Simply put, Peter was one of those restless and reckless Brits who seemed to pop up in every conflict of the last two centuries, small or large, on one side or the other. Educated at both Cambridge and Sandhurst, a linguist and adventurer, he had joined the SAS in Vietnam days. When the action faded, he volunteered for MI6 and foreign intelligence. He had worked for one or the other ever since, depending on whether the wars were hot or cold, and sometimes for both at once. Until he grew too old for one, and outlived his usefulness to the other.
Now he had found a well-deserved retirement on the remote and sparsely populated eastern side of the Sierras. Or so it appeared. Smith had a suspicion his “retirement” was as murky as the rest of his life.
Now that Smith was AWOL, he needed the kind of help the SAS and MI6 could give. “I have to get into Iraq, Peter. Secretly, but with contacts.”
Howell began to reassemble the H&K. “That’s not dangerous, my boy. That’s suicide. No way. Not for a Yank or a Brit. Not the way things are over there these days. Can’t be done.”
“They murdered Sophia. It has to be done.”
Howell made a sound much like his recall of Stan the mountain lion. “Like that, eh? Care to explain this AWOL nonsense?”
“You know I’m AWOL?”
“Try to keep in touch, you see. Been AWOL a few times myself. Usually a good story behind it.”
Smith filled him in on everything that had happened since the death of Major Anderson at Fort Irwin. “They’re powerful, Peter, whoever they are. They can manipulate the army, the FBI, the police, perhaps even the whole government. Whatever they’re planning, it’s worth killing people for. I’ve got to know what that is and why they killed Sophia.”
His submachine gun cleaned, oiled, and back together, Howell reached out a brown claw for a humidor. He filled his pipe. Deeper in the house they could hear Marty raving at his computer, shouting excitedly to himself.
His pipe lit, puffing slowly, Howell muttered, “With that virus, and no known cure or vaccine, they can hold the planet hostage. It has to be someone like Saddam or Khadafy. Or China.”
“Pakistan, India, any country weaker than the West.” Smith paused. “Or no country. Perhaps it’s all about money, Peter.”
As the aromatic pipe tobacco scented the room, Peter thought about it. “Getting you into Iraq could cost more than my life, Jon. The price could be an entire underground. The opposition against Saddam Hussein is weak in Iraq, but it does exist. While it bides its time, my people and your people are there to help build it up. They’ll get you in if I ask, but they won’t compromise the entire network. If you stumble into serious trouble, you’ll be on your own. The U.S. embargo is ruining the lives of everyone except Saddam and his gang. It’s killing children. You can expect little from the underground and nothing from the Iraqi people.”
Smith’s chest tightened. Still he shrugged. “It’s a risk I have to take.”
Howell smoked. “Then I better get cracking. I’ll arrange all the protection I can. I wish I could go, too, but I’d be a liability. They know me too well in Iraq, you see.”
“It’s better I go alone. I’ve got a job for you here anyway.”
Howell brightened. “Do tell? Well, I was becoming a trifle bored. Feeding Stanley has its limits as excitement.”
“Another thing,” Smith added. “Marty has to have his meds, or he’ll soon be useless. I can give you the empty bottles, but we can’t contact his doctor in Washington.”
Howell took the bottles and vanished into the hall and on past the room where Marty raved. Smith sat alone, listening to Marty. Outdoors the wind blew through the majestic ponderosa pines. It was a comforting sound, as if the earth were breathing. He let himself relax wearily into the chair. He cut off his grief for Sophia and his feelings of worry and all the tension of whether he could find what he needed in Iraq, and whether he would survive if he did. If anyone could get him into that brutalized country, it was Peter. He was sure answers were there somewhere— if not among those who had died from the virus last year, then among those who had survived.
__________
5:05 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
In the single large room of Marty Zellerbach’s disordered bungalow off Dupont Circle, computer expert Xavier Becker watched in fascination as Zellerbach, accessing his huge Cray mainframe from some remote PC, probed through the computers of the telephone company with the delicate skill of a surgeon.
