Code Alpha
by
Joseph Massucci

To Patricia

A LEISURE BOOK" February 1997

Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue New York,
NY 10001

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware
that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and
destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher
has received any payment for this "stripped book."

Copyright 1997 by Joseph Massucci
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher,
except where permitted by law.

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "I" with design are trademarks
of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Prologue.

U.S. Army BL-4 Biological Laboratory Fort Detrick, Maryland

Monday, January 11

"We've got a breach!"

A horn blared in the lab's staging area, synchronized with a flashing
red light. Both technicians were on their feet, checking the rows of
screens on the tactical console. "Do we have contamination?"

"Checking."

There came a high-pitched whine, followed by a metallic click. "Autolock
sequence complete."

"Jesus, he's sealed inside."

Burns, the center's chief engineer, pushed his wire frame glasses up the
bridge of his nose as he spun around to one of the computer monitors.
"Talk to me, Ricky; what kind of situation do we have in there?"

Rick, the youngest technician to be assigned to Fort Detrick's maximum
containment laboratory, jabbed one reset button after another, checking
and rechecking the readouts. "I'm not getting anything."

Burns switched on the scanner. "Air particulates?"

"Zero. The air's clean. Whatever's happening in there is not in the
air."

"He hit the manual alarm--must've torn his suit." Burns checked the
video monitor and saw Dr. David French inside the BL-4 "hot suite"
hunched over a lab bench like a nearsighted jeweler. He appeared to be
cradling his arm, but Burns couldn't be sure because of the camera's
angle. He punched the intercom. "Doctor, talk to me."

No answer. "Jesus," Rick said, "he isn't moving."

"I want you to get the colonel down here fast." There was genuine fear
in Rick's eyes as he bolted from the lab's staging area, his footsteps
echoing down the cinderblock corridor. Burns pulled the receiver to his
ear, nearly ripping the cord out of the wall. ' "Security, we have a
Code Seventeen SIGMA alarm in BL-4. Repeat, a Code Seventeen SIGMA alarm
in BL-4. Auto containment procedure completed."

Burns could hear a thin voice on the other end asking questions, but the
siren masked the meaning of the words. He put a finger into his left ear
and shouted, "I can't hear you. We have a Code Seventeen down here. Dr.
French needs assistance, for chrissake. He may have breached his suit."
Burns glanced up at the closed-circuit monitor. One of the cameras was
still trained on the lab bench, but he could not see Dr. French. "Get
Colonel Westbrook down here now!"

Julie Martinelli burst into the staging area, her white lab coat flowing
behind her like a cape, her hard-soled shoes pounding the grated
flooring. "What's happened?" she shouted over the siren. "Where's Dr.
French?"

"Inside," Burns said. "He's locked inside."

Julie scanned the monitors and checked the readouts. "There's no air
contamination. What the hell is he doing in there?"

"He hit the alarm," Burns shouted over the din. "I can't hear a thing."
Julie punched a console button and silenced the siren; the red light,
however, would keep flashing until the center's commander reset the
security system. "I don't see him." Julie panned the lab's two cameras
first one way, then the other. "Where the hell is he?"

Burns shrugged. "He was at his lab bench a moment ago."

"David?" Julie said into the intercom. "Can you answer me please?"

Still no answer. "I've got a bad feeling about this. I don't like the
way he's been acting--that detached look of his, always in his own world
like he's plotting something." Julie zoomed one of the camera's lenses
in on Dr. French's lab bench and panned slowly. She could see the active
gamma radiation unit ...  the beakers ... the vials labeled group a
streptococcal virus. ... "David, you stupid son of a bitch." Julie
removed her lab coat and opened a suit locker with a bang. Burns reeled
away from the console. "May I ask what you're doing?"

She stepped into the one-piece, full-body polyurethane laboratory suit,
a second skin she always called her prophylactic overcoat, and pulled it
up to her waist. "I'm going inside."

"You're not going-anywhere," Burns said. "Only the colonel can reset
that door. Besides, security's on its way."

"I'm not waiting."

Burns stood defiantly in her way. "You don't have much--"

"Excuse me, please." Julie pushed past him and took a seat before one of
the three computer workstations and brought up the lab's security
interface. ACCESS CONTROL CODE?

"Don't even think about it," Burns said. "The colonel gets a little
testy when grad students start decompiling his security system's
computer code."

She began typing, then entering, typing, entering. LAB ACCESS DENIED
More typing. MACRO COMPILED--PROCEED?

"Yes, please," she said to the screen, then jabbed the enter key. PLEASE
WATT "Julie, you're making me very nervous," Burns said, watching her.
MACRO COMPLETED "Piece of cake," she said, then entered a final command.
AUTHORIZED "Yes!"

"You're going to get my ass canned," Burns said. Julie pulled the lab
suit over her shoulders and thrust her arms into the sleeves, then
fumbled to put each finger into the proper glove digit. Finished, she
put on the hood and sealed it. She spun the releasing wheel on the
vaultlike door until it pulled forward with a loud hiss. "If the colonel
ever gets his ass down here, tell him I've got one huge problem for him
to handle."

"Are you going to clue me in on what's--" Julie closed the
fourteen-inch-thick, two-ton, stainless-steel door behind her with a
mechanical click. Burns shook his head and said to no one in particular,
"You're a very dangerous young woman."

Inside the lab, Julie attached her suit to one of the springcoiled air
hoses hanging from the ceiling. The air supply hissed loudly in her
ears, and the magnified view through her face shield distorted objects
beyond arm's length. The maximum containment laboratory was a
claustrophobic compartment of centrifuges, incubators, freezers, benches
and computing workstations. Cluttered, but very high-tech. Her eyes
scanned the lab and saw no one. Above the even rhythm of her amplified
breathing, she could hear Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 22 flowing from a
dictating cassette recorder. "David?"

No response. Julie stepped awkwardly to the lab bench. Her deep brown
eyes scanned the bench's culture dishes, beakers ...  the active gamma
radiation unit ...  the syringe ... then across the rack of vials
labeled group a streptococcal virus and a second labeled tetrodotoxin.
She began sweating inside the suit. "God Almighty--" "My ... head
hurts."

Julie whirled with a start. She recognized Dr. French's features inside
his suit--his shaved head, his magnificent handlebar mustache. But
something was wrong; she could see his contorted expression beneath his
magnifying face shield, which made his eyes look like a pair of poached
eggs. Her anger swelled. "You son of a bitch. You did it, didn't you?"

She expected him to begin reciting one of his world-class philosophical
lectures about stretching the limits of the scientific envelope. But he
said nothing to her. Julie began shouting at him, "David, you made me a
promise. ..."

She grew suddenly quiet. Her wide eyes stared at the drop of blood
beading atop the fingertip of French's white polyurethane glove. A shot
of adrenaline rushed through Julie's arteries, exploding in a tingling
sensation at the roots of her hair. Was he even aware? she thought.
"Your finger ..."

He held out his finger to her as though it belonged to a helpless lab
animal he had just infected. "Stupid ... so stupid ...  a small
distraction ... I never felt the needle."

