Covert Action

4 Preparations

The sun had just cleared the lower reaches of Mona Kea when Janet Brisco strode into the operations office and tossed her handbag onto the chair by her desk. Steven felt the African issue could move easily from the assessment phase to the planning phase, so he had asked that she come to the Kona facility as quickly as possible. Brisco had taken a late-afternoon flight from St. Louis to Chicago and the last flight out of Chicago the night before, waiting out the early-morning hours in the VIP lounge at Honolulu International. During the four-hour layover, she had poured over the intelligence summaries and classified reports that streamed into her notebook computer, a secure, encrypted machine with a state-of-the-art wireless modem that connected her to the Kona facility’s local area network. She caught the first Aloha Airlines flight over to the Big Island. Steven had offered to send the Gulfstream to pick her up, but she had declined. A single black woman climbing onto a corporate jet was not a common occurrence in St. Louis, so she elected to travel by commercial jet — first class, of course. What she really needed most was time to read herself into the problem, and she could do that on any airplane. Janet Brisco was known in the St. Louis area, and for that reason, she had always been careful to keep her family segregated from her work. She had done this well before terror came of age in America — well before 9/11.

Janet Brisco now stood behind the desk, hands on her hips, surveying the maps and current message traffic that had been laid out for her attention. She was a tall, imposing woman, and strikingly beautiful. Janet was forty-six, brilliant, impatient, and aggressive. These gifts did not always endear her to those around her. She was often a source of exasperation to her parents, teachers, coworkers, and an ex-husband from a brief and stormy marriage. But it was her uncompromising attention to detail that had made her the best tactical special operations planner in the free world. Those who had worked with her on an operation were forced to overlook her abrasiveness because of what she brought to the mission. Unconsciously, she lit a cigarette and began to reorganize the paperwork on her desk.

“Are these the most current overlays?” she asked, not looking up.

“Just over six hours old, and I’ve annotated them. As you can see, we’re focusing on the hotel complex. There were a few changes since the last satellite pass, but not many. Mostly vehicle location changes. If there is anything going on there, it’s inside, where we can’t see it.”

“How about the cell phone and land line intercepts? Any unusual activity? Patterns?”

“None that we can detect. There is far more encryption than would be normal from some hotel in the bush. The open conversations we’ve monitored are businesslike and guarded. They’re not giving us much, but I have to believe that something is going on there.”

She put down one report and took up another. “Okay, how about that contact with the regional power company?” She finally looked up. “Are they going to be able…Say, what in the hell happened to you?”

Dodds LeMaster was IFOR’s chief technician, a Cambridge-educated electrical engineer who had made a fortune designing video games and interactive Web sites. Dodds was also responsible for the design and construction of many of the military information systems that allowed tactical controllers real-time interaction with units in the field. He had fashioned the same command, control, and communications suites for IFOR that he had built for the military. Only given IFOR’s requirements and near-unlimited funding, he had been able to dramatically miniaturize these systems. Thanks to Dodds LeMaster, they had a portable, flyaway tactical control package that was well beyond anything in use by any nation’s armed forces.

LeMaster could be described as a super-geek, and a very patriotic one. He was also something of an Anglophile, but knowing that the defense of the free world rested squarely on America’s shoulders, he had left England a decade ago. He had placed his genius at the disposal of the U.S. military, and now IFOR, because he believed in what they were doing — that they could make a difference. Janet Brisco’s arrogance and intelligence often made her short with others, but that was seldom the case with Dodds LeMaster. If not her tactical peer, he was her intellectual equal, and then some.

Janet had finally looked up from her desk to see that LeMaster had a huge shiner.

“Billy and I were acting as role players in a training exercise a few nights ago. I was part of a body-snatch scenario, and I got a little banged up when they tossed me into the helo.”

She came around the desk and gently removed his glasses to better inspect the damage. “Look at me,” she commanded.

LeMaster was reedy thin, with a deceptively round face and reddish brown hair. He wore glasses that perched on top of his head when not in use. His left eye now had a fleck of blood next to the light green iris, and the skin around it and along his temple was blue-black. Janet’s head snapped to look over at where Bill Owens sat at a computer console. Owens was older than LeMaster, and seemed to have a perpetual sickly pallor. He was an unkempt man with a sparse mustache and a bad complexion, one of those people who always looked anemic. All the fresh air and sunshine in the world could not make him look healthy. A master forger, he created all of IFOR’s documents. Fortunately for the U.S. Treasury, he had used his exceptional skills in the service of the CIA. Within the Directorate of Science and Technology, he had been known as an artist of rare talent. When the Agency put him out to pasture, Steven Fagan immediately snatched him up.

Janet Brisco stomped over to where Owens sat, and he looked up owlishly from his computer screen. He had a swollen lip.

“You too?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Me too.” Owens wore the fat lip as a badge of honor. It was probably as close as he would ever get to being one of the boys. He sucked on the stub of a cigarette pinched between a nicotine-stained thumb and middle finger. “But we were volunteers.” He leaned back in the creaky swivel. “It gets a little boring around here, and we wanted to get out and be with the operators, just for one night. Right, Dodds?”

LeMaster reached over to toggle the ventilation system, which was quite sophisticated and efficient. Both Owens and Brisco were chain smokers.

“That’s right. We may not get a chance to volunteer again, but it was kind of fun, except for the blindfolds and getting drug around.”

Owens and LeMaster watched as she came to a full boil. “You two hear me on this,” she said in a low, menacing voice. “You are my technicians, and you work for me. You are far too valuable to be out playing cowboys and Indians. From now on, you are restricted to the office. If I ever catch you out in the field again, God help your sorry butts. Do you get my drift?” Owens swallowed hard and bobbed his head; LeMaster just shrugged. “Did Steven know about this?”

“Well,” LeMaster hedged, “he may have known that we were going to help out, but I’m not so sure he really knew what we would be asked to do.” His voice trailed off as Brisco glared at him.

