by Dana Haynes
Asher’s eyes almost disappeared whenever he laughed. “Oh, sir. There is nothing about you, nor your creations, that one would describe as common.”
* * *
Asher led the two men outside the apartment, bundling his coat and adjusting his scarf. The sky was the color of wet cement. An array of subcompacts were parked with barely more than three inches between bumpers. Milanese hustled by, walking briskly, heads down.
Asher turned to Will Halliday. “Could you get the car?” They drove an SUV, which was all but impossible to park in Milan’s residential neighborhoods. They had left it three blocks from János Tuychiev’s place.
As the American ambled away, Schullman lit a Diana Caraterre. Surprisingly, he had come to like the Italian cigarettes in the plain black-and-white packs. “And so Daria lives.”
Asher tugged gloves out of his coat. “To be expected.”
“Halliday?” Schullman blew smoke straight up.
Asher watched the receding back of the American, who ambled the way Asher had seen in movies and read about in westerns. He’d never actually seen a real person do it. “I have an exquisitely difficult needle, which I would like you to thread.”
Schullman shoved the cigarette between his lips and looked at his gorilla-sized hands. “Threading needles. That’s in my wheelhouse.”
“What I need is—where does that term come from? Wheelhouse?”
Schullman rolled his eyes. “Baseball.”
“Really? I would have thought—”
“Asher.”
“Yes. Right. Sorry, never mind. Thank you. At the cathedral: Belhadj dies; Will Halliday dies; Dr. Tuychiev gives us access to his second virus, which gives us a virtual off switch for his flu, then he dies. As for Daria…? If there is a way to frame her, even if it requires wounding her, slightly…” He shrugged. “I don’t mind her being caught by the Americans or the Italians. But I don’t want her dead.”
“And what does Hannah Herself and the Group want?”
Asher cocked his head, studying his friend. Very few people ever attempted to lecture Asher Sahar.
“That’s what this is all about,” the soldier grumbled. “The Group only ever had one goal. Survival for Israel. Of making sure our historic allies have just cause to remain true. You know this.”
“And you think I forget this?”
Schullman smoked the cigarette to its filter, absorbing the last half of it in one great drag. He shrugged.
Asher said, “I don’t want Daria dead.”
Schullman tossed the butt to the pavement, ground it under his boot, and looked his friend directly in the eyes. He spoke softly, clearly, and distinctly. “I know.”
It wasn’t I obey. Just I know.
Both men understood the subtext.
Will Halliday tooted the SUV’s horn and pulled up next to the apartment building.
Langley
Nanette Sylvestri had just arrived at the Shark Tank in time to see one of the signal intelligence analysts stand, rising up on the balls of her loafers, arms stretched upward, fists extended.
“Got ’em!”
“Gibron and Belhadj?” Others turned to see Sylvestri, as she doffed her quilted parka. “You know where they are?”
“We know where they’re going to be in, ah, just over four hours.”
“Highlights, please.”
“Last night, the World Health Organization filed a potential threshold event.”
Nanette said simply, “John Broom’s thing.”
The seniormost analyst on the early morning shift raised his hand and angled his monitor toward the still-standing Sylvestri. “Broom’s with Major Theo James, U.S. Army, who filed the event. The DCRI found two bodies with signs of a hemorrhagic fever. They declared the entire firefight a biohazard zone.”
The audio tech pointed at her screen. “World Health referred to a Soviet-era biologist living in Italy. We set up an audio trap on his phone. Gibron called him. She set up a meet, four P.M. Italian time, in Milan.”
Sylvestri hadn’t even had time to set down her coat. “Okay, the G-8 Summit has been moved to the Beta Location?”
Someone else piped in. “No. They took the precaution to skip ahead to the Gamma Site. Some of the delegates are already wheels-down in Majorca.”
The senior analyst caught her attention again. “The French are reporting some pretty sophisticated medical and lab equipment in that factory. Something called an RNA sequencer.”
“And who’d have need of that?” Sylvestri asked.
