Viral

The government had called this bio-weapons program Project Lifeboat because it was designed to create emergency responses in the event of a worst-case disaster—if the “superplague” that had been developed in Russia, and had been pursued in Iraq and elsewhere, were ever successfully implemented. Among other things, the program sought to develop defenses against a potentially vaccine-resistant, weaponized strain of flu. Some of the viral properties used for research came from the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, and some of the work was carried out there. But more than half of the research had been outsourced, to university and private labs.

Project Lifeboat was a response to reports that the huge, illegal Soviet bio-weapons program—which at one time employed thirty thousand scientists at eighteen facilities—had not in fact been shut down with the fall of the Soviet Union but continued in private military labs throughout Russia. It was also a response to the fact that some of the Biopreparat scientists who had lost their jobs in the former Soviet Union had been hired as consultants by Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In the post-9/11 environment, Project Lifeboat was allowed to thrive in secret. But by the end of the decade, concerns were mounting about oversight and safety.

Stephen Mallory had opened his internal inquiry after two anonymous sources told him of various “irregularities” in the project: that deadly viral properties had been illegally transported to research labs; that scientists had become involved who were not registered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; that researchers charged with using simulants were in fact working with actual biological agents; and that half a dozen of the scientists working for the government had been recruited away by research labs connected with the pharmaceuticals industry. To Charlie’s father, these irregularities amounted to a very real concern, not a hypothetical one. But the government had already shut down Project Lifeboat by this point, and the director of intelligence, Colonel Dale McCormack, did not trust Stephen Mallory’s sources or his motives. He did not want the Lifeboat Inquiry to become a media story.

Charlie closed his eyes and pictured his father’s reassuring, watery-blue gaze. Heard the steady clarity of his voice.

If someone were to hijack this research, he could use it to ‘adjust’ the demographics of the world. A result that we would eventually have to accept.… Expectations. Begin with that.

AT THE CHARLOTTE Airport Enterprise lot, a chatty white-haired man dressed in a red plaid wool jacket asked Michael Chambers about his visit as he walked him out to select a car. The leaves were beginning to change, and there was a chill in the air. It was a great time to visit North Carolina, the man told him. “Gorgeous in the mountains right now,” he said three or four times.

Michael Chambers told him that he was staying with family at nearby Lake Norman. He acted cordial but said little else.

“Lake Norman. Oh, you’ll like it there,” he said. “Fishing?”

Michael Chambers nodded his head, gave the man a polite smile.

In fact, Charles Mallory was driving two hours northwest from Charlotte, to the mountain resort of Asheville, where Peter Quinn had retired ten months ago, weeks before Stephen Mallory died.

There was no directory listing for Peter Quinn in the area, but Charlie had found a property in the nearby village of Black Mountain owned by “R. Steen.” Robin Steen was Peter Quinn’s wife. Quinn had been part of his father’s Lifeboat Inquiry, but he had quit several months into it. His father had been bothered by that. It had bothered him very much. Charles Mallory wanted to find out why.

HE CHECKED IN at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville as Michael Chambers and was given Room 441. He studied the reports that night and then conjured up the message that his father had left for him, which he had memorized down to the smallest detail.

One thing Charlie liked about getting older was the way it expanded his frame of reference. Details that wouldn’t have held much meaning years earlier did now simply because he knew so much more. Isolated, disconnected words and phrases suddenly became parts of a puzzle, each making the picture clearer.

His father had left behind a sheet of note paper in a safe deposit box that he had wanted Charlie to find, if anything happened. It was still there. But there was also a copy in Charles Mallory’s head. He had studied it and memorized it. Photographed it in his mind, without trying to understand it.

In the quiet of the hotel room, he closed his eyes and called it up, forming an image of the single-page message. Rough outlines of an investigation:

At the top of the page, “Vogel” had been circled. The research scientist who had initially headed up Project Lifeboat.

With an arrow pointing to “Isaak Priest.”

Then, “VaxEze contract supported by slush fund. Find out who supplies the slush fund.”

VaxEze. The pharmaceuticals firm that had hired away Ivan Vogel.

Below that, “Disaster Relief Plan (Back-up to P.Q.) Find out more about this. Doug Chase a liaison to someone else. ‘The Administrator?’ ”

P.Q.: Peter Quinn.

“Tom Trent’s ideas. Not sure. Need to follow up with him. Does Isaak Priest have a partner? Is Black Eagle somehow involved? Trent thinks so.

“AV—Geneva. She knows more than anyone else. But be careful for her safety.”

Anna.

“ ‘Game Changer.’ ‘The World Series begins in early October.’ Sports phrases that seem to be codes to the ultimate plan, assuming there is one.”

“Trials and diversions. ‘Contain the “World Series” within a single country.’ ‘The wheel of history.’ Expectations: Play on that.”

Last line: “What is Covenant?”

CHARLIE OPENED HIS eyes and focused on the patterns of plaster on the ceiling. What is Covenant? The line that made the least sense to him. He sat up and read again through the pages that Franklin had provided. The most recent memorandum was dated four days before his father died. The memo shutting down the Lifeboat Inquiry: “In summary, this office deems that the investigation is too speculative and open-ended to be of further value. Project Lifeboat itself has been discontinued, and the questions raised by this inquiry are no longer pertinent. Furthermore, concerns about the operation have been addressed internally independent of this inquiry. An evaluation of the Lifeboat Inquiry to date shows duplication of efforts and wasteful use of government expenses and manpower. Therefore, recommend that this inquiry be discontinued immediately.”

Charlie looked out at the shapes of the mountains and the moonlit mist that hung in the trees and thought about his father. Hurling the baseball back and forth in the shadows of their yard. His father crouching, playing catcher to him. “Throw me the perfect pitch,” he used to say when Charlie was still in grade school. He had wanted him to become a pitcher, and Charlie had done that. He had become a good one in high school, one of the best in the state. Charlie liked the exactitude of throwing fast balls. There was a trick to that, a kind of pitch that batters couldn’t fathom; that came at them so fast, so perfectly, that they couldn’t even swing at it. His father had showed him that.

He pictured Stephen Mallory—tall, gray-haired and gray-bearded, determined, but with a surprising humility in his blue eyes. The moral compass in Charlie’s life for years. A good man. Disciplined. Sharp. But, somehow, in the end, his father had become a loser. In those final months, someone had thrown the fast ball past him, and he hadn’t seen it coming. Something about his work had put him at odds with the government. Something he couldn’t overcome. Charles Mallory needed to know what that was.

TWENTY-FIVE

ALL NIGHT IT RAINED. Charlie woke and listened to the rainwater cascading in the mountain trees, thinking about the succession of events that had brought him to this room. About his father and about Anna Vostrak.