by Rick Chesler
“They gave me seven days and said they could pay me a visit anywhere. Rather than stick around after what they did to my lab assistant to see if I might fare any better, I decided to flee.” Into Tanner’s arms, was the unspoken rest of the sentence that she was sure Danielle was thinking.
“Is there any way you can work on the antidote in Maryland? What equipment and supplies do you need?” Danielle asked. Tanner looked at Jasmijn, awaiting her response. When she hesitated, Danielle pressed on.
“Because if we had an antidote, and could mass produce and distribute it, Hofstad’s threats become impotent.”
Stephen Shah’s accented voice came over the line. “We know from what they told Jasmijn in her lab that the terrorists want an antidote for the STX. We have to assume this is to exert further control over the situation. They would then be able to essentially sell the antidote to their own victims. To me this is even more reason to come up with an antidote before they do.”
Jasmijn nodded. “It just occurred to me that they might even have other people working on an STX antidote. I’m not the only scientist in the world, or even in Europe, capable of doing it.”
Tanner looked across the table. “Jasmijn, make sure you call the CDC as soon as this call ends to let them know definitively that STX is the bio-agent used in last night’s attack. That way they might be able to get other scientists working on the antidote. You have a big head start, but with the CDC’s resources, they might be able to crowdsource a solution faster than what you could do independently.”
“Agreed.” Jasmijn said.
Tanner went on. “But we can’t sit around waiting for some government agency to fix things. Our collective decades of government service have taught us that, if nothing else.” Hearty guffaws from the team broke out over the line before Tanner got back to business.
“What do you think, Jasmijn? If I could set you up in a discreet, secure lab around here, could you continue working on that antidote?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not simply a matter of equipment and a space to work. The samples I have already developed that I believe are the key to creating an antidote are in my Netherlands lab. I suppose I could request they be air-freighted to me here under special refrigerated conditions, but —”
Dante Alvarez broke in for the first time. “Why don’t we just provide you a security detail at your Netherlands lab and you can do the work there under escort and 24/7 guard detail?” As ex-Secret Service, he was an expert at providing guard detail and so naturally would prefer that solution.
Tanner looked impressed. Jasmijn appeared doubtful. He addressed her concern.
“You’d be safe. Trust me. If Hofstad does return to your lab, we might be able to end this that way, too, because we’ll be waiting for them.”
“So we all fly to my lab?”
“Half of us. Dante, Stephen and Nay: you three will escort Jasmijn to her lab and guard her while she develops the antidote. Danielle, Liam and myself will remain in country to track Hofstad from here and respond to any related domestic threats that may arise. “
The three of them indicated their assent.
“So I came all this way only to turn around and go back home.”
“To go back home safely,” Tanner corrected.
SEVEN
Netherlands airspace
The Gulfstream G650 banked into a turn high over the Dutch coast. On board, the trio of OUTCAST operatives and Jasmijn returned to their seats from the conference table where they’d been seated for most of the flight from Maryland. She had answered all of the questions Dante, Stephen and Naomi had asked regarding the layout of her lab, university security protocols, storage locations, methods for the key antidote components, and more. She had furnished them with photos of the lab and surrounding campus. At the end of it all, she had been taken aback when Stephen had handed her a Dutch passport.
“But I already have a passport.”
“Use this instead. Hofstad may be able to track your movements through customs. If we are lucky they’ll think you’re still in the U.S.”
“Clearly, I’m not lucky,” she had responded dourly.
“You’re still alive,” Dante had interjected. “That’s pretty lucky.”
It made Jasmijn nervous to be using a false document to enter her own country, as if she had done something wrong. But she trusted Tanner Wilson, and Tanner had promised her before she left (and kissed her lightly on the lips) that she could trust his operatives with her life.
When the plane landed and they disembarked onto the much less crowded private plane terminal, she walked up to the customs counter, smiled and handed the official her fake passport. Zoe Booten, indeed. She wondered if Tanner had come up with that cute little name for her. Although she was sure the customs agent could see through her jittery smile and was about to wave over an associate like she saw them do in the movies, after a cursory glance at her passport he simply waved her through. And that was it. Dante, Stephen and Naomi had passed through with equal ease.
* * *
Initially, Jasmijn had expected to introduce her OUTCAST escorts to the university security guards posted outside her lab door as well as the campus police officers patrolling the general area, but during her in-flight briefing, Stephen had told her that wouldn’t be necessary. Dante and Naomi were microbiology colleagues (with verifiable, appropriate credentials, of course) and would accompany her into and out of the lab at will.
“And you?” she had asked. She couldn’t help but see a deep…something…in Shah’s eyes. It was like a level of sadness that never went away, put there from having seen too much of the human condition’s dark underbelly.
“Do not worry about me. I will be nearby, yet invisible. I will be there when you and my team need me, I assure you.”