Julie touched his shoulder. "I'll take you into deconnnnnnn ..."

A ringing in Dr. French's ears made Julie's voice sound as though it
came from the far end of a deep tunnel. His vision blurred and a wave of
nausea swept through him. Sweat drenched the inside of his suit. He
forced a pathetic smile. "There's an army of red ants burrowing through
my brain."

"Davvviiiiiddddddddddd ... ?"

Dr. French stared at her, his lower lip quivering. The sublime beauty of
Mozart's concerto turned to discordant banging in his ears. "Julie, my
head hurts--" His chest tightened as though in a vise, and he coughed,
speckling his face shield with blood-laden mucus. He reached for a row
of bottles on the table and realized to his horror that his hand no
longer was his own. Julie stared transfixed at his trembling and
twitching fingers. His arm began to undulate, wavy movements like those
of an inept exotic dancer. He had lost all muscular control. "Gancie ...
gancic ... gancic  ..." He couldn't form the word. Julie grabbed the
doctor firmly by his shoulders and tried to ease him back onto a lab
stool. The violent energy flooding his body caused him to lash out at
her, catching her Plexiglas face shield at the chin. The blow drove her
backward onto one of the lab's two scanning tunneling microscopes,
rocking the seven-hundred-pound instrument. He could only watch,
astonished, at what he had just done; he felt no exertion at all. French
collapsed in a heap, his face a grimacing mask of agony, his arms and
legs flailing in a thrashing dance of death. He grabbed his suit at the
neck and pulled it downward as though it were a bib, splitting the
material. "The heat ...  the awful heat!"

Julie, incredulous, watched as radical dehydration shrank the biochemist
into a wizened caricature of his former self. Ruptured capillaries
turned his skin black and blue. Patterns of bodily decay were
exacerbated and accelerated, as in a timelapse film, detailing the
organism's utter devastation. She stepped timidly back. "David ... you
stupid son of a bitch ..."

Finally Dr. French grew still--it was over. He lay heaped in a twisted
pile, the air flow from the ceiling-mounted hose giving his pulsating
suit an illusion of life. Red and yellow sap oozed from the suit's tear,
forming a loathsome puddle around him. Julie knelt down and, breathing
deeply, peered through the face shield at what was left of the doctor's
face. His eyes flared open and gazed up at her through the magnified
face shield. Those eyes! His face--a visage bubbling with
secretions--had forfeited any claim to humanity. Dr. French had
literally melted inside his suit. His rubber hand grabbed her wrist with
fingers that still possessed surprising strength. As she watched in
horror, the ravaged flesh parted where the mouth should have been and
tried to form words, failing miserably. The foul moan that erupted from
his throat sounded like the last breath of a dying wolf. Julie cried
out. No sound at all penetrated the lab's fourteeninch-thick metal
walls.

PART ONE The Winds of Death "I thought we had banished forever what we
all saw only a few months ago--a mother trying to protect her child,
waving her arms against the invisible winds of death." --President
George Bush

Chapter One.

Kumar, Iraq

Tuesday, January 12

Five miles outside the settlement, Tarra saw the first signs that
something had gone terribly wrong: the fine bleached sand, swept up by a
caravan of vehicles, veiled a procession of people and machines
withdrawing from what could only be a battlefield. She drove past the
surviving settlers--a few old men and motherless children, their heads
swathed in cloths. Some of them wept bitterly; most simply walked in
stunned disbelief. She drove past the soldiers dragging their rifles,
retreating from an enemy their weapons could not touch. Finally her Jeep
swept past the doctors and engineers, their solutions all proven
impotent against the invader. But this was not war. Tarra drove on. She
knew the desert well and navigated the Jeep with precision across its
uneven roads. The desert was her home, and the price she had paid for
growing up a rebellious desert child was the loss of her femininity to a
tigerlike constitution. She negotiated the trail's curves too fast,
chasing knots of dazed refugees up the dunes. She laughed at them all.
Some men found her attractive--and so she was, with seductive features,
short black hair and deep green eyes that could impale you. Tarra's
attraction was not the allure gallant men dueled over; her beauty
mirrored a feline in the wild, an animal that could not be tamed. Nor
would any want to--her vicious contempt for men was legend in the
region. Tarra jerked the Jeep to a halt at the edge of the settlement, a
collection of meager huts hastily cordoned off with thick spools of
barbed wire and splashes of red paint denoting some cryptic Arabic
warning. She dared go no farther. Tarra turned to her lone passenger and
smiled at him, her piercing eyes eager. For this lone man she harbored
no contempt, only unyielding loyalty. He was a giant, intimidating to
look at, dressed in a tailored silk suit and a civil red tie that set
apart a dark face bloated by hatred. He responded to her mischievous
smile with un-Arabic frigidity. His name was Banna, and his interest in
the settlement was more than morbid curiosity. He stood, peeled off his
aviator-style sunglasses and raised a pair of high-powered binoculars to
his dark, distant eyes. He could hear wailing in the distance, a far-off
echo of mourning, but could not discern if the sound was human or
animal. He scanned the settlement, searching for clues to the tragedy.
To him this assessment was a game, a war exercise. At first he could see
nothing unusual, just neglected wood-and-straw structures that had
fought a generation-long war against the encroaching desert. Scores of
huts, undamaged, stood empty. He saw no people, no activity of any kind,
only sand; sand that lay in dunes and in rivulets; sand piled high
against buildings. He zoomed in on the dirt road that cut the settlement
in two. And then he saw them. Bodies. Dozens of them. Women huddled in
doorways clutching their children, men draped across the road reaching
futilely to help them. Carcasses of mules and dogs lay between them.
Kumar had become a settlement of corpses. Banna removed the binoculars
and let his war-trained mind consider how this could have happened.
Poisoned water?

No--death had come too quickly, too completely. An air strike? There
were no craters. The railroad. Banna focused the binoculars on a stretch
of open track atop the far ridge three hundred yards upwind of the tiny
settlement. Through the distant curtain of dust he could see the outline
of a diesel locomotive pulled to a halt and several derailed cars lying
in its wake. One was an overturned tank car for transporting hazardous
liquids, its lethal contents long emptied. The people of Kumar had been
unlucky. Their homes stood in the path of a wind that carried with it a
death far more lethal than an advancing army. He grinned, finding
amusement in this absurd tragedy; a man-made folly. "Abdul Banna!" a
voice called out to him. Banna whirled to see who had shouted his name
so openly. What he saw made him laugh loudly. There, walking toward him
along the barbed-wire barricade, were several soldiers dressed in
horrid-looking suits that allowed them to fight in a contaminated
environment. Their suits were thick and bulky, with gloves and boots to
match, each bearing the markings of Iraq's elite Republican Guard. But
it was those gas masks with their extended snout and large glass eyes
that would send children screaming for their mothers. The lead soldier
ordered the others to halt, while he alone approached the Jeep. The
soldier removed his mask and let out a weary sigh. He was sweating
terribly, the heavy suit consuming what little energy the day's events
had not already taken from him. It had been a long day, worse than any
he could remember in war. Banna knew this soldier. His name was Lt. Gen.
Wafiq Sabri, Iraq's military chief of staff. Banna could see that the
specter of another conflict with the West was killing him. "I do not
envy you, Sabri," Banna called down to him in Arabic. "But why do you
summon me here? This is not my problem."

