by Lis Wiehl
“I’ll be brief, because time is limited,” Ed Stanley said. “Gentlemen, Dani—we have been given Code 1A clearance. Dani, Tommy, as outsiders, I know you’re new to this sort of thing, and you probably need an explanation. The five of us here represent five different zones in the world. We all have people under us who work as operatives. Code 1A simply means that any …” He searched for the word. “Any rules that may or may not be broken as we pursue our different tasks will not be prosecuted by our respective governments. I should probably add that politically, some of us at this table are not necessarily allies or even friends. But as Konstantin was telling me—maybe I should let him speak for himself. Konstantin?”
“The devil is everybody’s enemy,” the Russian said. “So we will join forces to defeat him. And later, business as usual.”
“Dajjal,” the Egyptian said, “will not prevail. He cannot be allowed to gain footing in this world. This, we all agree on.”
“We’ve divided the list of the names you gave us,” Ed Stanley continued, winding the stem on his wristwatch. “Our friends here each have four, and I have five. We are grateful to you. You have done a great thing. Does anybody have any questions?”
“What did the angels look like?” Lucien asked. “I’ve wanted to see one my entire life.”
“Too beautiful for words,” Tommy said. “It almost hurt to look at them directly. Sort of like looking at the sun.”
“Can you make contact with them?” the Frenchman asked.
“We don’t make contact with them,” Tommy said. “They contact us. They bring us messages.”
The table fell silent.
“I have a question,” Dani said. “What will you do with the boys when you capture them? What will happen to them?”
Ed Stanley and the others exchanged glances.
“Dani, you have to understand something,” Stanley said. “Our goal is to stop them. That’s absolute. We’ll try to take them without a struggle if we can, but we have to assume they’re no different from the suicide bombers we’ve been dealing with in Iraq and Afghanistan. If someone is intent on destroying the whole world and themselves with it, you can’t quite walk up to them and say, ‘You’re under arrest.’ Do you understand that?”
“I do,” Dani said, but Tommy could tell she was very uncomfortable with the rules of engagement Stanley was laying out. Shoot on sight. He didn’t like it much either but …
“This is our business. We’re professionals, and we’re good at what we do. The priority can’t vary,” Stanley said. “We can’t leave it up to individual operatives to make judgment calls on a case-by-case basis, subjectively. That’s not what we teach. One crack in the collective resolve can compromise the entire mission. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Dani said. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
“Good,” Stanley said. “Then let’s get you back home.”
“Before you take us home,” Dani said, “I need to know why you’re lying.”
“What do you mean?” Ed Stanley said, incredulous.
“I know you’re lying,” Dani said. “That’s what I do. That’s my business, and I’m good at it. I evaluate people. And I know you’re lying.”
“You know that,” Stanley said. “If this is some sort of women’s intuition thing—”
“Stop right there,” Dani said sharply. “So far I’ve been respectful of you because you’re my grandfather’s friend and because of what you’ve accomplished. If you’re not prepared to be respectful of us, we’re done. You’ll get no further cooperation from us.”
Tommy knew he had to back Dani’s play, even though he wasn’t sure what they were going to do without Stanley’s help. “Should I call a cab?” he asked her.
“Wait,” Stanley said. “Wait.”
“We’re waiting,” Dani said.
“Just what is it you think I’m lying about?” Stanley asked.
“Peter Guryakin,” Dani said. “You came to us with a story about how he’d been part of a Soviet biological warfare program, until he lost favor at the Kremlin. You said he’d dropped out of sight, and that you were looking for him, and you came to us because you wanted to know what he was doing visiting his alma mater.”
“All that’s true,” Stanley said.
“I’m sure it is,” Dani said. “That’s what the most accomplished liars do. They tell you just enough of the truth to satisfy you, hoping you won’t keep looking for the rest of the truth. What’s the rest of it?”
Stanley didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you call the cab?” Dani said to Tommy. “This is a waste of time.”
“Wait,” Ed Stanley said. He turned to the Russian. “Konstantin, I don’t suppose you need to run to the snack bar for a few minutes?”
“I had a Snickers,” he said, holding his ground.
“Well,” Stanley said, “you would have found out soon enough anyway.” He turned to Dani again. “You’ve heard of DARPA?”
“I have,” she said. “Though I’m not sure what it stands for. Defense …”
“Defense Advanced Research Program Agency,” Tommy said.
“Project,” Stanley corrected him. “Not program. But yes. It’s the agency responsible for all defense-related research.”
“Guryakin didn’t disappear after he lost favor with the Kremlin.” Dani suddenly realized. “He worked for you. For DARPA.”
“Yes,” Ed Stanley said.
“Doing what?”
“A number of things, actually,” Stanley said.
“Such as?”
“Let me guess,” Tommy said. “He developed Provivilan, as a weapon. For the US government.”
“No,” Stanley said. “Not exactly. When we brought him in, after we’d had a chance to debrief him, we had him working on antidotes for some of the things the Russians were doing. Antidotes and immunological prophylactics. If we were going to send our soldiers into an area that had been contaminated with a nerve agent or a biological toxin, we needed to protect them. Gas masks and Hazmat suits aren’t the answer. They weren’t the answer during World War I, and they certainly aren’t the answer now. The answer now is immunization. And biological resistance.”
