Bio-Strike

TWENTY-THREE

The capacity to balance emotions that would seem bound for shattering collision is a wonder of the human heart.

They had gathered in this room more times than any of them could recall. UpLink International was a vast organization with interests in many countries that were only an armed or political power play away from disintegration, and its very presence in those unstable regions often threw it into the center of violent conflict. In this room, they had plotted strategies and determined their reactions to swiftly unfolding crises in Afghanistan, Turkey, Russia, Malaysia, Brazil… even to a terrorist strike that had killed thousands in America’s largest metropolis. In this room, with its steel-reinforced concrete walls, its embedded sound-masking equipment, its bug detectors, phone and fax encryptors, and myriad other surveillance countermeasure systems, they had felt able to deliberate and exchange intelligence with an unexceeded level of privacy. Reserved for UpLink’s inner circle, it had been their closed chamber, their sanctum sanctorum. But, though their minds told them to trust Phil Hernandez’s assurances that its security remained intact, their hearts would permit no such confidence. How could they, after a hands-on custodian of their privacy had become their worst betrayer?

In the confines of this windowless room one level below the lobby of their San Jose headquarters, UpLink’s inner circle had gathered around Roger Gordian like knights at a modern round table, dedicated to helping him shape his dream of a freer, better world, offering him the sum of their insight, expertise, and counsel at moments of urgent decision. Now his chair at the table was vacant, and their hearts ached from his absence. How could they not, when it was his vision and strength of character that gave them inspiration? Yet somehow the members of this group took comfort in simply being here together, with their wide diversity of backgrounds and personalities, consolidated around a shared goal, determined to prevail over the challenges they faced. And stirring in the hearts of several of them — deeper in some than others — was an embryonic awareness that if the unthinkable did happen to Roger Gordian and his chair were to remain empty, one of their number had the attributes to pick up his fallen standard and guide them on toward the further realization of his dream.

“Now that everybody’s arrived, I think we’d better get the meeting under way,” Megan Breen said. She looked around the large conference table at Nimec, Scull, Ricci, Thibodeau, and finally at the morning’s unexpected visitor. “Alex, it’s good to see you back, these god-awful circumstances aside.”

He gave her a somber but genuine smile. A lean, fit, smartly dressed man in his late forties whose corrective laser eye surgery had made his once-familiar wire glasses a memory, Nordstrum had been UpLink’s chief foreign affairs consultant before his retirement for personal reasons the year before.

“I just wish I could have returned sooner,” he said. “Gord’s fighting for his life, and I’m off trekking in Morocco, footloose and oblivious.”

“Bad things can happen, Alex,” she said, “whether you’re here or gone. That’s life.”

“Maybe,” he said. “And maybe I’m finished with being gone.”

Megan’s was less of a true response than a signal she wanted to get down to business. They had much to cover, and the clock was ticking.

“We’ve all seen the information on the compact disk Tom brought back from San Diego, and it’s an incredible amount to digest,” she said. “I’d hoped to organize the material in a report or have something ready on the digital projector. But there wasn’t a chance, so I had to settle for an old-fashioned chalkboard and pointer.” Megan paused and gestured at the transparent clamp binders she’d given to each of them. “As everyone can see, I did manage to make up printed transcripts of the audio portion of the carousel surveillance and the conversation between Quiros and Palardy.”

“We don’t need to get too fancy,” Ricci said. “With what Nameless gave me in Balboa Park, the threads are pretty easy to follow.”

“Some blanks gonna have to be filled in before we can do the boss any good,” Thibodeau said. “Otherwise it une cargaison. Not a cargo, but a load, y‘hear what I’m sayin’.”

Alex was nodding his agreement. “It’s like what I used to drum into the heads of my journalism undergrads. The six questions that are critical to any story,” he said. “Who, what, when, where, why, and how. We’ve gotten partial answers to most of them. We can make some fair guesses about the rest. But we need to find out more. And decide what needs to be found out first.”

“No argument from me,” Nimec said. “But before that, I figure it might pay for us to go through a quick rundown of everything we know.”

“Yeah,” Ricci said. “Starting with the blonde.”

He motioned toward the green chalkboard on the wall behind Megan.

Written on it in her hand was:

Megan went to the board, lifted her pointer, and held its tip to the line of aliases beneath the second arrow.