General Sabri climbed into the back of the Jeep and sat down heavily
beside Banna, producing a cloud of dust from the leather seat. He
ordered the woman behind the wheel to leave them, more curtly than he
intended. Tarra looked questioningly at Banna. "She will stay," Banna
said. The general, not comfortable in the presence of a woman, nodded
wearily. He could not argue in the desert heat. "Tonight this settlement
will be buried and with it all that has happened here today. By morning
the train will finish its journey."

Banna shrugged. "Then what do you want from me?"

"Operation Harness. He wants it done just as you planned. Allah has
given us a unique opportunity. You are to begin immediately."

Banna allowed a wry smirk. "I admire the president's conviction. He has
conceded that his weapons and troops are useless to him."

"Your plan has given him new hope," Sabri said. "He will risk another
holy war. Another air attack is imminent, yet we cannot fight the
bandits in the sky and we have no navy. Our tanks are lost, our soldiers
beaten. Now the murderers will strike again, this time to destroy our
laboratories, which cannot yield enough uranium to power a clock. But
you--"he thrust a finger at Banna--"you are his secret weapon. You can
do what an army cannot. And may Allah save mankind from your wrath."

"I am only interested in his ability to pay."

General Sabri conceded with a nod. "The first eighty million pounds has
been paid into the London branch of the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International, just as you requested. You will report to me--"

"I will work with my own people. The plan is mine, as will be its
execution. I shall divulge the details of Harness to no one, least of
all to you. Once I leave here, you will not hear from me again. Like my
weapon, I shall become invisible. There is no turning back, Sabri. Tell
him he will have his victory."

The general and the mercenary stared at each other, two soldiers with
vastly different methods of warfare. Sabri knew there was no point
debating the matter further with this man; there was nothing left to
decide. A feeling of dread swelled within the general as he considered
how the world would soon change because of the man seated next to him.
He knew Banna was unstoppable, a warrior of great resources. He did not
doubt for a moment that his terrible plan would succeed. "Then let it be
done. May Allah be willing."

Banna scoffed at the general's prayer and wiped his forehead with a silk
handkerchief. This was not Allah's affair. This was an economic
decision--the Middle East nation could not defeat the alliance of force
the superpowers had rallied against it. The inevitable strike must be
done another way--Banna's way. Sabri's eyes grew distant, as though
blinded by the sun's reflection off the white sand. For a long moment he
sat there, absorbing the heat, and said nothing. Finally Banna said,
"There is one more item that is not for negotiation: You are never to
utter my name again."

Sabri understood; from this day Abdul Banna would cease to exist. "How
will you be known?"

"I have a passion for Greek mythology." Banna replaced his aviator
sunglasses and touched the chin of his charming Tarra. "Men dare not
look her in the face, except by degrees: they mistake her for a Gorgon,
instead of knowing her to be a Minerva."

She returned a devilish grin. "I will be Gorgon."

Chapter Two.

Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Thursday, January 14

Dr. Reinhard Sterling hailed the last cab outside Baltimore/ Washington
International Airport, tossed his carry-on travel bag and satchel into
the backseat and climbed in after them. He wanted to get far away from
airports, a sentiment most likely shared by his fellow travelers that
night on Lufthansa Flight 407 from Frankfurt. The flight had arrived
three and a half hours late, thanks to a bomb threat at the German
airport. Now he had to find his way to the U.S. capital at midnight and,
worse, function coherently at a 7:30 a.m. meeting with a United States
senator. "Please take me to Washington," Dr. Sterling instructed the
driver in his German accent, still thick three decades after becoming a
United States citizen. "The Sutton House."

The driver, an affable old black man with a winning smile, nodded and
pulled his cab away from the terminal. He made a quick mental tally of
tonight's fares. Jackpot! More than $400 for the day. His smile widened;
this trip--$50 plus tip-would net him his best night this week.

"Yes, sir," the cabby said to his fare. "Pretty late to be gettin' into
town."

"Yes, very," Dr. Sterling said, his sixty-year-old face mirroring the
strain of the last twenty-four hours. The biochemist was not in a
conversational mood, something the cabby quickly picked up on. The cab
pulled onto the Baltimore/ Washington Expressway and headed southwest
toward D.C., leaving behind the glow of the airport. The traffic this
time of night was sparse, allowing them to make good time. Dr. Sterling
closed his eyes and relaxed for the first time since leaving Geneva. He
even considered dozing during this final leg of his trip. Sleep had been
elusive ever since he received the telex two nights before; in fact, the
whole mood of his trip had changed following the hasty summons by
Senator Baker. What originally began as a business visit and a brief
address at a conference of fellow molecular biologists at Fort Detrick,
now included an impossible schedule with a high-level meeting at the
capitol. All because of a lab researcher's stupid blunder. Dr. Sterling
first learned of the Fort Detrick accident in a news report along with
the rest of the scientific community. But his colleagues didn't know
what he knew. Senator Baker's telex confirmed his worst fears: the
military had played God with terrible consequences. Idiots! He had known
this day was inevitable. Soon the late-night traffic thinned to a few
specks of red taillights well ahead. The cabby tuned into an all-night
talk station, one of the many devoting its programming tonight
exclusively to news of the possibility of another war in the Persian
Gulf. "Do ya think Saddam has it?" the cabby offered over his shoulder.
"The bomb, that is. Do you think he'll nuke the Jews?"

Dr. Sterling didn't answer. He had drifted into a fitful sleep, the
gentle drone of the road serving as a sedative for his frayed nerves.
The cabby shrugged and let his fare nap. He turned the radio low. Dr.
Sterling's nap proved to be a short one. When the cab driver glanced up
at his mirror, he saw another car approaching rapidly from behind. He
swallowed hard when the car came so close to his bumper that its
headlights disappeared below the cab's trunk. "What the hell's he
doin'?" He glanced in the mirror at his fare, who appeared to be sound
asleep in the back. A flashing blue light on the second car's dashboard
blinked on. "Shit."

The cabby glanced at his speedometer. Six miles over the speed limit--a
lousy six miles! Exasperated, he pulled his cab onto the shoulder of the
highway with a thump, gravel spraying against the undercarriage, and
stopped. So much for a jackpot night. The noise of the unscheduled stop
startled Dr. Sterling awake. "What is it? Why are we stopping?"

"Cop," the cabby said, opening his door. Disoriented, Dr. Sterling
twisted his neck around and peered through the rear windshield. All he
could see was the backlit silhouette of a hefty uniformed man wearing a
Smokey-the bear hat. "Please come back with me," the officer said. It
was a command, not a polite request. "Yes, sir." The cabby slid from the
front seat and was gone. Dr. Sterling heard the retreating gravel
footsteps as the two headed back to the patrol car. He glanced at his
watch, closed his eyes and scratched his closely cropped beard in
frustration. Would he ever get to a bed tonight?

