It was the middle of the night and the coffee shop was deserted, so she placed a call through the Internet to an old friend, using Federal encryption protocols. The phone rang twice before it picked up.
She was glad to hear a familiar voice. "Govind Agrawal."
She kept her voice low, conscious of the barista at the other end of the shop.
"Hey Govey, it's Sam."
"Hi, Sam! That puzzle you gave me is quite the 'doozy,' as you put it. We are getting nowhere very quickly, but I think somewhere rather slowly." Despite the hour his voice was alert and cheerful.
"Well, quicker is better than slower. Lives depend on it."
"I got that impression before, Sam." He paused. "What is it I can do for you today?"
Sam took a deep breath. He wasn't going to like this.
"I need to ask a favor. A huge favor." She didn't have to try to sound desperate.
"If it is in my power, it is yours, my friend."
She smiled. "Wait until you hear what it is. I need to preface this by saying that someone tried to kill me a couple of days ago. Some bad shit is going down, and it involves Emile Frank. He's responsible for the nuclear threat in San Francisco, too." Sort of.
For a moment she heard nothing at all on the other line.
"You are sure of this?"
"As sure as I can be, yeah."
"I have met Doctor Frank on several occasions. He seems to be quite a pleasant man, all in all. I find it difficult to believe that a man in our own government is consorting with terrorists."
"The manhunt is phony," Sam said. "They're not Aryans, and there's no bomb. Trubb is a guy who was working with us, and Palenti is my boss. They're not even named Trubb and Palenti. They found out that Emile Frank is into some serious shit, and next thing we know they're inside a DHS lockdown and the whole goddamn country is out for their blood. Frank also worked for Bailey Pharmaceuticals, the same company that developed the 'cure' you're working on. It's not a coincidence."
Another long pause. "Why do you not turn in Frank yourself? If he has killed a bunch of people with a fake nuclear emergency lockdown, the government will put him away for a million years."
"Remember I said someone tried to kill me? They were in my apartment, waiting for me when I got home. I was shot in the arm. Don't worry, it's not too bad. They've hacked the phone system and are intercepting calls going in to my boss. If I go to work, I'm dead. If I don't, I'm just an anonymous crackpot on the phone who nobody's going to believe."
Govind sighed. "All right. And what do you need me to do?"
Now it was Sam's turn to pause. If he said "no," she didn't have a plan B.
"I need you to help me smuggle three men in my team out of the lockdown area."
Govind didn't say anything for a long time.
"Will you tell me all about the adenovirus?"
Curiosity killed the cat, Govey. "Yes."
"Everything you know? Where it was developed? On whom it was tested? Everything?"
"Absolutely everything."
"Let me make some telephone calls. Call me back in two hours."
Relief flooded through her. Thank God. Worry replaced relief. "I will, but you have to be careful, Govind. These guys knew what I was doing on my FBI computer within minutes of my search."
Govind's reply was flippant. "This is the CDC. Careful is what we do." It didn't reassure her at all.
"Watch yourself, Govey. You've got a family to protect."
"Two hours, Sam." He hung up the phone.
Sam's chair groaned in protest as she leaned back in it. She found herself with two hours to kill and nothing to do. She hated having nothing to do. She looked around the vacant coffee shop. When in Rome. She ordered another latte and two more biscotti.
Chapter 30
February 7th, 3:47 AM PST; St. John's Lutheran Hospital; San Francisco, California.
Gene waited for the police car to pass before he signaled to Doug and Carl. Go! His teammates hustled across the street, heads ducked as if evading sniper fire. Gene trailed, hot on their heels. They crept into an alley that opened into a loading dock in the back of the hospital. Two trucks half-shielded a rusty metal door. One read St. John's Mortuary in stark white letters, the other St. John's Hospital. A quick inspection revealed no one inside.
They traded point positions in a classic leapfrog maneuver, covering one another as they approached the building. Gene moved up to the door while Carl and Doug took defensive positions behind the trucks.
