A Heartbeat Away (11 page)

“Wait,” one of the soldiers behind Griff said.

The group turned. He was an African American, with the broad shoulders and narrow waist of a serious weight lifter. Now, the soldier stood motionless, holding his right arm out. The tape safeguarding his wrist had been torn away, and the weld between the hand and arm was ripped, exposing his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Griff whispered, placing his arm around the shoulders of the man who had quite possibly saved Griff’s life at the cost of his own. “I’m really sorry.”

Without a word, the soldier set his rifle down, placed his helmet beside it, turned, and head high, walked back into Statuary Hall.

For a time, no one could speak.

“Let’s hope you’re worth it, pal,” one of the other men said finally. “Let’s hope you’re worth it.”

The group was led down a hallway to a nondescript door just outside the House Chamber.

“The president is waiting for you inside,” an agent said.

Griff inhaled deeply, then exhaled and opened the door. From his seat at the desk inside the small office, James Allaire rose. For a time, the two men stood several feet apart, sizing each other up.

“You’re lying to these people.”

“I’m the goddamn president of this country. I do what I feel is necessary to maintain order and protect the citizens. I’m counting on you to save their lives.”

“You were wrong about me. You know that? I’m not a terrorist.”

“Well then, prove it.”

CHAPTER 17

DAY 2
8:00 A.M. (EST)

The exterior of the S&S Trading Co. mirrored the other garages and rundown brick warehouses lining a quarter-mile stretch of K Street in southeast D.C. Reports of decreased violence in the notoriously high-crime neighborhood amounted to little more than the city’s well-connected Economic Council responding to a steady inflow of landlord payoffs. Homicides were up, prostitution was up, and tax revenues were down. Agitation was increasing to clean up the area in preparation for gentrification, and sooner or later there would be a big-time crackdown.

But not that night.

With every cop in D.C. summoned to the Capitol, patrols were essentially nonexistent, and the street people were out in force. Teenage drug dealers and over-the-hill hookers strolled past the S&S Trading Co. without giving the building a second thought. From the street, they could not see the sophisticated array of satellite dishes set dead center on the roof. Beyond the massive steel sliding door, painted a nondescript reddish brown, two men sat at opposite sides of a folding table, smoking cigars, drinking coffee, and playing cards. The men, one African American, the other Caucasian, were dressed in military fatigues.

A naked bulb dangled from a cord suspended a few feet above them. Smoke drifted through the shaft of light. Seated to one side of the dimly lit space was a third man, copper-skinned and wiry, with a once-handsome face that was marred by a spectacular scar running from his forehead through his brow and down his right cheek. He was paying no attention to the others. Instead, wearing headphones, he was fixed on a wall-mounted bank of a dozen video monitors.

The images on each of the screens automatically changed every three minutes, along with the sound associated with it. A joystick enabled the man to adjust the angle and distance of the views projected by the concealed cameras, positioned throughout the United States Capitol building. There were several of them he could zoom in close enough to read the number plates on the seats in the House Chamber, and he could rotate another pair 360 degrees to observe the chaos unfolding in Statuary Hall.

There was room for a second operator at the bank of screens, but at the moment one man was handling them by himself.

Suddenly a speaker, mounted on the wall just above the monitor bank, crackled to life, disrupting the quiet, and actually startling the man, whose name was Alex Ramirez. Ramirez, an electronics expert who had soldiered in a dozen or more wars around the globe, glanced up at the cameras he had installed—cameras that were now monitoring him and the others in the S&S Trading Company.

“I don’t pay you goof-offs to play cards,” a disembodied male voice boomed out. “Get back in the garage and work on the equipment. Ramirez, where’s Fink?”

The other men stopped playing cards and redirected their attention toward the monitors on which they were featured.

“Fink’s catching some Z’s in the back room,” Ramirez said.

“Well, wake him up,” the voice barked.

Ramirez swiveled his chair around.

“Hey, goof-offs, on your way back to the garage, can one of you guys go and wake up Fink. Tell him it’s Cain.”

Ramirez had recognized Cain’s voice.

“If you men follow orders,” he had said that first day, “you’ll be rewarded to the degree that Matt Fink discussed with each of you. If you question our patriotism or refuse to follow any directives, you will be permanently and painfully retired from this unit and from your life.”

The wall-mounted speakers became active again.

“Ramirez, take manual control of camera nine and queue it up for Fink,” Cain said. “I want him to see what’s going on.”

The man spoke with the confident authority Ramirez had grown accustomed to obeying over his years in various armies.

Cain, Genesis
—cute. As always, Ramirez chuckled at the notion of how his Bible-toting, God-obsessed mother, had she lived past fifty, would have taken to his working for people who based their operation on the scriptures, and in particular on Genesis, her favorite book of the Old Testament.

Poor, deluded old gal.

Through a number of missions together, Ramirez had developed complete trust in his friend Matt Fink. First, though, he had to survive nearly having his throat slit for making a casual remark about the mercenary’s name.

“It was my father’s name and his father’s name before him,” Fink had said, holding Ramirez a foot off the floor with one hand, and brandishing his huge knife with the other. “The first man I killed thought it was a good idea to make fun of it.”

