly realized he was looking at another corpse, this one rolled up in a tarp.
“Joachim was wounded while retreating from the Institute,” Terce explained. “He was hit in the shoulder and leg. His injuries were not immediately life-threatening, but they would soon have required significant medical attention. I did what was necessary.”
Burke nodded slowly, understanding. The tall green-eyed man and his comrades would not risk their own security by seeking medical treatment for anyone hurt too badly to keep up. The TOCSIN action team would kill anyone who threatened its mission, even its own members.
Chapter
Twelve
Thursday, October 14
The White House
It was after midnight and the heavy red-and-yellow Navajo drapes were drawn tight, sealing off the Oval Office from any prying eyes. No one outside the White House West Wing needed to know that the president of the United States was still hard at work—or with whom he was meeting.
Sam Castilla sat at his big pine table in his shirtsleeves, steadily reading through a sheaf of hastily drafted emergency executive orders. The heavy brass reading lamp on one corner of his desk cast a circular pool of light across his paperwork. From time to time, he jotted rough notes in the margin or crossed out a poorly worded phrase.
At last, with a quick stroke of his pen, he slashed his signature across the bottom of the several different marked-up orders. He could sign clean copies for the national archives later. Right now the important thing was to get the ponderous wheels of government turning somewhat faster. He glanced up.
Charles Ouray, his chief of staff, and Emily Powell-Hill, his national security adviser, sat slumped in the two big leather chairs drawn up in front of his desk. They looked weary, worn down by long hours spent shuttling back and forth between the White House complex and the various cabinet offices to get those orders ready for his signature. Trying to broker agreements among half-a-dozen different executive branch departments, each with its own competing views and pet agendas, was never easy.
“Is there anything else I need to know now?” Castilla asked them.
Ouray spoke up first. “We’re getting our first look at the morning papers from Europe, Mr. President.” His mouth turned down.
“Let me guess,” Castilla said sourly. “We’re getting hammered?”
Emily Powell-Hill nodded. Her eyes were worried. “By most of the major dailies in every European nation—France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain, and all the others. The general consensus seems to be that no matter what went wrong inside the Teller Institute, the carnage outside is largely our responsibility.”
“On what grounds?” the president asked.
“There’s a lot of wild speculation about some kind of secret nanotech weapons program gone awry,” Ouray told him quietly. “The European press is playing that angle hard, with all the sensational claims front and center and our official denials buried way down near the end.”
Castilla grimaced. “What are they doing? Running Lazarus Movement press releases verbatim?”
“For all practical purposes,” Powell-Hill said bluntly. She shrugged. “Their story has all the plot elements Europeans love: a big, bad, secretive, and blundering America running roughshod over a peaceful, plucky, Mother Earth–loving band of truth-telling activists. And, as you can imagine, every foreign policy mistake we’ve made over the past fifty years is being raked up all over again.”
“What’s the political fallout likely to be?” the president asked her.
“Not good,” she told him. “Of course, some of our ‘friends’ in Paris and Berlin are always looking for a chance to stick it to us. But even our real European friends and allies will have to play this one very carefully. Siding with the world’s sole superpower is never very popular and a lot of those governments are shaky right now. It wouldn’t take much of a swing in public opinion to bring them down.”
Ouray nodded. “Emily’s right, Mr. President. I’ve talked to the folks over at the State Department. They’re getting very worried back-channel questions from Europe, and from the Japanese, too. Our friends want some firm assurances that these stories are false—and just as important, that we can prove that they’re false.”
“Proving a negative?” Castilla shook his head in frustration. “That’s not an easy thing to do.”
“No, sir,” Emily Powell-Hill agreed. “But we’re going to have to do our best. Either that, or watch our alliances begin crumbling, and see Europe pull even further away from us.”
For several minutes after his two closest advisers left, Castilla sat behind his desk mulling over different ways to reassure European public and elite opinion. His face darkened. Unfortunately, his options were very limited. No matter how many of its federal labs and military bases the U.S. opened to public inspection, it could never hope to completely calm the tempest of Internet-fed hysteria. Crackpot rumors, damning exaggerations, doctored photos, and outright lies could circle the globe with the speed of light, far outpacing the truth.
He looked up at the sound of a light tap on his open door. “Yes?”
His executive secretary poked her head in. “The Secret Service just called, Mr. President. Mr. Nomura has arrived. They
’re bringing him in now.”
