Marc Cameron - National Security

While it was wet, Quinn’s purple mud was relatively stable. When it dried, the slightest tremor could set it off like a blasting cap. He’d watched his chemistry teacher blow a hole in a phone book by barely touching a marble-sized dab of the dried stuff with a yardstick.

Up to this point, he’d worried more about getting caught than blowing himself to pieces. Now that was about to change. In the confined, fertilizer-filled air of the storage room the tiniest spark at the wrong time would spell disaster.

Jericho began to smear the wet purple mixture over the face of the cell phone. The heat was sweltering and the edges of the mud began to lighten and dry before his eyes. He consoled himself with the fact that if someone dialed a wrong number and called his phone right then, Farooq’s twisted experiments would be destroyed along with him.

Giving everything one last look, he gingerly touched the handles on the oxygen and then the acetylene bottle, giving them a twist until he heard an audible hiss from each.

Peeking out the storage room, he looked up and down the alleyway and, seeing no one in the failing light, shut the door behind him. He’d give the purple mud ten minutes to dry in the stifling heat.

Then he’d need to make a phone call.

“What do you mean he is here?”

Sheikh Husseini al Farooq slouched in air-conditioned comfort in the back seat of a black Lincoln Town Car limousine. Slender fingers clutched a car phone so tightly his manicured nails turned an opaque blue. His normally purring voice rose a half an octave. “I am here. How could such a man gain access to the Kingdom?”

“This I do not know,” Zafir said on the other end of the line. “But I am sure he is there. I tried to call Dr. Suleiman, but there was no answer. Security does not pick up either. I have already sent men to check, but I beg of you, my sheikh, leave the area at once. I fear it is not safe-”

“Nonsense,” Farooq cut him off. He pushed the button on his door console and the tinted window hissed down a few inches. A warm breeze hit him in the face, rich with the sweet odor of horses and new-mown hay. Farooq loved horses, the smell of them calmed him as much as a drug. “Stop worrying, my friend. I am surprised he made it this far. That is all. This is a beautiful evening. The sun sets on our beloved oasis, and, Allah willing, we are as safe as-”

The air suddenly grew thick, heavy, as if stacking up against itself. A terrific roar filled the dusky night. The limousine shook as if in the jaws of an earthquake. Alarms screeched all across the university parking lot. Grains of sand began to rain down as a black column of smoke enveloped his precious laboratory. The squeal of horses filled the void of the explosion.

Terrified Arabian horses bolted in every direction, snorting, tails flagging in blind panic. White-robed students poured from shattered glass doors and concrete buildings, surprised from their evening classes. Some stared in awe at the smoldering crater where Farooq’s laboratory had once stood. Some ran after the loose horses, spurred on by anxious professors and stable hands anxious to get the expensive animals back under control before they killed themselves.

None of the horses wore halters. This, along with their crazed attitudes from the explosion, made them almost impossible to capture. Each horse had a gaggle of at least five students chasing vainly after it, ropes or feed buckets in their hands, like a pack of inefficient dogs. But, as Farooq peered over the rim of his tinted limousine window, he saw one man trotting easily beside a muscular blood bay. Both hands holding the horse’s flowing mane in a firm grip, the man moved in a loping cadence alongside the prancing animal. In four quick strides, the bay surged from a trot to a canter, stretching out its neck as it changed gait and effectively yanked the man up and onto its back in one beautiful, fluid movement. In a fleeting instant, horse and rider disappeared into a swirling cloud of dust and blowing debris.

If ever there existed a man who could come as a thief into the Kingdom and produce such an explosion right under their very noses… the man on the blood bay horse would be him.

“My sheikh?” Zafir’s frantic voice snapped Farooq back to his cell phone. “Are you there? I hear screaming. What has happened?”

“We have copies of the video records from the laboratory on our remote server?” Farooq’s voice grew quiet as he struggled to control his breathing.

“Of course,” Zafir said.

“Very well. I will review them.”

“I will come at once.”

“You have another mission.” Farooq sighed. “Our timeline is already set in motion. I will have Raheem retrieve them. I fear our medical project is no more…”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“No more?”

Farooq ground his teeth. His nostrils flared. “I must know who did this to me,” he spat. “I will deal with him in my own way.” He rolled up the window and rested his head against the cool leather seat, suddenly exhausted. “In any case, your duty is before you, my friend. Your time is far spent. The others should have already moved. In the end, our saboteur has done nothing but take a few pawns. The American devils do not realize it, but with our opening moves, the game is already won.”

Jericho guided the big bay with his knees, pointing it toward a throng of white-robed students who milled under rows of palm trees and the buzzing glow of streetlights. Stars peeked intermittently from a brilliant indigo sky through clouds of smoke and falling ash. The horse, a strong-willed gelding, was a flighty one. Jericho had passed on the chance to make his escape on a Palomino mare that had looked much gentler. His ex-wife was a blonde so he’d decided to take his chances on the brunette.

He glanced at the TAG Aquaracer on his wrist as he slid from the prancing animal. He took a loose lead rope from a waiting student and slid it over the sweating horse’s arched neck, looping it around the animal’s nose to form a makeshift figure-eight halter. He handed the end to the astonished student with a smile and slight bow. The train to Riyadh left in two hours.

He still had time for a shower.

14 September DNI Alternate Offices Army Navy Drive Arlington, Virginia

Mahoney rolled an empty glass vial back and forth in her open hand, holding it up to study in the soft glow of Win Palmer’s green desk lamp. They knew so much about these terrorists… and still, they knew so little.

The Director sat behind his desk, thinking deeply. Beyond him, slouched on an overstuffed couch along the far wall, Quinn nursed a can of Diet Coke. Thibodaux sat across from him, looking at a loose stack of photographs from Farooq’s lab.

“We need to tell Sergeant Meeks’s family something,” the big Cajun said, “even if it’s a lie. Let them know their boy’s not lost out there… missing forever.”

“In time,” Win Palmer agreed. “When this is over. Right now, what we have to worry about more than anything is panic-and I’m not speaking only of the population. You’d be surprised at how often I hear the term ‘absolute containment’ used from the Gang of Five in our little briefings.”

Megan scoffed. “That’s what they called the solution to their problem with Northwest 2-‘absolute containment.’”

Palmer gave a somber nod. “What happened there is not something anyone is proud of, Ms. Mahoney. But most believe it was a necessary evil.”

“How much about this does your Gang of Senators know?” Thibodaux asked.

“They don’t know everything,” Palmer said. “But they do know about the virus. Two very influential generals have spent a considerable amount of time bending their ears with an endless list of the deadly possibilities. Carpet bombing the hell out of any area that the virus shows up in has been discussed as a more than viable option-even here in the U.S. I don’t mind telling you, these people are scared out of their wits.”