Suddenly the cab doors flew open and three people slid neatly inside. A
powerful-looking woman with short black hair pushed Dr. Sterling roughly
to the center of the backseat and jammed something metal into his ribs.
He flinched in pain. "What is this?" Dr. Sterling said. "Who are you
people?

What are you doing?" No one answered him. He appealed to the woman for
an answer, but her amused look of contempt frightened him.

The man behind the wheel, a dark, grisly brute with a black beard and a
squashed nose, put the cab in gear and pulled onto the expressway. The
doctor's worst fears were realized when he saw the unmarked patrol car
quickly pass them. He could see the uniformed officer with his
round-brimmed hat, but no one else. What had happened to the cabdriver?
And who were these people? For God's sake, what is happening?

Tarra passed Sterling's travel bag and satchel to a
distinguished-looking gentleman in the front passenger seat. Dr. Carl
Wynett, referred to by the others as "the Businessman," could have
passed for Sterling's twin brother. Like Sterling, the man exuded an
academic aura. He was of medium height, late fifties, a healthy head of
silver hair, a large frame with an notable paunch and scientific eyes.
He opened Sterling's well-traveled satchel, snapped on a pencil-thin
flashlight and began a meticulous search of its contents. Sterling
watched him curiously. What did he want? What was he looking for?
"Someone please tell me what this is about."

Tarra slipped an arm over Dr. Sterling's shoulders and applied pressure
as a warning. "Do not ask questions." She spoke with a thick accent,
possibly Arabic, but Sterling couldn't be sure. He smelted the strangest
scent of perfume. "Let him speak," ordered the Businessman. He, too, had
an accent, which Dr. Sterling recognized as German, but the man's
careful and deliberate phrasing suggested he was a student of languages.
Tarra poked Dr. Sterling cruelly in the ribs with her Walther. "Speak to
him."

Dr. Sterling was too intimidated to speak. Tarra poked him harder.
"Speak!"

"Where ... where are you taking me?"

Without looking up from his exploration of the doctor's satchel, the
Businessman demanded, "Again."

Another vicious poke in the ribs. "You can have my money ... everything.
I am carrying one thousand dollars."

Tarra laughed wickedly. "We do not need your money--"

"Be quiet!" the Businessman ordered her. He looked severely at Sterling.
"Again!"

Sterling's breathing became more labored. He felt dizzy. "Please. I do
not want trouble. I am a doctor--a biochemist. ...  I am to address a
conference tomorrow in Maryland."

"I do not want trouble," said the Businessman, still rummaging through
Sterling's satchel. The timbre and tone of his voice matched perfectly
that of the doctor's. "I am a doctor--a biochemist." He even mimicked
Sterling's facial expressions down to his nervous habit of scratching
his beard. Hours of practiced skill were evident in the masquerade.
"Tomorrow I will address my colleagues at a conference of the American
Society of Microbiology convening at Fort Detrick."

The imitation was remarkable. "You have him," the driver affirmed,
grinning. Tara agreed. The Businessman closed the satchel and said, "I
see the text of your speech and a working draft of a yet-untitled paper
on enzymes. Still, there is something missing. Your secretary confirmed
for me your seven-thirty appointment tomorrow morning at the capitol,
yet I see no correspondence here related to that meeting. Surely you
would bring it with you." Dr. Sterling said nothing. "Surely you brought
it with you," the Businessman repeated tersely. Tarra grabbed Dr.
Sterling by the lapels and felt inside his suit. She retrieved a black
leather billfold and passed it to the front. Sterling saw no point in
resisting; these people would take what they wanted, with or without his
cooperation. The Businessman rifled through airline tickets, a
membership card for the National Academy of Science, a travel itinerary
that included a hotel confirmation at the Sutton House, an employee ID
for Gentech Laboratories--then he found a telex, which he read with
particular interest. "I have it," he said, directing his penlight's beam
on the half-sheet of paper. "A personal invitation to meet with Senator
Michael Baker tomorrow at seven-thirty a.m. to discuss a laboratory
accident, it says. There are no details." He directed his light into
Sterling's face. "Please elaborate for me, Doctor. Perhaps this meeting
is about an unlawful gene-splicing experiment?"

It occurred to Dr. Sterling in one, wild instant. These people are going
to kill me. The Businessman signaled Tarra with an almost imperceptible
nod of his head. She delivered two quick, hard blows with her elbow to
Sterling's ribs, cracking two of them. He shouted in agony--she
possessed the strength of a solidly built man twice her size. Tarra
poised her arm for another blow, but Dr. Sterling, winded and grimacing,
waved her off. "I know only what was in the newspapers. No one has yet
briefed me."

"You are lying."

"One mile," the driver warned, turning on the cab's inside dome light.
They were out of time. The Businessman stuffed Dr. Sterling's billfold
inside his own suit coat, then studied the doctor's features like a
plastic surgeon scrutinizing his work. "What have we missed?"

"His eyeglasses are different," Tarra noted. "Give them to me."

Tarra removed his glasses and passed them to the front. Dr. Sterling
squinted helplessly as the inside of the car became a blur. "His beard
is thinner and has more white hairs," said the driver, scrutinizing the
doctor in the rearview mirror. "Yes, yes, I will take care of it. What
else?"

"His rings and watch," Tarra said. These, too, she roughly removed and
gave to the Businessman. The cab pulled into a well-lit rest area and
jerked to a stop beside a rented black Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. There
were no other passenger vehicles parked here this time of night, just a
couple of trucking rigs idling in the outer lot. The cab had barely
stopped when the Businessman exited, taking Dr. Sterling's travel bag
and satchel with him. He leaned back through the opened window and said
to his associates, "Are you absolutely clear on your instructions?"

Tarra nodded, her feline features exuding a cool look of confidence. "No
one will find his remains."

Dr. Sterling, trembling, said in a remarkably calm voice, "I can get you
money. As much as you want. My employer will give you whatever you want.
Anything."

No one paid him the slightest notice. The condemned scientist looked
hopefully at the faces of his abductors, searching for signs of
compassion, a willingness to deal, but found only the hard, professional
expressions of people who knew what they wanted and how to get it. The
Businessman vanished from the window and climbed behind the wheel of the
Thunderbird. Less than a minute later, both cars were gone.

Chapter Three.

Iraqi border

Friday, January 15 0200 hours

"Sir, we've got a problem," said naval pilot Capt. John Barron. One of
the Marines' most experienced CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pilots,
Barron wouldn't voice a concern for the safety of his aircraft unless he
was certain of danger. Special Forces Maj. Joseph Marshall unbuckled
himself from the forward observer seat and peered over the pilot's
shoulder at the chopper's VDU display. The major's intense dark eyes
remained fixed on the mischievous green dot that appeared and
disappeared from the terrain features, moving away from the flight group
in erratic patterns that could hardly be called regulation military
flying. The Russian gunship pilot is a fucking barnstormer, Marshall
thought. His hard facial lines grew tighter when the pilot switched his
monitor to low-light level to show the rolling desert terrain four
hundred feet below them. The major glanced out the windshield, then back
to the monitor. The sandstorm had virtually blinded them. We're too
damned low for games. "What's our ETA?" he asked. "Four minutes."

