There was definitely a sense of relief at the sound of Fred Klein’s voice, but not as much as he’d hoped.
“We have a few problems here.”
“Jon? Jesus! Are you all right? Where are you?”
“About a mile outside a town called Avass.”
“Then it
“You know about that?”
“We have a few satellite photos but that’s about all. We’ve been trying to get U-2s overhead but there’s a lot of Iranian air force activity in the area already and more on the way. What’s your situation?”
“It’s bad, Fred. The parasite was loose in that facility and I’m not sure what the status is there. What I do know is that there are infected people in Avass and people injured by them running for the canyons.”
“This isn’t a perfect connection, Jon, and there can’t be any miscommunications between us. Are you telling me that there are infected, symptomatic people loose in Avass and that it’s spreading into the countryside?”
“That’s correct. Can I assume you’ve planned for this?”
“We’ve spent the last week moving biowarfare equipment and teams to Iran’s borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Your friends at USAMRIID and the CDC aren’t confident it’s going to be enough, though.”
A well-justified lack of confidence, as far as Smith was concerned. Containment plans generally assumed that victims got sick, lost mobility, and sought help. Contagion vectors were well understood, and some level of treatment was available even for pathogens as devastating as smallpox. None of those things were true in this case.
“We’ve been working more or less blind,” Klein continued. “And I don’t mind telling you that it’s causing some panic. Right now the president is in with the Joint Chiefs and representatives from Europe, China, and Russia. We have a submarine armed with nuclear warheads off the coast and the idea of using it hasn’t been taken off the table. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Smith didn’t respond, instead watching Sarie and Farrokh trying to physically pull people away from the injured woman. He thought of the town and of the residents caring for victims of similar attacks. He thought of the recently infected people who were already losing themselves in the canyons and of the ones who had made it to vehicles that were now carrying them to friends and relatives in surrounding villages.
“Jon? Are you still there?”
“Do it, Fred. Nuke everything. The entire area.”
There was a long silence over the phone. “Again, I want to make sure that I’m not misunderstanding you. As an infectious disease specialist familiar with this particular illness, you are recommending the use of tactical nuclear weapons centered on your position.”
“That’s my recommendation.”
“Is there anyone else there with you? Van Keuren? Peter?”
Smith held the phone out to Howell. He looked a bit confused but accepted it. “Hello? Yes, Brigadier. I recognize your voice.”
Smith bent at the waist and concentrated on not throwing up. In all likelihood, he’d just doomed himself, his friends, and thousands of innocent people to death.
“A grazing shot to the head,” he heard Howell say. “But he seems fine to me. Yes, unfortunately, I think that seems reasonable given the situation on the ground.”
Smith felt a tap on his shoulder and Howell handed back the phone.
“Jon?” Klein said.
“I’m here.”
“Can you give us your current position? I can call our people. There’s a possibility that we could get a helicopter through and—”
“We both know that’s not going to happen, Fred. Just do it, okay?”
Another long pause. “I’m going to pass along your recommendation to the president with my support. Thank you for everything you’ve done, Jon. And good luck to you.”
The line went dead and he slid the phone weakly into his pocket.
“You all right, mate?” Howell said, putting a hand under his arm and helping him upright.
“Not my best day, Peter.”
“I suppose things could have turned out better,” he said, extending his hand. “But even so, I want you to know that it’s been a privilege.”
91
“Hello?”
Lawrence Drake took a hesitant step forward, the sound of frozen leaves beneath his feet shockingly loud in the silence of the clearing. “Is someone out there?”
“Larry, who are—,” Dave Collen said from inside the helicopter, but Drake cut him off.
“Shut up and secure those papers!”
The dense clouds to the east glowed dully with dawn, transforming the vague shapes into the outline of an SUV and a large panel van. Four human figures — three men and a woman — stood motionless in front of the vehicles.
The cold morning air caught in Drake’s chest and he stopped, looking around him at the black wall of trees surrounding the clearing.
It was obvious now that the helicopter’s mechanical failure had been staged — that the pilot had been paid to put down there. But by whom? Terrorists? Foreign agents? Were they here to kill him?
A few years ago, this would have been impossible. But the Muslims didn’t play by the rules that had been set out during the cold war. No one was off-limits. Death was something to be courted, not avoided.
“What do you want?” he said through a bone-dry mouth.
Dawn’s glow continued to intensify, adding detail to the scene in front of him. The woman was tall and athletic, with blond hair that gleamed in the semidarkness. Despite the fact that her face was still in shadow, there was something familiar about her, about the strength and grace that projected even when she was motionless.
He began to back away but then stopped short at the sound of her voice.
“Where do you think you’re going, Larry?”
“Russell?” he responded. “Randi Russell? What the hell is this? What are you doing here?”
“I found the team you sent after Jon and Peter.”
He tried to keep the shock and fear from his face but in the end could only hope that the gloom hid it. “What are you talking about?”
“It was all fake,” she said. “Everything you saw about them crossing into Iran came directly from me and Chuck Mayfield: their plane’s flight path from Diego Garcia, the satellite photos of the car taking them into the mountains. Everything. They were a hundred miles away the whole time.”
For a moment, Drake found it hard to draw air into his lungs, but then he forced himself to relax. There was a way out of this. He just had to think.
If what she said was true and he had been working with disinformation, Smith was almost certainly still alive and involved with what was happening in Avass. That meant the call from Sepehr Mouradipour had been a setup and undoubtedly recorded.
He didn’t dare a look back at Collen, but the papers he was collecting consumed his mind. It was all there — everything they’d done, everything they’d kept from Castilla.
Calm down!
If Russell got her hands on those documents, it would be extremely complicated, but perhaps not the ruinous disaster it seemed on the surface. Politics could be a very messy business.
“I want to talk to the president.”
