McCabe hesitated, but then climbed in the back seat. Spinner got in beside him while Brant sat in the front.
"What's going on?" Spinner muttered.
"It's being cleaned up, Spinner," McCabe replied knowingly. "All the loose ends are being cauterized, one way or another. The public believes the outbreak on Mathew Island was natural. Those who know the sanitised 'truth' understand that it was a biological attack by Middle Eastern operatives as a warning to the United States. It's a perfect, ready-made conspiracy theory, a lie within a lie, just like Oklahoma."
"What about the investigation of Williams?" she demanded.
"The only lead we ever had was a dying Agent Adams warning us of a possible biological attack. Don't forget, I'm the only one who drew the connection between Williams, Oklahoma and bioweapons, and I had…issues with Williams. As far as everyone else is concerned, Williams went nuts and blew his brains out.
"Maybe I made a mistake," McCabe added, staring coldly at Brant's reflection in the rear-vision mirror. "Maybe I drew the connection where there was none. After all, neither Williams nor Adams said the chimera had anything to do with Oklahoma. We just happened to be working on that investigation at the time. Agent Joshua McCabe will be sent to purgatory for a 'grave error in judgment that unnecessarily consumed FBI time and resources to investigate unsubstantiated allegations connecting Robert Williams to terrorist activities.' Am I close to the mark, sirs ?"
Brant's face reflected rage at the deception that had been played upon them all. "Even the President accepts it as a necessary political compromise if he really wants this war on terrorism on terms that Congress can live with."
"I warned you at the beginning." The exhaustion was beginning to creep over his. Not physical exhaustion, but the kind that longed for something more permanent. "Williams was mind-fucking me- all of us. He knew all along how it would play out-and I walked right into it." So much for having an edge because he was still alive.
"The bomb in your apartment and the fire here..." Spinner's words trailed off.
"Loose ends, Dr Spinner," Reynold said, turning the key in the ignition.
"That vindicate your theories, McCabe," Brant added.
"They vindicate nothing!" McCabe took in the smoking embers that had been his brother's house and the charred remains of the two small boys in dark green body bags. "The fire will prove to be explainable; a leaky can of gasoline in the basement, accelerated by paint tins and thinners and any other convenient shit they feel like tossing into their report. The fire alarms? Hell, it was an old house, faulty electrics, even if Ed had only just had the system replaced. Sad, tragic, but nothing nefarious. The bomb in my apartment? How many psychos have I put away who are now roaming the streets, looking for payback?" He stared at Reynold's reflection and snarled, "You should have waited until after I'd pulled the trigger before coming to my office that morning. Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble-and not a few lives, including what was left of my family after everyone else was conveniently removed !" His low voice cracked with bitter remorse.
Reynold turned the car onto the road. "It gave you a reprieve," he said in hushed tones. "Now I'm going to ask you to take another one."
When Reynold told them, McCabe burst out laughing; it was perverse-and perfect. It made purgatory look like a Club Med vacation, and it protected him by placing him smack bang in the middle of one of the most volatile place on Earth.
"I've arranged for Dr Spinner to go, too."
Spinner, who had been looking out the window, arms wrapped around herself, suddenly appeared attentive.
"No," McCabe barked. "It's too dangerous. She's not an FBI agent; she was never trained for this sort of thing."
"She's been asking questions, McCabe, too many questions. Do you think last night was just about you? Their virologist has left the team and they could do with a pathologist-and Dr Spinner is a native French speaker."
Eyes wide, Spinner stared at the back of Reynold's head. "Advise that contract not be renewed, huh?"
"Your call, Dr Spinner. The alternative is that you get on this afternoon's flight to Canberra. Australian Federal Police are keen to have a pathologist of your calibre and experience working for them. New job starts a week from Monday, comes with a fully furnished house and a car. Wages are better, too."
McCabe began to relax. At least something could be salvaged from this, his all-time greatest fuck-up. "Take it, Spinner," he said. "Dig any deeper and you're digging your own grave. Get out now and you can get on with your life." He turned and smiled at her, a sad, honest smile. "Go home, Jordan," he whispered, using her given name for the first time. "You're not going to stop these people; you could just as easily stand in front of a hurricane and demand it stop. Go on home; you did your best, no one can ever fault you for that."