“A bunch of goddamn adolescent schoolboys. Well, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

She stormed out of the ops building just in time to see Garrett going into the armory. There he joined AKR and Tomba, who were prying open two crates that had just come in from the mainland. These contained the new sniper weapons. GSI had contracted with Knights Manufacturing for specially built Stoner SR-25 semiautomatic sniper rifles matched with Leupold 10X scopes. The rifle could send a heavy .308 round downrange to kill a man at half a mile. They were anxious to take the new weapons to the range and get them sighted in.

“All right, I want to know who was in charge of the operation that got my two techs roughed up. Which one of you is responsible?”

“C’mon, girl,” AKR replied, “it was not intentional, and the guys were okay with it. I mean—”

“Don’t you ‘come on, girl,’ me, Mr. Hyphenated-Last-Name. Those men are absolutely critical if and when we mount an operation. They are way too valuable to be out serving as training dummies for the likes of you and your ruffians.”

“Hey, Janet, take it easy,” Garrett interjected. “We thought it might be good for their morale to get out and—”

“Morale! Don’t hand me that crap. Did you see their faces? They were brutalized!”

“Look, Janet—”

“Were you in charge? Were you?” Garrett took a deep breath and looked away. “I didn’t think so.” She wheeled on AKR. “What gives you the right to take my people and use them like that? Answer me that?”

AKR shot Garrett a glance. It was the look of one truant to another, just after they had been hauled into the principal’s office. He quickly assumed a penitent look as Janet Brisco continued to reprimand him. This was not the first time that she and AKR had clashed. When AKR was hired, Garrett was curious how the two might take to each other. Janet was older, but not by much. They were both single, AKR being a lifelong bachelor. They were both outgoing, intelligent, cultured, and in Garrett’s judgment, two of the handsomest black people he had ever met — make that two of the handsomest, period. But from the first time they met it was fire and ice, oil and water. Janet Brisco, along with an off-the-chart IQ, was born with a chip on her shoulder. AKR could be charming and urbane, and could turn every woman’s head when he walked into a room. But not Janet Brisco’s. She was about to launch another verbal attack when Tomba stepped forward. He did not speak; he simply waited until she noticed him. Tomba was not a man who was all that easy to ignore, but she was so focused on venting at AKR that his presence failed to register until he had moved close beside her.

“Yes, what is it? What do you want?” After the words were out of her mouth, she suddenly realized that they were inappropriate.

He stared at her for a long moment. There was nothing menacing or threatening about his manner, just an infectious aura of strength and serenity.

“Please, miss, excuse this interruption, but I believe the incident to which you are referring happened just the other night when we took Mr. LeMaster and Mr. Owens as prisoners on a training exercise. Is that correct?”

“Well, yes, it is, and they were hurt.” He now had her full attention. “Do I know you?”

For the first time, he smiled. “I have not had the pleasure, miss. I am Tomba, and the Africans are my responsibility. There are fourteen of us. If we were a traditional military unit, I would be their sergeant. May I know your name?”

“Yes, of course. I’m Janet Brisco, the IFOR operations officer.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Brisco,” he said, nodding solemnly. “I have heard a great deal about you. Now I understand your concern for Mr. LeMaster and Mr. Owens.”

She seemed unaware that his hand was now on her elbow as he guided her away from AKR to a nearby table. He held a chair for her, then seated himself across the table. Garrett and AKR shot each other surprised glances. Both held their breath. Tomba was like some compassionate teacher who had just entered the principal’s office to stick up for them. Neither of them moved a muscle.

“You must understand, Miss Brisco, that so much of this is all very new to us. By that, I mean the fighting with the support of technicians like Mr. LeMaster and Mr. Owens. We are warriors, and we know war. My men have fought for their tribes, for their lands, for water, for the British or the French or the Portuguese, and some of us, for the Communists. Or sometimes for the tribe that the Communists decided to provide with arms and ammunition. We mustered in ranks, often thousands of us. Orders were given, and we were marched off to do the fighting, often to be betrayed. Most of us have fought purely for money; we were what you call soldiers of fortune.

“But this is different. We now fight for the chance to return to Africa, with dignity and on our own terms. Of course, we accept Mr. Fagan’s generous wages, and that still makes us mercenaries. So be it. But I believe that there is honor here, that the cause for which we offer our guns and perhaps our lives will be a just one.” He paused a moment to frame his words, but his gaze never wavered; she sat motionless. “With the money we earn, my men will be able to go home, perhaps even purchase a portion of what were once their tribal lands. You see, Miss Brisco, what they want is the dignity and peace that are due an old warrior who leaves the field. I tell you all this because Nkosi Akheem tells me that you too are a warrior, so you know about honor.”

Tomba again paused for a long moment, then gave her a soft smile. “There are things we do as a part of our trade — stalking, tracking, patrolling, walking long distances with heavy kit. As professional soldiers we do these things very well. But your ways are different. You use electronics, small radios, computers, and binoculars that allow you to see at night. And you have people who are not in the field who control us, who tell us what to do and when to do it. That has been hard for us to understand. But when those same people come out at night and help us train, and willingly let themselves be taken hostage to improve our training, that is important to us — very important. We did not intentionally hurt Mr. LeMaster and Mr. Owens. Truthfully, we did not understand how frail they were. But they freely chose to be with us, and we now know they are brave and good men. We don’t trust the computers, but we now trust them. They are warriors, like us; they just fight with different weapons. They have earned our respect, and for my men, respect, is everything.” He was again silent for a moment. “I am sorry for their pain. I am sorry for yours. Will you forgive us?”

In a most un-Brisco-like gesture, she reached across the table and put her hand on Tomba’s. Then she stood up, and he rose, as well.

