“You think Veritas had something to do with it?”
Gordon finished his coffee and set the mug on the kitchen table. “What are the chances of a gas explosion? Natural gas is about the safest form of energy on the market. These things just don’t happen every day. If I had to guess, I’d say the explosion was planned. The private investigator I hired is on his way to Richmond to see if Rousseau was planning any big purchases or trips.”
“You think he was blackmailing someone at Veritas?”
“No idea. But it’s suspicious, his dying like that.”
Jennifer finished her coffee and poured both of them another cup. “It’s decaf,” she said, pouring a touch of cream into her mug. She offered him the cream and he topped off his coffee.
“This isn’t my life, Jennifer,” Gordon said. She looked confused, and he said, “People dying and corporations killing their employees. I’m completely out of my element here. I’m comfortable in a flannel shirt with a chain saw in my hand. This is so alien to me. I don’t know what to do.”
“You seem to have done pretty good so far,” she said. “You found the pills, talked to the doctor, brought in legal counsel first and then a private investigator. And when that wasn’t working, you searched out Kenga. You’ve certainly adapted to this whole mess quite well.”
His face wore a dejected look. “But we have nothing. Veritas is probably guilty of some horrific things, but we can’t prove it. So far, they’re winning.”
“So far,” she said. “You look tired. I’ve got a guest bedroom set up. Want to spend the night?”
He shook his head. “No, thanks. It’s not proper. I’ll get a hotel room. In fact, I’ve already got one. Left all my bags there before I came over.”
She nodded, knowing he had just told her the first lie of the night. “Okay, if you insist.”
“I do,” he said, rising from the kitchen chair. They walked through the living room, and he stopped. “Would you do me one favor?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Play for me. Just one or two songs. I love the piano.”
“Of course,” Jennifer said, a little taken aback by the request. It had come out of left field. “Just relax on the couch and get comfortable.”
Gordon stretched out on the sofa, his legs overhanging the armrest. Jennifer sat at the bench and the gentle sounds of Enya spilled through the darkened room. Every key she touched was as it should be, and her cadence was perfect. He felt the notes blurring together into a silky wall of sound. His thoughts drifted to the woman at the piano, and how she had taken the incentive to search him out and speak with him about Kenga. She was a well- educated, intelligent woman, and he admired her strength of character. Perhaps together they could give Veritas a run for its money.
The notes washed over him, and his breathing became more and more rhythmic.
29
J. D. Rothery chaired the meeting in his office in L’Enfant Plaza. The office was six hundred square feet with thick wall-to-wall carpet, a large redwood desk, and a sitting area with three leather couches and two overstuffed armchairs. Two walls were solid windows and the other two richly paneled with bookcases and original canvases. Present were Craig Simms, Deputy Director of the CIA, and Tony Warner, Director of Intelligence Analysis with the National Security Agency. Jim Allenby arrived as the meeting started. He had just flown in from Miami on a Bureau Gulfstream.
“Jim, you’re back from the crime scene. What have you got for us?” Rothery asked.
“Some good news mixed with a whole lot of bad. All four members of one Cuban-American family are dead. There’s no doubt we’re dealing with the same hemorrhagic virus we had in Austin and San Diego. Source of contamination was a TGIF restaurant in Miami. The restaurant is under quarantine, but we suspect the terrorists planted a set of infected silverware and the Chavez family was the unlucky party. The dishes have all been through a commercial washing machine with temperatures on some of the cycles that will kill the virus.”
“No chance of the virus spreading?” J. D. asked.
“At the restaurant, we suspect not. At the house, we’re hopeful. These people lived inside that house for four days since they ingested the virus, and there are levels of contamination in the home. But our experts think they’ve got it contained.”
“So what’s the good news?” Simms asked.
“At first, we thought we were going to have a media circus on this one,” Allenby replied. “The father, Enrico Chavez, was a bit of a public figure in the Cuban community, having run for municipal office. But the press hasn’t suggested his murder was politically motivated, and we’re fine with them taking that stance. And it turns out there’s no immediate family in the United States. All relatives are still in Cuba. And without immediate family banging on the door and demanding autopsy results and answers to questions, this might blow over quicker than we thought. We don’t have to answer to anyone who isn’t directly related to the Chavez family. So we can deflect the questions, and as long as no one on our end does anything stupid, we should be able to hunker down until this blows over.”
“The bodies are at Fort Detrick?” J. D. Rothery asked.
“Yes. Dr. Henning flew down yesterday afternoon. We expect a report back sometime this afternoon.”
“Who is he forwarding the report to?” Simms asked.
“I’ve requested copies go out simultaneously to all four agencies,” Allenby said. This was political maneuvering at its best: Keep everyone in the loop at the same time. “Henning estimated he would have the results of his autopsies by four this afternoon, so you should have reports on your desks by six, six-thirty at the latest.”
Simms nodded his approval. “Thanks, Jim.”
“What does the president have to say, Tony?” Rothery asked the NSA agent.
“He wants to be kept up to date on every detail,”Tony Warner replied. “I briefed him this morning on the situation, and he’s very concerned. The connection between Austin, San Diego, and now Miami is more than just troublesome. The White House is viewing this as a definite terrorist threat, and the fact that they can disseminate this virus whenever and wherever they want has the president looking seriously at upgrading the terror alert status from yellow to orange.”
“Probably a bad idea,” Craig Simms said. “If the media sees the government moving to a higher alert status, they’re going to question why. We’ll end up answering a lot more questions, and someone somewhere is going to piece this thing together. And when that happens, we’ll have a lot of panicked people on our hands.”
“The scary thing is that these guys have got the virus in the first place,” Tony Warner said. “We’ve been monitoring a lot of activity over the past few years, and we never saw anything like this coming. I’d like to know where they got it.”
“I’ve got to agree with Tony,” Simms said. “CIA has kept a close watch on this sort of thing. We know the scientists who’ve got the know-how to create these things, and this has totally blindsided us.”
“Okay,” Rothery said, cutting Simms off. “We don’t know where it came from. I agree that’s not a good thing, but focusing on the idea that this couldn’t have happened isn’t going to get us anywhere. It did happen and it’s still happening. We’ve got a rogue virus on the loose and in the hands of some group that’s ready to use it against us.” He looked back to Simms. “Craig, what about the labs you’ve been watching-any unusual activity since last Friday?”
“No. We’ve coordinated better satellite coverage with Tony,” he nodded toward the NSA man, “but nothing we’re seeing is out of the ordinary. The traffic in and out of the labs is about the same as we’ve been seeing for the last couple of months.”
Rothery was silent for a minute. The look on his face conveyed the seriousness of the situation. He looked at each man, locking eyes for a few seconds, then said, “One more incident with this virus and we are moving on those labs, Craig. I’m sorry if we blow the lid off your surveillance, but this is getting damned serious. We need to know where this bug is coming from and who has it.”
Simms nodded. “I’ll put a contingency plan in place to take out the al-Qaeda operatives we’ve identified at
