deeply, exhaled, and asked Samson, “Where do we start?”
Joan Cortez, followed by two older men, filed into the room and stood near the door.
“I said to clear the room.” Conway barked.
“No.” Joan looked at him directly. “What if the perp’s bringing in more people across the borders or they try to escape over the borders? No, this is our jurisdiction too. We’re staying.”
Conway frowned and turned back to the doctor. “So, where do we start?”
Dr. Samson shook his head. “We need a containment strategy first.”
Conway called for Valentini who came into the conference room quickly. Conway said, “I want you to notify the state Department of Health and …”
“No,” Samson shouted. “This is much too sensitive to share with them right now. They’re not normally privy to classified intelligence. Think about it-there aren’t any security or clearance procedures set up. What if this is a nation-wide plot? We don’t know the parameters of the problem yet. When I said ‘containment strategy,’ I meant not only containment of the virus but of information, also. We don’t want information leaks to cause a panic.”
“Oh, yeah,” Conway said and drew from his cigarette again.
Dr. Kumar came into the room. “The team from the Center for Disease Control has landed at the military base by the airport. They’ve got three Epidemic Intelligence Services officers with them, the nurses, dosages of vaccine, and other personnel.” He smoothed his hair. “They’ll be at the site in less than a half hour.”
“What if they don’t have enough vaccine?” Valentini said. “Then what? Should we consider a mandatory quarantine?”
“How big should we draw the circle around the site?” Conway said.
Paul said, “I’m not sure a mandatory quarantine would be legal. I mean, how can you force people to stay in their houses for days?”
Heads dropped and the conversation lagged.
Paul spoke again, “We’re going to need local law enforcement at the site.”
Dr. Samson agreed. “But don’t tell them why,” he cautioned.
Conway nodded and told Valentini to make the contacts with the chief of police for the city. “What’s the location again?” he asked Paul. The details were relayed to the chief.
Valentini held the cell phone away from his head. “What should I tell them to do?”
Dr. Samson said, “They are to maintain order and make sure no one leaves the area of the mosque. Paul, you should get out there immediately with Dr. B and meet the team from CDC. Post the police at all points where people may enter or leave the suspect area. When the CDC team arrives, they’ll set up a mobile medical center to assess the problem and administer vaccinations to those people inside the containment circle as soon as they decide to release it. Hopefully, we won’t miss anyone that could get out.”
“Should we quarantine the entire suburb?” Conway asked.
“It may be necessary. But we don’t know yet since the CDC team isn’t on site to assess the extent of the release.”
Conway added, “I’ve got to notify the mayor and the governor, too. The FBI director’s already called me twice since we alerted their war room. Anyone else?”
Samson sighed and his face drooped. “We have to face the possibility that this is a national release. The Department of Homeland Security, Defense Department, and the National Security Council will have to come in at some point, along with the president.”
Joan interrupted, “Hey folks, hate to burst your bubble, but we’re here and that means Homeland Security already knows.”
“It’s too early for all that, Stan,” Dr. Kumar said.
Samson’s eyes lifted to meet his and then moved around the room. “How do you know?”
After a silence, Conway cleared his throat with a low gurgle. “How do I protect my own people?”
Samson said, “When the CDC team arrives, they can vaccinate everyone who’ll have primary contact with the release. Law enforcement and health workers have priority. The closest hospitals and emergency rooms get second priority. We must maintain the viability of the medical personnel. If they’re overwhelmed, we all lose.”
“What about the kids who could be infected?” Valentini said.
“If the CDC has enough vaccine, of course anyone that’s determined to have been infected will get the vaccine. They’ll also be isolated at the closest hospital and monitored in quarantine.”
People in the room attacked their cell phones and made the necessary calls.
Dr. Kumar sat down beside Samson and said, “Stan, it’s damn lucky we participated in the national symposium back in ’99. Did you ever think …?”
Paul’s cell phone buzzed. He opened it and read the message from Zehra. It confused him since she texted him that she would be going with Mustafa to Hiawatha High School for a science fair. Zehra also included the address. Why would she send him the text? Wasn’t Mustafa some guy she had met or was dating? Paul didn’t have time to think about it. He saved it and closed the phone.
Conway walked over to him. “You know where this mosque is, Paul?”
“Yeah. I was there earlier, and the witness Abraham, told me about it.”
“Do you know when the meeting was supposed to occur?”
“Sometime tonight.” Paul caught his breath. “Wait a minute! The services at the mosque began already, at noon. The meeting could be at anytime after, or even during the service.”
“Like right now?” Conway crossed his beefy arms over his chest.
“I’m moving.” Paul hurried toward the door.
They jumped into the elevator and fell to the basement. Paul jogged to his car.
He roared up the ramp, swiped his access card over the exit machine, and came out into the bright sun of the afternoon. Heat and humid air surrounded the car. Paul rolled the windows down and swerved through the traffic.
At his house, Paul took only enough time to grab the olive drab Glock 21, the one that shot the big.45-caliber bullets.
Removing his suit jacket, he twisted into his shoulder holster and settled the gun under his arm. He picked up his vest, just in case, and raced up the stairs.
Back in the car, he lurched out of the driveway. He glanced at his watch. He calculated about thirty minutes to the mosque. What about the CDC people? he wondered. He called Dr. Kumar on his cell phone.
“They’ll set up things as fast as they can. I’ll help you work with them,” the doctor answered.
“When we get there, will they be able to start vaccinations?”
“Not immediately. Because the dosages of vaccine are limited, they’ll insist on an accurate diagnosis first. Depending on what they discover, we’ll react.”
Paul sat back in his seat. “Wait a minute. You mean when we get there, I can’t just seal-off the area and let them get to work?”
“You should set up the containment perimeter with the local police to help, but no, things won’t work that fast.”
“But don’t they understand that the release could be going on right now? That we’ve got to arrest Ammar, that the stuff could be spreading as we’re waiting for them?”
Paul could hear him sigh. “In this situation, they run the show and no one can tell them what to do.”
He barked into the phone as he pushed the car faster. “Well, how long does this diagnosis take? I hope they can do it on the spot. We may already be too late.”
“Uh … first, they’ll have to fly it by a military plane to Atlanta to be analyzed in their maximum containment laboratory.”
Forty
Joan Cortez had armed herself earlier and brought along the two agents she trusted the most. George Eppert and Teddy Vang sat with her in the unmarked Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV as they raced south toward the mosque.
