Black Flagged Redux (9 page)

The only consistent activity he had noted at the plant yesterday had been an hourly visit to the pump station. A technician dressed in gray overalls, carrying a black plastic case by its handle, had ambled down from the control station and entered the station through the door on the other side, reemerging a few minutes later. He used the same door, which was closest to the control station, each time. He presumed the man had taken a required hourly sample of the water for analysis. The sample collection node would take water directly from the system and would represent his best opportunity to introduce his product into Monchegorsk's water supply.

He descended the metal grate staircase, able to see both pumps through the porous metal flooring. They were aligned in parallel, separated by a raised grated catwalk, but joined by various metal pipes and mechanical structures. The staircase emptied onto the end of the catwalk nearest to the intake from the disinfectant tank field. The station’s humming grew louder as he approached the catwalk, but remained within tolerable limits. He saw a pair of blue noise protection headphones on a hook at the bottom of the stairs and noted how times had certainly changed in Monchegorsk. It didn't take him long to figure out which pump was active. He only had to lay his hands on one side, and then the other, to determine that the right side pump was active.

The catwalk was installed halfway up the side of the pump, which put him in a position to examine the top of the pump and all of the attachments leading into it. The pump itself was taller than Reznikov and extended the length of two SUV's. The catwalk design made it easy for him to examine all of the components, and within seconds he had located the sample collection node. Located to the rear of the pump, near the stairs, he had momentarily overlooked it. Like everything in the plant, it was labeled, making this easy beyond his wildest dreams. The node had four latches, which ensured a tight seal. Reznikov had some trouble opening the latches and looked around for a tool that might be designed for the purpose. He didn't see anything useful and cursed as it took him nearly a minute to get two of the latches open.

The latches were designed to seal tightly, but this wasn't the problem and Reznikov knew it. As he struggled with the third latch, he started to tremble in anger. He hadn't escaped completely unscathed from Norval Nickel's legacy. He had suffered neuromuscular damage that mainly affected his hands and feet, resembling peripheral neuropathy at its worst and slight tingling at best. It had plagued him as a biochemist and rendered certain routine tasks unpredictable. He had developed an angry patience for his condition, but this was not the time for him to have a problem with his hands. The third latch opened, and he stopped. His hands felt like they had been squeezing a metal bar for hours, cramped and shaky. Ignoring the pain, he wrenched at the fourth latch, opening it in a fit of rage. Now sweating in the forty degree room, Reznikov better resembled a depraved madman with the intention of poisoning an entire city's water supply.

He placed the backpack next to him and removed a thermos-sized metallic container, setting it down on the grating. He paused and looked at the pump again, his composure returning. The pump was bigger than he’d expected, which meant that his original calculations for water supply contamination might be inaccurate. He examined the pump from front to back, taking it all in. This was definitely a higher capacity pump. He didn't want to use all of the product in his possession, but this was not the time to make a mistake. He decided to pour both containers into the water system.

He had hidden enough core samples of the virus to create other batches and knew exactly where he could find a few more containers. The Arab traitors had spoken of several specific locations and timelines, so he could always "meet" them for a surprise visit. He'd finish up here and hide out in St. Petersburg until he was sure that the virus had done its job. Once he was satisfied that Monchegorsk was ruined, he'd head to Sweden. His eavesdropping had provided him with an address in Stockholm. After that, a quick trip to Copenhagen could bring him to another address, if he felt ambitious.

Once he possessed more virus, he might provide an anonymous tip to Interpol regarding the other addresses and planned attack locations, or maybe not. He truly couldn't decide, and it never occurred to him that this ambiguity indicated a dangerous deterioration of his mental state. Though he wasn’t aware of it, Anatoly had suffered more than neuromuscular damage during the ten years spent in Monchegorsk. The long term mental impact of accumulating lead, cadmium, nickel and copper in his brain had been significant, gradually leaving him obsessed and unable to sustain empathy. He only vaguely processed the cruelty of his actions and how it would affect thousands of innocent people. These blurry thoughts were swept aside by his obsession with both delivering a damaging blow to Norval Nickel and teaching the Russian government a lesson. He had convinced himself that this was the right thing to do, so with no hesitation, he released the pressure fitting on the cylinder sitting on the catwalk.

