Henriksen caught the Qantas flight for Los Angeles. He had the better part of a day ahead of him in his first-class seat, a good deal of time to consider what he knew.
The plan for the Olympics was essentially in the bag. The fogging system was in place, which was just plain perfect for the Project’s purposes. He’d have one of his men check out the system, and thereby get himself in place for the delivery part on the last day. It was that simple. He had the consulting contract needed to make it all happen. But now this Rainbow bunch would be down there as well. How intrusive might they be? Damn, there was just no telling on that one. Worst case, it was possible that something small could toss a wrench into the works. It so often happened that way. He knew that from his time in the FBI. A random police patrol, a man on foot or in a radio-car could wander by and cause a well-planned robbery to stop. Or in the investigation phase, the unexpectedly sharp memory of a random passerby, or a casual remark made by a subject to a friend, could come to the right investigator and blow a case wide open. Boom, that simple—it had happened a million times. And the breaks always went to the other side, didn’t they?
And so, from his perspective, he knew he had to eliminate the chance for such random events. He’d been so close to it. The operational concept had been brilliant—it had mainly been his from the beginning; John Brightling had merely funded it. Getting the terrorists to operate in Europe had raised the international consciousness about the threat, and that had allowed him and his company to get the contract to oversee the security for the Olympics. But then this damned Rainbow team had appeared, and handled three major incidents—and what asshole had instigated the third one? he demanded of himself—so well that now the Australians had asked them to come down for a look. And if they came down, they’d stay and keep looking, and if that happened, they might be there for the games, and if they wondered about chemical weapons, then they might spot the perfect delivery system for them and—
A lot of ifs, Henriksen told himself. A lot of ifs. A lot of things had to go wrong for the Project to be thwarted. There was comfort in that thought. Maybe he could meet with the Rainbow people and direct them away from the threat. After all, he had a chemical weapons expert on the payroll, and they probably did not, and that gave him the edge, didn’t it? With a little cleverness, his man could do his job right in front of them and not even be seen to have done it. That’s what planning was for, wasn’t it?
Relax, he told himself, as the stewardess came around with drinks, and he had another glass of wine. Relax. But, no, he couldn’t do that. He had too much experience as an investigator to accept the mere chance of random interference without consideration of the possible consequences. If his man were stopped, even by accident, then it was also possible that the entire Project could be uncovered. And that would mean more than failure. It would mean lifelong imprisonment at best, which was not something he was prepared to accept. No, he was committed to the Project for more than one reason. It was his task to save the world first of all—and second, he wanted to be around to enjoy what he’d had a hand in saving.
And so, risks of any type and any magnitude were unacceptable. He had to come up with a way to eliminate them. The key to that was the Russian, Popov. He wondered what that spook had discovered on his trip to England. With the right information, he could devise a plan to deal with that Rainbow bunch directly. Wouldn’t that be interesting? He settled back into his seat and chose a movie to semiwatch, to disguise what he was doing. Yes, he decided ten minutes later, with the right people and the right assets, it could work.
Popov was eating dinner alone in a disreputable-looking restaurant at the southern end of Manhattan. The food was reportedly good, but the place looked as though rats cleaned up the floor at night. But the vodka here was superb, and as usual, a few drinks helped him think abstractly.
What did he know about John Brightling? Well, the man was a scientific genius and also very impressive in his business skills. He’d been married some years ago to another bright person, now the presidential science advisor, but the marriage had ended badly, and now his employer flitted from bed to bed, one of the most eligible bachelors in America—and with the financial statement to prove it—with his photo frequently in the society pages, which must have been the cause of some discomfort to his former wife.
He had good connections in the community of people admitted into classified matters. This Rainbow group was evidently “black,” but he’d gotten its name and the name of its commander in a day. Just one day, Popov reminded himself. That was beyond impressive. It was startling. How the hell had he accomplished that?
And he was into an operation whose implications were more serious than mass murder. That was where his mind came to a befuddled halt once again. It was like walking down a busy street and then coming up against a blank wall. What could a businessman be doing that was more serious than that? More serious than the risk of losing his freedom, even the death penalty? If it were greater than mass murder, then did the plan contemplate even larger murder? But to serve what end? To start a war, perhaps, but he was not a chief of state, and could not, therefore, start a war. Was Brightling a spy, feeding vital national-security-class information to a foreign government—but in return for what? How could anyone, government or not, bribe a billionaire? No, money was out. What did that leave?
There was a classic acronym for the reasons for making treason against your native land: MICE. Money, Ideology, Conscience, and Ego. Money was out. Brightling had too much of that. Ideology was always the best motivation for a traitor/spy—people would risk their lives far more readily for their closely held beliefs than for filthy lucre—but what ideology did this man have? Popov didn’t know. Next came Conscience. But Conscience against what? What wrong was he trying to right? There could hardly be one, could there? That left Ego. Well, Brightling had a capacious ego, but ego assumed the motive of revenge against some more powerful person or institution that had wronged him. Who could possibly have hurt billionaire John Brightling, so much that his material success was not a sufficient salve against the wound? Popov waved to the waiter for another vodka. He’d be taking a cab home tonight.