“Tomba, I did not have all the facts. You have nothing to apologize for, but perhaps you will forgive me for losing my temper.” He inclined his head politely. “Thank you for your explanation of the matter. And now I need to get back to my office.” She paused in front of Garrett and AKR and gave them a cold look. “In Steven’s office in half an hour. We need to think about getting an advance party in place.”

It was a run day for Elvis Rosenblatt, as opposed to a lifting day. So he was on the streets of Atlanta, pounding out his six miles on a seven-and-a-half-minute-mile pace. He glanced at his heart monitor, noticing that it hovered comfortably at 148 beats per minute. Rosenblatt’s objective was not so much cardiovascular fitness as it was to burn excess fat, and for that, his optimum heart rate was 148. Most of Rosenblatt’s nonwork waking hours were devoted to burning fat and building lean. He’d much rather be in the gym lifting, but this was a necessary part of his training regime. Several years ago he had gone the full distance in Atlanta’s famous Peachtree Marathon, and not done too badly, but it cured him of long-distance running as a goal. So three times a week he pounded out his six miles. As much as he had come to dislike the running, it was efficient. Nothing burned calories and fat in as short a time as running on a heart monitor. There would come a time when he could take himself down to a seven-fifteen-mile pace at 148 beats, but he was not there yet. He had just made the turnoff at Tenth Street into the Charles Allen entrance to Piedmont Park when a dark sedan began to pace him along the park drive. It followed him a short distance, then accelerated ahead to where the path crossed the drive. A uniformed security guard emerged from the front passenger seat.

“Dr. Rosenblatt? Excuse me, sir.”

Rosenblatt stopped and immediately touched his wrist stopwatch. Whatever this was, he did not want to lose count of his time over distance.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Uh, sir, do you have any ID for positive identification?”

“Do I what? You got it right, the name is Rosenblatt. You’re gonna have to take my word for it, or meet me at my car down at the park entrance.” He held out his arms to indicate he had nothing on him. It was a chilly day, but he ran in a T-shirt and shorts; cold weather burned more calories. “What’s with you guys, anyway?”

“Sorry, sir. We’re from the Center, and we were told to find you. We just wanted to be sure. Here you go, sir. Just press the green send button.”

Rosenblatt snatched the cell phone and took a few steps away from the sedan. He refused to wear a pager or carry a cell phone when he was taking his workouts. That issue had come to a head a few years ago when he was ordered to at least carry a pager. “You can fire me if you want, but I’m not wearing a goddamn pager.” He hadn’t been fired; a man like Elvis Rosenblatt, for all his quirks, was not easy to replace, but this was not the first time they had sent a car to find him when he was working out. It was answered on the first ring.

“Yeah, Tina, this is Elvis. Sure, I’ll hold…. Lou, this better be an Ebola outbreak in Manhattan. I’m right in the middle of my goddamn workout.” He listened for a full minute. “So what do they want us to do about it?…Oh, so they want to brief me. I thought I was the guy who did the briefings…. Right now — this afternoon; you’re shitting me…. Oh, yeah, they’re right here.” Rosenblatt looked up to see a second sedan pulling up behind the first. “I guess I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Rosenblatt tossed a set of car keys to a surprised security guard who had just emerged from the passenger side of the second sedan. Rosenblatt climbed into the rear seat of the first. “That’s a brand-new BMW,” he said to the driver as they sped off. “Tell the guy not to lug the engine.” The second man up front got on the radio and relayed the message to the second car.

Dr. Elvis Rosenblatt had two passions in life. One was physical fitness, and the other was the detection and containment of contagious disease. He had been at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, or CDC, since he graduated from Johns Hopkins, and he was an authority on viral diseases. Dr. Rosenblatt was also good with bacteriological contaminants and genetic disorders, but viruses were his thing. He endearingly referred to them as bugs. The war on terror had provided him the job security of an emergency-room doctor in Baghdad. He was compulsive and a little weird, too weird to live with, if you were to ask his ex-wife, but he knew his bugs, perhaps better than anyone else at the CDC.

Rosenblatt grew up in Detroit, a skinny kid with acne, below average in every major adolescent category except school. Then the summer before he began junior high, two things happened to him. His dad, who was a science fiction buff, brought home a copy of War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. He had few friends, so he spent much of his time reading and rereading the book over that summer. The idea that microbes could fell giant Martian fighting machines was incredible. So he began to study microorganisms and realized at a very young age what microbiologists the world over knew; in the world of living things, if you can see it with the naked eye, it doesn’t count for very much. It was what you couldn’t see that was fascinating and important. He also discovered weight lifting. By the time he entered high school, his room was filled with scientific journals and bodybuilding equipment and magazines. There are two important dates in the life of Elvis Rosenblatt — the day he graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine magna cum laude, with an emphasis in viral pathology, and the day Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of California.

A guard at the CDC gate waved the car through. Rosenblatt was dropped at the rear entrance, close to the fitness facility. Security knew him by sight, and he was immediately motioned through the door. Five minutes later he was toweling himself off in front of his locker and hurriedly dressing. In his late thirties, Rosenblatt had been at the CDC for twelve years and still thought of himself as fresh out of med school. Dressed in blue jeans and a crisp oxford-cloth shirt, and preferring clear-plastic-framed glasses over contacts, he was handsome in a Buddy Holly sort of way. This better be good, he told himself as he quickly combed his hair; in another forty minutes I could have been back here and have completed my workout. He slipped into the stairwell and began to take the steps two at a time. Most employees at the CDC used the elevators; Rosenblatt always took the stairs. He paused at the top landing window to check out the parking lot just in time to observe the security guard pulling his BMW into one of the VIP slots.

The head of the Viral Epidemiological Department at the CDC was Dr. Louis Alexander. He was a talented virologist, but his real skill was ego management. Elvis Rosenblatt was not the only hotshot, self-centered epidemiologist on staff. Rosenblatt cruised through the outer office and into Alexander’s without knocking.

“So what’s going on, Lou? What was so important that you had to send the Mounties out after me?”

