by Hank Parker
Parnell also knew that his fellow journalists hadn’t helped matters. While he felt that his front-page article about the Middle Valley town meeting had been factual, detailed, and, he hoped, objective, other reports had been sensational, even lurid, building with teasers like “Deadly Epidemic Strikes Rural Pennsylvania Town” and climaxing in breathless accounts of historic global scourges like the black death. Several quoted retired infectious disease experts who provided graphic accounts of deaths from flu pandemics and gruesome hemorrhagic diseases like Ebola and, in some cases, drew sobering links between environmental degradation, global climate change, and the inexorable spread of worldwide plagues.
Even the Inquirer had helped fan the flames. He thought back to the paper’s provocative editorial following the Middle Valley town meeting: The officials’ airy assurances and dismissive responses to the queries of concerned residents raised more questions than they answered. For instance, if the scientists are confident that the disease is not dangerous to humans, why is the town being quarantined? Why are so many animals—including pets, livestock, and wildlife—being sacrificed? Would the armed soldiers encircling the town shoot a fleeing resident who disobeys an order to halt? Is the disease far more serious than the experts are admitting? Is Middle Valley expendable?
Parnell turned his attention to the other side of the fence, where a smaller group had gathered, many with dogs on leashes or other pets cradled in their arms. The assemblage included a rider on horseback.
The crowd in the park had started to chant, repeating the same refrain, over and over: “Free the animals! Stop the slaughter!” A tall, lanky young man with curly, longish brown hair and wearing a bright green T-shirt with an Animal Rights League logo, led the chant, bellowing through a bullhorn. Other green T-shirts speckled the crowd. There were several TV cameras and reporters with microphones. To Parnell, it was obvious that this was not a spontaneous demonstration. Its seeds had been planted back at Middle Valley.
Parnell didn’t fault the authorities for the actions they’d taken. The disease had to be contained, and from what he’d learned about its virulence, enacting a quarantine and sacrificing exposed animals was the only feasible response. But the communications had been a disaster—clumsy, misleading, even arrogant.
He watched as the young man in the green T-shirt approached a National Guard soldier and screamed at him through the bullhorn, “Let them out!” The young soldier stiffened, but his face remained impassive and he stared straight ahead. His fingers tightened around his gun. The crown began to yell louder. Parnell edged back. This could get ugly. He could see that the soldier was trying to remain professional, not making eye contact, the training kicking in. But his lips were pressed tightly together and Parnell detected a slight tremor in his face. The protester would have seen that too, would have sensed the fear. If this was a veteran demonstrator, Parnell thought, he should know enough to back off. A young, inexperienced Guardsman could be unpredictable.
A shout erupted from the other side of the fence. The horse and rider had approached the border. The helmeted rider appeared to be a female. The horse pawed and stamped at the ground. The rider was bending low, head alongside the horse’s neck, whispering in the animal’s ear. The young man turned away from the soldier, toward the horse and rider, and raised his hand to the horsewoman in what appeared to Parnell to be a sign of recognition, a greeting.
Now he was bellowing into the megaphone again, directing a new chant at the crowd on both sides. One word, repeated over and over. “Go! Go! Go! Go!” The man was crazy, thought Parnell. Should he intervene? No, that was the Guards’ job. He was just a reporter. But now the crowd began to pick up the chant.
Parnell watched the horse and rider, hoping they wouldn’t respond, knowing they probably would. The rider turned the horse, walked it back about fifty feet from the fence, and turned it again. The crowd’s attention was now totally focused on horse and rider. The chants grew louder. Parnell looked around the crowd. Where was the Guard commander? There. A lieutenant, looked like he could still be in college. Come on, Parnell thought. Take charge.
The rider was still leaning forward, her cheek against her horse’s shoulder, her hand caressing its forehead. The young Guard commander was staring hard at the demonstrator leading the chant. Please, mouthed Parnell. Get control.