Inwardly, Jasmijn questioned this, but she had no choice other than to take his words at face value. At least she had the other two operatives literally at her side. That was comforting, though she wondered how well they’d be able to pull off the role-playing aspect of their assignment. From what she’d seen of them thus far, they were about the farthest thing from the geeky, introspective associates she’d typically worked with.
But they’d assured her not to worry and so here she was, strolling up to her laboratory door flanked by two undercover operatives as if it was just another day at the office. She had to admit, though, that Dante in his Dockers slacks and rumpled Oxford U. sweatshirt, and Naomi in a slightly more fashionable yet still suitable for business lab rat outfit of jeans and a fisherman’s sweater (it was cold this time of year in Netherlands), dressed the part surprisingly well.
As expected, all three of them including Jasmijn were required by the pair of radio-toting security guards at the door to show ID. Also as expected, the guards questioned Jasmijn about her new associates. She explained that they were visiting colleagues she had requested to work with her, and then the guards opened the lab door for them.
Once inside with the lab door closed, Jasmijn turned to Dante and Naomi, whose eyes already scanned the room, comparing the layout to the photos they’d seen. They walked in opposite directions between the rows of lab benches while Jasmijn talked.
“I noticed that the security guards don’t carry guns. The campus police officers do, but not security. How are they going to help me against these terrorists if they come back? I’m sure glad you guys are here,” she finished, watching as Naomi lifted her head to gaze over a lab bench to the floor beyond. She was taking nothing for granted, posted guards or not. Naomi replied while continuing to stalk the lab.
“We have to assume that everyone here is compromised, guns or no guns. Those guards at the door could be card carrying Hofstad members, for all we know. Don’t trust anyone except us.”
Jasmijn watched as she reached a large, metal square door with a curved handle. “Cold storage, right?”
“Right.”
“Walk-in or just racks?”
“Racks. Don’t worry, nob
ody could hide in there. Too cold, anyway. Just above freezing. The key samples for the antidote work are in there.”
“Can I open it?” Naomi paused with her fingers over the handle.
“Yes. The sample material isn’t particularly toxic. They’re cell cultures.”
Naomi slowly pulled the door open and looked inside. A light came on and illuminated racks of test tubes on several shelves.
“Does it look like how you left it last?”
“It does.” She watched as Dante’s head poked up from behind a lab bench. He gave Naomi some kind of hand signal and then she seemed to relax. She addressed Jasmijn.
“Okay, everything’s clear in here. You can get to work whenever you’re ready. If you need to leave for any reason, including the bathroom, one of us will go with you and the other will stay here. Okay?”
Jasmijn agreed. As she set about preparing her equipment and samples, she saw Dante tap an earpiece and speak softly. Looking closely at Naomi’s left ear, she saw one there, too. She supposed they could communicate with Stephen, probably roaming the campus somewhere. Taking a deep breath, Jasmijn consulted her lab notes and tried to block out the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her while she got back into work mode.
EIGHT
Bethesda, Maryland
Tanner Wilson hadn’t been fooled by the president’s address. He harbored little doubt that while the official talk was hard line, the White House was now pursuing every available option behind the scenes, including both negotiations and meeting the terrorists’ demands. The media was now in full fear-monger mode, spreading panic like wildfire. Reports of suspicious activity at high profile venues were everywhere, and everyone seemed to have seen something worth calling in. Meanwhile, Tanner thought, kicking his feet up on the conference table he now sat at alone, the clock was ticking. A day-and-a-half to go.
And while some of the talking heads on the news shows were willing to call Hofstad’s bluff, Tanner calculated the odds at 90 % that not only did they intend to, but that they would execute another attack according to their stated timeline. He knew Hofstad going back a long way. While they had stayed under the radar compared to flashier groups such as Al Qaida and more recently, ISIS, he had long noticed that they never failed to accomplish what they set out to do. Although their strikes, up to now, had been smaller scale, not generally commanding international headlines, they had always put their money where their mouth was when it came to executing them.
No, Tanner thought, shaking his head at a pundit on screen who was sure that the terrorists had already retreated back to Europe by now since it was too easy to keep America in fear without even having to do anything at this point — they had found a way to up the intensity of their attacks, but their gameplan was the same as ever.
And the worse part of it was that he doubted the White House would be able to stop it in time. As one live streaming view showed, the U.S. embassy in The Hague wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Tanner watched as a heavily secured gate rolled open in front of the compound, admitting a black SUV. U.S. policy would be the same as ever, Tanner lamented, running his fingers through his thick, wavy brown hair. They would act after more people got hurt and killed, and those acts would likely result in the loss of further liberties for American citizens, giving the terrorists yet another victory. A never-ending cycle. It frustrated him to no end, and that frustration was magnified further by knowing that he had once been in a position to actually do something about it.
