Light of the Last

by Chuck Black

  Sydney looked stunned, along with everyone else in the room. “Well…as you know, the Ebola virus is one of the deadliest viruses known to man even though it only has a reproductive ratio of two, which is considerably less than, say, measles, which has a ratio of seventeen, or malaria, which is one hundred.” Sydney paused to gather her thoughts.

  “What’s that ratio mean?” Piper asked.

  “The reproductive ratio is the average number of secondary cases caused by an infectious individual in a totally susceptible population,” Sydney explained. “In spite of its low reproductive ratio, what makes Ebola so deadly is its fatality rate. In undeveloped countries where medical treatment is limited, it can be as high as ninety percent. In the US, it would be significantly lower at first, say sixty percent, but…” Sydney shook her head. “On a scale like Drew is talking, the epidemic would quickly overwhelm the medical system, and the fatality rate would rise to near that of a third-world country. It would become a vicious cycle, causing an epidemic that within two to three weeks would be unstoppable even with a reproductive ratio of only two.” Sydney seemed stunned by her own analysis.

  Drew finished for her. “The US would quickly be quarantined from the rest of the world. In two months, the epidemic becomes a pandemic—millions would die.” Drew looked at Sydney and saw the pain in her eyes. “In less than six months, the United States of America would cease to exist as a viable nation. We are talking about a biological apocalypse.”

  Once again the gravity of what they were facing sobered every soul there. Seconds passed as they all considered the weighty burden on their shoulders.

  “And you expect our little band of merry men to fix this?” Ridge said.

  Jake crossed his arms. “The odds are low, Drew, considering the scope of the threat and the time frame. The risk of failure is—well…” Jake didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. “Something of this magnitude needs the full resources and attention of our intelligence agencies, our medical personnel, and our military. Isn’t there some way of utilizing them? I know there are still many good people in those organizations.”

  “I agree, Jake, but all it takes is one mole inside any of those organizations and we fail. Yes, they might not be able to hit us as hard or as fast, but millions of people will still die.”

  “He’s right,” Senator Boyd interjected. “The Patriots have been concerned for years in regard to the number of known and unknown radical Islamic ideologists infiltrating every system of government. There is no way to ensure confidentiality outside of what you are doing right here.”

  “So this whole War on Terrorism campaign was just a bunch of bologna?” Ridge asked.

  “No,” Drew said. “We still have hundreds of thousands of patriotic, solid people doing their jobs, including Muslims who are not aligned with the extremists. Unfortunately our security has been compromised, and we don’t know who we can trust. The bottom line, people, is that we don’t have a choice, and in this room are some of the most brilliant and skilled individuals in the world. Besides this, we have help that you cannot see.”

  Drew glanced at Sydney. “For those of you who believe in God, I ask you to pray. For those of you who don’t, I ask you to reconsider, because what lies before us is going to take a miracle to accomplish. As our forefathers did before bearing the weighty task of forging a nation, I think it would be wise to pray to our Creator and ask that He grant us wisdom, strength, and protection through this mission.”

  Drew glanced around the room filled with geeks and soldiers, men and women, believers and nonbelievers, angels and humans. It was a strange assembly that had come together to save the nation.

  Everyone bowed their heads.

  “Dear God, I…I’m not very good with prayers.”

  Drew felt awkward. He opened his eyes and glanced toward Sydney. She was looking at him. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she mouthed the words, “God loves you…and so do I.” Then she bowed her head, and Drew saw God’s Spirit well up from within her and reach out to everyone in the room. What a mighty warrior she was. He felt God’s Spirit rise up within him too, and he closed his eyes once more to continue his prayer.

