Face of the Earth

by Doug Raber

  “Mr. Vice President? We should probably review the intelligence information. One of the members of the NSC is likely to ask what we have.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had remained quiet up to that point.

  General George P. Radisson didn’t reach his current position by giving his opinion unnecessarily, but when he saw his advice as essential, he wasn’t reluctant to offer it. Up to a point. He understood the military chain of command, and he didn’t contradict his superiors in public. When a decision had to be made, he contributed fully, and his contributions were invariably intelligent and well-crafted. But once a decision had been made by his superiors—in this case the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President—he considered it his responsibility to support the decision. He would stand at attention and salute, and he would not undermine Quentin Walker.

  In theory this could cause an awkward conflict. For example, if the President specifically asked him to state his own view on some particular issue. But in reality, it had never been a problem. By the time the President asked such a question, the matter would invariably have been decided by Walker, and Radisson’s opportunity to raise objections had already occurred. The only voice that the President would hear from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was the one that supported the Secretary of Defense.

  The Secretary of Defense turned to his Under Secretary. “Robinson, would you please brief us on what your people have learned? When we go into this meeting of the Security Council, the four of us need to be on the same page. We need to be the leaders; the others don’t have our background. We have to be in full agreement on what the facts are, and we must be able to demonstrate that the actions we’ve taken and will take are both absolutely necessary and completely defensible. We don’t want to leave any openings for others to fuck this up.”

  * * *

  Day 24: Intelligence Sources

  Robinson Edwards unlocked his briefcase and removed four folders marked TOP SECRET. “This information is not to be shared with anyone else, not even the other members of the National Security Council. I have a cleaned-up version that I’ll be able to show them later, but this background is only for the three of you.”

  “Get on with it!” The vice president was edgy and impatient. “Have you ruled out the damn Russians, Edwards? They’ve been acting like our friends, ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, assuming you ignore some of what that bastard Putin has done. It seems to me that if the Russians are really the only ones other than ourselves that have the virus, then this attack must have started there. And if that’s the case, we may be talking about a full-scale nuclear war. Which makes it absolutely essential that we keep everything about this smallpox outbreak completely secret. If the Russians realized we were about to nuke them, God knows what they might try to do first.”

  “I agree with the need for absolute secrecy, Mr. Vice President, and I’ve been resolute in compartmentalizing everything about the outbreak. My deputy is the only one in our office who knows there has been an actual outbreak. Everyone else is operating on the belief that there has been a threat. Only a threat. Other than my deputy and the four of us, there are only two people who know what has happened, both at CDC. That’s Steve Rasmussen in their terrorism unit and Eleanor Torlander, the CDC Director. And Rasmussen understood from the beginning, from Col. Bradshaw, that this had to be completely secret.”

  “Hold up a minute, Edwards. We can’t tell the NSC that only a half-dozen people know about this. Not after we’ve sent a couple thousand troops up to Farmington.”

  “With all respect, Mr. Secretary, we do have this covered. The only people in Fort Bliss who know what is actually happening have been moved to Farmington. And that area is sealed. And I don’t mean just restricted, I mean locked down as tight as a … Well, let’s just say it’s secure. All the communications links—land line, satellite, cell phone, Internet, all of them—have been completely shut down. The only way anybody in Farmington can talk to the outside world is through Col. Bradshaw’s secure telecommunications devices. And even Bradshaw doesn’t know that everything his people send out gets routed directly to our offices in the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

  “You’re not bullshitting me, are you? This is fucking brilliant. I’ve got to hand it to you, Edwards. You’ve done this right. General Radisson, did you know this kind of communications control was possible?”

  “No, Mr. Vice President. I have to admit that I didn’t know that it could be done—at least not as effectively as this. Mr. Edwards, do we need to worry that others at DIA could become a source of leaks that could undermine the operation?”

  “No sir, that’s the beauty of our plans. Other than the small number of people who we’ve already discussed, everyone else, both at DIA and at CDC, thinks this entire flap is just a large-scale joint planning exercise. They know that they need to provide whatever resources and assistance might be needed, but they think it’s just an exercise. Now admittedly, this might not have been so easy to pull off if the outbreak had happened anywhere else. But damn … out there in the middle of nowhere it just wasn’t that hard.”

  The Secretary of Defense tried to assert control. “Get us up to speed on what we know about who carried out the attack, Robinson.”

  Before Edwards could respond, Richards lifted his right hand. “We’re going to need a game plan when we go into the Security Council meeting, and I think we should base it on what you’ve already put in place. Do any of you remember Dark Winter?* It was a simulation exercise for a smallpox attack back in the summer of 2001—before the attacks.”

  “I don’t remember anything about that.” Walker looked nervously at Radisson and Edwards. They were both shaking their heads as well.

  “That’s not surprising. I probably wouldn’t know about it either except that I sat in on a briefing after the exercise was finished. Mostly it was kept pretty quiet except for an article in the Post* about a month later.

