Robin Cook - Vector

“Mark my word,” Curt had whispered on another occasion. “I’ve got it on unimpeachable authority that the government’s training Gurkha troops in Montana with thousands upon thousands of black helicopters. Unless something’s done to this renegade government they’re going to swoop out of their base in the near future and take away every gun from every goddamn patriot in the country. Then we’ll be defenseless against the worldwide Zionists.”

Back then Yuri had not known what “unimpeachable” meant but he didn’t bother to ask since he’d gotten the drift of Curt’s message. The U.S. government was far more perverse and more dangerous than he’d imagined. It also became clear that both he and Curt wanted to do something about it, and indeed they could help each other since each could do something the other couldn’t. Yuri had the technological experience and the know-how necessary to build a bioweapon of mass destruction, while Curt had the people who could get the necessary equipment and materials. Curt had started a skinhead militia he called the People’s Aryan Army, and he claimed his shock troops would obey any order he gave them.

“An agricultural pest control sprayer? No problem!” Curt had said in response to one of Yuri’s early inquiries. “We can steal one from out on Long Island when the need arises. They use them in the potato fields. Most of the time they’re just sitting out there waiting for the taking.”

Several weeks later over iced shots of vodka Curt, Yuri, and Steve had shaken hands on the commencement of what they called Operation Wolverine. Yuri hadn’t known what a wolverine was, so Curt explained it was a small, extremely vicious, cunning animal. At the time Curt had winked at Steve, because Wolverine really referred to a group of youths in a survivalist movie classic called Red Dawn . It was Curt and Steve’s favorite movie. In it the Wolverines had held off the entire invading Russian Army.

Yuri had wanted to call the plan Operation Revenge, but he gave in to Curt and Steve when they were adamant about the name Wolverine. Curt had explained that the name would have immediate significance to the far-right underground.

After they’d polished off their vodka, they were all excited. Their relationship was, in Curt’s words, a marriage made in Heaven.

“I have a feeling this is going to be the spark that ignites the conflagration,” Curt had said. “Something huge like this happening here in New York is bound to start the general revolt. It’s going to make what happened in Oklahoma City seem like a childish prank.”

Whether Operation Revenge started a general uprising or not Yuri didn’t care. He just wanted to severely slap the U.S. across its smug face. Any glory he might achieve he’d gladly donate to the Zhirinovsky movement and the return of the Soviet Empire.

A sudden knock on Yuri’s fender shocked him from his reverie. He turned to see a meter maid.

“You got to move along, cabbie,” the woman said. “This here’s for loading.”

“Sorry,” Yuri said. He put his idling car in gear and drove off. But he didn’t go far. He merely rounded the block and returned to the same spot. The meter maid was in the far distance heading away.

Yuri put his blinkers on to make it look as if he was waiting for a fare and climbed from his car. No one had gone in or out of the Corinthian Rug Company for the half hour he’d been watching. He ran across the street. With his hands around his face he leaned against the glass office door and looked inside. The place was empty. There were no lights on. He tried the door. It was locked.

Yuri walked a few steps to the west and went into a neighboring shop. He’d seen a number of people going in and out while he’d been sitting in his cab. It was a store for stamp collectors. Inside it was as quiet as a tomb after some bells attached to the door had ceased their tinkling. The proprietor appeared from an inner area with tiny reading glasses teetering on the end of a bulbous nose. On his bald head was a yarmulke that Yuri thought must have been stuck on with glue.

“I got a call to pick up a Mr. Papparis at the Corinthian Rug Company,” Yuri explained. “That’s my cab outside. Unfortunately the rug office is closed. Do you know Mr. Papparis?”

“Of course.”

“Have you seen him?” Yuri asked. “Or heard anything about him?”

“I haven’t seen him all day. But that’s not surprising. Our paths rarely cross.”

“Thanks,” Yuri said.

“My pleasure.”

Yuri went to the store on the east side of the Corinthian Rug office. He got the same response. He then got back into his cab and thought about what he should do next. He considered trying to call the neighborhood hospitals, but he gave up on the idea when he remembered he didn’t know where Mr. Papparis lived. He pondered getting a phone book to see if he could find Mr. Papparis’s number but quickly decided that calling his home would be foolhardy. Yuri had been extraordinarily careful so far and had no desire to take any unnecessary chances. For what he had in mind to do to New York, he didn’t want there to be any warning.

Yuri drove off. When he came to the corner of Walker and Broadway it occurred to him that he was only a little more than six blocks away from Curt and Steve’s fire station on Duane Street. Although Yuri had never visited his partners’ workplace, he decided to drop by. He wouldn’t yet be able to confirm that the anthrax was potent, a question Yuri thought was academic, but he could at least inform them that the trial was underway. That was exciting enough, because it meant that Operation Wolverine was truly imminent. All the planning and preliminaries were over. Now it was only a question of producing adequate amounts of the agents and dispersing them.

Monday, October 18

11:30 a.m.

“Do you think we should be doing this?” Steve Henderson asked. “I can’t imagine we’re going to learn enough to justify the risk.”

Curt grabbed his friend’s sleeve and pulled him to a stop. They were standing in front of the Jacob Javits Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza. Crowds of people were coming and going. It was a busy place. It housed nearly six thousand government employees and was visited daily by a thousand civilians.

Curt and Steve were dressed in their freshly pressed blue class B firefighter uniforms. Their black shoes glistened in the bright October sunlight. Curt’s shirt was a lighter blue than Steve’s, and Curt had a tiny gold bullhorn on his collar. Curt had made lieutenant four years previously.

“With an operation of this magnitude, reconnaissance is an absolute must,” Curt hissed. He glanced furtively at the scurrying crowd to make sure no one was paying them any heed. “What the hell did they teach you in the army? We’re talking about basics here!”

Curt and Steve had been childhood friends. Both had grown up in the strongly blue-collar area of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Both had been quiet, polite, and neat loners who’d gravitated toward each other over the years as kindred spirits, particularly during high school. They had been indifferent students although they’d scored high on aptitude tests, Curt higher than Steve. Neither had played any sports despite Curt’s older brother’s being one of Bensonhurst’s legendary football stars. They had mostly “hung out,” as they explained in their own words. Both had ended up in the armed forces: Curt after an abortive six-month try at college and Steve after working for his plumber father for a year.

“The army taught me just as much as the Marines taught you,” Steve shot back. “Don’t give me any of your Marine Corps bullshit.”

“Well, we’re not going to carry the stuff in there on D-Day without having reconnoitered the place,” Curt said. “It’s got to go into the HVAC induction. We got to make sure we can get access.”