The Panic Zone

62

Deus Island, Exuma Sound

At that moment, sweat beaded on the upper lip of the American military scientist working in Dr. Sutsoff’s secret laboratory.

The biochemistry engineer was part of the elite rapid response team rushed overnight to the island to investigate Sutsoff’s clandestine research.

Working in protective pressure suits, team members took painstaking care. The lab housed such material as rabies, small pox and the Marburg and Ebola viruses. They’d come upon glass cases housing snakes-the deadliest snakes on earth. A venom expert identified them as a black mamba, a king cobra, a Russell’s viper, a taipan and a krait. All could be milked for their lethal neurotoxins, cardiotoxins and hemotoxins.

They also discovered a large clear container with a cluster of roosting pariah bats, a species thought to be extinct. They found containers of autopsied bats and evidence of newly engineered super-lethal agents. The scientist felt her scalp prickle when a team member’s voice crackled over the radio.

He said, “Sutsoff may have booby-trapped this place. Stay calm, be careful.”

The female scientist constantly checked the floor and ceiling in case a snake or bat had escaped its hold.

It was like viewing live coverage of a space mission, Lancer thought, watching via closed-circuit TV in an outer room crowded with U.S. and Bahamian law enforcement agents.

Within the past forty-eight hours, security agencies in the U.S., the Bahamas and around the world had been working full bore. The telephone numbers and information Lancer got from Jack Gannon had broken the case open with several significant leads. Gannon’s first number enabled them to obtain warrants on the Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway. Lancer glanced at his watch, figuring that that operation should be happening right about now on Paradise Island.

The second number, the satellite phone number, led to a post-office box in the Cable Beach area of Nassau, which led to a numbered company. Some criminal intelligence work by detectives from the Royal Bahamas Police Force confirmed a link to the Blue Tortoise child-care center and Gretchen Sutsoff. Interviews with seaplane pilots confirmed her flights from Deus Island. Other Bahamian government departments helped with property, tax and other records, which prompted calls through Interpol and help from police in France, Spain and Portugal.

It all led to securing emergency warrants to hit Deus Island with support from the Royal Bahamas Defense Force and the U.S. Coast Guard. Overnight, each group had sent ships to the island, while other resources were flown in by seaplane.

They’d failed to find Sutsoff but after questioning her island staff and searching Sutsoff’s lab and her residence, Lancer knew they were gaining on her. For in a short time this had become an international investigation with new leads coming nearly every fifteen minutes.

Would they get her in time?

Lancer’s attention went back to the slow, meticulous probe of Sutsoff’s lab, which was being transmitted live via satellite to the Crucible scientists and other experts at Fort Detrick in Maryland.

Analysis under the microscope in Sutsoff’s lab was being shared with the former CIA scientists via secured U.S. military laptop computers and secured satellite Internet links.

“We can’t identify what’s been created down here. What does the team at Fort Detrick think?”

“Foster Winfield here. We conclude from our analysis that what you’ve got there was applied in the death of the cruise passenger.”

“Are you certain that was a homicide, Doctor?” Lancer asked.

“Absolutely, and we can also say the lethal agent used has its foundation in material from Crucible.”

“Stolen material?” someone from Defense Intelligence asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you testify to that in court, Dr. Winfield?” Lancer said.

“If I live long enough, yes, but I’m sure Phil and the others would, as well.”

“Then,” Lancer said to the others, “we have enough to put out a warrant for Sutsoff’s arrest and deem her a fugitive suspect.”

“One moment, gentlemen,” Winfield said. “You must understand that based upon the new material found in her lab, it is clear that Gretchen has created an even more powerful lethal agent than what was used on the cruise-ship victim. She remains well ahead of us. Again, we stress the critical need for more analysis on this newer agent. We don’t know how, or when, or if she intends to introduce it or even if we can stop it.”

Frustration rippled among the investigators in the crowded room. A moment later, one of the men nudged Lancer to look out a window at someone pointing at him.

“They need you outside.”

Lancer welcomed the fresh air and Caribbean sun as he headed toward a Jeep and the FBI agent waiting behind the wheel.

“Bob, they found something in Sutsoff’s residence you should see.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know-they told me to get you.”

“Any word on how they did with the warrants at the child-care center?”

“We just heard that the operation went well but there may be more victims. Homicides.”

“What?”

“It just came in-we don’t have anything else.”

Lancer climbed in and as the Jeep rumbled down the road, Lancer saw that his phone signal was strong now that he was outside of the sealed lab buildings. He called Hal Weldon, his supervisor at FBI Headquarters in Washington.

“Hal, it’s Lancer. Have you heard anything on the takedown at the child-care center?”

“It’s sketchy. The operation went well but there could be other victims. It’s all hot right now. We’re trying to get more. What do you have?”

Lancer updated him and made the urgent request for warrants for Sutsoff’s arrest and to prepare her fugitive file.

“We’re getting what we can,” Lancer said. “The CIA, the Bahamians, Interpol, the French, Portuguese and Spanish police are sending stuff on her passports. We should have recent photos.”

“We’ll take care of it up here, Bob. Keep me posted and we’ll blast something out to Homeland and Customs and Border Protection ASAP to warn them to watch for entry while we track her aliases.”

When Lancer arrived at the house, Bahamian and U.S. computer experts were searching Sutsoff’s private computer files and e-mails. They’d bypassed encrypted and password-protected files to find a list of some seventy names and addresses around the world.

“Any idea what this means?” one of them asked.

They scrolled through names and locations in Toronto, London, Shanghai, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Tokyo, Hamburg, Chicago, Dallas-and the list went on to include some of the world’s largest cities.

“I think it means a strike is imminent.”

“But when and where?”

“That’s the question,” Lancer said as his phone rang.