  “Lord, we are mere men and women, inadequate for the mission before us. We desperately need Your divine help. Forgive us, Lord, for the people of this nation have forgotten You. We have trampled underfoot the Son of God and treated the sacrifice of His blood as something unholy. We have grieved Your Spirit and cursed Your name. We have preyed upon the innocent and embraced perversion and called it good. In faith our forefathers placed the foundation of this great nation on Your Truth, on the rock of Jesus Christ, and now we have gone astray. Forgive us, almighty God, and restore us. Grant us, dear God, the strength to endure the coming battle, the wisdom to discover the plots of the Enemy, and the protection to accomplish Your will. Let us be once more the wings of a great eagle to deliver Israel from the mouth of the dragon. We humbly set our future and our fate in Your hands. In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.”

  Drew kept his eyes shut as the presence of God lingered. What had just happened? Words from the Bible had flowed from him as if his voice were not his own. He opened his eyes and slowly lifted his head. Every eye was on him, and all, including Sydney, looked stunned. His cheeks flushed in embarrassment. He felt silly and ashamed, and now he had to try to lead this odd band against a global network of terrorists.

  Behind his team, he saw Validus and his men glowing in power. It gave Drew the strength to begin. He took a deep breath.

  “We’re facing bioterrorism on a grand scale, and we have less than forty-seven hours to find and eliminate the threat.”

  The other ten team members seemed to awaken from their stupor.

  “How do the terrorists plan on infecting themselves?” Sydney asked. “As deadly as Ebola is, without a living host, it dies rather quickly.”

  “We suspect they will be using trigger hosts infected with the virus who have already entered the country,” Drew said. “We’re not sure how they plan on transferring the virus to the rest of the suicide bioterrorists. What would be the most effective way?”

  “The most efficient method would be by injecting contaminated blood directly into the bloodstream. The virus would never be out of contact with a living host, and it would spread quickly throughout the body of the receiving host.” Sydney shuddered. “Death would be almost certain, but it also means they would be highly contagious in a relatively short time.”

  Drew turned to Jake. “We’re going to have to mobilize every resource Fortress has. Money is no object, but again, confidentiality is paramount. Every one of those terrorists is one phone call away from being warned. We must keep the element of surprise, and we can’t trust anyone outside of Fortress and NexTech. Ben, with the codes I gave you, you should have complete access to the intelligence agencies’ database and mainframes. We need to keep our intentions hidden from prying eyes on their end.”

  Ben thought for a moment. “I think we can swing that. We’ll use their databases for data acquisition only and keep the computations and analysis of the data on our end. We can also run some dummy searches to hide what we’re looking for.” He hesitated. “Do you really think the IGA has access to their systems too?”

  Drew nodded his head. “I know so. You’ll have to be careful.”

  Ben and his crew all nodded.

  “Drew, how do you propose we find the infection locations?” Jake asked.

  “From the intel I’ve received from Mr. Ross, the Mossad, and Senator Hanson, I have confirmed IDs of thirty-eight of the bioterrorists. If we can locate them, we could track them, and they would lead us to the locations.”

  “We wouldn’t have enough time to respond,” Mick said. “We would need at least a four-hour head start before the first terrorist arrives to make sure we got there in time.”

  “And that’s with prepositioning our men in strategic geographic locations,” Jake added.

  “Triangulation!” P
iper exclaimed.

  Ben nodded. “Yes!”

  “Explain,” Drew said.

  “You said these terrorists are already in their respective cities.” Piper swiped the interactive glass table and pulled up a map of the US. “If we can locate as many as possible and track them…” She tapped three cities in the Midwest. “Terrorists from each region should be converging to the same point.” She drew lines from the three cities to a fourth city as a point of convergence. “Theoretically, we just need to track two of them and find their travel intersection point. With each successful terrorist we track, the resolution of our prediction narrows.”

  “That’s good,” Drew said. “Based on the intel, we’re fairly certain that there are four infection locations. We’ll call them zero points. We can only hope that of the terrorists we find and trace, we will have at least two for each zero point. I’m guessing that timing for them is going to be important, which we can use to our advantage. They are going to want to infect all suicide terrorists as close to the same time as possible, so not only will their paths converge, but so should their times of arrival at the zero points.”