Jordan sat back into the folds of the plush upholstery. The months of emotional agony, the frustrations, the leads that disappeared into the halls of government, protected by people bound by a dark secrets and wielding far greater influence and power than any nineteenth-century secret society, and now the shocking violence, all of it suddenly weighed down upon her.
Her grandmother lived on a rural property about an hour's drive from Canberra. Home. It fit like a comfortable pair of slippers and favourite couch. The water tank where they collected green frogs, the bluetongue lizard living in the old backyard dunny-along with the poisonous red-backed spiders. The horses were not as sleek as their Virginia counterparts, but the cows were bigger, and the sheep's wool was thicker. Skiing in winter was just a few hours' drive south, summer beaches a few hours east. She hadn't much liked Oklahoma, but she'd had Jamie and Douglas and a job she enjoyed, one that challenged her. She had a life. Canberra would be a good place to heal, and maybe, just maybe she could start living again.
-Chapter 38-
New York and Baghdad, January 1998
Chuck Long twirled drippy cheese around the corn chip and stuffed it into his mouth. A dollop barely missed connecting with his sweater and landed on the tablecloth. He poked his finger at a series of lines and arrows on the paper napkin, and nodded emphatically.
Replacing the lid on his pen, McCabe pointed to the rough map, and said, "We start out in this direction, then turn towards the university just as the first classes go in. By the time we arrive, he should be just finishing his lecture."
"And we lose our keepers in the bustle of students rushing to get to the next classes," Jordan finished. She tucked a strand of shoulder-length hair behind her ear and bit into the taco.
If nothing else, working for UNSCOM had introduced Jordan to some spectacularly good restaurants within a five-block radius of their New York offices. With the other weapon's inspectors they would often pick a café or bistro at random, converge on it for a meal, and sketch out their 'attack' using eating utensils and paper napkins. The tactic had seemed absurd at first. But, as with every facet of her and McCabe's lives, paranoia wasn't a state of mind; it was a way of life. Their arbitrary choice of meeting places was just one more ploy in the bag of tricks they used to confuse Iraqi spies.
Two years earlier, Jordan had been given the chance to walk away. But she hadn't been able to take it. Her reason for accepting Brant's offer to join UNSCOM hadn't been about bravery or self-sacrifice. It hadn't even been about revenge, although that had certainly factored into it. It had been about waking up every morning knowing that people-trusted people-within the government of the world's last superpower held the leash to a doomsday Andromeda virus. The Consortium might have destroyed proof of its existence in South Africa and the United States. It could not, however, do anything about the evidence in Iraq-because Saddam Hussein was tenaciously clinging to the bounty of their prior relationship.
United Nation Resolution number 687 decreed that Iraq must unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless of its weapons of mass destruction. While UNSCOM's mandate was to make certain that Hussein met the terms of that Resolution, Jordan an
d McCabe's was to find out who had armed Iraq in the first place. The fact that the two of them were genuinely part of UNSCOM was the perfect cover, because it gave them unrestricted access to information on all of Iraq's WMDs-including its research on bioweapons.
Unrestricted was a relative term, of course. Hussein's goal had nothing to do with compliance and everything with wearing down everyone by playing a bizarre shell game. He'd even gone so far as to issue a Presidential Directive that ordered his men to deceive UNSCOM.
As a result, the inspectors would pinpoint the right locations, then Hussein's Special Security Operations, alerted by a network of spies that somehow had infiltrated the inspectors' NY offices, would spirit away incriminating materials and scientists just before the UNSCOM team arrived. The Special Republican Guard provided the muscle, silencing people or simply making scientists disappear while claiming that they'd emigrated to the US.