“The blonde it is,” she said. “The digital video we acquired from Nameless, as Tom calls him, establishes that she gave Quiros what Eric Oh believes to be some sort of activator for the viral agent—”

“This is from Quiros-Palardy, correct?” Nordstrum said. He was flipping through his copy of the transcript. “Apologies, everyone, but I’m still playing catch-up…”

“Yes,” Megan said. “We can guess the conversation occurred when Quiros passed along the activator to Palardy.” She had moved her pointer down one line. “Some of our major unanswered questions still revolve around how Roger contracted the dormant virus and who else might be carrying it. Eric’s working with the Sobel gene tech people to assure that we’ll have a rapid screening test for the germ very soon. It’s frightening to contemplate, but virtually all of us could have been infected… you being the least likely, Alex, having been overseas. Which I hope won’t set you on a guilt jag again.”

He produced another wan smile. “And the activator?”

“A separate problem,” she said. “Unless Quiros was selling Palardy a complete load, we know they can be designed or adapted for individual targets. There were mentions of an ampule and liquid, so the assumption is that it was dispensed with a syringe. Injected into something Roger ate or drank. It would be a huge benefit to obtain a specimen of the activator Palardy slipped Roger. And we’re trying.”

“That what those guys in space suits are doing in the boss’s office this morning?” Scull said.

Megan nodded. “And in the cafeteria, and kitchen, and anywhere else in the building that edibles and drinkables might be kept,” she said. “I had a phone conversation with Eric at the crack of dawn, and he gave me some of the basics of viral biology. Most of it was leagues above my head. This is probably a terrible oversimplification, but from what I gather, viruses infect other living organisms by producing molecular proteins that let them fasten on to and penetrate the outer surfaces of the target cells. Eric thinks whoever designed the bug started out with a hantavirus, or something close, and modified it in important ways. We can’t know how many, but one of them allows it to be transmitted to humans by some route other than contact with rodents. Another presumably keeps it quiescent until the activator causes the release of binding and entry proteins. If we determine the activator, the scientists should be able to analyze its chemical makeup and learn what starts the bugs incubating. And how they attack their victims.”

“One thing,” Scull said. “How do we know Quiros didn’t sell Palardy a bill of goods about the activator? Don exposed the boss to it. Now he’s history. And the morgue docs haven’t come up with any results that show violent death. Or poisoning. From what they’ve told us, it looks like his heart gave out from the disease—”

“That’s only half accurate, Vince,” Nimec said. “The investigators know his heart quit on him. Period. There are poisons that can simulate a coronary seizure, and some of them are hard to detect. Especially when the vic’s system is already a mess from his sickness. The toxicologists still haven’t completed their batteries.”

“Even so,” Scull said, “if Quiros wanted him out of the picture, he wasn’t going to warn him about it. No matter what killed Palardy, the fact is he was infected. It could be that the activator’s one-size-fits-all. It could be the virus is what changes from person to person. Or could be neither of them does. I’m not trying to get us confused, but we’ve gotta be careful about our assumptions. It could make a difference, as far as finding a cure for the boss.”

Megan nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “We’re not taking anything for granted. On a kind of reverse track, Eric’s team has already begun tests on Don Palardy’s blood and tissue specimens. And they’re working with Peruvian medical authorities to get hold of any remaining samples taken from Alberto Colon. Once they do a comparison study of viruses that infected and killed them — and we’re really just speculating about Colón on this one, since there’s lots about the circumstances of his death that his government has kept filtered — they’ll know more about the processing mechanism that creates the binder cells.”

“The blonde,” Ricci said. He had been listening silently for a while. “We should get back to her.”

Megan turned to him. “Yes, we should,” she said. “And not just because she’s easy.”

They exchanged glances. She wasn’t smiling. But the flicker of amusement in her eyes told Ricci the pun had been intentional, and he was surprised to realize it had brightened his mood a little.

“Here’s the score,” she said, bringing the pointer up to the board again, moving it between the blonde’s various chalked-on pseudonyms and Quiros’s name. “The Balboa park carousel surveillance obviously ties the woman to Enrique Quiros. But Quiros-Palardy ties both of them to Brazil…. What’s the exact quote in the transcripts?”

Ricci picked up and opened his binder, scanning its pages as he turned them.

“Here, it’s in the middle of page thirty, Quiros talking,” he said after a few seconds. Then he read: “ ‘When you wanted money to pay off gambling debts in Cuiaba, you were glad to sell off confidential information about the layout and security of an installation that it was your job to protect.’ ”

“Quote unquote,” Megan said.

“Yeah,” Ricci said. “Small world.”

Her pointer moved up to the second name from the top. “We know Brazil equals the Wildcat,” she said. “That comment alone would give us a clear idea who sent the blonde to Quiros. But we’ve also got what our computers kicked out on her when we layered Profiler over the NCIC database.” She looked at Nimec. “Pete, you were at your computer early doing the search. Might as well give us a summary.”