Marshall knew this joint assault mission with the Russians was a
mistake. Too much politics. Not enough planning. No I teamwork. The
Russians never accepted the Western notion of antiterrorist special
forces units. This mission was a political whitewash, a diplomatic
agreement between allies to let the Russians nail the bastard who had
downed one of their Aeroflot passenger airliners with a surface-to-air
missile enroute to Azerbaijan. To hell with the Russians. Marshall
wanted Gorgon for himself. U.S. intelligence said his training camp was
out here. The Mossad's information reported likewise, as did the
Russians'. Don't grow impatient and careless--not with Gorgon so close!

"The son of a bitch has broken formation," Barren said, watching the
Russian chopper maneuver ahead of them. The strain was audible in his
voice. "He's ahead of us now." ; Another wind gust buffeted the Super
Stallion, knocking beads of sweat down the pilot's forehead. "He's
dropped from our radar. And I can't see a thing through this shit.
Jesus, what's that asshole doing?"

Marshall knew damn well what Ivan was doing. They're going to level
Gorgon's encampment with every missile on their gunships. He glanced at
the copilot seated to his left, Capt. David Johnson, who calmly handled
the controls as though he were seated in a flight simulator instead of
attacking the outpost of the world's most dangerous terrorist. Johnson
gave the major a thumbs-up signal. Together the crew commanded the
fastest and nimblest heavy chopper in the world, capable of high-speed,
low-altitude penetration flights into hostile territory. Marshall
slapped Captain Barron's shoulder. "Let this weather cover us, not kill
us. I'm not going to let Ivan force j me to call a safety-of-flight
abort."

"Yes, sir." ; Marshall climbed back into the Super Stallion's troop
compartment and scanned the twenty commandos under his command sitting
shoulder to shoulder on drop seats, their gear strapped to the inside
fuselage. Each wore identical dark camouflage suits; each carried the
weapon of his choice--everything from Ingrains machine pistols to
Pranchi SPAS-12 semiautomatic military shotguns. No one spoke; no one
moved about. His troops remained within themselves, anticipating the
landing. "Hang on, ladies," Marshall hollered, making his way aft. "ETA
is three minutes."

"What's up, Joe?" It was Gunnery M.Sg. J. C. Williams, Marshall's
right-hand man. The powerfully built black man had taught each of
Marshall's troops how to put three consecutive rounds from a Remington
40XB sniper rifle through a one-inch washer at two hundred yards.
Together Marshall and Williams had assembled and trained an elite squad
that promised to handle any terrorist situation, in any environment, at
any time. They were about to find out just how good that training was.
Marshall eased himself against the fuselage beside the sergeant. He
looked pale, even under the compartment's dim red lights. "Our Russian
friends are singing from different sheet music," he said. "They're going
in first to claim the prize-they'll flatten Gorgon's camp with their
gunships. Ivan wants to make sure there isn't a single terrorist left
alive for us when we storm off this transport."

Williams, his brow deeply furrowed, said in his resonant baritone voice,
"Ivan wouldn't settle for no ground support duty. We're freaks to them.
Air strikes, hard and bloody. That's what Afghanistan taught them.
They'll let their machines do their talking--" The missile warning
signal screeched and the chopper gave a sudden yaw to starboard. "We've
been acquired!" the pilot shouted over the intercom. "Dropping."

The pilot increased power and pitched the aircraft's nose down to the
left to break the missile's radar lock. A gut-wrenching concussion to
the aircraft's lower fuselage nearly tore the ship in two. There was an
outburst from the men. "Jesus Christ!" Williams yelled. Marshall was on
his feet in an instant, climbing into the cockpit. "Barron! Talk to me!"

There was a flash and detonation ahead of them. Marshall's hands
instinctively shielded his face as the windshield exploded into a
blizzard of Plexiglas. A terrible wind ripped through the cockpit,
masking the sound of a dozen simultaneous instrument alarms. The chopper
lurched violently, sputtering and spinning from the sky like a wounded
bird. Captain Barren sat slumped, his head bouncing grotesquely. The
copilot, his face a bloody river, groped for the control column, failing
pathetically to control the chopper's descent. Marshall clawed forward.
In one wild motion he struck the pilot's buckle release and yanked
Barren back out of the armored seat. Poor bastard would never file a
rough-treatment charge. An instant later the major was wrestling with
the cyclic, ignoring the blast of wind and sand pouring into his face
through the shattered windscreen. The cockpit lights were out. Only the
glow of the warning indicators, lit up like Christmas, told the major
what he already knew--the aircraft wouldn't be in the air much longer.
They were out of the game. The second CH-53E whumped overhead to take
the lead and finish the mission. Copilot Johnson groped for the
controls. "I can get her down."

"Take your hands off!" Marshall barked. The copilot sank back into his
seat and rubbed a shaking hand over his oozing face. "Ground-launched
missiles. Ivan's chopper flew right into our path when we took standard
evasive action. Flew right into our fucking path! Couldn't maneuver. Two
surface-to-air missiles detonated in our chaff. Get us down. Major. For
God's sake, get us down!"

That was exactly what Marshall intended to do. But the current flowed
heavily against him. The Super Stallion, swinging and sideslipping, spun
an unpredictable path toward the ground. He allowed his eyes a quick
scan of the instrument panel. The hydraulics were going; the VDU and TV
monitor were gone. The cockpit display told Marshall he didn't stand a
chance in hell of landing the transport in one piece. Two hundred feet
...  one hundred seventy ... one hundred forty ...  Even for an aircraft
in perfect working condition, a sand-dune landing would be difficult. Do
something!

Marshall's face, streaked with sweat, reflected a mixture of
determination and desperation, the lives of twenty of Delta's finest
depending on what he would do in the next seconds. He knew he could
never bring the aircraft to a hover. Try to autorotate it down--control
the crash. "Impact positions," he shouted into the intercom. One hundred
...  fifty ... As the altimeter approached zero, the chopper's airspeed
was still much too high. He pulled up hard on the collective. The twin
turbo engines screamed their final desperate cry and the vibration
threatened to break his knuckles and tear apart the control column. The
chopper dipped sharply as it hit the ground, an impact far less brutal
than Marshall expected. The chopper skidded sideways like an
out-of-control boxcar that had jumped the tracks, ten tons of momentum
pushing it forward. There came a frightful concussion as the
disintegrating rotors sheared off half the cockpit's roof. Miraculously
the aircraft's cargo area remained intact. Marshall cut the ignition,
killed the main electrics and activated the aircraft's fire-control
system. The aircraft came to a jarring halt on its side. For a few
breathless seconds there was only stunned silence. The emergency fire
lights silently warned him to hustle his ass. Marshall heard the others
in the troop compartment moving to evacuate. Williams called in to him,
"We owe you a Coke, Joe!"

