would be quiet and the war would stop and papa would work at saving sick children and mama would teach her French, and all would be safe and quiet and beautiful…
The shelter. Where was the shelter?
She ran up one block, and then took a left. More sirens from the distance, and then an ambulance shrieked by, and then another. She took another corner and—
Smoke. Chaos. Aliyah brought both fists up to her head and beat at her ears.
The shelter was across the street, but she could not get any closer. There were ambulances and fire trucks and masses of people, crowding in and around the structure. There was a barbed-wire fence around the concrete edifice, and people were tearing at it with their bare hands. A large plume of smoke was billowing from the rooftop, rising higher and higher into the night sky as if from a chimney venting the output of some horrible fire going on underneath the concrete and steel and—
A group of men emerged from the crowd, carrying a stretcher. They were chanting and screaming, and each held a fist up in the air as their other hand held the frame. An Iraqi flag was draped over the burnt body, barely concealing it. And another stretcher emerged, and another, and Aliyah was on the ground, prostrate, beating her forehead against the asphalt, praying to her savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save her and her mama and papa, and she stayed there all night long, as the hundreds of burnt bodies were dragged out of the destroyed shelter, her mama and papa among them, charred pieces of flesh and bone, and save for a distant aunt she was now all alone in the world, and when she finally stood up and saw the useless fire trucks still there in the morning, pouring water into the shelter, she was still sixteen, but she was no longer a young girl.
Hassan held no interest for her anymore nor did much of anything else. Not even her Lord Jesus Christ, who had permitted the Americans to come here and kill her family.
All that mattered now was revenge.
Revenge to make the Americans pay for what they had done to her and papa and mama.
And eventually that day, Aliyah returned home, and started to think and plan and work very, very hard.
CHAPTER NINE
In the conference room, Adrianna Scott could feel the greasy chill of despair come over her Tiger Team, but she would not allow it to get out of hand. She looked around the room and said, ‘You know the weakness of scenarios. They assume the very best chances for our enemies, the very worst response by our agencies. But Final Winter was a war
The police detective said, ‘A hell of a game, Adrianna. Jesus Christ, I thought weaponized anthrax was hard to produce, especially in quantity. Where the hell is this stuff coming from?’
Adrianna said, ‘Darren?’
The NSA man said, ‘Before the second Gulf War, the Secretary of State said that Iraq had produced hundreds of pounds of anthrax. Still hasn’t been found yet. Not hard to figure out that the stuff was either sold or given away before the Third Infantry Division plowed into Baghdad.’
‘Shit,’ Brian said.
Adrianna said, ‘Monty, there’s no way to guarantee a one hundred percent success rate in sealing the borders or intercepting the teams. Correct?’
A morose nod of the head. ‘You’ve got it.’
She turned to Victor, determined to keep things moving. In her experience since being chosen to head this Tiger Team, she knew that some teams collapsed in inter-service rivalry, bitter fights over who had said what in a year-old memo between the CIA and the NSA, and some teams were so cautious that nothing happened, except for strategy and long-range planning sessions. But her team and her people were quickly earning a reputation for coming up with solutions and making the solutions work, and that was a reputation she was determined to maintain.
‘Victor, I’m afraid it’s going to be up to you and your folks.’
Victor looked like a young rabbit, suddenly seeing a snake slither toward it. ‘I don’t see how.’
‘The intelligence option and the military option are going to be of limited use,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘That leaves the public-health option.’
‘But I’ve told you already,’ he protested. ‘The typical vaccine regimen is three injections, spaced over a week. That and Cipro. I don’t see what else we can do.’
There was a moment of silence, and then Monty spoke up. ‘What do you mean, typical?’
‘Just what I said. Typical.’
Now Adrianna saw the team members direct their gazes at Victor, who seemed to shrink some from the attention.
Darren said, ‘All right, Victor. That’s the typical approach. What’s not typical?’
Victor looked at each of their faces, and when it came to Adrianna there was a pleading quality in his expression. ‘Adrianna…it’s highly experimental. It hasn’t gone through the usual evaluation process and blind trials. The production line has been set up and there’s been some progress, but it’s at least—’
Brian said, ‘What’s usual about this, pal? Tell me that. C’mon, spill what you’ve got. What’s going on down at the CDC?’
Victor looked down at his screen. ‘All right. I’ll brief you. But I’m not going to be held responsible for anything that—’
Adrianna tried to soothe him. ‘No, you won’t be held responsible, Victor. You know who holds the responsibility. So tell us what you’ve got.’
Victor still looked miserable. His fingers gingerly worked the keyboard of his laptop. He seemed to be struggling against something and Adrianna knew what it was: the desperate horror of screwing up, with the stakes so high.
Finally Victor said, ‘It’s been worked on since the first anthrax attacks, back in ‘01. Operational name is Clear Sky. Challenge was, just like now, goddamn it, how to maximize the immunization process for respiratory anthrax in the minimum amount of time. We had to get around the three-shot process. Wasn’t working. How the hell can you get millions of Americans lined up and processed when it takes three injections to immunize them? The logistics were a nightmare. Even the one-shot process was a hell of a challenge, too. Then the working group for Clear Sky went at it from a different angle. Used a genetically modified version of the respiratory-anthrax virus. Modified it so that when an individual is exposed, he or she runs a slight fever, maybe a bit of nausea, but then they’re immune. Immune up to five years.’
He looked up from his laptop. ‘There you have it.’
‘Have what?’ Brian asked.
Monty said, ‘Yeah. What the hell was the fuss all about?’ Victor had the expression of someone who couldn’t believe the morons he was spending time with. ‘Don’t you see? It’s a variety of the respiratory anthrax. You’re not immunized through injection. You’re immunized by breathing it in.’
Brian said, ‘The hell you say.’
‘The hell I do,’ Victor said.
Adrianna said, ‘Is there enough?’
‘Enough what?’
‘Enough vaccine to do the job.’
Victor shook his head. ‘Maybe. I can find out later today. I know the production has been underway for some time, just in case we…well, just in case. But there’s the biggest problem of all. Delivery. It’s not like we can set up shower stations or breathing tubes on subways or train cars. Only possible delivery system would be airborne.’
Darren said, ‘Hasn’t it been looked at?’
‘Sure,’ Victor said. ‘But the challenge of using an airborne vaccine is—’
Brian said, ‘Oh, right. Like you said earlier. About wide dispersal. Crop dusters and such wouldn’t work.’
Victor shook his head. ‘That problem’s been solved.’
Adrianna said, ‘How?’
‘Vladimir Zhukov.’