He knocked twice and waited. He knocked again. Ten seconds later, the door opened a crack. A young, scruffy man in wrinkled hospital scrubs favored Gene with a wary look. He said nothing.
Gene spoke. "Don't you ever sleep?"
The man shook his head. "Only on Tuesdays."
Gene stuck out his hand. "Gene Palomini, nice to meet you."
"Ted Sanders. Same. Your crew with you?"
Gene turned around. He didn't see Doug or Carl. He smiled and waved to the alleyway. The men emerged from the shadows, weapons stowed in the duffel bags, and approached the door.
"Get inside," Ted said. "We've got everything set up." He handed them white air filters and put one on himself.
Doug swallowed and put his on. He didn't step inside. "Is there some kind of contamination?"
Ted shook his head. "Nope, but they're doing some asbestos removal one floor down, and this will make you harder to recognize if someone sees you." He walked inside. Doug hesitated, then followed.
They hurried after him, scanning for potential hostiles. Blue industrial tile covered the floors and went halfway up the walls, where it was replaced with white tiles of the same size. Fluorescent lights hung from the exposed metal girders that made up the ceiling, illuminating everything with the same sterile, lifeless glow. Wooden doors, stained with age, punctuated the hallway at regular intervals.
Sanders led the trio through several twists and turns. The subbasement looked the same everywhere, as far as Gene could tell. They followed Sanders through aluminum double doors labeled MORGUE.
Carl crinkled his nose. The morgue smelled of formaldehyde, bleach, and an underlying lemony scent that just served to make the other two that much worse. Gene and Doug had both been through enough morgues not to react.
Four people stood inside, their white lab coats labeled CDC in large blue letters on the front breast and again on the back across the shoulder blades. Three Caucasians and one Indian-looking woman, none of them younger than fifty, turned to look at the FBI agents. The woman shook her head.
"The duffel bags won't do. You must get rid of them." Her accent was Bangladeshi. Her voice was almost sultry but all command. "We will take your gear while you get ready for transport." She stepped aside, leaving a clear view of the tables behind her.
Three black body bags were lined up on three tables, each open and empty. A fourth lay sealed and bulging beside them. Stickers showing the international symbol for Biohazard covered them on every side. The team looked at one another, then at the bags, then at the Bangladeshi woman. Doug started to sweat.
The doctor clapped her hands. "We don't have time to waste, gentlemen. You may keep your underpants but your clothing must go."
They undressed. The lab-coated men came forward and helped them. They took each item of clothing, folded it, and placed it inside clear plastic bags, also labeled Biohazard. Doug trembled with every movement.
Carl grinned at him, misunderstanding. "Wait till you get your socks off. Floor's cold, man."
Doug's face turned ashen. Gene gave him a concerned look. Doug closed his eyes and shook his head. Almost to himself he said, "I'll be all right, Gene."
Gene patted him on the shoulder and finished taking off his clothes. "Excuse me, ma'am, but why are we doing this?"
One of the gentlemen stepped forward and explained. "You can't just leave town, sir. Homeland Security has everything locked up tighter than—" The Bangladeshi gave him a withering stare. "Well, awfully tight. Doctor
Agrawal at CDC Atlanta has an order that he's to be shipped four bodies with a rare Southeast Asian infection, so the disease can be studied. Guess what, gentlemen? You're three of those bodies."
With a sidelong glance at the fourth body bag, Carl raised one eyebrow. "Three of them?"
"Yes," he replied. "The fourth is well sealed and will be transported with you. There had to be some truth to this farce."
Doug looked at Gene, his eyes bloodshot. Sweat dripped from his forehead in spite of the cold, and his face got grayer by the second. Carl dropped his pants and kicked them off to the side. As the black man hopped up onto the table and slid his legs into the bag, Doug stumbled to his knees and retched.
"You sick, Doug?" Carl asked. The doctors ignored the question and rushed to Doug's side. He waved them off.
"I'm okay, I'm okay." He spat and stepped away from the sticky pool on the floor. He looked at Carl and Gene with shame. "Diseases make me nervous."
