Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

“Nice work,” Cain replied. “That man had the potential to be a serious fly in the ointment.”

Fink chuckled.

“You pay for the best, you get the best.”

“We have a couple more pieces of business on our plate. The first of them involves our inside man from the Capitol. His name’s Tannen. The president knows now that he was working for us.”

“None of this would have been possible without him.”

“That’s true,” Cain said, “but now I’m afraid he’s become something of a liability.”

“Funny coincidence,” Fink said, punching his cohort on the deltoid. “Señor Ramirez, here, was just telling me he’s starved for action.”

“In that case, you guys work something out. Tannen’s stashed in a Motel Six south of Alexandria. He’s expecting a ride west. He has a place in the Smokies and a cousin there who’s going to help get him out of the country. You’ll both split Tannen’s share once he’s dealt with.”

“Sweet,” Ramirez said.

“No hill without gravestones, no valley without shadows,” Fink said, quoting a South African proverb he had learned from his father. “You said there were other pieces of business?”

“It’s time we moved to phase two, and let the president know what our demands are in exchange for a truce, and maybe even the treatment for that virus.”

“I thought there was no treatment for that virus.”

“As long as Allaire believes there might be, we’re in a good position. And now, thanks to that shot of yours, his options have been greatly reduced. In fact, I believe that at the moment, we’re now the only hope he has.”

“If there’s anything we can do to get those demands to them, just say the word.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, there might be. Before the cameras and listening devices went dead, Ramirez, there, picked up enough chatter to know that the chaos inside the Capitol is increasing. He also sent me enough audio and video segments so that we are certain President Allaire has picked himself up an enemy—a serious, powerful enemy, who is bent on bringing him down. Once you two have taken care of that business at the Motel Six, get back to me. We’re putting together a package that we’ve decided to get to that person. From what you’ve seen, do you think you could get close enough to send it inside the Capitol?”

“I believe so,” Fink said. “Right now, the chaos inside the building can’t be any worse than the chaos we encountered outside. That’s all we need.”

“Excellent. The package should be waiting when you and Ramirez get back from Virginia.”

“Mind if I inquire who the package is for?” Fink asked.

For several seconds there was silence. The mercenary feared he might have overstepped his bounds. Cain paid his salary and those of his men, but the man made it clear at the outset that Genesis would share information only on a need-to-know basis, and would respond harshly to any employee who questioned them.

“Well,” Cain replied finally, “you’ve done well by us, Fink, and you, too, Ramirez. Our new ally-to-be, and spokesperson, provided we can get her to cooperate, will be Ursula Ellis, the speaker of the house.”

“Quite a looker, that one,” Fink said. “I know exactly who she is.”

The corrugated steel hangar was carefully constructed to conceal the entrance to the Kalvesta Biosafety Level 4 facility. In one of its previous incarnations, the massive Quonset-style structure had been part of an Air Force training center. The government left behind the skeletons of a few decommissioned aircraft to convince any trespassers who snuck by the small security contingent that the facility contained nothing of any great interest.

Griff and Angie walked briskly across the hard-baked clay and gazed at the newly installed chain-link fencing. The perimeter was guarded by a team of heavily armed military personnel—the third such security checkpoint through which they had passed. The setup was nothing like the sleepy installation where less than a year ago, Griff and the rest of the Veritas team had sought to establish a biologic pathway into the will center of the human brain.

“How in heaven could Genesis have snuck the virus past all these guards?” Angie asked.

“They couldn’t, is my guess,” Griff replied. “But back before my arrest, there wasn’t this level of security in place. In fact, there was hardly any security at all.” He pointed past Stafford and his squad to a squat, concrete building that stood in close proximity to the hangar. “That was our topside security. We had one guard on duty at all times, and there was a collection of sophisticated electronic monitoring inside, but that was it.”

“So at least now we’re safe.”

“I think these troops are here as much to keep track of us, and to keep us penned in, as to keep anyone from getting at us.”

“Especially now that Genesis thinks you’re dead.”

Griff assured himself that there was no levity in Angie’s remark, and then nodded. At some point, he had vowed, he would learn about the men who had given their lives to foster the deception that he was dead. Perhaps their families could use some help.

Anxious to sever the connection to his decoy, Griff used up an hour of the flight to Kalvesta cutting off his beard, and then shaving his face clean. Now, the wintry afternoon breeze felt strange on his skin. Angie had given the transformation her approval.

“Still handsome after all these years,” she said.

As the pair neared the hangar, several of the soldiers standing guard tensed. The Army corporal in charge stepped forward and introduced himself first to Griff, next to Angie, and last to Stafford and his men.

“Do you know where Melvin Forbush is?” Griff asked the man. “I was told that he’d meet us topside.”

“Forbush has sent up word he will meet you in the lab, sir. He’s been below ground since we arrived here. We haven’t even seen him yet.”

Griff laughed and Angie gave him a puzzled look.

“Melvin is as good a microbiologist as you’ll ever find,” he explained, “but he is also, how should I put it, a little eccentric.”

“Oh, I love eccentric—at least I usually do. Will I love Melvin?”

“I suspect you might. I do. He’s an absolute fanatic about his work, but he’s even more of a nut about Hollywood. Melvin is inevitably only one of two places—working on his equipment, or watching movies. I’m not surprised he hasn’t been above ground. Listen, corporal, I know my way around, and also the biosecurity protocols. Sergeant Stafford and his men will wait around here. They worry about us, so you can assure them that this is the only way in and the only way out of the lab.”

Before Stafford had the chance to respond, the corporal nodded toward the security guard. The razor-wire gate slid open on a track and Griff and Angie entered the hangar, a building about the size of two football fields set side by side. The ground beneath the arcing metal was hard-packed dirt, frozen solid by the Kansas winter. However, where once the hangar was a huge, nearly empty shell, now it was filled with military vehicles—Humvee battle buggies, Jeeps, transports, two ambulances, and a tanker. The trucks were parked in rows along the hangar walls and two more vehicles pulled in through the rear entrance while they were watching.

“I guess Allaire’s taking this all pretty seriously,” Angie understated.

“Impending death has a way of spurring people to action.”

Kalvesta’s dramatic, busy transformation was ironic given the size of the microbe at the center of it all. When Griff first arrived from New York with the team from Sylvia Chen’s lab, the BL-4 facility had been a tawdry oasis in the high plains desert, consisting of a dozen or so bungalows spaced along some ill-defined dirt streets, a rutted landing strip, and a dilapidated basketball court.