Finally, the officer moved up to the fence, turned, and faced the chanting crowd. Standing straight, with his hands clasped behind his back, he began to speak. Come on, talk louder, thought Parnell. The throng continued to chant. “Go! Go! Go!” The Guardsman raised his voice, trying to project over the cries. Parnell was close enough that he could hear the officer. He was trying to reason with the demonstrators. You’re going to have to be a lot more forceful than that, the reporter thought. He turned and looked over the fence at the horse and rider, who were directly facing the fence. The woman continued to bend low over her horse’s neck and whisper into its ear.
Then, with a sick feeling of helplessness, Parnell watched the crowd on both sides of the fence clear an opening, like a runway, leaving only the National Guard soldiers standing their ground. He quickly backed away, keeping his eyes on the horse and rider. He reached the far edge of the crowd, positioned himself on a slight elevation where he had a clear view, and waited, hoping against hope.
It happened quickly. Parnell saw the woman apply pressure to her horse’s sides with the heels of her riding boots. The horse moved forward in a steady canter, the rider erect in the saddle. The crowd was now cheering. Steps away from the fence, the horse dipped its neck and lowered its front legs, effecting a braking action that brought the rear legs farther under its body. As the rider leaned forward, the horse, in a fluid motion, now shortened its neck, shrugged its shoulders, and shifted its weight back, momentarily compressing the hind legs before they quickly flexed upward in a sudden, graceful surge of power.
As his reporter’s eye fixed these details in his mind, Parnell watched the horse arc over the barrier, clearing it by at least a foot.
For what seemed like an eternity to Parnell, but which he later determined could not have been more than a second or two, the crowd fell silent. All motion, except that of horse and rider, seemed to stop.
Then everything seemed to move at once. A National Guard soldier in the pathway of the leaping horse stepped forward. He raised his rifle. With horse and rider still in the air, the soldier fired off a quick volley. The rider flew off the horse, hit the ground, rolled several times, and came to a stop, where she lay motionless. The horse, blood gushing from the right side of its neck, continued to gallop, scattering the crowd, before its forelegs buckled and it pitched headfirst to the ground.
For a moment no one reacted. Then, led by Green T-shirt, the crowd surged toward the soldier who’d fired the shot, screaming profanities. The scenes and sounds registered in Parnell’s mind like jerky frames in an early talkie movie. Demonstrators enveloping the soldier. Thudding sounds and muffled screams. Other Guardsmen moving in, rifles at the ready. The Guard commander bellowing into a bullhorn. The sharp report of another gunshot. A demonstrator going down. Another demonstrator holding a rifle wrestled away from a Guardsman. The Guard commander now speaking into a two-way radio. Reporters and TV crews rushing to their cars and mobile vans. The piercing wails of approaching sirens.
Parnell shook his head and scribbled furiously in his notebook. Now everything has changed, he thought.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AUGUST 28
CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Mariah turned quickly toward the entrance lane and saw a cloud of dust rising above the cornstalks and funneling rapidly in their direction. At the rate it was moving it would be on them in less than a minute.
“Get the car!” Curt yelled. As Mariah raced to her Subaru he retrieved the cutting instrument, stepped off the pallet, tossed it into a nearby patch of high weeds, and gathered up the rest of his t
ools.
Mariah pulled alongside Curt and slowed enough to allow him to open the door and jump in. She glanced in the rearview mirror. No sign of the vehicle yet, but the dust cloud had almost reached the clearing.
Curt pointed toward the cornfield. “That way,” he said. “Stay to the edge.”
She followed a rutted tractor lane at the boundary of the field. It had been dry lately and an early-morning rain had already evaporated from exposed surfaces, but she hoped it was still damp enough in the shade of the corn to keep some of the dust down. The corn wasn’t quite high enough to hide the car.
They were a hundred yards into the lane when she saw a white, late-model van in her side-view mirror. She opened her mouth to tell Curt.
