SOURCE FILE
1.
29-May
SPACE DIV-0
SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)
2.07-Jun
SPACEDIV-01
SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)
3.
16-Jun
SPACEDIV-02
USAF-SA(R)07 (FILE 009-21 D)
4.
22-Jun
SPACEDIV-02
USAF-SA(R)07
(FILE 009-21 D)
5.
02-Jul
SPACEDIV-01
SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)
6.
03-Jul
SPACEDIV-01
SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)
Okay, Fairfax thought.
He discarded the third and the fourth entries — they were the two messages that he'd just played. Their division designator, spacediv-02, meant his own section, Section 2.
The other four messages, however, were the property of Section 1, the main unit of Space Division located across the hall.
The source file for the Section 1 messages, SAT-SURV, stood for 'Satellite Surveillance.' Section 1, it seemed, had been tapping into foreign satellite transmissions lately.
Fairfax clicked on the first entry:
29-MAY 13:12:00
SATELLITE INTERCEPT (ENGLISH)
VOICE 1:
They did the test this morning. The vaccine is operational against all previous strains. All they need now is a sample of the latest version.
Fairfax frowned. The messages in Afrikaans had also mentioned a vaccine. And a successful test. He hit the next entry:
7-JUN 23:47:33
SATELLITE INTERCEPT (ENGLISH)
VOICE 1:
Virus snatch team is en route to Changchun. Names are CAPTAIN ROBERT WU and LIEUTENANT CHET. Both can be trusted. As discussed, the price delivery of the vaccine to you will be one hundred and twenty million dollars, ten million for each of twelve men involved.
Changchun, Fairfax thought. The Chinese bioweapons production facility.
And a hundred and twenty million dollars, to be divided among twelve men.
This was getting interesting.
Next:
2-JUL 02:21:57
SATELLITE INTERCEPT (CHINESE — ENGLISH)
VOICE 1:
Copy that, Yellow Star. We'll be there.
What is this…? Fairfax thought.
Yellow Star?
But that was the… He clicked on the final message:
3-JUL 04:04:42
SATELLITE INTERCEPT (ENGLISH)
VOICE 1:
WU and LI have arrived back at Area 7 with the virus. Your men are with them. All the money has been accounted for. Names of my men who will need to be extracted: BENNETT, CALVERT, COLEMAN, DAYTON, FROMMER, GRAYSON, LITTLETON, MESSICK, OLIVER and myself.
Fairfax was looking at the names on the last message when suddenly the door to his subterranean office was flung open and his boss — a tall, bald bureaucrat named Eugene Wisher — stormed into the room, followed by three heavily armed military policemen. Wisher was in charge of the operation going on across the hall — the tracking of the newly launched Chinese space shuttle.
'Fairfax!' he bellowed. 'What the hell are you doing in here!'
Fairfax gulped, eyed the MP's guns fearfully. 'Uh, wha… what are you talking about?'
'Why are you accessing intercepted transmissions from our operation?'
'Your operation?' Fairfax said.
'Yes. Our operation. Why are you downloading information from the mainframe that pertains to the classified operation going on in Section 1?'
Fairfax fell silent, deep in thought, while his boss kept yelling at him.
And suddenly it all became very, very clear.
'Oh, Christ,' he breathed.
It took some explaining — at gunpoint — but after five minutes, Dave Fairfax suddenly found himself standing in front of two DIA Assistant Directors in the operations room across the hall from his windowless office.
Monitors glowed all around the room, technicians worked at over a dozen consoles — all of it related to the tracking of the newly launched Chinese Space Shuttle, the Yellow Star. 'I need a personnel list for Special Area 7,' the twenty-five-year-old Fairfax said to the two high-ranking DLA chiefs standing before him.
A list came.
Fairfax looked at it. It read:
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) 07
ON-SITE PERSONNEL
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
NAME UNIT
COMMAND UNIT
