The Gemini Effect

by Chuck Grossart

  Hero—a word he hated having associated with his name, but it hadn’t hurt at all on the campaign trail. People knew who he was, and more importantly, knew what he was. He had character. He was brave. On top of that, although he’d never admit it himself, he had the looks for it; he struck a commanding pose, standing a little over six foot four, his broad shoulders and lean waist indicative of a steadfast attention to physical fitness during his years in the naval service. He was never one to succumb to the excessive vanity suffered by most politicians, and his silver-gray hair celebrated his age, which created an almost grandfatherly persona, making him a wise, comforting figure the American people could trust. Most notable, however, were his intense steel-blue eyes, full of clear purpose and sincerity. A majority of voters had decided he was the right man for a wrong time, and they’d placed him here in the White House to make a difference. To save the Republic from the ash heap of history.

  To win a war.

  For years, Andrew Smith had watched thousands of his fellow citizens slaughtered around the globe, for no other reason than they were Americans. The economy had faltered horribly, struck here and there by well-planned terrorist strikes that’d had more effect than a stadium full of economic experts could’ve possibly predicted in their worst business school nightmares. The nation had been struck overseas, struck at home, on American soil, in big cities and small towns. Recession and inflation were once again household terms, spoken more often than anyone cared to hear, and unemployment was at near-record levels. The big D word—depression—was lurking just around the corner. All this now sat squarely in his lap.

  At first, he’d been elected a state governor. Then, after time, appointed secretary of state. And now, after what seemed like a wild roller coaster ride of campaigns, fund-raising, and heartache, Andrew Smith was president of the United States.

  During the normal course of his day, he rarely had moments to himself. Government agencies needed him; foreign dignitaries, lobbyists, representatives, and senators needed him; state governors, local county governments, and the party needed him; the people needed him. Sometimes, it felt as if hundreds of steel cables were hooked into his skin, each pulling in a different direction, with no way for him to know which cables were pulling toward something worthwhile, and which cables would just tear out and leave nasty scars if their pull was resisted long enough.

  In ten minutes, his first meeting of the day was scheduled to start. Ten short minutes to savor, to watch the first drops of rain begin to fall, and to be alone with his thoughts. Time to ponder where he’d been, where he wanted to go—where he wanted the nation to go—and time to wish that somehow things had turned out differently so he didn’t have to do it alone.

  His moment of peace was shattered as Jessica Hruska, the national security advisor, and Marshall Stone, the secretary of defense, rushed into the Oval Office, with the secretary of Homeland Security, Hugo McIntyre, in tow. This was far from normal protocol for Andrew Smith’s Oval Office. No one ever burst in unannounced, and if they did, they’d better have a damned good reason.

  When Jessie Hruska spoke, her voice steeled with purpose and her eyes shining with immediacy, Andrew knew her reason would be more than sufficient.

  “Mr. President,” she said, “we have a situation. It’s Kansas City.”

  Ten minutes later, alone again in the Oval Office, Andrew tried to digest what he’d just been told. It wasn’t easy.

  He’d given the necessary orders his advisors needed to get the ball rolling: investigate . . . find out exactly what was happening, control public panic, mobilize whatever elements of state and federal forces needed to be activated to bring him options in the next hour for the best manner to proceed. At this point, he knew that’s all he could do. Although it was frustrating, he had to sit back and let the massive apparatus that was the United Sates government spin up to handle the situation, let other people do the jobs they were trained to do. In another hour, he hoped the situation would have enough clarity for action. Correct action. And then, he would do his job. Set a course of action and lead.

  As he stared across the office at a favorite portrait of Harry Truman, the situation he’d been presented with continued to tumble through his mind: a whole city, with possibly hundreds, if not thousands dead and missing! How could it possibly be true? Could it be some sort of terrorist attack? Could someone have been able to dream up a weapon that would do this? Was it a weapon, or something else?

  Give ’Em Hell Harry just stared right back. Make the right call, Mr. President, Truman seemed to say from the canvas. And don’t ever forget the buck stops with you.

  The directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Guard Bureau, and the Red Cross all received calls within fifteen minutes.

  A well-greased wheel began to turn, driven by the necessity of quick reaction to any unknown, rapidly unfolding situation. The nation had learned the hard way that a delayed reaction to a crisis could spell disaster. Every minute wasted meant more dead citizens. It was a simple equation.

  As each of the directors hung up their secure phones, they all turned their thoughts to Kansas City and immediately issued orders through their chains.

  Analyze—get people on the ground as soon as possible. Figure out exactly what the hell was going on.

  Listen—grab every electron in the air and thoroughly wash it for information. If anyone’s talking, open up the big ears and listen.

  Activate—contact the governors. Start at the top of the recall rosters and get the guardsmen moving. Get ready to federalize.

  Prepare—check the blood supplies. Get medical personnel and relief supplies ready to roll.

  Move!

  The wheel was turning. It was a well-practiced procedure, refined over time and surprisingly effective. This was no longer the America of Norman Rockwell—this was an America that had been sucker punched a few too many times, learned to react, to bob and weave, and to hit back with one hell of a right cross.

