Lethal Dose (24 page)

50

The ultimatum to the American government arrived in a small package enclosed in a plain brown wrapper. It was addressed to J. D. Rothery, Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, L'Enfant Plaza, Washington, D.C. Standard security measures ensured that the package was X-rayed, opened, and the first ten seconds of the enclosed DVD viewed to make sure it was a functioning disk. When the security personnel saw the contents of the disk, the wrapper was immediately placed in a sterile plastic bag and the DVD tested for traces of biological agents. The moment it had a clear bill of health, it was rushed to Rothery's office.

The DHS chief had been contacted and was aware that the disk would be forwarded when it had cleared security; he had advised his colleagues at the FBI, CIA, and NSA that the disk would be in his DVD player the second it arrived. All three men were present. Also watching as the disk was slipped into the machine were Dr. Edward Henning and Annette Jordan. Rothery dimmed the lights and sat back to watch.

The scene on the television was a small concrete room painted gray. There were no distinguishing marks anywhere on the wall. Centered in the screen was a solitary figure wrapped in a floating robe typical of desert dwellers, with a mask concealing his facial features. His hands were enclosed in gloves and no portion of his skin was visible. When he spoke, it was in fluent English with a trace of an Arabic accent.

“I'm not going to bother spouting rhetoric about how the American government and the American people have interfered in global situations that were not their concern. That is a proven fact. That you have caused the death of many Arabs under the guise of branding all of us terrorists is also a fact. That you befriend the Israeli peoples while their armed forces launch missile raids against civilians in Gaza is merely another fact in a list that is much too long. You have repeatedly stuck your noses where they do not belong. You have caused us to raise our arms against you. You have been the harbinger of your own fate.”

The masked figure shifted slightly, a small piece of paper visible in his left hand.“We are the Islamic Front for Justice, an organization that would prefer peaceful means to our ends, but we are also realists. The United States does not recognize such actions, only ones in which your people are threatened. So we must do what is necessary to gain your attention. We have in our possession a large quantity of a hemorrhagic virus that we are ready to release among your population. To date, we have infected four sites in four different ways, just to show you that we are capable of spreading this virus amongst your population if we wish. To prove it was us who inflicted these casualties, we wrote something inside the case of soda that infected the Boy Scouts in Boston.” He consulted the piece of paper in his hand.

“ ‘A small mouse can cause great damage if let loose in the elephant's tent.' ”

He closed his hand on the paper and continued. “This recording will be delivered to you on Friday, September sixteenth. You have one week to comply with our demands. At midnight on Friday, September twenty-third, we will begin an all-out assault on the American people. The extent of the damage will be far beyond what you can imagine. Our method of delivering the virus into your population is unstoppable. Once it is released, countless millions will die.

“The death of innocent American citizens is not our primary goal. We have demands which, if met, will cause us to cease this course of actions. Our demands are not unreasonable. First, you will deliver one billion five hundred million U.S. dollars to a location that I will advise you of later. Second, you will release a political prisoner. Just one. His name is Alisama alZawami. You are holding him in a secret location in Montreal, Canada. The world thinks al-Zawami is dead, but we know differently. You have kept him captive, without trial, for over two years. It is time for you to release him.

“These demands are not negotiable. If you choose not to deal with us in a civilized manner, we will have no alternative but to inflict incredible casualties on your population. We will be in contact with you again soon, Mr. Rothery.”

The screen went black. J. D. Rothery walked across the room and switched on the lights. “How the hell does this guy know about al-Zawami?” he asked the room in general.

No one spoke for a few seconds. Tony Warner asked, “Who is this al-Zawami person?”

Rothery returned to his seat. He glanced at Jim Allenby and Craig Simms, but neither man spoke. “We captured Alisama alZawami about twenty-six months ago when we raided an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. It was simply a stroke of incredibly good luck. It was a joint operation with the FBI and the CIA, so Jim and Craig are in the loop on this one. This guy is one of the silent al-Qaeda leaders—not well known, but very intelligent and focused. He isn't as militant as many other al-Qaeda leaders and has even suggested mediation to some problems rather than violence. We consider him to be a highly influential moderate in the al-Qaeda organization.”

“Then why would this Islamic Front for Justice want him and only him released?” Warner asked.

“No idea,” Rothery said.

“The guy on this DVD sounded more like a moderate than an extremist,” Jim Allenby said. “His tone was conciliatory, like he wanted to negotiate, not just release the virus.”

“Perhaps,” Rothery said. “I'll have some experts watch the footage and see if they can figure out who this guy is or where he came from. But the bottom line is we still don't negotiate with terrorists.”

“But this time you're in a position where you can negotiate without anyone ever knowing,” Craig Simms said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?” Rothery asked.

