This was the second day of his visit to Camp David and he would remain here for two more weeks, entertaining staff and heads of state, and at the end of the two weeks, putting the finishing touches on the peace accord to be presented to Palestine and Israel. But for the next three days he was here to relax. And he was determined to do just that, clear his mind, maybe even read a book. He’d heard Ice Station by Matthew Reilly was a good read and was looking forward to an action-packed story that would remind him of his time as a U.S. Army Ranger.
With that, his thoughts turned to some good news. Upon taking office, he had coordinated with the military to strike terrorism down hard. But he didn’t want to attack with a blunt weapon. Countries wouldn’t be invaded. Innocents wouldn’t be killed. And they would never make front-page news. Instead, he wanted to oversee teams of surgeons who would carefully remove terrorist organizations like cancerous cells from the body . . . with brutal efficiency.
To this point, only the Chess Team excelled. And they had won another silent victory the previous day. The world believed a band of pirates had attacked yet another cargo ship and that the pirates responsible had died at the hands of a Chinese destroyer. For this reason, he looked forward to meeting Jack Sigler and his Chess Team, though Deep Blue would not be making the engagement, which would surprise no one. His success required that his identity remain veiled.
Deep Blue or not, Duncan felt it was high time the Delta team that had helped his presidency flourish be rewarded, though that too could never be disclosed. The funny thing was, King didn’t want a medal. No one on the team did. Said they didn’t believe in them. All they wanted was a barbeque . . . so a barbeque it was. And Duncan was determined to make it the best damn barbeque the Chess Team ever enjoyed. He wasn’t bringing in top chefs or having a catering company come. He was doing one better. He’d had a new professional Lynx grill installed, ordered the freshest prime cuts to be delivered that afternoon, stocked up on the team’s preferred brew—Sam Adams—and was flying in the best stick-to-your-ribs barbeque master he knew: his brother Greg.
When he thought about the good food and relaxing time he’d have with King and crew, who served the country so well, he smiled and lay back. He was looking forward to his time with them and hearing about their exploits from a first-hand perspective.
Rounding a bend in the path, he took note of the brilliant lime green leaves clinging to the maple trees that lined the trail. Between the leaves he could see the azure sky and beaming sun, which set the leaves aglow. The only smudge in this otherwise pristine day, which was the beginning of what would be a very good week, was something conjured up by his imagination the night before. He’d dreamed of being chased through the jungle—not chased, hunted. He watched from above as his child self ran from pursuing shadows that shrieked and wailed. Then he was the boy, panting, terrified, running as though submerged in mud. Before waking with a scream that brought armed Secret Service agents rushing into the room, he saw a flash of yellow teeth shoot toward his face.
He’d never experienced a night terror before, but knew that dream had to be close. He woke, covered in sweat and all scratched up, presumably from where he’d scraped himself with his nails while struggling to fight off his imagined assailants. He’d seen a doctor shortly after who attributed the nightmare to the president’s ensuing downtime. The doctor knew Duncan was a workaholic and thought the idea of relaxing was actually stressing the president.
While Duncan didn’t buy the “fear of downtime” theory, he couldn’t think of a better reason for the nightmare, either. Of course, he had watched James Cameron’s Aliens a few nights back in the White House theater. That seemed as likely a candidate as any physical or psychological ailment. But he was happy to forget the nightmare altogether. And the scenery was helping him do just that. It was a beautiful day, after all. A perfect day. He took it as a good omen.
Then a pain racked his chest. He stumbled and stopped, suddenly dizzy. He checked his pulse . . . and found nothing.
His heart had stopped.
As he fell to the ground, wondering how someone had been able to poison him, he heard the two Secret Service men calling out orders. But as bright spots danced before a black curtain in his vision, he knew there was nothing they could do. He never felt the pain of his head hitting the earth.
President Duncan was dead.
FIVE
Fort Bragg—Cumberland County, North Carolina
“HOLY HORSESHIT!” ROOK said as he handed Knight a jack of spades. “That’s five in a row! You better not be cheating.”
