The Panic Zone

55

McLean, Virginia

Ensconced in the wooded countryside near the Potomac River west of Washington, D.C., stood the white concrete-and-glass structure that served as headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency.

As he entered, Robert Lancer knew time was working against him.

He cleared security and strode to one of the building’s vaulted rooms for his early morning meeting, mentally reviewing his concerns.

Nothing had emerged yet from the Moroccans on the murder of his source, Adam Corley.

Then there was the reporter-Jack Gannon.

Gannon was going to meet Corley to learn more about a link to a law firm in Brazil and its suspected ties to a global human-smuggling network and the bombing of a cafe in Rio de Janeiro that killed ten people. Drake Stinson, ex-CIA, who’d played on Black Ops, was a member of that firm.

Stinson had vanished.

Now a new threat had emerged out of Florida-a mystery death on a cruise ship-the CDC’s alert to Homeland was that whatever killed the man from Indianapolis was engineered by somebody.

Was this part of an attack or something else?

Lancer could not dismiss Foster Winfield’s fears that someone was attempting to replicate Project Crucible’s abandoned experiments. How Winfield and his colleague Phil Kenyon were so uneasy about Gretchen Sutsoff, who had led most of the research. While they regarded her as a brilliant scientist, her extreme views troubled them.

And me, too, because I can’t find her, Lancer thought. Could any of this stuff be connected?

He exhaled as he entered the meeting room. He nodded to the people he knew, helped himself to coffee and took his place. The conversations were muted, the mood was tense.

Everybody was at the table.

The agency had people from Intelligence, Clandestine, Science and Tech and Support. Homeland was there, as were the FBI, Secret Service, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence, the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and an array of others from the intelligence community.

The meeting commenced when Lincoln Hunter, assistant to the National Intelligence director-the president’s advisor on intelligence-slapped his report on the tabletop.

“What do we have?”

The woman from the Centers for Disease Control summarized the gruesome case of Roger Timothy Tippert, a forty-one-year-old high school teacher from Indianapolis, who died while on a Caribbean cruise. Aspects of the autopsy troubled the Broward County M.E. who alerted the CDC.

“We’ve observed that it appears-I mean-” she cleared her throat “-there are strong indications that the pathogen that killed Mr. Tippert was manufactured.”

“Do we know who’s behind it and if there are other victims?”

“No,” she said. “We alerted Homeland.”

“And we’ve alerted Fort Detrick,” the Homeland analyst said.

“We’re in the process of flying samples from Atlanta to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Detrick,” said the colonel from the Defense Intelligence Agency. “But our people are extremely concerned about the early indications.”

“What do they show you?” Hunter asked.

“Based on our teleconferencing with CDC, we concur, there are signs of genetic, or DNA, manipulation. It’s very complex but it seems similar to or evocative of, classified research conducted by U.S. scientists years ago.”

“What? Is this a domestic? What do we know about this research?” Hunter was taking notes.

Lancer watched Raymond Roth, Nick Webb and a few of the CIA people shifting uncomfortably in their chairs.

Roth leaned forward to respond.

“It was called Project Crucible,” he said. “It emerged in the years following the end of the Cold War. Through covert operations we obtained access to advances in military, chemical, biological and genetic research made by enemy and rogue states.”

“What was the objective of Crucible?” Hunter asked.

“The project’s scientists were tasked to first defend, then dismantle, the work. But in many cases, they had to replicate it.”

“Replicate it? And you think someone is using the technology gleaned from Crucible against us?”

Lancer was waiting for his CIA colleagues to reveal the full story.

“We won’t know that until the people at Fort Detrick conclude their testing,” Roth said.

“Who ran Crucible?” Hunter asked.

“We did, sir,” Roth said. “And when this Florida case came to light we endeavored to locate former personnel who had been assigned to Crucible to determine if it was a factor.”

“Excuse me,” Lancer said to Roth, “but I understand concerns surfaced long before this Florida case. I believe that approximately one month ago, Crucible’s lead scientist contacted the agency expressing anxiety about someone attempting to replicate the project’s research.”

“I don’t believe that’s entirely accurate.” Roth did not look at Lancer.