There was a brief hiss, and he was able to twist the top free, exposing thousands of transparent tablets. He poured the contents of the cylinder into the six-inch diameter opening and repeated the process with the second cylinder. Thousands of tablets sat in the one foot deep miniature dry well, waiting to be introduced into the water system. Anatoly shut the sample node's lid and refastened the four latches, which turned out to be infinitely easier than opening them. Once closed, he activated the dry well and heard the mechanism working. A red light turned to green and the mechanism stopped. He activated the mechanism one more time just to be sure and waited twenty seconds for the cycle to complete. Once the light turned green again, he endured the pain of opening the latches to inspect the chamber. The chamber was dry, and the tablets were gone, on their way to infect the city's water supply. He quickly resealed it.

Each tablet contained concentrated, weaponized encephalitis virus, surrounded by a thin gel coating. The virus within the clear gel coat had been given a dark red color in the lab, so each tablet looked like a menacing eye, which underscored the virus's potential. The gel coating was designed to last roughly thirty minutes before releasing the virus into the water. He knew that water leaving the plant would end up in a massive storage tank that constantly filled and emptied into the city. The concentration of virus would be more than adequate to infect the entire supply and continue to infect it for several hours. The charcoal filters installed between the disinfectant tanks and the pump station would ensure that any remaining chlorination would not be enough to kill the hardened virus Reznikov had developed. Only a strong anti-viral water treatment course could accomplish this, and these were nearly nonexistent in public water treatment plants.

The virus tablets would reach the main storage tanks partially dissolved and remain at the top of the tank for a few minutes, until they released their payload, which would sink and spread throughout the tank. Later that day, pipes in every household and business within Monchegorsk would contain contaminated water. Within three to five days, the city's hospital and medical clinics would be overwhelmed by patients complaining of severe headaches and rapidly progressing flu-like symptoms. A few days after that, the city of Monchegorsk would descend into chaos, taking Norval Nickel along with it.

The Russian government would face one of its biggest challenges in recent history. How does mother Russia contain the news that a city of 54,327 people had imploded, with no plausible explanation? He couldn't wait to see how they'd try to contain the news. Based on Russia's notoriously poor human rights track record, he felt confident that it would be a disaster for the Putin government.

The virus combined several of the nastiest viral encephalitis traits he could genetically manipulate. He had started with a particularly virulent and highly infectious strain of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE) and had gone to work modifying its structure. He enhanced the virus's focus on the limbic system, specifically targeting the temporal lobes, which caused victims to exhibit rabies-like behavior. The recurrent hallmark behaviors he had observed through human experimentation included: severe aggression, marked destructiveness, primitive impulses, and transient disorientation or catatonia, often followed by hyperactive episodes. Brain damage had been severe in most of the cases they examined, and nearly seventy percent died within a week of showing symptoms.

The remaining thirty percent deteriorated at different rates, with varying degrees of brain damage. Like every disease, some got lucky, though they were usually the first to fall victim to the madness that descended on the others. Once the virus had been tweaked to his own desired specifications, they had conducted a practical test. Twenty "volunteers" each drank a glass of water spiked with the same concentration of virus that he calculated would be present in every sip of water throughout the city. Roughly eighty percent contracted the virus, though he took steps to ensure all of his test subjects were infected. The eighty percent statistic had made him smile. He relished the complications this would present to the Russians.

Now that the virus was in the water, his next task was to get out of here undetected. He jammed the cylinders back into the backpack, along with the mechanical saw, and withdrew a silenced semi-automatic pistol from one of the other pouches. He debated whether to head up the stairs, or hide in the station and wait. He couldn't imagine that the station didn't have an alarm rigged to the doors. Yesterday, he had timed the technician's journey from the central station to the pump station and averaged it to six minutes, if he didn't stop for a cigarette. His watch showed six minutes and thirty seconds, which he blamed on his damn fumbling hands. Glancing around the station, he chose to stay and hide.