“Our blonde’s a terrorist groupie; we all know the type,” he said. “Into bad boys and pretty things. She’s been detained for questioning by everyone from Europol to the Canadian Duddlies, but nothing’s ever been pinned on her. More often than not, she’s stayed under the radar. The FBI’s tracked her movements with some degree of consistency, but they’ve kept her dossier restricted. Who knows why. Maybe the usual proprietary reasons, distrust of other agencies—”

“They’ve shared it with us, Pete,” Megan said. “We shouldn’t forget that.”

Nimec made a slight face. “No, we shouldn‘t,” he said. “Anyway, the feebs figure her for a runner of supplies and messages. When she first caught their eye in ’99, she was running with Amir Mamula, an Algerian resident of Montreal who’s been connected to the Groupes Islamique Armes, or GIA. That’s the same group that did the Air Paris hijack in Morocco a year later, where the Wildcat got vogued by the French diplomat. After Mamula lost his shine, our gal was scoped loving the nightlife with a parade of other top-dog narcos and terrorists. Changed her hair color, visited the plastic surgeon for some fine-tuning on her facial appearance. Boob job, needless to say. And those pseudonyms on the chalkboard are only the latest in an ongoing series. About a month ago, she went on a romp around the world using the Melina Laval handle. Europe, Latin America, Canada. I should mention that there have been a lot of hops to Canada. Eight, ten over the past half year.”

“Whereabouts?” Nordstrum asked.

“Mostly western Ontario. Quebec once… days before she showed in San Diego,” Nimec said. “That’s when she dropped off the screen again. Probably also got finished being Melina Laval.”

Nordstrum’s brow furrowed.

“Tell us what’s brewing, Alex,” Megan said.

His eyes traveled around the conference table. “Is it fair to say everyone here’s thinking we should look very closely at Canada as the site of the bioagent production facility?”

Nods.

“Okay,” he said. “Back when I was with the State Department, what made it difficult or impossible to prove foreign governments or militant groups were involved in the manufacture of biological weapons was the dual-use applications of the production technologies. Centrifugal separators, fermenters, freeze dryers, BL4 containment equipment, even known pathogens and toxins, are all readily available on the export market for legitimate medical, agricultural, and industrial purposes. We knew who was buying the stuff for the wrong reasons. But you can imagine the problems we confronted trying to argue our case before the UN Security Council, some of whose member nations were among the very ones hiding bioweapons programs.”

“Sounds like a joke,” Ricci said.

“Yes.” Nordstrum shrugged. “It was really a procedural formality anyway. We didn’t expect cooperation but wanted our findings on record if we needed to take unilateral action, as in the airstrikes against Osama bin Laden’s supposed pharmaceutical plant. And of course we continued tracking the flow of equipment. It isn’t too hard. There’s a short list of bioprocessing equipment manufacturers worldwide. And that’s for materials used to proliferate naturally occurring germs or toxins. With a microorganism that’s the product of genetic alteration, the associated technology becomes increasingly use-specific and gets easier to chase. Our government keeps routine tabs on its acquisition and shipment.”

Megan looked at him. “Government’s a big word,” she said. “Can we go to the FBI for the information?”

“They’ve got the take-charge law-enforcement role in a chemical or biological incident on national soil and would have good intelligence, but it’s the Nonproliferation Center at the CIA that’s chiefly responsible for gathering the flow data and making it available to the State Department and DOD.”

“Can you check out what’s been moving into Canada? I mean check right away?”

“I’ll try,” he said. “You may recall that I’ve incurred the lasting disfavor of the current White House administration from President Ballard on down. But there are back doors that might still open to an old government bureaucrat.”

That, Megan thought, was a curious way for a former deputy secretary of state who’d served as acting head of the department to refer to himself. “Don’t hesitate to mention what’s at stake while you’re knocking on them,” she said.

There was a brief silence in the room.

“We should get one of the Hawkeyes into orbital position over our northern neighbor,” Nimec said. “If Alex is successful in getting the dope from his contacts, it can help us choose the areas to target for GIS passes.”

Ricci gestured toward the blackboard.

“And help Meg work her pointer up to those three big question marks at the top of her list,” he said.

She turned to him, held his gaze a moment, and nodded. “That’s the idea,” she said.

“Alex, your request is way out of line. I’m very uncomfortable with this entire conversation—”

“Come on, Neil,” Nordstrum said into his cell phone, Neil being Neil Blake, one of his former students and presently an assistant secretary of state, Foreign Affairs Bureau. “Just fax me a copy of that BW tech flow list. You’ve done bigger favors before. Without blinking.”

“That’s right. Before. But right now I’m at my desk looking over my shoulder. I swear to God, Alex. If you were a fly on the wall you’d see that I’m serious. Over my shoulder. Somebody overhears me talking to you on the phone, I’m in the shit. At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue your name is an unwelcome utterance. And will be until the current administration leaves office.”

