The Devil's Hand

by Carr, Jack

  He had the shotgun from Colorado in the backseat of the Tahoe, but contrary to popular belief, CIA operatives didn’t typically run around the country with issued weapons. The paramilitary officers and contractors of Ground Branch applied for their concealed-carry permits just like everyone else.

  Reece reached back for the Remington and slid it muzzle down on the passenger side floormat with the stock leaning against the seat next to him.

  At the first opportunity Reece would get back to his safe and rearm.

  Being without a pistol was disconcerting.

  Reece saw the door open and Haley gestured to him to come up.

  Here we go.

  Reece looked at the 870.

  No guns, no jiujitsu…

  He exited the car and walked up the driveway to the house.

  “Come in, Reece. Tom just went to get a notepad and pen. He’s a planner.”

  The first floor of the house looked like it had been constructed well before open floor plans had become the norm. The wood floor creaked just inside the threshold. Reece noticed a sitting area to his left with a large easy chair in the corner. The wall that was visible to Reece was adorned with shelves full of books.

  Reece heard footsteps in the hallway and turned to shake hands with the doctor.

  Instead of a handshake, Reece found himself staring into the working end of a .45-caliber 1911 pistol.

  CHAPTER 62

  “TOM, I TOLD YOU Reece is one of the good ones.”

  Reece slowly moved his hands to what police officers refer to as the interview stance: hands up at about shoulder level, palms out to give the illusion of being nonaggressive and unarmed. In reality it was a fighting stance.

  “Easy, Colonel,” Reece said, his mind naturally calculating distance to target, type of weapon, and additional threats.

  “Tom, put that thing away,” Haley said.

  “Please listen to her, Dr. Garrett. I’m not here to hurt anyone. We need to talk.”

  Reece noted that the colonel’s finger was on the trigger. Normally that would be an issue, but the thumb safety was still up. Reece was not dealing with a gunman.

  “Haley, come over here behind me,” the colonel said.

  His left hand held a cell phone.

  “Mr. Reece, you are all over the news tonight. I have to call the police.”

  “News?” Reece asked.

  “Yeah, video of murders in Maryland, Chicago, and Atlanta.”

  “Tom,” Haley said, jumping in, “I was with Reece and Katie after they were attacked in Maryland. It certainly wasn’t murder.”

  “I don’t know what it is, but I’m calling the police.”

  “Please don’t do that, Doctor,” Reece said in an even-measured tone.

  “And, why not?”

  “Because if you do, you are sealing the fate of half a million Americans, citizens of the country you serve. Let’s put down the pistol and talk. If, by the time we finish, you still want to call the police, then there is nothing I can do. You are the last hope the people of Aurora and Richardson have.”

  Colonel Garrett’s eyes went from Reece to Haley and back to Reece.

  “Haley explained what you want me to do,” Garrett said, keeping the pistol pointed at Reece. “A sample of the Marburg Variant U? Are you insane? If we had a sample, and I am not saying we do, it would be classified and for research purposes only.”

  “Tom, if there is a sample at Fort Detrick, I need it to do a genomic sequence analysis and an EM comparison,” Haley said. “Imagine what would happen with an official request. How long it would take to get what would be a denial of even having it when a sample is stored fifty miles from here and can prove that what’s happening in Aurora and Richardson is an aerosolized Marburg Variant U bioweapon and not a respiratory-spread airborne virus?”

  “I didn’t say we have a sample.”

  “But, if you did, how could we get it?” Reece asked.

  “You are talking about stealing a bioweapon that the United States denies having, a weapon that would put us in violation of several international treaties of which the country is a signatory.”

  “That’s right,” Reece confirmed. “Think about your oath as a doctor.”

  “Over my oath to country?” Garrett countered.

  “Doctor,” Reece said, intentionally not using Garrett’s rank to frame his position. “This is about saving lives. Your oaths to your profession and to the nation support this action. Imagine, a bioweapon developed in the Soviet Union to destroy this country can now be used for the exact opposite of its intended purpose. It can save two American cities and prevent a disaster unprecedented in American history. It’s up to us. No one else is coming. No one else can stop this.”

  “Tom, please,” Haley said.

  “Do you realize that assuming this virus from the Cold War was weaponized into aerosolized bacteria and was capable of targeted deployment, and assuming a Fort Detrick lab contained a potential sample of Marburg Variant U, you are asking me to commit treason, be court-martialed, and to spend the remainder of my life in Leavenworth? Treason, Haley.”

  “Dr. Garrett, I’m going to slowly reach in my pocket, okay?” Reece stated. “I’m going to take out a phone and make a call.”

  “I don’t understand,” Garrett said, raising the 1911.

  “I think this will help,” Reece said, taking out a small flip phone.

  “Who are you calling, Reece?” Haley asked.

  Reece deliberately opened the phone with his left hand, keeping the right one up to signify that he was not a physical threat. He pressed in a memorized ten-digit number and held it up to his ear.

  On the second ring the phone connected.

  “Sir, it’s Reece. We are close. I need you to verify and condone.”

