Biowar

“But you think it’s a bad idea.”

Rubens had no point of safety to retreat to. He had to commit, or at least come as close as one did in Washington.

“Probably,” he admitted.

“Yes,” she said with obvious disappointment. And then she reached out and touched his hand. “I hope you’ll keep an open mind for a while.”

“First impressions are not always lasting ones,” said Rubens. He glanced at her hand, noting that it was still on his forearm.

“Are the rumors true?” she asked, pulling her hand away.

“Which rumors?” said Rubens.

“That you’re being considered for Secretary of State.”

“I didn’t know that there would be a vacancy,” said Rubens, honestly. He hadn’t heard of any rumors along those lines.

“Oh, there will be. You would be an excellent choice.”

“Well, thank you,” said Rubens, unsure what else to say.

* * *

Rubens’ head was practically spinning as he drove to his safehouse to swap cars and go home.

Secretary of State?

Of course it was a post he coveted. Defense was so much less refined — not to mention weighed down by the pendulous bureaucracies of the services the office was supposed to supervise. At the moment, State was not particularly effective, but under his leadership — well then, of course.

But there were no rumors that he knew of about the post becoming vacant. James Lincoln was not only competent but also an occasional ally.

An important ally. The fact that Rubens couldn’t stand him personally notwithstanding.

Secretary of State.

His Art Room phone buzzed. Rubens took it from his jacket pocket.

“Rubens.”

“Boss, this is Chris in the Art Room,” said Farlekas. “You ready for an update?”

Rubens listened as Farlekas detailed the data from the computers Tommy Karr had compromised in Thailand. The military unit appeared to be loyal to the central government, and there were no traces of penetration by the rebels. However, the Art Room had come up with three possible guerrilla cells operating nearby that might have penetrated the communications system. They were in the process of preparing missions to bug all three, sending vessels to land miniature flies in their area. Analysis of optical satellite data had turned up one interesting finding — there were pigs at one of the camps.

“The significance of swine would be what?” asked Rubens.

“Very useful for growing certain organisms,” said Farlekas, explaining how pigs were used to create insulin as well as other materials. Pigs were raised all across Asia for food, and in fact there were wild swine in many places as well. But Islamic law forbade the eating of pork.

“Wouldn’t the logical conclusion be that these are not Muslim guerrillas?” asked Rubens.

“Thai intelligence indicates that they are.”

“Chris, we’re looking for bacteria. All they need are petri dishes.”

“The scientists raised the possibility that if they were to be using animals, the program would be very far advanced. They might have found a way to use the swine as organism factories. It’s actually not as far-fetched as it sounds. Normal diseases, even the flu, can be harbored in animals. Any number of ailments have started naturally that way. The science section is very worried about this.”

Rubens did not believe that terrorists could use such advanced techniques. Or rather, he didn’t want to believe it. He thought the scientists had let their imaginations and fears run far ahead of reality, just as the Thai intelligence service had made a mistake about the guerrillas’ fanatical religious affiliation. And yet the history of fighting terrorism was nothing if not a history of imagination, prodding the brain into the odd comers of the unexpected. The terrorists’ few spectacular successes had come more because those fighting them had failed to anticipate — had failed to imagine—their capabilities.

As far as technology went, infecting a pig with a germ was hardly the cutting edge of science.

There was no downplaying the danger.

“Are these people connected to the Crescent Tigers?” asked Rubens.

“Not that we know, and not according to the Thai authorities. The Tigers seem to have fallen on hard times. Their Myanmar camp is abandoned. We’ve checked.”

“On foot?”

“I have more than a dozen satellite photos and a new series coming in about two hours. No fires, no traffic, no anything. They’re long gone. I have Johnny Bib’s people trying to track them down. I’ll put them at the top of the list if we find them, I guarantee.”

“Very well. Send Tommy to take a look at the most likely camps, with this as the priority,” said Rubens. “Have him go to the abandoned camp as well.”

“He’ll have to use the Thai military unit. They’d have to attack them.”

“That’s what the Thai unit’s supposed to be doing, isn’t it?”

“Their resources there are limited. Most of the firepower is on the other side of the country.”

A series of zeros flashed before Rubens’ eyes — the budget line he was about to blow past. Even Deep Black had to deal with bean counters.

But so be it.

“Very well. Find out what we need. Expedite the process. We may be working on a time constraint here; the sooner we recover Kegan the better. Europe?”

“We still have no leads on the people Dean met with.”

“Nothing?”

Rubens felt the steering wheel shake violently. He glanced down at the speedometer and saw that he was pushing the nondescript agency Malibu over eighty. He backed off the gas, trying to calm himself as well.

“Our resources are a little stretched. Johnny Bib is up in New York, and his team has been focused more on the information that he’s looking into than the European end,” said Farlekas.

“Well, correct that,” said Rubens.

“I’m trying. They gave him twenty-four hours,” said Farlekas. “So they’ll be looking for him soon.”

“Yes.”

“I want to send him back out.”

“And?”

“He wasn’t feeling well.”

“Describe his symptoms.”

“Sounded like he ate something that didn’t agree with him.”

Rubens once more checked his speed.

“Boss?”

“Does he have a fever?”

“He says no. I’d like to have him checked.”

Dean should be—he had to be—checked out, not only for his own health but also to find out exactly what the hell the infection was.

On the other hand, if he didn’t keep the meeting, they would lose their best chance at finding out what was going on. If these people knew about an antidote, they had to be apprehended. For Dean’s sake as well as everyone else’s.

The enormity of the threat became a physical thing weighing against the back of Rubens’ neck as he considered the implications of the two strands of their investigation: an incurable disease propagated in pigs, which could spread flulike through the population and at the same time compromise the food supply, or at least a portion of it.

Rubens took a deep breath, centering himself. There would be a cure. They had no real evidence of a guerrilla connection, let alone any reason besides a scientist’s paranoia that animals were involved.