A shower of blood rained down on Marshall from the injured copilot now
dangling above. "I got wounded in here," he shouted over his shoulder.
By the time Marshall unbuckled the copilot and pulled him into the troop
compartment, his men had already evacuated through the partially opened
rear ramp door. The night was cold. He dragged the injured airman
through the shattered fuselage into a miserable desert storm, and
several pairs of hands carried the copilot to safety. "We got seven
injuries, two serious," Williams reported, his words spitting out in
short puffs of vapor. "What's left of Squad Six is on its way to
Gorgon's camp on foot. They'll rendezvous with Haley Nine Zero in
fourteen minutes."

Marshall didn't hear him. He watched the Russian gunship, an outdated
Mi-4, continue its flight plan to the encampment. "My pilot's dead."

Williams didn't like the look of reprisal in the major's eyes. He
touched Marshall's shoulder and shook his head. "Let it go, Joe. We came
here to get Gorgon."

Chapter Four.

Washington, D.C.

Friday, January 15 0738 hours

"Dr. Sterling, it's a pleasure to finally meet you," said Sen. Michael
Baker, offering a sincere handshake to the man with Dr. Reinhard
Sterling's appearance and identification papers. He led his guest to a
plush couch in the center of a room that looked more like a university
library than the office of a statesman. The room smelled of leather. The
high ceiling allowed ample room for two walls of oak bookcases filled
with impressively bound tomes. The senator loved books, not for the
ideas they contained, but for the image they established for their
owner. Senator Baker, a jovial, rotund politician on the long end of his
fifties, with pure white hair and flushed cheeks, tried his best to
conceal a manila folder tucked under his left arm. He wasn't successful.
The Businessman spotted it immediately and knew it was the reason Dr.
Sterling had been summoned here. Shortly they both would be engrossed in
its contents. "I know you have a full day up at the institute, and my
day's a mess," the senator told his guest. "So I'll keep this short and
sweet."

The two sat comfortably on the deep leather couch, like old friends. The
senator could be quite affable when he wanted something, and today he
wanted a lot from Dr. Sterling. He opened the manila folder and put on a
pair of half-lens reading glasses that made him look like a flushed Ben
Franklin. "Dr. Sterling, I hope you will help me in what I pray won't
become a national embarrassment."

"Certainly ... if I can."

"When it comes to microbes and viruses, my experience is limited to an
annual bout of the flu. But you, I understand, are one of the few people
outside the military who are qualified to distinguish the natural from
the man-made when it comes to microorganisms."

The Businessman gave Senator Baker a professional nod. "Last week," the
senator continued, his eyes on his folder, "the U.S. Army's chief
biological engineer died in a freak accident at Fort Detrick. Perhaps
you heard about it?" The Businessman nodded. "Yes, I read the AP wire
copy. It was Dr. David French. Very unfortunate. He and I met a year ago
in Geneva."

"What hasn't been reported yet, and I implore you to keep this in
strictest confidence, is that a Stanford doctoral candidate , interning
at Fort Detrick, a woman named Julie Martinelli, sent me a serious
accusation related to that accident. In her letter, Miss Martinelli
claims that Dr. French had synthesized a virus at the time of his
death."

"May I know the nature of this virus?" the Businessman asked. The
senator dug deeper into the folder and produced another document. "Does
this help you?"

The Businessman took the lab report and scanned it. "Most interesting. I
was aware of Dr. French's pioneer work on a gamma radiation mutagenesis
technique that would allow him to splice protein around the RNA strand
of a virus. A remarkable achievement, if he was successful."

"If the virus he created was part of an offensive tactical weapon, it
would be in gross violation of the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons
Convention and the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Miss Martinelli was with Dr.
French when he died, but has since been denied clearance to gather hard
evidence to support her charges. So she has appealed to me to look into
the matter. Now I am appealing to you."

The Businessman sank back into the overstuffed couch. "Interesting. How
may I be of assistance?"

Senator Baker presented him with the woman's letter and a one-page
biography of Julie Martinelli. ' "Miss Martinelli mentioned you by name.
She knows you, or at least knows your work, and sent me this letter
after learning that you would take part in the debate at the fort today.
She says you can gain the clearance to access Detrick's maximum
containment labs and that you would be able to determine the nature of
Dr. French's work."

The Businessman scanned the letter and then read her biography. He
suppressed a smile. Beautiful. Miss Martinelli was handing him a golden
key to the city--a city of corpses. "Why doesn't she take her charge to
the Defense Department?

Or go to the press, if she feels this strongly?"

"Because of this." He passed the Businessman another sheet of paper, a
research synopsis. "She attached that to her letter. French can't claim
credit for the idea of his creation. That honor belongs to her, and she
is not at all comfortable with becoming a mother of sorts."

"I am not following." ' "Miss Martinelli believes her original thesis
proposal could have spawned the incident that led to Dr. French's death.
In that paper she proposes to genetically engineer a microorganism that
may well prove useful as a biological weapon."

"Fascinating," the Businessman said, rapidly digesting the sheet's
information. "She proposed to splice tetrodotoxin protein--the most
potent neurotoxin known--around the RNA strand of a Group A
streptococcal virus that causes rheumatic fever. Her goal was to create
an airborne virus four hundred-times as lethal as conventional
neurotoxins, with characteristics that would make it ideal for covert
tactical biological warfare."

Senator Baker raised a hand. "Because of the risks, she declined to go
through with the experiment. She believes Dr. French's gene-splicing
technique allowed him to create this new life-form, and the experiment
caused his death. If her suspicions are correct, she fears she might be
indirectly responsible for creating a terrible plague."

"According to the autopsy report," he said, reading another page, "it
appears as though he succeeded. Brilliantly so."

Senator Baker peeled off his reading glasses, wearily rubbed his brow,
then looked at the Businessman with genuine pleading in his eyes. "Dr.
Sterling, I hope I am not being presumptuous by asking you to do me a
very large favor. Before I can take Miss Martinelli's charges seriously
and begin an investigation, I need to know the facts. Can I ask you to
put one more item on your agenda today? I need a military outsider to
ask the right people at Fort Detrick the right questions and, more
important, to know when he hears the right answers. I will bow to your
expertise to phrase those questions."

A smile bloated the Businessman's silver beard, an unspoken agreement
between friends. "Senator Baker, I would be only too happy to inquire on
your behalf. And I promise to exercise the utmost discretion." And thank
you. Senator ... and most of all you. Miss Martinelli ...  for making my
trip here so immensely profitable.

Chapter Five.