  Each of the directors took a moment to reflect on exactly what they’d heard just minutes before. It sounded incredible! How could an American city be nearly wiped clean of hundreds, if not thousands of people? Who was responsible for such a heinous act? How was it done? Was it over, or was it just beginning?

  As they mulled over these unanswerable questions, a single, chilling statement from the national security advisor stuck in their minds . . .

  “There’s something in the city,” she’d said. “Some things.”

  CHAPTER 6

  At that same moment, eleven hundred miles to the west of Kansas City, Carolyn Ridenour stared intently at her computer screen, engrossed by a stream of numbers parading across her flat panel display.

  To the untrained eye, the data stream was just a jumbled mess of figures, but to Carolyn, the numbers were speaking to her in a language only a few could understand, telling her the results of the tests she’d been running on the contents of a single business-sized envelope whose recipient had discovered, much to their horror, was filled with a white powdery substance and a poorly spelled note predicting the “End of amrican Imperlism!” It’d arrived at her facility at about 5:00 a.m., after a supersonic trip from Washington, DC, on board an Air Force fighter jet, and she’d been working on it ever since. “That’s it,” she whispered. “Come on, baby, show me . . .”

  Lieutenant Josh Ewing, sitting next to Carolyn in front of a matching set of screens, turned his head to face her, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Carolyn,” he said, “I don’t mind being called ‘baby’ . . . I kinda like it, actually . . . but show you? Right now? In here? Might be a little tough, but if you insist, I can make it happen.”

  Carolyn grinned, but never took her eyes off the screen. “In your dreams, Josh. I definitely don’t want to see that.”

  “Okay, fine. I can dream, though, can�
��t I?”

  “Sure, you can dream,” she said, shaking her head. “Just keep me out of them, okay?”

  He let five whole seconds pass. “It won’t bite.”

  “Josh!” she said, laughing. “I’m trying to concentrate here!”

  “I can’t help it, Carolyn!” he said, his voice full of feigned exasperation. “You have no idea what it’s like for a horny young stud like me to find some action in Salt Lake City, of all places.”

  Carolyn was pretty sure Josh’s dream woman was more of a blond, busty ex-NFL cheerleader than a self-described brainiac like herself, but in another time, in another place, she knew she could be attracted to a man like Josh. He was young, smart, and good-looking, but she wasn’t about to jeopardize her work by allowing herself to become involved in some sort of silly office romance. She, and Josh, too, for that matter, needed to stay focused. Lives depended on the work they were doing. Many lives. But she wasn’t so cold as to avoid some innocent flirting. In fact, she quite enjoyed it, because it provided a break from the constant pressure.

  “You’re right, Josh,” Carolyn said, with the smokiest voice she could muster. She turned toward him, smiled, and lightly placed her hand on his thigh. She also let five whole seconds pass, watching the confusion build in his eyes until she couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. She patted his leg and giggled. “I have no idea what it’s like to be a horny young stud.” Turning back to her screen, she added, “You need to get out more, LT. Sow some of your wild oats.”

  Before Josh could respond, Carolyn’s screen announced the results of the tests she’d been running with a muted beep. “Hah!” she exclaimed. “I knew it!”

  Josh leaned over from his station to take a look. “So, is it ricin? Anthrax? Or something really horrible . . . Lead-based paint chips from a baby crib, maybe?”

  Carolyn tore the readout from the printer, a little disgusted with the amount of time it had taken to get the results she expected all along. In the old days she could’ve analyzed the envelope’s contents in a matter of minutes, but ever since some of the bad guys had ingeniously learned to mask substances like ricin and anthrax with harmless, nonhazardous compounds, or sometimes even with illegal drugs, she now had to go through a much more painstaking process that could take hours to complete. The obvious answer, reached after a quick initial analysis, could be completely wrong, and the results deadly. The battery of tests was necessary, but in this case, a wasted effort. “Well, you’re close, Josh,” she answered, handing him the printout. “It’s a mixture of some pretty horrible stuff.”

  “Cocaine?” Josh said, reading the computer’s analysis.

  “Yep. High quality, at that. Cut with powdered sugar.”

  “So,” Josh said, tossing the readout onto the counter, “not only do we have an idiot who tries to scare the hell out of someone with an envelope full of fake anthrax, we have an idiot drug dealer?”

  Carolyn nodded. “Or a druggie who ran short of powdered sugar and used what else he had around the house.” She held up a plastic baggie containing the suspect anthrax letter and wiggled it in front of Josh’s faceplate. “This, Lieutenant Joshua K. Ewing, fellow Dugway Proving Ground Federal Penitentiary inmate, can get back on a plane and head to FBI headquarters. Hopefully they can lift some prints and get this asshole. He ruined my morning.” She tossed the baggie to Josh. “I’m going to head upstairs. I didn’t have a chance to grab any coffee when I got called in this morning, and I have a splitting headache.”