“I see it,” he said, his eyes on the side-view mirror. “Can you go any faster?”
Mariah pressed down on the accelerator. The car started to skid on the firm soil, kicking up clods of dirt. Had they been spotted?
“Van stopped in front of the house,” Curt said, twisting around to look behind him. “Two guys. They got out. Walking around the house now.”
Mariah let out the breath she realized she’d been holding. If the men in the van had seen them driving off, they would have followed. But she knew that it would only be a short time before they checked the garage. They’d see the displaced pallet and the matted grass below the window. They might even discover the scoring in the windowpane. They’d certainly find the tire tracks in the field. They’d put two and two together.
She drove as fast as she could over the rough terrain. They soon reached a hedgerow at the end of the field. Curt pointed toward a gap in the hedge that provided access to farm tractors. A paved road lay just beyond. Mariah shot through the gap and jerked the wheel. The car fishtailed on the dirt and slid onto the asphalt surface. The tires gripped the road.
Soon they were heading south on Homeville Road. Mariah was breathing so hard that she could barely hear the tires humming along the asphalt. Her pounding heart felt like it was trying to force its way out of her chest. Curt’s voice came from a long way away.
“Nice driving,” he said. “You looked like a pro back there.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, grateful for his efforts to calm her down but unable to get into a joking mood. “Think we shook them?”
“Maybe,” said Curt.
But then Mariah glanced at the rearview mirror and pressed her lips together to hold back a violent expletive. “I think they’re behind us,” she said.
Curt turned around. “Floor it. We should be able to outrun them.”
Mariah depressed the accelerator as far as it would go. A light rain had resumed and was beginning to speckle the dusty windshield. Her chest tightened as if a giant had her in a bear hug. It seemed to be pushing blood into her head. She started to get dizzy. She pressed a button to crack her window, and air rushed in, buffeting her upper body and clearing her head. She raised the window back up but left a gap of several inches at the top. The speedometer read ninety-five.
She glanced again in the rearview mirror. The van was keeping up. Was it closing? Her gaze darted over to Curt. His eyes were fixed on his side-view mirror.
“They must have a supercharger in that thing,” he said. “Can you get any more speed?”
“Only on downgrades. What are we going to do?”
“Just keep driving as fast as you can. Maybe we’ll find a side road after a curve and slip in there before they see us again.”
The rural two-lane road had plenty of curves as it twisted through the countryside, but Mariah couldn’t see any turnoffs. The road was now starting to slicken with rain. Narrow gravel shoulders separated the pavement from deep drainage ditches. Mariah struggled to control the car on the wet, winding surface. The van was still closing. There was nothing she could do about it; she couldn’t go any faster. The gap narrowed. The bastards must be doing well over a hundred, she thought. Curt was quiet. She figured he didn’t want to distract her. Or maybe he was pondering a strategy. The van was right behind them now.
They moved onto a long, straight section of road. A burgundy Volvo wagon approached from the other direction, the first car Mariah had seen since they had entered Homeville Road. Maybe she could get their attention. She flashed her lights several times in succession. The oncoming car slowed down. It passed her. Mariah could see a couple in the front seat and a small face pressed to the back window. The driver gave a friendly wave, oblivious, probably thinking she was simply warning them of a cop ahead. Then the car was gone. Mariah despaired. Couldn’t they see that she was being chased by the van?
The van was now riding the rear bumper of the Subaru. Was their plan just to crash into her? Mariah had kept the accelerator to the floor, but the van was much faster. She saw it swing into the oncoming lane, and it pulled alongside her. The front passenger window rolled down. Mariah could make out two men in the front seat wearing dark wool caps pulled low over their foreheads. The passenger extended his right arm out of the open window.
Mariah screamed and ducked just as a bright flash erupted from the van window. She heard glass shattering and felt sharp fragments falling on her face. She smelled acrid smoke. Her hands had come off the steering wheel and she saw Curt reaching for it. She heard the Subaru’s tires biting into dirt, then felt a weightless sensation. Airborne, she thought uselessly. Then, simply: the end, nothing, black.