Knight flashed a cocky smile and leaned back in his chair. The smile, in combination with his chiseled jaw and the perfectly smooth, never-been-shaved tan skin of his cheeks, not only won over many women, but it also really pissed off Rook. It wasn’t that Rook was unlucky with women; he just wasn’t a “pretty Korean boy” like Knight. “I would never cheat. Knights are honest and true.”
This got a chuckle from King, Queen, and Bishop, who were sitting around the card table, holding their cards secretively. Each player, except Rook, had a small pile of cards laying facedown on the table in front of them.
“Honest and true, my ass,” Rook said. “I just haven’t figured out how you do it yet. And when I do . . .” Rook held out his fist. “I’m going to jam this right up—”
“Okay, okay, enough with the fantasizing, little man,” Queen said. In the field, Queen could be a demon, but at home she often found herself being the peacemaker. It wasn’t that the guys didn’t get along, but they were like brothers . . . and sometimes brothers fight. “You’re up.”
Rook sighed and looked at his cards. His instincts told him to look for pairs, wilds, and flushes, but they weren’t playing poker. In their first year together, the team found poker to be a frustrating game, mostly because King couldn’t be beat. He had a way of reading people’s faces and intuiting how good their hand was. After the team collectively lost twenty-three hundred dollars to King in a single game, Rook, his face beet red with anger, had taken the chips, doused them in gasoline, and lit them on fire, melting them down into a red, white, and blue blob of singed plastic. After that, they agreed to play something less competitive . . . something that was more a game of chance than skill. But in the past month, to Rook’s ever-increasing frustration, Knight never lost. Though no money was at stake, it was worse than King’s poker run because it was supposed to be a game of chance. But somehow, Knight had figured out a system . . . at least when it came to Rook, who was always the first person out.
Rook focused on his three remaining cards. Ace of hearts. Ten of diamonds. Three of spades. He had to pick one.
“Knight. Ten of hearts,” Rook said. “Fork it over.”
Knight glanced at his cards, then slowly shuffled through them. “Nope . . . nope . . . nope . . . Sorry, big guy. No can do.”
Rook raised his eyebrows as his face turned a light shade of pink. He stroked his two-inch-long blond goatee. “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Knight.”
“Cats and dogs.”
“Damnit.”
“Oh, and Rook? Go fish.”
Rook took a card from the center pile while muttering obscenities. Then he smiled. Ten of hearts. “Ha!” He slapped the cards on the table, announcing his first pair. “Fish this, Knight.”
Knight laughed. “That makes no sense.”
“Hey, Rook,” King said, trying to contain a smile.
Rook looked at King, who was dressed in his usual uniform, blue jeans and a black Elvis T-shirt. What Rook saw in King’s orange-brown eyes was something few people ever got to see—humor. And it made him nervous.
“Ace of hearts,” King said.
Rook handed him the card, his face cast with suspicion. “Are you two working together?”
“No,” King said, leaning back so that his curly moplike hair fell out of his face and revealed his widening smile. “I just figured out Knight’s secret.”
Knight’s and
Rook’s eyes both went wide.
“Behind you,” King said, pointing to the back wall of the rec room, twenty feet back, where a month ago Knight had installed a small mirror next to the ceiling-mounted television. Rook saw the mirror and, though it was far away, had no doubt that Knight’s eagle eyes could see his cards across the distance.
Men from other units who had been watching TV, playing pool, or reading books stopped and turned to watch as Rook stood up, towering over Knight like a Swiss giant, and shouted, “You little bitch.”
Knight hopped out of his seat as Rook came around the table for him. He began whipping his cards at Rook, biffing him in the forehead with each shot. As Knight laughed hysterically, he stumbled over King’s extended foot. This was all the time Rook needed to catch Knight by his silk button-up shirt.
Knight suddenly stood still and stopped laughing. “Don’t mess with my shirt, Rook.”
Rook began hocking up a wad of spit, snorting loudly with his nose for good measure.
“Rook . . .”
