The Poseidon Initiative

by Rick Chesler

  Tanner and Liam got their waverunners turned around and ready to head out. With the patrolman pounding down the dock behind them, they gunned the throttles and sped out into the harbor.

  FORTY-THREE

  Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Den Hoorn, Netherlands

  Boredom and familiarity bred complacency. It was something with which the members of OUTCAST were all too familiar. After hours of standing watch over the same confined space, of seeing the same things over and over again, repeating the same actions, one could easily let their guard down.

  But as Stephen Shah looked out the window again, he never would have guessed that this truth applied to scientists as well.

  Jasmijn checked the readout on a mass spectrometer and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Almost time for the next phase in the experimental antidote development. More coffee would be good, though. She glanced over at the coffee machine where Dante was brewing another batch. First prep the solution. She was nearly ready to try an intermediate stage on a test subject, another lab rat. This time, though, she would infect the rat by injection rather than aerosol cloud, to see if that made a difference. She glanced at the spectrometer again. A couple of more minutes.

  She opened the STX sample vault, reminding herself that only two of the precious vials remained. After the terrorists stole her vat supply, these tiny vials were all she had left with which to experiment in order to create an STX antidote. She pulled one of the clear glass tubes from its secure holder and lay it on the lab bench. She did a syringe pull, emptying the contents of the deadly neurotoxin into the hypodermic. Then she moved to the rat cage and withdrew one of the lab specimens. It wiggled in her hand and she clamped down on it. She walked it over to the lab bench where the STX hypo waited.

  Picking up the syringe, she clutched the rat tightly in her gloved right hand. It was a procedure she’d done literally hundreds of times before. The muscles in her hands knew what to do. She flipped the rat onto its belly and in slid the thumb of her other hand up the syringe. The rat kicked its hind legs once and she squeezed it gently, cooing at it to calm down, this will all be over in a second. When it stopped, she brought the needle close to the animal’s skin.

  The room was quiet, and she concentrated on the task before her while listening to the clock tick on the wall. It reminded her of the depressing deadline she faced. Only a few hours until more innocent people died, unless she could make this work…She depressed the plunger on the syringe.

  “Coffee’s ready!”

  Whether from shock or coincidence, the rat squirmed at the sound of Dante’s voice, struggling mightily in Jasmijn’s hand. It flopped over to one side as Jasmijn glanced over for a split second at Dante. When she looked back down she was horrified to see the needle plowing through the thin latex of the glove into the palm of her hand.

  She gave a little yelp of surprise on feeling the prick of the needle penetrating her skin and jumped, shaking her hand as if she could undo the needle stab. The rat went flying onto a lab bench and the coffee pot crashed to the floor as Dante drew his weapon, thinking that some kind of enemy tactic was playing out. Naomi and Stephen also raised their guns, heads on a swivel as they looked around for threats.

  All three OUTCAST operators converged on Jasmijn, slowly circling her while she stared at her open palm. The syringe lay on the floor. Jasmijn’s mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide as she gaped at a tiny speck of blood that bloomed in the center of her left hand. Meanwhile, the rat scrabbled away on the lab bench.

  “Do we need to get the rat? Is it contaminated?” Naomi asked.

  “N-no.” Jasmijn stuttered, now holding her hand upside down and squeezing it. “I’m contaminated. I—” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “You stuck yourself?” Stephen eyeballed the syringe on the floor. No fluid seemed to be leaking from it.

  “Yes!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “What can we do?” This from Dante.

  No one said anything. At length, Stephen asked, “What’s the status of the antidote?”

  She shook her head. “Not ready! This injection for the rat was supposed to be an intermediate step to clarify something by using injection rather than aerosol as the delivery method.”

  The trio of operators stared at her, stymied. There was not a single person on the planet who could help her now, except possibly herself. Worse, from past STX exposure cases they knew that without a successful antidote she only had about ten minutes to live.

