by C. G. Cooper
+++
“We’ve got nine visitors up front. Seven went inside. Another two are headed around the building,” said Trent over the radio.
“Shit,” muttered Cal. The uplink wasn’t done. “How much more time do you need, Neil?”
“Maybe two more minutes.”
Cal looked at Daniel, who was similarly dressed in dark street clothes. “Plan B?” asked Daniel.
Cal and Daniel were the only ones exposed, hugging the edge of the brick building as best they could.
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
+++
Dexter Jake and his partner, Paul Wyer, did a slow sweep around the office building. Cromwell had told them to do a quick once over. They weren’t expecting to find anything, but an inspection was an inspection.
Dexter had worked for Cromwell, or more specifically for Malik Vespers, for just over two years. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty and the pay was pretty good. Besides, nobody fucked with them. Vespers saw to that and so did Cromwell. Dexter didn’t miss his days on the police force. Boring duty. Endless patrols. Shit. He’d take a midnight inspection over a desk job any day.
They’d just rounded the back corner when he thought he heard the sound of running water. “You hear that?” he whispered to his partner.
“Yeah. Probably one of the drains.”
Dexter unholstered his pistol and flicked on the flashlight mounted below the muzzle. Wyer did the same.
They soon found the source of sound. Some guy and his buddy were pissing on the rear wall of the building. One of them raised a hand and shielded his eyes from the bright beams of the flashlights.
“Can’t you see we’re trying to take a leak,” came the slurred voice.
Wyer chuckled.
“Finish up and move along,” said Dexter.
The guy with the blond ponytail gave him a shit-eating grin and nodded, wavering a bit, shaking off the end of his piss.
Vespers’ troops waited for the two men to zip up their flies and move on.
“Thanks for watching us piss,” said the second guy, taking a swig from a small bottle of booze he’d pulled out of his pocket. The two drunks giggled at the joke, stumbling away from the building. Dexter rolled his eyes and kept walking.
“You think we should tell the colonel about that?” asked Wyer.
Dexter snorted and moved on.
+++
Once they’d gotten far enough away from the complex, Cal and Daniel stopped their fake shuffle and joined up with the others.
“Did you get in?” asked Cal.
“Yeah. I’m in,” said Neil.
“Good. We’re getting out of here.”
The extraction was otherwise uneventful. No alarms. All men accounted for. With the adrenaline wearing off, Cal dozed as they made the hour and thirty minute drive back to Charlottesville.
+++
“Everything looks good here, Dr. Merrifield. Keep up the good work,” said Col. Cromwell.
Merrifield tried to keep a straight face, but a smile peeked out. He was happy to please his benefactor.
“Is there anything else you’d like to see, Colonel?”
“I think we’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to work.”
“Thank you.”
Merrifield walked his unofficial boss to the door and promised a significant update soon. He was so close and couldn’t wait to share it. Still hours from sleep, Merrifield marched back to his private lab and got back to work.
+++
Cromwell was pleased. Merrifield ran a tight ship. Despite the late hour, the scientist looked to be at the top of his game. He was like a kid in a candy store, full of excitement despite his attempts to remain nonplussed.
They were nearing successful completion of a solution that would change the world. And to think those healthcare idiots thought it was all about them.
Cromwell dialed a number, knowing that the senator would be waiting.
“Yes, sir. We just finished. Everything looks good.”
+++
Charlottesville, Virginia
Neil clicked one last key and sat back. His custom made programs would do the rest of the heavy lifting. Now that they had access, it was simply a matter of getting past the facility’s security. That would take a few hours, but Neil wasn’t worried. He’d done it too many times to count.
Rather than sit and watch, Neil gathered up his things and headed off to bed.
Chapter 25
Washington, D.C.
7:38am, April 10th
Senator Mac Thompson rolled his eyes in response to the ongoing bickering on his computer screen. Two CEOs, including Waldo Erickson, the obese head of Hampstead Healthcare, were going back and forth about what to do with the cancer vaccine once it was in their hands. Erickson wanted to shelve it. The others wanted to develop a weaker vaccine and milk the profits for as long as they could.
It was the same tired conversation they’d had for months. Thompson didn’t care. Their needs weren’t his concern. He had to keep them happy because he needed their money.
But if they ever found out what their funds were really paying for…
Thompson wanted to laugh. The men and women on his screen thought they had all the power, but they didn’t. He did. He’d played a passive role since the beginning, simply introducing the existence of the cure to the secret group. At first there’d been shock, mute disbelief. But then the tide turned just as Thompson knew it would.
A cure for cancer meant many things. It meant hope for terminally ill patients around the world. It meant the possible eradication of the number two killer. But it also meant a serious blow to the healthcare industry. There were trillions of dollars at stake.
What would oncologists do without cancer patients? What would pharmaceutical companies do without any demand for their cancer fighting drugs? What would non-profit cancer organizations do without a constituency to protect?
