Unless they were not government doctors at all.
"Listen, General. I think---"
The general interrupted, disgusted. "Your hearing gone, Colonel? Don't you understand orders anymore? We stand down. The professionals will work on Dr. Russell's death. I suggest you go back to your lab and focus on the virus."
Smith took a deep breath. Now he was not only furious, he was scared. "Something's very wrong here. Either someone very powerful is manipulating the army, or it's the army itself. They want to stop the investigation. They're stonewalling this virus, and they're going to end up killing one hell of a lot of people."
"Are you crazy? You're in the army. And those were direct orders!"
Smith glared. He had been fighting grief all day. Every time Sophia's face flashed into his mind, he had tried to banish her. Sometimes he would see something of hers--- her favorite pen, the photos on her office wall, the little bottle of perfume she kept on top of her desk--- and he would start to fall apart. He wanted to sink to his knees and howl at the unseen forces that had stolen Sophia, and then he wanted to kill them.
Smith snarled, "I resign. You'll have the paperwork this afternoon."
Now Kielburger lost his temper. "You can't quit in the middle of a goddamn crisis! I'll have you court-martialed!"
"Okay. I've got a month's leave coming. I'm taking it!"
"No leave! Be in your lab tomorrow or you're AWOL!"
The two men faced each other across Kielburger's desk. Then Smith sat down. "They murdered her, Kielburger. They killed Sophia."
"Murdered?" Kielburger was incredulous. "That's ridiculous. The autopsy report was clear. She died as a result of the virus."
"The virus killed her, yes, but she didn't contract it by any accident. We missed it at first, maybe because the reddening didn't appear for a few hours. But when we took a second look, we spotted the needle mark in her ankle. They injected the virus."
"A needle mark in her ankle?" Kielburger had a concerned frown. "Are you sure she wasn't---"
Smith eyes were hard blue agates. "There was no reason for an injection except to give her the virus."
"For God's sake, Smith, why? It makes no sense."
"It does if you remember the page cut from her logbook. She knew--- or suspected---- something they didn't want her to know. So they cut out her notes, stole her phone log, and killed her."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."
"Smith, you're upset. I understand. But there's a new virus loose to run across the world. There could be an epidemic."
"I'm not sure about that. We've got three widely separated cases that haven't infected anyone else in their areas. Did you ever hear of a virus breakout in which only one single person in an area was infected?"
Kielburger considered the question. "No, I can't say I have, but---"
"Neither has anyone else," Smith told him grimly. "We still get new viruses, and nature confounds us all the time. But if the virus is as deadly as it appears, why haven't there been more cases in each of the three areas since? At best it indicates this virus isn't very contagious. The victims' families and neighbors didn't get it. No one in the hospitals got it. Even the pathologist who was sprayed with blood didn't get it. The only person we can be sure of who got it from someone else is the Pickett girl in Atlanta, who had a direct blood transfusion from her father years ago. That indicates two facts: One, the virus, like HIV, appears to exist in a dormant state inside a victim for years, and then it suddenly turns virulent. Two, it seems to take a direct injection into the bloodstream for infection, either in the dormant state or the virulent state. In any event, an epidemic looks remote."
"I wish you were right." Kielburger grimaced. "But you're dead wrong this time. There are already more cases. People are sick and dying. This crazy virus may not be highly contagious in the usual ways, but it's still spreading."
"What about Southern California? Atlanta? Boston?"
"Not in any of those places. It's in other parts of the world--- Europe, South America, Asia."
Smith shook his head. "Then it's still all wrong." He paused. "They murdered Sophia. You understand what that means?"
"Well, I'm---"
Smith stood up and leaned across the desk. "It means someone has this virus in a test tube. An unknown, deadly virus no one's been able to match or trace. But someone knows what this virus is, and where it comes from, because they've got it."
The general's heavy face turned purple. "Got it? But---"
Smith hammered his fist on the desk. "We're dealing with people who have given the virus to other people! To Sophia. They're willing to use it like a weapon!"
"My God." Kielburger stared at him. "Why?"
"Why and who, that's what we've got to find out!"
Kielburger's burly body seemed to quiver in shock. Then he abruptly stood up, his florid face as white as it had ever been. "I'll call the Pentagon. Go and write up what you told me and what you want to do from here on."
"I've got to go to Washington."
"All right. Get whatever you need. I'll cut official orders for you."
"Yessir." Smith stood back, relieved and a little stunned that he had finally gotten through Kielburger's thick brain. Maybe the general was not as rigid and stupid as he had thought. For a moment he almost felt affection for the irritating man.
As he ran out the door, he heard Kielburger pick up his phone. "Get me the surgeon general and the Pentagon. Yes, both of them. No, I don't care which one first!"
