The Panic Zone

60

Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield, Fort Drum, New York

Less than twenty minutes after Foster Winfield was helped into a waiting plane, it accelerated down the runway and lifted off.

Hours earlier, a caravan of vehicles carrying two plainclothes RCMP officers, two Canadian military officers and three U.S. military personnel, one of them an army doctor, arrived at his cottage in Canada.

Winfield was instructed to give them his passport and to pack a bag.

His escorts provided no details. Their classified assignment was to deliver the CIA’s former chief scientist to a specified location. It concerned a matter of U.S. national security. Few words were spoken as they sped through the tranquil countryside, but Winfield had deduced that it was about Project Crucible. He hoped that there was still time to do something.

The caravan crossed into the United States without a hitch at the Thousand Islands border crossing, then rolled toward Watertown, New York, and Fort Drum, where a plane stood by to rush Winfield to Maryland.

The short flight ended when his escorts handed him off to a team from U.S. Army Intelligence and the CIA. They put Winfield into a black SUV and drove him to Fort Detrick and the army’s biodefense lab, located northwest of Washington. During the drive, Winfield considered all the scenarios that could arise from Crucible and hoped that Lancer, the FBI agent, was still working on the case.

The vehicle arrived at the fort’s checkpoints, where they were cleared by armed guards before driving to a remote building. In silence, Winfield was led down hallways equipped with security cameras, electronic sensors and a series of secure doors passable via keypad-coded entry systems.

He was taken to a small, barren room with white cinder-block walls. It had a hard-back chair on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.

The door opened and two men in suits entered.

One sat opposite Winfield. The other stood.

“Dr. Winfield, this concerns our investigation into your letter.”

Winfield had assumed as much.

“We have reason to believe the subject is related to an ongoing threat to national security.”

Winfield nodded.

“Before we proceed,” the man said, “I’ll remind you that as a retiree you must still adhere to agency standards and agree to undergo a polygraph examination.”

Periodic polygraphs were fairly common when he’d worked on Crucible.

“Of course.”

A few minutes later, a young man with prematurely gray hair entered the room carrying polygraph equipment in a hard-shell case.

“It’ll take a moment to set up,” the polygraphist said.

He explained that his new machine was a five-pen analog. The man connected instruments to Winfield’s heart and fingertips to electronically measure breathing, perspiration, respiratory activity, galvanic skin reflex, blood and pulse rate. Then he began posing questions.

“Are you Dr. Foster Winfield?”

“Yes.”

“Did you oversee Project Crucible?”

“Yes.”

“Was the program abandoned?”

“Yes.”

“Are you currently involved in using material from Project Crucible for any means?”

“No.”

“Do you have factual information on anyone currently attempting to use research from Project Crucible for any means?”

“No.”

“Do you have information on the whereabouts of Dr. Gretchen Sutsoff?”

“No.”

“Are you currently in contact with Gretchen Sutsoff?”

“No.”

“Are you aware of anyone who may have information on her whereabouts?”

“No.”

“Do you think Dr. Sutsoff currently could pose a risk to the security of the United States and other nations?”

Winfield hesitated.

“Sir, your response? Do you think Dr. Sutsoff currently could pose a risk to the security of the United States and other nations?”

Winfield swallowed.

“Yes.”

The exam continued with similar questions asked different ways for nearly an hour before it ended. Winfield was given a few old copies of Newsweek and Time and left alone in the room. Thirty minutes later he was taken to another room where he saw three men his age.

They were familiar.

“Foster?” One of them stood. “We figured they’d grab you, too.”

It took a few seconds before he recognized what time had done to Andrew Tolkman, Lester Weeks and Phil Kenyon, his old team from Project Crucible.

“Hello. Good to see you.” Winfield touched each of them on the shoulder then glanced around. “Although, not ideal circumstances.”

“They can’t find Gretchen,” Tolkman said.

“No one can,” Kenyon said. “I told them she’s the one they need.”

A door opened and a man in his forties, wearing jeans and a golf shirt, entered and handed each of them a slim file folder.

“Gentlemen, my name is Powell, Army Intel. Biochem. We have little time. As you may have gathered, this concerns your work on Project Crucible. In a nutshell, we think some of your classified work is being applied to launch a strike. In fact, it may already be under way.”

Kenyon muttered a curse.

“No one else is better qualified to help us at this stage than you. I’ll give you time to read the material, then we’ll suit you up to work with our people on the sample we have in the lab. We hope you can tell us what we’re up against.”

The file contained information on the deceased cruise-line passenger from Indiana, based on reports provided by the Broward County M.E., the CDC and the army’s experts. The aging scientists read it all carefully.

“How is it possible?” Andrew Tolkman whispered more to himself than to the others as Powell returned.

“Gentlemen,” Powell said, holding the door. “We’ll head to the lab.”

Cutting across the compound to the lab, he led the scientists through several secure doors to areas flagged with signs warning of danger. They passed through a series of sealed rooms before coming to a changeroom with lockers and other lab staff. The lab staff helped the men into blue containment suits, taping their socks and wrists after they tugged on latex gloves.

Next they entered a sealed chamber that featured a disinfectant shower. After they each showered with their suits on, they put on rubber boots and another set of heavy rubber gloves and proceeded down a corridor where they each reached for a hose from the ceiling and connected it to their suits.

They then passed through another air lock, waiting until it was safe to enter the lab where a team of army scientists was at work. The Crucible experts joined their teams, analyzing, processing and running tests on the tissue samples from the cruise-ship victim. Each team worked on different aspects of the sample. During this time, Powell remained in a remote room watching the work on closed-circuit TV while communicating with them.

“What do you think?” Powell asked.

“It is definitely evocative of the work we did on Crucible,” Winfield said into his radio-intercom.

“You mean the work Gretchen did,” Kenyon added.

After some three hours, the scientists exited the lab, moving carefully through the various chambers. They each stayed in their suits and took another decontamination shower before moving along to the locker room where they were helped out of their suits.

Powell was waiting for the four men again in the same room where he had originally briefed them.

“Your assessment?”

Winfield looked at his colleagues.

“We would not have believed it had we not seen it,” he said. “Theoretically, it should be impossible.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s definitely a manufactured agent,” Winfield said. “It’s totally new and has characteristics of Ebola, Marburg and anthrax. We can’t really identify it. But there’s more.”

“More?”

“Its foundation is in File 91 and some of the other agents developed by some enemy states. But we cannot fully understand the delivery system, the control system and how it seems to be manipulated.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“It’s extremely sophisticated. I don’t think we can defend against it.”

“What about an antidote or vaccine?”

“Well, while it encompasses a manufactured lethal agent, it’s less characteristic of a virus, more like a controllable agent. Its engineering is very advanced.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“It’s like a weapon with no off switch. I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop it.”