Biowar (34 page)

“Would you like more cognac?”

68

Every time Karr thought he was feeling better, a surge of dizziness and pain shot through him. The old woman stood over him periodically, shaking her head; twice she had him drink more of her magic elixir.

When it was so dark that Karr could no longer make out the lines in the walls, a helicopter chattered in the distance. Karr surprised himself by managing to get to his feet. He shook Foster, who opened his eyes at him.

“We got to hit the road,” he told the Marine.

Foster growled and closed his eyes but turned over and got to his feet. They were about halfway down the trail toward the level field when Gidrey came up with four U.S. sailors dressed in battle gear. Between their armor and guns they could have subdued a battleship.

“Bus here already?” said Karr.

“Navy sent the shore patrol,” said Gidrey. “Corpsman’s right behind us.”

“Mr. Karr?” said one of the sailors.

“That’s my dad. I’m Tommy.”

“Sir, we’re supposed to ask you to wear a special mask and avoid sharing any bodily fluids.” He put down a large case and then stepped back. “Could you direct Corporal Gidrey to do so as well? And Corporal Foster, sir.”

A wave of dizziness hit Karr as he bent to the case. He knelt over it, then snapped it open. The case contained what looked like firemen’s helmets and visors. Each unit had a large chin portion that snapped onto the sides; this part extended over the visor. There were respirator filters at the bottom of this part.

“I ain’t wearing no gas mask,” said Gidrey.

“Yeah, all right,” said Karr. “Come on, Gidrey, Dad won’t let us borrow the car again if we don’t wear these masks.”

“They think we’re sick?”

“Probably just being cautious,” Karr told him.

“What about them?” asked the Marine, pointing to the villagers who’d come up to see what was going on.

“We’re just supposed to take you out of here,” said the sailor. “After you put the masks on. I’m sorry. Those are our orders.”

“I’ll make sure they’re taken care of,” said Karr.

He turned back toward the knot of villagers who’d gathered behind them. “Thank you. Thank you very much,” he said, bowing his head as a sign of respect though the rushing blood unsettled his balance. “Thank you.”

The old man, who knew a few words of English, nodded as well. The nurse pushed through from the back, thrusting a bottle in his hands. “Red Cross,” she said. “Red Cross.”

“So I’m supposed to take this? What, like every hour or two hours or what?”

The man said something to her and she started talking quickly.

“Hold a second.” Karr took out his handheld computer and hit the voice recorder as she jabbered away.

“We’ll be back,” he promised when she was done. “Red Cross.”

“USA,” said the woman, smiling.

“Yeah, USA.” He smiled back at her, took a swig of the medicine, and headed toward the waiting helicopter.

69

Rubens’ belated realization that he had underestimated and misjudged Ms. Marshall served as a proper chastisement, and by the time he had reached Crypto City from her apartment he had completed a dozen phone calls, gathering the background information that he surely should have compiled earlier. The most informative source proved to be a member of the fourth estate, who was somewhat sympathetic toward Rubens thanks to a handy tip in an earlier domestic matter Rubens had had some firsthand knowledge of. After consulting with a professional gossipmonger, the reporter was able to run down a long list of connections to political donors. More interestingly, he provided the tidbit that Ms. Marshall had filed for bankruptcy a few months before coming east, apparently undone by some poor real estate investments and, it was rumored, a fondness for illicit mind expanders.

Rubens dismissed the drug rumor—clearly Marshall was too much a control freak to allow herself to indulge on a regular basis. But the financial connections accounted for her influence as well as her motivation. And among those connections were two firms with projects in Internet security.

Both had done work for the NSA. Hence the importance of his opinion. Neither had done a particularly competent job, hence the likelihood of his negative opinion being shared vociferously—not so much on the study but on who would do the study.

The most obvious things were always the most difficult to find. Another lesson.

Rubens was not such a political naïf that he was shocked by the motivations involved. On the contrary, he would have been surprised had avarice not been involved. No, surely what was significant was not the motivation but the boldness of the threat and the corresponding promise. For it implied the ability to affect presidential decisions far beyond the normal scope enjoyed by someone like Ms. Marshall or the political donors associated with her, for all their dollars.

