Hard Road (35 page)

Meyerstein smiled as she felt her throat tighten. “Well, thank God.”

“Now, for the bad news. You're not gonna like it.”

Meyerstein cleared her throat. “Try me.”

“It's Reznick.”

“What about him?”

“He's gone missing.”

“What are you talking about? He's in a goddamn naval hospital. Two of our guys are babysitting him for chrissakes.”

“Calm down, Martha.”

“No, I won't calm down. Tell me what the hell happened.”

He sighed. “After Reznick spoke to you earlier, he complained of being unwell. Dizzy. Nauseous. The doctors examined him. They said he was mentally and physically exhausted. Traumatised by what he'd been through. They prescribed a couple of sleeping tablets so he could sleep the rest of the day.”

Meyerstein closed her eyes for a moment and groaned.

“It appears Reznick went for a lie down in a quiet room. But when someone went to check on him a short while ago, they found out he was gone.”

“Well, that's just great. You wanna explain how he's gone?”

“I mean he pushed back some ceiling tiles, and escaped out of the main part of the hospital. A soldier's civilian clothes are missing from a locker along with his car. We think Reznick just drove out the front gate.”

“You better be kidding me, Reed.”

“Afraid not. It's a fuck up, I know.”

“I'll deal with this later. Alert the team about Reznick.”

“What do you think he's gonna do?”

“I just hope he stays in Florida. I've got enough on my plate to last a lifetime.”

She ended the call. Almost immediately the phone rang again.

“Martha, we got something else.” It was Freddie Limonton. “We've cracked it!”

“Give me what you've got.”

“We've analysed the conversation decrypted by Wesley. We've gone over every word, every phrase. Then gone over it again and again. We missed it at first.”

Meyerstein groaned as Limonton talked around the subject as usual, instead of getting to the point. “Go on.”

“It's an embedded message within the audio signal.”

Meyerstein felt her stomach tighten. She knew how good Freddie Limonton and his team were. “What does it contain?”

“The conversation is banal. The sort of conversation which no one would give a second thought to, right?”

Meyerstein ground her teeth in frustration as she waited for Limonton to get to the point. “Could this have been intended for Caan?”

“You got it. Caan is super bright. If he had a decoder and the cell phone number of the guy who made the call, with his knowledge, this is a serious possibility.”

“OK, explain.”

“This is classic stuff. When we were running the tests for the voices and the conversation, we found that there was a short data message hidden within the conversation Wesley had decrypted. Data hiding in audio signals is incredibly challenging as it covers such a wide range.”

“I need to know what it contained, Freddie.”

“I'm getting to that. Martha, I've just been told you're on your way to Washington, right?”

“That's right.”

“The embedded message was hiding a target address in Washington.”

“Where?”

Limonton let out a long sigh. “Two South Rotary Road.”

“Where the hell is that?”

“It's the postal address for the Pentagon Metro station.”

A short while later, as the
Gulfstream
headed south en route to Washington DC, the most senior officials from each government agency were on the secure video conferencing facility. The bank of TV screens in the plane came on, showing the dark-panelled White House secure videoconference center, which was located on the ground floor of the West Wing. It showed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA Director and the National Security Adviser among others. Separate screens showed her team within the SIOC command center on the fifth floor at the FBI HQ in Washington.

Meyerstein took a deep breath to calm her nerves.

Richard Blake, the chair at the White House secure video conferencing center, spoke first. “Let's begin. We'll do this in crisis mode. So, keep your microphones off unless you're speaking. If you want to speak, simply raise your hand. Let's not talk over each other. OK, Assistant Director Meyerstein has a critical update for us. Martha, we're all yours.”

“Thank you, Richard. OK, let's start with the facts. There has been one partially successful bio-attack in the evacuated building in lower Manhattan, which housed the New York field office. If we hadn't got there, if there had been no evacuation, if the ventilation system had been on, we would have been looking at thousands of casualties, spreading this virus like no one's business. As it stands, one guy in a bio-suit got it straight in the face. But we shouldn't be complacent. Now, we are looking for a Scott Caan. If you check your monitors, you can see the before and after pictures we have of him. He has undergone non-invasive cosmetic surgery.”

Blake put up his hand as others scribbled notes.

“Yeah, Richard, go right ahead.”

“Why are we so off the pace, Martha? It's like we're chasing shadows.”

“I'm well aware of that,” she said, brushing aside the thinly veiled criticism. “But we are where we are. We found our scientist who may be only a matter of hours from recreating the formula for the anti-viral drugs and a vaccine. We have Caan's new identity and we have his destination. Thanks to some brilliant decryption and computer specialists and an ex-NSA guy – Thomas Wesley – who gave his life trying to alert the authorities, we have made a major breakthrough. Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that there is going to be a biological attack on the Pentagon Metro station in Washington DC.”

An audible gasp could be heard from the video conferencing facility at the White House followed by a show of hands.

“I'll deal with queries in a moment. Now, as you'll know, this metro station is adjacent to the Pentagon, underground. But whilst there used to be a direct and secure entrance from the Metro to the Pentagon, that obviously changed after 9/11. Access to the Pentagon is from a new secured entrance above ground near the bus depot. We believe Scott Caan is planning to release this virus in the Metro. She saw Dr Horowitz's hand was up and she pointed at him. “Adam, go right ahead.”

Horowitz sighed heavily. “My team has talked through the scenarios until we're blue in the face. Bottom line? We believe Caan may change tack. Whilst he used aerosol devices in the air ducts, I believe that if the Pentagon Metro station is the target, and he's mobile, he'll be carrying the virus in small lightweight containers. I think he'll release the virus on the train tracks or on to an escalator leading to the Pentagon concourse, perhaps a crowded carriage. He'll either discreetly smash the containers or simply open them to release the bio-material.”