  “Now, how do we find them and trace them?” Ridge asked as he swiped a digital clock onto the table, then initiated a countdown to midnight on September 5. “Considering we have only forty-six hours and twenty-six minutes.”

  “How about what the CIA and FBI already do—facial recognition? That’s one of Alice’s prime routines, and I guarantee she’s better at it than anything the government has,” Crypt said. “We tap into the government databases, access security cameras everywhere, and let her go to work.”

  “That would work,” Ben said.

  Jake shook his head. “We need multiple methods. We can’t afford to rely on just one. Besides, once they start moving toward their zero points, there’s no guarantee we will get another facial ID along the way.”

  “Agreed.” Drew shot Reed a glance.

  “RFIDs,” Reed said.

  “Exactly.” Drew nodded. “Radio Frequency Identification tags. The CIA uses tags that are basically the size of a speck of dust. We locate and physically plant RFIDs on as many terrorists as we can find before they move.”

  “But how do you plant them if they’re that small?” Crypt asked.

  “The tags can stick to clothes or hair for a long time, but the surest way is bonding it to the skin. The CIA developed a method for that,” Reed said.

  “I’m sure they did,” Jester said.

  Reed ignored the comment. “Twenty tags are suspended in a thin film of permanent adhesive, like superglue except that this glue completely evaporates, leaving no residue when not between two substrates. They come on small dots the size of a hole punch. Peel one side and stick it to the back of your hand. Peel the other side and you have five minutes to brush the permanent adhesive on the tags against a target’s skin. The bond can last from three days to two weeks.”

  “RFID radios are everywhere—airports, railways, turnpikes, bus stations, schools, museums, and even traffic lights,” Drew said as he looked at Ben.

  “Alice, are you connected to the government network and databases?” Ben said.

  “Yes, Ben.”

  “Mask all searches. How many RFID radios can you access throughout the continental US?”

  There was a three-second pause. “Approximately 246,000.”

  Jake and Reed looked satisfied, but Ben and his crew wore sour expressions.

  “Big Brother is here,” Piper said soberly. “What we’re doing is scary in many ways.”

  “Man, this is everything we’re against,” Crypt blurted.

  “He’s right, Chider,” Jester added. “We’ve spent years fighting this kind of government invasion of privacy. I hate it.”

  “I’m pretty sure those terrorists couldn’t give a monkey’s tail about your privacy rights,” Mick said.

  “Right now we don’t have the luxury of being impeded by ideological thinking,” Drew said. “You’re going to have to worry about that later. Reed, we need ten thousand RFIDs so Alice can program their codes and track them. See if we can get them straight from the manufacturer and bypass the CIA.”

  “It won’t be likely. The manufacturer for the tags is in Texas. We’ll probably have to utilize the CIA’s inventory,” Reed said.

  “Check them before you bring them here,” Drew said. “I think we can assume that most of the terrorists won’t fly for fear of being identified. That means they’ll probably be moving to their zero points in the final twelve to twenty-four hours. Jake, we’ll need your men to place the tags on the ID’d terrorists within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “All personnel at all three divisions have been placed on alert,” Jake said. “We have choppers and charter jets on standby. Get us the tags, the locations, and photos, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Maybe this is a dumb question,” Mick began, “but if we can get close enough to place tags on them, why not just follow them?”

  “All it takes is for one terrorist to make a tail and the whole operation could go down,” Drew said. “And if we take any of them out, they might miss a scheduled check-in and raise suspicion. We would never find the four trigger hosts, and the epidemic would still happen, although at a much slower pace. But you do bring up a good point. Tell your men to stay visual with the terrorists until we can confirm we are tracking them. If any of the terrorists have vehicles, plant a GPS tracker. If we aren’t able to track with RFID or GPS, we stay with them all the way to the zero points. Make sure your men understand the need for absolute invisibility.”

