Marc Cameron - National Security

Mahoney stood, dumbstruck. She turned to look over her shoulder at Quinn. Her butt was indeed clenching. He tapped the pistol under his jacket. Want me to shoot him? he mouthed.

She looked back to the gate agent, who sat as immovable as a stone.

Quinn looked at his watch. They’d all expected someone from customs would be waiting out front for them. He pulled out his cell phone to give Palmer a call. Before he could hit the send key, Mahoney’s honey-sweet voice filled the air, menacing as a swarm of vengeful bees.

“Okay, Brandon Milford.” Mahoney jabbed her finger at the ID badge around the pudgy man’s neck. “You want to see officious, I’ll show you officious-how about I get the President of the United States to give you a little ring?”

“You better use smaller words, Doc.” Thibodaux chuckled. “ Officious seems awfully big for this guy.”

Mahoney’s gaze burned into Milford’s sodden eyes. Even from fifteen feet away in the waiting area, Jericho could see the man’s chins begin to quiver.

“How about this, then?” she said. “How about you continue to use your unfettered power to keep me on this side of that door and all the while, the virus that’s lurking on the other side will work its way through the air and into the heating and ventilation system. You’re such a great physical specimen it won’t have any trouble worming into your pasty little system in no time flat. In about four hours’ time you’ll be bleeding outa your eyes. Projectile diarrhea won’t begin to describe your condition. All the cells in your body will begin to liquefy…” She leaned across the high counter, gently stroking the back of Milford’s dimpled hand. “The pain will be so bad you won’t even be able to scream… and somewhere along the way your tiny little balls will turn black and fall off-”

Milford punched in the code and waddled away.

Seconds after entering the sterile hallway, Jericho heard two distinct pops. He drew his Kimber, recognizing the noises for what they were. Thibodaux had his pistol in hand as well.

A disembodied voice stopped them outside the white door emblazoned with the blue and white eagle logo of ICE: IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT.

“You from CDC?”

Megan held her credentials up to the Plexiglas box mounted beside the speaker. “Dr. Megan Mahoney…” She shot a glance at Quinn and Thibodaux. “… and associates.”

Quinn stepped to the speaker, his gun discreetly behind his thigh. “We heard shooting. Everything all right?”

“We’re secure,” the voice said. “But we have one FBI agent with a broken arm and a badly wounded suspect…”

“Buzz us in,” Mahoney said. “I can help until paramedics get here.”

There was a long pause before a female voice came over the speaker. It was strained, teetering on the verge of full-blown panic.

“The Arab had a small vial with him,” the voice quavered. “It’s been compromised.”

Mahoney swallowed. “How compromised?” She motioned both Quinn and Thibodaux over and had them take off their jackets, pointing toward the half-inch gap at the bottom of the door. Quinn realized what she wanted and used the thick leather to plug the void, backing it up with Thibodaux’s.

“Shattered,” the voice said. “Broken, shot to hell, spilled everywhere…”

“Give us a minute to suit up,” Megan said, already pulling her orange biohazard suit and attached breathing unit from the bag. “We’re coming in.” She turned to Quinn. “It may be too late, but we need someone in maintenance to turn off the HVAC as quick as possible.”

“On it, cherie.” Thibodaux was already punching numbers into his cell phone.

Mahoney hung a Bluetooth earpiece in her ear and called her office while she pulled the thick, rubber-coated zippers on the suit. She gave her location and requested a level-four hazard team and security detail.

Quinn called Palmer, who used his connections to throw up an immediate quarantine around Dulles under the guise of a chemical spill, grounding all departing flights and diverting inbound traffic to Reagan or Baltimore.

“Listen, Doctor.” The voice on the intercom had a catch in it, as if she was trying to control a sob. “I… I think I got some of the liquid on my foot…”

Mahoney shot a worried glance at Quinn. “We’ll be in in just a moment.”

Checking each other for correct fit and seal in the bulky hazard suits was labor intensive, and though Quinn and Thibodaux had been through the same procedure twice before in the last six hours, they were all exhausted. Mahoney took extra time inspecting their gear. Unsure of what to expect on the other side of the door, both men kept their sidearms in small nylon pouches next to the portable breathing units attached to their waists.

After an agonizingly slow five minutes Mahoney pronounced them “sealed” and the magnetic lock clicked open. Thibodaux resecured the heavy leather jackets at the base of the door inside.

The customs office was in a shambles. Papers from loose file folders were strewn across the industrial blue carpet as if the area had been hit by a tornado. The remnants of a wooden office chair lay broken on the floor. A man in a sweat-stained white shirt huddled against the far wall holding his arm in his lap, his red power tie hanging loose and askew. A tall woman with flaming red hair and a gun on her hip stooped beside him, her jacket behind his head and a slender arm snaked around his shoulders. Worry lines creased her freckled nose. It was impossible to tell if she was trying to give comfort or get it. Likely a little bit of both, Quinn thought.

A graying customs inspector, the tail of his uniform shirt hanging out over a paunchy belly, hunched above a wounded Arab. The inspector’s arms were bathed in crimson up to his elbows as he worked frantically to staunch the flow of blood. Red flecks dotted his face and stained the front of his uniform shirt. The Arab groaned, his mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in the open air.

Quinn let Mahoney take care of the FBI agents while he knelt beside the customs inspector. Thibodaux stood next to him.

“Jamal Hamid?” Quinn bent in closer so the wounded man could hear the muffled buzz of his voice through the clear plastic face shield. “We know what you have done. We know what you have brought into our country.”

Hamid’s eyes fluttered, startled to hear someone speak to him in Arabic. “You know nothing,” he gasped. Pink blood foamed at the corners of his mouth. One of the shots had torn through a lung.

“We’ve already captured the others,” Quinn lied. “You are the last. It is over.”

Hamid closed his eyes, pained more from the news than from his wounds. “Impossible. Zafir was not… Zafir has…” He broke into a ragged coughing fit. As the coughing subsided, his olive face turned to ash, the muscles relaxed. He was bleeding internally, no matter how much pressure the customs inspector put on the wounds. “Not possib

…” He gasped, shaking his head in disbelief. “Zafir… not possible

…” His head lolled to one side. The customs inspector checked for a pulse, then shook his head.

“He’s gone.”

Thibodaux sighed. “Maybe we should consider bloodletting as a form of enhanced interrogation. Hamid just gave us the name of the third man.”

“It’s a start.” Jericho rose to his feet with a groan. “Zafir isn’t an uncommon name in the Middle East.” The clammy suit seemed more confining that his motorcycle leathers-or maybe it was just the thought of the surrounding virus and the memory of the horrors he’d seen in the Al-Hofuf lab.

Mahoney had turned a garbage can upside down on top of the broken vial and moved the two FBI agents to the other side of the room, as far from the damp spot as possible. She tried to get them to sit down, but the man refused, violently jerking away.