“There's no need to play coy, Jon,” Peter told him with a hint of amusement. “I'm quite sure you have your own friends — or friends of friends — who can run those pictures and prints through their databases… as a personal favor to you, of course.”
“It may be possible,” Smith admitted slowly. He took the disk. “But I'll have to find a connection for my computer first.”
The older man smiled openly now. “Then you'll be pleased to hear that our hosts have access to a wireless Internet node. This charming hacienda may date back to the seventeenth century, but its owners' business sense is very firmly rooted in our modern age.” Peter pushed his chair back and stood up. “And now I'm sure you'd like some privacy, so like a good little guard dog I'll go and prowl around the rest of the grounds.” Jon watched him go, shaking his head in hopeless admiration at the
Englishman's ability to get what he wanted from almost anybody. “Peter Howell could con a tribe of cannibals into turning vegetarian,” CIA officer Randi Russell, a mutual friend of theirs, had once told him. “And probably persuade them to pay him for the privilege.”
Still amused, Smith dialed Fred Klein's number on his encrypted cell phone.
“Yes, Colonel,” the head of Covert-One said.
Smith relayed Peter's request for help in identifying the dead gunman. “I've got the disk with the photos and fingerprints right here,” he finished.
“What does Howell know?” Klein asked.
“About me? He hasn't asked,” Smith said forcefully. “Peter is sure that I'm working for Army Intelligence, or one of the other Pentagon outfits, but he's not pushing for specifics.”
“Good,” Klein said. He cleared his throat. “All right, Jon, send me the files, and I'll see what we can dig up. Can you stay on where you are? This could take a while.”
Smith looked around the quiet, restful terrace. The sun was high enough now to provide some real warmth. And the sweet scent of flowers hung in the fresh air. He signaled the waitress for another pot of coffee. “No sweat, Fred,” he said into the phone with an easy, relaxed drawl. “I'll just sit here and suffer.”
The head of Covert-One called back within the hour. He didn't waste time in pleasantries. “We have a serious problem, Colonel,” he said grimly.
Smith saw Peter Howell hovering around the door out onto the patio and motioned him over. “Go ahead,” he told Klein. “I'm all ears.”
“The man you shot was an American, a man named Michael Dolan. He was ex-U.S. Army Special Forces. A decorated combat veteran. He left the service as a captain five years ago.”
“Shit,” Jon said softly.
“Oh, it gets worse, Colonel,” Klein cautioned him. “Once he got out of the Army, Michael Dolan applied for admission to the FBI Academy at Quantico. They turned him down outright.”
“Why?” Smith wondered aloud. Ex-military officers were often in high demand by the FBI, which valued their skills, physical fitness, and disciplined outlook on life.
“He failed the Academy psychological evaluation,” Klein told him quietly. “Apparently, he showed clear traces of sociopathic tendencies and attitudes. The Bureau profilers noted a distinct willingness to kill, without significant compunction or remorse.”
“Not exactly someone you would really want carrying a law-enforcement badge and a weapon, I guess,” Smith said. “No,” Klein agreed.
“Okay, the FBI didn't want him,” Smith pressed. “Then who did take him on? How did he wind up involved in the Lazarus Movement?”
“There we begin to come to the heart of our serious problem,” the head of Covert-One said slowly. “It appears that the late and unlamented Mr. Dolan worked for the CIA.”
“Jesus.” Smith shook his head in disbelief. “Langley hired this guy?” “Not officially,” Klein replied. “The Agency rather wisely seems to have kept him at arm's length. On paper, Dolan was employed as an independent security consultant. But his paychecks were funneled through a number of CIA fronts. He's worked for them on and off since leaving the Army, mostly conducting high-risk counterterror operations, usually in Latin America or Africa.”
“Cute. So Langley could always deny that he was one of theirs if an op went sour,” Smith realized, frowning. “Exactly,” Klein said.
“And was Dolan on the CIA payroll last night?” Smith asked tightly, wondering just how much trouble they were in right now. Was that fire-fight last night the result of some total foul-up — a horrible incident of friendly fire between two clandestine outfits operating in the same area without adequate communication?
“No, I don't think so,” the head of Covert-One told him. “My best guess is that his last paid contract from the Agency ended a little more than six months ago.”
Smith felt the rigid muscles of his face relax a tiny bit. He breathed out. “I'm glad to hear that. Damned glad.”
“There is more, Colonel,” Fred Klein warned. He cleared his throat. “The information I've just relayed comes from our own Covert-One database — a set of files I've built up using highly classified material siphoned from the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and other agencies. Without their knowledge, of course.”
Smith nodded to himself. Klein's ability to pull together information from the several competing factions in the U.S. intelligence community was one of the reasons President Castilla put such a high value on Covert-One's work.
“As a cross-check, I ran the pictures and fingerprints you sent me through both the CIA and the FBI databases,” Klein went on. His voice was flat and cold. “But both searches came back empty-handed. So far as Langley and the Bureau are concerned, Michael Dolan never took the FBI exam and never worked for the CIA. In fact, their records do not mention him at all.”
“What?” Smith exclaimed suddenly. He saw Peter raise an eyebrow in surprise and hurriedly lowered his voice. “That's impossible!”
“Not impossible,” Klein told him quietly. “Merely improbable. And very frightening.”
'Tou mean the CIA and FBI files have been scrubbed,“ Smith realized. He felt a shiver run down his spine. ”Which is something that could only be done by people operating at a very high level. People in our own government.'
“I'm afraid so, Colonel,” Klein agreed. 'Clearly, someone has taken enormous risks to erase those records. So now the questions we have to ask are, Why? And who?'
The technicians working inside the nanophage production core wore full protective suits, each with its own self-contained air supply. Thick gloves and the heavy suits slowed every movement and robbed them of much of their dexterity. Nevertheless, harsh training and intensive practice helped each man perform the delicate task of loading hundreds of billions of fully formed Stage III nanophages into four small, thick-walled metal cylinders.
As the cylinders were filled, they were slowly and carefully disconnected from the stainless steel production vats. Technicians working in pairs clamped the cylinders onto robotic carts designed to ferry them through a narrow tunnel — sealed at both ends by massive air locks — and out into another sealed chamber. There another team of technicians wearing masks, gloves, and coveralls took charge of the deadly cargo.
One by one, the nanophage-filled canisters were loaded into larger hollow metal tanks, which were carefully sealed and then welded shut. Once this work was finished, these larger metal tanks were stacked in a foam-padded heavy-duty shipping crate. As a last step, large white and red labels were stuck all over the crate: APPROVISIONNEMENTS MEDICAUX DE L'OXYGENE. AVERTISSEMENT: CONTENU SOUS PRESSION!
The tall, powerfully built man who called himself Nones stood outside the production core, watching through the multiple layers of a sealed observation window as the loading proceeded. He turned his head toward the much shorter senior scientist beside him. “Will this new delivery system of yours yield the increased effectiveness our employer demands?”
The scientist nodded emphatically. 'Absolutely. We have designed the Stage Three nanophages with a longer life span and for a much wider range of external conditions. Our new method takes advantage of those design improvements — allowing us to conduct this next field test from much higher altitudes and in more variable weather. Our computer modeling predicts significantly more efficient dispersion of the nanophages as a result.'