“These guys have asked for one-point-five billion in cash. That can be done on the sly without causing a lot of ripples. And so far as releasing al-Zawami, no one knows we have him. We could do it quietly, and nobody outside a very small circle would ever know we had met their demands.”

“They
would know,” Allenby shot back at the CIA chief. “And they would let every terrorist cell out there know they'd been successful. And that would just open the door to more of the same thing. I'm against giving these bastards the time of day, let alone over a billion dollars and one of their key personnel. Just think of what they could do with one-point-five billion. Christ, they could arm thousands of nutcases, buy state-of-the-art guided-missile systems to use against our fighter jets and airliners, and then, don't forget, they've still got the virus. Who's to say they don't just play this whole scenario out again in a year or two?”

“Jesus, Jim. They're threatening to unleash a plague on the country. Try to keep that in mind. The stakes here are extremely high. This isn't just black and white. It's very gray.” Craig Simms's face was red as he glared at his FBI counterpart.

“Keep in mind you're not the only one with a family, Craig,” Allenby said icily.

“Okay, enough,” Rothery said. “We've got a problem, and now we've got a deadline. We know when they plan to release the virus and we know what their demands are. So right now, we're in a better position than we were an hour ago.” He rose and paced about the room. “Straight off the top, this information remains inside this room. There will be no mention of the deadline to the press or to any member of your staff without top-level clearance. Is this clearly understood?” Everyone in the room nodded silently.

“Jim, this is going to fall mostly on yours and my shoulders, as the threat is inside our borders. Craig, we'll be looking for everything you can give us, despite the fact that the CIA is prohibited from using their powers domestically. Tony, get your rocket scientists at Crypto-City to calculate every conceivable method of releasing this virus on a mass scale. Every time you get another new scenario, forward it to Jim's office. Jim, you take the information from NSA and run with it. If they say that the virus could be introduced through contaminated cups at Starbucks, get to the factory that makes the cups and check it out. Nothing falls through the cracks.

“Tony, I want you to follow up with the pharmaceutical companies trying to decode this virus. Especially GlasoKlan. They were the ones who had identified the nucleic acid genome. Stay on top of every advance these research groups make. If we can come up with a method to fight this virus, we've got bargaining power with these guys.” He stopped pacing for a moment and turned to Edward Henning. “Dr. Henning, what's your take on all this? How much danger are we in?”

Henning was thoughtful and took a few seconds to choose his words. When he spoke, it was in a clear and concise manner. “We are in very serious trouble, Mr. Under Secretary. If the terrorists are serious about releasing the virus in one week, their method of doing so is probably already in place. It may be too late, even for them, to stop it. And although they appeared quite composed and ready to bargain in good faith, I doubt that is the case. My feeling is that no matter what you do, they're going to release the virus.”

The room was absolutely silent.

“In my opinion,” Henning said quietly, “you have only one option. Find something to combat this virus.”

“And if we can't?” Rothery said.

“Then be prepared for the terrorists to unleash the virus. And be prepared for it to be a lethal dose.”

51

Jennifer finished the last of her twenty-five laps in the pool and toweled off. The sun was hot for mid-September and the mercury was static at eighty-nine. Logically, September should be hot; technically, it was still summer until the twenty-first. She wrapped the towel around her waist, walked barefoot back through the lobby, and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Gordon let her in when she knocked.

She dressed and dried her hair, put on a few touches of makeup, and joined Gordon at the small table next to the bed. He was splitting his time between the computer, which was tied in to the Internet, and the television, which was locked on CNN. It was the top of the hour and a serious-looking man in his thirties was giving an update on the biological terrorist threat. Jennifer stood next to Gordon and watched the broadcast with her hand on his shoulder.

“There are conflicting reports as to whether the government task force, headed by J.D. Rothery of the Department of Homeland Security, has actually received demands from a group calling themselves the Islamic Front for Justice. Rothery and his counterparts from the FBI, CIA, and NSA are all denying there has been any communication. But CNN has information that appears to be authentic that indicates Rothery's task force was issued an ultimatum yesterday. The ultimatum contains two as yet unknown demands with a deadline of September twenty-third. If that is true, the government has six days to avert what could become al-Qaeda's deadliest strike against Americans on their own soil. When asked about the ultimatum, Rothery's reply was terse.”

Rothery appeared on the screen walking into L'Enfant Plaza. The small printing in the corner read, “Saturday, September 17, 11 A.M.,” two hours earlier. Rothery did not stop moving as the reporter asked him about the demands but shot back a barbed reply. “I don't know where you guys are getting your information, but you're going to panic a lot of people for no reason.” The camera caught his back as he entered the building and then the screen flashed back to the reporter.

