table in the White House Situation Room were in a somber, depressed mood. As they damned well should be, thought Sam Castilla grimly. The first accounts of the Teller Institute disaster had been bad enough. Each new report was even worse.
He glanced at the nearest clock. It was much later than he had thought. In the confines of this small artificially lit underground room, the passage of time was often distorted. Several hours had already passed since Fred Klein first flashed him the news of the horror unfolding in Santa Fe.
Now the president looked around the table in disbelief. “You're telling me that we still don't have a firm estimate of casualties — either inside the Teller Institute itself, or outside among the demonstrators?”
“No, Mr. President. We don't,” Bob Zeller, the acting director of the FBI, admitted. He sat miserably hunched over in his chair. 'More than
half of the Institute's scientists and staff are listed as missing. Most of them are probably dead. But we can't even send in search-and-rescue teams until the fires are out. As for the protesters…' Zeller's voice trailed away.
“We may never know exactly how many of them were killed, Mr. President,” his national security adviser, Emily Powell-Hill, interrupted. “You've seen the pictures of what happened outside the labs. It could take months to identify what little is left of those people.”
“The major networks are saying there are at least two thousand dead,” said Charles Ouray, the White House chief of staff. “And they're predicting the count could go even higher. Maybe as high as three or four thousand.”
“Based on what, Charlie?” the president snapped. “Spitballing and raw guesswork?”
“They're going with claims made by Lazarus Movement spokesmen,” Ouray said quietly. “Those folks have more credibility with the press— and the general public — than they used to. More credibility than we do right now.”
Castilla nodded. That was true enough. The first terrifying TV footage had gone out live and unedited over several news network satellite feeds. Tens of millions of people in America and hundreds of millions around the world had seen the gruesome images with their own eyes. The networks were now showing more discretion, carefully blurring the more graphic scenes of terrified Lazarus Movement protesters being eaten alive. But it was too late. The damage was done.
All the wild, lurid claims made by the Lazarus Movement about the dangers posed by nanoteclmology seemed vindicated. And now the Movement seemed determined to push an even more sinister and paranoid story. This theory was already showing up on their Web sites and on other major Internet discussion groups. It claimed that the Teller labs were developing secret nanotech war weapons for the U.S. military. Using eerily similar photos of the ravaged dead in both places, it connected the horror in Santa Fe to the earlier massacre at Kusasa in Zimbabwe. Those pushing the story were arguing that these pictures proved that “elements within the American government” had wiped out a peaceful village as a first test of those nanotech weapons.
Castilla grimaced. In the prevailing hysteria, no one was going to pay any attention to calm technical rebuttals by leading scientists. Or to reassuring speeches by politicians like him, the president reminded himself. Pressured by frightened constituents, many in Congress were already demanding an immediate federal ban on nanotech research. And God only knew how many other governments around the world were going to buy into the Movement's wild-eyed claims about America's secret “nanotech weapons program.”
Castilla turned to David Hanson, sitting at the far end of the table. “Anything to add, David?”
The CIA director shrugged. “Beyond the observation that what happened at the Teller Institute is almost certainly an act of coldly calculated terrorism? No, Mr. President, I do not.”
“Aren't you jumping the gun just a bit?” Emily Powell-Hill asked curtly. There was no love lost between the former Army brigadier general and the Director of Central Intelligence. She thought Hanson was far too eager to apply extreme solutions to national security problems.
Privately, the president agreed with her assessment. But the uncomfortable truth was that Hanson's wilder predictions often hit the mark, and most of the clandestine operations he pushed forward were successful. And in this case, the CIA chiefs assertion tied in perfectly with what Castilla had already heard from Fred Klein at Covert- One.
“Am I speculating in advance of all the facts? Clearly, I am,” Hanson admitted. He peered condescendingly over the rims of his tortoiseshell glasses at the national security adviser. “But I don't see that we need to waste much time on alternate theories, Emily. Not unless you honestly believe that the intruders who broke into the Teller Institute had nothing to do with the bombs that exploded less than an hour later. Frankly, that seems a bit naive to me.”
Emily Powell-Hill flushed bright red.
Castilla intervened before the dispute could get out of hand. “Let's assume you're right, David. Say this disaster is an act of terrorism. Then who are the terrorists?”
“The Lazarus Movement,” said the CIA director bluntly. “For precisely the reasons I outlined when we discussed the Joint Intelligence Threat Assessment, Mr. President. We wondered then what the 'big event' in Santa Fc was supposed to be.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Well, now we know.”
“Are you seriously suggesting the leaders of the Lazarus Movement arranged the deaths of more than two thousand of their own supporters?” Ouray asked. The chief of staff was openly skeptical.
“Deliberately?” Hanson shook his head. “I don't know. And until we get a better sense of exactly what killed those people, we won't know. But I am quite sure that the Lazarus Movement was involved in the terrorist attack itself.”
“How so?” Castilla asked.
“Consider the timing, Mr. President,” the CIA director suggested. He began making his points, ticking them off with the precision of a professor presenting a much-loved thesis to a particularly slow freshman class. “One: Who organized a mass demonstration outside the Teller Institute? The Lazarus Movement. Two: Why were the Institute's security guards outside the building when the counterfeit Secret Service team arrived — and not able to intervene against them? Because they were pinned down by that same protest. Three: Who prevented the real Secret Service agents from entering the building? Those same Lazarus Movement demonstrators. And finally, four: Why couldn't the Santa Fe police and sheriffs intercept the intruders as they left the Institute? Because they were tied down handling the chaos outside the Institute.”
Almost against his will, Castilla nodded. The case the CIA chief made was not airtight, but it was persuasive.
'Sir, we cannot go public with an unsupported allegation like that
against the Lazarus Movement!“ Ouray broke in. ”It would be political suicide. The press would crucify us for even suggesting it!'
“Charlie's absolutely right, Mr. President,” Emily Powell-Hill said. The national security adviser shot a quick glare at the head of the CIA before continuing. “Blaming the Movement for this would play straight into the hands of every conspiracy theorist around the world. We can't afford to give them more ammunition. Not now.”
A gloomy silence fell around the Situation Room conference table.
“One thing is certain,” David Hanson said coldly, breaking the hush. “The Lazarus Movement is already profiting from the public martyrdom of so many of its followers. Around the world, hundreds of thousands of new volunteers have added their names to its e-mail lists. Millions more have made electronic donations to its public bank accounts.”
The CIA chief looked straight at Castilla. “I understand your reluctance to act against the Lazarus Movement without proof of its terrorist activities, Mr. President. I know the politics involved. And I earnestly hope that the FBI probe at the Teller Institute produces the evidence you require. But it is my duty to warn you that delay could have terrible consequences for this nation's security. With every passing day, this Movement will grow stronger. And with every passing day, our ability to confront it successfully will diminish.”
The man called Lazarus sat alone in a small but elegantly furnished compartment. The window shades were pulled down, shutting out any glimpse of the larger world outside. Images flickered across the computer screen set before him, televised images of the carnage outside the Teller Institute.
He nodded to himself, coolly satisfied by what he saw. His plans, so carefully and patiently prepared over the course of several years, were at last coming to fruition. Much of the work, like that involved in selectively pruning
