The President watched, trying to hide his revulsion.
It was beyond cruel, this method of death, even for a man such as this.
Nevertheless, he tried to justify Subject One's grisly death in the light of what Subject One had done during his life. With a friend, Leon Roy Hailey had tortured nine women in the back of his van, laughing at them as they begged for mercy. The two men had recorded the girls' death throes on a video recorder for later gratification. The President had seen those tapes.
He also knew that Leon Roy Hailey had been sentenced to four hundred and fifty-two years in prison for his crimes He was never to leave prison alive. And so, after five brute years in jail, he — like every other test subject at Area 7, all of them serving multiple life sentences — had elected to submit himself to scientific testing.
'Subject Two,' Botha said tonelessly, 'has been given the vaccine in serum-hydrate form. Serum was mixed into a glass of water he drank exactly thirty minutes ago. Subject is a white, Caucasian male, six feet eight inches, two hundred and fifteen pounds, age thirty-two. Releasing the agent now.'
Again, the hissing came, followed by the sudden puff of mustard-yellow aerosol mist.
The man in the second chamber saw the gas enter his booth, but unlike the first test subject, he didn't do anything in response. He was much bigger than the first man — broad chested, too, with bulging biceps, enormous fists and a small elliptical head that seemed way too tiny for his body.
With his gas mask on and the yellow mist falling all around him, he just stared out through the one-way glass of the test chamber, as if a painful agonizing death didn't worry him in the slightest.
No coughing. No spasming. With the gas mask on, the virus hadn't affected him yet.
Botha flicked the intercom switch: 'Take off your mask please.'
Subject Two obeyed Botha's command without objection, removed his mask.
The President saw the man's face, and this time he caught his breath.
It was a face he had seen many times before — on television, in the newspapers. It was the evil tattooed face of Lucifer James Leary, the serial killer known across America as 'the Surgeon of Phoenix'.
He was the man who had killed thirty-two hitchhikers, most of them young backpackers, whom he had picked up on the interstate between Las Vegas and Phoenix between 1991 and 1998. In every case, Leary had left his trademark — a piece of the victim's jewelry, usually a ring or necklace, lying on the roadway at the spot where the victim had been abducted.
A disgraced former medical student, Leary would take his victims to his home in Phoenix, amputate their limbs and then eat those limbs in front of them. The discovery of his house by FBI agents — complete with blood- smeared basement and two live but partially eaten victims — had horrified America.
Even now, Lucifer Leary looked like the picture of evil. The entire left-hand side of his face was covered by a black tattoo depicting five vertical claw marks, as if Freddy Krueger himself had slashed his razor-tipped fingers viciously down Leary's cheek. The tattooed slash marks were impressive in their detail — torn ragged skin, imitation blood — designed to evoke maximum revulsion.
At that moment, to the President's horror, Leary smiled at the observation window, revealing hideous yellow teeth.
It was then that it hit the President.
Even though his gas mask was off, Leary didn't seem to be affected by the airborne virus.
'As you will see,' Botha said proudly, 'even when the virus is inhaled directly into the lungs from the air, an orally administered vaccine delivered in serum-hydrate form is effective in preventing infection. The vaccine neutralizes the invading virus by restricting the release of the protein diethylpropanase by the virus, a protein which attacks the pigmentation enzyme metahydrogenase and the blood group protein, DB…'
'In English, please,' the President said tersely.
Botha said, 'Mr. President, what you have just seen is a quantum leap forward in biotechnological warfare. It is the world's first genetically engineered biological weapon, a completely synthetic agent, so there are no natural cures. And it works with a degree of efficiency the likes of which I have never seen before. It is a purely constructed virus, and make no mistake, it has been constructed in a very particular way.'
'It is an ethnic bullet, designed to kill only certain races of people, people possessed of certain ethnically exclusive genes. In this case, it attacks only those people who are possessed of the enzyme metahydrogenase and DB blood protein. These are the enzymes which cause white skin pigmentation, the characteristic enzymes of Caucasian people.'
'Mr. President, the same enzyme that makes our skin white makes us susceptible to this virus. It is extraordinary. I don't know how the Chinese did it. My government in South Africa tried for years to develop a virus that it could put in the water supply which would make only black people sterile, but we never succeeded.'
'But from the look of this agent, it would not be difficult to adapt the genetic makeup of the virus so that it would also attack African Americans, since their pigmentation enzyme is a variant of metahydrogenase…'
'Bottom line,' the President said.
'The bottom line is simple, Mr. President,' Botha said. 'The only people safe from this virus are people of Asian origin, because they do not possess these pigmentation enzymes at all. As such, they would be immune from the agent while Caucasians and African Americans everywhere would die.'
'Mr. President. Allow me to introduce you to the latest Chinese biological weapon. Meet the Sinovirus.'
'I'm telling you, there's something not right here', Schofield said.
'Bullshit, Captain.' Ramrod Hagerty waved his hand dismissively. 'You've been reading too many comic books.'
'What about Webster, then? I can't find him anywhere. He's not allowed to just disappear.'
'Probably in the John.'
'No, I checked there,' Schofield said. 'And Nighthawk Three? Where are they? Why hasn't Hendricks called in?'
Hagerty just stared at him blankly.
Schofield said, 'Sir, with all due respect, if you would just look at where these 7th Squadron guys are standing…'
Hagerty turned in his chair. He, Schofield and Gant were in the southern office of the main hangar, with the small group of White House people. Hagerty casually looked out through the office's windows at the 7th Squadron commandos spaced around the hangar outside.
'Looks like they're guarding every entrance.' Hagerty shrugged. 'To stop us going into areas we're not supposed to.'
'No, sir, they're not. Look closely. The group to the north are guarding the regular elevator. The middle group are guarding the aircraft elevator. They're both fine. But look at the group over by the control building, the group in front of the door.'
'Yeah, so…'
'Sir, they're guarding a storage closet.'
Hagerty looked from Schofield to the Air Force commandos. It was true. They were standing in front of a door marked 'storage'.
'That's very nice, Captain. I'll put your observations in my report.' Hagerty resumed his paperwork.
'But sir…'
'I said, I'll put your observations in my report, Captain Schofield. That will be all.'
Schofield straightened. 'With respect, sir, have you ever been in combat?' he said.
Hagerty froze, looked up. 'I'm not sure if I like your tone, Captain.'
'Have you ever been in combat?'
'I was in Saudi during Desert Storm.'
'Fighting?'
'No. Embassy staff.'
'Sir, if you'd ever been in combat, you'd know that those three groups of Air Force commandos are not standing in defensive positions. Those are offensive positions. More than that, those men are perfectly placed to rout these two offices…'
'Rubbish.'
Schofield grabbed the sheet of paper Hagerty had been writing on and scribbled a quick map of the