  To Garrett’s questioning look, Reece held out the phone.

  “Colonel Garrett, the president of the United States would like a word.”

  CHAPTER 63

  COLONEL GARRETT’S FIRST CALL after his conversation with the president was to his research partner Major Courtney Burke. The second was to the lab security supervisor at Fort Detrick. The third was to John Culpepper, the lab’s lead animal technician. It was out of the ordinary to plan an unscheduled experiment in a level-four bio-containment facility on a weekend. Stranger still when that facility housed the Bat Cave.

  Garrett dialed Major Burke.

  They were seated around a small round kitchen table. Reece hadn’t noticed any pictures of children or the toys that go along with them. They were alone.

  “Courtney, it’s Tom. I just received a call from General Keating. He’s concerned about the results from the last trial. Inconclusive. And with everything going on in Texas and Colorado, he’s getting pressure to do an Ebola Zaire respiratory spread test to compare to past results. Yep. Tomorrow morning, 0600. Thanks, Courtney. Have a good night. See you in the morning.”

  “Think she bought it?” Reece asked.

  “Let’s hope so,” Garrett replied. “These are unprecedented times so it’s conceivable. This isn’t a request coming completely out of the blue. I think we are good. It’s still the military, after all: general to colonel to major. Even in the medical corps we remain rigidly flexible.”

  “Colonel, in the SEAL Teams we would ‘red cell’ different bases and facilities.”

  “I think you can call me Tom now. We are about to steal a bioweapon together, after all. And, what does ‘red cell’ mean?”

  “All right. Tom. ‘Red cell’ was originally a team of SEALs that tested security on military installations.”

  “I think I remember reading a book about it.”

  “You probably did. They did their job a little too well.”

  “Got in a bit of trouble, if I recall.”

  “That they did. The term is now used to reference thinking about a problem from the enemy’s point of view. If you were a terrorist, how would you strike?”

  “Ah, I see,” Dr. Garrett said.r />
  “So, in this case, you have been going into these secure level-four bio-containment facilities for years. Have you ever thought through how you, or how an adversary would gain access?”

  Garrett nodded his head.

  “Okay, let’s start there,” Reece said. “And remember, it’s important to think like a terrorist.”

  CHAPTER 64

  National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center

  Fort Detrick, Maryland

  AT 0530 TOM GARRETT pulled his Jeep Cherokee up to the front gate of Fort Detrick. He rolled down his window and handed the contracted security officer his military identification.

  The guard force was an assortment of military police and private security contractors. The portly guard was dressed in a blue shirt and dark pants to give him the illusion of being a police officer, replete with a gold badge on the front of his black plate carrier.

  “Morning, Colonel,” he said, scanning Dr. Garrett’s ID with an RFID scanner.

  “Morning,” Garrett responded.

  Reece and Haley held up their military IDs. The guard nodded. Haley had a military ID as a dependent and Reece had one as part of his CIA alias credentials package. Despite being the site of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center and the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick was a military base like any other. It had a gym, fire department, PX, commissary, barracks, and housing. Those with the proper identification could come and go as they would on any other military base. Things took a decidedly different turn in the facilities that the United States government denied even existed. Accomplishing their mission in those secure areas would require some ingenuity.

  The colonel dropped Reece and Haley off at the base gym. They were dressed in workout clothes and looked like anyone else out for a run to start the day. Garrett had loaned Reece some ill-fitting and brightly colored workout attire. Fort Detrick had recently amended its reflective belt policy; soldiers were now free to go for a run without the belts if they were wearing bright-colored clothing. Garrett didn’t have reflective belts, so Reece and Haley were dressed in a way that would pass inspection from an overzealous first sergeant looking to bolster his ego on an early Saturday morning.

  “You ready?” Reece asked.

  “Yes. Just don’t hurt anyone.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They made their way to a grassy area for a pre-run stretch, keeping their eyes on Porter Street for a red lifted Ram 2500 truck belonging Fort Detrick’s lead animal handler.

  Traffic was light on a Saturday morning, even lighter with most people at home glued to their televisions watching the unrest in and around the containment zones.

  At just before 6:30 a.m., a large four-by-four lumbered down the main road in front of the gym and turned left onto Freedman Drive.

  “That’s him,” Reece said. “Give him a minute to get settled and then it’s go time.”

  * * *

  Colonel Garrett and Major Burke passed the four air locks within the bio-containment level-four area, going through what to them was a routine process of preparing their bodies and minds for their experiment. Their naked skin was first washed in a warm soapy spray, then in UV light. They donned their disposable “bunny suits,” and finally zipped themselves into the impervious rubber of their bio-protective suits and attached the power cords and oxygen hoses that served as their lifelines.

  They moved to their assigned alphanumeric keypads against the false wall and entered their seven-digit access codes.