Fort Detrick, Maryland

Friday, 1004 hours

A Bell Ranger jet helicopter whumped over Fort Detrick's one-story
barracks-style buildings and settled on a helipad just beyond the main
gate. A gray sedan, its engine idling, sat waiting. The chopper's skids
had hardly touched the tarmac when a uniformed young man with
spit-polished shoes and a short haircut bolted from the car and crossed
the pad to greet it. The helicopter's twin turbine engines sighed to an
idle and a door opened behind the cockpit. The Businessman leaped to the
ground. Dr. Sterling's well-traveled satchel tucked securely under his
arm. The uniformed soldier, a clean-cut American boy with a sincere
grin, ducked under the blades and extended his hand to the visitor. "Dr.
Sterling, I'm Lieutenant Mcpherson. I'll take you over to the
conference."

The Businessman grabbed the offered hand, parted his neat silver beard
with a forced grin and said with a heavy German accent, "I must ask you
to make a detour. Please take me to see Colonel Westbrook immediately."

The lieutenant led the Businessman back to the car. "Sir, your
presentation was scheduled to begin ten minutes ago."

"Do as I ask. Lieutenant. And may we please Hurry? I do not wish our
chat to result in the death of more children."

Lieutenant Mcpherson delivered the Businessman to the compound's newest
building, a three-story bunker made of sand-colored concrete. He stopped
before the building's entrance, the home of the United States Army
Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, or USAMRIID. A tangle
of smokestacks and pipes lining the roof offered telltale clues to the
institute's hazardous aerosol research. The Businessman smiled,
beholding a monument to mankind's never-ending quest for new and exotic
ways to kill off its own. Although there had been a notable attempt to
make the building appear singularly uninteresting, he knew that in the
event of a mishap, this concrete structure would attempt to safeguard
the state against the biological equivalent of a nuclear meltdown. The
lieutenant escorted his guest through a set of double glass doors to the
guard's station. There the Businessman forged an entry in the register
and stood by impatiently while a security woman with serious blue eyes
prepared a building ID tag. "You need not announce me," he said to the
woman, clipping the tag to his lapel. Then he turned to Lieutenant
Mcpherson. "Thank you very much. Lieutenant. I will find my way from
here."

The guard buzzed the Businessman through to the building's
administration area, where he disappeared down the sterile hallway. The
polished captain rapped his knuckles hard three times on the door's
metal frame leading into a large corner office. "Enter," snapped Colonel
Westbrook. The slightly built, well-spoken young captain of thirty years
marched into the colonel's office, jerked to attention before the huge
desk, fixed his gaze on a point just above his superior's head and
announced, "Dr. Reinhard Sterling to see you, sir. He has papers stating
business on behalf of Senator Michael Baker."

Dr. James Westbrook, a stocky colonel with closely cropped gray hair,
glanced up from a Baltimore Sun article about the gory dismemberment of
a Maryland cabdriver. "What the hell does he want?"

"Forgive my intrusion. Colonel," the Businessman said from the doorway,
"but I must speak to you."

The colonel flashed his aide a frown. "Call Senator Baker's office and
check this guy out."

The captain saluted, turned and was gone. The Businessman took the
captain's place before the colonel's gray metal desk, which reminded him
of an aircraft carrier, and offered his hand. The center's commander
stood and accepted the Businessman's firm grip, returning an expression
as rigid as his uniform. "I'm well aware of your work," Westbrook said
in his Texas drawl. "Hell, everyone here is."

He waved the professor into one of three leather chairs facing his desk
and stuck an ugly blue pipe into his mouth. Westbrook enjoyed pipes, a
fact betrayed by his worn and discolored front teeth. "I've read your
work on biotechnology and genetic engineering. Impressive." Obligatory
plaudits aside, the colonel slipped into a tone as serious as a bowl of
boiled cauliflower. "I understand you're here today to help figure out
what Hussein can do with his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons,
if we give him a chance." He glanced at his watch with raised eyebrows.
"You're late."

The Businessman took a seat and scanned the colonel's office trappings.
The furniture, like the medals on the colonel's jacket, strove to
impress visitors with his broad experience abroad--framed parchment from
Egypt, bone carvings from China and countless wall masks from Africa.
The Businessman merely saw Colonel Westbrook as an aging warrior who
perhaps worried too much about making general. The Businessman pulled an
envelope from his satchel and pushed it to the center of the colonel's
desk. "The conference will wait." He pointed to the envelope. "This must
take priority."

The colonel gave his visitor a scowl. "What is this shit?"

"Senator Baker assured me you would cooperate. I have taken him at his
word. I came here to investigate the death of Dr. David French. You
could help matters immensely by keeping the tone of this meeting
professional. Perhaps we can work together to dissuade the senator from
conducting a full Senate hearing on this affair."

The colonel sat rigid--too rigid--and just stared at the man on the
subservient side of his desk who reminded him of his college physics
professor. So that's what this is all about. Westbrook wanted to cross
his legs, to fidget just a bit, but he didn't dare move. He knew it was
only a matter of time before Washington stuck its thick nose into this
ugly business. Your day of reckoning is here. "You're too late," the
colonel said, choosing his words carefully. "Our investigation is over.
Dr. French's death was an unfortunate accident. Poor bastard stuck
himself with a contaminated needle. I'll get you a copy of the report."

"May I ask the nature of Dr. French's work?"

"Bolivian hemorrhagic fever."

"We must be honest with each other. Colonel Westbrook, if this meeting
is to conclude on mutually beneficial terms. You will find among those
papers an autopsy summary. The facts do not support death by hemorrhagic
fever. An infection of that sort would not deplete a
one-hundredandseventy-six-pound man of forty percent of his body fluids
in thirty minutes. Nor am I aware of any virus that would."

Irritated, the colonel banged his pipe gavellike into a heavy glass
ashtray. "Are you some sort of detective. Doctor? A fucking Sherlock
Holmes wannabe?"

"I am a defense consultant--biogenetics. Senator Baker asked me to
verify the facts of this case, a straightforward request, unless someone
is hiding something. In which case I will simply turn the investigation
over to the senator."

Colonel Westbrook slumped back into his padded chair, propped a foot up
on his desk, removed the envelope's contents and unfolded the stack of
papers. The top page was a letter to him from Senator Baker, chairman of
the Defense Department Investigation Subcommittee, asking him as a
personal favor to give Dr. Sterling his full cooperation. There was some
mention buried in the text about a Senate hearing. Next was the autopsy
report, the details of which he had personally censored. Very official.
The more the colonel read, the more he realized how easily his cover-up
attempt could backfire on him. He clearly saw himself as the scapegoat,
if the real reason for Dr. French's death became public. In hindsight he
realized there was still too much information in these documents,
details from which a man with Dr. Sterling's credentials might glean
volumes. Who the hell sandbagged me into this? He pulled a thin
appointment book out of his shirt pocket, opened it to today's date and
made a note to investigate everyone who had access to this information.
He would have someone's head for this. There came another three hard
knocks on the door's frame. The colonel glanced up at his aide, who gave
him a thumbsup signal. "He checks out with Senator Baker."

The Businessman said, "I would now like to meet someone."

"Who?"

"Julie Martinelli."

