Scott, she’d half expected the FedEx plane would be blown out of the sky before it ever made it to land.
Fourteen heavily armed deputy U.S. marshals, each dressed in orange full-body biosafety suits, stood along the dark ramp. Blue lights glowed in the steamy mist along the hot tarmac. Self-contained breathing units hummed in the drizzle. Mahoney was similarly dressed, albeit without the submachine gun, as was her lab assistant Justin, a twenty-four-year-old doctoral student who made no secret of the fact that he was clearly infatuated with her.
Justin looked over his shoulder, wiping rain off the front of his clear bubble face shield. He patted his rear with a gloved hand. “What do you think, Megan? Does this suit make my butt look big?”
He was a cute kid, with mischievous, brown eyes, muddy-river hair, and the muscular shoulders of a baseball player. He was also young enough to cause a scandal of Fox News proportions if she yielded to his relentless advances.
“Justin,” Mahoney sighed into the tiny microphone inside her rubberized helmet, fighting the urge to flirt back with such a good-looking hunk of man. “Knock it off. The stuff on that airplane is nothing to screw around with. Besides, I’m old enough to be your-”
“Sorry,” he cut her off. “I’ll stop.”
“Thank you.” Mahoney walked past him. The battery pack that powered the breathing unit at her waist whirred as she made her way toward the approaching aircraft. Ensconced in the cumbersome suit, she couldn’t hear Justin sniffing along behind her, but she was sure he was there. Maybe she was giving off the wrong vibes. Maybe she was leading him on subconsciously. She certainly didn’t intend to appear needy-no matter how available she was. In point of fact, her social calendar was incredibly lacking. She told herself it was because she was too busy with work, but wondered in her heart of hearts if she just wasn’t overly picky.
When Megan was a little girl her father, the Fulton County sheriff, had described her hair as claybank, comparing it to the coat of his favorite dun mare-not blond, not red, and not brown but somewhere in between all three, depending on how the light hit it. As she’d grown up he compared her in other ways to his beloved horse. When she’d placed third in the state high school swim meet, he’d put a hand on her shoulder and said: “You know, you and your mama are more like quarter horses than thoroughbreds-built for comfort over speed.” She’d looked around the pool and, for the first time, noticed that all the other young female swimmers standing around with their families towered over her by at least four inches.
“Third in state is nothing to be ashamed of,” her mother had said, draping a towel over Megan’s shoulders.
“I ain’t sayin’ she should be ashamed,” her father tried to defend his reasoning. “I’m just pointing out she’s been blessed with a little more hip and a little less length than these bags of bones that are taking first and second.”
The quarter-horse comparisons not withstanding, Megan knew she was attractive enough. The men who did ask her out all looked like Ken dolls. Roger, the cardiologist she’d been having dinner with in Buckhead when she’d been summoned away to the limousine conference, was exactly the sort of man she seemed to attract, and exactly the sort she couldn’t stand-rich, well-groomed, highly educated, and incredibly boring. She wondered if working surrounded by life-threatening germs day in and day out had somehow dulled her senses, made her crave more excitement from a man than any human being was capable of giving. Justin was certainly willing to show her some excitement, albeit of the fumbling kind. She could see it in his hungry, young eyes every time he looked at her. Somehow, she’d have to figure out a way to hit him in the head with a figurative two-by-four to let him know she wasn’t, and never would be, something on his menu.
The jet made a slow turn off the taxiway and lumbered toward them amid pulsing lights, turning Mahoney’s thoughts back to the deadly task at hand.
Luckily, FedEx traveled with a flight crew of only two and no attendants, making it far less likely that anyone would have come into contact with the package containing the virus.
“I know what you were going to say, Megan,” Justin said from behind her, his voice dripping with impish enthusiasm. She’d started their relationship off badly by insisting he call her Megan instead of Dr. Mahoney. She made a mental note to remain more aloof with her next intern.
“You were going to say that you’re old enough to be my sister.”
Mahoney spun on her heels. Every breath threw a tiny puff of fog on her clear plastic face shield. It was uncomfortable enough to begin with stuck in the clammy suit. She wasn’t about to put up with this for one minute longer.
“Justin, I’m serious.” She jabbed him in the chest with her glove-encased finger. “If you want to work with me, you gotta rein in that horn-dog libido. If I was a twenty-year-old cheerleader at Georgia Tech, maybe you and I could have a hot roll in the hay. We could catch us a nice case of campus clap-then set up a romantic date to get treated together at the health unit. But I’m old-”
“Thirty-something isn’t old.” Justin amped up his perfect grin. “ Cosmo says you’re in your sexual prime.”
“I’ve seen too many deadly bugs to screw around with you, or anybody else who hasn’t been living inside a plastic bubble all his life.” That was a lie, but it sounded good. Mahoney hooked a gloved thumb over her shoulder toward the FedEx jet as it powered down behind her, lights pulsing in the dark rain. “It’s time to get serious. You hear what I’m saying? There is no vaccine for what’s in there, no cure.”
The intern slumped. “I understand. Won’t happen again.”
“Good,” Mahoney said, knowing that it would most certainly happen again… and again. They had a similar talk about every other day. Talking about a roll in the hay with the beefy youngster had caused her hood to fog up even more.
When this is over, she thought, I’ve gotta find a full-grown man who can really fog my face mask.
Seven yellow airport fire trucks moved in to form a loose perimeter outside the ring of deputy marshals who now surrounded the aircraft. Tentatively, the copilot opened the door and stepped out onto the rolling metal stairway. He waved sheepishly, looking relieved to be on the ground. The lead marshal pointed back in the plane, shaking his head.
“Please stay aboard, sir,” he shouted. “No one out until we give the order.”
“I’ll be the only one to go aboard,” Mahoney said over the radio so the marshals could hear her. “My team and security contingent will take the package. The rest of you can secure the aircraft and crew for decontamination.” She turned to her pouting assistant. “Justin, grab the bubble stretcher and wheel it up to the base of the steps.”
The bubble stretcher was a Plexiglas box, long enough to hold a human body, fitted with an electric air pump and HEPA filter. Any virus or bacteria was kept inside by the constant negative air pressure provided by the pump.
“On it, Doctor,” Justin said, professional, for the moment.
Mahoney stopped and took a deep breath at the base of the Jetway. Through unthinkable errors of miscom- munication between governments, FedEx had just accomplished the very act terrorists had failed to complete on Northwest 2. They had landed a weaponized version of the deadliest virus known to man on American soil.
She glanced at her watch to confirm what she already knew.
It was September 11.
CHAPTER 17
11 September Mount Vernon, Virginia
In the back of a dark blue armored limousine, where the Director of National Intelligence conducted the lion’s share of his work, Win Palmer briefed his new agents on the events surrounding Northwest Flight 2 and what he believed to be the inevitability of a bioterrorism attack with weaponized Ebola.
Quinn let out a deep sigh. The conversation with Kim had gone as expected. There was no ranting, no screaming, just a long, resigned sigh and a sullen “I knew better than to hope.” Quinn was sure that wasn’t the end of it. Rather than dwell on his own sorry problems, Quinn turned his thoughts to the tragedy of the Northwest flight. He’d heard of Steve Holiday, one of the most beloved squadron leaders ever to command the Blue Angels. He