A ripple of turbulence shook the plane as Meyerstein nodded. “The rushing trains would help keep the virus aloft and efficiently spread the bacteria around the platform and it would take the virus right into the heart of the Pentagon unseen by its thousands of employees, right?”

Horowitz nodded. “That is the scenario my analysts and I envisage.”

Meyerstein had read about the scenario. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “As some of you may know, this scenario mirrors a secret military experiment in 1966 – which no doubt Caan would have been aware of – when a seemingly benign virus…”

Horotwitz interjected. “Bacillus subtilis var niger 3. This was meant to simulate Anthrax spores which were dispensed throughout the New York City subway system. This was done ironically by army scientists – just like Caan – who dropped light bulbs filled with a harmless bacteria through ventilation grates onto the tracks to see how easy it would be to expose large number of strangers to a lethal germ.”

Meyerstein put up her hand and Horowitz went quiet. “If this virus was allowed to escape in the carriages and tunnels of the Metro, and infect the Pentagon workers riding the Metro, then, unbeknown to them, they are potentially infecting each and every person who works at the Pentagon. Within a matter of days, the Department of Defense HQ may be wiped out. Nearly twenty-three thousand staff.”

Blake leaned back in his seat and shook his head. “In the name of God.”

A few moments later, once the enormity of what they faced had sunk in and everyone had composed themselves, Horowitz answered a few more technical queries about the virus and when the anti-virals and vaccine would be ready, Meyerstein took questions for another fifteen minutes, most focussed on the whereabouts of Scott Caan. The tone was business-like and brisk. No one was panicking or pointing fingers. It was just a matter of let's find this guy, let's neutralise his threat and let's destroy the organisation and people behind this attack. A media blackout was agreed, as no one wanted widespread panic.

“One final thing,” Meyerstein said. “We need to shut down the Washington Metro system. We can blame electrical faults. But we've got to close it down until this threat has passed.”

Blake shook his head. “That's not gonna happen, Martha. If we closed it down the word would leak out why the whole Metro had ground to a halt. You could guarantee it. And then all hell would break loose.”

“I'm sorry, sir, and with respect, but we cannot have people riding the Metro until this threat is over.”

“The Pentagon is of the belief that if this gets into the hands of the transport authority, then it will definitely leak out. Mass panic guaranteed.”

Martha struggled to contain her fury. “Then it should be on a need to know basis. We need the cooperation of the Metro Transit Police. But we need to close down this threat.”

“Martha, the decision has been made. Fine, let one person at the transit police know. The chief. He'll cooperate. He's ex-army. But the Metro has to stay open or this whole thing will come out.”

“You can't think about it like that. The risk of people being infected is huge. And the personnel within the Pentagon. You can't risk this.”

“Martha, the decision's been made. Let's find this Scott Caan and neutralise him now.”

After the
Gulfstream
landed at Dulles, Meyerstein and her team were whisked the short distance to Arlington and then underground into the Pentagon Metro Station. She saw plain clothes FBI Special Weapons and Tactics operatives in evidence on the platform as she was taken to an office, which overlooked the platform.

A burly man stepped forward. It was Lester Michaels, chief of the Metro Transit Police. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “I was told you might have answers.”

Martha stared back at him. “I've checked your resume. You have classified clearance, you're former army intelligence; you know the drill, right?”

“That's right.”

“If this leaks out, you will be hung out to dry. Do you hear me?”

“Do you mind telling me what the situation is?”

“The situation is, we believe a man with bioweapons is planning to release them at this very station. We don't know when. Or even how. Now, have I got your attention and absolute cooperation?”

Michaels just nodded, expression neutral. “Most certainly. What do you want from us?”

“I believe you have counterterrorism officers on your team?”

“Twenty.”

“I want them all assigned to only the line through Pentagon Metro. I want them to work alongside the FBI on this very sensitive operation. Can you do that?”

“I can do that.”

Meyerstein handed him a printout of Scott Caan, before and after. “This is the guy. He's white. In his thirties. Has had non-invasive surgery in the last forty-eight hours.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Botox injections, collagen filler around his cheeks, nose job. Should be noticeable, although he might be wearing a hat, maybe a wig, makeup. We need to neutralise him. He may be carrying containers of biomatter which he intends to release in carriages, perhaps on the station concourse.”

He looked at the photos and shook his head. “Is this for real? This ain't some dumbass training exercise is it?”

“Sadly, this is as real as it gets.”

Her cell phone rang interrupting the conversation and she signalled that she needed to take the call. “Yeah, Meyerstein speaking?”

“How are you?” It was Reznick.

She placed a finger in her ear to block out a train pulling up. “I'm sorry, this isn't a good time.” A rumbling sound in the background. “Jon, where are you?”

“In Washington, the same as you.”

Meyerstein froze. “What are you talking about?”

“Why don't you come out and ask me?”

Meyerstein looked at a monitor showing the platform and gasped. Staring back up at her was Jon Reznick, cell phone pressed to his ear.

THIRTY-ONE

Two Feds both sporting dark overcoats walked up to Reznick as a phalanx of officers surrounded Meyerstein. The taller of the two Feds stood in front of Reznick. He had to be at least six nine and weighed over two hundred and twenty pounds.

“We need to search you,” he said.

Reznick put his hands on his head. “Go right ahead.”

The man expertly patted the angles and rifled through Reznick's jacket pockets. He produced the miniature GPS receiver and the cell phone. He handed them over to his colleague who bagged the items. “Now, I'm going to search you once again for hidden weapons. Are we OK with that?”