The pump itself was massive, providing numerous hiding places, and he saw another staircase at the end of the catwalk. He might be able to squeeze underneath the end of the pump or the wide outflow pipes on either side. If the technician decided to walk down to the catwalk and poke around, he would be forced to use the pistol. It would be his last resort and buy him enough time to get out of town, but depending on the city's response, it could jeopardize the entire plan. He would walk the technician out of the building at gunpoint and push him over the catwalk onto the domed tanks. He hoped it didn't come to that because his hands were trembling from the latches, and he could barely hold the gun straight. He might need every round in the pistol's magazine.

Just as he tucked himself under one of the huge outflow pipes on the right side of the station, he heard the door above him open. The technician entered through the front door and shut it behind him, pausing on the grating above. The man walked around for a minute, presumably checking some of the diagnostic gauges above, and started to descend the stairs. Anatoly's pistol hand was shaking, and he was afraid that he might fire the pistol accidentally. He depressed the safety lever to prevent an unintended discharge. He further squeezed himself under the pipe and along the outside of the pump. He would be undetectable if the man stayed on the catwalk.

He had a hard time hearing the man's footsteps over the vibration and hum of the pump, but knew he was drawing closer along the catwalk. The sound of the metal grating increased and suddenly stopped, indicating that the man was at the top of the second set of stairs. He could picture the man leaning over and determining if it was worth his effort to take a further look. He jammed himself further back, willing himself to be invisible to the man. A few moments later, he heard footsteps heading back down the catwalk, followed by the stairs. Less than a minute later, Anatoly was alone in the pump station.

He decided not to press his luck. He replaced the pistol, keeping the pouch unzipped, and left the station through the back door. He knew it would trigger another alarm, but figured the duty crew would consider it to be a glitch. They'd watch the sensor from their comfortable seats all day, and when it didn't happen again, it would be forgotten. He wondered if anyone would have the presence of mind one week later to make the connection. Based on the human testing results in Kazakhstan, he sort of doubted it.

Chapter 8

2:10 PM

Legal Attaché Section, U.S. Embassy

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Special Agent Susan Castaneda took another look at the manila folder on her desk and picked up the phone to dial Ryan Sharpe. He had contacted her a few days earlier with an odd request, which had been easy enough for her to research without attracting any attention. Sharpe wanted to know if the Argentine Federal Police (AFP) had started any investigations within the past three years into any fledgling terrorist or paramilitary organizations, with a focus on regional arms smuggling or cross-border operations. He was also interested in any unusual paramilitary style operations or violence over the past few years. Sharpe had been detailed enough with the focus, but nebulous beyond that.

He stressed the importance of keeping this quiet, and she understood why. Word had a way of getting around in the embassy, which made it difficult to get any real work done, even in a stable country like Argentina. So she had scheduled a leisurely lunch with one of her AFP counterparts, in a location of the city not known for embassy traffic. She trusted this law enforcement agent as much as she could trust anyone in the Argentine government and had given him enough information to dig around for something that might fit the profile Sharpe had provided. He had more or less come up empty handed, though he did provide a few bits of information that might be helpful. She wasn't sure how, but it had been worth a lunch away from the office and her counterpart, Dan Bailey.

Bailey was starting to wear on her nerves and had only been "in-country" for three months. He had chosen an "unaccompanied" tour, leaving his wife and two children behind for the year-long assignment, which was not uncommon for "Legat" (legal attaché) duty. Unfortunately, the reasons for Agent Bailey's choice appeared to go beyond the disruption and inconvenience of moving a family long distance for a short period of time. It apparently had more to do with the likelihood that Dan Bailey's wife might not approve of his weekly visits to local brothels, or that she might take issue with her husband lunching and dining with a different woman nearly every day.