Alexander thought it was probably a poor time to bring up the issue of the pager, so he plunged ahead. “I have an FBI agent down in the conference room who has come to us with a rather unique problem. It seems a few people in high office have a concern. I was sent a rather cryptic message from the Bureau’s executive director. He wanted us to receive this agent and hear what he had to say.”

“The FBI, huh. So there must be an imminent threat of a domestic biological terrorist attack. But why drag me in here? I’m not the only guy who is working this problem.”

“No, no, you’re not,” Alexander agreed, “but you are one of the few virologists on staff with a final top-secret clearance that is endorsed for SI — sensitive information. Uh, I didn’t know that until the agent arrived. When it was learned that the matter was of that classification, well, I could do nothing but send for you. And there was a second request. They asked that the staffer who would be read into this problem not only have an SI clearance, but also be physically fit.” Alexander quickly rolled his palms open. “Don’t ask me why. I was directed to put my best man on this, someone with both qualifications.” His instructions didn’t specifically call for his best man, but Alexander felt Rosenblatt would enjoy hearing it.

“Aw, for Christ’s sake, Lou, what’s with the physically fit crap? These are bugs. You don’t wrestle them; you study them under an electron microscope. You examine the bugs and the symptoms of those infected. Lou, you should have told those pencil-necks in D.C. to kiss your ass.”

Alexander just shrugged. Rosenblatt’s reaction was totally what he expected. So he played his ace.

“This request came from the FBI, but it was routed through the National Security Council with a copy to the Surgeon General. From the context of the message, it seems that none of them know exactly what they’re dealing with, but from our end there is not a lot of wiggle room. Go and meet with the nice FBI agent and let me know, in unclassified terms, how we here at CDC can be of service. Those are the CDC director’s instructions to me; those are my instructions to you. It would appear that this is a potentially critical issue, and no one in this building will be told about it but you.”

“Shit,” Rosenblatt mumbled and left Alexander’s office.

He found Judy Burks pacing in the conference room, and she was not happy. Agent Burks had been sent to do a job without really knowing the whole story. That was the problem with compartmentalized information. You were only told what was needed to accomplish your part of a given mission. The more sensitive things were, the more compartmentalized they were. Judy could only assume this disease business in Africa was turning into a major flap, but no one had really said as much. She had been told to hop on the next plane to Atlanta and brief some medical disease snooper about what might or might not be going on in Zimbabwe. It was something that could have easily been done by the Atlanta Field Office, but because it could potentially involve Guardian Services and IFOR, they wanted her to do it. It had come down from the top and, as far as she knew, the only Bureau people who knew about IFOR were the Director, possibly the Executive Director, and herself. She had raced for the airport and barely made the flight with seconds to spare. Along the way she was asked to show her shield four times to local cops and security guards and had almost missed her flight. Judy Burks lived for any chance to display her shield in one hand, wield her Glock 23 .40 caliber in the other, and shout, “FBI! Get your hands up.” But to have to produce her credentials on demand for some local cop or Pinkerton nitwit — accompanied by, “You don’t look old enough to be an FBI agent”—really pissed her off, especially when she was running for a plane.

Then she arrived at the CDC and immediately found herself in a confrontation with a security guard about handing over her piece before they would let her in the door. She was close to drawing down on the guy when a senior-level CDC administrator intervened. She was then escorted to a conference room, with her Glock, and asked to wait until they located the individual she had traveled all this way to see. After close to an hour, Rosenblatt walked in.

He paused inside the door and looked around. “Uh, where’s the FBI agent?” he demanded.

Judy Burks stared at him. I really don’t need this crap from some frat-rat wannabe, she thought.

“You’re looking at her, pal.”

“You. You’re an FBI agent?”

“I don’t see anyone else in this room,” she said, holding her arms out in an open gesture and feeling like Robert De Niro or Tony Soprano in a mobster scene. “Do you see anyone else in this room?”

“Ah, do you mind if I have a look at—”

“Not at all, pal.” She tossed her shield on the table in a theatrical gesture, only to have it slide across the polished table and fall to the floor. She started to retrieve it, but Rosenblatt held up his hand.

“Let me get it.”

He retrieved the shield and studied it for a long moment. “You sound like you’ve had a hard day, Agent Burks.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“I think I know where you’re coming from. Please, have a seat, and maybe we can get this over with.”

They sat across from each other, and he handed her a key ring with several picture IDs attached to it. They detailed his status as a CDC employee and his various security clearances. She studied each one, front and back.

“Elvis?”

“Yeah, well, my parents were a little conflicted when I was born. It’s part of belonging to a synagogue in Motown. They chanted Barry Manilow jingles during the service.”

“No fooling?”

Rosenblatt rolled his eyes. “What is so important that a Bureau agent needs to speak with me personally?”

Judy Burks studied him a moment and came to a decision. “Okay, I’m going to dispense with the security lecture — loose lips sink ships and all that crap. You’re a smart medical doctor; you know the deal. The information I’m going to talk about is classified, but the medical part is not really all that classified. It is pretty scary, though. We have a problem that involves a potential threat of bioterrorism. There is also a nongovernmental organization that may become involved with this problem. Their activities, and even their existence, carries the very highest security classification. The reason a lowly agent like myself is here is that I am the government liaison officer for this organization. Not many in or out of government know about this unnamed secret organization; I just happen to be one of them. The reason that I have traveled here to see you, as you can imagine, is that we need an expert on bioterror. The problem, or potential problem, is in Africa. At least for now.”

“Africa?” Now she did have his attention. More than a few of the biological nightmares envisioned by the CDC came from Africa.

“That’s right, Dr. Rosenblatt. Do you prefer Elvis or Dr. Rosenblatt? Or Dr. Elvis?” They both smiled.

For the next half hour, Judy Burks read Dr. Elvis Rosenblatt into what they knew about the situation in Zimbabwe. He listened carefully but asked no questions.

