“The question is, Cobra,” interjected Charles, “do you want to be responsible for the deaths of thousands?”
Bloch pulled Morgan aside. “Look, Morgan, I’m sorry, but there’s a greater good to consider here. You need to keep your feelings in check.”
“Mr. Charles, you may have my keys,” said Smith. “Morgan, would you cut him free?”
Morgan shot Smith the stink eye. Then he took out his knife and, resisting the urge to sink it into the man’s chest, cut the tape that was holding him to the chair.
“Thank you,” said Charles. “And I’ll thank everyone to leave their guns inside. I’m looking for a clean getaway here.”
Morgan put his Walther on the counter, and Bloch added a small snub-nosed revolver. Smith had nothing to place there. They all walked outside, and Smith gave his car keys to Charles. He got into Smith’s Mitsubishi, started the motor and then lowered the window.
“He’s in New York. He’s planning something for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Something big. That’s all I know. Now, please kill him for me.” He began to accelerate. “So long, and thanks—”
Before he could get the sentence out, Morgan had drawn his backup gun from its ankle holster, an Airweight nickel-plated Smith and Wesson two-inch revolver, and shot Charles clean through the head. The car accelerated blindly and crashed into a tree. Bloch and Smith just looked at him speechlessly. Morgan put away his gun and walked back into the house.
CHAPTER 59
Boston, March 10
“What the hell were you thinking, Morgan?” Bloch asked.
Bloch’s office, opaque glass, being chewed out. Nothing new for Morgan.
“Do you really believe we would simply have let him go?” asked Bloch. She was sitting close to him, facing him with those cold blue eyes of hers.
“Yes,” said Morgan. “I really do.”
“We had a helicopter standing by. We would have used satellite surveillance.”
“And still he would have gotten away, like he got away before.”
“Maybe,” Bloch admitted. “But even so. Do you think he was working alone? There’s something bigger behind this. And Edmund Charles was our only link to it. He was valuable even out of our grasp. Something lost can be found. But now he’s dead, and we have no way of tracing whoever is behind him.”
“Somehow, I can’t be too sorry to have killed a mass murderer,” said Morgan. “His bosses can wait. We’ll come for them too.”
“If we ever find out who they are,” said Bloch. “You’re not off the hook for this, Morgan. But luckily for you, this isn’t over yet. We still need to find Novokoff. It seems Shepard has something he wants to show us.” She hit the button on the intercom. “Shepard. War room.”
Morgan and Bloch walked down to the war room and sat at the table. Shepard waltzed in seconds later. “You’re gonna like this one,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Bloch.
“It’s a system I devised.” He clicked something in his hand, and the screen lit up. It showed a picture of a face. “It uses existing facial recognition software, which is itself pretty amazing.” Red dots appeared on different points of the face, including the cheekbones and the corners of the eyes and lips. “It uses a multipoint system to extrapolate a 3-D model of the—”
“Shepard,” said Bloch. “Focus.”
“Okay. So. This face recognition can be completely automated, and a powerful enough computer can analyze hundreds of faces per second. But the problem is, then, what are you going to analyze? Traffic and surveillance cameras are generally still too grainy, the definition isn’t good enough for the program. But.”
“But?” prodded Bloch.
He clicked the device again, and brought up a screen capture of a page from a popular social networking site. It showed the personal picture gallery of a person Morgan didn’t know. “What we have is photographs. An unprecedented volume of photographs being uploaded and shared on the Internet, out there where everyone—or at least, I—can see. But that, of course, isn’t enough. Every picture has embedded in it a good amount of metadata, including the date and time it was taken. More importantly for us, pictures taken on GPS-enabled phones can pinpoint the exact location where the photograph was taken as well.”
“So if a picture gets taken with Novokoff in the background—”
“We will know the location and time when it was taken, and so get an estimated position on him,” Shepard concluded.
“On a day like St. Patrick’s in New York, people are going to be taking pictures left and right. This might actually work.”
“And that,” said Shepard, “is why it pays to have a genius on your side.”
CHAPTER 60
New York City, March 17
It was a beautiful clear day in the Northeast and New York City was all clad in green. People caroused on the streets, bringing the city to life. The atmosphere was electric, joyous. The parade would go down Fifth Avenue from Forty-fourth street all the way to the Metropolitan Museum. Somewhere along that line, Nikolai Novokoff would strike.
Morgan, Bishop, Spartan, and Diesel had each been outfitted with a Kawasaki Ninja—sleek black sports bikes, which were far better than cars for navigating the crowds around the parade. He was carrying his usual Walther with a combat knife hidden on his ankle. In his pocket was an FBI badge that would fool any police officer and even turn up as legitimate in a computer search, courtesy of well-placed Zeta Division contacts. Morgan rode slowly down Seventh Avenue, eyes peeled, waiting for anything on Novokoff.
“How’s your system working, Shepard?” Morgan asked.
“The concept is sound,” said Shepard.
“Yeah, well, let’s just see how it performs in its first field test.”
Morgan wove smoothly and slowly through traffic and the jaywalkers who filled the streets. He stopped at a light. He watched the people crossing the street, many of them in green, some with painted faces. Young and old, men and women. So many people. So many for Novokoff to hide among, and so many he could kill.
