The Panic Zone

by Rick Mofina

The WPA had arranged for Emma Lane to stay in a twentieth-floor room. Gannon and Emma’s flight had arrived late at LaGuardia. He got her checked in to the hotel and met her there the next morning.

  Sirens and traffic noises filled the sunny morning air.

  As they walked to WPA headquarters, Emma took in the buildings and searched the stream of faces, wondering if she would ever see Tyler again, hoping Jack Gannon and his global news service were the answer to her prayers.

  It did not take long to travel the few blocks beyond Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. Melody Lyon met them in her office.

  “Thank you for coming, Emma.” Lyon shook her hand. “On behalf of the WPA, please accept our belated condolences for your loss.”

  Once Emma was seated, Lyon got down to business.

  “You’re obviously contending with more than anyone should have to bear,” she said. “Jack told us of the extraordinary steps you’ve already taken. Are you certain you’re up to this?”

  “I’m certain because I need to find my son.”

  “As you know, we’ve lost two of our people recently and we think their deaths are linked to your case. In our pursuit of the truth we’ll be sharing confidential information with you. Emma, as crass as it sounds, we need to know that your cooperation remains exclusive to the WPA.”

  “Yes,” Emma said. “No one else believed me or would help me. Before we left, my aunt and uncle promised not to speak to any other reporters.”

  “I’ll update you,” Lyon said. “Jack, we’ve just learned that the New York Times is going to report that the CIA wants to question former scientists about a canceled top-secret program that may be at play somewhere in all of this. This could be related to our story. A number of news organizations are chasing pieces of it, but we’ve got most of them. Jack, is there anything new on your other angles?”

  “I’m still waiting to hear back from Lancer on Polly Larenski’s phone numbers. I have files to review and sources to check.”

  “Good, we’ve put more WPA people on this story, quietly digging. I did some checking with my sources in Washington. I’ve just sent you some new data we’ve put together. I want you both to review it. Jack, you will remain our lead reporter on this file. Start a running draft of all we know as soon as possible.”

  The first thing Gannon and Emma did was go to the WPA cafeteria for two strong coffees. Alone in the elevator, Emma turned to Gannon.

  “Will I find my son?”

  “I don’t know. But a lot of people are pushing hard to get to the truth behind what happened to you, Adam Corley and the people murdered in Rio de Janeiro,” he said. “We’ve both come a long way and neither one of us is giving up.”

  At his desk in the newsroom, Gannon got a second chair for Emma, then set up his laptop for her to read over files. While he worked on his PC, Emma paged through older files and notes from his sources. Her concerns grew as she realized the magnitude of what could be looming.

  She looked at Gannon’s monitor and her breathing quickened as she read what was on it: the detailed note from Melody Lyon.

  Jack, I called in a few favors with my sources in the intelligence community and this is what I’ve put together on Extremus Deus. The group’s origins flow from the following:

  In the Cold-War era, various White House administrations and Western governments expressed alarm over the population explosion. There were fears the earth’s population would double, even triple, in a short time, deplete the planet’s resources and result in chaos and the collapse of civilization.

  At that time, some officials were consumed by these fears and over a few decades, various strategies for slowing growth were secretly discussed. Some included chilling military options involving the creation of new lethal agents that could attack certain segments of the population.

  By the late 1970s, fears about population had subsided, but the years that followed saw a combination of key events, namely, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the emergence of the new threat of global warming. New democratized nations joined materialistic Western societies in a wanton depletion of the earth’s resources in a time of out-of-control greenhouse-gas emissions.

  In some darker corners of the world, this served to rekindle the belief that the world was racing headlong to ruin and that action was needed.

  Some conspiracy theorists hold that a select number of scientists, intellectuals and various rogue political, military and intelligence players created a secret organization known as Extremus Deus, from the Latin meaning “Extreme God,” to formulate policies, strategies and action.

  According to the theories, the most effective way to reduce the strain on the planet and the threat to humanity is to reduce population.

  The conspiracy theorists hold that Extremus Deus has been secretly developing chemical and biological options gleaned from military experiments, such as a genetic attack through the manipulation of DNA…

  Emma’s face was a mask of fear. She’d dropped her coffee. Gannon reached for a box of tissue as she tapped his monitor and the note.

  “This group, this Extremus Deus—this can’t be serious.”

  “There’s no evidence this group exists, but the theories are based on facts.”

  “Are you telling me some freakish doomsday cult stole my baby for his DNA? Oh, God, they’ve killed Joe and now they’ll kill Tyler.”

  “Take it easy, Emma. We don’t know if there’s a connection. This is just one possible piece of a story that has many pieces. We don’t know what’s real, speculation or fiction.”

  The phone next to his computer rang.

  “WPA, Jack Gannon.”

  “It’s Lancer.”

  “Did you process those phone numbers I gave you?”

  “I’ll tell you something, but think hard before you answer.”

  “All right.”