No, Money was out. So was Ego. That left Ideology and Conscience. What beliefs or what wrong could motivate a man to do murder on a large scale? In the former case, Brightling was not a religious fanatic. In the latter, he had no overt dissatisfaction with his country. And so while Money and Ego could readily be dismissed, Ideology and Conscience were almost as unlikely, and Popov did not dismiss them only because—why? he asked himself. Because he only had four possible motivations, unless Brightling was a total madman, and he wasn’t that, was he?
No, Popov told himself. His employer was not mentally unbalanced. He was thoughtful in his every action, and though his perspective, especially on the issue of money, was very different from his own—well, he had so much that such a difference in outlook was understandable; it was just a matter of perspective, and to him a million dollars was like pocket change to Dmitriy Arkadeyevich. Could he then be some sort of madman who . . . like a chief of state, a new Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler or Josef Vissarionovich Stalin—but, no, he was not a chief of state, had no aspirations for such a thing, and only those men could entertain that form of madness.
In his career in the KGB, Popov had dealt with all manner of curiosities. He’d played the game against world-class adversaries and never once been caught, never once failed in an assignment. As a result, he considered himself a clever sort. That made the current impasse all the more frustrating. He had over a million dollars in a Bern bank. He had the prospect of more in due course. He’d set up two terrorist missions that had accomplished their goal—had they? His employer evidently thought so, despite the abject tactical failure of both. But he knew even less now, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich told himself. The more he delved into it, the less he knew. And the less he knew, the unhappier he became. He’d asked his employer more than once the reason for his activities, but B
rightling wasn’t telling. It had to be something vast . . . but what the devil was it?
They practiced the breathing exercises. Ding found it amusing, but he was also persuaded that it was necessary. Tall and rangy though Patsy was, she was not the athlete he’d become to lead Team-2, and so she had to practice how to breathe to make the baby come more easily, and practice did make perfect. And so they sat on the floor of their house, both with their legs spread, huffing and puffing as though to destroy the home of a mythical pig, and it was all he could do not to laugh.
“Deep, cleansing breath,” Domingo said, after timing the notional contraction. Then he reached for her hand and bent forward to kiss it. “How we doing, Pats?”
“I’m ready, Ding. I just want it to happen and be over.”
“Worried?”
“Well,” Patsy Clark Chavez, M.D., replied, “I know it’s going to hurt some, and I’d just as soon have it behind me, y’know?”
“Yeah.” Ding nodded. The anticipation of unpleasant things was usually worse than their realization, at least on the physical side. He knew that from experience, but she didn’t yet. Maybe that was why second deliveries were almost always easier than the first. You knew what to expect, knew that though it was uncomfortable you’d make it through, and have a baby at the end of it. That was the key to the whole thing for Domingo. To be a father! To have a child, to begin the greatest of all adventures, raising a new life, doing the best you could, making some mistakes, but learning from all of them, and ultimately presenting to society a new, responsible citizen to carry on. That, he was sure, was what it meant to be a man. Oh, sure, carrying a gun and doing his job was important, too, since he was now a guardian of society, a righter of wrongs, a protector of the innocent, one of the forces of order from which came civilization itself, but this was his chance to be personally involved in what civilization really was, the raising of kids in the right way, educating and guiding them to do the Right Thing, even at three in the morning and half asleep. Maybe the kid would be a spook/soldier like him, or maybe even better, a physician like Pats, an important and good part of society, serving others. Those things could only happen if he and Pats did the job right, and that responsibility was the greatest that any person could undertake. Domingo looked forward to it, lusted to hold his child in his arms, to kiss and cuddle, to change diapers and clean bottoms. He’d already assembled the crib, decorated the walls of the nursery with pink and blue bunnies, and bought toys to distract the little beast, and though all of these things seemed incongruous with his regular life, both he and the men of Rainbow knew different, for all of them had children as well, and for them the covenant was exactly the same. Eddie Price had a boy of fourteen years, somewhat rebellious and decidedly headstrong—probably just as his father had once been—but also bright enough to question everything to seek his own answers, which he would find in due course, just as his father had done. The kid had “soldier” written all over him, Ding thought . . . but with luck he’d go to school first and become an officer, as Price should have done, and would have done in America. Here the system was different, though, and so he’d become a superb command sergeant major, Ding’s most trusted subordinate, always ready to offer his thoughts, and then execute his orders perfectly. Yes, there was much to look forward to, Ding told himself, still holding Patsy’s hand in his own.
“Scared?”
“Not scared, a little nervous,” Patsy admitted.
“Honey, if it were all that hard, how come there’s so many people in the world?”
“Spoken like a man,” Dr. Patricia Chavez noted. “It’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to do it.”
“I’ll be there to help,” her husband promised.
“You better be!”
