The Cassandra Compact

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After leaving the Washington city limits, Nathaniel Klein drove along U.S. 15 until he reached Thurmont, Maryland. There he took Route 77, slipped past Hagerstown, and followed Hunting Creek until he reached the Catoctin Mountain Park Visitors Center. Skirting the forest ranger's station, he headed up two-lane blacktops until he came to a sign that read NO STOPPING, SLOWING, TURNING OR STANDING HERE. To reinforce the message, an army Humvee rattled off the shoulder and into the middle of the road.

Klein pulled over his nondescript Buick sedan, lowered his window, and held out his ID. The officer, who had been alerted to expect Klein, scanned the card. Satisfied, he instructed Klein to proceed. As soon as he was under way, the car phone sounded.

“Klein here.”

“Kirov in Moscow. How are you, sir?”

By the sounds of it, better than you. But all he said was, “Fine, General.”

“I have information.” There was a slight hesitation, as if the Russian was trying to find the right words. Finally, they came out in a rush: “Beria made it to St. Petersburg, just as you suspected. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand how this is possible.”

“You're sure?” Klein demanded.

“Positive. A bus driver was stopped at a checkpoint on the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. He was shown a photograph and identified Beria.”

“How far outside St. Petersburg was this checkpoint?”

“A little bit of luck here: only an hour. I immediately concentrated my resources in the city, particularly the airport. No American carriers had left up to that point.”

Klein breathed a little easier. Wherever Beria was going, it wasn't here.

“But there was a Finnair flight that left almost ten hours ago,” Kirov said. “It's carrying an American tour group.”

Klein closed his eyes. “And?”

“The immigration officer remembers the tour leader giving him a stack of passports. He took his time going through them. One of the names caught his attention because it was a Russian name on an American passport. Ivan Beria now calls himself John Strelnikov. If the Finnair flight is on schedule, it will land at Dulles in fifteen minutes.”

Klein stared through the windshield at the lodges coming into view.

“General, I'll have to call you back.”

“I understand. Godspeed to you, sir.”

Klein drove past the rustic dwellings until he saw the largest one, fronting a small pond. He pulled in, got out, and hurried to the front door. Nathaniel Klein had arrived at Aspen, the presidential lodge at Camp David.

Developed in 1938 as a retreat for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the area known as Camp David had been called the Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area (RDA), used by federal employees and their families. Its security fence surrounded one hundred and twenty-five acres sheltered by a thick growth of oak, hickory, aspen, poplar, and ash. The guest lodges ― used by foreign dignitaries, the friends and family of the president, and other visitors ― were set in private surroundings and connected to Aspen by a series of footpaths.

Through the trees Klein caught a glimpse of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Under the circumstances, he was glad that the flying time to Washington was only thirty minutes.

The Secret Service agent opened the door for him and Klein stepped into a small, pine-paneled foyer. A second agent escorted him through the homey living room to the large, comfortable room that served as the presidential office.

Samuel Adams Castilla, the chief executive, sat behind a stressed-pine desk, going through paperwork. Wearing a cardigan over a denim shirt, the former New Mexico governor rose and offered Klein his large, weathered hand. Behind titanium-rimmed glasses, cool, slate-gray eyes appraised the visitor.

“Usually I'd say it's good to see you, Nate,” the president said. “But since you mentioned it was urgent…”

“I'm sorry to intrude on your privacy, Mr. President, but this can't wait.”

Castilla ran a palm across his five o'clock shadow. “Does it relate to what we talked about in Houston?”

“I'm afraid it does.”

The president gestured at one of the couches. “Bring me up to speed,” he said crisply.

Five minutes later, Castilla knew more than he had ever wished to know.

“What's your recommendation, Nate?” he asked quietly.

“Commence FIREWALL,” Mein said tightly. “We don't want a single one of those passengers walking out of the terminal.”

Developed in collaboration with the FAA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, FIREWALL was a dedicated response to any terrorist incursion into the United States. If the warning came early enough, every port of entry would be flooded by security officials waiting for a target whose description and particulars were already in hand. Klein knew that it was too late to do this at Dulles. The best he could do was to alert every available uniformed and undercover officer in the complex and initiate a hunt. Even as agents were scrambling, the FAA would be faxing a passenger manifest to the central command post.

