Biowar

76

At first, Karr thought the woman had misunderstood or the translation had been bad. He had the translator rephrase and repeat the question twice.

She had treated men with a similar disease four or five weeks before; an entire village had been infected.

And a white man, an American, had come into her village about three weeks ago.

“All right,” Karr said. “Where exactly is this place?”

It was a guerrilla camp, not a village, though the description was not that far wrong. Karr counted eight buildings on the sat picture, and the analysts believed there were at least two more in the bushes.

They also believed the camp was abandoned. It was the one they’d ID’ed earlier affiliated with the Crescent Tigers.

“If they got the disease, that would account for the fact that they abandoned the camp and have almost completely disappeared,” said Chafetz. “Except for maybe five or six people, including the ones who followed you in Bangkok.”

Abandoned or not, they weren’t taking chances. Rubens convinced whomever he needed to convince that this was important, and besides the Thai Army unit that had accompanied Karr to the old woman’s village, a company of U.S. Army Rangers took control of the area. Heavily armed gunships led the way, and after the perimeter was secured a specially equipped NBC unit rappelled into the central part of the village, checking it before clearing the rest of the unit inside. All these precautions spooked the Thai soldiers, and Karr had a hard time talking the pilot into dropping him off. As it was, he barely dropped into a hover as he skirted into the landing area, a clearing just below the main area of the camp.

“You’d better stay back,” said one of the soldiers as Tommy walked up the hill. “Hasn’t been cleared yet.”

“It’s all right,” said Karr. He held up his hand spectrometer. Unlike the bulky gear the unit attached to the Rangers carried, Karr’s handheld “sniffer” could sort chemical and biological compounds. It was also sensitive enough to detect extremely minute amounts of material at a safe distance. Most of the work was actually being done back in Crypto City; his unit was essentially a very sophisticated nose communicating its tickles via his com system. The data stream was so thick he couldn’t even talk to the Art Room while it was being used.

Karr got a bing, an audible alert piped from the units when a detection was made. He stopped, moved to his right. Another bing.

He pushed the button on the wand to stop the transmission.

“That burial spot we told you about,” Chafetz said. “Why don’t you take some readings?”

“Why not?”

Karr walked to the right, past a series of tree trunks that had been felled as part of defenses. The Art Room had ID’ed a minefield and booby-trapped area about a hundred yards farther in the jungle. The area just above that had been cleared and dug recently; Karr knelt down, examining it. The dirt had been packed down for a few weeks but not much more than that. He took pictures and chemical samples, then moved back toward the village area, where the men in the special suits were still conducting their methodical inspection.

Two of the buildings had been destroyed by explosive charges strong enough to obliterate their roofs and most of their sides. Karr went to them first; the sniffer confirmed that there had been people killed inside them, though by now the ruins had been fairly well picked over. Karr poked around carefully, looking for some part of the bomb or igniter, but found none.

“We’re still looking for labs,” said Chafetz. “Nothing the Rangers have been in fit.”

“What about that burial site?”

“Not getting the right chemical hits. Look up at that knoll to the west, beyond the large building with the thatched roof.”

“They all have thatched roofs,” he told the runner, though he knew what she meant.

One of the Rangers in a chemical-protection suit tried to block his way, but Karr just waved him off.

“I already got it,” Karr told the specialist. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

Before he went to the knoll, Karr walked into the building. Dried blood was splattered on the walls and tables that lined the open hall, and there were smears along the floor. He took pictures and looked through the building. The kitchen area looked so neat he was tempted to turn on the stove and make himself some tea.

A small radio unit lay next to the wall in the outer vestibule. It was an igniter, the sort used in a commercial construction operation to detonate rock-blasting explosives by remote control. Karr picked it up and held it in his hand as he went to the knoll.

“Definitely bodies buried there. Burned, most likely,” said Chafetz.

“Lab equipment?”

“Have the Rangers bring over that radar unit and we’ll take a better look. Doesn’t seem like it, though.”

“Yeah, okay. In the meantime I have some pictures to send you. And information on a command detonator, looks commercial.”

“Serial numbers?”

“Yup.”

“Good deal.”

Karr uploaded the data, then went and found the head of the Ranger unit. As the soldiers hauled their gear up, Karr took a breather, walking back to the middle of the camp and sitting down on a rock at the side of what had probably been an assembly area. He reached into his pocket for his small flask of water, took a long swig, then another.

Camp gets sick but doesn’t make the bug.

Then it gets blown up.

The survivors track him.

Oh, he said to himself.

Oh.

A lanky captain appeared before him, hands on hips.

“Mr. Karr?”

“Tommy.” The NSA op rose and shook the captain’s hand.

“Good to put a face with the voice,” said the Ranger captain. “What else do you need?”

“Two cemetery sites that we’ll want to secure, those buildings that were blown up, and that long building with the tables in it, the mess area. Forensics team will be here a few hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need a favor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You think one of the helicopters could take me back to Bangkok? Seems I have some unfinished business there.”