“Somebody working with recombinant flu.”
God, Sylvestri thought. John’s Pegasus-B theory. “Okay. Get Swing Band to Milan. I want a videoconference with Thorson inside of ten minutes. Get me ADAT Cohen. Get me DCRI, Paris station chief, and let him know when Swing Band is clear of French airspace. Get me AISI in Rome, station chief or better. Ask for a weapons-hot status for Swing Band. The Italian premier is going to the G8 Summit, so Italian Security should be accommodating. Find out—”
“Nanette?” The senior analyst suddenly sat forward, peering at his monitor. “Hang on.”
“Now what?”
“World Health. They’ve named the threshold event. They’re calling this new virus…” He squinted at his screen.
“What?’
“Pegasus-B.”
“Honest to God?”
“Ah, yes, ma’am.”
Nanette Sylvestri tried really hard not to start laughing. That had John’s sardonic touch to it, all right. “Okay, get me everyone I just asked for. But first get me John freakin’ Broom.”
Twenty-six
Washington, D.C.
John Broom met Major Theo James at Reagan National. The ruddy Irishman lugged mismatched, wheeled luggage and wore a fisherman’s vest with a couple dozen pockets. He slapped John on the shoulder. “John! Thanks for coming.”
“I’m your official CIA adviser. I’m just along for the ride.”
Theo checked his vest for tickets, an itinerary, pens, and extra palm-sized notepads. “I never had an official CIA adviser before. Do you have a cyanide-capsule tooth?”
John said, “Sure.” His cell phone hummed. He checked the message and looked shocked. Theo James took a last dash to the men’s room.
When he emerged, he thought John Broom might have been crying. The agent wiped his eyes, smiled shyly.
Theo said, “What? Any of my business?”
“Ah. Got a call from a woman I’ve never met, is all. She just flew in from Chicago because her brother, an FBI agent named Ray Calabrese, got out of surgery an hour ago.”
Theo said, “A friend of yours?”
“Not really, but…” John rolled his eyes, a little embarrassed. “Ray’s sister called me on Ray’s cell. She said Ray came out of his surgery pretty all right. Said the docs let her talk to him for a minute.”
Theo waited while John composed himself.
“Anyway. This guy gets shot in the back, twice, and undergoes hours of surgery. He comes out of sedation long enough to find his sister in the room. What does he say? He asks if their mom is okay. Then he asks her to call me. Says. ‘Tell Broom: Go get our girl.’”
Theo smiled. “Guy said that?”
John toed the carpet, hands on hips, nodded.
“Meaning this Daria Gibron of yours?”
“Yeah.”
“So let’s go get her.”
* * *
Two hours later, John and Theo had talked a soldier, rotating back to the Middle East, into exchanging seats so they could sit together. They leaned in toward each other to avoid being overheard. It wasn’t one’s typical midflight conversation.
John said, “So what’s our play?”
“My French counterparts are confirming something that looks a lot like a hemorrhagic flu at an abandoned factory outside Paris. They tracked some terrorists there. You know that big brouhaha that was all over CNN yesterday? Tanks and helicopters and whatnot? That was this thing.
“The F
rench have started autopsies. They’re also excavating the factory—I guess the dang thing actually collapsed during the fight—and anyway found lab equipment you’d need for a recombinant virus.”
John lowered his voice even further. “Funny. I always figured the first terrorist attack of this kind I’d have to deal with would be nerve gas.”
Theo’s craggy Irish features cracked into a thin smile. “Flu versus nerve gas? I’ll take the nerve gas, please. And twice on Sunday.”
“You’re kidding!”
The beverage cart arrived at their row and they waited for a little privacy. John had seltzer water with lime. Theo James had a beer. They both got an insufficient number of pretzels to sustain a squirrel for ten minutes.
The major finished off his pretzels in seconds. “The Spanish flu in 1918 killed thousands of folks in a few weeks. Some people contacted it in the evening and were dead by morning. Horrible beastie.”
John dragged out his notebook and pen.