CHAPTER 23
OVERWATCH
Henriksen arrived at JFK International with his body feeling as though it had been shredded, spindled, and mutilated before being tossed into a wastepaper basket, but that was to be expected. He’d flown literally halfway around the globe in about a day, and his internal body-clock was confused and angry and punishing. For the next week or so, he’d find himself awake and asleep at random times, but that was all right. The right pills and a few drinks would help him rest when rest was needed. An employee was waiting for him at the end of the jetway, took his carry-on without a word, and led off to the baggage-claim area, where, blessedly, his two-suiter was the fifth bag on the carousel, which allowed them to scoot out of the terminal and onto the highway to New York City.
“How was the trip?”
“We got the contract,” Henriksen told his man, who was not part of the Project.
“Good,” the man said, not knowing how good it was, and how bad it would be for himself.
Henriksen buckled his seat belt and leaned back to catch a few winks on the way in, ending further conversation.
“So, what do we got?” the FBI agent asked.
“Nothing so far,” d’Allessandro replied. “I have one other possible missing girl, same area for her apartment, similar looks, age, and so forth, disappeared around the same time as your Miss Bannister. Name is Anne Pretloe, legal secretary, just vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Jane Does?” the other federal officer asked.
“Nothing that matches. Guys, we have to face the possibility that we have a serial killer loose in the area—”
“But why did this e-mail message come out?”
“How does it match with other e-mails Miss Bannister sent to her dad?” the NYPD detective asked.
“Not very well,” the senior FBI agent admitted. “The one he initially brought into the Gary office looks as though—well, it smells to me like drugs, y’know?”
“Agreed,” d’Allessandro said. “You have others?”
“Here.” The agent handed over six printouts faxed to the New York office. The detective scanned them. They were all perfectly grammatical, and organized, with no misspelling on any of them.
“What if she didn’t send it? What if somebody else did?”
“The serial killer?” the junior FBI agent asked. Then he thought about it, and his face mirrored what he thought. “He’d have to be a real sick one, Mario.”
“Yeah, well, serial killers aren’t Eagle Scouts, are they?”
“Tormenting the families? Have we ever had one like that?” the senior man wondered.
“Not that I know of, Tom, but, like the man said . . .”
“Shit,” observed the senior agent, Tom Sullivan.
“Call Behavioral Sciences in on this one?” the junior agent, Frank Chatham, asked.
Sullivan nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll call Pat O’Connor about it. Next step here, I think we get some flyers printed up with the photo of Mary Bannister and start passing them out on the West Side. Mario, can you get us some cooperation from your people?”
“No problem,” d’Allessandro replied. “If this is what it looks like, I want the fuck before he starts going for some sort of record. Not in my town, guys,” the detective concluded.
“Going to try the Interleukin again?” Barbara Archer asked.
“Yeah.” Killgore nodded. “-3a is supposed to enhance the immune system, but they’re not sure how. I’m not either, but if it has any effect, we need to know about it.”
“What about lung complications?” One of the problems with Interleukin was that it attacked lung tissue, also for unknown reasons, and could be dangerous to smokers and others with respiratory problems.
Another nod. “Yeah, I know, just like -2, but F4 isn’t a smoker, and I want to make sure that -3a doesn’t do anything to compromise Shiva. We can’t take that chance, Barb.”
“Agreed,” Dr. Archer observed. Like Killgore, she didn’t think that this new version of Interleukin was the least bit helpful, but that had to be confirmed. “What about Interferon?”
“The French have been trying that on hemorrhagic fever for the last five years, but no results at all. We can hang
that, too, but it’s going to be a dry hole, Barb.”
“Let’s try it on F4 anyway,” she suggested.
“Fair enough.” Killgore made a notation on the chart and left the room. A minute later he appeared on the TV monitor.
“Hi, Mary, how are we feeling this morning? Any better?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Stomach still hurts pretty bad.”
“Oh, really? Let’s see what we can do about that.” This case was proceeding rapidly. Killgore wondered if she had a genetic abnormality in her upper GI, maybe some vulnerability to peptic ulcer disease? . . . If so, then the Shiva was going to rip her apart in a hurry. He increased the morphine dosage rate on the machine next to her bed. “Okay, now we’re going to give you a couple of new medications. These ought to fix you up in two or three days, okay?”
“Are these the ones I signed up for?” F4 asked weakly.
“Yes, that’s right,” Killgore replied, hanging the Interferon and Interleukin-3a on the medication tree. “These ought to make you feel a lot better,” he promised with a smile. It was so odd, talking to his lab rats. Well, as he’d told himself many times, a rat was a pig was a dog was a . . . girl, in this case. There wasn’t really all that much of a difference, was there? No, he told himself this afternoon. Her body relaxed with the increased morphine dose, and her eyes became unfocused. Well, that was one difference, wasn’t it? They didn’t give rats sedatives or narcotics to ease their pain. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, just that there was no practical way to ease their discomfort. It had never pleased him to see those cute pink eyes change from bright to dull, reflecting the pain. Well, in this case, at least, the dullness mirrored a respite from the pain.
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