__________
Specialist Four Adele Schweik flipped the intercept shunt on her telephone inside her cubicle, warily listening for any sound of Sergeant Major Daugherty leaving her office. At last she lied briskly into her phone, "Surgeon General Oxnard's Office. No, General Kielburger, the surgeon general isn't in the office. I'll have him call as soon as he returns."
Schweik glanced around. Fortunately, Sandra Quinn was busy in her cubicle, and the sergeant major was in her office. Kielburger's office was calling out again. Schweik answered in a different voice, "Pentagon. Please hold."
She quickly dialed a number she read from a list in her top drawer. "General Caspar, please? Yes, General Kielburger calling urgently from USAMRIID." She took him off hold, returned to her own line, and dialed again. She spoked softly but rapidly, hung up once more, and went back to her work.
__________
5:50 P.M.
Thurmont, Maryland
Smith finished packing in the empty house under the shoulder of Catoctin Mountain. He felt a little ill, and he figured that was no surprise. Sophia was everywhere, from the bottled water in the kitchen to the scent of her in their bed. It broke his heart. The emptiness of the house echoed through him. The house was a tomb, the sepulchre of his hopes, filled with Sophia's dreams and laughter. He could not stay here. He could never live here again.
Not in the house, and not in her condo. He could think of nowhere in the world he wanted to be. He knew he would have to figure that out eventually, but not now. Not yet. First he had to find her killers. Smash them. Crush them into screaming masses of blood and bones and tissue.
In his office after he had left Kielburger, Smith had written up his reports and notes, printed them out, and driven a circuitous route home, watching behind. He had seen no one follow to the big saltbox house he had shared for so many happy months with Sophia. When he had finished packing for a week of any weather, loaded his service Beretta, and grabbed his passport, address book, and cell phone, he dressed in his uniform and waited for Kielburger's call with the word from the Pentagon.
But Kielburger did not call.
It was growing dark at 1800 as he drove back to Fort Detrick. Ms. Melanie Curtis was not at her secretary's desk, and when he checked the general's office, the general was gone, too, but neither office looked as if it had been tidied up for the night. Very unusual. He looked at his watch: 1827. They must be on coffee breaks. But at the same time?
Neither was in the coffee room.
Kielburger's office was still empty.
The only explanation Smith could think of was the Pentagon had called Kielburger to Washington in person, and he had taken Melanie Curtis with him.
But would not Kielburger have called to tell him?
No. Not if the Pentagon had ordered him not to.
Uneasy, and telling no one, he went back down to his battered Triumph. Pentagon permission or not, he was going to Washington. He could not sleep another night in the Thurmont house. He turned on the ignition and drove out the gate. He saw no one watching from outside, but to be sure, he circled the streets for an hour before driving to I-270 and heading south for the Capital. His mind roamed over the past with Sophia. He was beginning to find comfort in remembering the good times. God knew, that was all he had left.
He had had one good night's sleep in three days and wanted to be sure no one was tailing him, so he pulled off abruptly at Gaithersburg and watched the exit to see whether anyone followed. No one did. Satisfied, he drove to the Holiday Inn and checked in under a false name. He drank two beers in the motel bar, ate dinner in the motel dining room, and went back to his room to watch CNN for an hour before dialing Kielburger at the office and at home. There was still no answer.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright, shocked. It was the third item on the national report: "The White House has reported the tragic death of Brig. Gen. Calvin Kielburger, medical commander of the United States Army Medical Research Institute o f Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The general and his secretary were found dead in their homes, apparently victims of an unknown virus that has already killed four people in the United States, including another research scientist at Fort Detrick. The White House emphasizes these tragic deaths are isolated, and there is no public danger at this time."
Stunned, Smith's mind quickly grappled with what he knew: Neither Kielburger nor Melanie Curtis had worked in the Hot Zone with the virus. There was no way they could have contracted it. This was no accident or natural spreading of the virus. This was murder... two more murders! The general had been stopped from going to the Pentagon and the surgeon general, and Melanie Curtis had been stopped from telling anyone the general's intentions.
And what had happened to the complete secrecy everyone working on the virus was supposed to maintain? Now the nation knew. Someone somewhere had done a complete reversal, but why?
"...in connection with the tragic deaths at Fort Detrick, the army is requesting all local police watch for Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, who has been declared absent without leave from Detrick."
He froze in front of the motel television. For a moment it seemed as if the walls were closing in on him. He shook his head; he had to parse this out clearly. They had enormous power, this enemy that had murdered Sophia, the general, and Melanie Curtis. They were out there looking for him, and now the police wanted him, too.
He was on his own.
___________________
PART TWO
___________________
___________________
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
___________________
9:30 A.M., Friday, October 17
The White House, Washington, D.C.
