Rick Mofina - The Panic Zone

Whatever, weirdo, she thought, now willing her computer to speed up. Just keep that delivery dude coming every week with an envelope of cash.

Finally, Joy Lee’s computer had loaded and she entered the updated secure pages.

She was instructed that they would be receiving a new mobile satellite phone, and that they were going on an all-expense-paid trip to attend the Human World Conference in New York City. Their air tickets were online, the hotel was reserved and all tickets to events and further instructions would be waiting for them in the hotel room.

“Wow!” Joy Lee was thrilled and turned to the little boy. “We’re going to see the best bands in the world, even the monster show at Central Park!”

Joy Lee reread every online instruction twice. The last one directed her to view a short video. When it commenced, she groaned as she recognized creepy Dr. Auden.

The old girl’s smile seemed so insincere, Joy Lee thought as the video played.

“Hello to our friends around the world. The fact that you are watching me now means that you have received your kits and your instructions. Please follow them carefully. Thank you for your cooperation. By attending this event you are about to embark on the experience of a lifetime. Your small group will change history. Follow the written instructions, then make certain you spread goodwill to everyone at the conference by shaking hands and having your little ones shake hands. Reach out and touch everyone you can. It is imperative that you do this. Your participation will take humanity into a new era. Believe me, it will happen before your eyes, a transformation unlike the world has ever known.”

The message ended.

Was she some kind of religious cult nut?

Whatever. Joy Lee shrugged, reviewing instructions on how to give the boy a few drops of medicine contained in the liquid of the float pen. Looked easy. More important to Joy Lee was the lineup of bands performing at the five-day event.

This was so great. Wex was not going to believe this.

She ran up the stairs to wake him up.

Alone, the little boy picked up the float pen.

He watched the little sailboat float from one end to the other while above him, Wex and Joy Lee began packing for New York City.

McLean, Virginia

Ensconced in the wooded countryside near the Potomac River west of Washington, D.C., stood the white concrete-and-glass structure that served as headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency.

As he entered, Robert Lancer knew time was working against him.

He cleared security and strode to one of the building’s vaulted rooms for his early morning meeting, mentally reviewing his concerns.

Nothing had emerged yet from the Moroccans on the murder of his source, Adam Corley.

Then there was the reporter-Jack Gannon.

Gannon was going to meet Corley to learn more about a link to a law firm in Brazil and its suspected ties to a global human-smuggling network and the bombing of a cafe in Rio de Janeiro that killed ten people. Drake Stinson, ex-CIA, who’d played on Black Ops, was a member of that firm.

Stinson had vanished.

Now a new threat had emerged out of Florida-a mystery death on a cruise ship-the CDC’s alert to Homeland was that whatever killed the man from Indianapolis was engineered by somebody.

Was this part of an attack or something else?

Lancer could not dismiss Foster Winfield’s fears that someone was attempting to replicate Project Crucible’s abandoned experiments. How Winfield and his colleague Phil Kenyon were so uneasy about Gretchen Sutsoff, who had led most of the research. While they regarded her as a brilliant scientist, her extreme views troubled them.

And me, too, because I can’t find her, Lancer thought. Could any of this stuff be connected?

He exhaled as he entered the meeting room. He nodded to the people he knew, helped himself to coffee and took his place. The conversations were muted, the mood was tense.

Everybody was at the table.

The agency had people from Intelligence, Clandestine, Science and Tech and Support. Homeland was there, as were the FBI, Secret Service, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence, the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and an array of others from the intelligence community.

The meeting commenced when Lincoln Hunter, assistant to the National Intelligence director-the president’s advisor on intelligence-slapped his report on the tabletop.

“What do we have?”

The woman from the Centers for Disease Control summarized the gruesome case of Roger Timothy Tippert, a forty-one-year-old high school teacher from Indianapolis, who died while on a Caribbean cruise. Aspects of the autopsy troubled the Broward County M.E. who alerted the CDC.

“We’ve observed that it appears-I mean-” she cleared her throat “-there are strong indications that the pathogen that killed Mr. Tippert was manufactured.”

“Do we know who’s behind it and if there are other victims?”

“No,” she said. “We alerted Homeland.”

“And we’ve alerted Fort Detrick,” the Homeland analyst said.

“We’re in the process of flying samples from Atlanta to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Detrick,” said the colonel from the Defense Intelligence Agency. “But our people are extremely concerned about the early indications.”

“What do they show you?” Hunter asked.

“Based on our teleconferencing with CDC, we concur, there are signs of genetic, or DNA, manipulation. It’s very complex but it seems similar to or evocative of, classified research conducted by U.S. scientists years ago.”

“What? Is this a domestic? What do we know about this research?” Hunter was taking notes.

Lancer watched Raymond Roth, Nick Webb and a few of the CIA people shifting uncomfortably in their chairs.

Roth leaned forward to respond.

“It was called Project Crucible,” he said. “It emerged in the years following the end of the Cold War. Through covert operations we obtained access to advances in military, chemical, biological and genetic research made by enemy and rogue states.”

“What was the objective of Crucible?” Hunter asked.

“The project’s scientists were tasked to first defend, then dismantle, the work. But in many cases, they had to replicate it.”

“Replicate it? And you think someone is using the technology gleaned from Crucible against us?”

Lancer was waiting for his CIA colleagues to reveal the full story.

“We won’t know that until the people at Fort Detrick conclude their testing,” Roth said.

“Who ran Crucible?” Hunter asked.

“We did, sir,” Roth said. “And when this Florida case came to light we endeavored to locate former personnel who had been assigned to Crucible to determine if it was a factor.”

“Excuse me,” Lancer said to Roth, “but I understand concerns surfaced long before this Florida case. I believe that approximately one month ago, Crucible’s lead scientist contacted the agency expressing anxiety about someone attempting to replicate the project’s research.”

“I don’t believe that’s entirely accurate.” Roth did not look at Lancer.

“I have a copy of Foster Winfield’s letter and the agency’s response,” Lancer said.

“Could I see that?” Hunter asked. “I’ll attach it to my report to the director for his brief to the Oval Office.” Hunter then took stock of the room and shook his head.

Roth refrained from looking at Lancer.

“Sir,” Roth continued, “since we’ve been investigating we’ve discovered that files and material from Crucible are missing, dating back to the time the project was abandoned.”