D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

Pell returned to the lobby after a few minutes looking refreshed. His cheeks were slightly flushed as he said, “Let’s go down to the conference room. I need to make some calls and use the computer.”

“Sure,” Chris replied. Pell reminded him of someone, but up until now he couldn’t place it and then, ah! An employee, Larry – a raging alcoholic, used to act just like this. Chris had thought he smelled booze on Pell’s breath this morning. This guy was definitely a drinker. That’s all he needed.

They sat at the table, the notebook computer in front of them. Pell hung his jacket on a chair exposing his shoulder holster and gun.

“So what do we do now?” Chris asked.

Pell leaned back in his chair and twisted his sideburns. “This is a big one,” he said after a moment. “The procedures are clear. I’ve got to escalate it to the SAC in Boston.”

“SAC?”

“Special Agent in Charge, Carl Moscovitz.” Pell grimaced as he said the name. “He runs the northeast Bureau branches. It’ll percolate up from there. Based on this afternoon, I’m assuming what you’re telling me is true and that something is definitely going on. Maybe it’s this virus, maybe it’s something else but whatever it is, whoever’s involved is willing to go through some serious effort to keep it a secret. I wouldn’t be surprised if Arthur Kent isn’t directly aware of this tomorrow morning. He’s responsible for all of the field offices – the number three guy at the Bureau.”

“So that means you’ll get plenty of help?” Chris asked.

Pell offered a short chuckle as he returned his attention to the terminal. “It depends on Carl. He and I don’t get along too well.”

“Don’t get along? Come on, Pell, for Christ’s sake. Don’t get along at a dinner party but surely stuff like this has to take precedence over not getting along. There’s no room for pettiness.”

“The FBI is a political world, Chris. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t have had Ruby Ridge or Waco. Hell, you could probably argue that September 11 never would’ve happened but it did.”

Chris shook his head in disgust and Pell nodded in agreement.

“Reality. Ugly damn reality,” Pell said as he started to type. “I’m going to open a log and get the data gatherers working on the little bit that we know.”

“The data gatherers?”

“Yeah,” Pell replied. “That’s what I call then. They work out of Langley, Virginia. I give them what I’m looking for, and they set up the searches in our databases. There’s got to be something out there about this.”

“I hope so,” Chris walked over to the window. The late afternoon sun blazed in the sky, and just as he was about to turn away, he saw two men getting out of a car. He would have thought nothing of it, except for the fact that the car looked like it had been parked deliberately to be obscured from view between a dumpster and the building across the street. The men moved stealthily, looking this way and that and then quickly ran out of his view as they came to the front entrance of this building.

Pell began, “I’m going to need—”

“I think they’re here.”

“What? Who?” Pell asked.

“Whoever the hell these people are! I just saw two guys get out of that car and come into this building.”

Pell got up and looked at the partially hidden car. “I think your paranoia is getting to you,” he laughed. “There’s no way anyone would be coming to get you in an FBI building. You’re quite safe here,” he said turning back to the desk.

“I don’t like it.”

“Ok, better safe than sorry.”

Chris watched him unbuckle his gun and remove it from his holster.

“These people want me dead and, FBI building or not, those guys looked like they were up to no good. It’s hardly like this is the J. Edgar Hoover building in terms of security. Christ, there is no security and we’re the only ones here in the building,” Chris said as sweat broke out on his brow and down the middle of his back. He was convinced they were here for him. How’d they find him? The things they had done in the past day raced through his mind – shooting David’s plane, going to the Wild Bear, removing the wreckage and now showing up here – and he quickly concluded that his life was in grave danger. These people wanted him dead. Plain and simple. They would stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Hell, they were coming after him in an FBI office.

“Come on, Pell,” Chris pleaded. “You’ve got to do something!”

“OK listen, calm down and follow me, let’s check it out.”

They hurried back out to the lobby. With the door shut, they had no way to see into the hallway. They stared at the door.

“I don’t hear anything,” Pell said. “Those guys probably have business elsewhere in the building.”

“Maybe—”

A shotgun blast blew off the doorknob. A second shot partially opened the door.

Pell emptied his clip into and around the door. He grabbed Chris and pushed him down a hall. “Come on!” Pell growled as he shoved him. “We gotta get out of here.”

The door cracked open with a kick and slammed into the wall.

They ran down a staircase, burst through an exit door, and sprinted around the building to Pell’s car. They hopped in and sped away. Looking back, Chris saw the two men emerge from the building.

“They’re going for their car!”

“Don’t worry, I can lose them on the side streets coming up. I assume you know how to handle a gun? Reload this. Bullets are in the dash.”

He handed over his gun, and Chris started filling the clip. Pell’s blue eyes alternated between the rearview mirror and the road ahead.

“What the hell is this?” He shouted “Who storms an FBI building and chases down an FBI car?”

“The same people that remove wrecked planes and kill people,” Chris said as he focused on jamming the slippery bullets into the magazine.

“They’re gaining fast. Hang on,” Pell said.

He whipped the wheel to the right. They careened around a ninety-degree turn into a small neighborhood. Pell laid on the horn as they sped down the kid-filled street. They skidded around another intersection. Then another. Racing wildly through the normally quiet streets of Bangor.

Sarah could hear the voices as she approached the room. Refreshed after taking a quick shower and changing clothes, she paused just outside the room, eaves dropping. As if they knew she was there, the voices were soft, muffled – too low for her to make out anything.

“Is everything okay, Ms. Burns?” A voice asked.

She jumped. Albert stood behind her with a tray of caviar, cheese and crackers.

She shook her head, “Everything’s fine, Albert.” She took a wedge of parmesan off the tray and walked into the room, silencing the conversation.

Camilla stood up. “Feeling better?”

“One-hundred percent.”

“That’s good,” Camilla said. The tone of her voice was different from forty-five minutes ago.

Phillip started in immediately with the next round of questions. Sarah couldn’t blame him. I guess when you’re that old every minute counts.

“It sounds like you’ve done exactly what you said you were going to do, but now we need to talk about how it’s going to happen. How much of a plan do you have?”

Sarah took her time on the delicious cheese before she replied. “We’ve already started the process. I’ve got six people who have volunteered to be Carriers.”

“Carriers?” Mike asked.

“They are going to be voluntarily infected with Gen96.”

“And what are they going to do?” Camilla asked.

“Travel the world, one for each continent – spreading the word, so to speak. They’re going to have canisters disguised as every day aerosol cans that they will use in high-human traffic areas – subway tunnels, sporting events, anywhere there are large gatherings of people. We’ll restock them as they move.”