A Heartbeat Away

by Michael Palmer

  “I understand. Consider it done, Mr. President.”

  “Paul, this is it for us. This is the only chance we have. I don’t trust anybody but you to handle things. We’re sending three choppers in to get you. The pilots will know what to do from there.”

  “I won’t let you down, Jim. How do I get the serum out of the lab?”

  “Rhodes decontaminated the cooler containing the serum and is leaving it for you outside the door into the lab. You can retrieve it without having to put on a biocontainment suit.”

  “What about Rhodes?”

  Again there was a long pause.

  “Rhodes is already quite ill,” Allaire said finally. “According to his estimates, he’ll be dead in a matter of a few hours.”

  CHAPTER 65

  DAY 10

  12:00 MIDNIGHT (EST)

  Angie checked her watch and paced about the dimly lit living room like a caged lioness. She drew in several calming breaths, but could do little to slow her excitement. She passed the time by mentally drafting her story, featuring Griff as the hero and Paul Rappaport as the mastermind behind Genesis. The prize at stake: the presidency of the most powerful nation on Earth.

  The brownstone, she was told, was one of several safe houses in the metro D.C. area used by the FBI, the ATF, and the CIA. The understatedly elegant building, situated on a quiet street in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, had been used in the past to bait and trap spies, extortionists, arms dealers, child molesters, and con artists. Every room was bugged, and there were high-tech hidden cameras throughout. A few blocks away, a surveillance van would be serving as backup.

  Angie would be safe, they assured her, but she had her doubts, especially when she was given a pistol—a Glock 19, they said, and a brief course in its use. The gun, a perfect fit for her, was somewhat reassuring. She had seen what Genesis was capable of, and believed that no place was truly safe from them.

  For the thousandth time, she wondered about Griff. No one had told her anything. This was his plan, but he wasn’t there. He had requested that Allaire call him as soon as he had read the fax. What, exactly, had he told the president in that conversation? Was the story of the serum needing modification one that he had conjured up, or was it the truth? At the moment, it seemed to be at least a half truth, in which case, Griff might already be dead.

  Rappaport believed he was transporting the serum that, when modified in the laboratory upstairs, was the last hope for the president and all those trapped inside the Capitol. If he was Genesis, he would either appear with a story of having been forced at gunpoint to give up the serum, or he would fail to show up altogether. Either way, according to the Constitution, he would be next in line for the presidency. Another possibility was that he had already made a switch, and that what he was delivering was a well-concocted sham, short in one crucial ingredient, but a good enough replica to mislead the biochemists upstairs. After all, nobody but Griff knew what he and his computer model had put together.

  The furnishings in the richly appointed rooms were well suited for an upscale sting—armchairs upholstered with plush fabrics, a bedazzling chandelier made of brass and crystal, and fine oriental rugs that framed a deep fieldstone fireplace. This was a home that could have belonged to any high-ranking diplomat or well-connected politician.

  Angie fingered the compact pistol in the pocket of her skirt. She had little experience with guns, but she also had a fierce love of life and suspected that she would use this one if hers depended upon it.

  A panel of one wall opened up silently, and the three FBI agents whom she had been with since being brought to the house returned to the room.

  “They’re here,” one of them said.

  Through the tall bay windows, Angie watched a black Lincoln Town Car pull to an abrupt stop at the curb outside. Three Secret Service agents quickly exited the vehicle. One of them opened the Town Car’s rear door and Paul Rappaport stepped onto the curb. The Homeland Security secretary, wearing a stylish overcoat, held one handle of a large, blue cooler. A muscular agent had taken hold of the other. Angie took a few photos with her new digital SLR camera as the two men made their way up the cement outside stairway. The other two agents took up positions near the Town Car.

  Angie waited behind the brown leather sofa, which faced the room’s only door. The door opened without a knock and the Secret Service agent stepped inside, his gun drawn. After a check of the room, he holstered his weapon and signaled for Rappaport to enter. The secretary spotted Angie immediately.

  “What’re you doing here?” he asked. “Where are the chemists? The lab?”

  Rappaport pulled the cooler tight to his body and took a cautious step backward. Angie snapped a series of pictures.

  “Upstairs,” she said, “waiting for you.”

  “What are you doing here?” Rappaport went on. “I was told you were in a New York City hospital.”

  “I got better,” Angie said. “And now I’m writing this story. Hopefully, it will have a happy ending.”

  “Hopefully,” Rappaport said, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Pardon the camera, but people like pictures.”

  Angie peered through the camera’s viewfinder and let out a terrified gasp. Two powerfully built men, dressed in black, wearing black ski masks, carrying pistols, had appeared behind Rappaport. High-tech gas masks dangled from their belts.

  “Look out! Behind you!” Angie cried out.

  But her warning came too late.

  One of the men grabbed Rappaport across the throat, and before he could move, had the muzzle of a heavy pistol pressed up against his temple. The agents in the room were a beat too slow to react. Another intruder moved in quickly and snatched away the cooler from Rappaport’s trembling hand, just as three more masked men burst into the room, each carrying a submachine gun.