“Don’t mistake a superflu with your garden-variety flu. People in 1918 drowned in their own secretions, or convulsed to death with fever. Terrible. Now, compare that to nerve gas. Remember Aum Shinrikyo?”
John said, “Cultists. They planted sarin in the Tokyo subway system. It was back in ’95 or ’96.”
“Righto. These guys wanted regime change in Japan. They released the gas on five subway lines simultaneously. At rush hour. Thousands and thousands of commuters were stuck in the tunnels with it. Know how many people died?”
John shook his head.
“Thirteen. About five thousand were hospitalized but the majority of them were put on oxygen and released without staying overnight. Most nerve agents aren’t reliable killers, John.”
They flew in silence for a while, John’s mind churning. After a few minutes, he nudged his seat partner.
“Okay, here’s how little I know about viruses. They’re just a packet of information. DNA, right? So what does this packet of information do exactly?”
Theo said, “RNA, not DNA. And you got the thing about a packet of information right. They invade cells. The virus is covered in a shell of proteins, which anchor to the cell. The RNA is injected into the cell and begins to rewrite its own sequences. The cell then becomes a carrier for the new message. When it subdivides into two cells, you get two carriers. Then four, then eight … The thing we worry about the most is a combination of factors.”
Theo ticked them off on his hand, using his little finger first. “One: does it transmit easily? Two: does it transmit between species? Three: is it lethal but not too lethal? Were you going to eat your pretzels?”
John handed over the packet. “‘Not too lethal’? There’s such a thing?”
“Sure. If the virus is too good at its job, the carrier dies, bam, right on the spot and can’t spread it around. It has to be lethal but it also has to take a while, in order to jump from host to host.”
“And what happens if the virus gets outside a host?”
“They don’t stay active in the air or on surfaces. Mostly, they get spread when people aspirate and others breathe in the particulate. We have to assume—”
A flight attendant knelt by them, smiling. John and Theo stopped talking abruptly. “You two doing okay?”
“Sure,” John said.
“Your first flight to Europe together?”
It took John a couple of seconds to get there. Theo was faster and touched John’s arm. “Yes! Italy. It’s going to be very romantic.”
She winked at them, rose, and moved on.
Theo finished off the pretzels. “Five bucks says she brings us champagne.”
John turned to the major, shaking his head. “Okay, that was hilarious!”
“I know! I’m always telling folks I’m the funny one in the family. Nobody believes me.”
Twenty-seven
There was little to remember about the flight from France to Italy except that the rusted-out Skyhawk, which was older than Belhadj, managed not to fall out of the sky. If the smuggler had ever attempted to keep a maintenance schedule, it had fallen to the wayside like the many thousands of bundles of marijuana hurled from the Skyhawk’s windows over the years. The doors were bungeed to stay closed. There was no heat. The ill-kept engine conked out twice in mid-flight.
Daria slept through the ride.
The pilot set them down in a sheep pasture. The snow had melted in northern Italy but the ground was as hard as iron. A shepherd was there to collect his portion of the earnings and an extra helping of euros to lend them a Volkswagen bus, white and swimming pool blue, circa 1985, that might get them to Milan or might just explode.
Daria and Belhadj packed their gear in the bus. Daria gave him a lewd grin. “Want to talk about it some more?”
“We’d best hurry. To make the meet in this thing, you might have to get out and push.”
“See how you changed subjects there? That was quite clever. You should have been a spy.”
Belhadj had been bantering but his face returned to its usual stoic stare. “Daria?”
“Come on, then. I was joking. I won’t jump you randomly until we’re clear of this farce.”
“Daria…”
“Now, he wants to talk. Fine then—”
Belhadj pointed at her.
“What?”
“Your nose is bleeding.”
Daria wondered if this was his idea of a joke. It was hard to tell with Belhadj. She reached up and touched her upper lip.
Her fingertip came away with a pink smear.
A million thoughts ricocheted off the inside of her skull. She touched her nose again. It seemed to have stopped.
