“Can you prove that?” Pierson asked. Her face was still an unreadable mask.
“Without the computer records?” Smith shook his head. “Maybe not solidly enough to suit a court of law, I guess. But I was in that lab almost every day and I know what I saw—and what I didn’t see.” He looked curiously at the pale, dark-haired woman to see whether or not she would arrive at the same damning conclusion he had.
Instead, she said nothing. Her mouth was a tight, thin line. Her gray eyes seemed fixed on a distant point somewhere far beyond the narrow confines of her tent.
“You understand what that means, don’t you?” Smith said urgently. “It means these terrorists came to Teller with their own nanodevices already prepared—nanodevices that were engineered from the start to butcher thousands. Whoever those people were, they sure as hell weren’t part of the Lazarus Movement, not unless you think the Movement maintains its own sophisticated nanotech labs!”
At last, Pierson swung her gaze back toward him. A muscle on the right side of her face twitched. She frowned. “If your suppositions are correct, that may well be true, Doctor.” Then she shook her head. “But that is a very big if, and I’m not yet prepared to overlook all the other evidence of Lazarus Movement involvement.”
“What other evidence?” Smith asked sharply. “Do you have solid IDs for those terrorists Sergeant Diaz and I killed yet? They have to be in some agency’s files. Those guys were professionals. What’s more, they were pros who had access to very high-level Secret Service planning and procedures. People like that don’t hang around street corners looking for work.”
Again, Pierson said nothing.
“Okay, what about their vehicles?” Jon pressed her. “Those big black SUVs they drove up in. The ones left parked outside the building. Have your agents been able to trace them yet?”
She smiled icily. “I conduct investigations in an organized fashion, Colonel Smith. That means I do not run around prematurely reporting the results of every separate inquiry. Now, until I persuade the powers-that-be to yank you out of here, you’re welcome to attend all relevant briefings. When I have facts to share with you, that is where you will hear them. Until then, I strongly suggest that you exercise the virtue of patience.”
After Smith left her tent, Kit Pierson stood next to her desk, considering the wild claims he had made. Was the self-assured Army officer right? Could Hal Burke’s operatives have deliberately released their own plague of killing machines? She shook her head abruptly, pushing the thought away. That was impossible. It had to be impossible. The deaths outside the building were completely unintended. Nothing more.
And the deaths inside the building? her conscience asked. What about them? Casualties of war, she answered herself coldly, trying hard to believe it. There was nothing to be gained by wasting time wrestling with feelings of guilt or regret. She had more immediate problems to deal with, chief among them Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith. He did not strike her as a man who would be content to stand aside, no matter how many warnings she gave him.
Pierson frowned. Everything depended on her ability to maintain sole control over this investigation. Having someone like Smith running around pushing theories that contradicted her official line was unacceptable—and dangerous, to her, to Hal Burke, and to the whole TOCSIN operation.
Nor did Pierson believe for a minute that Smith was working solely as a scientific observer and liaison officer for either USAMRIID or the Joint Chiefs. He had too many unusual skills, too wide a range of experiences. There were also some very odd gaps in the FBI file she had examined. So who were Smith’s real bosses? The Defense Intelligence Agency? Army Intelligence? Or one of the half-dozen other government cloak-and-dagger outfits?
She picked up her secure phone and dialed a seven-digit cell number.
“Burke here.”
“This is Kit Pierson,” she said. “We have a problem. I want you to run a detailed background check on a Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith, U.S. Army.”
“That name rings an unpleasant bell,” her CIA counterpart said sourly.
“It should,” she told him. “He’s the so-called doctor who managed to kill half your handpicked assault team.”
Chapter
Seventeen
Hidden Nanotechnology Production Facility, Inside the Center
Nothing from the outside world was allowed to easily penetrate the secure areas of the Center. While they were working inside, no one could smell the salt tang of the nearby ocean or hear the noise of jets revving up as they prepared for takeoff. Everything was pristine, silent, and utterly sterile.
Even in the outer areas of the huge concealed lab complex, technicians and scientists moved with careful precision—wearing surgical scrubs under sterile coveralls, masks covering the entire nose, mouth, and chin, safety glasses, and polyester head covers that resembled the chain-mail hoods of Frankish knights. They spoke in hushed tones. All written work was handled electronically. No paper notes or reference books were allowed inside any of the clean areas. The risk of airborne particulate contamination was deemed too high.
Each move closer to the Class-10 environment in the production core itself involved ever-stricter gowning and sterilization procedures. Air locks and elaborate filtration systems connected each chamber. Checklists were posted at each outer air lock door, along with armed guards ordered to make sure that each step was followed and in the proper order. No one wanted to risk contaminating the nanophage production tanks. The developing phages were too delicate, too vulnerable to the slightest change in their rigidly controlled environment. Nor was anyone in the secret lab complex willing to risk unprotected exposure to the nanophages in their finished form.