  “Caffeine’s highly addictive,” Josh said, dropping the baggie into a transport pouch, which would soon be on its way to the J. Edgar Hoover Building for the fibbies to play with. “Need your fix, huh?”

  Carolyn huffed into her helmet microphone. “Yes, I need my fix. Maybe I’ll just grab a needle and shoot some java right into my bloodstream.” The booties of her protective biohazard suit made scuffing noises as she walked across the stark white floor toward the sealed chamber’s exit portal.

  As Josh watched her leave, he imagined he could peer beyond Carolyn’s biosuit and spy the gorgeous form within, her hips swaying with each stride of her deeply tanned legs, brunette hair bouncing about her bare shoulders, and her—

  Carolyn mashed the chamber’s exit button. A high-decibel buzzer screamed a warning that the clean room was no longer secure. From the ceiling, a series of rotating beacons splashed red light across unnaturally white walls. Every computer screen in the facility instantly blinked off, concealing their secrets. Hundreds of tiny clicks resounded through the room as automatic locks slid into place, sealing each drawer and container. The alarm’s blare, lasting but a few seconds, was replaced with a muffled roar as banks of hidden fans rapidly adjusted the room’s airflow to keep airborne particles from taking a trip out the exit portal as well, the air pressure abruptly fluctuating, then stabilizing.

  His mind’s eye slammed shut during the sudden commotion and, sadly, Josh saw Carolyn’s protective suit was back, covering her from head to toe.

  Josh enjoyed working with Carolyn but found it difficult to keep his mind from wandering—like now—imagining how nice it would be to peel her out of that biosuit, one little zipper at a time. She was his supervisor, but she wasn’t Army. She was a government civilian, which meant there were no “superior officer” barriers to contend with if he chose to, well, get at those zippers. To make matters worse—or better?—Carolyn was hands-down one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. But there was work to do, important work that required absolute, intense focus. As a member of Vanguard, making a mistake was simply not an option. His fantasy, he knew, would remain just that.

  “I’ll still be here when you get back,” Josh said through the tiny microphone in his protective helmet. “Like always.”

  Carolyn momentarily turned to face him, her brown eyes twinkling with amusement at the tone of his voice. “Hopefully you’ll have that strain figured out by then, Eeyore.” She winked at him through her faceplate, and then entered the first of four airlock sections on her way topside, beginning the meticulous process of keeping all the bad stuff down in their deep classified hole where it belonged, and away from all the good stuff that lived above.

  The six-inch-thick portal door slid closed behind her, heavy locks sliding into place with a dull thud. Hundreds of container locks clicked open again. The environmental control system brought the room back to its normal operating environment—optimum temperature, optimum air pressure, optimum airflow.

  Back to work.

  Just another day at Vanguard, a highly classified government biosafety level 4 complex.

  Two hundred feet underground.

  Josh turned to his bank of computer screens—alive with data once again—and tapped a fresh sequence of commands on his keyboard; there was a new, mutated strain of the Ebola virus he had to figure out how to kill.

  In case it fell into the wrong hands.

  CHAPTER 7

  Conversation halted as President Andrew Smith entered the briefing room; he immediately sensed the tension in the air, a subtle static that indicated events were moving rapidly, maybe a little too rapidly for informed, decisive action. Andrew drew a deep, long breath, mentally steeling himself to receive the platter of tangled, squirming vipers he knew his advisors were about to toss in his lap, a platter emblazoned with the Seal of the President of the United States.

  The assembled members quickly took their seats as Andrew took his.

  With a quick glance around the table, he took stock of his advisors; luckily, all the primaries had either been in Washington or in close proximity when the call to convene had sounded. The experts Andrew needed nearest during a crisis—his war cabinet—were now staring back at him, waiting for the word to begin the meeting.

  To the president’s left sat the hulking form of his SECDEF, Marshall “Tank” Stone, nicknamed not only for his imposing size, but also for his prior life
as an M1A Abrams jockey during the first Gulf War. To his right sat the secretary of state, Adam Williamson, former ambassador to the People’s Republic of China and career diplomat. Around the remainder of the table sat Hugo McIntyre, secretary of Homeland Security; Harold Ahrens, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Jake Kesting, director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and General Rayburn “Scythe” Smythe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Three chairs down from the president sat Jessie Hruska, his national security advisor.

  As per standard procedure during an unfolding, unpredictable crisis such as this, the vice president and some key deputy directors were on their way to alternate command centers at different points around the country, serving as a secondary source of command and control if something unthinkable were to happen in Washington. This was continuity of government, a concept born during the Cold War, when Soviet ballistic missile submarines prowled the oceans off the coasts of the United States, positioned to launch a debilitating strike from beneath the waves with little or no warning, severing the head of the Yankee snake before it could coil and strike back. Continuity of government had presented the Soviet planners with a many-headed snake, a hydra they couldn’t hope to subdue entirely. And they never tried.

  Now, it was a drill Andrew’s administration practiced often, refining the swift movement of subordinate decision makers to safe—or, at least safer—locations away from DC. This morning, prudence dictated he put the program into motion. And he had.