The shrouded collective Thompson now watched via video conference was made up of the leaders of those entities who would be most affected. He’d first approached the bombastic Waldo Erickson, who’d then gathered the rest. While they might be competitors in their day-to-day activities, this cure was a common enemy.
As time went by, and the search for Dr. Price dragged on, their fear had only grown. That fear enabled Thompson and Cromwell to funnel more and more money where they needed. So while the greedy bastards were trying to protect themselves, Thompson was building a solution.
There was a problem bigger than cancer, bigger than the national debt that was threatening the United States of America. It was an insidious plague that needed to be swatted back like a swarm of locusts. Sen. Thompson would soon have the weapon to do so.
He would never seek public recognition for what he’d done, but others would know. They’d suspect. They would see him as the man who’d come up with the answer.
The thought made the last thirty minutes of the conference call bearable.
+++
MSgt Trent was the first man in the War Room that morning. Normally an easy sleeper, he’d tossed and turned since getting home from their little jaunt to Fredericksburg. Like his friends, Trent had developed a sixth sense for things, often anticipating a situation before it happened. He was getting that feeling now, a premonition.
While he sipped his coffee, he scrolled through the day’s headlines, not much catching his interest. He couldn’t stand watching the news and preferred to soak it in at his own pace on the web.
A DING from the other side of the room caught his attention. It was Neil’s computer. Curious, Trent got up and moved over to the computer screen that was flashing SCAN COMPLETE.
Neil’s program had done its job hacking into the lab’s database. Trent sat down and clicked the mouse, removing the alert. The screen was filled with file folders tagged by a wide array of names.
Trent didn’t want to mess with Neil’s stuff. Just as he went to get up and wake the genius, a bleary eyed Ne
il stepped into the room.
“I was just coming to get you,” said Trent.
Neil tapped his cell. “I got the alert on my phone.”
Trent pulled up another chair and watched Neil get to work. Even in his tired state, the techie clicked and scrolled faster than he ever would.
Neil mumbled to himself as he worked, getting into a rhythm as he methodically went through his analysis.
“What is all that stuff?” asked Trent.
“A lot of research. It looks like they’ve got different teams feeding their data to a central user. That’s probably the Merrifield guy.” A moment later he confirmed his statement with a grunt.
“How long is this gonna take?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Price. I’ll just get it organized for him.”
“I’ll go wake him up. I’m sure he wants to feel useful. Poor guy’s been moping around like a sad puppy dog.”
Price was already awake and followed Trent down to the War Room where Neil had almost finished whatever he was doing. He nodded to them as they entered but held up his index finger to get a minute more.
Trent settled in next to Neil while Price stayed standing, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He was anxious to confirm his suspicions, hoping the previous day’s guess was way off the mark.
“Okay. What we’re looking at is a copy. I did a little reorganizing so that you could find your way around,” said Neil, giving his seat to Price.
It took Price a minute to get his bearings. He clicked through different folders, nodding and reading as he went. All standard research jargon. Hypotheses. Findings. Informal notes. More findings. Subjects.
“Guys, this might take me a while. Would it be a huge imposition to ask for a strong cup of coffee and some breakfast?” asked Price.
Trent smiled. “Breakfast is my specialty, Doc.”
Thirty minutes later, Price was getting antsy. An hour more and he was sure he’d been mistaken. There was no evidence to substantiate what he’d told the group. Doubt crept in. Maybe he was wrong. Was he looking for something that wasn’t there? Had he risked the welfare of Cal’s team on a whim? If that was the case, what did he really have?
He shook off the depressive thoughts and closed his eyes. What was he missing? Taking a deep breath, he told himself to keep it simple. He’d learned from the SEALs that getting through BUD/S was as much about mental toughness as it was physical stamina. He’d laughed when a master chief told him, “You can’t think about graduation from day one, Doc. It’s all about getting from one meal to the next, breakfast to lunch, lunch to dinner. If the guys do that, they have a much better shot at making it.”
Price soon found out the beauty in its simplicity. It really was all about taking things one step at a time, not trying to do too much and worrying about factors too far out of your reach. As long as you kept your head down and plowed from one task to the next, you’d make it. This was especially true in times of duress and fatigue, much as he felt now.
Opening his eyes with a renewed sense of purpose, Price started from the beginning. One folder led to another. Step by step.
Chapter 26
Washington, D.C.
10:37am, April 10th
The meeting hadn’t gone as planned. Thompson had promised Cromwell certain things and now it seemed that the senator was reneging. As he walked away from the Capitol Building, the silent shadow of Malik Vespers at his side, Cromwell mulled over his options.
He wanted a command again. He hadn’t had one since being a captain. That’s what he’d been promised. He wanted a star. Again, something he’d been promised for fulfilling his end of the bargain.
He was the one who’d done it all and that arrogant Thompson would reap the most tangible benefits.