The president stared at him, nodded, and reached for the phone. In seconds he had Jerry Matthews, the head of the FBI, on the line, and was explaining what had to be done.

“I don't have time to give you all the details right now, Jerry. Just get FIREWALL going. I'm faxing you a description of the suspect as we speak.”

The president took the sketch Klein held out and fed it into the machine.

“His real name is Ivan Beria, Jerry. He's a Serb national. But he's calling himself John Strelnikov and is traveling on a fake U.S. passport. He is not, I repeat not, an American citizen. And Jerry? This is a level-five situation.”

Five was the highest designation, meaning that the individual in question was to be considered not only armed and dangerous but a clear and immediate danger to national security.

The president hung up and turned to Klein. “He'll get back to me as soon as the ball's rolling.” He shook his head. “He asked ― respectfully, mind you ― what my sources were.”

“I appreciate your position, sir,” Klein replied.

“It's one of my making.”

After the nightmare of Hades and the subsequent election, Samuel Castilla had sworn that the United States would never again be caught off-guard. While he respected the work of the traditional agencies, he saw a dire need for a new group ― small, elite, run by a single individual beholden to no one, reporting only to the chief executive.

After a great deal of thought, Castilla had chosen Nathaniel Klein to head what would become known as Covert-One. Using funds carefully siphoned off from various government departments, employing only the most talented and trustworthy men and women, CovertOne had grown from an idea into a presidential iron fist. This time, Castilla thought, we have the chance to stop the monster instead of wading through the horror it'll spawn.

The ringing phone intruded on his reverie. “Yes, Jerry.”

Castilla listened, put his hand over the mouthpiece, and turned to Klein.

“They have a hit on Strelnikov. Immigration clocked him in eight minutes before FIREWALL went into effect.” He paused. “Do you want to maintain the alert, Nate?”

Suddenly, Klein felt very old. Beria had fooled them again. Eight minutes was an eternity to someone like him.

“It's a whole different ballgame now, sir. We have to go to a backup plan.” Quickly he outlined what he had in mind.

The president got back on the line. “Jerry, listen carefully…”

Even as Castilla spoke, the director of the FBI scrambled the Bureau's elite antiterrorist teams stationed at Buzzard's Point. A description of Beria was being sent to the computer screens of their cars. Within thirty minutes, the first squads would be interviewing taxi dispatchers, skycaps, limousine drivers, anyone who might have seen or come into contact with the suspect.

“Let me know the minute you have something,” Castilla said and ended the call. He turned to Mein. “Exactly how much smallpox was stolen?”

“Enough to start a wildfire of an epidemic across the eastern seaboard.”

“What about our vaccine supplies ― besides the amount stockpiled by USAMRIID for military use?”

“Barely enough to inoculate half a million people. I'm anticipating your next question, Mr. President: how long to manufacture enough? Too long. Weeks.”

“Nonetheless, we have to try. What about Britain, Canada, Japan ― can we buy from them?”

“They have less than we do, sir. And they would need that to protect their own populations.”

For a moment, there was silence.

“Is there any reason to believe that Beria came here with the express intent of unleashing the virus?” the president asked.

“No, sir. Ironically, that's our one ray of hope. Beria has never been anything other than a killer for hire, a facilitator. His politics revolve around the price paid for services rendered.”

“Facilitator? Are you suggesting that he's delivering the smallpox to someone over here?”

“I appreciate that it's a difficult concept to entertain, Mr. President. After all, if a terrorist wanted to stage a biochem attack against us, it would be much safer to assemble the weapon outside the country, rather than here.”

“But the smallpox is already a weapon, isn't it, Nate?”

“Yes, sir. Even in its raw form, it is extremely potent. Deposit it in New York City's water supply and you create a crisis of massive proportions. But, Mr. President, if you take the same amount and reconfigure it so that it can be used in an aerosol dispersal system, you can crop dust, if you will, a much greater area.”

The president grunted. “You're saying, why waste the potential when you can maximize it.”

“Exactly.”

“Assuming, for a moment, that Beria is a courier, how far can he get?”

“Hopefully we can contain him to the D.C. area. Beria has a couple of problems: he doesn't speak English well, and he's never been in this country, much less in this specific area. One way or another, he will draw attention to himself.”

“In theory, Nate. But he won't be signing up for tours of the White House. He'll deliver the virus and get the hell out of Dodge. Or try to.”

