Tess Gerritsen - Whistleblower

But his wife ignored his amorous looks and wandered off to the kitchen. A moment later, the rumble of the automatic dishwasher announced another of her fits of housecleaning.

In frustration, Dafoe turned and stabbed the blinking button on his answering machine. The message from Polowski completely destroyed any amorous intentions he had left.

“…Reason to believe Holland is in, or has just left, the Palo Alto area. Following leads. Will keep you informed…”

Polowski, you half-wit. Is following orders so damn difficult?

It was 3:00 a.m. Washington time. An ungodly hour, but he made the phone call.

The voice that answered was raspy with sleep. “Tyrone here.”

“Cowboy, this is Dafoe. Sorry to wake you.”

The voice became instantly alert, all sleep shaken from it. “What’s up?”

“New lead on Holland. I don’t know the particulars, but he’s headed south, to Palo Alto. May still be there.”

“The university?”

“It is the Stanford area.”

“That may be a very big help.”

“Anything for an old buddy. I’ll keep you posted.”

“One thing, Dafoe.”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t have any interference. Pull all your people out. We’ll take it from here.”

Dafoe paused. “I might…have a problem.”

“A problem?” The voice, though quiet, took on a razor’s edge.

“It’s, uh, one of my men. Sort of a wild card. Sam Polowski. He’s got this Holland case under his skin, wants to go after him.”

“There’s such a thing as a direct order.”

“At the moment, Polowski’s unreachable. He’s in Palo Alto, digging around in God knows what.”

“Loose cannons. I don’t like them.”

“I’ll pull him back as soon as I can.”

“Do that. And keep it quiet. It’s a matter of utmost security.”

After Dafoe hung up, his gaze shifted automatically to the photo on the mantelpiece. It was a ‘68 snapshot of him and the Cowboy: two young marines, both of them grinning, their rifles slung over their shoulders as they stood ankle-deep in a rice paddy. It was a crazy time, when one’s very life depended on the loyalty of buddies. When Semper Fi applied not only to the corps in general but to each other in particular. Matt Tyrone was a hero then, and he was a hero now. Dafoe stared at that smiling face in the photo, disturbed by the threads of envy that had woven into his admiration for the man. Though Dafoe had much to be proud of-a solid eighteen years in the FBI, maybe even a shot at assistant director somewhere in his stars, he couldn’t match the heady climb of Matt Tyrone in the NSA. Though Dafoe wasn’t clear as to exactly what position the Cowboy held in the NSA, he had heard that Tyrone regularly attended cabinet meetings, that he held the trust of the president, that he dealt in secrets and shadows and security. He was the sort of man the country needed, a man for whom patriotism was more than mere flag-waving and rhetoric; it was a way of life. Matt Tyrone would do more than die for his country; he’d live for it.

Dafoe couldn’t let such a man, such a friend, down.

He dialed Sam Polowski’s home phone and left a message on the recorder.

This is a direct order. You are to withdraw from the Holland case immediately. Until further notice you are on suspension.

He was tempted to add, by special request from my friends in Washington, but thought better of it. No room for vanity here. The Cowboy had said national security was at stake.

Dafoe had no doubt it truly was. He’d gotten the word from Matt Tyrone. And Matt Tyrone’s authority came direct from the President himself.

“This does not look good. This does not look good at all.”

Ollie Wozniak squinted through his wire-rim glasses at the twenty-four photographs strewn across Milo’s dining table. He held one up for a closer look. Through the bottle-glass lens, one pale blue eye stared out, enormous. One only saw Ollie’s eyes; everything else, hollow cheeks, pencil lips and baby-fine hair, seemed to recede into the background pallor. He shook his head and picked up another photo.

“You’re right, of course,” he said. “Some of these I can’t interpret. I’d like to study ’em later. But these here are definitely raw mortality data. Rhesus monkeys, I suspect.” He paused and added quietly, “I hope.”

“Surely they wouldn’t use people for this sort of thing,” said Cathy.

“Not officially.” Ollie put down the photo and looked at her. “But it’s been done.”

“Maybe in Nazi Germany.”

“Here, too,” said Victor.

“What?” Cathy looked at him in disbelief.

“Army studies in germ warfare. They released colonies of Serratia Marcescens over San Francisco and waited to see how far the organism spread. Infections popped up in a number of Bay Area hospitals. Some of the cases were fatal.”

“I can’t believe it,” murmured Cathy.

“The damage was unintentional, of course. But people died just the same.”

“Don’t forget Tuskegee,” said Ollie. “People died in those experiments, too. And then there was that case in New York. Mentally retarded kids in a state hospital who were deliberately exposed to hepatitis. No one died there, but the ethics were just as shaky. So it’s been done. Sometimes in the name of humanity.”

“Sometimes not,” said Victor.

Ollie nodded. “As in this particular case.”

“What exactly are we talking about here?” asked Cathy, nodding at the photos. “Is this medical research? Or weapons development?”

“Both.” Ollie pointed to one of the photos on the table. “By all appearances, Viratek’s engaged in biological weapons research. They’ve dubbed it Project Cerberus. From what I can tell, the organism they’re working on is an RNA virus, extremely virulent, highly contagious, producing over eighty-percent mortality in its lab animal hosts. This photo here-” he tapped one of the pages “-shows the organism produces vesicular skin lesions on the infected subjects.”

“Vesicular?”

“Blisterlike. That could be one route of transmission, the fluid in those lesions.” He sifted through the pile and pulled out another page. “This shows the time course of the illness. The viral counts, periods of infectiousness. In almost every case the course is the same. The subject’s exposed here.” He pointed to Day One on the time graph. “Minor signs of illness here at Day Seven. Full-blown pox on Day Twelve. And here-” he tapped the graph at Day Fourteen “-the deaths begin. The time varies, but the result’s the same. They all die.”

“You used the word pox,” said Cathy.

Ollie turned to her, his eyes like blue glass. “Because that’s what it is.”

“You mean like chickenpox?”

“I wish it was. Then it wouldn’t be so deadly. Almost everyone gets exposed to chickenpox as a kid, so most of us are immune. But this one’s a different story.”

“Is it a new virus?” asked Milo.

“Yes and no.” He reached for an electron micrograph. “When I saw this I thought there was something weirdly familiar about all this. The appearance of the organism, the skin lesions, the course of illness. The whole damn picture. It reminded me of something I haven’t read about in decades. Something I never dreamed I’d see again.”

“You’re saying it’s an old virus?” said Milo.

“Ancient. But they’ve made some modifications. Made it more infectious. And deadlier. Which turns this into a real humdinger of a weapon, considering the millions of folks it’s already killed.”

“ Millions? ” Cathy stared at him. “What are we talking about?”

“A killer we’ve known for centuries. Smallpox.”

“That’s impossible!” said Cathy. “From what I’ve read, we conquered smallpox. It’s supposed to be extinct.”