Rick Mofina - The Panic Zone

“Nothing happens. The agent passes harmlessly through your system, like a placebo, in about twenty-four hours.”

“So how do we stop it?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“We better find a way and fast. We expect over one million people to gather in less than twenty-four hours for the main event of the conference in Central Park. This morning, the Oval Office said the president and first lady will attend and greet as many people as possible.”

New York City

It was down to hours.

Robert Lancer checked his watch against the wall clocks.

Long before the sun rose over Manhattan, law enforcement for New York City notched up security for one of the largest peace-time gatherings in the city’s history.

No word on the possibility of pulling the plug on the event.

Not far from the Brooklyn Bridge, on the eighth floor of One Police Plaza, Lancer had taken his place at Operational Command. The NYPD was the lead agency for the conference.

Now, it was coordinating with the FBI’s Command Center at Federal Plaza and the city’s Office of Emergency Management, which was on full alert for a biological attack. Other local, state and federal agencies were also bracing for a possible strike, and the U.S. Secret Service big-footed its role to protect the president. Security had been heightened over concerns arising from Gretchen Sutsoff’s emerging threat.

It was 3:50 a.m.

The next security status meeting would start in ten minutes. Lancer was checking e-mails when his cell phone rang.

“Bob, it’s Norris at Federal Plaza Command.”

“Go ahead.”

“Our embassy in Kuwait City says Drake Stinson’s just been detained for questioning by Kuwaiti security.”

“Did he give them anything on Sutsoff?”

“No, they’ve had him for twenty minutes and will transmit the interview live. We’re setting up to share it with Operational Command.”

“Is that it?”

“Yesterday Dutch police arrested a couple at Schipol in Amsterdam bound for New York, traveling with a two-year-old with a forged German passport. Under questioning they said they knew a Dr. Auden.”

“One of Sutsoff’s aliases. They get anything more from them?”

“They’re still in questioning. In France last night, police intercepted a couple with a toddler at de Gaulle. They were bound for New York. Their passports were suspect and the pair admitted knowledge of Auden in the Bahamas. Bob, there’s talk she made a video.”

“A suicide video?”

“We don’t know. But add the most recent couples detained to the others yesterday from Madrid, Hong Kong and Argentina, and we now have twelve couples linked to the doctor.”

“That’s twelve out of the seventy we found in her computer files. Keep me posted, Norris. I have to go.”

The meeting commenced with updates and arguments over the best course of action.

“We have to pull the plug on the Central Park event,” a state official said. “If this is a significant threat, we have to shut it down.”

“Organizers are dead set against it,” said a woman from city hall.

“What about the president?” an NYPD official asked.

“The White House hasn’t indicated yet if the president and first lady are pulling out,” the Secret Service official said. “We’re flowing all updates to the Oval Office. However, it’s still a go. To answer the question that was raised at the last meeting, when the Pope celebrated Mass here, we had twenty-three real threats. Four were deemed significant and involved evidence of weapons and explosives. We thwarted all of them and the event went ahead without incident. Nothing made it into the press.”

“This is Johnson with Tactical. At our last briefing we were advised that this weapon could be remotely activated by wireless. Do we know what frequency range? Can’t we jam it, or shut down towers, block satellites?”

“Captain Tillser, NYPD Comms. We’re exploring that option with the NSA and wireless providers. Bottom line, if we go that route, we risk disrupting or disabling all emergency communications for police, fire, ambulance. It would render us useless.”

“Where are we on Sutsoff, Lancer?” The NYPD captain shot him a sour look. Lancer was checking the new message he’d received.

“We got her alert out to Customs and Border Protection and Interpol. The public alert goes to media this morning. Ahead of all that, we gave Interpol our intelligence for some seventy suspects we think are linked to Sutsoff and the Human World Conference. Several people around the world have been detained for questioning, including Drake Stinson, who at this moment is being questioned by police in Kuwait. Stinson is known to be a member of Sutsoff’s secretive inner circle, a doomsday group known as Extremus Deus. He is a person of interest.” Lancer nodded to the large screen at the far end of the room. “I’ve just been alerted we’re receiving video of his questioning in Kuwait, which we’ll share with the task force now. Okay, Norris, send it through.”

Three seconds passed before Drake Stinson appeared on the screen.

“Is this live, real-time?” someone asked.

“Aside from a five-second delay, it’s live,” Lancer said.

Stinson was seated at a table in a stark room across from the two men questioning him.

“Mr. Stinson, what can you tell us about Dr. Sutsoff’s operation?”

“It’s too late. She’s crazy, you can’t stop-”

Stinson grimaced.

“Mr. Stinson?”

Stinson’s chair scraped and his body spasmed.

“Are you all right?”

Stinson wrapped his arms around his stomach and groaned. Agony spread over his face and his skin began to bubble as if corn were popping under the surface. Bloodstains blossomed on his shirt as his abdomen expanded.

“Oh, God!”

Stinson’s eyes liquefied and he slid to the floor, bones and spine cracking as his body contorted into a hunched position before he died.

The two Kuwaiti agents stood over him, their mouths agape, before the video signal was switched off.

“What the Christ was that?” an NYPD official asked as others around the room muttered in disbelief.

“This is what we’re facing,” Lancer said.

“How the hell do we stop that?”

New York City

Gretchen Sutsoff rose before the sun.

She was rested and ready.

Little Will was sleeping soundly.

Still in her nightdress, Sutsoff went to her laptop computer.

Drake Stinson had betrayed her. She knew that he was now somewhere in the Middle East trying to broker a deal with what he thought was an antidote to Pariah Variant 1.

As she started entering the activation codes for him, she did the same for the other members of her inner circle-General Dimitri, Downey, Goran, Reich and especially Ibrahim Jehaimi for violating her trust.

Before they’d joined her in the toast in Benghazi, she’d worked a veterinarian’s hypodermic needle through the wine cork and injected enough lethal agent-a special prolonged-acting version-for all of them.

She took care of Jehaimi with a little gift of sweets later.

Now it was time to tidy things up.

It took five full minutes to complete the activation process, which ended when she tapped the enter key. Wherever they were in the world, they’d just taken their final breaths.

Goodbye.

She’d erased them.

Done.

Sutsoff was hungry.

She showered, then ordered a breakfast of poached eggs and English tea to her room. While the baby slept, she ate quietly and watched the new day break over Manhattan.

When she finished, she switched on the TV to watch the morning news programs. The weather called for a clear day in the low seventies.