“Beria has to have help on this end,” Klein conceded. “But again, the geographic area is limited. We should also remember that the people using Beria do not want the virus released until it suits them to do so. That means they have to store it ― safely. And that requires a very good laboratory. We're not looking in tenements or abandoned warehouses, Mr. President. Somewhere in the surrounding counties is a state-of-the-art lab that was created just for this purpose.”

“All right,” he said finally. “The hunt for Beria is under way. We'll also start searching for this lab. Right now, we keep a lid on what's happening. Total media blackout. Is that about right?”

“Yes, sir. About the media: Kirov has done a yeoman's job of keeping the situation in Russia under wraps. But if there's a leak, that's where it will spring. I suggest that when you call President Potrenko, you ask him what steps he's taking to hold the blackout in place on his end.”

“Noted. Now what about this second man you mentioned, the one Beria may or may not have met in Moscow?”

“He's the wild card, sir,” Klein said softly. “If we can finger him, we can use him to get to Beria.”

As soon as he heard the double ping indicating that the aircraft was at the gate, Adam Treloar was out of his seat and moving to the forward hatch. The rest of the first-class passengers fell in behind him, creating a buffer between him and the man who could not be allowed to catch a glimpse of him.

Treloar drummed his fingers on his carry-on, impatient for the hatch to roll up. His instructions had been precise. He repeated them over and over again until he knew the litany by heart. The only question was, would he be able to carry them out without interference?.

The hatch disappeared into the bulkhead, the flight attendant stepped back, and Treloar charged past her. He set a fast pace, moving through the jetway and into a harshly lit corridor that dead-ended at an escalator. He walked down it and found himself at the immigration booths. Beyond them were the baggage carousels and the customs checkpoints.

Treloar had expected and would have preferred crowds. But Dulles was not as busy as Kennedy or Los Angeles, and no international flights had come at the same time or just a little ahead of American 1710. He went up to an empty counter and offered his paperwork to an officer who scanned the passport and asked inane questions about where he'd been. Treloar gave him the truth about his mother, how he had gone to Russia to visit her grave and tend to it. The officer nodded solemnly, scribbled something on the customs form, and waved him along.

Treloar had baggage, but he wasn't about to waste time waiting for it to come down the chute. The instructions had been very specific on that point: he was to get out of the terminal as quickly as possible. Walking past the carousels, Treloar dared to glance over his shoulder. At the other end, Jon Smith was at an immigration counter reserved for diplomats and aircrews. Why would he…? Of course! Smith was Pentagon. He would be traveling on a military ID, not on a civilian passport.

Holding his card, Treloar approached the customs agent.

“Traveling light, sir,” the agent commented.

Remembering his instructions, Treloar explained that he had had his bags sent on ahead, using a bonded courier service that catered to well-heeled travelers who were not inclined to wrestle with their own suitcases. Familiar with the arrangements, the agent waved him through.

Out of the corner of his eye, Treloar caught Smith walking up to the same agent. He veered right, so as not to walk across Smith's line of sight.

“No, sir,” the agent called out. “You go left.”

Treloar turned abruptly and almost ran into the tunnel that connected to the terminal.

“Dr. Smith?”

He turned to the customs agent walking up to him. “Yes?”

“There's a call for you, sir. You can take it in there.”

The agent opened the door to an interview room where detained travelers were questioned. Pointing to a phone on the desk, he said, “Line one.”

“This is Smith.”

“Jon, it's Randi.”

“Randi!”

“Listen. There isn't much time. I just got a positive ID on that guy in the picture. He's Adam Treloar.”

Smith clenched the receiver. “You're sure?”

“Positive. We cleaned up the video enough to get a good print, which I shipped over to the embassy. Don't worry. Whatever the cat is, it's still in the bag. I made Treloar a prospective investor and asked for a standard background check.”

“What did you find out?”

“His mother was Russian, Jon. She died a while ago. Treloar comes over frequently, to pay his respects, I guess. Oh, and he was on the same flight as you ― American 1710.”

Smith was stunned. “Randi, I can't thank you enough. But I have to run.”'

“What do you want me to do with the laptop and the cell phone you brought in?”

“Can you get your boy genius to work on it?”

“I figured as much. I'll call you as soon as I have something.”

Smith left the office, quickly walked back to the customs counter and found the agent who had alerted him to the call.