The fact that they were skirting U.S. law didn’t matter. They both believed that the ends justified the means. Despite President Nixon’s 1969 ending of all offensive biological weapons production when he declared, “The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. The United States will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures,” and the U.S. ratified Geneva Protocol and Biological Weapons Convention, there was still biological testing being done.
Cromwell had almost memorized a portion of the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that defined a biological agent as:
Any micro-organism, virus, infectious substance, or biological product that may be engineered as a result of biotechnology, or any naturally occurring or bioengineered component of any such microorganism, virus, infectious substance, or biological product, capable of causing death, disease, or other biological malfunction in a human, an animal, a plant, or another living organism; deterioration of food, water, equipment, supplies, or material of any kind...
What they were doing was against the law, plain and simple. But Cromwell didn’t care and neither did Thompson. Hell, wasn’t it God who’d rained down pestilence and destruction on the enemies of His people?
That thought made Cromwell smile. Not for the first time he considered the fact that the outcome of what they would soon implement could be seen as an act of God. How fitting. As long as everyone kept their mouths shut, and certain holes were plugged, it would happen just as they’d planned. The best part was that it couldn’t be tracked back to them.
But until it was done he needed more insurance. No one would believe Price if he ever showed his face again. The man was dead to the world and his family’s name was in the gutter. Price wasn’t the problem anymore. It was Cromwell’s supposed allies that worried him. The loose tongued healthcare CEOs and the high-and-mighty Senator Mac Thompson.
But he was a soldier, and a damned good one. He’d wage a war without taking prisoners.
+++
Charlottesville, Virginia
Price’s persistence paid off. He’d pieced together the seemingly random mix of data. While doing so, he realized that Dr. Merrifield probably had some way of descrambling the jumble, or maybe his mind just worked that way.
Price had read every word carefully, cringing as he digested how they’d twisted his own work, yet marveling at the skill it took to do it. Merrifield was like a world class composer, picking and choosing as he went, flexible with his hypotheses, never getting stuck on one conclusion unless it had been confirmed.
As a chef has certain signature dishes, so Merrifield had his own style. Decidedly out of the box yet comfortable with the classics. Price had never seen such seamless integration. Cromwell had chosen well.
Another folder and another dozen files. Price told himself he’d do one more and then take a break. His vision was blurring from the strain.
“Huh.”
Neil, the only other person in the War Room, turned his head. “You say something?”
“No. Just talking to myself.”
Price squinted then zoomed in on the file. It was a newspaper clipping from some foreign press. Now he could make it out. It was in Arabic.
“Hey, Neil, can you read Arabic?”
“I dabble.”
“Can you come take a look at this for me?”
Neil came over and zoomed the image in even more. He read the short article out loud. Neil had a firm grasp of the language and translated without hesitation. Price listened.
“Why do you think that’s in there?” asked Price.
“Beats me.”
Price clicked another file open. Two more scanned images popped up on the screen. He couldn’t figure out what the connection was. Why would Merrifield be…
Dr. Price’s face went pale and his hand froze over the mouse, the curser blinking slowly.
Neil turned. “What is it?”
It took Price a few seconds to find his voice. “This is worse than I thought.”
+++
Washington, D.C.
Sen. Thompson hung up the phone and gazed out his office wi
ndow. He watched as cars eased by, the tired pace a constant in the nation’s capital. Thompson wondered what those Americans would think if they knew they were driving by a man who would soon ensure their safety, possibly for all time.
He’d come to see himself as the savior America needed. With increased pressure from around the world, his country was desperate for help. It wanted an answer just like it had wanted the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima. So many Japanese lives lost, yet so many Americans saved from invading the Japanese homeland.
This was his Hiroshima and Nagasaki all rolled into one. The research Cromwell was overseeing was only in its infancy, the first phase the crudest and most lethal. Merrifield had promised more innovation after the first launch. Better tools. More insidious. Deathly quiet.
Thompson believed in sacrifice. He’d never served in the military, but he respected the men and women in uniform. In fact, it was because of their sacrifice that he’d set out on this path. The trick was to use it without being its mastermind, at least to the world. He’d probably be drawn and quartered should his involvement be made public, but that wouldn’t happen. He, Cromwell and Merrifield were the only ones who knew.
Merrifield would keep his mouth shut for money and glory. Cromwell would do it because he was a good soldier, even if Thompson couldn’t make him a general. The money would help.
Thompson didn’t relish the destruction they were about to rain down, but it was all part of the plan. After all, could there be peace without a little bloodshed?
Chapter 27
Washington, D.C.
2:25pm, April 10th
The Situation Room was eerily still. Cal, Dr. Price and Jonas waited for the president to say something. They’d driven up from Charlottesville in a convoy, the rest of Cal’s team now waiting outside. They were ready should the president give an order, which more than likely he would.