“It’s nothing. It’s the altitude change.”
“Altitude change? How many times have you flown before?”
She shot him a look, her black pupils flashing. “Come on. We’re going to have to drive like hell to—”
“How many times? Helicopters, single-engine, multiple-engine. How many?”
“Shut up and drive.”
Belhadj slammed his open palm against the side panel of the VW.
Daria snapped, “A thousand! Okay? A thousand-thousand! I piloted gunships during the second intifada!” She swiped hair away from her face. “I never had a license but Israeli intelligence wasn’t too picky about—”
“Damn it! How many times did your nose bleed!”
“Never, goddamn you! Okay? My nose bleeds when I get punched! Care to take a swing?”
“You have—”
“Don’t you fucking say it!” She raised one finger in warning, took a step closer into his space, boots apart, weight distributed on both legs, ready to fight. “I’m serious. Get in the van, get us to Milan. Now! Do it!”
They stood, toe to toe, four hands transformed into fists, eyes shooting cannon balls at each other.
“Khalid,” she whispered, backing up half a step. “We’re the only ones who know what’s going on and we’ve been blacklisted by every agency on Earth. There is no one else.”
Still he didn’t move.
“It’s Asher. He can’t win. He can’t,” Daria pleaded, for maybe only the third time in her entire life. “Please.”
Belhadj stood with teeth clenched. They faced off for several seconds. Then the Syrian turned, scooped up his messenger bag, and marched around the aging bus, ripping open the door and hurling his bag into the backseat.
Daria flinched, but none of his stolen ordinance blew up or fired off a round. When she was sure the messenger bag wouldn’t go nuclear, she opened the passenger door and climbed in.
“We’ll deal with it when we’re done,” she promised.
Belhadj ground gears and the bus jolted into action.
* * *
From a hundred yards away, the smuggler and the shepherd shared a reefer and watched the commotion.
The French pilot inhaled, held it, and wheezed, “Lovers.”
The Italian took a hit and shrugged. “What else?”
Milan
John Broom awoke during the descent into Malpensa International Airport. He rubbed his face with the heels of his hand, then slipped a breath mint into his mouth.
“How’s the honeymoon so far, dear?”
But Theo James wasn’t listening. While John slept, Theo had unpacked a legal pad and a pencil. He scribbled madly, some notes in English, some in advanced mathematics. He squinted, his jaw set.
“Doc?”
Theo glanced over. He looked intense.
The 747 touched down gently.
“What?”
“France,” Theo said. “You asked about the RNA sequencer in that factory fight? My French counterparts were able to reconstruct it. The last thing it sequenced was a virus that may have a specific target.”
The reverse thrusters kicked in and both men lurched forward. “I’m not following.”
Theo rifled back and forth through his scribbled notes. “It’s a flu that can target specific people. I don’t know who. Say, black people. Or Asians.”
John started to smile. “You’re kidding. It can’t … they can’t … Come on, Doc, seriously. No one can…”
But Theo James looked up from his notes and whisked off his cheaters. John saw true terror in the man’s eyes.
“I don’t know, John,” he whispered. “I think, maybe, they can.”
Twenty-eight
Asher and his people had set up shop in an abandoned apartment on the west side of Milan.
Asher asked that Will Halliday and Eli Schullman take the remaining mercenaries and reconnoiter Milan’s Piazza del Duomo. While Halliday was in the toilet, Asher cleaned the lenses of his glasses and said, “Go over the plan, please.”
The massive Schullman scowled down at his academic friend. “The plan is the plan. The plan hasn’t changed since the beginning. Renaissance masters could have painted a fucking mural of the plan.”
Asher smiled, nodded, and even patted Schullman’s shoulder in acknowledgment. All of which—to anyone who knew Asher—meant: Go over the plan, please.
Eli Schullman said, “We kill Halliday in the plaza. We kill the old man in the plaza. We make sure the rogue American agent goes down in history for stealing and selling the virus, and that his perfidy is known to God and CNN alike.”