Carl smiled sympathetically. The Bangladeshi woman stepped forward and took a vial and syringe from her pocket. She grabbed Doug's wrist and pulled. "Stick out your hand." He did so.
She removed two cc's of medicine from the bottle, squirted a little of the liquid out of the syringe, and injected the medicine into his arm.
"What is it?" Doug asked.
"It will calm you. Get undressed and into the bag. We have no time left."
Ninety seconds later they lay in body bags with small, scuba-style oxygen tanks fed into their mouths. The Bangladeshi woman leaned over them and spoke.
"You must not betray your presence with the slightest noise until the plane has left the runway. To do so would jeopardize all of our lives, if Govind is to be believed." She hung a toe tag on each of them. "I don't know what he owed this friend of yours, but I'm certain at this point that they are even and that the three of you owe him much, much more. Be silent until we get you. You have forty minutes of air if you regulate your breathing. So do it." She zipped the bags closed and plunged the world into darkness.
Muffled voices continued another few minutes, then it fell silent.
Doug worked to control his breathing. In the darkness the red Biohazard logo clawed its way into his psyche with directed precision and headed straight for the panic, fight-or-flight center of his primitive subconscious. He'd never considered himself claustrophobic, but the fact that this was a body bag made the enclosure that much worse. The leathery, heavy plastic stank like the morgue. It blocked out even the tiniest traces of light.
He kept his eyes closed against the darkness and concentrated on the facts. Nothing in here is infected. The CDC people are experts. The other body is well sealed. Totally safe. The biohazard symbol flashed across his vision again, but the intensity of the panic dulled, as if filtered through cotton gauze. We're going to be in the air soon. In body bags. With an infected corpse.
He heard Gene's voice in his head. You can do this, Doug. It's like being in a sleeping bag, that's all.
A sleeping bag for dead people.
A sleeping bag. Just relax, everything's going to be fine. Just relax. He knew the voice wasn't real, but he took comfort in it nonetheless.
He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. Better. His heart rate came down, his breathing slowed to an almost normal pace.
See, Doug? No problem. You'll be fine. Just fine.
He tried to shriek when hands grabbed him through the rough plastic of the body bag. He tried to panic. His body didn't move as strong arms lifted him and placed him on a gurney. His heart raced; his adrenaline level shot up. He tried to struggle, but couldn't move.
The world turned fuzzy. The gurney felt soft, like a giant pillow. It rocked like a cradle. It was warm, too. Comfy. Doug Goldman fell into a drugged sleep.
Gene heard voices as they wheeled him down the hallway, the closer one female, the farther one male. They didn't sound familiar.
"So where are these four going?" asked the female voice.
"Helicopter. Rooftop. I guess they're shipping them out somewhere."
"Why these four?"
He couldn't hear the reply over the clatter of the gurney wheels against the tiled floor.
"Yeah. There's some order from the CDC or something. Some sort of killer flu." Her voice was sad. The man asked a question Gene couldn't hear.
"I don't know," she said. "I've only been home twice since all this started. It's bad out there, you know?"
The clattering stopped with the movement. His stomach lurched. Elevator.
"What about you?" the woman asked.
The man grunted. "I live in Marin County. I haven't been home in most of a week. My kid's almost three, got to be missing me big time, and my wife's convinced I'm going to die in a giant fireball."
"Wow." The reply was as automatic as it was stupid. "That sucks."
"Sure does. The sooner this is over, the better."
"Yeah. And the sooner the feds catch those racist assholes and hang them by their balls, the happier we'll all be."
The elevator dinged a final time and came to rest. Gene heard the doors open, then he was on the move again. In the distance he heard the muffled drone of a helicopter. It got louder by the second, until it filled his world with throbbing sound and utter blackness.
Voices he couldn't understand yelled over the noise. He felt the gurney being raised, then rolled. A sliding rush marked the closing of the helicopter door, then he lifted from the earth.
Unlike Doug, Gene had never minded flying. He'd always found it relaxing. What he liked most about it was the view. This experience was different. The only sensations were unpleasant.