“But what?” Dani said. “Something went wrong.”
“Something went quite wrong,” Stanley said.
The Russian sneered.
“Somebody stole the work Peter Guryakin was doing. Someone who was working with him.”
“Who?”
“His son,” Tommy said, before Stanley had a chance. “He brought his kid in, and his kid stole it.”
The Frenchman appeared perplexed, so Tommy explained it to him.
“St. Adrian’s is known as a place where world leaders can very safely and discreetly send their sons to be educated,” Tommy said. “Has been for generations. Apparently what nobody figured out is that they teach the sons to spy on the fathers.”
“Andrei stole his father’s work and brought it to Linz,” Stanley said. “We have people inside Linz. We’ve been keeping an eye on them.”
“So why weren’t your people able to stop them?” Tommy asked.
“I bet I can answer that,” Dani said. “They didn’t have anybody who could get close enough to Andrei Guryakin. They needed somebody Andrei could trust. So they sent the father in after the son. The father would have been the only person the boy thought he could count on not to betray him.”
The big Russian leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
“That’s not exactly what happened,” Ed Stanley said. “But close enough.”
“So where is Peter Guryakin?” Dani asked.
“He’s dead,” Stanley said. “We found his body two days ago in a motel outside of Las Vegas. It was made to look like a suicide. But it wasn’t.”
Tommy looked at Dani to see if she was satisfied.
“Why do I think there’s more?” she asked.
“Because there is more,” Stanley said. �
�As I said already, your grandfather told me no one could fool you. I’ll tell him he was right the next time I see him.”
“He’s going to be at my sister’s for Christmas,” Dani said. “Maybe you’ll get the chance. What’s the rest of the story?”
“The program Peter Guryakin was with, or rather, the project he was working on, started out at Defense Sciences Office but was moved over to the Strategic Technology Office. Do you know the difference?”
“The distinction is one the Americans like to make, to convince themselves they’re not as bad as everyone else,” the Russian said. “Defense means defensive. Strategic means offensive. The Americans like to believe they only kill people when it’s necessary to protect the rest of the world.”
“Konstantin is entitled to his opinion,” Ed Stanley said. “But what he’s saying is essentially correct. What began as a biological defense program developed into a strategic—an offensive program. Something that wouldn’t just protect our soldiers but actually enhance their performance.”
“The super-soldier pill,” Guangli said. “We heard you were working on that.”
“That isn’t what we call it,” Stanley said. “But essentially, yes. The compound Peter Guryakin was originally tasked to develop had the effect of both suppressing a soldier’s response to nerve agents and stimulating the chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla.”
“He genetically engineered the virus that manufactures the drug,” Dani guessed.
Stanley nodded.
“Creating a soldier hyped up on adrenaline who doesn’t feel anything,” she said. “And I’m assuming by that, you mean he won’t feel empathy for his enemies. He’ll be merciless.”
“That’s always been the toughest part of fighting a war,” Tommy said. “Trying to convince your own people the enemy isn’t human. Usually it takes years of propaganda. Now it comes in a pill.”
“There are two versions of the drug,” Stanley said. “There’s the blue version, which you’ve discovered. That’s the one that takes years to have any effect. And then there’s the red version. Which has a more rapid effect.”
“Instant homicidal insanity,” Tommy said. “Accompanied by feats of superhuman strength.”
“The program was discontinued,” Ed Stanley said. “We tried a variety of dosages, but we learned we couldn’t control the results. Or perhaps contain is a better word.”
“But Peter Guryakin gave the red version to his son,” Dani said.
“Not voluntarily,” Ed Stanley said. “But yes. We think that may be what happened. Somebody figured out he was still working for us.”
“And the red version is what they’re dumping in the water,” Dani said.
“Now do you understand why this was given Code 1A clearance?” Ed Stanley said.
“I have one last question,” Dani said. “The red version—how long does it take to wear off?”
“Well, you see, that’s the problem. It doesn’t, really,” Stanley said. “As long as the virus is alive, it produces the drug. In theory, the body’s immune system would eventually kill the virus, perhaps in a week or two. But the drug proved to be thanatogenic before we could reach that stage.”
“Thanatogenic?” Tommy said.
“It means death-producing,” Dani said. “The government likes to use elevated diction to palliate words that make people uncomfortable. The drug was fatal.”
“Yes,” Stanley said.
“But it wasn’t the drug itself that killed anybody.”
“No.”
“You tested it on people, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And the people you tested it on either killed somebody, or they had to be killed to stop them.”
Ed Stanley didn’t have an answer.
“One other thing—you erased my medical examiner’s files, didn’t you? You knew we were getting too close. You’ve been monitoring us, and you deleted his files. And then you had someone follow me to see where I was going.”
“Yes,” Stanley said.
“Can we get that ride home now?” Tommy said.
In the helicopter, he had a question for Dani. “How did you know?”