“This morning, the folks at Langley who are in the business of tracking nasty people found that two microbiologists with spotty reputations have been missing for several months. They feel this might raise the ante.”

Before she could continue, he held up an index finger. “Which two microbiologists?”

She reached into her briefcase and retrieved a slip of paper with two names typed on it.

“Oh, shit,” he said in a low, serious voice. “If these two bastards are missing, something is very wrong. And if they are missing and are working together, then this is not good — not good at all. Have you yet confirmed that they are together? Are they in Africa?”

“I’m told we have people working on that.”

“Well, Agent Burks, you—”

“It’s Judy, Elvis.”

“Judy, you had better tell whoever you report to that these two characters are among the most capable and dangerous bio-thugs in the business. If these guys are together in the same lab, then your problem is probably bigger than you ever imagined. What do you want from me?”

“We want to send you data and keep you read into this thing as events unfold. You have a SIPRNET computer for classified material, right?” He nodded. The secret Internet protocol routing network, or SIPRNET, maintained by the Department of Defense, allowed for Internet transmission of secret documents. “Good. The information will come through CIA in Langley. And,” she said, consulting her notes before looking back up at him, “there is also the chance that we may want you to travel to Africa with this unnamed organization to be on scene for any action taken there. Will there be a problem with that?”

He did not speak for a moment. “Just myself, or would I be with a CDC medical team?”

“I really couldn’t say. I’m sure they will want your recommendations, but it may be just you. You will undoubtedly be briefed further on this as things unfold, but I do know that few people are cleared for this level of information.”

This is very odd, Rosenblatt thought, but he shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? I go where the bugs are. But the equipment I will need is expensive, and if it is portable, very expensive.”

“E-mail or fax me a list of what you might need. The cost of this will not be a problem and will not be an expense to the CDC, okay? I understand that we may have a physical location where this sickness is originating, but we want to be sure. My guess is that if we do have to put people into the area, we’ll need you on hand to evaluate the dangers they may face. I will be your point of contact for now.” She handed him a card and a cell phone. “Use this phone and the number written on the back of my card to reach me. It has a top-of-the-line scrambler. The e-mail address is rated up to secret. Questions?”

Rosenblatt slipped the card into his shirt pocket and sat back to again study the two names she had given him. “Not for now, but I’m sure there will be plenty.”

She glanced at her watch. “Damn. Wouldn’t you know it, the last direct flight to D.C. leaves in less than an hour. That slug of an official driver who brought me here will never get me there in time.”

There was a sudden sparkle in his eye. “You need a speed run to the airport, Agent Burks?”

She caught the gleam and smiled. “You can arrange that, Dr. Elvis?”

A few minutes later the uniform at the CDC main entrance leapt back into the guard shack as the BMW tore through the gate and careened onto Clifton Road, heading for the I-75 interchange toward Hartsfield-Atlanta International.

Garrett and AKR started for Steven’s office a few minutes ahead of their scheduled meeting. They wanted to arrive early and let Steven know that Janet was less than happy with the role of LeMaster and Owens in training the Africans. Although the storm seemed to have blown itself out, they still wanted to give Steven a heads-up.

“Man, did you see the way Tomba handled her?” Akheem said. “I couldn’t believe it. That guy could sweet-talk a crocodile. Next time she comes after me, I want him around.”

Garrett grinned. “Maybe that’s Tomba’s secret. It’s not sweet talk. Guys like us are smoke and mirrors. He’s the genuine article.”

Steven was on the telephone when they arrived. He motioned them to seats around a small conference table while he finished the conversation. When he hung up, he did not immediately take his hand from the receiver. His face was very grim.

“Trouble, boss?” AKR said, immediately abandoning the issue of Janet Brisco’s displeasure.

“Yes, there seems to be. The indicators that something is brewing in Zimbabwe are mounting. There is now concern at the CDC, as well as Langley. We may be asked to deal with something that is very dangerous, both tactically and biologically.”

Janet came into the room, and the three men rose. She set her coffee mug and a notepad on the table and took the remaining empty chair. If she carried any resentment or anger from their previous encounter, there was no indication.

“Welcome back, Janet. Glad to have you aboard. I was just telling Garrett and Akheem that the ‘observables’ coming from Africa are not good. It’s Langley’s assessment that they are too dangerous to ignore, but the question of what to do about it is still on the table. We have not been asked to take action, but from what I’ve seen, it looks as if this issue may be laid at our door.”

He paused and pulled a hand over his mouth. Steven Fagan was a tidy person, in his manner and his personal grooming. This morning there were bags under his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved. Steven and his wife Lon enjoyed a quiet, comfortable bungalow just outside of Wiamea. He was the only one associated with IFOR who lived outside the camp. He also had quarters on-site, but it was obvious that he hadn’t had much sleep in either place.

“I spent most of last night reading intelligence summaries and threat assessments concerning biological weapons and genetic research. Candidly, I had no idea such potential existed in these areas, or of the accelerating technologies that are driving this threat.” He grimaced and shook his head. “While the suicide bombers are taking out shopping malls with conventional explosives strapped to their bodies, the genomic revolution has quietly been pushing biotechnology into an explosive growth phase. Along with the low-tech threats we read about in the papers and the nuclear proliferation issues we’ve already been called on to deal with, we now face a new and growing problem in the area of bioterrorism. I don’t think I can overstate the danger here, nor how unprepared Homeland Defense and our clinical resources are to meet this threat. I don’t scare easy, folks, and this scares the hell out of me. Here at IFOR we are interventionists, not biologists, but there are some things about this science that we need to understand, since we may be asked to enter an area where there are biohazards.

“Knowledge of genes and how they work is one of the most promising areas of life science. But this burgeoning knowledge base has potential for evil, as well as for good. This information may cure some of our worst diseases, or it can be used to create bio-weapons of frightening and devastating proportions. This knowledge can be used as well to make current diseases more resistant to drugs. It can also be used to depress our immune systems so existing pathogens can kill us. It can even be used to create whole new diseases for which there is no current cure.”