  Colonel Garrett half-expected the green light to instead blink red, but it recognized the code and permitted the doctor to move to the next phase of the access sequence. He looked into a small keyhole camera as Major Burke did the same, a laser biometrically scanning their faces. With identities confirmed and access granted, their clearances were reviewed by a guard at a remote site who then hit a button to allow them into the inner sanctum of bioweapons research. The guard watched as he had thousands of times before as the two researchers passed into the Bat Cave and beyond the reach of video cameras. What happened behind those doors was known only to those who entered.

  * * *

  Compartmentalization was used to prevent the right hand from knowing what the left hand was doing. “Need to know” and various levels of classification were part of the protections that safeguarded America’s best-kept secrets. Those walls and barriers also prevented assorted agencies of the federal government from communicating in the lead-up to 9/11. Unable to share intelligence and information, those protective barriers allowed terrorists from abroad to enter the country and take flying lessons. Now Reece was going to use that same compartmentalization to steal one of the deadliest pathogens in existence.

  He and Haley jogged on the sidewalk not far from the gym, looking like any normal couple getting in some exercise before the commissary opened for business. Beneath a fluorescent zip-up windbreaker to ward off the cold, Reece wore a fanny pack they had pulled from the back of a closet at the Garretts’ home. Inside were his Marshal credentials, zip ties, duct tape, and the 1911 that Colonel Garrett had held on him the night before. It turned out to be a gift from his father. Colonel Garrett had shot it once with his dad and then packed it away in a box. Reece had given it a quick clean and done a function check. It was loaded with 230-grain, full-metal-jacket .45 ACP. When Reece shook it, it had rattled. That was part of the beauty of the old-school .45s. The parts were interchangeable on a battlefield far from home. Reece trusted that the one he carried would work. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to take any long shots.

  Colonel Garrett had sketched out a detailed diagram of the animal research facility that was separate but attached to the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. Its security cameras were a closed-circuit network to prevent animal rights activists from somehow hacking the system to show the world what was taking place of the grounds of Fort Detrick. On a Saturday there would be five people assigned to the one experiment. Two security guards would monitor the closed-circuit cameras while three animal technicians would sedate the primate and load it onto the stainless-steel tray for delivery into the level-four laboratory.

  As Reece and Haley approached the parking area that Tom Garrett had sketched out, Reece looked at his watch.

  “They should be inside. Let’s do this.”

  They veered off the sidewalk and over a grassy mound, dropping down onto the parking lot of an unmarked building that was a nonhuman primate housing and quarantine facility. Five cars were in the parking lot near a loading dock of what looked like a warehouse. Reece and Haley bounded up the steps to a back entrance and stopped by a steel door with a camera attached above.

  Reece removed his Marshals creds and held them up to the camera. He took a last look at Haley and knocked on the door.

  CHAPTER 65

  JOHN CULPEPPER HAD BEEN an animal handler for almost thirty years. His wife and kids thought he was a veterinarian assistant attached to a benign animal research institute run by the U.S. Army. None of them knew that he cared for primates that were part of a top-secret bioweapons development program. Culpepper didn’t exactly know that himself but after all these years, he had his suspicions. He had signed nondisclosures and had to submit to a periodic background investigation but that was the extent of it. He knew that once a month, trucks arrived in the middle of the night with primates from a facility in Texas. He would supervise the transfer to their new facility, where he would care for them until he was given instructions to prepare one for delivery to the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center next door. He liked to believe the research was vital to national security. Even so, knowing what would happen to them, it was never easy to sedate one of the strong animals and load it onto the tray. After that, the system was automated. He knew the body would be incinerated after the experiment. Once loaded onto the tray, he’d never see the primate again.

  Coming in on a Saturday was no
t normal but these were anything but normal times. He’d been expecting it. Though he didn’t know what went on at the end of the incineration tunnel, he knew it had to do with infectious diseases. He had read enough online over the years to know that the Army was probably developing vaccines to protect soldiers from contagious viruses in the more tropical parts of the world.

  He said hello to Carl and Scott, who watched the cameras to make sure the primates were all in their cages. Someone monitored the cameras 24/7. If they noticed a problem, they had a flowchart to follow with an associated phone tree. More often than not, those calls went to John and the veterinarian. Most of the time it was because an animal got sick and had to be either treated or euthanized so as not to infect the entire population.

  Carl was engrossed in the latest Brad Thor thriller and would glance up from time to time to observe the screens. Scott hit pause on his iPhone long enough to say hello. He was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast where the podcaster was somehow discussing psychedelic drugs and bow hunting with Cam Hanes in the same episode.

  A small locker room was attached to the security station. Here John and his two subordinate animal technicians changed into the PPE they were required to wear when handling the primates: a white lab coat over a tan flight suit, steel-toed shoes, a surgical mask with clear plastic goggles, and arm-length bite-resistant gloves of Kevlar and stainless-steel mesh to prevent an animal from breaking the skin if they attacked. His PPE was designed to protect from the physical threat of animals whose strength was four times that of a human. Even when the animals were sedated, the National Research Council mandated that technicians be protected, just in case.

  When they were ready and had buddy-checked one another to ensure they were all following the proper safety protocols, he let Carl know he was going in. Carl looked up from his book and gave a little wave before turning his attention back to the page.