He still was, though, just not in an official capacity. But he nevertheless had some people on his side who still occupied influential positions within FBI Counter-terror and other agencies as well. The same was true for all of his OUTCAST operators. There was a reason they garnered support — in the form of both information and funding — from government insiders and captains of industry alike. Even from a few foreign heads of state. The government had thrown out combined decades of experience when it had ousted the OUTCAST 6 for reasons that had nothing to do with their actual job duties, and meanwhile interagency cooperation — just when it was needed most — continued to be mired in convoluted tangles of bureaucratic red tape.
Tanner placated himself by considering what the optimal action against Hofstad should be. If he could do anything, what would he do? Dismantle the embassy? Although it would likely save lives in the short term, Tanner agreed with official U.S. policy that in the long term it was not a viable solution. Once that happened, once they gave in — terrorist organizations who wanted something done would demand it through violence and threats of follow-up. Tanner drummed his fingers on the smooth table surface. No, there had to be a real solution, one that involved actually solving the problem; that is, eliminating Hofstad’s key players.
How could he get to them? Waiting for them to strike next would likely produce no better results than last night’s fiasco. By now the halftime show production company breach had been reported, and shadowy photos taken by stadium surveillance cameras of the Hofstad terrorist posing as a production assistant broadcast all over the world. But he was gone. Security video showed him leaving the stadium tunnel in a golf cart, and even showed him getting into a car — a four-door sedan whose license plate was not readable in the video images. Tanner silently agreed with a guest speaker who speculated that the car had likely been ditched almost immediately following the incident. Even so, finding it would be a solid opportunity for clues, and that effort was ongoing.
Tanner knew that police procedural work was a slow-going endeavor, though, and with only about a day and a half to go before the next attack, they needed something more expedient. Tracking the terrorists like hunters after an animal would not save lives quickly enough. Tanner recalled the summer trips he spent as a boy with his grandfather, who was a game trapper. He killed animals not with guns but by tricking them to walking into his traps. He’d take Tanner out into the woods (he called it “camping” to downplay the violent aspect and thereby appease Tanner’s mother, although she knew exactly what they were doing), and teach him the ins and outs of hiding his traps, of presenting them in the most natural way from the point of view of their target as possible. It was much easier than hunting, if one had something the target wanted and knew how to offer it in a way that seemed unthreatening.
And Tanner’s work now was not all that much different. He clicked off the news reports as he thought about what he could put forward to Hofstad as bait. What did they want? The American embassy closed. Yet Tanner, for all his connections in high and not so high places, could not control that. If President Carmichael didn’t authorize the closing of the embassy — and he doubted he would — then it would remain open.
But there was something else. He flashed on Jasmijn, now toiling away in her Netherlands lab to work on the STX antidote.
The antidote.
Hofstad wanted the antidote, ostensibly to leverage their control over weaponized STX even further. They already stated their intention to pay a return visit to Jasmijn to collect it. But what if, Tanner postulated, staring at the track lighting on the ceiling, someone other than Jasmijn were to offer them an antidote?
Moving slowly while deep in thought, Tanner picked up the phone. There were people who owed him favors. It was time to call them in.
NINE
Tarfaya, Morocco
Hofstad leader Mustapha Aziz Samir was much more at home in the western Sahara desert than he was in the cooler, temperate climes of the Netherlands. Even though to most people this arid, brown coastal village seemed like a lost corner of the Earth that was best to remain that way, to Samir it was home. In a mud-colored stucco abode festooned with satellite dishes and antenna towers, he sat in a darkened room on the second floor, satellite phone in one hand, a TEC-9 automatic rifle leaning against the wall within easy reach. A small table in front of him supported a laptop and a tea setting, and a smattering of simple hand drums lay nearby on the floor — his only concession to entertainment.
He spoke in Dutch
to one of his Lieutenants in the Netherlands, Bram Witte. Fifteen years Amir’s junior, he had been recruited to Hofstad while still a teen, his weekly visits to the Mosque initially a harmless venture born of innate curiosity, then transforming into in-depth brainwashing sessions under the guise of religious studies.
“The Hague embassy is still open,” Witte reported.
“Proceed as planned,” Samir commanded, ready to end the call.
“There is more,” his Lieutenant said.
“Tell me.”
“A call was received. An antidote to STX has been developed by a private U.S. lab. They are offering to give us both a batch of working antidote as well as the formula for $10,000 U.S. dollars.”
Samir asked why it was so cheap.
“They say they the amount covers development costs only. They want us to have it, to prevent more deaths. They have proposed a meeting place.”
“Where?”
“Charleston, South Carolina.”
Samir thought about this location. East coast, but not close to the seat of power, Washington, D.C. But not all that far, really, either.
Witte asked him if he wanted to act.
“Yes. But only in such a way as it does not impact the next strike team. And send no one higher than Tier 2.”
“Understood.” Witte signed off.
Samir smiled, tenting his hands. Could it be a trap? Yes. He was not still alive after leading his jihad-style group for almost three decades without equal doses of wariness, extra-caution and paranoia. But that is what expendable warriors eager for the endless virgins in the afterlife were for.