Initially, Ramirez had doubts about this particular job. For a time after signing on with Genesis, he kept those doubts to himself. Then the first payment hit his Swiss bank account and his apprehension vanished like the darkness of the first day. As long as those payouts continued, he decided, he would gladly light a frigging candle on his knees if that’s what Genesis wanted.

How’s that, Mama?

Matt Fink’s heavy footsteps echoed in the spacious, high-ceilinged warehouse as he strode over to where Ramirez sat. Fink always slept lightly, and never far away from a weapon—most often his bowie knife or his Luger, and at other times, both. The men liked to joke that sometime, during a nightmare, the giant would shoot himself and slit his own throat. By the time Fink reached the screens, he was wide awake and fully alert. He waved up at the camera.

“Hey, there, Cain, old sport. What’s up?”

“Are you aware of what’s happening at the Capitol?”

“There have been no reports of any incidents that jeopardize our mission.”

“Ramirez, zoom camera nine in on the group in the biosuits. They entered the building a little while ago.”

Ramirez pressed a button on his control panel. The monitor labeled
CAMERA NUMBER NINE
flickered as the image auto-focused on the targets. The recording showed seven individuals dressed in biocontainment gear making their way like lunar explorers across the polished marble floor.

“They’re military,” Fink said. “We expected this would happen. It does nothing to compromise our efforts.”

“Six of them are soldiers,” Cain replied, “but who in the hell is the one with the beard?”

Fink peered at the screen, then leaned forward and took over control of the camera himself.

“Let me get a decent close-up of him,” Fink said.

“Don’t move that apparatus too much. I don’t want them to know they’re being watched until it’s time.”

“Anything you say, sport.”

“And stop calling me sport.”

“I’m from bleedin’ South Africa. We’d call the Pope sport.”

“And while you’re working on that,” Cain said, “can you guys explain to me how we lost visual of the president for over forty-five minutes?”

“There must be a dead space where our cameras can’t pick him up,” Ramirez offered.

“Impossible,” Cain shot back. “We had every inch of that building covered. Someone screwed up.”

“Couldn’t have been you,” Ramirez muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing, boss. Sorry if we missed something.”

“Good. Now, get me a shot through the visor of the guy with the beard.”

Fink continued to maneuver and position the camera until the bearded man’s weary face came into better focus.

“Good. Very good,” Cain said. “We can use facial recognition software to find out who he is. If we need to, we can even remove the beard. Fink, we’ll provide you with a detailed background on this man after we get a match. I have a feeling I already know.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Fink said.

“Meanwhile, I want you to get over there and mill around with the crowd. Bring two men with you. Ramirez will keep an eye on Mr. Beard—or maybe I should say
Dr.
Beard—and we’ll be in touch when we know something for certain.”

“You’ve got it sp— Mr. Cain, sir.”

“They’re wearing portable breathing systems that are battery powered. Sooner or later he’s going to have to come out.”

“Count on us to be there when he does,” Fink said.

CHAPTER 18

DAY 2
8:15 A.M. (EST)

“Okay. The way I understand it, if I do my best to find a way to beat this bug, I’m free, whether I succeed or not. No strings.”

“That’s the deal,” the president said.

“Even though you still believe I stole that virus from my own lab.”

“The security cameras picked up several perfect shots of your face behind your visor. Particles from the floor of the deepest level of the lab were on your boots, and we found the canisters hidden in a recently constructed compartment behind your basement wall. The gym bag you used to transport the canisters was found in your bedroom closet.”

“It wasn’t me.”

Griff’s meeting with James Allaire was in a conference room that did not appear on any of the floor plans Griff had studied. The president of the United States was one chair to Griff’s right at a vast mahogany table. The secretary of defense, Gary Salitas, sat several places to Griff’s left, next to Dr. Bethany Townsend and a man introduced as the Capitol architect. Two Secret Service agents stood against the wall behind them, presumably ready to save the president from the terrorist in the blue biohazard suit. The rest of the room was empty.

Griff felt his anger toward this man, who had stolen nine months of his life, simmering very close to the boiling point.

“Do we have any chance?” Allaire asked, clearly unwilling to enter into a debate around Griff’s guilt or innocence.

“If it
was
the flu, like you’re telling all those poor people out there, the answer would be yes. But it’s not.”

“We’ve decided to share the true facts a bit at a time,” Salitas said.

“Well, a bit at a time, I don’t think they’re buying your flu story, Mr. Secretary,” Griff replied.

“Look,” Salitas snapped, “if you’re going to be a wiseass—”

“Easy, Gary,” Allaire said. He took a deep breath to reset himself and exhaled. “Okay, Dr. Rhodes, this is a real mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. We don’t have a hell of a lot of cards to play. In fact, at the moment you’re about our only hope.”

“Sorry if I sound a little out of joint, sir,” Griff said. “But I hope you’ll understand if at the moment you’re not on my list of favorite presidents.”

Salitas made a move toward him, and the guards responded in kind, but Allaire stopped them with a raised hand.