  “I want Corley’s memory card. I need to see those files.”

  “I already told you what I found.”

  “You don’t have a clue as to what’s relevant. Now, I can invoke national security, get warrants, jam up your life, even have you arrested.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Lancer! After you witnessed me being—” Gannon caught himself. “You know what I went through, so don’t threaten me.”

  “You forget that I’m the guy who got you out of that mess.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Send me electronic copies of Corley’s material now—all of it—and I’ll give you new information.”

  Gannon looked around, knowing where news organizations stood when it came to sharing information with police. He was walking a fine ethical line.

  “What have you got for me, Lancer?”

  “Possibly the next phase of this case.”

  Gannon had to decide this on his own. No one but Lancer knew what he went through in the Moroccan prison. And it was true: Lancer was the one who got him out.

  “Send me an e-mail address,” Gannon said, “then give me a few minutes. It’s a large file.”

  Gannon worked fast copying everything from Corley’s files into special folders he sent via e-mail to Lancer. Ten minutes went by, then twenty, thirty, nearly forty when Gannon’s line rang again.

  “Listen up,” Lancer said. “We’re going to execute warrants on a subject in Nassau, Bahamas, tomorrow. It’s a three-hour flight from New York. Check in to the Grand Blue Tortoise Resort and wait for my call.”

  “Wait! Give me some idea of the target.”

  “When you get there.”

  “No, I need to alert my desk.”

  “A child-care center.”

  “A child-care center?”

  Emma’s eyes widened.

  “Okay, Lancer, I’ll be there, but I’ll have another person, a reporter, with me and maybe a photographer.”

  “Just get there, stay out of the way and wait for my call.”

  60

  Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield, Fort Drum, New York

  Less tha
n twenty minutes after Foster Winfield was helped into a waiting plane, it accelerated down the runway and lifted off.

  Hours earlier, a caravan of vehicles carrying two plainclothes RCMP officers, two Canadian military officers and three U.S. military personnel, one of them an army doctor, arrived at his cottage in Canada.

  Winfield was instructed to give them his passport and to pack a bag.

  His escorts provided no details. Their classified assignment was to deliver the CIA’s former chief scientist to a specified location. It concerned a matter of U.S. national security. Few words were spoken as they sped through the tranquil countryside, but Winfield had deduced that it was about Project Crucible. He hoped that there was still time to do something.

  The caravan crossed into the United States without a hitch at the Thousand Islands border crossing, then rolled toward Watertown, New York, and Fort Drum, where a plane stood by to rush Winfield to Maryland.

  The short flight ended when his escorts handed him off to a team from U.S. Army Intelligence and the CIA. They put Winfield into a black SUV and drove him to Fort Detrick and the army’s biodefense lab, located northwest of Washington. During the drive, Winfield considered all the scenarios that could arise from Crucible and hoped that Lancer, the FBI agent, was still working on the case.

  The vehicle arrived at the fort’s checkpoints, where they were cleared by armed guards before driving to a remote building. In silence, Winfield was led down hallways equipped with security cameras, electronic sensors and a series of secure doors passable via keypad-coded entry systems.

  He was taken to a small, barren room with white cinder-block walls. It had a hard-back chair on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.

  The door opened and two men in suits entered.

  One sat opposite Winfield. The other stood.

  “Dr. Winfield, this concerns our investigation into your letter.”

  Winfield had assumed as much.

  “We have reason to believe the subject is related to an ongoing threat to national security.”

  Winfield nodded.

  “Before we proceed,” the man said, “I’ll remind you that as a retiree you must still adhere to agency standards and agree to undergo a polygraph examination.”

  Periodic polygraphs were fairly common when he’d worked on Crucible.

  “Of course.”

  A few minutes later, a young man with prematurely gray hair entered the room carrying polygraph equipment in a hard-shell case.

  “It’ll take a moment to set up,” the polygraphist said.

  He explained that his new machine was a five-pen analog. The man connected instruments to Winfield’s heart and fingertips to electronically measure breathing, perspiration, respiratory activity, galvanic skin reflex, blood and pulse rate. Then he began posing questions.

  “Are you Dr. Foster Winfield?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you oversee Project Crucible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the program abandoned?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you currently involved in using material from Project Crucible for any means?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have factual information on anyone currently attempting to use research from Project Crucible for any means?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have information on the whereabouts of Dr. Gretchen Sutsoff?”

  “No.”

  “Are you currently in contact with Gretchen Sutsoff?”

  “No.”

  “Are you aware of anyone who may have information on her whereabouts?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think Dr. Sutsoff currently could pose a risk to the security of the United States and other nations?”

  Winfield hesitated.

  “Sir, your response? Do you think Dr. Sutsoff currently could pose a risk to the security of the United States and other nations?”

  Winfield swallowed.

  “Yes.”

  The exam continued with similar questions asked different ways for nearly an hour before it ended. Winfield was given a few old copies of Newsweek and Time and left alone in the room. Thirty minutes later he was taken to another room where he saw three men his age.