  “After that we did some work on how to control an outbreak. From the Army’s point of view. That was one of the findings of Dark Winter. That we just weren’t prepared back then. The whole exercise ended in chaos. Nobody knew how to control the spread of the disease. They didn’t have any kind of effective quarantine.”

  “Did they try to use any kind of quarantine at all?” The Secretary of Defense was confused.

  “No, not in that exercise, Quentin. Keep in mind, the whole thing was just a bunch of people in a conference room for a couple of days, and they were supposed to follow a script that was written out ahead of time. The point was to illustrate how the government would react and what the consequences would be. Afterwards, the Army brass developed some contingency plans. If it becomes necessary, we can say publicly that this is a new training exercise to test our biodefense capabilities. But this time it’s full scale. The National Security Council will accept that approach as a way to keep from creating panic across the whole country.”

  He looked at the Secretary of Defense. “And if anything does leak out, the public would understand why it had been kept secret. You’ll need to draw up an official plan here, Quentin, even though it’s after the fact. I’ll lean on Torlander so she understands the need for CDC to cooperate on this.”

  “We’ll make sure we have copies of those earlier contingency plans by the time of the next NSC meeting, Mr. Vice President. And we’ll have a detailed plan to present. But in the interest of time, may I suggest that we turn to the Under Secretary now for an update on the outbreak in New Mexico?”

  The Vice President nodded, and Edwards began.

  “First off, this is terrorism. That’s policy, but it’s also factual. Since smallpox has been eradicated, except for cultures maintained by the United States and by Russia, there’s no way to have a naturally occurring outbreak of the disease. Period. And before you ask, we’ve made some discreet inquiries with one of our agents who has sources in the GRU, the Russian counterpart of our Defense Intelligence Agency. As far as he could learn, there’s nothing unus
ual happening in any of the relevant areas—political, military, or scientific.”

  “So you trust those weasel-nosed bastards?”

  “Yes, I do, Mr. Vice President—at least in this case. There are a couple of their senior people who really seem to understand the realities of working with other countries. But your point is well taken, and we didn’t stop there. It’s like President Reagan said, ‘Trust, but verify.’ We have agents over there. Officially, they’re military liaisons, but they’re first-class intelligence agents as well, and we’ve asked them to do some checking. They don’t have any idea why we asked, but they were able to give us up-to-the-minute reports on Russian activities.”

  “What did they say?”

  “There isn’t any unusual activity. No secret meetings, no people suddenly reporting back to Moscow, nothing indicating any sort of heightened alert level. We got the same reports for the military, and perhaps most important, the same with regard to the two laboratories where they maintain their smallpox samples, the old biological weapons labs. So overall, we’re confident that the Russians had nothing to do with this. Even when they disagree with us, they’re not stupid. They know what would happen if they attacked us, and they sure as hell wouldn’t want to risk an almost certain nuclear response—especially for some rinky-dink attack on a second-rate town in the middle of nowhere.”

  “On that basis, I don’t see why anyone would want to launch an attack in Farmington, New Mexico,” Richards observed. “Why not go after New York or Washington instead of some shithole out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “I think it was a test run,” Edwards said. “It’s not the first time a terrorist group tried this approach. The first bioterrorism attack* in the U.S. used a test run. Back in 1984, some wacko religious group in Oregon used salmonella bacteria to contaminate salad bars. They were testing a plan, which they later abandoned, to influence the town’s elections, and they caused food poisoning in almost a thousand people.”

  “You’re suggesting that this was done by some fucking religious cult? How would some nutcase hippies get hold of smallpox virus? That just doesn’t work for me, Edwards.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, not all religious fanatics lack the resources to carry out this attack. We’re not talking about a homegrown group drinking Kool-Aid. I suspect this was done by an offshoot of Al Qaeda, maybe with the assistance of an unfriendly government in the Middle East.”

  “Let’s not fall back into that goddamn trap. Bush and Cheney kept claiming that there were WMDs in Iraq ten years ago. They even got Colin Powell to show pictures of those trailers at the United Nations and claim that they were mobile biowarfare labs. But nobody ever found any WMDs over there, and that’s because there weren’t any. Saddam destroyed the damn things long before we invaded. I can assure you that my administration—the Alexander-Richards administration—is not going to start claiming that Iraq is giving biological weapons to terrorists.”

  “You are absolutely correct. This attack didn’t come from Iraq. Very likely, it came from a different country in the same part of the world. All signs point to Iran.”

  Richards exhaled slowly. “Sonofabitch. Those bastards! After all this time. Go ahead, Edwards.”