To acquire the specific evidence that Jordan and McCabe needed had meant making a few unofficial excursions into Iran, northern Iraq, and Afghanistan. More often than not, such trips had involved running gun battles. Jordan had lost count of the number of times she and McCabe had saved each other's lives-generally at the expense of someone else's. But the information and their strategies were beginning to pay off. They had managed to piece together a litany of deception that proved the US involvement in the Iran-Iraq war. They also had documented evidence that the French and Russians had continued to provide Iraq with growth medium, fermentation tanks, and expertise to develop BW, paid for in part by contraband oil.
Jordan took another bite of her taco. Beside her, a retired British Marine named Jonathan Brookes picked up McCabe's napkin and examined the scrawl between chilli smears. "That's the best route to the university?" Brookes asked.
"I've worked out alternative approaches in case we get the usual soda delivery van accident or some such excuse for the road being blocked," replied Chuck Long.
"I calculate we need five additional people," said Mikhail 'Mike' Shevenko, a Russian who had spent most of the eighties and early nineties hiding bioweapons from US inspectors himself. He pointed to where McCabe's scrawls indicated windows and fire exits. "Outside the College of Pharmacology here, here, and around here." Mike knew the game because he'd invented most of the rules. Those under suspicion commonly heaved documents out of the windows as soon as the inspectors entered a building.
This time, their target was Professor Shahir Al-Qaedi, an Oxford trained microbiologist who had worked with the toxin, ricin. The team had tried to interview Al-Qaedi on several occasions, but it seemed the good professor took an inordinate number of sabbaticals. Thanks to Jordan and McCabe's latest unofficial visit to Iraq, the team had learned that Al-Qaedi was lecturing at Baghdad University this week. Unfortunately that knowledge had come at the cost of the informant's life-which also meant that none of the inspectors knew what Al-Qaedi looked like. And records from Oxford were oddly missing his photo.
McCabe glanced at her across the table. Jordan didn't say anything; she didn't have to. Like any partnership between those constantly thrust into dangerous situations, the two of them had long since learned to read one other's state of mind. More importantly, they had learned to trust one another. McCabe's plan should work.
The UNSCOM team arrived in Iraq early the following morning. Instead of the normal pattern of checking into their hotels and spending the first day slicing through obsequiousness, the inspectors decided to take their white Nissan Patrols and Land Rovers and hit Baghdad University immediately.
Despite their well-planned tactic, Jordan, McCabe, Chuck Long, Jonathan Brookes, Mike Shevenko, and their five support personnel spent all morning running around the university looking for Al-Qaedi, while their Iraqi keepers constantly ran interference. It was more good luck than good planning when Brookes, the ex-Marine weapons' expert, recognised an Iraqi colonel in mufti running up the big central staircase. He was in a hurry. Brookes signalled to Shevenko, who was a few metres away, carefully observing the between-classes traffic, then Brookes followed the colonel up the stairs. Just as he reached the top, Brookes literally bumped into a tall, silver-haired man dressed in a dove-grey Savile Row suit. The man was carrying a large satchel. Brookes smiled, held out his hand and said, "Hello, I'm Jonathan Brookes."
Before the colonel could stop him, the man automatically replied, "Professor Al-Qaedi. Have we met?" Immediately the words left his mouth, Al-Qaedi paled and his hand went limp.
The colonel's features turned dyspeptic. He went to muscle Brookes, a large man even by Highlander standards, aside, but the even larger Mike Shevenko was already there, smiling through his shaggy beard and angling himself with Brookes to box Al-Qaedi in against the banister. It was all very friendly and drew no more than brief glimpse from the passing students. Exactly what the inspectors had hoped for.
"Would you mind terribly if I had a quick look at what you're carrying, Professor?" Brookes asked in his Sean Connery accent.
"Perhaps in your office," Shevenko suggested, gently but firmly gripping the professor's shoulder.
While McCabe and Brookes, the Arabic and Farsi experts, pored over the documents, Chuck Long, Jordan, and Mike Shevenko more or less dismantled Al-Qaedi's third floor office. An hour later, they confirmed that the professor had kept a complete dossier on Iraq's research on ricin. This provided the elusive link between the civilian Biological Section of the Iraqi Scientific Research Centre and the military's biological weapons programme. For UNSCOM, the ricin documents were a major breakthrough. But for Jordan, it was the faces staring at her from one of the dozens of photographs on Al-Qaedi's office wall that provided the Eureka moment.
