Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

A naked bulb dangled from a cord suspended a few feet above them. Smoke drifted through the shaft of light. Seated to one side of the dimly lit space was a third man, copper-skinned and wiry, with a once-handsome face that was marred by a spectacular scar running from his forehead through his brow and down his right cheek. He was paying no attention to the others. Instead, wearing headphones, he was fixed on a wall-mounted bank of a dozen video monitors.

The images on each of the screens automatically changed every three minutes, along with the sound associated with it. A joystick enabled the man to adjust the angle and distance of the views projected by the concealed cameras, positioned throughout the United States Capitol building. There were several of them he could zoom in close enough to read the number plates on the seats in the House Chamber, and he could rotate another pair 360 degrees to observe the chaos unfolding in Statuary Hall.

There was room for a second operator at the bank of screens, but at the moment one man was handling them by himself.

Suddenly a speaker, mounted on the wall just above the monitor bank, crackled to life, disrupting the quiet, and actually startling the man, whose name was Alex Ramirez. Ramirez, an electronics expert who had soldiered in a dozen or more wars around the globe, glanced up at the cameras he had installed—cameras that were now monitoring him and the others in the S&S Trading Company.

“I don’t pay you goof-offs to play cards,” a disembodied male voice boomed out. “Get back in the garage and work on the equipment. Ramirez, where’s Fink?”

The other men stopped playing cards and redirected their attention toward the monitors on which they were featured.

“Fink’s catching some Z’s in the back room,” Ramirez said.

“Well, wake him up,” the voice barked.

Ramirez swiveled his chair around.

“Hey, goof-offs, on your way back to the garage, can one of you guys go and wake up Fink. Tell him it’s Cain.”

Ramirez had recognized Cain’s voice.

“If you men follow orders,” he had said that first day, “you’ll be rewarded to the degree that Matt Fink discussed with each of you. If you question our patriotism or refuse to follow any directives, you will be permanently and painfully retired from this unit and from your life.”

The wall-mounted speakers became active again.

“Ramirez, take manual control of camera nine and queue it up for Fink,” Cain said. “I want him to see what’s going on.”

The man spoke with the confident authority Ramirez had grown accustomed to obeying over his years in various armies.

Cain, Genesis —cute. As always, Ramirez chuckled at the notion of how his Bible-toting, God-obsessed mother, had she lived past fifty, would have taken to his working for people who based their operation on the scriptures, and in particular on Genesis, her favorite book of the Old Testament.

Poor, deluded old gal.

Through a number of missions together, Ramirez had developed complete trust in his friend Matt Fink. First, though, he had to survive nearly having his throat slit for making a casual remark about the mercenary’s name.

“It was my father’s name and his father’s name before him,” Fink had said, holding Ramirez a foot off the floor with one hand, and brandishing his huge knife with the other. “The first man I killed thought it was a good idea to make fun of it.”

Initially, Ramirez had doubts about this particular job. For a time after signing on with Genesis, he kept those doubts to himself. Then the first payment hit his Swiss bank account and his apprehension vanished like the darkness of the first day. As long as those payouts continued, he decided, he would gladly light a frigging candle on his knees if that’s what Genesis wanted.

How’s that, Mama?

Matt Fink’s heavy footsteps echoed in the spacious, high-ceilinged warehouse as he strode over to where Ramirez sat. Fink always slept lightly, and never far away from a weapon—most often his bowie knife or his Luger, and at other times, both. The men liked to joke that sometime, during a nightmare, the giant would shoot himself and slit his own throat. By the time Fink reached the screens, he was wide awake and fully alert. He waved up at the camera.

“Hey, there, Cain, old sport. What’s up?”

“Are you aware of what’s happening at the Capitol?”

“There have been no reports of any incidents that jeopardize our mission.”

“Ramirez, zoom camera nine in on the group in the biosuits. They entered the building a little while ago.”

Ramirez pressed a button on his control panel. The monitor labeled CAMERA NUMBER NINE flickered as the image auto-focused on the targets. The recording showed seven individuals dressed in biocontainment gear making their way like lunar explorers across the polished marble floor.

“They’re military,” Fink said. “We expected this would happen. It does nothing to compromise our efforts.”

“Six of them are soldiers,” Cain replied, “but who in the hell is the one with the beard?”

Fink peered at the screen, then leaned forward and took over control of the camera himself.

“Let me get a decent close-up of him,” Fink said.

“Don’t move that apparatus too much. I don’t want them to know they’re being watched until it’s time.”

“Anything you say, sport.”

“And stop calling me sport.”

“I’m from bleedin’ South Africa. We’d call the Pope sport.”

“And while you’re working on that,” Cain said, “can you guys explain to me how we lost visual of the president for over forty-five minutes?”

“There must be a dead space where our cameras can’t pick him up,” Ramirez offered.

“Impossible,” Cain shot back. “We had every inch of that building covered. Someone screwed up.”

“Couldn’t have been you,” Ramirez muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing, boss. Sorry if we missed something.”

“Good. Now, get me a shot through the visor of the guy with the beard.”

Fink continued to maneuver and position the camera until the bearded man’s weary face came into better focus.

“Good. Very good,” Cain said. “We can use facial recognition software to find out who he is. If we need to, we can even remove the beard. Fink, we’ll provide you with a detailed background on this man after we get a match. I have a feeling I already know.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Fink said.

“Meanwhile, I want you to get over there and mill around with the crowd. Bring two men with you. Ramirez will keep an eye on Mr. Beard—or maybe I should say Dr. Beard—and we’ll be in touch when we know something for certain.”

“You’ve got it sp— Mr. Cain, sir.”

“They’re wearing portable breathing systems that are battery powered. Sooner or later he’s going to have to come out.”

“Count on us to be there when he does,” Fink said.

“Okay. The way I understand it, if I do my best to find a way to beat this bug, I’m free, whether I succeed or not. No strings.”

“That’s the deal,” the president said.

“Even though you still believe I stole that virus from my own lab.”

“The security cameras picked up several perfect shots of your face behind your visor. Particles from the floor of the deepest level of the lab were on your boots, and we found the canisters hidden in a recently constructed compartment behind your basement wall. The gym bag you used to transport the canisters was found in your bedroom closet.”

“It wasn’t me.”

Griff’s meeting with James Allaire was in a conference room that did not appear on any of the floor plans Griff had studied. The president of the United States was one chair to Griff’s right at a vast mahogany table. The secretary of defense, Gary Salitas, sat several places to Griff’s left, next to Dr. Bethany Townsend and a man introduced as the Capitol architect. Two Secret Service agents stood against the wall behind them, presumably ready to save the president from the terrorist in the blue biohazard suit. The rest of the room was empty.