  “We’ve been monitoring Iran for a long time—ever since the Islamic Revolution in the late ’70s. Quite a few of their senior military officers, good men that we’d trained here, were forced to flee the country. They’ve always been willing to pass on to us whatever information they could get on the current regime. By 2001, the United Nations reported that Iran was working on biological weapons—including smallpox—even though they were signatories to the Biological Weapons Convention. By 2003, our sources inside Iran had confirmed that they were working on smallpox, and they haven’t stopped.”

  Edwards picked up a piece of paper and began reading.

  Iran is often accused in Western circles of secretly developing an offensive biological warfare (BW) program. In a … report to the U.S. Senate, the Central Intelligence Agency claimed that ‘Iran has had a biological warfare program since the early 1980s. Currently the program is in its research and development stages, but we believe Iran holds some stocks of BW agents and weapons …’*

  “So overall, it looks like we have a couple of smoking guns here. We know that Iran has been antagonistic toward the U.S. for more than three decades. They hate us because we supported the Shah, because we support Israel, and because we don’t accept Islam as our religion. It’s no wonder that they’ve decided to provide terrorists with the means to attack the very heart of our homeland. And there can be no question that this is just the first round. They’re going to hit us again.”

  “No they won’t,” Richards snarled. “Not a fucking chance in hell. We’ll make sure those damn religious fanatics can’t attack anybody. When we get through with them, they won’t even be able to pray for salvation. America isn’t going to sit back and take this any longer. Not if I have anything to say about it. You’ve put together the right arguments, Edwards. There isn’t any question what happened.”

  Richards paused, almost as if he were trying to catch his breath. “We’re going to walk into that NSC meeting in a little while, and some of the candy-assed people in that room will refuse to see a smoking gun. So we need to get more proof—evidence pinning it on the Iranians so that even the dumbest asshole in the State Department will be able to understand.”

  The Vice President scowled at his subordinates. “Those damn Mullahs in Tehran had better get ready to go into their nuclear bunkers or whatever ratholes they hide in. In another week there won’t be enough of them left to get on their knees and beg for mercy. Edwards, you go and get the evidence. And Walker—you make sure that Edwards gets whatever he needs to do his job. I want him to brief me on a daily basis, so just get off your asses and get this done.”

  * * *

  Day 24: Roots of Bitterness

  The Vice President had a personal reason for his utter hatred of Iran. During his final tour as a general officer in Afghanistan, he had authorized an operation in the western part of the country near the border with Iran. Intelligence sources had informed the American forces of a major Iranian effort to move military equipment across the border to aid the Afghan insurgents. The Intelligence had come in part from cooperation with the Kazakhstan government, and the plan had been developed with the assistance of a Kazakh military liaison who had an Iranian intelligence source.

  The special operations team of 25 men, including two senior officers who had served for almost a decade with Richards, was deployed in what was expected to be a straightforward mission to capture a senior Al Qaeda leader. But the only straightforward part of the operation was the ambush. Of the 25 men who went out that day, only four returned. They were so badly shot up that they would never be the same, and Richards could never even bring himself to visit them in the hospital after they were flown back stateside. What Richards had done instead, was make a solemn vow to himself. Someday Iran will pay for that.

  Now, as he walked toward the conference room prior to the start of the National Security Council meeting, a grim smile crossed his face. That day is almost here.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  Sarah

  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

  — Bill of Rights, Amendment IV to the Constitution of the United States‡

  Day 24: Delta to Atlanta

  After talking with Jillian and her friend “Elmer,” Sarah didn’t have the energy to do more work on her FDA story. She managed to eat a light supper and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels, she found a Wizards game on TV. It was against the Lakers, and it would probably be a pretty good game, but she
couldn’t pay attention. At halftime she turned it off and went to bed.

  Sarah was at her desk at the Post by 7:00 the next morning. She turned on her computer and ate a bagel as she scanned the New York Times. Then she checked her several e-mail accounts and made quick notes of some things she would need to take care of during the day.

  Still trying to make sense of everything that had happened, Sarah knew her next step had to be a trip to Atlanta. She had gotten sidetracked the day before, but now she logged on to the Delta Air Lines website. It was her preferred airline, and she had a good store of frequent flyer miles. After entering DCA as the code for Reagan National Airport and ATL for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, she quickly found several flights that would work. Before she ordered the ticket, she decided to be a little more discreet.

  She wasn’t aware that she was talking to her computer, but the office was almost empty on the day after Thanksgiving, so nobody heard her. “Okay let’s make this a little less obvious. We can kill two birds with this stone.” Sarah knew how to disguise her travel—nothing illegal, nothing unethical—just a little caution. There was no need yet to tell Sue Parkinson what she was up to. Sarah didn’t want people at the paper to know about her visit to Atlanta, just in case someone tried to interfere with her pursuit of this promising story.

  Sarah had been doing background work on another story, about a chemistry professor at Florida State University who was developing an environmentally favorable process for making polymers. They had talked about having Sarah visit his laboratory, and the travel had been approved. Tallahassee wasn’t that far from Atlanta.