  “Drop your weapons,” the man holding Rappaport demanded, “and no one dies.”

  Two of the agents had their guns out, but the numbers were bad. Angie had her hand in her skirt pocket, wrapped around the Glock. It seemed unlikely she could pull it out, fire it, and hit anyone before she was blown to bits.

  “We have what we want,” one of the intruders snapped, his accent heavily Hispanic. “Do as we say, or you’ll all die. Weapons over there. On the floor. Lock your fingers behind your heads. Now!”

  Angie hesitated. A burst of machine gun fire erupted from close range, the bullets screaming past her head and slamming into the wall. For a moment, she was certain her heart had stopped. She ducked, hands covering her head, and screamed as she dropped to the floor. The other security people and Rappaport were already down, their weapons thrown aside. When she looked back, all five intruders had gas masks on. They were unimaginably quick and well organized.

  A canister was dropped on the rug in the center of the room. Angie and the others began to cough as the foul-smelling vapor stung their lungs. Her eyes were watering profusely, and her throat seemed as if it had closed off. Gloved hands grabbed her from behind. Before she could scream again, a patch of duct tape was pulled across her mouth, and her hands were secured behind her. The whole operation had taken less than a minute. Then, the room went completely black.

  Angie came to almost as rapidly as she had gone out. She felt the acidy burn of bile as it worked its way up her throat, and shuddered with a new fear that the tape covering her mouth would cause her to choke to death on vomit.

  She rolled to one side, breathed slowly and deeply through her nose, and focused her thoughts on an image of Griff that she had conjured up during their phone conversation from her hospital room. She pictured him down in the Kalvesta lab, bravely and confidently injecting himself with a virus as deadly as any he had hunted down in Africa. From his courage, Angie found strength of her own to remain calm.

  All around her, agents were gagging and coughing. Moments later, there was a commotion from the doorway. Her hands were untied, and the numbness in them began to abate. The room was crowded now with po
lice, soldiers, and FBI agents, so numerous that they struggled to move about freely.

  “I can’t believe we blew this,” one of the agents who had been with Angie said. “They moved like frigging Delta Force. How in the hell did they get in so easily?”

  “The two guards outside are dead, both shot in the head, probably with silencers. We didn’t hear a thing until a volley of machine gun fire from up here. By the time we left the surveillance truck and made it over, they were gone.”

  “Rappaport!” Angie coughed out the words when an FBI agent pulled off the tape covering her mouth. “Where is Paul Rappaport?”

  “He’s right here,” the agent said. “He was tied up like the rest of you.”

  “The cooler … the serum…” Angie struggled to get the words out. She was hyperventilating and her eyes still stung from the smoke. “The cooler,” she managed again.

  The FBI agent just shook his head.

  “Whatever was in that cooler,” he said, while helping Angie to her feet, “went out the door with the guys who took it.”

  CHAPTER 66

  DAY 10

  1:00 A.M. (EST)

  Destiny!

  Ursula Ellis knew she was on the brink of history. She stood at the rostrum of the House Chamber and gazed out at three hundred frightened and bewildered faces. But she was their leader now—their shepherd. She had lost the battle of the election, but now, thanks to her destiny and to Genesis, she was going to win the war.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling the feelings of the moment, and the events just ahead. The Committee on Rules, facing what she had called “our lives or this bill,” had granted privileged status to her legislation.

  She motioned Leland Gladstone to her side. He was carrying the communication device Genesis had given her.

  “Have they responded to us yet?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Gladstone said. “Do they know the vote is now?”

  “I told them. They’ll come through. I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe we should hold off until they’ve delivered the treatment.”

  “We’ve come way too far,” the speaker whispered, sensing a nugget of concern form in her gut. “Just keep trying to reach them.”

  It had been two days since Gladstone distributed copies of the bill to each voting member of Congress capable of casting a ballot. Over the time since then, Ellis had heard disgust from every corner of the chamber. One congressman tore the twenty-page piece of legislation in half. Another had tried to set it on fire before the Capitol Police intervened.

  But from what she could see before her now, not a single congressman looked interested in protesting the bill—not after she had showed them the videorecording she had made inside the Senate Chamber; not when everyone understood James Allaire’s perfidy, and the nightmare that lay ahead for them; not when they knew that without her—without this bill—they were going to die, and die horribly.

  A heavy silence followed her re-showing the grisly Senate Chamber video, but clamor erupted seconds later. The noise level rose. Hands were raised high—politicians begging Ellis for a chance to be heard.

  They want to vote for my bill. They want to live.

  Ellis let the commotion continue unhindered for several minutes. Thanks to Lamar, the eyes of the world were upon her. The television cameras that Allaire had ordered shut down were broadcasting once again. The American people were strong. Ellis put more faith in them than Allaire ever did. They needed to witness history as it unfolded.

  Rumor had reached her that the president was failing rapidly. By the time the bill was passed and Genesis delivered the antiviral treatment, it would likely be too late for him. Ellis adjusted the microphone and turned up the speaker volume. Then she snapped her gavel down on the rostrum three times, and the room fell silent.