He pushed himself to his feet and began to pace. “What I’m saying here is that this business in Africa may be the first of a series of biological bomb factories that spring up around the world. The information that drives this technology is expanding exponentially. It will only get easier for the bad guys to manufacture this stuff. But one thing at a time. If we are asked to take on this mission, and agree to it, how do we go about it? How do we get in, and how do we neutralize the threat once we do get in? Janet, you’re our planner; what do you think?”

“Your assessment of this seems to be about right, Steven. My reading on the subject is no more encouraging than yours. First of all we need to start getting people and equipment ready to move into the region so we can respond if we get a mission tasking. And since we are dealing with a new and very dangerous issue, we need to give ourselves as many tactical options as possible. They haven’t made it too easy on us. Initially, I think we should base our operations out of Lusaka. If those behind this in Tonga Province are paying off officials in Harare, we may have trouble working out of that capital. The Zambian bureaucracy is only a little less corrupt than its counterpart in Harare. We should be able to buy what we need in the way of cooperation or pay to have the authorities look the other way. It’s a little closer to the target area as the crow flies, but then there’s the issue of the border. That problem doesn’t seem to bother the smugglers, so it shouldn’t bother us. Since NGOs like Outreach Africa are pulling their people out, we have no international agencies to use for potential cover. The Central African Power Corporation, which operates the power stations below the Lake Kariba Dam, uses a German consulting engineering firm. They provide a range of technical services at the hydroelectric generation stations as well as throughout the distribution network. Maybe we can use them as a cover organization. If these people are where we think they are, then they have chosen a very remote and inaccessible site; it’s going to be difficult to even get close to them, or even stage assets close by, without some kind of cover story.”

“So we think we know where they are, and maybe why they are there, right?” Garrett asked.

Steven nodded. “The intercepts, satellite coverage, and intelligence all point to this one location. That said, we have no hard information yet.”

“And it seems,” Garrett continued, “as if they’ve created a biological research facility in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn’t it have been more convenient to co-locate this activity with some existing facility? That would have been a whole lot easier than coopting a whole country, even a shell of a nation like Zimbabwe.”

“That’s a good point,” Steven replied. “There is often little observable difference between authorized research and the creation of weaponized biological agents. From what little we know, it may be that they wanted to test their pathogens on human beings. That would account for the reports we have that people are getting sick and dying. You can only do this kind of thing in Nazi Germany, or someplace where life is cheap or the local population is poor and superstitious. In some ways, it’s almost as if Josef Mengele has set up shop in Africa and is conducting some monstrous human experiment. I know it sounds far-fetched, but that may be what we have here.”

“Then why don’t we just put a couple of two-thousand-pound JDAMs on the place? Kill everyone there and incinerate whatever they’re working on,” Garrett offered. “Carrier-based aircraft shouldn’t have much problem penetrating Mozambique airspace to get to Zimbabwe, or they can call in a B-1 from Diego Garcia.”

“That’s certainly one option available to the National Command Authority,” Steven acknowledged, “but there are higher-ups who want to know who is doing this and exactly what it is they are doing. And there is the chance that this place is doing something totally unrelated to bioterrorism. For all we know, it could still be a sex palace for deviant Middle East types, or just another drug reprocessing facility. But the indicators tell us that it is a whole lot more.”

“Steven.” It was AKR. “Do those in Washington who know about us and what we do, know that we have an African contingent?”

“They do. Periodically, I provide Jim Watson an update on our capabilities and personnel. It’s a very general laundry list, but something he can keep in his desk drawer for when a threat surfaces.”

“So,” AKR continued, “they assume that we can get our people into the area undetected. And they also assume that if during the process our people acquire some incurable disease, there will be no loss of life to officially account for — no next of kin and no accounting for collateral damage.”

Steven gave him a long, careful appraisal. “That has been the premise on which IFOR has operated since its inception. And, unlike a regular American military unit or special operations team, we can decline a mission or tasking if we so choose. It cuts both ways. But that does bring us to the next point of discussion. However, before we take the poll, there is one additional piece of intelligence I need to share with you. Our FBI liaison has made contact with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to get their preliminary take on this. As we expected, they know nothing. But Langley keeps tabs on potential rogue chemists, microbiologists, virologists, and the like. Two on their most-dangerous list have gone missing. We don’t know where they are, but it seems that one of these guys is on extended vacation, and the other just plain vanished. The folks at the CDC shudder to think what these two may be capable of if they put their heads together and are properly funded and equipped. Langley asked, and I agreed, to let one of their cleared and vetted epidemiologists be read into the problem. That has been done. To date, he has not been made aware of the existence of IFOR. That may change if we go forward; we are eventually going to need someone with that skill set, to protect us if we go in and to evaluate what we may find when we get there.”

Steven paused and looked at AKR. “Akheem, are Tomba and his men ready for operational tasking?”

Kelly-Rogers did not answer immediately, but finally he nodded. “We could use more time, but tactically, they’re good to go. A few of them have fought in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. They know the territory.”

“Garrett?”

“I agree with AKR, Steven. Furthermore, there is probably no more capable force for this mission.”

Steven looked around the table. “Then I need a vote. Given what we know at this stage of the game, is this an appropriate and suitable IFOR tasking? Janet?”

“Yes.”

“Garrett?”

“Yes.”

“Akheem?”

This is the first time AKR had been asked to participate in what Steven called a “Department Head Resolution.” As an IFOR element response leader, AKR had now earned a vote on this informal panel. There was no written or formatted criteria for this, nor did Steven want any. Simply put, was this a problem or mission within IFOR’s unique capability and did this threat or problem justify the risk of their force — no more, no less — yes or no? If it was unanimous, Steven would take the vote to their employer for a final decision. If it was not unanimous, they would talk it out. Steven had hired each of them for their professional expertise, but he also wanted them to function as a moral compass for IFOR. Their recommendation, and the ultimate decision to undertake a mission, would commit resources and place people in harm’s way. It could place them personally in harm’s way. Everyone at the table had been in the military and had made tactical life-and-death decisions. But the more senior command level, go no-go choices, had been made by others. Now that ball was in their court.

