Maddux had been running, and his face was red and sweaty. “If Bill Griffin’s in that park, Mr. al-Hassan, he’s a goddamn ghost. All I saw was the army doc taking a walk.” He breathed hard, trying to catch his breath.
Inside the luxury car, the bones and hollows of the tall man’s face were deeply pocked, the mark of a rare survivor of the once-dreaded smallpox. His black eyes were hooded, cold, and expressionless. “I have told you before, Maddux, you will not blaspheme while you work for me.”
“Hey, sorry. Okay? Jesus Chr-”
Like a cobra striking, the tall man’s arm snaked out, and his long fingers clamped on Maddux’s throat.
Maddux went pasty with fear, and he made strangling sounds as he bit off the curse. Still, the unsaid syllables hung in the darkness through an ominous silence. Finally, the hand on his throat relaxed a fraction. Sweat dripped off Maddux’s forehead.
The eyes inside the car were like mirrors, glistening surfaces no one could see behind. The voice was deceptively quiet. “You wish to die so soon?”
“Hey,” the scared man said hoarsely, “you’re a Muslim. What’s wrong with—”
“All the prophets are sacred. Abraham, Moses, Jesus. All!”
“Okay, okay! I mean, Jes-” Maddux quaked as the claw tightened on his throat. “How’m I s’posed to know that?”
For another instant, the fingers squeezed. Then the tall man let go. His arm withdrew. “Perhaps you are right. I expect too much from stupid Americans. But you know now, yes, and you will not forget again.” It wasn’t a question.
Wheezing, Maddux gasped, “Sure, sure, Mr. al-Hassan. Okay.”
The sharp-faced man, al-Hassan, examined Maddux with his cold, mirrored eyes. “But Jon Smith was there.” He sat back in the gloom of the car, talking softly as if to himself. “Our man in London finds Smith changed his flight and was missing from London all day. Your men pick him up at Dulles, but instead of driving home to Maryland, he comes here. At the same time, our esteemed colleague slips away from our hotel and I follow him to this vicinity before he eludes me. You fail to find him in the park, but it is a strange coincidence, wouldn’t you say? Why is the associate of Dr. Russell here if not to meet our Mr. Griffin?”
Maddux said nothing. He had learned most of his boss’s questions were spoken aloud to some unseen part of himself. Nervously he let the silence stretch. Around the limo and the two men, the wild park seemed to breathe with a life of its own.
Eventually al-Hassan shrugged. “Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, and Griffin has nothing to do with why Colonel Smith is here. It does not really matter, I suppose. The others will take care of Colonel Smith, yes?”
“You got it.” Maddux nodded emphatically. “No way he gets out of D.C.”
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CHAPTER
FIVE
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1:34 A.M., Tuesday, October 14
Fort Detrick, Maryland
In her office, Sophia Russell flicked on her desk lamp and collapsed into her chair, weary and frustrated. Victor Tremont had called this morning to report that nothing in his Peru journals mentioned the strange virus she had described or the Indian tribe called the Monkey Blood People. Tremont was her best outside lead, and she was devastated he had been unable to help.
Although she and the rest of the Detrick microbiology staff had continued to work around the clock, they were no closer to resolving the threat posed by the virus. Under the electron microscope the new virus showed the same globular shape with hairlike protrusions of some of its proteins, much like a flu virus. But this virus was far simpler than any influenza mutation and far more deadly.
After they had failed to find a match among the hantaviruses, they had rechecked Marburg, Lassa, and Ebola, even though those related killers had no microscopic similarities to the unknown virus. They tried every other identified hemorrhagic fever. They tried typhoid, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, meningitis, and tularemia.
Nothing matched, and this afternoon she had finally insisted General Kielburger reveal the virus and enlist the aid of the CDC and the other Level Four installations worldwide. He had still been reluctant; there were still only the three cases. But at the same time, the virus appeared to be totally unknown and highly lethal, and if he did not take the proper steps and a pandemic resulted, he would be responsible. So, grumbling, he had finally acquiesced and sent off full explanatory memos and blood samples to the CDC, the Special Pathogens Branch of WHO, Porton Down in the U.K., the University of Anvers in Belgium, Germany’s Bernard Nocht Institute, the special pathogens branch of the Pasteur Institute in France, and all the other Level Four labs around the globe.
Now the first of the reports were coming in from the other Hot Zone labs. Everyone agreed the virus seemed like a hantavirus, but matched nothing in any of their data banks. All the reports from the CDC and the foreign laboratories showed no progress. All contained desperate, if informed, guesses.
In her office, tired to the marrow, Sophia leaned back in her desk chair and massaged her temples, trying to ward off a headache. She glanced at her watch and was shocked to see the time. Good God, it was nearly 2:00 A.M.
Worry lines furrowed her brow. Where was Jon? If he had arrived home last night as scheduled, he would have been in the lab today. Because of her frantic work schedule, she had not thought too much about his absence. Now, despite her tiredness and headache and her initial worries about Jon, she could not help smiling. She had a forty-one-year-old fiancé who still had all the curiosity and impulsiveness of a twenty-year-old. Wave a medical mystery in front of Jon, and he was off like a racehorse. He must have found something fascinating that had delayed him.
Still, he should have called by now. Soon he would be a full day late.
Maybe Kielburger had ordered him somewhere in secret, and Jon could not call. That’d be just like the general. Never mind she was Jon’s fiancée. If the general had sent Jon off, she would learn about it with the rest of the staff, when the general was good and ready to announce it.
She sat up in her chair, thinking. The scientific staff was working through the night, even the general, who never passed up an opportunity to be noticed in the right way. Abruptly furious and anxious about Jon, she marched out, heading for his office.
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Brig. Gen. Calvin Kielburger, Ph.D., was one of those big, beefy men with loud voices and not too many brains the army loved to raise to the rank of colonel and then freeze there. These men were sometimes tough and always mean but had few people skills and less diplomacy. They tended to be called Bull or Buck. Sometimes officers with those nicknames made higher rank, but they were small, feisty men with big jaws.
Having achieved one star beyond what he could reasonably have expected, Brigadier General Kielburger abandoned actual medical research in the heady illusion of rising to full general with troop command. But to lead armies, the service wanted smart officers who could work well with the necessary civilian officials. Kielburger was so busy promoting himself he did not see his smartest move was to be intelligent and tactful. As a result, he was now stuck administering an irreverent gang of military and civilian scientists, most of whom did not take well to authority in the first place, particularly not to narrow-minded bombast like Kielburger’s.
Of the unruly lot, Lt. Col. Jon Smith had turned out to be the most irreverent, the most uncontrollable, the most irritating. So in answer to Sophia’s question, Kielburger bellowed, “I sure as hell didn’t send Colonel Smith on any assignment! If we had a sensitive task, he’d be the last one I’d send, exactly because of stunts like this!”
Sophia was as frosty as Kielburger was choleric. “Jon doesn’t pull `stunts.’ ”
“He’s a full day late when we need him here!”
“Unless you phoned him, how would he know we needed him?” Sophia snapped. “Even I didn’t know how bad the situation was until I started examining the virus. Then I was busy in the lab. Working. I’m sure you remember what that’s like.” The truth was, she doubted he had any memories of the pressures and excitement of lab work, because she had heard that even in those days he had preferred to shuffle papers and critique other scientists’ notes. She insisted, “Jon must have a reason for being late. Or something he can’t control is detaining him.”
“Such as what, Doctor?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be wasting your valuable time. Or mine. But it’s not like him to be late without calling me.”