Three men sat at a conference table in one of the outer rooms. They were going over the operational and experimental data gathered so far from the “events” in Zimbabwe and New Mexico. Two were nanotechnology specialists, among the most brilliant molecular scientists in the world. The third, much taller and broad-shouldered, had a very different set of skills. This man, the third of the Horatii, called himself Nones.
“Preliminary reports from Santa Fe indicate our Stage Two devices activated inside roughly twenty to thirty percent of those exposed,” the first scientist commented. His gloved fingers fluttered over a keypad, pulling up a graph on the plasma screen display before them. “As you can see, that exceeds our initial projections. I think we can safely assume that our control-phage design modification is fundamentally sound.”
“True,” his colleague agreed. “It’s also clear that the Stage Two biochemical loads were far better balanced than those used at Kasusa—achieving a significantly higher rate of tissue and bone dissolution.”
“But can you increase the kill ratio?” the tall man named Nones asked harshly. “You know our employer’s requirements. They are absolute. A weapon which devours fewer than a third of its intended victims will not meet them.”
Behind their masks, the two scientists frowned in distaste at his inelegant choice of words. They preferred to think of themselves as surgeons engaged in an essential, though admittedly unpleasant, operation. Crude reminders that their work ultimately involved murder on a massive scale were neither necessary nor welcome.
“Well?” Nones demanded. His vivid green eyes glinted behind his acrylic safety glasses. He knew how much these men disliked focusing on the deadly results of their scientific efforts. It amused him from time to time to rub their ivory tower noses in the muck and the mud of their mission.
“We expect our design for the Stage Three phages and their controls to produce much higher efficiencies,” the senior molecular scientist assured him. “The Stage Two sensor arrays were limited in number and type. By adding additional sensors configured for different biochemical signatures, we can greatly expand the number of potential targets.”
The green-eyed man nodded his understanding.
“We have also been able to boost the yield of each nanophage’s internal power sourc
e,” the second scientist reported. “We expect a matching increase in their effective life span and operational range.”
“What about the field contamination problem?” Nones asked. “You’ve seen the safety precautions being taken outside the Teller Institute.”
“The Americans are being overcautious,” the first scientist said dismissively. “By now, most of the Stage Two nanophages should have deteriorated beyond usefulness.”
“Their fears are not relevant,” the green-eyed man told him coldly. “Our employer’s demands are. You were asked to produce a reliable self-destruct mechanism for the Stage Three phages, were you not?”
The second scientist nodded hastily, hearing the implied threat in the bigger man’s voice. “Yes, of course. And we’ve succeeded.” He began clicking keys, flipping rapidly through different design sketches on the screen. “Finding the necessary space inside the shell was a difficult problem, but in the end, we were able to—”
“Spare me the technical details,” the third member of the Horatii said drily. “But you may transmit them to our employer if you wish. I concern myself solely with practical matters. If the weapons you are creating for us kill quickly, efficiently, and reliably, I don’t feel any need to know exactly how they work.”
Chapter
Eighteen
Chicago, Illinois
Bright arc lights turned night into imitation day along much of the western edge of the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus. They were set to illuminate the tan-and-gray stone facade of the newly built Interdivisional Research Building (IRB), a mammoth five-story structure containing 425,000 square feet of lab and research space. Construction trailers still blocked most of the sidewalks and green spaces along the south side of 57th Street and the east side of Drexel Boulevard. Lights were also on throughout the huge building, as electricians, carpenters, ironworkers, and others worked around-the-clock to finish the enormous project.
Scientists from the University of Chicago had played crucial roles in the major scientific and technological advances of the twentieth century—in everything from the development of carbon-14 dating to the advent of controlled nuclear power. Now the university was determined to maintain its competitive edge in the new sciences of the twenty-first century. The IRB was the cornerstone of that effort. When it was fully up and running, biological and physical scientists would share the building’s state-of-the-art facilities. The hope was that working side by side would help them transcend the narrow and increasingly artificial boundaries between the two traditional disciplines.
Nearly $1 billion in corporate and individual donations had been raised to pay for construction, purchase the necessary high-tech materials, and guarantee funding for the first wave of new projects. One of the largest corporate grants came from Harcourt Biosciences, to pay for a cutting-edge nanotech complex. Now, in the wake of the destruction of its Teller Institute facility, the company’s senior management saw the IRB lab as an urgently needed replacement—and a signal of its continued determination to pursue nanotechnology. Inside the lab suite, technicians and work crews were busy installing computers, scanning microscopes, remote manipulators, filter and air pressure systems, chemical storage, and other equipment.
Jack Rafferty came on-shift with a grin and a spring in his step. The short, skinny electrician had spent the commute from his suburban La Grange home adding up how much the overtime on this project was going to put in his pocket. He figured he could pay off the twins’ parochial school tuition and still have enough left over to buy the Harley motorcycle he had been eyeing for more than a year.