“Discreetly, I hope, Estelle,” Castilla reminded her.
The faint trace of a smile crossed her normally prim and proper face. “They’re coming through the kitchens, sir. I trust that is discreet enough.”
Castilla chuckled. “Should be. Well, let’s just hope none of the night-shift press corps folks are foraging there for a midnight snack.” He stood up, straightened his tie, and pulled on his suit coat. Being ushered into the White House past the kitchen trash cans was a far cry from the impressive ceremony that usually accompanied a visit to the American president, so the least he could do was greet Hideo Nomura with as much formality as possible.
His secretary, Mrs. Pike, opened the door for the head of Nomura PharmaTech just a minute or two later. Castilla advanced to meet him, smiling broadly. The two men exchanged quick, polite bows in the Japanese manner and then shook hands.
The president showed his guest to the big leather couch set squarely in the middle of the room. “I’m very grateful you could come at such short notice, Hideo. You flew in from Europe this evening, I hear?”
Nomura smiled back civilly. “It was no great trouble, Mr. President. The benefits of owning a fast corporate jet. In fact, it is I who should express my thanks. If your staff had not contacted me, I would be the one begging for a meeting.”
“Because of the catastrophe out at the Teller Institute?”
The younger Japanese man nodded. His black eyes flashed. “My company will not soon forget this cruel act of terrorism.”
Castilla understood his anger. The Nomura PharmaTech Lab inside the Institute had been completely destroyed and the immediate financial loss to the Tokyo-based multinational company was staggering, close to $100 million. That didn’t include the cost to replicate the years of research wiped out along with the lab, and the human cost was even higher. Fifteen of the eighteen highly skilled scientists and technicians working in the Nomura section were missing and presumed dead.
“We’re going to find and punish those responsible for this attack,” Castilla promised the other man. “I’ve ordered our national law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to make it their top priority.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. President,” Nomura said quietly. “And I am here to offer what little help I can.” The Japanese industrialist shrugged. “Not in the hunt for the terrorists, of course. My company lacks the necessary expertise. But we can provide other assistance that might prove useful.”
Castilla raised a single eyebrow. “Oh?”
“As you know, my company maintains a rather substantial medical emergency response force,” Nomura reminded him. “I can have aircraft en route to New Mexico in a matter of hours.”
The president nodded. Nomura PharmaTech spent huge sums annually on charitable medical work around the world. His old friend Jinjiro began the practice when he founded the company back in the 1960s. After he retired and entered the political world, his son had continued and even expanded its efforts. Nomura money now funded everything from mass vaccination and malaria control programs in Africa to water sanitation projects in the Middle East and Asia. But the company’s disaster relief work was what really caught the public eye and generated headlines.
Nomura PharmaTech owned a fleet of Soviet-made An-124 Condor cargo aircraft. Bigger than the mammoth C-5 transports flown by the U.S. Air Force, each Condor could carry up to 150 metric tons of cargo. Operating from a central base located in the Azores Islands, they were used by Nomura to ferry mobile hospitals—complete with operating rooms and diagnostics labs—to wherever emergency medical care was needed. The company boasted that its hospitals could be up and running in twenty-four hours at the scene of any major earthquake, typhoon, disease outbreak, wildfire, or flood, anywhere in the world.
“That’s a generous offer,” Castilla said slowly. “But I’m afraid there were no injured survivors outside the Institute. These nanomachines killed everyone they attacked. There’s no one left alive for your medical personnel to treat.”
“There are other ways in which my people could assist,” Nomura said delicately. “We do possess two mobile DNA analysis labs. Perhaps their use might speed the sad work of—”
“Identifying the dead,” Castilla finished for him. He thought about that. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was estimating it could take months to put names to the thousands of partial human remains left outside the ruined Teller Institute. Anything that could accelerate that slow, mournful effort was worth trying, no matter how many legal and political complications it might add. He nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Hideo. Any help along those lines would be most welcome.”
Then he sighed. “Look, it’s late and I’m tired, and it’s been a rotten couple of days. Frankly, I could use a good stiff drink. Can I get you one?”
“Please,” Nomura replied. “That would be most welcome.”
