Greg Bear - Quantico

The President looked appalled.

‘Based on what we now know, we have determined that Special Agent Winter impregnated the young wife of the Patriarch in Washington state. And we have now matched Winter to multiple samples of DNA taken from the residence of the Amerithrax suspect. We have been led a merry chase,’ Chao concluded. ‘But I believe we have finally found our man.’

Rebecca picked up the thread. ‘Based on information from BuDark, we know that Lawrence Winter supplied bioterror weapons to a group of Muslims in Israel. He worked through an intermediary named Ibrahim Al-Hitti, an Egyptian with connections to Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and more. We think Winter convinced Al-Hitti that he could supply anthrax modified to kill only Jews. Apparently, Al-Hitti tested a small amount of this anthrax on Jews in Iraq. Whatever Amerithrax was making in California was shipped to Washington state to be packed into fireworks shells, which were then flown to Gaza City by private jet and driven into Jerusalem. The shells were intercepted by Israeli police. The Israelis have tested them-and surprisingly, these shells contain not anthrax, but yeast. So far, we’ve only found a tiny supply of anthrax left over in California-but lots of yeast. Three months ago, someone launched twenty similar shells over Silesia, Ohio. As well, these shells apparently contained nothing but brewer’s yeast.’

‘Silesia-loss of long-term memory,’ Schein said.

Rebecca nodded. ‘There may have been a similar plot to attack Rome, which we foiled when we disrupted the factory in Washington state.’

The President’s expression had transformed to stunned wonder.

‘We have ten minutes,’ Schein said, tapping her watch.

Rebecca touched Jane Rowland’s shoulder.

Ghastly pale, Jane smoothed her hands on her knees and referred to her notes. ‘Madam President, I track dating and lonely hearts sites on the Web,’ she began, ‘looking for descriptions of possible criminal activity. We resort to this expedient because so much real criminal communication is unbreakably encrypted. We’re looking for an entry point, a chink in the encrypted data.’

‘Let’s move quickly, Agent Rowland,’ Hiram said.

‘I found several lovelog chat entries, written by the wife of an extremist Jewish settler living in Kiryat Shimona. She describes having sexual relations with a tall American with one blue eye and one green eye. She says the American is working with her husband on something important for the future of the Jews. She claims her American lover has…uh, had experienced an extreme circumcision, all the foreskin removed down to the shaft…“a skinned eel”, as she describes it, “Bedouin-style”. We have OPM files showing that before he joined the FBI, Lawrence Winter gave himself just such a circumcision, to avoid detection when working undercover in Muslim countries.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ the President exploded. ‘How in hell does a Jewish housewife know what a Bedouin’s cock looks like?’

Jane was stricken silent.

Outside, rain from the wet night dripped down a gutter.

President Larsen rose and swirled an accusing finger around the room. ‘This is more than a nightmare-it’s a goddamned farce. An AWOL FBI agent gallivants around the world, recruits terrorists, seduces their wives, hell-screws every bitch he can get his hands on-’

‘Madam President,’ Schein cautioned. Larsen was furious and having none of it.

‘-Not to mention official privacy violations beyond anything even I could have imagined, at least one murder, and now a clandestine connection between our own beloved FBI and the Amerithrax killer.’ The President took a glass of ice water from her lead Secret Service agent, drank half, then rolled it across her forehead. ‘Where is this bastard now? And what in God’s name is he up to?’

Another pause.

‘Am I next?’ asked the sepulchral Dr. Wheatstone, the yeast expert. ‘I may have an answer to your second question.’

Mecca

Lawrence.

Larry.

Special Agent Lawrence Winter.

His memory was definitely not as sharp as it had once been. His energy was also leaking away day by day, and he awoke each morning soaked in a creeping hopelessness that was hard to shake. So many places, so many names…

Winter looked through the drawn-back curtains of the hotel room window, across the Al Masjid Haram-the huge, three-story Grand Mosque-at the desert dawn, pallid blue and yellow.

Out on the plain of Mina, five kilometers from the hotel, late preparations for the Hajj were still being made. Fireproof tents were being erected by the tens of thousands, barely in time for the hordes arriving by bus. It was chaos in the broad tent city.

Yigal and Yitzhak entered the room bearing hot coffee in familiar green and white cups. ‘Wake up, sleepyheads,’ they called out. When they were in the suite they donned kipot s embroidered with Hebrew and often spoke Hebrew, in defiance of his orders and of common sense. What if they were heard? Nobody spoke Hebrew in Mecca. They had smuggled the kipot s in their kits like headstrong kids on a school outing. Months ago, he would have exacted swift discipline. Now, he could barely muster irritation.

Yigal grinned as he handed Winter his coffee. ‘Have you seen? They are gathering like sardines. There must be a half million already. The war means nothing to them, poor bastards.’ He began a little dance. ‘Seventy-two pure and shapely houris for every martyr! Wouldn’t you like to wholesale blackeyed virgins? We could make a pile of shekels.’

Baruch and Gershon came back to the room, put on their kipot s, and squatted beside him. ‘I was out for four o’clock prayer,’ Gershon said. ‘The wind is blowing from the west at four to seven knots. I had a long talk with a fine, whitehaired gentleman from Ethiopia, full of aches and pains. We spoke of the hardships and glory of those who die on Hajj. He was most interested to hear of what is happening in Palestine. He professed that the world would be much improved if all the Jews were lined up and burned alive.’

‘He’ll surely go straight to heaven and immediately screw all his virgins,’ Yigal said.

‘Tomorrow there will be a million,’ Gershon said. He saw that Winter had not finished his cup. ‘What’s wrong with the coffee, Mr. Brown? It is fresh from Starbucks downstairs. There is a Kentucky Fried Chicken, even a McDonald’s, did you see them?’

Yigal jumped up. ‘I’ll check the trucks. David and Gershon stood guard last but they aren’t mechanically minded, so who knows what could be stolen? They wouldn’t miss an axle or two.’

Gershon scoffed. The trucks had been parked in a secured garage not far from the Grand Mosque.

‘Three days,’ Winter warned as they all removed their kipot s. ‘When the pilgrims return to Mina. When they start stoning the devil. Not before.’

‘Of course,’ Menachem said happily. ‘Like sardines. Like fucking shoals of sweet herring.’

Reagan International Airport

William rolled his suitcase from the plane, following a young woman dressed in new Bureau trainee casuals-golf shirt, cargo pants and cap, duffel bag-decorated with FBI logos, shooting badges, pins and buttons. She was five-six, in her mid-twenties, with short-cut brown hair and a series of stud holes around her ear but no studs, fingernails painted pink but chipped at the edges, brown eyes bright despite the time-it was eleven p.m. He felt like a wet sock but she was full of energy, arriving for the next class at the Q-the promise of a dream career.

Cop Valhalla.