  Just then Stephen’s earbud crackled with Danielle’s voice. “Situation developing in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Tanner and Liam on scene. Small-scale STX attack confirmed. President Carmichael’s yacht as yet unharmed. Update only, no action required. Requesting Euro sitrep, over.”

  Shah turned away from Jasmijn and spoke softly into his transmitter. He didn’t want his reply distracting her at this crucial moment — which may be one of her last.” Copy that, home base. Internal situation developing here, do not require assistance as of yet. Will report back, over.” It felt strange for him to say they didn’t need any help when a key member of their team was dying, but the sad truth was that no assistance could be provided for Jasmijn.

  Dante implored the scientist with his eyes.” Dr. Rotmensen. You’ve got to try it anyway. There’s no other way.”

  “You’re right.” She bent down to pick up the syringe but Naomi stopped her. “Doctor. Please. We can take care of that for you. Focus on administering yourself the antidote. Anything at all you can tell us to do — anything — just tell us and we’ll do it.”

  “Okay.” Jasmijn moved to the spectrometer and eyed the readout. She took a deep but shaky breath. “I can feel it,” she said. “The STX taking effect.”

  “Is your dose of antidote as ready as it can be?” Stephen asked.

  The scientist shook her head, a gesture of helplessness. “No. But it’s already becoming harder to breathe. Legs feel wobbly…” She sat on a lab stool in front of her workstation. “I need to make it now and take it, while my symptoms are still manageable. Looks like injecting it rather than breathing it in didn’t slow the onset.”

  “What can we do to help?” Naomi inquired.

  She instructed the OUTCAST team on what equipment to gather in order to prepare the antidote shot. They moved efficiently and in three more minutes the dose was ready.

  Dante handed Jasmijn the hypodermic and she took it, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t hold it steady.

  “Let me give you the shot,” Naomi offered, taking the syringe.

  Jasmijn bared her shoulder to her.

  Naomi plunged the needle into her skin.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Boothbay Harbor, Maine

  “Circle the yacht — give it a wide berth!” Tanner called over to Liam. They rode their waverunners only a few feet apart as they raced out into the harbor. They could already see the president’s ship just beyond the harbor in the bay. The cocktail party was in full swing on the main deck.

  “Not too close, don’t want them to think we’re on offense!”

  Tanner nodded his understanding and they jumped the wake of a passing motorboat. He was glad to see they weren’t they only jet-skis out on the water. They continued to ride out toward the harbor mouth. The sun was out, but the water that sprayed them wasn’t warm, and a light wind added to that chill factor. Still, the adrenaline pumping through Tanner’s system kept him from noticing. They looked around in all directions as they jetted toward the president’s yacht.

  For all the pandemonium on land, out here there still seemed to be a lot of people having fun. They passed a pontoon boat filled with elderly people drinking wine and listening to Frank Sinatra doing it his way. Not far away a young woman wakeboarded behind a small boat, the occupants videotaping her and cheering her on. Beyond it all President Carmichael’s vessel still floated serenely at anchor, and still Tanner and Liam detected no threats.

>   As they pushed further out into the harbor, Tanner began to wonder if maybe they were making a mistake by coming out here. There was an actual attack, after all, right behind them on the waterfront. They were in fact running away from it. But years as a counter-terror agent had imbued him with a sort of sixth sense that told him when things weren’t quite right, and right now that sense bristled. The first attack was a distraction. It had to be. The logistics involved in transporting even a small amount of STX across state lines, the agents, the boat…it all seemed like way too much to do and far too much risk to assume not to try and hit Carmichael’s boat. He was the very man, after all, who had refused to grant their demands. The U.S. embassy in The Hague was still operational. And he floated right over there…Even an unsuccessful attempt of some kind on the yacht would generate international headlines for Hofstad, something that the low-key terror organization apparently desired, seeking to up their visibility.