The grin faded as soon as he walked inside the lab. Even from the door, he could see that someone had been screwing around with the wiring he had finished putting in just yesterday. Wall panels were left hanging open, exposing disarranged bundles of color-coded cables. Untidy coils and loops of insulated electrical wire dangled from jagged holes cut in the brand-new ceiling tiles.
Rafferty swore under his breath. He stormed over to the shift supervisor, a genial bear of a man named Koslov. “Tommy, what exactly is all this junk? Did someone change the specs on us again?”
The supervisor checked his clipboard and shook his head. “Not that I know of, Jack.”
Rafferty frowned. “Then maybe you can tell me why Levy dinked around with my work—and left all this goddamned mess?”
Koslov shrugged. “It wasn’t Levy. Someone said he called in sick. A couple of new guys were filling in for him.” He looked around the room. “I saw ’em both maybe fifteen minutes ago. I guess they knocked off early.”
The electrician rolled his eyes. “Nice. Probably nonunion goons. Or maybe they’re just connected.” He hitched up his tool belt and settled the hard hat squarely on his narrow head. “It’s gonna take me half my shift just to clean this up, Tommy. So I don’t want to hear any bitching about being off-schedule.”
“You won’t hear any from me,” Koslov promised, conspicuously crossing his heart with one beefy paw.
Satisfied for the moment, Rafferty got to work, trying first to untangle the rat’s nest of cabling Levy’s substitutes had left behind the walls. He peered into one of the open panels, shining a flashlight into a narrow space filled with bundled wiring, pipes, and conduits of all sizes and types.
One strand of loose green wire caught his eye. What was that supposed to be? He tugged gently on it. There was a weight on the other end. Slowly, he reeled the wire in, maneuvering it through the maze, using his long, thin fingers to guide it past obstructions. One end of the wire came into view. It was plugged into a solid block of what looked like some sort of gray moldable compound.
Puzzled, Rafferty stared down at the block for several seconds, wondering what it could possibly be. Then it clicked in his mind. He turned pale. “Jesus … that’s plastic explosive—”
The six bombs planted in and around the lab complex exploded simultaneously. Searing white light ripped through the walls and ceiling. The first terrible shock wave tore Rafferty, Koslov, and the other workers inside the lab to shreds. A wall of flame and superheated air roared through the corridors of the half-finished building—incinerating everything and everyone in its path. The enormous force of the blast rippled outward, shattering steel-and-concrete structural supports, snapping them like matchsticks.
Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, one whole side of the IRB shuddered, folded in on itself in a shrieking cacophony of wrenching, tearing steel, and then collapsed. Masses of broken stone and twisted metal cascaded down into the Science Quad. A thick, choking cloud of smoke, pulverized concrete, and dust billowed skyward, lit eerily from within by the surviving construction lights.
An hour later and ten blocks away, the three leaders of a Chicago-based Lazarus Movement action cell met hurriedly inside the top-floor apartment of a Hyde Park brownstone. Still visibly shaken, the two men and one woman—all in their mid-twenties—stood staring at a television in the living room, watching the frantic reports being broadcast live on every local and national news channel.
Sets of construction company coveralls, hard hats, tool kits, and fake ID cards they had laboriously assembled over four months of intensive planning were heaped on a table in the adjoining dining room behind them. A manila folder sat on top of the pile. It contained IRB floor plans downloaded from the University of Chicago Web site. Tightly capped jars of foul-smelling liquids, cans of spray paint, and folded Movement banners were packed in boxes on the hardwood floor next to the table.
“Who would do that?” Frida McFadden asked out loud in confusion. She chewed nervously on the ends of her straight mop of green-dyed hair. “Who would blow up the IRB? It couldn’t have been any of our own people. Our orders came straight from the top, from Lazarus himself.”
“I don’t have any idea,” her boyfriend answered grimly. Bill Oakes was busy buttoning up the shirt he had thrown on when their phone first rang with the terrible news. He shook his long fair hair out of his eyes impatientl
y. “But I do know one thing: We’ve got to dump all the stuff we were planning to use for our own mission. And soon. Before the cops come pounding on our doors.”
“No shit,” muttered their heavyset companion, the third member of their action cell. Rick Avery scratched at his beard. “But where can we get rid of the gear safely? The lake?”
“It would be found there,” said a quiet mocking voice from behind them. “Or you would be seen throwing your materials into the water.”
Startled, the three Lazarus Movement activists spun around. None of them had heard the locked front door open or close. They found themselves staring at a very tall and very powerfully built man gazing back at them from the central hall separating the living and dining rooms. He was wearing a heavy wool coat.
Oakes recovered first. He stepped forward, with his jaw thrust out belligerently. “Who the hell are you?”
“You may call me Terce,” the green-eyed man said calmly. “And I have something to give you—a gift.” His hand came smoothly out of the pocket of his coat. He pointed the silenced 9mm Walther pistol straight at them.
Frida McFadden cried out softly in fear. Avery stood frozen, with his fingers still tangled in his beard. Only Bill Oakes had the presence of mind to speak. “If you’re a cop,” he stammered, “show us your warrant.”