“This is Jason Langen reporting from Washington, D.C.”

Gordon set his hand on Jennifer's and they interlocked fingers. “This is getting serious,” he said. “That Rothery guy looks pretty stressed.”

“He's in the hot seat, all right. I wouldn't want to be him right now.”

Gordon turned slightly to face her. “I've been surfing through some of the files on Enron and I've got an idea.”

“What's that?” she asked, sitting on his knee.

“The securities commission are the big dogs here. They're the ones who can bite. If we give them what we've got on Veritas, it'll turn the heat on Andrews. He'll be too busy trying to patch things up before the commission begins a formal investigation to worry about us. And once the securities auditors get their noses into the books, Andrews is in serious trouble.”

She nodded. “That's an excellent idea. Too bad today is Saturday. We'll have to wait until Monday to call them.”

“You think it might cause him some grief?” Gordon asked.

“Absolutely. I can't believe I didn't think of that. Turning the securities commission loose on him is brilliant. Once we've got him on the defensive, we can get whatever information we have on the murders to the police. He's not as likely to try to kill us once we've pointed a very public finger at him. He'd be the prime suspect if we disappeared.”

“Okay, that gives us Albert, Kenga, and Wes Connors, who were all murdered. A competent homicide investigator could probably tie each of those murders back to Andrews.”

“And add to that we know the murder of that family in Denver is somehow tied to Bruce Andrews. He probably killed that man because he let me live.” She felt a shudder up her spine at the thought. She lived and he died. No mercy in Bruce Andrews's books. “God, his whole family is dead.”

“He brought that on himself,” Gordon said. “If he wasn't involved with Andrews, it would never have happened. He might have been the person who killed Kenga Bakcsi and Albert Rousseau. You'll probably never know how deeply involved he was.”

“You're right. Okay, Monday it is. We put a call in to the securities commission and give them everything we've got on Bruce Andrews and Veritas.”

Gordon smiled at her enthusiasm. It was good to hear a positive tone in her voice again. “Monday, then,” he said.

52

Keith Thompson arrived at J.D. Rothery's office early Sunday morning with a thick file under his arm. His normal cheerful disposition was muted, his face showing more age lines than his thirty-three years should. His Scandinavian heritage showed through in his blond hair and blue eyes, and he wore baggy black pants and a T-shirt, his usual attire for the office. That he had a one-on-one meeting with one of the most influential men in the Department of Homeland Security meant little to him. What was in his file was all that was on his mind.

Thompson was an expert on cultures and linguistics, a product of the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He was widely acknowledged as the school's leading expert on Arabic studies, including nuances in the Arabic language that give clues to the person's origin. He officially worked for the Central Intelligence Agency but was often on loan to the other intelligence-gathering agencies that spent their time trying to keep America a safe place to live. Today he was on loan to DHS.

Rothery glanced up from his desk as Thompson entered. They had met before on a few occasions, and the science and technology chief greeted the linguistics expert with a casual handshake. “Nice haircut,” Rothery said. On their previous meetings, Thompson's hair had been shoulder length.

“Kids kept pulling it,” he said, sitting in one of the wingback chairs facing Rothery's desk. “And it hurt.”

Rothery managed a hint of a smile. “What have you got for me?” he asked.

Thompson shook his head. “This is the weirdest tape I've ever been asked to dissect,” he said, withdrawing two copies of a six-page report he had prepared for Rothery. He kept one and handed the other across the desk. “Straight off the top, I have no idea what kind of accent this guy is speaking with. In fact, my guess is that English is his first language.”

“What?” Rothery said, looking up from the typed pages. “What are you saying?”

“People of Arabic descent who grow up with their mother tongue have certain intonations and inflections to their speech, just as people who grow up speaking English or French have. This fellow has an Arabic accent, but his speech patterns are that of an English-speaking person who has learned Arabic as a second language, then spent time in that culture, allowing an accent to creep into his speech.”

“English was his first language?” Rothery asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“There are a lot of second-and third-generation Arabs who were born in the United States and raised to speak English, then who learned Arabic later in life. I would suspect our guy is one of those. And by his choice of words, he's an educated man—my guess is a prominent American University.”

“He's an American?”

Thompson shrugged. “I can't say for certain what his citizenship is, but my feeling is that he was raised in America. In fact, I'd say he was from the eastern region of the country and schooled at Harvard or some school of similar stature.”

Rothery leaned forward, the veins on his forehead throbbing. “Tell me how you know this, Keith.”