The president moved to a sideboard near the door to his private study. Earlier, Mrs. Pike had set a tray holding a selection of glasses and bottles there. He picked up one of the bottles. It was full of a rich amber liquid. “Scotch all right with you? This is the twenty-year-old Caol Ila, a single malt from Islay. It was one of your father’s favorites.”
Nomura lowered his eyes, apparently embarrassed by the emotions stirred by this offer. He inclined his head in a quick bow. “You honor me.”
While Castilla poured, he carefully eyed the son of his old friend, noting the changes since they had last seen each other. Though Hideo Nomura was nearly fifty, his short-cropped hair was still pitch-black. He was tall for a Japanese man of his generation, so tall that he could easily look most Americans and Europeans squarely in the face. His jaw was firm and there were just a few tiny furrows around the edges of his eyes and mouth. From a distance, Nomura might easily pass for a man fully ten or fifteen years younger. It was only up close that one could discern the wearing effects of time and hidden grief and suppressed rage.
Castilla handed one of the glasses to Nomura and then sat down and sipped at his own. The sweet, smoky liquid rolled warmly over his tongue, carrying with it just a bare hint of oak and salt. He noticed that the younger man tasted his without any evident sense of enjoyment. The son is not the father, he reminded himself sadly.
“I had another reason for asking you here tonight,” Castilla said at last, breaking the awkward silence. “Though I think it may be related in some way to the tragedy at the Institute.” He chose his words carefully. “I need to ask you about Jinjiro … and about Lazarus.”
Nomura sat up straighter. “About my father? And the Lazarus Movement? Ah, I see,” he murmured. He set his glass to one side. It was almost full. “Of course. I will tell you whatever I can.”
“You opposed your father’s involvement in the Movement, didn’t you?” Castilla asked, again treading cautiously.
The younger Japanese nodded. “Yes.” He looked straight at the president. “My father and I were never enemies. Nor did I hide my views from him.”
“Which were?” Castilla wondered.
“That the goals of the Lazarus Movement were lofty, even noble,” Nomura said softly. “Who would not want to see a planet purified, free of pollution, and at peace? But its proposals?” He shrugged. “Hopelessly unrealistic at best. Deadly lunacy at worst. The world is balanced on a knife-edge, with mass starvation, chaos, and barbarism on one side and potential utopia on the other. Technology maintains this delicate balance. Strip away our advanced technologies, as the Movement demands, and you will surely hurl the entire planet into a nightmare of death and destruction—a nightmare from which it might never awaken.”
Castilla nodded. The younger man’s beliefs paralleled his own. “And what did Jinjiro say to all of that?”
“My father agreed with me at first. At least in part,” Nomura said. “But he thought the pace of technological change was too fast. The rise of cloning, genetic manipulation, and nanotechnology troubled him. He feared the speed of these advan
ces, believing that they offered imperfect men too much power over themselves and over nature. Still, when he helped found Lazarus, he hoped to use the Movement as a means of slowing scientific progress—not of ending it altogether.”
“But that changed?” Castilla asked.
Nomura frowned. “Yes, it did,” he admitted. He picked up his glass, stared into the smoky amber liquid for a moment, and then set it down again. “The Movement began to change him. His beliefs grew more radical. His words became more strident.”
The president stayed silent, listening intently.
“As the other founders of the Movement died or disappeared, my father’s thoughts grew darker still,” Nomura continued. “He began to claim that Lazarus was under attack … that it had become the target of a secret war.”
“A war?” Castilla said sharply. “Who did he say was waging this secret war?”
“Corporations. Certain governments. Or elements of their intelligence services. Perhaps even some of the men in your own CIA,” the younger Japanese said softly.
“Good God.”
Nomura nodded sadly. “At the time, I thought these paranoid fears were only more evidence of my father’s failing mental health. I begged him to seek help. He refused. His rhetoric became ever more violent, ever more deranged.
“Then he vanished on the way to Thailand.” His face was somber. “He vanished without any word or trace. I do not know whether he was abducted, or whether he disappeared of his own free will. I do not know whether he is alive or dead.”
Nomura looked up at Castilla. “Now, however, after seeing those peaceful protesters murdered outside the Teller Institute, I have another concern.” He lowered his voice. “My father talked of a covert war being waged against the Lazarus Movement. And I laughed at him. But what if he was right?”
Later, once Hideo Nomura had gone, Sam Castilla walked to the door of his private study, knocked once, and went into the dimly lit room.
The Lazarus Vendetta Page 10