  They heard the blast of a large boat horn — low in pitch — carry across the water and tensed, white-knuckling the waverunner handlebars. Looking to their left they saw a ferry carrying passengers toward the dock. Tanner slowed to get a good look; it was only the captain being cautious, warning the small craft in its path that it was coming through.

  Tanner resumed cruising speed and the pair of OUTCASTs plowed across the harbor. Before long the Lincoln loomed, and Tanner knew that at least one of the dozen or so vessels anchored within one hundred yards of it had to be Secret Service, watching for any vessel to breach an invisible perimeter. Get too close to the Lincoln, and action would be taken. He motioned to Liam that they should take an outer perimeter approach. They knew better than to take a direct route.

  They fell into a long oval pattern that took them around the yacht. During the first trip around Tanner scouted the presidential asset for signs of trouble and saw none — no evidence of terrorism, and no indication that he and Liam had aroused sufficient suspicion to warrant action against them. That didn’t mean that they hadn’t been noticed, of course. There could well be a pair of marine binoculars focused on them now, not to mention video surveillance, and possibly even firearms. Tanner put on his best tourist-having-the-time-of-his-life grin as he banked into a sharp turn out in front of the yacht’s bow. The truth was that he disliked waverunners and jet-skis — the motorcycles of the sea, as he thought of them. They were loud and obnoxious, just large enough to sit on but not really relax. He’d much rather be on a boat, even a small one. But the skis were very fast and could fit into tight quarters if necessary.

  After yet another circuit around the target, Tanner was about to suggest they break off — the same repetitive pattern for too long would also trigger increased scrutiny — when he caught a flash of something far out to sea. A glint of sunlight off glass, perhaps. He wasn’t sure, but once the flash attracted his eye, he could pick out the outline of a slow-moving vessel of some kind. He couldn’t yet discern its direction. It could be heading out to sea, or straight past the harbor. He couldn’t be sure, but since it was possible it could be headed their way, he decided to keep an eye on it. It did come from a somewhat unusual angle of approach, he noted — threading between the outlines of two distant islands, which kept it somewhat hidden from direct line-of-sight to the harbor. He gripped his handlebars as he rounded the yacht’s stern.

  Liam waved to get his attention, wisely reminding him that they needed to break out of the pattern they’d been holding. Tanner looked out toward the bay and Liam aimed his craft in that direction. Time to leave the harbor for open water. They could check out the big, incoming vessel.

  The mouth of the harbor was choppy where the bay water slacked out with the tide, and they had a bumpy ride through the chop out into the bay. They dodged a pair of racing sailboats before pointing their waverunners toward the slow craft Tanner had noticed.

  Liam ramped off a sloppy swell made unpredictable by a passing boat wake and slammed head-on through another wave, his entire ski and body submerging for a few seconds as he passed through the swell. He shook his head like a dog shedding water after getting out of a pool and kept going, looking over at Tanner and giving him a thumbs up sign. A small crowd of people on a passing boat whooped and hollered, loving the show. Now that’s good tradecraft, Tanner thought, maintaining course with the mystery ship.

  As they neared their vessel of interest Tanner could see that it was some kind of barge. Not rusty and decrepit looking, but simply a Spartan workhorse, plowing through the waves as if it had all day to get wherever it was going but would definitely get there. It wasn’t easy to tell for sure, bouncing around as he was on the ski, but he could see no persons aboard from this distance. He signaled to Liam to loop around the back of the ship, so that they could follow it from behind. Liam nodded and they raced out to sea.

  Overhead, the sky buzzed with activity as Coast Guard choppers patrolled the skies, vying for airspace with media helicopters and police aircraft. Tanner knew that an SR-71 Blackbird fighter jet squadron was lurking in the clouds, ready to strike on a moment’s notice should an aerial threat to Carmichael’s yacht materialize. He and Liam could make a difference out here on the water, though, should danger rear its ugly head. At least he hoped so, as he led Liam into an arcing turn far behind the barge’s broad stern.

