303
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
between them. The prepubescent Lucio already looking after his younger brothers, looking to survive on the street, long years from becoming the clan leader of Los Magos. Just another cast-off son of a whore and some unremembered clench in the night, insignificant as a stain on a dirty sheet. And maybe it wasn’t until he was in the room with the men he’d hired for the job, looking at one of the guns that would be used for the takedown, that his purpose in coming there really sank into his heart.
He had cause enough to believe things were well beyond any other solution. For openers, Lathrop’s information was always solid, and he had been definite that Quiros meant to put him in the grave. Then, by pure coincidence, the scouts he’d sent to Balboa the night before had spotted a group of Quiros’s men outside the park, skulking around for twenty minutes before they took off. While they could have been there for the same reason as Lucio’s own men, wanting to familiarize themselves with the grounds in case of a double cross, he doubted it, considering what he’d learned of Enrique’s recent maneuvers. And he could not overlook the tunnel raid.
Even so, Lucio guessed some part of him was still holding onto a shred of hope that violence would be avoided in this instance. That their differences could be reconciled out of respect for Tomas’s memory. But again it came down to a matter of survival. At any cost.
Now he studied the weapon being exhibited for him like some enticing rarity, a Walther 2000 sniper rifle with a special optical attachment on the scope. After a couple of minutes, he glanced up at the slight, dark-eyed man who’d laid it across the bedspread.
304
BIO-STRIKE
I “Let’s talk money,” he said.
I The little man nodded. “We each take twenty thou- 1 Half up front. The balance when it’s done.” “Eighty large is high-” i “Not for us, it isn’t. And the total is a hundred thou- I Nonnegotiable. There’s a fifth member of the team lithe control station.” ;rSalazar gave him a look of hard appraisal.
“Nonnegotiable,” he echoed. W’Yes.”
“I don’t like your position, I can take this contract ewhere.” IfThe little man’s eyes glittered. | “You can,” he said. “But you won’t get the same thing t deliver.”
Salazar kept looking at him. He motioned toward the ?alther.
“Your tricked-up piece doesn’t impress me,” he said, ‘m not concerned with anything but results.” “I understand that. This isn’t about flash. We just like pie to know some of what’s behind our asking price.” Salazar was quiet. Then he released a long sigh. |”Okay,” he said. “We have a deal.” The little man nodded. “We’d better go over tonight’s timetable,” he said.
first application Ricci accessed on Palardy’s corner was his E-mail reader, thinking it would be the gical place to search for contacts. Before checking his ess book, Ricci scanned the unopened messages on queue. Most were from subscriber lists related to untersurveillance issues. A few were obvious junk ails. One was an order confirmation from an EIcseller.
305
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
Only the third description caught Ricci’s interest. It said:
FROM SUBJECT RECEIVED DPALARDY@UPLINK.COM NONE 11/14/2000 4:36 AM
Ricci turned to Nimec in the chair beside him, pointing toward the mailer’s address.
“Look at that,” he said. “Palardy sent it to himself.”
“Early Tuesday morning,” Nimec said.
“Very early.”
And almost a full day after anybody at UpLink last heard from him, both men thought.
Nimec leaned forward. “Well, open it already. What are we waiting for?”
Ricci highlighted the description on the screen, double-clicked his mouse, and read the contents of the email:
RHJAJAOOBHJMOOWHRHIJMOOWHBHJAOO
TJAJOO?!CAJBJTRH
GWRHMVGCRHUGBHAJOORHJBAJOO.
RHBHCAJBJTRHGCBHGWJAOOTJ:CARHJAOO
CATJJAOOUG?!BHJBJAMVGCRHJAOO
RHJBJAOORHGW!!
RHJA””ALRHMFTJJAUGRHBH
.MVGCRHJAOOTJJGWH!
AJOOJPGCTJTJJAOOUGRH!?
JAOORHUGBHMVBHJARHJTRH
JAOOGWRHJB.JAMVJGTJJA
00″”MVGCBHAJMV,TJGCJBJMJMRHJA
JGTJJAOO.’CA.’BHJTRHGWRH.