"McCabe," she said, carefully suppressing her excitement.
He was sitting on the floor dressed in fawn coloured jeans and an open neck shirt, his dark hair flopping over his forehead as he quickly scanned each page of the confiscated documents.
Reaching down, she shook him by the shoulder. "McCabe."
He looked up, and then his gaze shifted to the framed picture in her hand. He all but snatched it from her fingers.
It was an old photograph, perhaps fifteen years, but the distinguished features of Al-Qaedi were recognisable. That was not, however, what had grabbed Jordan's attention. Staring at them from the print was a group of thirteen men standing outside an industrial plant. She recognised eight of them. It had taken time and a lot of wangling with the CIA, but Brant had obtained the names and photographs of the eight Iraqi's who'd defected to the US in 1994-five of who had died in Oklahoma. Three of those five were the men from the photo album that had been destroyed in McCabe's apartment two years earlier.
McCabe studied the image for long moments, reacting only when Jordan pulled the photograph from his hand and thrust it under Al-Qaedi's nose.
"Who are these men?" she demanded. She knew that eight were dead, and one was Al-Qaedi. But who were the other four? Had they been the defectors who had remained in Kuwait? If so, she wanted to know where to find them, now.
Visibly angered by the cavalier manner in which his office was being ransacked, Al-Qaedi replied haughtily, "They emigrated to the United States in 1994."
"Standard Evasion number three," Shevenko drawled. "It's getting a little stale. Try something else."
Jordan was about to stop Shevenko. Al-Qaedi was telling the truth, at least about eight of the men. McCabe silenced her with a look. If pushed, the professor might overstate his case and reveal more than intended-and they still needed the names of the remaining four.
"Hussein bullied them into going with him," Al-Qaedi added bitterly.
"Saddam Hussein?" Shevenko said, confused.
"No. Hussein Kamel. You already know this!" Al-Qaedi snapped. "You play this childish game, harassing me, harassing my country when you know Kamel employed these men to run his secret research on viruses."
"Here we go." Shevenko crossed his arms. "Standard Evasion number four, 'It's All Kamel's Fault'."
Ignoring him, Al-Qaedi turned to McCabe, "First, your CIA tortures three of these men to death, and then five die at the hands of one of your own disaffected citizens! Even I know that the others turned tail and fled from your country to Kuwait."
"Then you will have no problem telling us who all of them they are, yes?" Shevenko demanded.
When Al-Qaedi rattled off the twelve names, McCabe said, "Try again."
Al-Qaedi's nostrils flared. "If you would care to follow me to the Registrar's office, I will see to it that you are provided with their complete academic records. The names I gave you are correct. I have no reason to lie!"
Brooke and Chuck Long had already taken the bulk of the ricin papers back to the Unimog, a four-wheeled, light-armoured vehicle that was legally a piece of UN territory. Inside the Unimog, the Brit was photocopying the papers and Chuck was sending them to New York via a satellite burst transmitter. Jordan glanced at McCabe. Using the sign language they had become so adept at, they agreed there was nothing more to find in Al-Qaedi's office.
"The good professor's probably got a bone to pick with the Registrar," McCabe muttered to Jordan as they followed Al-Qaedi downstairs.
"Either that or it's another delaying tactic," Shevenko said, shooting a sceptical look at Al-Qaedi's back. Swamping them with mountains of useless paperwork was Standard Evasion number five.
The University Registrar, a pock-faced little man in a dapper, cream-coloured suit, invited them all into the office and began what Jordan assumed was going to be another round of ingratiating obfuscation. To her dismay, the registrar proved to be very much like his fellow countrymen-those who did not work for Hussein-an exceptionally congenial host.
"Very sad. They were some of our best scientists," said the Registrar. He led them to the huge records room in the basement. With the customary Iraqi penchant for record keeping, he then proceeded to locate the extensive, well kept files on every single one of the men in the photographs. And, unlike what Chuck had been told by the CIA, it turned out that all twelve men had been scientists.
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