  They were familiar.

  “Foster?” One of them stood. “We figured they’d grab you, too.”

  It took a few seconds before he recognized what time had done to Andrew Tolkman, Lester Weeks and Phil Kenyon, his old team from Project Crucible.

  “Hello. Good to see you.” Winfield touched each of them on the shoulder then glanced around. “Although, not ideal circumstances.”

  “They can’t find Gretchen,” Tolkman said.

  “No one can,” Kenyon said. “I told them she’s the one they need.”

  A door opened and a man in his forties, wearing jeans and a golf shirt, entered and handed each of them a slim file folder.

  “Gentlemen, my name is Powell, Army Intel. Biochem. We have little time. As you may have gathered, this concerns your work on Project Crucible. In a nutshell, we think some of your classified work is being applied to launch a strike. In fact, it may already be under way.”

  Kenyon muttered a curse.

  “No one else is better qualified to help us at this stage than you. I’ll give you time to read the material, then we’ll suit you up to work with our people on the sample we have in the lab. We hope you can tell us what we’re up against.”

  The file contained information on the deceased cruise-line passenger from Indiana, based on reports provided by the Broward County M.E., the CDC and the army’s experts. The aging scientists read it all carefully.

  “How is it possible?” Andrew Tolkman whispered more to himself than to the others as Powell returned.

  “Gentlemen,” Powell said, holding the door. “We’ll head to the lab.”

  Cutting across the compound to the lab, he led the scientists through several secure doors to areas flagged with signs warning of danger. They passed through a series of sealed rooms before coming to a changeroom with lockers and other lab staff. The lab staff helped the men into blue containment suits, taping their socks and wrists after they tugged on latex gloves.

  Next they entered a sealed chamber that featured a disinfectant shower. After they each showered with their suits on, they put on rubber boots and another set of heavy rubber gloves and proceeded down a corridor where they each reached for a hose from the ceiling and connected it to their suits.

  They then passed through another air lock, waiting until it was safe to enter the lab where a team of army scientists was at work. The Crucible experts joined their teams, analyzing, processing and running tests on the tissue samples from the cruise-ship victim. Each team worked on different aspects of the sample. During this time, Powell remained in a remote room watching the work on closed-circuit TV while communicating with them.

  “What do you think?” Powell asked.

  “It is definitely evocative of the work we did on Crucible,” Winfield said into his radio-intercom.

  “You mean the work Gretchen did,” Kenyon added.

  After some three hours, the scientists exited the lab, moving carefully through the various chambers. They each stayed in their suits and took another decontamination shower before moving along to the locker room where they were helped out of their suits.

  Powell was waiting for the four men again in the same room where he had originally briefed them.

  “Your assessment?”

  Winfield looked at his colleagues.

  “We would not have believed it had we not seen it,” he said. “Theoretically, it should be impossible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s definitely a manufactured agent,” Winfield said. “It’s totally new and has characteristics of Ebola, Marburg and anthrax. We can’t really identify it. But there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Its foundation is in File 91 and some of the other agents deve
loped by some enemy states. But we cannot fully understand the delivery system, the control system and how it seems to be manipulated.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “It’s extremely sophisticated. I don’t think we can defend against it.”

  “What about an antidote or vaccine?”

  “Well, while it encompasses a manufactured lethal agent, it’s less characteristic of a virus, more like a controllable agent. Its engineering is very advanced.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “It’s like a weapon with no off switch. I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop it.”

  61

  Paradise Island, Bahamas

  As their cab from the airport climbed the bridge over the crystal water of Nassau Harbor, Emma looked at the hotels rising from the island.

  “It’s funny,” she told Gannon. “I was a travel writer before I became a teacher, and I have been to a lot of places but never here. Joe and I were planning a trip to the Bahamas. We were going to bring Tyler but now, to come here as a widow, wondering if my baby’s alive…” Emma reached under her sunglasses and touched the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Gannon said. “We need to know the truth.”

  Gannon paid the driver after they arrived at the massive main building of the Grand Blue Tortoise Resort. Tourists, guests and staff crowded the lobby, which was as chaotic as an airport terminal. Live parrots cawed in a four-story aviary and calypso music filled the air. The reservation for two rooms next to each other was under Gannon’s name. He used the WPA’s credit card.

  “Are there any messages?” Gannon asked as he collected their keys.

  The clerk consulted the computer.

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m looking for my friend Robert Lancer—he should be registered here.”

  The clerk checked.

  “Yes, room 2322 Blue Reef Tower D. That’s the next building west from you, sir. Do you wish to send Mr. Lancer a message?”

  “Yes, tell him I’ve arrived and to please call my room.”

  When Gannon got to his room there was still no message from Lancer. He set up his laptop and sent Lancer an e-mail telling him that he’d arrived at the hotel and was standing by. Then he sent a text message.