306
BIO-STRIKE
ie looked at Nimec again. |”‘What the hell’s this?” he said.
their full-faceplate biohazard ensembles they might pye been astronauts exploring another world. But this no alien landscape. This was the Gordians’s home 1 hillside, and the team of state and CDC virus hunters in by Eric Oh had to comb every inch of their erty for the dried rodent excreta known to transmit tttavirus to humans.
fjffThe white space suits with their protective apparatus : burdensome and tiring to wear. Communication been team members was enabled only through two-way No . Their air packs weighed forty pounds. Their thick, iltilayered gloves made it difficult to get hold of ngs. Their heavy, steel-toed boots made walking itself li” rigor.
The suits could be hard on their surroundings as well, eservation of Ashley’s lovingly maintained gardens impossible in the scrupulous probe for contamints. It was imperative to inspect any area that might visited or inhabited by field mice and similar crea- Her herb patch was dug up, delicate rosebushes : sheared, the mulch around her shrubs was shoveled bagged. Climbing plants that had flourished on her for a decade were lopped off near the ground, the little mammals might forage among the root In some instances, the bowers and trellises them- flves had to be taken down for the biologists to get at ely sites for established nests or burrows. Dozens of were set for live specimens that would be tested the presence of virus. ‘; Nor was the interior of the house spared these disrup-
307
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
live but necessary intrusions. Mice and voles common to the region used the smallest openings to enter and exit from the outdoors, and these were often found in places normally screened from sight. Furniture was moved, rugs lifted, carpets unstapled. Library shelves were cleared of books, wainscoting panels detached from the wall. Gordian’s cluttered basement workshop was virtually taken apart piece by piece. In the kitchen, cooking cupboards were emptied, and utensils and appliances were swept from their shelves. The built-in stainless steel refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, ice maker, and wine captain had to be removed from their cabinets, their outer insulation pulled away. As outside the residence, many traps were laid.
Miles to the south at Julia Gordian Ellis’s new home in Pescadero, a second group of investigators in moon suits conducted a procedurally identical hunt for the source of contagion. Forced to abandon the premises, Julia went to stay with a friend, bringing only her dogs and a suitcase full of clothing. Intense focus was put on the section of backyard where her father had been building his greyhound corral, the theory being he might have disturbed an underground rodent den while excavating soil for its posts. The standing section of fence was disassembled, its laboriously installed posts extracted from the ground.
These painstaking efforts of course proved fruitless, for in the end, not a trace of virus was uncovered.
“Hello. Eric Oh, please.”
“Speaking…”
“Eric, it’s Steve Karonis over at Sobel Genetics. I know you asked me to call on your direct office line,
308
BIO-STRIKE
itmt I must’ve misplaced the number. Had to go through line switchboard …”
“No problem. What’ve you got on Gordian’s virus specimens?”
“Everything is strictly unofficial, okay? Even with our Iwhole staff on this, we need twenty-four hours minimum >.to make a reliable determination, and it hasn’t even Ibeen-”
“It’s unofficial.”
“All right, hold on to your seat. The PCR screening ishows your isolate doesn’t match any known strain of ffehantavirus. Which from what you’ve already told me, I shouldn’t come as a surprise-”
“Then why am I still supposed to be worried about ‘falling down?”
“Because … and again, this is only based on initial v results … but there appear to be RNA sequences that don’t occur naturally in the species. Or in the family. They’re at the regulation sites on the genome, right j where you’d expect to find them if, well, components fthad been inserted-”
“Are you telling me the virus was artificially modi- I/W?”
“I’m telling you there are signs of genetic modificaf|tion, yes.”
The phone cradled between his neck and shoulder, Eric looked down at his hand.
He was indeed holding on to his seat, literally holding : on, his knuckles white as bleached bone.
“You want to say the words, or have I got to be the one {who jumps first?” Ricci said from behind Palardy’s com- fputer.
309
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
Nimec’s eyes were still on the E-mail they had opened.
“It looks like code,” he said. “Some kind of code.”
“And we’re off into space.”
“What do you make of it?”
Ricci shrugged, staring at the screen in contemplative silence.
“Be straight with me,” Nimec said. “When Hernandez was in here with us, I heard you question him about Palardy maybe leaving a notebook computer around here. I saw you look for it in the drawer. And that made me pretty sure you noticed more at Palardy’s house than you’ve let on.”
Ricci turned to him. “How come you didn’t say anything to me?”
“Figured you had your reasons for being quiet, and you would talk when you were ready.”