Even the normally silent Bishop was laughing. This confrontation had been brewing for a month and the three members of the Chess Team not involved were enjoying every minute of it. It was the beginning of what was to be a nice week of R & R, kicked off the following day by the barbeque at Camp David, no less. They were scheduled to leave that night and their bags were packed. Of course, they might be delayed pending any injuries. Rook was stronger and bigger, but Knight was fast and a skilled fighter . . . and apparently, had luck on his side.
“King!” The voice was commanding. Urgent. Which wasn’t unusual for the one-star Brigadier General Keasling, but the person accompanying him into the lounge was very unusual.
Not only was Queen the only female Delta operator, she was the only woman in all of the Special Forces units at Fort Bragg. With a population topping twenty-nine thousand, there were plenty of other women on base, but they didn’t enter the barracks very often, and they certainly weren’t seen in the company of the short, grisly faced general now storming toward King. But this one stuck to the general’s side like a prom date, and she looked, in every way, to be Queen’s opposite. Power suit. High heels. Stiff.
“The rest of you, clear this room, now!” Keasling yelled. Thirty seconds later, the rec room was emptied except for the five Delta operators, the general, and the woman, who was now fidgeting nervously.
King stood and greeted the perfectly uniformed general with a casual salute, which garnered a strange look from the woman. “General, what can I do for you?” King said. “As you can see, we were in the middle of something.” King motioned to Rook, who was still holding on to Knight’s shirt, a phlegm wad in his mouth.
“You’re shipping out in two hours,” Keasling said.
King squinted, assuming there was a miscommunication. “Actually, we’re not heading out until tonight.”
“Not anymore you’re not.”
King crossed his arms over Elvis’s face. “General, pardon me for being a dick, but unless your trip involves a barbeque with the commander-in-chief, you’re going to have to find—”
A large hand came to rest on King’s shoulder. It was Bishop. His next words were the first he’d spoken all day, and they stopped King in his tracks. “Jack, something’s wrong. Listen to him.”
King turned to Keasling. “What is it?”
“The president died yesterday,” Keasling said matter-of-factly.
Rook let go of Knight and all five faces around the table fell. King’s mind raced. If the president was dead, and the government’s reaction was to mobilize his crew, that meant only one thing: the President had been assassinated. With that assumption in mind, he had only one question left. “Who’s the target?”
SIX
KEASLING SIGHED, TOOK off his hat, and wiped his arm across his forehead. He sat on the back of one of the nearby couches and said, “That’s the thing, Jack. There isn’t anyone to kill. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then what’s the deal?” King asked.
Keasling motioned to the woman, who was chewing on her lip and looking around the room. “She is.”
King turned to the woman. “And you are?”
The woman said nothing in return. She was still scanning the room with her deep brown eyes, absorbing every detail, sound, and color.
“Hello,” King said loudly. “Miss?”
The woman snapped out of her distracted state and met King’s eyes. For a moment her brown eyes fluttered, but not in some kind, flirtatious way. She looked more like an android recalling some bit of information. And it wasn’t far from the truth. Her mind had heard what her consciousness had missed and was quickly replaying the words for her. “Sorry,” she said, shaking King’s offered hand. “Sara Fogg. CDC.”
“The CDC?” King said.
“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” Sara added.
“I know what it stands for.” He hid his amusement with a serious voice. Fogg was beautiful, poised, and extremely distracted. Out of her element. Then again, he had no idea exactly what element she’d call home. She didn’t look like the rugged type—styled short hair, face made up—but her short fingernails held chipped polish and what appeared to be a layer of trapped dirt. She wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. “What I don’t understand is why you are here.”
“I’m a disease detective,” Sara said.
Rook raised an eyebrow.
Sara noticed his skepticism. “I’m sure you all think that you’re saving the world by killing terrorists. But statistically you’re only saving a few thousand lives every year. What I do saves millions of lives. Terrorists are not the real killers on planet Earth. Disease is.”
Keasling held up his hand, silencing her. “Let me explain. You’re making a bad first impression.”