There was the possibility that it was mere bluff, an overplayed hand clumsily put forth by a newcomer unskilled in the Machiavellian arts.

Rubens knew Marcke through Hadash; their association went back more than a decade. Marcke had his peculiarities and normal political vulnerabilities, of course, but his personality suggested strongly that he would make up his own mind about cabinet appointments and any attempt to unduly influence him—especially by a campaign donor—would be met with considerable animosity.

But then Marshall’s threat was of a negative nature—a veto. From what Rubens knew of Marcke, a direct move to nix a choice would surely provoke a strong reaction. To be effective, the move would have to be more subtle—a whisper of disapproval, a hint of scandal.

Rubens had no skeletons in his closet, and Marshall and her backers would clearly know that. Any attack on him would have to be at once subtle and direct. Someone in the Senate determined to block the appointment—that would be the proper tactic.

Rubens ran through the roster of possible suspects as he drove back to Crypto City and headed toward the Art Room in the basement of the Black Chamber, the most secret lair in the world. Melfi from New Jersey—a liberal with real power on the Senate Banking Committee. But the banking connections argued against him; he had no need of Marshall’s ilk. And Rubens and banking people in general got along fine; genetics, after all, could not be fudged.

The woman from Georgia—hadn’t he snubbed her at a recent reception? What was her name? He couldn’t remember ; he was blocking it out, along with her face.

God, to forget a senator’s name at a time like this.

Rubens waited impatiently in the security chamber leading to the Art Room. The sensors did not take his identity for granted; he was not only checked for bugs and electronic devices, but the sensors also sniffed his clothes for untoward chemicals. Cleared through, he strode into the control room, still somewhat distracted by the need to find an enemy among the Senate.

“Karr’s been quarantined at the base,” said Chafetz. “Doctors say he’s in very good shape.”

“Does he have it?”

“Oh yes, he’s got it,” said Chaucer. The scientist got up from his station a row away, rubbing his eyes. “But we think he may have found the cure as well. His fever’s dropped back to normal, he has only a few welts, and the bacteria is gone from his saliva. The cure is remarkable—it is like an antidote, truly.”

Karr had arrived at a military hospital near Phitsanulok in the central plains of Thailand. While the results so far were only preliminary, it was clear that he both had had the disease and was well on his way to being over it.

“It would fit with our working theory,” explained Chaucer. “Kegan came into the area looking for a fungus that is related to the penicillin family. The books that Mr. Bibleria located relate to cures such as this, and in checking Chinese texts related to rat-bite fever we found a mention of cures in what we now call Thailand. We need a chemical analysis, of course.”

Rubens realized it fit together nicely—a little too nicely. As a mathematician, he had been trained to find simple answers to complex problems. But as a spymaster, he had found the world generally preferred complex answers to simple problems.

Such as the situation with the Internet DNA?

A bluff. Surely she was bluffing.

“Have you told Tommy about this?” Rubens asked Chafetz.

“We don’t have a secure link yet,” said Marie Telach, just joining them. “Apparently the battery in his transmission unit ran out and his spare hasn’t been recovered. How much of a quarantine do we need here? The two Marines are with him and they’re making noises about busting out.”

“They’d better not do that,” said Chaucer. “We’re still not positive that it’s only transmitted via bodily fluids.”

“Do they have it?” asked Rubens.

“Not according to the tests.”

“Release them then.”

“Now wait on that,” said Telach. “If we’re wrong, we could be unleashing an epidemic.”

Rubens noticed that her lower lip was quivering. It quickly stopped, but he continued to stare—he’d never seen that happen before, and the Art Room supervisor had worked for him for years, since well before the advent of Desk Three.

“We have to be cautious,” she added

The tremor again.

“Very well,” said Rubens. “Keep them under observation for the time being.”

He turned back to the doctor. “How does this fungus work?”

“Basically it’s like a natural penicillin,” said the doctor. As he started to explain, Rubens remembered something Dean had mentioned when talking about Kegan.