“I understand,” he said. “Tell me, Dr. Rhodes. When—when you were put in prison, how close were you to coming up with something that would kill WRX3883 or at least keep it in check?”

“I would say I had a shot. I had completed my computer model of the virus twice. Both times, though, something changed in the germ.”

“Mutation.”

“Precisely. We were after reverse transcriptase, one of the enzymes the virus makes to help replicate itself. If we could administer a drug that would disrupt the formation of that enzyme we could possibly neuter the little buggers before they could reproduce. Just like taking your pooch to the vet.”

“Why were you having so much trouble?”

“The virus mutates faster than I’ve been able to modify the transcriptase. There’s something missing in my sequencing, but I hadn’t been able to figure out exactly what when you pulled the plug on me. Did you know that the solitary confinement cells at the Florence penitentiary are eight feet by eight counting the toilet? That’s less than the length of this table.”

“How long will it take you to figure out what you were doing wrong?” Salitas asked, his jaw nearly clenched.

“Did you know that aside from the guards calling me a terrorist while they were beating me with their clubs, no one ever told me why I had been imprisoned? No dime to make a call, no attorney, no hearing. Nothing.”

“Enough!” Salitas barked, slamming his fist down.

“Gary, please. Dr. Rhodes is angry with us. He doesn’t see our responsibility to the people of this country the way we do. And at the moment, that’s okay. We need him, Gary. We all need him.… Dr. Rhodes?”

“We need to be thinking
if,
not
when,
” Griff answered. “I have no real basis for guessing what this virus does in people. We’ve had some contagion disasters with Dr. Chen’s monkeys, but never any leaks involving humans.”

The exchange of queer looks between the president and his defense secretary lasted only a moment, but Griff caught it, and wondered about it.

Did they know something he didn’t?

He filed the unasked question away. Allaire and Salitas had already shown themselves capable of lying if they deemed it necessary. Griff felt certain they would not hesitate to lie to him.

“My lab,” he asked. “What’s the status?”

“Your man Melvin Forbush has been serving as a watchman at the lab. We just got ahold of him. He’s started getting the place operational.”

“We have a support team of CDC virologists being deployed to the Vertias lab as well,” Salitas said.

“Cancel them,” Griff replied curtly. “I don’t need anyone’s opinions but my own. What I need are blood samples from twenty or thirty infected hosts. All exposure levels. Between Melvin, my computers, and the lab, if it can be done, it will be done. It’s my work. I’m the only one you need.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Allaire said. “We have your lab notebooks. I’m sure our scientists can do something with them.”

“In that case, I want Sylvia Chen to head up the other team.”

Again an exchange of glances.

“Um … Dr. Chen disappeared … two days after your arrest,” the president said. “We haven’t heard from her since. We suspected she might have been an accomplice of yours, but we still really have no evidence to support that.”

“Have you had people out looking for her? The FBI?”

“Of course.”

“And are they still looking?”

“Some are.”

“Some?”

“A few officers are still on the case.”

“Damn. I just spent a significant percentage of my life locked in a concrete box while you stop looking for the one person who might—”

“I’ve heard about enough!” Salitas exploded, leaping to his feel and charging toward Griff. His cheeks were flushed, the veins in his neck protruding.

“Gary! Dammit, leave him be! He has a right to be upset about this one. I’m sorry, Dr. Rhodes. Sylvia Chen’s trail was ice-cold, and I needed every agent looking for Genesis.”

“Tell your pal there to spend a couple of days in solitary at the Alcatraz of the Rockies,” Griff said. “Then he can come at me, provided he has the strength left to do so. Do you have any idea what this Genesis wants? Is it a group or a person?”

“Almost certainly a group—domestic, most likely. No idea what their agenda is except to sow fear and discord.”

“Religious fanatics?”

“Maybe. We’re betting some sort of fundamentalists.… So, do we have an agreement or not?”

Griff doodled for a time on a sheet of yellow legal paper.

“So, you’ve got scientists to make sure I do the work,” he said finally, “and military guard dogs to make sure I don’t make a run for it. Is that right?”

“Yes. That’s about it,” Allaire said. “I’m prepared to set you free no matter what the results of your research, provided our people tell me you put in the effort. A full presidential pardon.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I’ll put you back in prison, and you’ll have the blood of seven hundred people on your hands while you rot there.”

The force behind Allaire’s words seemed to shake the room.

“Then I have one demand of you,” Griff said. “Since we really don’t trust one another, I want everything I do to be documented by a third party—someone unassociated with your administration. A reporter. That way there can be no misunderstandings or covert efforts to change fact into fiction. Consider it an insurance policy on your word.”

“I’ll make some calls.”

“No need,” Griff said. “Get me Angela Fletcher.”

“The science reporter for
The Post
?” Allaire asked.

“She’s reported from hot zones before.”

Allaire and Salitas silently conferred and agreed.

“I’ll see if we can track her down.”

Griff flashed back to the scene outside the Capitol, the chaos of the gathering crowd, and the disembodied woman’s voice that kept calling his name.

“No need for that, Mr. President,” he said. “I believe she’s outside the Capitol right now.”