“Because I opted to attend a press conference that the president felt might have stolen some of his bill-signing thunder,” Nordstrum said. “Are you listening to yourself? I was a journalist. And I’m still a free citizen. Ballard’s executive powers do not extend to canceling my First Amendment rights. I’m surprised he hasn’t just ordered me thrown into a dungeon somewhere.”

“Let’s not get hyperbolic—”

“I don’t have to. Or I shouldn’t. We’re potentially talking about Roger Gordian’s life.”

Blake sighed. “Nobody holds him in higher regard than I do,” he said, easing into a semiofficial tone of voice. “And you know he’s got a legion of supporters here in the capital. Give me a day or two. I’ll figure out how to handle your request, work it through the appropriate channels.”

“What kind of ridiculous phrase is that? It can’t wait. Not an hour or two. I need what I need. Right away.”

“Alex, please, I’m trying to explain—”

“Never mind,” Nordstrum kept his voice level. “How’s the new bride, Neil?”

There was an instant’s silence.

“Cynthia’s fine,” Blake said, thrown off stride.

“What is it now, a year that you’ve been married?”

“Yeah. Well, close. We celebrate our first anniversary the day after Christmas—”

“You plan on taking her to that cozy little apartment on Euclid Street for the romantic occasion?” Nordstrum asked. “Or is it still set apart for your independent use?”

This time the silence was much longer.

“How come you ask, Alex?”

“No reason in particular. I just remembered that you never let go of the place. Must have a sentimental attachment after all those good times you had there in the heyday of your bachelorhood.” It was Nordstrum’s turn to pause. “But listen, you can forget about my request. I know you’re under constraints. I’ll try some of my old pressroom cronies at the Washington Post instead. You never know, they might have something for me. With them, it’s always give and take.”

“Alex—”

“I need to hang up—”

“Alex, wait, damn it.”

He waited.

“Give me that fax number at UpLink,” Blake said.

In his Sacramento office, Eric Oh listened intently as Todd Felson, his colleague at Stanford, offered him the details of the initial tests he’d performed on the food samples taken from Roger Gordian’s office.

“You know those wafers we found on his desk? Three of them are impregnated with polymer coacervates in the fifteen to twenty-micron range,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of the stuff.”

For the third time in a seventy-two-hour period during which he’d been swept along like a man on a whitewater run, Eric was caught breathless.

“Microencapsulation,” he said. “Todd, I think we’ve found our activator.”

“Looks like it,” Felson said. “The particle walls are an ethyl cellulose/cyclohexane gelatin. Highly soluble in liquids at body temperature. And very susceptible to breakdown under the high pH levels in a person’s digestive system. Or mucous membranes, for that matter.”

“Have you gotten to examine the core material at all?”

“Coming up next.”

It was ten o’clock in the morning, just two hours after the closed conference room meeting adjourned, when Megan answered her office phone to hear Alex Nordstrum’s excited voice on the line.

“Meg, I’ve got news,” he said.

She sat up straight behind her desk

“I’m waiting,” she said.

“I can lay out the paper trail for you later, but the main thing now is that there’s a private outfit in Ontario, west of the Hudson Bay, that fits the bill for our germ factory in every way. Uniquely. The flow of bioprocessing equipment to it is incredible. I’ve got listed purchases of regulated biological cultures and growth media, freeze drying and containment equipment, recombinant gene tech… it goes on and on. This is a soup-to-nuts bioprocessing facility, and one that was built at great expense. I’d guess the initial cost would total a hundred million dollars. You won’t find any other operation like it in Canada, and only a few comparable facilities exist here at home.”

Megan took a breath.

“You mean to tell me that nobody in Washington has deemed it in our national interest to investigate what’s being developed at this place?”

“I’ll share a bit of irony, Meg. We do business with these folks. Loads of it. They own agricultural patents that have scored them numerous federal contracts. And they recently won the bidding competition for a huge deal to develop genetically modified strains of Fusarium oxysporum—a fungus that’s proven to be wholesale murder on coca plants.” He paused. “The State Department’s been trying to persuade the Columbians and Peruvians to use it against their narco farmers, and it looks like it’s going to happen. Chew on that one for a second. Given this company’s presumed ties to the Quiros family, which derives its income primarily from the cocaine trade, it’s conceivable they’re creating a fungus that’s specially adapted to wipe out the crops of competing growers. And all on our government’s tab.”

Megan was silent a moment, thinking, the receiver held tightly in her hand.

“Tell me the name of the firm, Al,” she said at last.

“Earthglow,” he said. “Pretty, isn’t it?”