I to enjoying at his canceled dinner. R knew he was kidding himself, of course.
: wasn’t the slightest chance in the world that the would relieve his unfulfilled longing for calat
given his suspicions about Gordian’s case, there virtually no chance he’d be leaving the laboy for many long hours to come.
i what I can see here, we got thirty-four employees ; building called in sick over the last three weeks,”
au said.
ven… no, sorry, make that eight, are currently ‘Megan said.
; of them for longer than three days,” said Ricci. rest of the absences average two days,” Nimec , “I do notice one person, a Michael Ireland in Legal,
269
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
who’s been down five and counting….”
“Mike fractured his leg rock climbing,” Megan said. “He and his fiancee ate Mends of mine.”
“Scratch his name off die list,” Scull said and did so on the copy in front of him, drawing a line through it with his pen.
It was a quarter to seven in the evening, regular work hours long past, Nimec’s office once again having become a strategy room for Sword’s core leadership group… plus one, since Vince Scull was, technically speaking, not a member of the organizational security division. They had pulled up chairs to whatever flat surfaces were available-or reasonably clearable-and were poring over photocopies of the separate computer printouts obtained by Nimec and Thibodeau, verifying, crosschecking, and generally hoping for a lead that might steer them toward a carrier from whom Roger Gordian could have received his infection.
“Anyone think it’s worth talking to die people on Rol- lie’s list who took off sick and are already back to work?” Nimec said.
“My opinion’s mat it isn’t, with one possible exception,” said Ricci. “This bug has the boss flat-out kayoed. Somebody’s on his feet after a couple days, he’s not likely to be our contact”
That’s if it bits everyone the same, a big assumption to make,” Scull said. “Certain people could have a natural resistance and be mildly affected. Or not be susceptible at all. Or fliey could be what are called asymptomatic hosts, intermediaries for die bug to hitch a ride on. Oar germ bag might be unaffected but have an acquaintance or relative who’s dearnly sick-”
“Point taken, Vince,” Nimec said. “But I diink our
270
BIO-STRIKE
i to stay narrow for now, or we’ll find ourselves r the woods.”
t nodded. “The direct route gets us nowhere up tracks, we widen our range.”
looked at Ricci. “You mentioned an excep-
A James Meisten. His name’s the only one both lists.” He looked down at the printouts | side-by-side in front of him. “He was out sick ay, back today. Also met with the boss last Fri-
ow him a little,” Megan said. “He was at the ng and Promotions conference about the info ki-
i we phone him at home tonight even though he’s
it couldn’t hurt.” She frowned. “Candi- I’t exactly leaping out at us, are they? And I weigh what Vince said… it gets so tangled. I : of so many possibilities off the top of my head, ng the carrier is even a human being as opposed ; that flies, creeps, or crawls, he doesn’t have a person who actually had a scheduled meeting oger. It could be somebody who chatted with him i hallway or elevator. Or whose office he popped the spur of the moment. Or who shook his hand 5 a thirty-second introduction. And that’s before we sider people on his appointment schedule from the company. Businessmen. Politicians. Social tions we don’t have the vaguest idea about. He tids, family members …” i let the sentence trail, ught we were sticking to the straight and nar-
271
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
row,” Ricci said to her. “We’ve got Meisten, which is better than nothing. And, far as it goes for the boss’s unplanned contacts, we should look at Thibodeau’s list, try to pinpoint employees most likely to have crossed his path without an appointment over the course of a normal workday. See if that takes us anywhere.”
“I’ve already been doing that,” Nimec said. “Only name that stands out as a possible is Donald Palardy.”
“Palardy heads one of the sweep teams,” Thibodeau said. “Rotated out of Brazil ’round the same time I did.”
Nimec was nodding. “He called in sick Monday.”
Ricci looked at him.
“A day after the boss collapsed.”
“Yeah. And he’s still on the absentee list.”
Everyone in the room was momentarily quiet.
“Don’t see how we can read too much into this,” Scull said. “Sweeps are conducted early, right? Before most of us get to work. We’ve no reason to believe he and Gord have ever been in the same room together.”
“No reason to think they haven’t, either,” Ricci said.
“I know for sure Palardy’s been inside the boss’s office,” Thibodeau said. “We got four teams in the building. All of them be assigned permanent sections. An’ his section includes the top executive suites.”
Ricci exchanged glances with him.
“No shit,” he said.
“Non,” Thibodeau said.
There was more silence in the room.
“I think we ought to give him a call,” Ricci said.
Lathrop exited the CNN Web site after finding no updated headlines about Roger Gordian’s condition and
272
BIO-STRIKE
restored the Profiler application to his computer
ilondie’s luscious face reappeared in front of him, ged and enhanced from the digital video he’d taken the carousel in Balboa Park. None to his surprise, (.program still hadn’t made her. The only reason he’d ed running her image through it again was that procured a handful of new investigative files from of his infoworms-although for some reason this ular worm wasn’t penetrating very deep inside the lately and soon would be worthless as an infort. It was part of the natural order of things, Lathrop light. The ebb and flow. They rose to grace, they fell. ‘ gained access, they lost it. But he had other sources i disposal in a lot of different places. And there were ys prospects to be cultivated among the greedy and chanted.
having his desktop on, he swiveled around in his fortable leather office chair and reclined to watch kcoon cat toy with a favorite ball of yarn. She prodded fjrith her front paws to set it rolling and then crouched ^readiness to pounce, her tail flicking back and forth fthe floor. |”Okay, Missus Frakes,” he said in a fond tone. “Let’s
you go for it.”
iThe cat cooed at the sound of his voice. Then she tig upon the wound-up yarn and twisted onto her holding the ball against her middle with her fore- s, kicking and raking at it with her sharp rear claws. fLathrop smiled a little. She would work the thing till came unraveled and spread loosely across the carpet. t as he was working his own ball of yarn. The biggest i’d ever chanced upon.
273
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
He sat thinking about what he actually knew, what further information he’d been able to surmise from it, and what choices and opportunities the sum total presented to him.
His surveillances at Balboa and the harbor parking lot combined to tell a pretty amazing story. Whatever her identity might be, it was certain Blondie was a courier for El Tfo. And her purpose in meeting Enrique Quiros had been to deliver the jewelry box for the obscure narco distributer and instruct Enrique to pass it along to the guy he’d then arranged to meet harborside. His name was Palardy. A member of the security or countersnoop team at UpLink International whose gambling jones had gotten him in over his head with some serious operators, and who’d paid off a piece of his debt by turning over classified information about the defense systems of UpLink’s manufacturing compound in Brazil. El Tfo’s involvement in the terrorist raid on that base was unclear to Lathrop, but it probably didn’t have much importance at this stage, and he hadn’t concerned himself with it.
The main thing for him was to keep on top of what was happening now. Because events were already moving fast, and he had the sense they were about to kick up to a breathless pace.
It was interesting how sellout dupes like Palardy could be so utterly blind to the traps being set for them. How they never realized that the type of men who were using them would keep their hooks in until every bit of usefulness was exhausted. At the harbor, Palardy and his current user had talked about genetic blueprints, disease triggers, stuff Lathrop had needed to research afterward. And there was enough he still had to check out. But despite a lingering question mark or two, he’d gotten the
274
BIO-STRIKE
t of their encounter… and stripped to the bone, it all i down to blackmail and murder. Palardy had been i some kind of biological agent, something new un|| fhe sun, and been ordered to take out Roger Gordian lit.