“I have a copy of Foster Winfield’s letter and the agency’s response,” Lancer said.

“Could I see that?” Hunter asked. “I’ll attach it to my report to the director for his brief to the Oval Office.” Hunter then took stock of the room and shook his head.

Roth refrained from looking at Lancer.

“Sir,” Roth continued, “since we’ve been investigating we’ve discovered that files and material from Crucible are missing, dating back to the time the project was abandoned.”

“Christ.” Hunter clicked his poised pen. “What’s missing?”

“Samples of Marburg and anthrax.”

“Christ,” Hunter said. “What else?”

“A number of other materials and files.”

“And no one knew?”

“It first appeared to be an inventory error. Dangerous material was to have been destroyed or locked away years ago. But our further investigation, prompted by Winfield’s letter, confirms material was never destroyed and has, in fact, been missing since Crucible was phased out.”

“And you’ve accounted for and interviewed all former personnel?”

“We’re in the process.”

“Listen up.” Hunter’s jaw was pulsating. “You find every scientist who worked on this nightmare and get them to Detrick ASAP to, first, help us determine who’s behind the missing material and, second, help our people there analyze the tissue to determine what we’re dealing with.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you hold them until we determine what the hell we’ve got and who’s responsible. And to the rest of you-don’t let your guard down or rule out other sources.”

Hunter stood, gathered his material and glared in Roth’s direction.

“You get those scientists to Fort Detrick-now,” Hunter said.

As the meeting broke up, Lancer went to Roth and Webb.

“Marburg and anthrax? That’s a witch’s brew-how do you lose that right from under your own noses?”

Roth and Webb glared at Lancer without speaking.

“Would you guys like some help?” Lancer asked. “I could use some help locating Sutsoff.”

The agents began walking away.

“We’re supposed to work together to connect the dots, break down these compartmentalized barriers.”

“Stay out of our way, Lancer.”

Lancer left the room and the building, and hurried to his car.

Dammit, is this all connected? Is something big coming down?

A million scenarios shot through Lancer’s mind as he drove across Fairfax County to the Anti-Threat Center. When he came to a red light, his cell phone rang. He pulled over to answer it.

“This is Jack Gannon with the World Press Alliance.”

“Yes.”

“Are you the agent who was with me in Libya?”

“Yes.”

“I have to be sure. What was the name of the man I was supposed to meet?”

“Corley.”

“I have information that might be critical to both of us.”

“I’m listening.”

“Before I go ahead, I want a name. I want to know who I’m dealing with.”

Lancer hesitated. “None of this ever goes in print, you swear.”

“You’ve seen what I’ve gone through for this story.”

“Lancer, Robert Lancer, FBI, tasked to Anti-Threat Operations.”

Gannon explained Emma Lane’s case, the accident that killed her husband, her conviction that her baby was alive and the connection to the clinic and Polly Larenski.

“What sort of information was this Polly selling?”

“DNA.”

A car horn sounded behind Lancer and he realized he was blocking a lane.

“Hold on.”

He wheeled his car around to a strip-mall parking lot and continued his conversation with Gannon.

“Lancer, I have two phone numbers. You have to search the phone records and see who was buying DNA from Polly Larenski. It could lead us to whoever is behind the child trafficking.”

“I’d need to get warrants. You should call the local police.”

“No. She tried that, there’s no time. These numbers are critical.”

“I need to know how you got your information.”

Gannon hesitated.

“Jack, what led you to Emma Lane and the DNA angle?”

Gannon was deciding on how much to share with Lancer.

“Come on, Gannon!”

“Corley sent me his files.”

“What?”

“Before I was supposed to meet him, he’d made arrangements to send me a memory card. He thought he was being watched. The card came to the hotel before I left and I read the files on the plane home.”

This changed everything.

“Are you withholding evidence? You’d better turn those files over to us.”

“I’m sharing the information. Listen, Emma Lane’s file was in Corley’s information. There’s some sort of connection to her baby’s DNA. Lancer, you have to search the call history of these two numbers, look for a similar number on both. One is Polly Larenski’s home, and one is a pay phone near her home.”

“I want that memory card, Gannon.”

“We can’t waste time!”

“Give me the numbers and let’s go over everything one more time.”