  The number of boats thinned out here, but there were still large sailboats visible plying the island waters in the distance. Tanner scanned the waters to make sure he wasn’t ignoring some other suspicious vessel or even aircraft, but saw none. He wished the whine of the waverunner engines wasn’t so deafening, but there was nothing he could do about that other than to stop, which could also arouse suspicion.

  He and Liam began following the barge in toward the harbor. Although the workboat kept a straight-as-an-arrow path, they were sure to keep up a series of carving, swerving turns as they followed the boat, so that to anyone watching they would look like a couple of guys having fun on their toys.

  Before long they entered the harbor, by now having gotten used to the skis, Liam in particular really putting on a show, ramping off boat wakes in spectacular aerial displays, while Tanner tried some trick-riding of his own, standing with one hand on the handlebars while circling, having a good time for the benefit of all who might be watching.

  Still, he couldn’t help but notice that the plodding barge inexorably continued its course toward the Lincoln, while the brunt of law enforcement was centered on the waterfront walkway, containing the fire, treating victims and bracing for possible further attacks. He waved an arm at Liam, indicating that they should close the distance to the barge. The two riders veered away from one another in a V pattern, into the harbor, closer to the barge. And the president’s yacht.

  As Tanner passed by the starboard side of the barge’s stern, with the yacht in front of him and to his right, maybe an eighth of a mile, a blur of movement caught his left eye.

  He eased back on the waverunner’s throttle just a bit in order to get a better look.

  There!

  What was a black streak had temporarily steadied before setting into motion again off the barge’s rail.

  A tiny helicopter…but of course to Tanner, coming from a barge in close proximity to the President of the United States of America, this was no remote controlled kid’s toy.

  It was a drone. A quadracopter — a simple helicopter consisting of a basic circular frame containing four rotors, the entire craft no more than a foot in diameter. He knew they could either be pre-programmed to follow a particular route, or remote controlled by a human operator. He also knew that they could carry specialized payloads, such as cameras, bombs…STX misters?!

  A micro-drone.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Den Hoorn, Netherlands

  “It’s been five minutes now and I’m still getting worse.” Jasmijn sat on a stool in front of the lab bench, watching the clock on the wall tick away her final remaining minutes. Her legs suddenly felt r
ubbery. She would have fallen from the stool if not for Dante and Stephen who moved quickly to hold her up.

  “It just needs a little more time to take effect,” Naomi offered. She of course had no idea if this was true, but didn’t want Jasmijn to give up hope.

  “No.” The scientist held her head in her hands. “Oh God, no. I remember now. It’s not going to work.”

  The battle-hardened trio of operatives were taken aback to see Jasmijn so distraught.

  “What is it?” Naomi put a hand on her shoulder.

  “No,” she said, lifting her head and wiping away a string of tears. “It can’t work the way I did this last iteration. I realize now what I did wrong but I don’t have time to explain it to you.”

  Stephen got down on one knee so that he could level his gaze right into her eyes.” Then don’t explain. Just do it. Make the next iteration.”

  Jasmijn took a very deep breath and looked at the ceiling for a second. “I can prepare it. I can set it up and leave instructions to you as to how to complete it…”

  She started to cry. “…but there won’t be enough time for me to use it. There are multiple stages — mix these two samples together, autoclave for twenty minutes, chill in the fridge for thirty minutes and so on. Over an hour prep time altogether. By then, I’ll be…” She broke down again.

  “Stay with us, Jasmijn,” Nay said. “There’s no time to feel sorry for yourself.”

  “Or to kick yourself for mistakes you might have made,” Dante added.

  The scientist took another deep breath — or was it just a normal breath that was more labored than usual? “You’re right. Let me get to work. I’ll write out the instructions so that you will be able to cookbook it to completion. Then you just need to test it on a rat. Be extremely careful handling the STX–I’m spending my last remaining minutes trying to save people, not get more of them killed.”

  “Don’t worry, Jasmijn, we’ll be careful. Please, document the procedure.”