“Got anything?” Spartan asked into the comm.
“No sign of any disturbance,” said Bishop.
“All clear,” said Diesel.
“Nothing here,” said Morgan.
“Or here,” said Spartan.
Spartan and Bishop were on the other side of Fifth Avenue, with Diesel on the same side as Morgan. There was no way to cross Fifth Avenue with the parade happening, so they had to make sure that all points along it on both sides were accessible.
“We got one!” Shepard exclaimed. “Holy shit, we got a hit!”
“Where?” demanded Morgan.
“Sixth Avenue,” he said. “Between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets.”
“That’s on my side,” said Morgan.
“All agents, converge on Sixth Avenue, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth,” said Bishop. “Diesel, I want you on the corner of Forty-ninth and Sixth, and Cobra, on the corner of Fiftieth and Sixth. We are not going to let him slip through our fingers.”
“He’s wearing a long black overcoat,” said Shepard. “Looks like he’s got brown hair now, and his forehead is bandaged up, but that’s him all right.”
Morgan got to the corner of Fiftieth and Sixth and scanned the crowd. This was going to be hard. There were plenty of people in normal street clothes, and his Novokoff’s were about as common as you could get for New York City. He watched for the faces.
“I don’t see him,” he said.
“That’s a negative here too,” said Diesel.
“Doesn’t matter—I’ve got another hit,” said Shepard. “He’s on Rockefeller Plaza, moving towards the parade.”
“On it,” Morgan said. He had to ditch the bike—traffic was barred from getting any closer to the parade, and he wouldn’t be able to move very far anyway. He parked it illegally and ran off into the crowd before a police officer noticed.
“Okay,” said Morgan, “I see him.”
“Don’t l
et him see you,” said Bishop.
“Not planning on it,” said Morgan.
Morgan made his way through the crowd, going as fast as he could without knocking anybody down or drawing too much attention to himself. He drew near, and spotted Novokoff facing the parade among a throng of people. No possibility of a clean shot here.
Novokoff reached into his coat, and drew something out. Morgan saw that it was a detonator, a red button with a clear plastic cover with a thick black antenna on a black handle. There would be no time to think on this one. He had to take action.
Morgan drew his gun and fired two shots up into the air.
Immediately people around him screamed and began to back away in every direction, parents shielding their children and everyone moving as fast as possible away from him—and Novokoff. The Russian had only time to turn around and look at him wide-eyed before Morgan, now with a clear view and civilians out of the way, fired off a shot.
Novokoff’s hand gushed red, and the detonator went tumbling to the ground. Morgan aimed again, this time at Novokoff ’s leg. His knee buckled, and he fell kneeling to the ground. He tried to get up, yelled out in pain, and stumbled back down.
Several police officers had drawn their weapons and were ready to fire. Morgan drew his fake FBI badge and held it up, holding his gun by the muzzle and up where they all could see. “Counterterrorism!” he yelled. “This man has a bomb. I need you to form a perimeter around this area. Get people away from here.”
“You got it, sir,” said the policeman, and turned his attention to the crowd.
Morgan looked back at Novokoff. He was squirming in pain, trying to reach for the detonator, which was a few feet out of reach.
“You’d better stop,” said Morgan. “I can hit a fly in the air from this distance. Your brain will be splattered all over the pavement before you come within a foot of that thing.”
Novokoff turned to him and gave him a wide bloody smile. “Will that make you happy? To get your revenge? To see me destroyed?”
“I’m here to stop you from causing an epidemic in this city,” he said.
“Then I’m afraid you are out of luck,” he said, wincing in pain. This bomb will go off, Agent Cobra. I anticipated this possibility, and put the bomb on a timer. It will not be long now.”
Diesel came forward and crouched down over Novokoff while Morgan held his gun to his head. He pulled Novokoff’s jacket open carefully. Bombs were strapped to his torso in a tangle of wires. On the outside were at least five sizeable vials of a white powder—the fungus. Any detonation would send it flying into the air in every direction, and there was no telling how many people would be infected.
“Move and I can make this a lot more painful for you,” Morgan said. Then, to Diesel, “What can you do?”
“Not much,” he said. “There are a lot of decoys. Lots of ways that I can send us sky-high, including taking it off of him.”
“Shepard,” said Diesel. “I need something to contain him.”
“There’s not enough time,” said Novokoff. “Two minutes and you are all dead.”
“He’s right,” said Shepard. “I’ll route the bomb squad to you guys, but there isn’t enough time.”
“There has to be some way,” said Morgan.
There was only silence as Novokoff laughed gleefully. “You have me, and there is nothing you can do now.”
“We use the satellite,” said Shepard, voice rising with the epiphany.
“What?” said Morgan. “What satellite?”
“The Chinese defense satellite. We take control and aim the laser toward Earth. It can hit a ballistic missile going at ten thousand miles per hour. No reason we can’t target Novokoff on the surface. Anything in its path will burn at temperatures of a few thousand degrees. Even better, it won’t set off any plastic explosives.”
“No,” said Bloch. “Absolutely not, no!”
