Screams and grunts from beyond the curtain echoed through the shop. The sound of scrambling and diving for cover. Then a sudden silence.
Jon hesitated. He should get the woman out of here, but maybe—
Crouched low, instead he ran toward the curtained archway.
Another violent fusillade burst out beyond the curtain.
Jon hit the floor and crawled forward. As he reached the curtain, the barrage stopped. He held his breath and peered under the bottom of the dangling curtain of beads. As he did, a single rifle, like a small voice in the wilderness, tore out another series of defiant bursts. Ghassan lay behind a corner of the shop counter. He had the Republican Guards pinned down. Smith felt a surge of admiration.
Then he saw the Guards crawling through the shop to get behind where Ghassan held out. There were too many of them. The brave Iraqi could not survive much longer. Jon wanted desperately to help him. Maybe the two of them would be able to at least gain the time for everyone to escape.
Then he heard the vehicles outside on the narrow street.
They were bringing up reinforcements. It would be suicide.
He looked back at where the woman watched him. She held the baby and seemed to be waiting to see what decision he made. Ghassan had told him to save her. He was sacrificing his life not only to defend his business but to make certain she and the child escaped. Plus, Jon had a mission to complete, one that could save millions of people from a horrible death. Inwardly he sighed as he accepted the fact that he could not save Ghassan.
Once he decided, he did not wait. As the ear-splitting sounds of gunshots continued, Jon yanked open the splintered rear door. The screams of the injured in front echoed through the bullet-riddled shop. He gave the woman a reassuring smile, took her hand, and peered out into a dark alley so narrow and deep, even the wind had little room to blow. He tugged, pulling her behind, and slid out into the passageway.
Cradling the infant close in one arm, she followed as they ran two doors to the left. And froze.
Military vehicles screeched to a stop at both ends of the alley. Soldiers jumped out and pounded toward them. They were caught. Trapped in the Republican Guards’ snare.
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CHAPTER
TWENTY NINE
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1:04 A.M., Wednesday, October 22
Frederick, Maryland
Specialist Four Adele Schweik awoke with an abrupt start. Next to her ear pulsed the sharp, unnerving alarm from the sensor she had planted in the Russell woman’s office a half-mile away at USAMRIID. Instantly alert, she turned off the annoying blast, jumped from bed, and activated the video camera she had also installed in the distant office.
In her dusky bedroom, she sat at her desk and stared at the monitor until a figure dressed in black appeared in Russell’s office. Apprehensively she studied the intruder. He— or she— looked like an alien invader, but he moved with the fluidity of a cat, and a swift purpose that told Schweik he had broken into guarded buildings before. The figure wore an antiflash hood with respirator and a black flak vest. The vest was state-of-the-art-it would stop cold the bullets of most pistols and submachine guns.
As stiffly alert in her nightgown as she was in her daytime uniform, she stayed before the glowing screen long enough to be certain of the intruder’s intention: He was conducting a thorough search of Sophia Russell’s office. In a rush of adrenaline she yanked off her nightgown, dressed in her camos, and raced out to her car.
__________
In a darkened RV a block from the entrance to Fort Detrick, Marty Zellerbach glared unhappily at his computer screen. His face was pinched with worry, and his soft body slumped in exaggerated despair. He had taken his Mideral seven hours ago, and as its effects had faded he had finished a brilliant program to automatically switch relay routes randomly, assuring no one could trace his electronic footprints ever again.
But that achievement had not led to success in either of his two main objectives: Sophia Russell’s other phone calls, if they existed, remained stubbornly erased, and Bill Griffin’s tracks had been too well covered.
He needed to find a creative solution, which was a challenge he would welcome under different circumstances. But now he was anxious. There was so little time, and the truth was… he had been working on both problems all along, and he still had no breakthrough on either. Plus there was the fact that he was frightened for Jon, who had willingly vanished into Iraq. And— as much as he distrusted people in general— he had no desire to see vast quantities of them erased, which was sure to be their fate if the virus was allowed to continue its rampage.
These were the moments he had spent his life avoiding: His well-honed self-interest had just collided with his deepest, darkest secret.
No one knew he harbored a streak of altruism. He never hinted at it and certainly would never admit it, but he actually thought kindly of human babies, old people with cantankerous dispositions, and adults who quietly did charity work without being paid. He also gave away his entire yearly trust income to a variety of worthy causes around the world. He made plenty to cover his living expenses by solving cyber-problems for individuals, companies, and the government, and he always had that pleasant savings account from which he had drawn fifty thousand dollars for Jon.
He sighed. He could feel the nervous edginess that told him he was close to needing another pill. But his mind ached to escape into the unknown where he could be his liberated, exciting self. As he thought that, bright colors flashed somewhere ahead on the horizon, and the world seemed to expand in ever-larger waves of possibilities.
This was that fertile time when he was close to losing control, and there was every reason he should. He had to figure out how to check Sophia Russell’s phone logs for accuracy, and he desperately needed to find Bill Griffin.
Now was the time!
Relieved, he leaned back, shut his eyes, and happily launched himself into the starry world of his vast imagination.
Then a cold, hard voice that seemed to come from nowhere shocked him: “Should I have been the enemy, you would be dead.”
Marty jumped. He yelled, “Peter!” He turned. “You idiot! You could’ve given me cardiac arrest sneaking up like that!”
“Sitting duck,” Peter Howell grumbled and shook his head morosely. “That’s what you are, Marty Zellerbach. Must be more alert.” He was reclining in a lounge chair, still dressed in the all-black uniform of an SAS counterterrorist commando. His gray antiflash hood lay in his lap. He had returned from his uneventful mission inside USAMRIID and reentered the RV without disturbing the air.
Marty was too angry to play the old spy’s game. He longed for all this aggravation to end so he could return to his quiet bungalow where the most annoying event of the day was the arrival of the mail.
His lip curled in a sneer. “The door was locked, you moron. You’re nothing but a common burglar!”
“An uncommon burglar.” Peter nodded sagely, ignoring Marty’s pitying glare. “If I were the usual bumbling second-story man, we wouldn’t be having this chat.”
After they had left Jon Smith at San Francisco International Airport, they had taken turns driving the RV cross-country, sleeping and eating in it so they could make the best time. Peter had shouldered the vast majority of the driving and the shopping to lessen Marty’s complaining. Plus he had had to teach Marty to drive again, which had tried his patience. Even now he looked at the electronics genius and was not quite sure how the soft little man could feel superior, since he appeared to be so handicapped in daily life. Besides, he was bloody irksome.
Marty groused, “I hope to heaven you achieved better results than I.”
“Alas, no.” Peter’s leathery face grimaced. “I found nothing of consequence.” Once they had reached Maryland, he had decided the wisest course was to start at the beginning with Sophia’s lab and office, to be sure Jon had missed nothing. So he had parked the RV where it was now, donned his SAS commando gear, and slipped into Fort Detrick. He sighed. “Marty, my boy, I’m afraid we’re going to need your unearthly electronic skills to dig into the poor lady’s past. Can you break into her personnel file here at Detrick?”
Marty brightened, raised his hands above his head, and snapped his fingers as if they were castanets. “You have but to ask!” Moving with great speed, he tapped keys, watched the monitor, and minutes later sat back, crossed his arms, and shot a Cheshire-cat smile at Peter. “Tadah! Personnel file for Sophia Lilian Russell, Ph.D. Got it!”