  Mick nodded. “You got it.”

  “What about satellite imagery?” Crypt asked. “The new Spectator Sat4 was launched last month. With 15-cm resolution, you can count zits on a face.”

  “Alice, do you have access to Spectator Sat4 imagery?” Drew asked.

  “DigitalGlobe is requiring an access fee,” Alice replied almost instantly. “The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has an account. Confirm authorization to access.”

  “Alice, call Director Ward,” Drew said. “Make it untraceable.”

  A few minutes later, Ward relayed the account access codes.

  “Alice, complete authorization,” Drew said.

  Four seconds later Alice responded. “Access granted.”

  Drew handed Ben the USB drive containing the names of the terrorists. Ben plugged it into a port on the edge of the table. “Alice, access this drive and correlate the names to database information on file for each individual. Display records on the monitors.”

  The monitors began filling with photos and information on the terrorists. Where there was no information, only a name appeared.

  Ben continued directing Alice. “Using the photos, use surveillance cameras and satellite imagery to identify and locate each person. This is going to take some time,” he said to the team. “The amount of data she is processing is immense.”

  “And it’s the middle of the night when few people are working,” Piper added. “Probably won’t find much until morning. We’re going to lose precious hours unless…”

  Ben looked at her and smiled. “Unless we access historical imagery, but it would really slow the search.”

  “Nighttime is the time to do it, though,” Piper shot back.

  Ben nodded. “Alice, optimize search to include historical imagery when appropriate.”

  “Please specify,” Alice requested.

  “Limit your search to restaurants. If the restaurants are closed, attempt to access historical imagery. Display photo, name, and date stamp on the table showing locations.”

  A few seconds later, a photo of the first terrorist appeared on the graphic table, pinpointing his location at a fast-food restaurant in downtown Los Angeles—Hassan Atef.

  “There we go,” Drew said. “Let’s hope Alice is fast enough to get us IDs in time for us to predict the zero points.” He looked at his team. They all seemed hopeful—all except Sydney. “Is
there anything else we’re missing? Any concerns?” he asked, looking at her.

  Sydney was staring at the second terrorist that Alice had just ID’d and was now showing on the table. “You won’t really know,” she said quietly.

  Everyone turned their gaze to her. She looked up, panning the faces.

  “You won’t really know if you get the trigger hosts. I mean, if you don’t know who they are or what they look like, you won’t really know until weeks later if the country is safe. When an outbreak occurs, every measure is taken to contain the spread. If just one of these terrorists leaves the zero points infected, or if a trigger host himself escapes and they aren’t trying to contain but rather trying to spread the virus, it could still escalate into an epidemic.”

  The room sobered again.

  “We need a foolproof method of knowing,” Jake agreed.

  Sydney shook her head. “There isn’t one, or the CDC would be using it.”

  Drew looked at Ben. They were both thinking the same thing.

  “Perhaps there is a way,” Drew said.

  28

  BEYOND LIGHT

  Ben looked at Drew as they led their team to his office. “Once we do this, it’s over, you know.” There was a look of defeat in his eyes.

  Drew put an arm across Ben’s shoulders. “I know, but it’s okay. When we have some time, I’ve got a few things to tell you. After all, I think you may have discovered a whole new market for this thing.” He lowered his voice. “Besides finding aliens. Have you been able to do some additional testing to verify the results since I was here?”

  “Yes. It’s pretty remarkable,” Ben replied.

  Drew ushered the entire team into Ben’s office.

  “Now I get why you have the big office,” Crypt said.

  Ben placed his hand on the scanner in his desk, and the section of the wall leading to the LASOK lab opened.

  “Get out!” Ridge exclaimed.

  Piper looked at the LASOK lab, then back at Ben, eyes sparkling with admiration. Ben caught the look, and Drew saw his genius friend flush, then attempt to ignore it.