He said, ‘I really wanted some quiet time, Liz.’
‘I know, sir, but you have a visitor.’
Bocks went over to his desk, to the clear piece of square Lucite that stood up six inches and which held his day’s schedule, like the menu of some restaurant or something. He glanced down, then looked up and said, ‘First appointment isn’t for an hour. Who is it?’
‘An Adrianna Scott. With two associates.’
‘Tell her to go away.’
Liz came forward, her fiftyish body still looking uncomfortable in civilian clothes, like she should be wearing BDUs instead of a ridiculous pants suit from Talbots, and she passed over a business card. He looked down, saw the woman’s name and the very familiar emblem and main phone number of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Bocks handed the card back to her. ‘Sorry, I don’t go all weak in the knees anymore when unannounced visitors from Langley turn up. Tell her to make an appointment. Preferably for next week.’
Liz held the card and said, ‘She asked me to say something to you.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Sky Fall, sir,’ she said. ‘She told me to say “Sky Fall”.’
Now there’s irony for you, Bocks thought, for when Liz said those two words something indeed made his knees quiver for a moment. Good goddamn. Well, another day shot. And the possibility was now there for a whole host of nasty days ahead.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Show her and her associates in. And be prepared to cancel everything else for today.’
‘Today?’ Liz replied. ‘Are you sure? I mean, it looks like—’
‘Yes,’ Bocks said, heading back to his desk. ‘Everything. And no phone calls, Liz. And give me a minute before you show them in.’
‘Very good, sir,’ she said, walking out. Bocks sat down in his chair and then let his head rest in his hands, started rubbing at the temples, and closed his eyes real tight. In this position, he thought that the vibrations had returned, but no, it was probably just an illusion, make-believe — which he desperately hoped was what this entire day would become.
Adrianna Scott walked into the general’s office, Victor and Brian right behind her. There was the quick exchange of handshakes, and she said, ‘General, allow me to introduce my two associates. Doctor Victor Palmer, of the Centers for Disease Control, and Detective First Class Brian Doyle, of the New York Police Department.’
The general looked fit and trim, like most military men she had ever known, and as she expected the mention of Brian’s rank brought a quick smile to his face. ‘NYPD? What are you doing here? Going to come after me for some unpaid parking tickets in the Big Apple?’
Brian smiled back at him. ‘It can be arranged. If you’d like.’
‘What’s that? Arranged to be arrested, or arranged to be let loose?’
‘Whichever makes sense,’ Brian said. The general laughed and they sat down and Adrianna was so glad she had worn the longest skirt she owned, for her legs were really trembling with the tension of being this far along. Before leaving on the trip she had taken a dose of acrimophin, a beta blocker that was supposed to ease her racing heart, but she guessed that she should have taken another dose, for her heart rate was roaring right along.
She took a quick glance around the office, saw something that surprised her, and the general picked up on it, right away. ‘Something wrong, Miss Scott?’
Good for you, Adrianna thought. Don’t underestimate this one, don’t even come close to having him think you’re bullshitting him, because it could collapse and end right now, with her on a flight to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and all those years of dreaming and working would be gone in an instant.
‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘it’s just that I find your office…well, different.’
The general eased back a bit in his leather chair. ‘Different how?’
She nodded in the direction of the solitary framed photo, up on the wall. There were bookcases full of books and what looked to be a tiny bar in the other corner, but just the one photo, of a young man with big ears in an Air Force enlisted man’s uniform, looking very young and very serious. Over the many years the chemicals in the photo had faded out, giving the man’s skin a greenish-yellowish tinge, but she could still recognize a young Alexander Bocks.
Adrianna said, ‘Where’s everything else?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The plaques, the photos, the—‘
‘—framed photos, framed certificates, all that framed crap,’ Bocks said back to her. ‘Yeah. The ego wall. Look at me shaking hands with the President. Look at me with the Pope. Look at me, getting pinned when I became a general. The hell with that.’
Bocks swiveled in his chair and said, ‘See that? That’s a skinny kid with big ears who grew up in a small town called Arapahoe, Nebraska, and who knew he didn’t want to farm like his father and grandfather. So he joined the Air Force and worked hard and the Air Force found a place for him, educated him, sent him around the world a few times and made a man out of him. That’s the only thing that’s on my wall. To remind me where I came from, to remind me what I had to do to get here.’
Adrianna stayed silent as Bocks moved his chair back. His gaze was now focused right on her. ‘All right. You didn’t travel here unannounced to admire my empty walls. You need something. You used a coded phrase, telling me who you are and establishing your bona fides. You’ve got my attention, miss. Use it well.’
She nodded. This was where it was going to pay off, for she had been practicing this presentation for months — years, even! — and being so close, she wasn’t going to fail. She said, ‘General, we need your help.’
‘How?’
‘We’re going to be attacked in just under three weeks, simultaneously and across the country. Major metropolitan areas. Our best guess is that the twenty largest population centers have been targeted.’
‘Nukes?’
‘Anthrax.’
‘Delivery system?’
Adrianna said, ‘Teams of four or five operatives in each city. Each has a vehicle, a rental car or truck. They have weaponized airborne anthrax virus in baggies. Delivery system is absurdly simple. Drive into each major city and drop Baggies off at intersections, where foot and vehicle traffic will spread the spores.’
Bocks’s gaze never wavered. ‘Casualties?’
‘Horrific. Tens of millions of deaths within weeks. Total collapse of economy and government. We—’
He held up his hand. ‘Don’t need to go into any details. And you need my assistance? How? Transport of medical supplies? Evacuation? What the hell can I do that the government can’t?’
Adrianna said, ‘Doctor Palmer will explain, sir, if you permit.’
‘Go ahead.’
Now it was Victor’s turn, and Adrianna was even more nervous. During the past few days, Victor — never a calm one to begin with — had become more erratic. He did his job just fine, but there’d been a day or two when she’d noted a patch of stubble on his face where he had missed shaving. And food stains on his shirtsleeves. And a frayed necktie. Telltale indications of stress that had never been there before.
But he rose to the occasion as he opened up the silver case, removed a dark green canister with the yellow stenciled markings, and started talking. Though Victor’s voice was a monotone, Bocks paid rapt attention to details of the experimental vaccine, the spraying mechanism, and the radio-altimeter switch that both armed and triggered the canister’s operation. Victor’s briefing went on for eleven minutes exactly, and when he was done and had replaced the mock-up canister in the metal case the only thing audible was the sound of the aircraft, out in Memphis, taking off and landing.
Bocks shook his head. ‘A hell of a thing. And where exactly does this canister go?’
Adrianna said, ‘Your air fleet consists mainly of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 jets, retrofitted from passenger use to cargo use. In each aircraft, in the aft portion of the fuselage, there is a port and starboard exhaust system for the on-board air-conditioning system. Our aircraft analysts believe that the vaccine canisters can be installed as an addon to the exhaust system. The pilots would have no control over the distribution. The radio-altimeter switches would take care of that. It would be automatic.’