Xavier had never seen anything like the search-and-cracking software Zellerbach had created. The sheer beauty and grace of the man’s work almost made him forget what he was there for.
It was all he could do to keep one step ahead of Zellerbach as he led the distant cracker through a maze of phony positive results to keep him online while the police up north in Long Lake village traced Zellerbach through the maze of relays across the world. Xavier sweated, worrying Zellerbach would switch the sequence of relay lines, which would mean they would lose him. But Zellerbach never did. Xavier could not understand the oversight by such a genius. It was as if Zellerbach had set up his system of relays to hide his location because he knew it was the right thing to do, not because he cared about the reasons behind it, and so never thought of switching the trail again.
A tense voice announced in his earphones, “Just a few more minutes. Hold him on, Xavier.”
Jack McGraw at Long .Lake sounded as if he were sweating as much as Xavier. Twice before they had almost had Zellerbach, when Xavier had led him in circles with phony data while he tried to locate Bill Griffin, and again when he accessed USAMRIID’s computer to check on progress with the unknown virus. Each time Zellerbach had moved too fast for Xavier to hold him. But not this time. Maybe Xavier’s false data was better now, or maybe Zellerbach was getting tired and losing his concentration. Whatever it was, another two or three minutes and…
“Got him!” Jack McGraw’s voice exulted. “He’s online outside some little burg in California called Lee Vining. Al-Hassan’s near Yosemite. We’re alerting him now.”
Xavier switched off. He felt none of the security chief’s jubilation as he watched Zellerbach still following the fake trail he expected to lead to the phone call the Russell woman had made to Tremont. Zellerbach’s creativity was too beautiful to be sabotaged by his own carelessness. It made Xavier feel sad and confused. It looked as if Zellerbach had been carried away by his own enthusiasm, by a kind of naive ignorance of the existence of the Xavier Beckers or the Victor Tremonts of this world.
__________
2:42 P.M.
Near Lee Vining,
High Sierras, California
Smith stepped into the computer room, and Marty’s frustration greeted him like an atomic blast. “Zounds, zounds, zounds! Where are you, you chimera! No one defeats Marty Zellerbach, you hear? Oh, I know you’re there! Fuck and damn and—”
“Mart?” Smith had never heard him swear. It must be another sign he was going over the edge. “Mart! Stop it. What’s going on?”
Marty went on swearing. He pounded the console, unaware Smith was speaking or that he was even in the room.
“Mart!” Smith grabbed his shoulder.
Marty whirled like a wild animal, teeth bared. And saw Smith. He suddenly collapsed in upon himself, drooping limp in his chair. He stared up with anguish. “Nothing! Nothing. I’ve found nothing. Nothing! ”
“That’s okay, Marty,” Smith said in a soothing voice. “What didn’t you find? Bill Griffin’s address?”
“Not a trace. I was so close, Jon. Then nothing. The phone calls, too. I’m in my computer, using my own software. Just another step. It’s there, I know it! So close—”
“We knew it was a long shot. What about the virus? Anything new at Fort Detrick?”
“Oh, I had that in minutes. Officially, there have now been fifteen deaths and three survivals here in America.”
Smith jerked alert. “More deaths? Where? And survivors? How? What kind of treatment?”
“No details. Had to break through a brand-new security wall to find what I did. The Pentagon has all its data shut down, except to me.” He chortled. “No information to the public except through the military.”
“That’s why we didn’t hear about the survivors. Can you locate them?”
“I haven’t seen a whisper of who they are or where they are. Sorry, Jon!”
“Not at Detrick or the Pentagon?”
“No, no. Neither place. Terrible. I think those Pentagon bandits are keeping the information off-system!”
Smith thought rapidly. His first instinct had been to find the survivors and try to get close enough to interview them. It seemed like the easiest, most direct route.