Zero Option

36

Carson began his preparations after lunch. First he made a walking tour of the entire DRMO to see that everything was operating normally. He walked through all of the warehouses, the tarmac area, the receiving building, and even the demil assembly and product lines. He did not detect any unusual vibes from the employees; even Corey Dillard gave him a cautious nod of recognition. He looked for any signs that the Army teams had left behind some covert surveillance equipment but found nothing.

He had the man in die security control room walk him through the closed-circuit television surveillance systems that covered the high-value military equipment warehouses, the tarmac, and the entrance to the demil complex. He paid attention to the camera-viewing angles and got a feel for what the displays showed and did not show. This office was manned up during normal working hours, but all the budget cutting had forced them to go to intrusion alarm-activated tape after hours. His plan for the transfer

? included use of the television cameras, so he made sure he H had the current cipher-lock code for the control room.

” He ended his tour in the demil assembly building, where Boss Hisley and his crew were building up the feed run for the Monster. Hisley gave him his usual blank face and kept the crew going despite Carson’s presence. Carson walked around the assembly area, — looking at everything, trying to figure out where and how to set the thing up. The key was going to be the closed-circuit TV system. He did not bother going into the demil building. If this worked, nothing was going to happen there, except for the small matter of a trunk with a million bucks in it. He walked [; casually back to his office across the tarmac, trying hard not to look at his watch. He wondered if Tangent’s team was in Atlanta yet.

He’d told Tangent they could get the go order anytime after midnight tonight. He planned to make the call at twelve-fifteen. In the meantime, he had some more preparations to make.

The clerk knocked once on the door of the conference room and stuck his head in. “Colonel Fuller, sir, there’s a call for you from your office.”

“So patch it in.”

“Uh, sir, I can’t patch that particular line.” Fuller turned around in exasperation and then saw the look on the clerk’s face. “Oh, Okay. I’ll be right out.” “Trouble?” Mason asked, his desk cluttered with old microfilm prints on the Wet Eye weapon.

“Something from USAMRIID,” Fuller muttered. “You know, budget time.” He went out to the clerk’s desk. The clerk pointed him over to the couch on the other side of the office, where a secure phone extension was blinking. He picked it up.

“Colonel Fuller,” he said.

“Ambrose?”

“Yes, sir. We have a problem.” In a low voice, and with one eye on General Carrothers’s closed office door, he brought General Waddell up to speed on what Carrothers had reported. The general swore and then asked Fuller what might be happening in the cylinder.

“That’s the bad news, General,” Fuller said. “My people have finished the simulation run. Based on that, they’re predicting an exothermic reaction in the cylinder, capable of blowing the end caps off in thirty-six hours, plus or minus four hours.”

“Damn. Which would release what, exactly?”:

“That’s just it, General, we don’t know. The heat might kill the bugs, or they might mutate to something truly virulent. Either way, the underlying chemical agent would still be present. That thing lets go in the right place, we could have us a real situation.”

There was long silence, which Fuller knew better than to interrupt.

Finally, Waddell spoke. “Okay,” he said. “Thirty-six hours. We keep coming back to that DRMO in Atlanta. I take it there’s no point in searching the damn thing again.”

“No, sir. A DRMO is basically a warehouse complex. Thousands of things on shelves. You’d have to—”

“Yes, yes, I understand all that. Carrothers is having you plan another sweep with the Anniston team?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Forget that. This problem has reached zero-option status. I’m going to call General Roman, and then I’m going to task a Special Forces team from Fort Mcpherson, which is right there In Georgia. I’ll have them at Fort Gillem by 2400. Get the Anniston team there by 0100, reinforced, just like the last time.”

“Hell, Myer, there’s no point in—”

“I know that, Ambrose. But we’re not going to search that place again.

You had the right idea. The snake-eaters will have a Humvee full of thermite bombs. I want that DRMO incinerated. The whole fucking ball of wax, right to the ground. I want the Anniston team there to secure the perimeter, test the smoke, probe the ashes.”

Fuller was aghast. “But, sir, if the cylinder is there, that smoke might — I mean, Jesus, we’re talking metro Atlanta here. We have no idea—”

“It’s a stainless-steel cylinder, Ambrose. Any external fire hot enough to rupture it is hot enough to burn anything that comes out of it.

Especially any living organisms. And with Wet Eye, shouldn’t we have a fluorine organophosphate residual after combustion?”

Fuller thought for a moment, trying to recall the baseline modulus on Wet Eye. “Yes, sir, I think we would. It would be molecular concentrations, though. Pretty damn faint signature.”

“Our new mark-seven gear can detect at that concentration. Now, patch me back to my clerk. I believe it’s time to share my thinking with General Carrothers. And Ambrose?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Close-hold on the mutation problem. That’s between you and me until I tell you differently.”

“Even General Carrothers?”

“Especially General Carrothers.”

“Understood, sir,” Fuller said, hitting the patch button. Share my thinking, he thought, his throat suddenly dry. He swallowed. Suddenly, he was glad the general hadn’t asked him about whether or not the Army’s chem suits could hold off a mutated agent.