“The first clue is the word ‘rhetoric.' I've never heard an Arab use that particular word. They don't consider their words or their message to be simply rhetoric; they consider them to be the law according to Mohammed. The second word that's totally out of context is ‘guise.' ‘That you have caused the death of many Arabs under the guise of branding all of us terrorists is also a fact.'” Thompson read the line from the script. “To the radical Arabs, the Americans are not acting under any sort of guise. They perceive that we act under our own set of rules, with complete disregard for anyone else. We answer only to ourselves, not to the peoples of the world or to God.”

Rothery interjected a thought. “But to an Arab sympathizer who was raised in America, that person would see the American involvement in tracking down Arab terrorists as subversive at times. Do what we can to get the bastards, and if a few innocent Arabs are thrown in the mixture, who cares.”

“Exactly. Our guy has a definite North American slant to his thinking. Then he uses a triad.”

“A what?”

“A triad. That's when you say the same phrase, or portion of a phrase, three times for impact.” Again, Thompson consulted the text from the speech. “‘You have repeatedly stuck your noses where they do not belong. You have caused us to raise our arms against you. You have been the harbinger of your own fate.'” He looked up from the page. “I've heard Arabs use the same words to hammer home a point, but never with such precision. This guy uses the triad as a polished public speaker would.

“Then he goes on to say that they would prefer a peaceful solution to the issue. Since when does a terrorist cell prepare a major strike against the United States, then tell us they don't want to hurt us? It makes no sense. And there's more. He uses the word ‘hemorrhagic' when describing the virus. Most radicals would simply say they are going to unleash a plague on us. ‘Plague' is a much more powerful word. And then there's the strangest part of the whole speech.”

“What's that?” Rothery asked.

Thompson read from the transcript. “‘First, you will deliver one billion five hundred million U.S. dollars to a location that I will advise you of later.'” He looked up at Rothery.

“So…” Rothery said.

“He refers to himself as ‘I,' not ‘we.' I have never, and I stress never, heard that before. These terrorists are groups of like-minded radicals brought together to achieve a common goal. They don't refer to themselves as ‘I.' Never.”

“So what have we got on our hands, Keith?”

Thompson sat the file on the table next to the chair. “You've got an American of questionable Arab descent who doesn't want to kill millions of Americans, but who will if you don't meet his demands. He's ready to do it, of that I'm sure. But capitulate to his two conditions and I think this guy will back off.”

“You keep referring to him as ‘this guy' You think it's just one person?”

“God, no. He's got a network of some sort in place, but I don't think it's a cohesive terrorist cell in the sense that we're used to. In this case, he's in charge and the rest of the members of the cell are subservient.”

“How do we catch him?”

“That's tough. He's going to be completely invisible. He grew up in America, he's well educated, and he can probably blend in to almost any setting. He has resources at his command and is well organized. Personally, given the time frames he's got you under, I don't think you
can
find him. I think he's got you. And he's given you the opportunity to meet his demands without the American public ever finding out you acquiesced.”

“So he's smart.”

“Extremely.”

Rothery steepled his fingers and gave Keith Thompson a long, hard look. Finally, he said, “Okay, Keith, thanks for the quick work. You've done an excellent job.” He stood up and offered his hand.

“Good luck, sir,” Thompson said as he left.

Rothery walked to his window and looked out over the nation's capital. The Sunday-morning traffic on Seventh Street was light. People sleeping in, going to church, spending time with their families. Normal things to do on a Sunday. But what would next Sunday bring? And the Sunday after that? If the virus was released in six days, by next Sunday morning, innocent people would be infected. And by the following Sunday, they would be dead. And countless more people would be infected.

Somewhere out there was a single person with enough hatred to put this scenario in motion. And that person was American. And invisible. Christ, this whole thing was spiraling out of control. And as things stood right now, he had almost nothing to work with.

Jim Allenby had initiated a cohesive effort within the FBI and had freed up agents for the sole purpose of working the virus crisis. The new information from Keith Thompson would be a boon to Allenby's task force. At least they now knew that the man they were searching for was an American of Arab descent. And one with resources. The list would be long and the hunt arduous, but now they had a target.

Craig Simms was still livid over his organization's losing the clandestine intel the labs had been providing. But the CIA had taken its kicks and survived in the past, and they would do so again. Simms was monitoring all international communications between known terrorist organizations, listening for something that might point them to the source of the virus. Now, with Thompson's take on the DVD footage, Simms would have to realign his agents.

And Tony Warner and his staff over at the National Security Agency were suddenly of great importance. The scientists at Crypto-City were without peer when it came to deciphering codes and sorting data. Given the profile, they could search the nation's data banks for possible suspects and forward that information to Jim Allenby at the Bureau.

As Rothery reached for the phone to call together the key personnel in his task force, he had one thought. Maybe, just maybe, things weren't as bleak as they seemed.

It was a big maybe.