“We might not have any choice,” said Morgan.
“It’ll cause an international incident,” said Bloch. “It could expose Zeta Division. It would put us right in the sights of the Chinese.”
“And if we don’t, Novokoff might set loose an infection in New York City that could kill millions,” said Morgan. “You don’t have a choice, Bloch. You have to use it.”
“It’s too late, Cobra,” Novokoff screamed. “It doesn’t matter if you kill me! I’m already dead! But you won’t stop this bomb from going off! I’m taking all these people with me! I’m taking this whole goddamn city with me!”
“Shepard, we need you to do it now!”
From space, the hijacked Chinese satellite beamed down its laser.
The laser itself was completely invisible, so there was nothing to see, but Morgan could feel the heat that was emanating from that spot. It was like sitting in front of a fireplace at first, but in a few seconds it grew to the intensity of a blast furnace. People around yelled and gasped, and there was a scramble to get away from the spot that was suddenly and inexplicably hot.
But most shocking was Novokoff himself. Morgan wanted to look away, but couldn’t. Wild-eyed, the Russian had noticed that something was wrong, but by then the heat had become too intense, and it was too late for him. His hair went first, a bout of flame breaking out spontaneously from it. He began to scream at that point, and slap at his head to put the fire out. It was useless. The hair shriveled up and blackened instantly, sticking to his head. Some of it stuck to his hand, and the scalp came off with it.
Then Novokoff’s entire body went up in a torrent of flames, orange and thick as if it were some hellish fluid, turning into thick black smoke some ten feet above Novokoff’s head. The screams were drowned out by the sound of the flames, and then stopped altogether. All around him, the asphalt turned to pitch, a thick, viscous black substance. The fire slowly died as it ran out of material to consume, and slowly, the heat subsided.
When it was over, all that was left were his bones charred black, along with a few hunks of melted metal, half-embedded in hardening asphalt.
CHAPTER 61
Washington, D.C., March 18
That was the afternoon when the call came.
Buck Chapman sat in his living room, watching baby Ella as she slept soundly. Rose was out, and he thanked God for that. He didn’t think he could face her. Not now. He was sick to his stomach every time he remembered what he’d done. He wasn’t sorry. He had been right. The day had been saved. And there was no way of knowing what would have happened if he had left the government to take care of it.
But he had betrayed them. Schroeder. The task force. And ever since he did, he was convinced that it was only a matter of time before they found out.
So he sat there and stared at the most important person in his life. Ella. Tears came to his eyes. What would she think when she found out about it? What would it be like for her, growing up without her father? Would she be better off without him? He looked at the wall on his left, where he had two large pictures hung in lacquered wooden frames. One was of his wife, Rose, smiling like an angel, the year they got married. The other was of Ella as a newborn, mottled red with wispy black hair clinging to her knobby head. Tears came to his eyes and began streaming down his face.
Chapman took a deep breath. Get a grip, he told himself. You did the right thing. You’re not dead yet.
That’s when he heard the creak of the wooden floor on the hall outside the den. He reached for the lower right drawer, where he kept a concealed handgun, and slowly pulled it open. He drew the gun as a man appeared in the doorway, but in a flash of recognition did not pull the trigger.
It was Smith.
“Polite guests use the doorbell,” said Chapman.
“I use the doorbell when it pleases me to use the doorbell,” said Smith.
“Supposing I shoot you,” he offered.
“You could try,” said Smith. “I frankly don’t think it would do much good.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Chapman. “Why are you here, Smith?”
>
Smith walked on light feet to the chair opposite Chapman and sat down. “I imagine you might be feeling a little . . . guilty at the moment. I thought you could use a friendly word.”
Chapman snorted wearily. “From you?”
“Yes,” said Smith unflappably. “I’d like to tell you that it’s normal to feel as you do. Like you have betrayed something. But your motives were pure and your perceptions correct.” His voice was steady and emotionless. “You did what was necessary to protect your country and your daughter. You were a necessary part in stopping a catastrophe. And for that you deserve applause.”
“Hooray for me,” he said hollowly. “Is now the time when you give me my thirty pieces of silver?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” said Smith. “You didn’t do this for the money. You did it because it was right. And if it comes to it again, you will help us again.”
“Do I get a choice?”
“You always have a choice,” said Smith, standing up. He walked to the door, then looked back at Chapman. “Welcome to the team.”
“A success, all in all,” said Bloch.
Smith looked at her pointedly.
“A success?” asked Smith.
Bloch was sitting in the passenger seat of Smith’s car, in the Government Center garage, staring at a concrete wall. It was a dreary place for a meet, but garages worked for their isolation and accessibility. She ran her eyes over cracks on the wall as she spoke.
“A qualified success,” she said. “Disaster was averted. The infectious agent was contained.”
“Novokoff was killed in the middle of a crowd, in a way that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time. There are pictures, too many to control. I’d call that by itself a disaster.”
“It was all we could do to stop him from spreading the fungus to the entire city of New York,” she said.
“And using the satellite like that tipped our hand to the Chinese. They naturally blamed the United States for what happened, which might have caused an international incident. The U.S. is going to pay for this diplomatically.”
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