Jack Mars - Oath of Office

But there were also funding and time constraints to consider. The schedule was fast, and of course there was the question of secrecy. He knew the protections were not up to the standards of the American Centers for Disease Control – if he’d had a million dollars and six months to build this place, it still wouldn’t be enough.

In the end, he had built the lab in less than two weeks. It was located in a rugged district of old, low-slung warehouses, deep inside a neighborhood that had long been a center of Cuban and other immigration to the United States.

No one would look at the place twice. There was no sign on the building, and it was elbow-to-elbow with a dozen similar buildings. The lease was paid for the next six months, even though they only needed the facility for a very short time. It had its own small parking lot, and the workers came and went like warehouse and factory workers everywhere – in eight-hour intervals.

The workers were well-paid in cash, and few of them spoke any English. The workers knew what to do with the virus, but they didn’t know exactly what they were handling or why. A police raid was unlikely.

Still, it made him nervous to be so close to the virus. He would be relieved to finish this part of the job, receive his final payment, and then evacuate this place as if he had never been here. After that, he would take a flight to the west coast. For Adam, there were two parts to this job. One here, and one… somewhere else.

And the first part would be done soon.

Today? Yes, perhaps even as early as today.

He would leave the country for a while, he had decided. After all of this was over, he would take a nice long holiday. The south coast of France sounded nice to him right now. With the money he was making, he could go anywhere he liked.

It was simple. A van, or a car, or perhaps two cars would pull into the yard. Adam would close the gates so nobody on the street could see what was happening. His workers would take a few moments loading the materials into the vehicles. He would make sure they were careful, so maybe the whole thing would require twenty minutes.

Adam smiled to himself. Soon after the loading was done, he would be on a plane to the west coast. Soon after that, the nightmare would begin. And there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

5:40 a.m.

The Skies Over West Virginia

The six-seat Learjet shrieked across the early morning sky. The jet was dark blue with the Secret Service seal on the side. Behind it, a sliver of the rising sun just poked above the clouds.

Luke and his team used the front four passenger seats as their meeting area. They stowed their luggage, and their gear, in the seats at the back.

He had the team back together. In the seat next to him sat big Ed Newsam, in khaki cargo pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He had a pair of crutches tucked to the side of his seat, just under the window.

Across from Luke and to the left, facing him, was Mark Swann. He was tall and thin, with sandy hair and glasses. He stretched his long legs out into the aisle. He wore an old pair of ripped jeans and a pair of red Chuck Taylor sneakers. He had been liberated from duty as a pedophile decoy, and he looked like he couldn’t be much more pleased than he was.

Directly across from Luke sat Trudy Wellington. She had curly brown hair, was slim and attractive in a green sweater and slacks. She wore big round glasses on her face. She was very pretty, but the glasses made her look almost like an owl.

Luke felt okay, not great. He had called Becca before they left. The conversation hadn’t gone well. It had barely gone at all.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“Texas. Galveston. There’s been a security breach at a lab there.”

“The BSL-4 lab?” she said. Becca was herself a cancer researcher. She had been working on a cure for melanoma for some years. She was part of a team, based at several different research institutions, that had been having some success killing melanoma cells by injecting the herpes virus into them.

Luke nodded. “That’s right. The BSL-4 lab.”

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “You realize that, I’m sure.”

He nearly laughed. “Sweetheart, they don’t call me in when it’s safe.”

Her voice was cold. “Well, please be careful. We love you, you know.”

We love you.

It was an odd way to say it, as if she and Gunner as a team loved him, but not necessarily as individuals.

“I know,” he said. “I love you both very much.”

There was silence over the line.

“Becca?”

“Luke, I can’t guarantee we’re going to be here when you get back.”

Now, aboard the plane, he shook his head to clear it. It was part of the job. He had to compartmentalize. He was having family problems, yes. He didn’t know how to fix them. But he also couldn’t bring them with him to Galveston. They would distract him from what he was doing, and that could be dangerous, for himself and everyone involved. His focus on the matter at hand had to be total.

He glanced out the window. The jet streaked across the sky, moving fast. Below them, white clouds skidded by. He took a deep breath.

“All right, Trudy,” he said. “What do you have for us?”

Trudy held up her computer tablet for everyone’s inspection. She positively beamed. “They gave me my old tablet back. Thanks, boss.”

He shook his head and smiled just a touch. “Luke is fine. Now give it to us. Please.”

“I’m going to assume no prior knowledge.”

Luke nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Okay. We are on our way to the Galveston National Laboratory, in Galveston, Texas. It is one of only four known Biosafety Level 4 facilities in the United States. These are the highest security microbiology research facilities, with the most extensive safety protocols for workers. These facilities deal with some of the most lethal and infectious viruses and bacteria known to science.”

Swann raised a hand from out of his slump. “You say one of four known facilities. Are there unknown facilities?”

Trudy shrugged. “Certain life sciences corporations, especially ones that are closely held, could have BSL-4 facilities without the government knowing about it. Yeah. It’s possible.”

Swann nodded.

“The thing that’s different about this facility in Galveston is the other three BSL-4 facilities are located on highly secure government installations. Galveston is the only one on an academic campus, a fact which was repeatedly raised as a security concern before the facility first opened in 2006.”

“What did they do about it?” Ed Newsam said.

Trudy smiled again. “They promised they’d be extra careful.”

“Terrific,” Ed said.

“Let’s get to the meat of it,” Luke said.

Trudy nodded. “Okay. Three nights ago, a power failure occurred.”

Luke drifted just a bit as Trudy went through the material the lab director covered with Susan and her staff the night before. The night guard, the woman, the vial of Ebola. He heard these things, but he was barely listening.

An image of Becca and Gunner on the patio as he was leaving flashed in his mind. He tried to squash it, but it lingered on. For a long second, all he saw was Gunner staring down dejectedly at a striped bass on the grill.

“It sure sounds like sabotage,” Newsam said.

“It most likely was,” Trudy said. “The system was built for redundancy, and not only did the primary power source fail, the redundancy also failed. That just doesn’t happen very often unless someone helps it happen.”

“What do we know about the woman who was inside at the time?” Luke said. “What is her name? Anything new on her?”