“That he was lying?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I mean, I know you’ve been trained and all that, but how did you know? He seemed pretty convincing to me.”
“I wish I had a fancier explanation,” Dani said. “I told you my grandfather Howard used to be a judge, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“He spent his whole life listening to testimony and figuring out when he thought people were lying.”
“So he taught you?”
“Sort of. He plays poker with Ed Stanley. He said every time Stanley bluffs he starts to wind the stem on his wristwatch. He doesn’t even know he’s doing that. I was wondering about the story he told us about Guryakin, but I didn’t know for sure until I saw him do that.”
“Remind me not to play poker with your grandfather,” Tommy said.
33.
December 23
7:03 p.m. EST
Quinn was in his office on the Linz campus in Wilton, working late. He was waiting for the other buildings to empty, and in particular, Building C.
The first thing he did after logging in at his office was use the modified thumb drive containing the “mirror program” his friend at Anonymous had sent him the night before to find out who was monitoring his activity. He was not surprised to learn that Andrei Guryakin himself was his watcher. The mirror program worked beautifully, pinging back to Quinn the passwords and access codes Guryakin had stored. A quick scan of the numbers told Quinn what he wanted to know. Guryakin changed his passwords once a week, a standard security procedure, but he did so every Monday morning, usually between seven and eight. It meant that the passwords Quinn had accessed, sixteen in all, were still likely to work.
He spent the day answering e-mails, taking calls, and dealing with the pain in his head. It was getting worse, clearly. He wanted to “look busy,” in the likelihood that Guryakin was monitoring him. At the same time, Quinn monitored Guryakin’s activities, including his backlogs for the last month. By midmorning Quinn knew that Guryakin arrived every day before dawn, at five o’clock, and often worked until midnight.
He also learned that while Guryakin’s on-campus movements were unpredictable, one off-campus activity was quite predictable. According to his corporate credit card activity, Guryakin spent every Wednesday evening at a motel outside of Bridgeport, after which his card was billed $129 for the room and $500.00 for something called Western Connecticut Entertainment Services. It was the only day of the week that Guryakin left work at the normal time, according to the gate logs. Using his GPhone, Quinn sent a text to Detective Casey, asking him if he could find out what Western Connecticut Entertainment Services was. A few minutes later Casey got back to him.
ESCORT SERVICE. BUSTED FOR PROSTITUTION 3 TIMES IN LAST 12 MO. CAUTION ADVISED.
By four o’clock the pounding in Quinn’s head was more than he could bear. Perhaps it was because he’d been focusing on the computer screen all day. He had access to more powerful painkillers, but he was worried that anything strong enough to numb the pain would hinder his lucidity, so he took three ibuprofen—which was like trying to put out a volcano with a cup of tap water. He turned off the lights and lay down on the floor with his head under his desk, wrapping his scarf around his head to cover his eyes and block the light. At six thirty he felt better. He couldn’t be certain if he’d fallen asleep or blacked out.
He logged off the system and left his office. He drove his rental car out of the garage, using his flash drive to open the automated gate. If Guryakin was still monitoring him, it would appear that he’d gone home for the evening. He parked in a wooded area down the street, crossed back over the road, and cut across campus on foot, pulling his hat down low over his eyes and staying out of the light so no surveillance cameras could pick him up. Turning his coat collar up, keeping his head
down, he entered Building C.
There was a uniformed guard at the security desk.
“Illena Nemkova,” Quinn said.
The guard frowned. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”
“You’re quite right. Dr. Guryakin wanted me to look at her files. He said if I had any trouble getting access that you should call him,” Quinn said with a pleasant smile.
The guard held up a finger, telling Quinn to wait, then made two phone calls, the first probably to Guryakin’s office and the second to his cell phone. As Quinn suspected, both calls went to voice mail, Guryakin no doubt unwilling to be interrupted in the middle of a transaction with Western Connecticut Entertainment Services.
The guard eyed Quinn suspiciously.
“I’ve got the pass code,” Quinn added, holding up his thumb drive.
“All yours,” the guard said.
On the elevator Quinn used his GPhone to dial the number for the campus’s central switchboard and asked to speak to reception in Building C. He waited for the guard to answer and then, knowing the guard was distracted, plugged his debugged flash drive into the USB port and used the ninth of Guryakin’s sixteen passcodes to take the elevator to the basement.
Just as the elevator reached the bottom, Quinn felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of his skull that nearly dropped him to his knees. He pressed the button to keep the doors closed and waited for the attack to subside, praying that the pain wouldn’t cause him to black out or have a seizure.
For a moment he considered waiting for a better time. But there might not be a better time.
The pain abated, changing from agonizing to merely unbearable. He lifted his finger from the button, and the elevator doors opened.
He stepped out and into a small glassed-in, dimly lit lobby. There was a caution sign on the far wall.
WARNING
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS AREA.
BIOSAFETY LEVEL 4
He moved a chair to block the elevator doors to keep them from closing, then crossed quickly to an access control station near the lab entrance, where he encountered another USB port. He plugged his thumb drive in again, grateful that there wasn’t a retina scan or voice recognition lock to get past.