* * *
Doctor Vector slammed down the phone. “Goddamn idiots,” he snarled under his breath. He should never have gotten involved with a sleeper cell. That had been Omar’s idea: use well-trained, America-hating fanatics for on-the-ground operations here and overseas and tell them only what they needed to know. They’d die for the cause, Omar had said, and even if they knew too much, they weren’t likely to reveal it—especially since the United States now considered waterboarding a form of torture. But Vector knew that these terrorists could be brutal and about as subtle as attack dogs. And sure enough, they’d chased down and killed the man and the woman who’d discovered the garage lab when all that was called for was a good cover story for plausible deniability. But now it would be all over the press.
But the mission would not be compromised. Vector was sure of that. All of the elements of the main plot remained in place and were clicking along nicely. He would find a way to deal with this latest setback.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AUGUST 29
PHILADELPHIA
Mariah was back in quarantine. She had to be, she decided as she struggled to open her eyes against the pounding in her head. The walls all around her were stark white. There was a TV monitor on a ceiling bracket beyond the foot of the sterile, steel bed. But slowly she realized she wasn’t alone. She had company. A face swam into focus, above her and just to her left. Curt’s face. Curt. Had he become infected too?
“Hey, Mariah,” he said softly. “Glad to see you awake. You’ve been out for a while.”
Mariah tried to sit up. Something was tugging at her arm. Curt was standing beside her with what she now recognized as a worried look.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re on an IV.”
“In a hospital?” asked Mariah, taking in her surroundings.
“You don’t remember anything?”
Mariah pressed a hand over her eyes and didn’t answer. What was there to remember?
“After the guys in the van fired at us—you recall that?”
Now pieces floated back to her. “Okay,” she said. “Homeville Road. The Volvo. The van pulled beside us. A gun . . .”
“Yes,” Curt said gently. “After they fired at us, we went off the road, hit a tree, and caught fire. The guys in the van must have thought we were gone. They drove off. I got their plate number. We got a lucky break. The driver of that Volvo that passed us going in the other direction saw the accident in his rearview, turned around, and came back. Had a
fire extinguisher, by some grace of God. He doused the flames and pulled us out. Brave guy.”
Mariah looked closely at Curt. “Were you hurt?” she asked.
“Just a couple of cuts and a bang on the head. I’m fine. You should be okay too. You had a mild concussion, but should be back to normal pretty quickly. But for now you just need some rest.” Curt smiled down at her. “I’ll be back a little later to see how you’re doing.”
* * *
Later that morning at the Barn, Curt Kennedy settled into a chair in Frank Hoffman’s office and studied his boss’s face: thin lips pressed into a narrow line, deeply furrowed brow, dark circles under the eyes. The man hasn’t slept, thought Kennedy. And he’s pissed. Not that I blame him.
“How’s Mariah doing?” asked Hoffman.
“Concussion, but she’ll be okay,” said Kennedy. He found that he had clasped his hands together as he spoke. Thinking of Mariah lying unconscious in the hospital bed, before she came around, made his jaw clench. “Overnight in the hospital. They’ll be springing her sometime this afternoon.”
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Hoffman asked, his eyes locked on to Kennedy’s.
“Somebody was coming out of the freezer room when we got there yesterday,” said Kennedy. “They were obviously in a hurry. I thought we ought to follow them. Good thing we did. They were driving a government sedan.”
“You’re suggesting this is an inside job?” Hoffman’s arms were resting on his desk and Kennedy could see that his fists were alternately clenching and relaxing. He wouldn’t bring up his concerns about Hoffman’s key control.
“Not necessarily,” he said cautiously. “But it’s a reasonable assumption. Look, Frank, I’m sorry I went out there behind your back. I figured I’d better act quickly. And you were out of town.”