“Yes,” came AKR’s answer.

“And I concur. This is doable and in keeping with our charter. Janet, I want you and Garrett to begin the planning process in earnest and get me some timelines for equipment and personnel flow. Akheem, put your personnel on standby and do what you can to train them for the conditions in the area. It seems we will be operating in southeastern Zambia, in the Zambezi River Valley, and in northern Zimbabwe in”—Steven paused to consult his notes—“in the Mavuradonha Mountains. I’ll take this to the boss for confirmation and authorization. Questions?” He visually inventoried each of them. There were none. “Okay, thanks for your time and for your consideration. I’ll let you know if and when we get a solid green light.” No one moved, as they all sensed Steven was not finished. “I don’t mind telling you that this whole business worries me. Let’s all of us do what we can to be thorough in our preparation. This could be the big nasty one.”

Late that afternoon, Janet Brisco and her planning team were able to get a preliminary mission concept into Steven’s hands, along with an outline of the major logistical requirements. That evening it was his turn to fly east. There was not a GSI Gulfstream available to him, but there was one waiting for him when he got into LAX. There it took him directly to the Edgartown Airport on Martha’s Vineyard, the one that John F. Kennedy Jr. tragically failed to reach. They touched down just after 11:00 A.M. The weather was blowing sleet and rain with marginal visibility, but the Gulfstream’s instrumentation was well up to the task. When Steven emerged from the small terminal, a tall man in a sheepskin coat stood waiting for him, leaning against a dated red Jeep Cherokee. He seemed impervious to the inclement weather. Steven was surprised that Joseph Simpson was there to meet him in person, but only mildly so. Like many who chose to spend time on Martha’s Vineyard in the winter, Simpson was a wealthy man who liked to do for himself.

“Good to see you, Steven,” Simpson said, shaking Steven’s hand with one hand and reaching for his bag with the other.

“A pleasure to see you again, sir,” Steven replied.

Simpson tossed Steven’s grip into the back seat while Steven scrambled around to the passenger door. It was an ugly day, more so if you had just flown in from Hawaii. There were few people in the terminal, nor did they pass many cars on the way to Simpson’s property. On Martha’s Vineyard, summer and winter were day and night. For all his public notoriety, Joseph Simpson was a private man who sought solitude. He seldom came to the Vineyard in the summer, but was often here after Labor Day, once the tourists had left. Steven’s feeling of isolation only increased as the automatic gate rolled back to admit them to the private drive that led to the house.

On the way from the airport, they talked about improvements at the Kona facility, the training of the Africans, and the other enterprises of Guardian Services International. Steven asked about the foundation. Joseph Simpson, just into his sixties, was a fit, handsome man with tanned features and a cap of thick, close-cropped gray hair. His eyes were so deeply blue and so intense it seemed as if they were backlit. For those who measure success by accomplishment and money, Simpson had done very well indeed. His long and innovative career in the international beef and poultry business had made him a billionaire many times over. During his four years as the U.S. ambassador to Russia, he had won praise as a skilled and accomplished diplomat. Yet, as with so many highly successful men, his life had been punctuated with tragedy. Prudence, his wife of thirty-five years, died in a horseback-riding accident in 2000. Then barely a year later, his son was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Both were buried on Martha’s Vineyard, which was one of the reasons he was here as often as possible. Of his immediate family, only a daughter remained, and he was estranged from her. Shortly after his son was killed, he turned his extensive business empire into cash and threw himself into the foundation named after his son. Under his skilled direction, the Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation had in short order become an active force in relieving suffering in troubled parts of the world. A modern fleet of aircraft served the foundation, and were particularly useful for flying relief supplies and medicines into areas torn by civil and ethnic strife. Foundation help was welcome in parts of the Middle East and Africa where other Western and U.S. NGOs were not. It was an organization that could move quickly. Unlike most nongovernmental organizations, it was hampered by no internal politics, nor by the cumbersome oversight of a board of directors. Simpson ran the organization like a business, and his subordinates had the authority to take the initiative. His work following the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean had saved tens of thousands.

Guardian Services International had been Steven Fagan’s idea. He still retained the title of chief executive officer, but his primary duties were the ongoing operations of IFOR. Guardian Services was initially set up to act as a holding company for IFOR and to provide a broad range of security consulting activities. They did a lot of things in the field of executive and corporate security. So far, they had avoided security contracts in Iraq, as those activities were becoming too controversial. GSI wanted a low profile so as to better serve its true mission as a cloak for the activities of IFOR personnel and the Kona operation. The Gurkha contingent, the first ethnic force stood up by IFOR, was occasionally contracted out for security and executive protection services. This provided some measure of plausibility for paramilitary activity on Kona. In time, the Africans would be contracted out as well, subject to maintaining the cover to the Kona training base. But it was not an economic issue, not with the wealth of Joseph Simpson behind the venture. To date, the only people who came snooping around the Hawaii operations were DEA agents. But GSI had needed to grow quickly to give it legitimacy. Because of the funds at his disposal, Steven had been able to buy several small, highly regarded security consulting firms. Then he hired an executive director to manage the day-to-day operations of GSI and the home office in Washington, while he concentrated on IFOR. It had proved to be a satisfactory arrangement, and although it was not part of the business plan, GSI was profitable.

Once inside his home, Simpson took Steven’s coat and hung it beside his own on the hall tree. Simpson’s house was a fairly modest saltbox, a type seen all over Cape Cod, and as comfortable as an old pair of bedroom slippers. The main house was served by a barn and two smaller outbuildings, all situated on an impressive tract of land. The interior was frozen in time, left exactly as it was on the day of Prudence Simpson’s death.