“How would he know about it?” Rubens asked.

The expert shrugged. “Probably came across it somehow. Accident.”

“Could it cure cancer?”

“Cancer?” The scientist laughed. “I doubt it. Well, you know.” He shrugged. “People might say it did.”

“Tell me about pancreatic cancer. What do they do for it?”

“Nothing that works.”

“You sure?”

“Well, I’m not positive. I can check. Is it important?”

“Probably not,” admitted Rubens. “Don’t waste your time.”

70

A man known to be employed by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, started trailing Lia at the airport; while not entirely unexpected, this complicated their arrangements as the two Desk Three ops made their way north toward the school. Rather than using the agency-retained driver, Lia had to opt for a bus. This meant, in turn, that she had to make some adjustments to her wardrobe; she pulled on a pair of scarves in the ladies’ room of the station, carefully placing a pin that contained a video fly at the rear of her hair.

The Art Room ID’ed the agent as Yacoub Bahir Ben Rahimat, a Syrian Christian who was technically a free agent but in practice a Mossad gofer. It wasn’t immediately clear how the Israelis had glommed on to her, though the fact that he was being used suggested that it was a local deal—the Syrian secret police were also trailing Lia.

Wearing her scarves and jeans—along with a lightweight bullet-proof vest—Lia approached the ticket window and asked, first in French, then in somewhat halting Arabic, for her ticket. A half hour later she found herself wedged between two evil-smelling old ladies traveling with a pair of six-year-old she-devils. The children were playing a game of tag, darting back and forth in the seat, trampling on her legs.

“Mother of God, how long?” she groaned, as if to herself.

“Another three or four hours,” said Rockman. “Syrians gave up on you. Couldn’t figure what you were up to. Don’t worry; we’ll reload up north.”

“Mmmmph.”

“What’s Syria like, anyway?”

“Mmm-mmmph.”

“Happenin’ place, huh?”

One of the girls poked her in the shin. Lia grabbed the little devil by the shirt and raised her up to eye level. The two old ladies stopped their chattering.

“Mon chou,”
she started, speaking in French;
chou
normally meant “sweetie,” but the inflection here implied anything but. “If you don’t stop tripping over me I’m going to pluck out your eyes and eat them for dinner. You want that?”

The little girl furrowed her eyes—then started to laugh.

Realizing everything she did was being recorded, Lia let her go.

71

“Marie is seriously worried about you,” Chafetz told Karr when the link with the Art Room was finally made.

“Hey, can I talk into this thing?” Karr asked. He was using what looked like a Raytheon AN/PSC-5 radio, a standard unit used in the field.

“Reasonably secure,” answered the runner. “But keep your voice down. Some of the exterior security is being provided by nationals.”

“Bet they’ll understand about as much of what I say as I understand what they say.” He pushed around to sit up in the bed. Unlike in the States, the hospital bed didn’t adjust. In fact, it was far too small for his frame; Karr’s feet bumped against the metal frame, and if he rolled over he’d find himself on the floor. “That reminds me—I have some stuff on the handheld for you to translate.”

“We have a backup battery unit en route. Should be there any minute. I have some questions for you,” added the runner.

“Fire away.”

“Did you pet a cat when you were at Kegan’s house?”

“Cat petted me,” he told her. “Sweet little thing.”

“Lick your hand?”

“You going to ask if I kissed it next?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“It did lick my hand, and no, I didn’t kiss it.”

“Good,” said Chafetz. “Very good. That’s how you got
S. moniliforms.
Dr. Chaucer can explain the theories. Hang on: ”

There was a knock on the door.

“Yeah?”

“Delivery.”

“Delivery?”

“They’re still treating you as if you’re in isolation, Tommy,” said Chafetz. “Can you get out of bed and get the boxes? The batteries and the other gear you need are in there.”

Karr got up out of bed, his joints stiff and his muscles aching. He had to pull the bag of fluid with him across the room, and by the time he got to the door the person who had knocked was long gone. Two metal footlockers with digital locks were in the hallway. He lifted them up, bringing them back inside.