President Samuel Adams Castilla had been in office three years and was already campaigning for his second term. It was a cool, gray morning in the District, and he had expected a good turnout at the Mayflower Hotel for a fund-raising breakfast, which he had canceled for this emergewncy meeting.
Annoyed and worried, he stood up from the heavy pine table he used as his Oval Office desk and stalked to the leather chair by the fireplace, where everyone was gathered. As with every president, the Oval Office reflected President Castilla's tastes. No thin-blooded, Eastern seaboard interior decorator for him. Instead, he had brought his Southwestern ranch furniture from the governor's residence in Santa Fe, and an Albuquerque artist had coordinated the red-and-yellow Navajo drapes with the yellow carpet, woven blue presidential seal, and the vases, baskets, and headdresses that made this the most native Oval Office in history.
"All right," he said, "CNN says we've had six deaths from this virus now. Tell me how bad it really is and what we're up against."
Sitting around a simple pine coffee table, the men and women were somber but cautiously optimistic. Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard, seated next to the secretary of Health and Human Services, was the first to answer. "There have now been fifteen deaths from an unknown virus that was diagnosed last weekend. That's here in America, of course. We've just recently learned there were six original cases, with three of them surviving. At least that's a little hopeful."
Chief of Staff Charles Ouray added, "Reports from the WHO indicate ten or twelve thousand people overseas have contracted it. Several thousand have died."
"Nothing to require any special emergency action on our part, I'd say." This was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Stevens Brose. He was leaning against the fireplace mantel under a large Bierstadt Rocky Mountain landscape.
"But a virus can spread like wildfire," Secretary of Health and Human Services Nancy Petrelli pointed out. "I don't see how we can in all good conscience wait for the CDC or Fort Detrick to come up with countermeasures. We need to call on the private sector and contact every medical and pharmaceutical corporation for advice and help." She looked hard at the president. "It's going to get worse, sir. I guarantee it."
When some of the others began to protest, the president cut them off. "Just what kind of details do we know about this virus so far?"
Surgeon General Oxnard grimaced. "It's of a type never seen before, as far as Detrick and the CDC can tell. We don't know how it's transmitted yet. It's apparently highly lethal, since three people who worked with it at Detrick have died, although the mortality rate of the first six cases was only fifty percent."
"Three out of six is lethal enough for me," the president told them grimly. "You say we recently lost three scientists at Fort Detrick, too? Who?
"One was the medical commander, Brig. Gen. Calvin Kielburger."
"Good Lord." The president shook his head sadly. "I remember him. We talked soon after I took office. That's tragic."
Admiral Brose agreed ominously: "It's blown the lid off. I'd declared the matter top secret after the first four deaths because my exec, General Caspar, reported too many amateurs were bumbling around in what could be a critical situation. I was concerned about public panic." He paused for confirmation of the correctness of his decision. Everyone nodded, even the president. The general inhaled, relieved. "But the police were called to General Kielburger's and his secretary's homes when they were discovered dead. The hospital recognized the same virus that'd killed the first USAMRIID scientist. So now the newspeople have it. I've had to open it up, but the media knows it's got to get its information only from the Pentagon. Period."
"Sounds like a good step," Nancy Petrelli, the HHS secretary, agreed. "There's also a scientist who appears to have gone AWOL from Detrick. That concerns me, too."
"He's missing? You know why?"
"No, sir," Jesse Oxnard admitted. "But the circumstances are suspicious."
"He disappeared soon before Kielburger and his secretary died," the Joint Chiefs chairman explained. "We've got the army, the FBI, and the local police alerted. They'll find him. Right now we're saying it's for questioning."
The president nodded. "That sounds reasonable. And I agree with Nancy. Let's see what the private sector can offer. Meanwhile, everyone keep me informed. A lethal virus no one knows anything about scares the hell out of me. It should scare the hell out of all of us."
___________________
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
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9:22 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
The multiethnic neighborhood of Adams-Morgan is a bustling district of rooftop restaurants with sweeping views of the city. Its main arteries--- Columbia Road and
Eighteenth Street--- offer a lively potpourri of sidewalk cafés, neighborhood bars and clubs, new and secondhand bookstores, record stores, funky used-clothing shops, and trendy boutiques. Newcomers in the exotic dress of Guatemala and El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador, Jamaica and Haiti, both Congos, and Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam add color to an already picturesque neighborhood.
At a rear table in a coffee shop just off Eighteenth, where coffee mugs had made circular brands that looked so old they might have been there since the days Indians trod local ridges, Special Agent Lon Forbes, FBI, waited for Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith to come to the point. He knew little personal detail about Smith except he claimed to be a friend of Bill Griffin's. That made Forbes both interested and wary.
Robert Ludlum - CO 1 - The Hades Factor Page 13