  “I would like to begin this House vote on my special legislative measure by addressing the citizens of the United States of America, and those around the world watching tonight’s broadcast. I have requested that these proceedings be shown worldwide because the government of the United States of America is about the people, and for the people, and we will not abandon the most sacred and essential tenet upon which our country was founded, even if the truths we reveal this day are as horrible as the tragedy we now face.”

  Ellis paused and reminded herself to stick to the way she had rehearsed the speech she and Gladstone had written.

  “This will be the unfinished State of the Union Address,” she had told her aide, “only this time it will be me who will be delivering it.”

  Destiny.

  “To my friends and colleagues in Congress,” she went on, “I realize the bill before you has come as a shock. Many, if not all of you, know that some of the points enumerated in it deviate from my well-documented views. But I have been offered an awesome opportunity—the opportunity to save the lives of many of the most important leaders in our nation.

  “Genesis, the vile and traitorous organization responsible for the acts of terrorism that have plagued our country, have released a deadly virus upon us, claiming that their position must be heard. It is not a trade I condone, but it is one I reluctantly endorse. Genesis has offered us a treatment that will deliver us from the horror befalling the unfortunates you have just witnessed again inside the Senate Chamber. The price is high—your passage of this legislation. But I, for one, choose life!”

  Comment erupted throughout the chamber. Ellis silently polled the Supreme Court justices seated before her, searching their eyes for judgment. That she saw no disparagement bolstered her resolve. It helped her that one of their court was prominently featured in the video from the Senate Chamber.

  “I have brokered an agreement with terrorists,” Ellis said. “That is true. But we are a democracy and—”

  At that instant, the doors leading across the Capitol to the Senate wing burst open, and President James Allaire strode in.

  CHAPTER 67

  DAY 10

  1:20 A.M. (EST)

  Wide-eyed, Ellis fixed on the president as he ascended to the rostrum and moved forward until he was only a few feet from her.

  “You’re finished, Madam Speaker,” he said loudly enough to be easily heard through the PA system. “You have done as much damage and created as much chaos as the terrorists. And it ends now!”

  The president signaled to Sean O’Neil, who was still beside the door that Allaire had come through. One by one, a small procession of sick and hobbled men and women began shuffling into the House Chamber. Their complexions were ashen. Many of them were smeared with blood. Some of them were clearly disoriented, bewildered, and agitated. They coughed as they marched. Some had to stop to breathe. Those who were too weak to walk unaided were assisted into the chamber by Secret Service agents and the Capitol Police.

  At virtually the same moment, a second, larger procession entered the chamber from Statuary Hall. This group, headed by a muscular African-American man with a military bearing, wearing only surgical scrubs, was in less frightening shape than the other, but they were still obviously failing.

  The final two people to enter the chamber came from the Senate. They walked shoulder to shoulder, although one of them moved with great difficulty and needed to be supported by the other. Vice President Henry Tilden, the weaker by far of the two, was a phantom—battered, stoop-shouldered, and gaunt. His face was badly clawed and smeared with dried and drying blood. Supporting Tilden was a tall man in a blue biocontainment suit. Glare off the faceplate of his helmet made it impossible for Ellis to identify him. He held a blue plastic cooler in his gloved left hand.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ellis shouted into the microphone. “Those are the sickest of all of us. You are bringing death into this room. People around the world are witnesses.”

  Allaire’s expression was one of disgust.

  “No, Ursula. What they are witnesses to is your madness. Vice President Tilden and others are prepared to swear that it was you who locked him in th
e Senate Chamber to die or be killed.”

  The crowd erupted into a chorus of angry and confused shouts. Allaire banged Ellis’s gavel to settle them down. He then continued, still extremely shaky, but managing to address the assembly with the mannerisms of a president.

  “These people have been brought out from the Senate Chamber, and those from Statuary Hall, because we now have the means to treat them—and all the rest of us as well.”

  “Lies!” Ellis screamed. “He’s telling all of us lies. The madness is in this man! He is badly infected with the virus and is about to be relieved of his duties as president. Ask Dr. Townsend, his physician. She knows that the virus has attacked his mind.”

  “Yes, the virus is affecting me more each hour,” Allaire said. “And yes, I chose to refrain from broadcasting its terrible effects. But I did so to keep all of you from panicking while we worked around the clock to find a cure. I did not mislead you because I wanted to deceive, but because I felt in my heart that I had a duty to protect you.”

  “Don’t believe this insanity,” Ellis bellowed. “The bill must be passed if you want to live. The cure is with Genesis, and only I have access to it!”

  Allaire glanced over at his wife and daughter.

  “Genesis, whoever they are, doesn’t have any cure, Ursula,” Allaire said, patiently. “They never did. They are thieves and terrorists. They don’t have the technology, or capability, to deliver treatment for a virus this complex. My administration created this nightmare in the misguided hope that we could do away with all forms of torture. We developed the WRX virus, and we are the only ones capable of stopping it.”

  “You’re lying.… You’re lying…,” Ellis kept repeating, but there was no longer any force behind her words.