The noise was incredible. His body shook with the pounding beat. His stomach lurched with every change in motion. His left knee itched, and he knew he couldn't scratch it. Even his thoughts were unpleasant. Do we know these people don't work for Emile Frank? It would be just wonderful if, instead of being rescued, they were just minutes from being weighted down and dropped into the ocean.
Gene wondered if it was possible to spontaneously develop a simultaneous fear of the dark, drowning, enclosed spaces, infectious diseases, and flying. If any experience would do it, this would be it. He added paranoia and profound pessimism to his list of encroaching mental conditions.
The helicopter touched down with another lurch to his stomach. Even if they do drown us, this day can only get better.
Rough hands lifted him from the gurney. The world dropped out from under him, and he almost wet himself. This is it. We're dead. He hit the ground and suppressed a groan of pain.
"Careful! We don't need postmortem trauma!" It was the woman who'd injected Doug. "Just load them on the plane gently and be on your way."
"Sorry," said the female voice. "I thought he'd be stiffer."
"Rigor mortis is temporary. If you were good at your job, you'd know that. Now hurry up."
"Bitch," the girl muttered.
Two pairs of hands lifted him into the air and out of the helicopter. He felt himself hoisted, carried several dozen steps, then dumped onto something hard that sounded like metal when his head hit it. I guess gentle means something different when you're handling a corpse. He hoped that Doug and Carl were getting better treatment. Three more clangs marked the arrival of the other body bags.
Gene heard what sounded like a large van's sliding door. It closed and muffled the sound of the helicopter outside. He tried to quiet his breathing, but it was hard to do with an oxygen hose stuffed in his mouth.
Five minutes later the world lurched into motion. A minute more and he felt thrust. They had to be on the plane. Here we go. The moment the wheels left the tarmac, the Bangladeshi woman unzipped his bag. She stared down at him with cold brown eyes and tore the breathing apparatus from his mouth.
"I am Doctor Nazeem binte Saleh. Your nervous friend is fast asleep. The paralytic I gave him will dehydrate him. He'll wake with a bad headache and will be needing a lot of water. Welcome to life outside San Francisco, Agent Palomini. We'l
l be touching down in approximately six hours." She handed him a blanket.
He looked around the airplane. The cabin was empty except for Doctor Saleh and two of the doctors from the morgue, plus Carl, Doug, and the corpse. Doug slept in his body bag, the zipper down far enough that he could breathe easily. Carl stretched and let out an enormous yawn. It looked like he'd been napping. "Put your clothes on, Carl," Gene said, as he reached for his own. Gene's attention turned back to Doctor Saleh.
"Tell me, Agent Palomini, why was all this necessary?"
Gene buttoned his shirt. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Maybe someday, but certainly not today. Or tomorrow." He let the implication hang in the air.
Her frown deepened. With a flick of her wrist she produced a business card, severe black lettering on a creamy taupe background. "When someday comes, you will tell me."
He took the card out of her hand, put it in his shirt pocket, and smiled. "I'll do that."
She smiled brightly then. "Yes, you will."
Carl walked over and sat on the plane floor between them.
"Nice nap?" Gene asked.
He leaned back, spoke around a yawn, "Either I'm especially tired, or those bags are especially comfortable." He looked over at Doug. "He's still asleep, huh?"
Doctor Saleh gave Gene an inquisitive look, then turned to Carl. "He is well drugged. Make sure to get plenty of liquid in him when he wakes up."
Carl smiled enthusiastically. "Will do." He looked at Gene. "Hey, where are we going?"
With a smirk, Gene turned to Doctor Saleh.
"Atlanta. You'll be disembarked at CDC headquarters and taken to Govind's lab." She stretched her index finger toward the body bags. "In those."
Carl looked at Doctor Saleh. "What then?"
"Then you're no longer my problem, and Govind owes me a very large favor."
Chapter 31
February 9th, 8:22 AM EST; Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex, WMD Division; Washington, D.C.
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