King stayed silent. Most people shared Sara’s opinion about what they did. But disease couldn’t fire bullets and it didn’t plot the demise of civilization. Disease was a fact of life, not the enemy. Not an assassin. “Let’s get back to the president. How did he die?”
“Actually, he’s not dead,” Keasling said. “Died. The Secret Service with him at the time were able to bring him back. He’s resting comfortably in a hospital right now, though he’ll be under constant observation for the next few days. But, for thirty seconds yesterday, the president was dead.”
“And?” Knight asked.
“The president had a heart attack. He—”
“I thought the president was a health freak,” Queen said.
“He is,” Keasling replied.
“How does a health nut have his ticker stop?” Rook asked.
“Genetic defect?” Knight offered.
Keasling tried to respond, but Rook beat him to the punch. “A secret addiction to fast food?”
“Rook,” Queen said with the tone of a high school Latin teacher.
Rook shrugged. “Hey, the guy lived.”
Sara’s frustration built. This was going nowhere fast. She grunted and spoke. “It wasn’t a heart attack. The president died from a genetic disorder known as the Brugada syndrome. He’s perfectly healthy. His cholesterol is better than average. His heart rate is like a metronome. He’s in his forties but has the body of a thirty-year-old. And his heart is structurally normal.”
Sara found five sets of eyes on her. They were listening.
“But when he was given an electrocardiograph, a characteristic pattern emerged—one that belongs to people with Brugada. Sudden death is caused by fast polymorphic ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. Either one of these arrhythmias can occur in an instant, with no warning at all. Sensations commonly warning of a heart attack—pain in the left arm, shortness of breath—do not occur with Brugada; your heart simply stops and you fall over dead. The president was conscious for only a few moments after his heart stopped. He felt a pain in his chest. Then a wave of nausea. That’s it. He doesn’t remember hitting the ground.
“There are no outward signs t
hat any one person has the disease until they fall over dead, unless of course you think to test yourself, which is ridiculous because only point zero five percent of the world’s population has the gene and out of that number only a tiny fraction become active, mostly in men. It’s so rare that most doctors don’t even know about it.”
Sara finished and ran her fingers through her spiky black hair. “Questions?”
Rook gave a flick of his fingers, as though shooing a fly. “So the president was born with some kind of stealth disease. How does this involve us?”
“When a new president takes office, he’s given a gamut of physicals, screened for diseases and genetic disorders that might pose a risk. This includes an electrocardiograph. He was cleared of Brugada two weeks after he took office. The Brugada syndrome is a germ cell mutation, meaning it’s inherited from parents at birth. Tom Duncan did not have Brugada when he took office . . . he contracted the disease one week ago, when he was unknowingly exposed to a new strain of avian influenza—bird flu.”
King felt the hair on his arms rising. He sensed there was more news and that it was dire. Why else would you need the world’s most effective Delta team to deal with a disease? It’s not like you could shoot something microscopic.
Sara rolled her neck. She had explained this more than ten times in the past day, and it was getting old. She’d been shuttled from one facility to another as the backbone of a plan was formulated with her at its core. “Bird flu is not typically contagious to people, but there are cases of it jumping species, and this strain looks like nothing we’ve seen before. It’s mutated in a way that it is just as contagious as any other flu, but it also carries genes, which it adds to the host’s DNA.”
“The gene for Brugada,” King said.
Sara nodded. “Turning a typical nasty flu into a guaranteed killer, at least to men. It’s airborne, so a cough or sneeze will do the trick in spreading it to the people around you. It spreads like the common cold, but kills as surely as a bullet to the back of your head. What was once passed down through birth is now contagious and the whole world is at risk. Several of the president’s aides who came down with the flu have also tested positive for Brugada, as have the Secret Service men who revived him and the doctors who treated him. The White House is now under quarantine. No one comes or goes. But that’s just the beginning. We had to track down everyone who visited the White House, and everyone they came into close contact with for the past week. Hundreds of people have been quietly quarantined in their own homes until we can have everyone tested, but many are showing flulike symptoms already.”
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