“I need your help,” he said urgently, displaying his military ID. “There was a passenger onboard 1710. Can you find out if he's cleared customs yet? The name is Adam Treloar.”

The agent turned to his terminal. “Got him right here. Treloar. Went through about two minutes ago. Do you want ―?”

Smith was already on the move, heading out of the restricted area toward the concourse, dialing Klein's number as he ran.

“Klein here.”

“Sir, it's Smith. The guy with Beria is American. Dr. Adam Treloar. He's a NASA scientist and he was on the London-to-Washington flight.”

“Can you find him?” Klein demanded urgently.

“He has a two-minute start on me, sir. I might be able to run him down before he leaves the terminal.”

“Jon, I'm at Camp David with the president. Hold on, please.”

Smith kept threading his way through the traffic in the concourse as he waited for Klein to come back on the line.

“Jon, listen to me. A FIREWALL alert was issued earlier, for Beria. But he slipped through it. Now that we know who he was seen with it's imperative that you find Treloar. We have FBI agents in the area―”

“No good, sir. It'll take too long to bring them up to speed. I think I have the best shot.”

“Then take it.”

Smith raced down the tunnel. He knew the layout of Dulles intimately. After clearing customs and immigration, passengers walked through the arrivals area to other gates, or, if D.C. was their final destination, to the area where the specially built transit buses waited. These vehicles could raise their platforms to reach the boarding area. Once the passengers were on, the chassis was lowered and the buses would go across the airport to the main terminal. There, the docking process would be repeated, and the passengers would disembark and head for the exits.

Smith ran past the shops and newsstands, darting among travelers, straining to catch a glimpse of Treloar. Reaching the end of the concourse, he found himself in a large holding area. Along one wall were elevator-style glass doors that passengers went through to get on the buses. Only one bus was parked at the dock. Smith shouldered his way through the crowd of twenty-odd travelers who were in the process of boarding.

Ignoring the shouts,of protest, Smith elbowed his way onto the bus, his eyes flitting from face to face. He checked every passenger. Treloar wasn't there.

Smith rapped hard on the partition separating the cabin from the driver's compartment. A startled, black face looked back at him and the ID he jammed against the glass.

“Did another bus just leave here?” he shouted.

The driver nodded and gestured at a bus that was better than halfway between the arrivals area and the main terminal.

Smith turned and cut his way through the growing crowd in the bus. He spotted an emergency exit and dashed toward it. Alarms sounded as he threw open the door with the large red warning sign stenciled across its face.

Flying down the ramp that led to gate aprons, Smith spotted an airport supervisor's sedan idling next to a string of baggage carts. He flung open the door and jumped behind the wheel. He jammed his foot on the accelerator and the sedan shot onto the taxiways, narrowly missing an oncoming fueler.

The drive across the parking aprons took less than thirty seconds. Abandoning the vehicle, Smith raced up to the bus. Because the chassis was eight feet off the ground, he could make out only the heads of the passengers as they disembarked.

Swinging through another emergency door, Smith found himself in an identical holding area filled with passengers waiting to board. Turning, he saw the backs of those who had just come off the bus.

He scanned the sea of faces around him. Treloar couldn't have slipped out. Not that fast.

Then he saw him, only a glimpse at first. But it was unmistakably Treloar, beyond the sliding glass doors that opened to the sidewalk outside where cabs, limousines, and private vehicles waited.

Barging ahead, Smith jammed through the doors in time to see his quarry about to step into a black Lincoln sedan with heavily tinted windows.

“Treloar!”

Charging down on him, Smith saw terror in those odd eyes, noted the way Treloar was clutching his carry-on tightly against his chest.

Treloar jumped into the car and slammed the door. Smith reached the vehicle just in time to get his fingers around the door handle. Then, without warning, the big car screeched away from the curb, throwing him heavily to the sidewalk. Smith tucked his shoulder, letting it absorb the impact, and rolled with the momentum. By the time he was back on his feet, the Lincoln was well into traffic.

Two airport policemen ran up and grabbed him by the arms. Thirty precious seconds were wasted as Smith struggled to identify himself. Finally he was able to get Klein on the line.

“Did you get the plate number?” Klein demanded after Smith told him about the car.

“No. But I saw the last three digits. And there was an orange sticker in the lower left corner. Sir, the Lincoln is registered to a U.S. government agency.”