“Let’s go into the kitchen. I have a plate of sandwiches made up.” Soon they were across a butcher-block table from each other, with tuna on rye and iced tea. “I’ve not been included on all the traffic or the details, nor do I wish to be, but I did speak with the Director early this morning. I think Armand’s got some real concerns about this one. It’s my impression they need us to find out exactly what is happening over there, and they need us to do it quickly.”

“Then we have approval from the National Command Authority to proceed, sir?” Simpson had been a businessman and an ambassador, and Fagan had been a spy. Both were men to whom discretion came easily and naturally. Neither would say outright, “Does the President know?”

Simpson smiled. “Inasmuch as we get approval for what we do, yes, we have it. Or at least, we have what they will deny they gave us if we get caught. Bring me up to speed. Where are we with this?” He rose to put on some water for coffee.

“My people are putting together the details as we speak. This is our preliminary mission concept.” Steven laid it on the table and continued, knowing Simpson would want a verbal report. “The target seems to be a small upscale hotel in northern Zimbabwe. It’s a remote area, one road in and out. It’s very rough country. The information is sketchy, but this hotel seems to be the locus for some strange and illegal activity. Two top European medical personnel with suspected links to bioterrorism have gone missing, and I just learned while I was airborne that we have identified a third. We’ve reason to believe, primarily from Langley’s product, that this hotel in Zimbabwe may be a base for biological weapons development and testing. We have nothing concrete, but a lot of indicators point to that. And the Harare government is being very uncooperative. We think they’re up to no good, but we’ll have to put a team in there to find out. It could get messy, militarily and, if it’s what we suspect, biologically.”

For the next half hour, Steven outlined how they proposed to move, from Hawaii to Lusaka, and across the Zambezi lowlands into Zimbabwe. There were no U.S. or friendly government assets in the region they could use, and more than a few they wanted to keep in the dark about their presence in the area, including U.S. embassy personnel. Since surprise was essential, it was going to have to be an entirely black operation. It would be a covert action.

“Is the foundation currently involved in Zambia?”

Simpson had to think about this for a moment. The Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation did a lot of work in Africa. So did any number of NGOs. “It seems to me that we make periodic deliveries of medical supplies for the Aambia National AIDS Network. And we are one of the primary supporters of Aqua Aid, a very worthy NGO that specializes in community participation in water projects. We provide help to others on a case-by-case basis, and when we have assets in the area. Let’s go into my office.”

Steven followed into a richly appointed study, anchored by an enormous wooden desk. The screen saver was a portrait of a young man Steven recognized as Simpson’s son. Simpson entered the foundation Web site and punched through several screens.

“Ah, here it is.” He read for a moment before looking up. “It looks like there is only one other organization to which we contribute on an ongoing basis: the Zambia Media Women’s Association.”

“What do they do?” Steven asked.

“If it’s similar to other groups we support, they work through media outlets to promote gender issues, literacy, and advocate for women’s rights in the country. As in most developing nations, women fall somewhere between chattel and farm animals. In many of these areas, even places like Zambia where there is a small Muslim minority, women are the nation’s greatest untapped resource. In most African tribal cultures, a woman’s role is to have children and work, period. I don’t even want to get into the female circumcision practices; they are beyond barbaric. We have a department within the foundation that works women’s issues in developing nations. I’ll get you a point of contact.”

“That may be helpful. Needless to say, we will make judicial use of the foundation’s interaction with these local NGOs, but so far, it’s probably the best cover we have there.”

“I understand, Steven, and we trust your discretion. After all, that’s one of the foundation’s collateral duties. Whenever possible, we provide cover and support for your activities.” The Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation and IFOR were both the visions of Joseph Simpson. The foundation was his passion, but he wanted to do more than just good works; he wanted to oppose evil, the kind of evil that had killed his son. While he was ambassador to Russia, Jim Watson had been the CIA station chief there. The two had worked well together; Simpson allowed Watson to do his job, and along the way, he acquired a feel for clandestine operations. When he envisioned standing up a secret organization like IFOR, he prevailed on Watson for a recommendation. He needed a man with a background in paramilitary operations and covert action, and he needed a man with a great degree of character. Watson immediately recommended Steven Fagan. So Fagan and Simpson had been together from the beginning.

The relationship was based on personal and professional respect. The two men, with vastly different backgrounds and experience, got on quite well. Simpson had long given up on trying to get Steven to use his first name; it was always “sir” or “ambassador.” For Steven, it would be like calling your father by his first name. But this little convention only seemed to stimulate the affection the two men felt for each other.

“So we have your permission to proceed?” Steven asked. This was also part of the protocol that would commit the IFOR to a mission.

“You do indeed, Steven.” He held out his hand. “Good luck, and good hunting.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll have the executive summary of the operations plan and support requirements to you in forty-eight hours. As you know, we have a crack operational planning team, but the planning does take time.”

Simpson didn’t ask Steven to stay over, nor did he expect to. For some men, being in the same house, even a large one, was like sharing a double bed with another man. They needed their space. And both men knew that long trips were not all that tiring when you had on-call executive jet aircraft. The Gulfstream took Steven back to Hawaii. It was necessarily smaller than the 550, to allow them to get into Edgartown Airport, but it was no less luxurious or well equipped. After setting down in Las Vegas just after dark to refuel, they raced the dawn west and were on the tarmac at the Kona airport just before sunup.

On the trip back to Hawaii, Steven spoke at length with key members of his staff and again with Jim Watson. Like all GSI aircraft, this one was equipped with a secure electronics suite and communications package. He enjoyed a delicious meal, with lobster bisque and a superb lamb chop, and managed a few hours of sleep. With the sound-canceling headphones in place, it was as quiet as a still evening at his home in Wiamea.