Westbrook glanced up suddenly from his appointment book. So she was the
one. He shook his head, scowling. "She's a nobody. A student working
here thanks to the influence of her father, an army colonel. She can't
tell you jack shit."

The Businessman withdrew a one-page biography the senator had given him
and opened it on his lap. "Miss Martinelli is a Stanford graduate
student six credits short of her Ph.D. in molecular biochemistry. She
was a computer prodigy. At the age of five she could navigate through a
mainframe system. At seven she could program in three machine languages.
Along the way Miss Martinelli mastered algebra, geometry and calculus,
all on her own. She entered Stanford at sixteen on the basis of a
scientific visualization program to display cosmic string interaction,
which she developed as a high school science project. Then she turned
her talents to biology--molecular bioengineering, to be specific. She
developed seventeen revolutionary gene-mapping visualization programs,
and is chairing a team to develop one of the most extensive genetic
databases in the world. Her research paper proposing the use of chemical
units of DNA as computing symbols has researchers in awe. She describes
a memory bank constructed from a pound of DNA molecules suspended in a
tank of fluid one meter square. The DNA molecules are synthesized with a
chemical structure that represents numerical information. The vast
amount of number-crunching that could be done in parallel as the
reaction proceeds could potentially create the world's fastest
supercomputer and store more information than all the memories of all
the computers ever made. Everyone from computer scientists to physicists
to molecular biologists is intrigued. I would very much like to meet
your nobody, Colonel."

Westbrook's cheeks were flushed with anger. "You're on a wild-goose
chase, for chrissake."

"Allow me to decide that. Colonel."

Colonel Westbrook, fighting to control his frustration-bred anger, let
out a huff of cynical laughter and jabbed the mouthpiece end of his pipe
at the Businessman. "Sterling, the work we do here at Detrick is vital
to national security. We're looking at all sorts of crap brought back
from the Persian Gulf that could potentially be loaded into a Scud
warhead. I can't allow a goddamn schoolteacher to poke around in our
business."

The Businessman shrugged innocently. "I am only asking to interview a
graduate student--a nobody, you said. Please introduce me to Miss
Martinelli. Or do I advise Senator Baker to begin his investigation?"

Chapter Six.

The walk from Colonel Westbrook's office to the research
area of USAMRIED impressed the Businessman. Electric eyes scanned the
visitors and activated double doors that swung open, admitting them into
a red-painted cinder block-and concrete corridor, where white-coated
technicians pushed carts of test tubes that clinked and echoed. Thick,
bitter odors of nutrient broth and lab animals permeated the building's
prisonlike atmosphere, smells the Businessman found invigorating.

Westbrook led the way through a second set of electric doors and down a
long, battleship-gray corridor that ran the length of the USAMRIID
building. On either side of the corridor, windows and doors offered
glimpses inside labs where scientists and researchers were working.
Above one door sealed from ceiling to floor with duct tape was a sign
that read, infectious area--crash door--no entrance. Access to any one
of these labs might suit the Businessman's needs, but he vowed to be
patient, vowed to play his masquerade for the highest payoff--he wanted
access to a maximum-containment BL-4 lab. The pair stopped before a
partially open door devoid of identification and entered unannounced.
The Businessman observed that the large, windowless room was a common
academic office, barren of the test tubes and lab equipment that were
the staples of Detrick. In their place, arranged neatly between file
cabinets and book-laden metal desks, sat three computers: a Sun
scientific workstation, an Apollo microcomputer, and a Macintosh
Powerpc. A striking woman in her late twenties, with gorgeous black hair
flowing over her shoulders and an attractive figure, was busy at the
keyboard of the Mac, logged on to what the Businessman guessed was
Stanford's mainframe. She was dressed for hunting, in a pair of khaki
slacks and tan flannel shirt. The Businessman concluded that she was
perhaps too preoccupied with her appearance to be an effective
biochemist, and she radiated a self-confidence that he found conceited
in one so young. Nevertheless, he could readily see that she also
radiated a genuine intelligence. Gifted? He intended to find out. "Miss
Martinelli," Colonel Westbrook said, "this gentleman wants a word with
you."

Startled, the woman spun around in her chair, her penetrating brown eyes
taking in the visitor. There was a flicker of recognition. "This is Dr.
Reinhard Sterling," Westbrook said. "Says you and he have something to
discuss."

There followed an awkward silence while Julie scrutinized the
Businessman as though he were a homicide detective with an arrest
warrant. He reminded her of the aging Captain Nemo from Mysterious
Island, complete with a neat silver beard. She had been dreading this
moment ever since sending Senator Baker that letter. There was no
turning back. Suddenly self-conscious at her hesitation, she stood,
offered her hand and gave him a splendid smile. "A pleasure. Dr.
Sterling. We've met before."

The Businessman accepted her proffered hand in both of his. "Have we
now?"

"Yes, in Geneva, at last year's National Academy of Science conference.
You were arguing against the regulations limiting the field of
biotechnology. We spoke together briefly at a reception after your
lecture."

The Businessman let out a huff of relieved laughter and patted her hand
affectionately. "Forgive me. Miss Martinelli, I meet so many students."

She giggled infectiously. "No, forgive me. I hardly recognized you.
Shame on you for putting on weight."

"Yes, I must do something to reverse this," he said, touching his
paunch. "Too many late dinners in hotel dining rooms." The two enjoyed
an ice-breaking laugh. "Are you on a social. Dr. Sterling," Westbrook
interrupted, "or are you here to ask serious questions?"

The meeting's tone again turned somber. "Of course," the Businessman
said. "My dear, you could humor an old professor by explaining what so
lovely a biochemist is doing here at Fort Detrick."

Julie smiled. "I'm a theoretical biochemist," she corrected him. then
laughed pleasantly. She glanced warily at the colonel, then refreshed
her smile, though it was conspicuously forced. "I can do better than
explain. Please sit down." . Julie massaged her cramped leg muscles
before taking a seat in front of the Sun workstation. She had run that
morning to help vent off tension that threatened another muscle spasm in
her back, but only managed two miles instead of her usual five before
the stiffness in her legs became too painful. She rolled a palm-sized
optical mouse across a mirrorlike pad and double-clicked on an icon. The
sparkle in her congenial eyes focused on an impressive color graphic she
brought up on the high-resolution monitor. The Businessman wheeled a
chair next to hers and watched a three-dimensional visualization of a
protein molecule appear on the screen. The image reminded him of a bag
of mixed-size colored pool balls suspended in a black void. "The army
allowed me use of one of its Crays to construct a theoretical model of
the enzyme triosephosphate isomerase," she explained. "I used the
center's Alliant FX-8 mini-super-computer to create this visualization.
I'm in the process of animating it in realtime. I'm mapping its
theoretical structure down to the genetic level."

The Businessman, a frown pasted on his face, barely heard her chatter as
he studied the computer-generated image. "This is not right," he
muttered. He wheeled around in his chair and glared at Westbrook with
cold, dark eyes. "You needn't stay, Colonel." He might as well have told
Westbrook to fuck off. Colonel Westbrook's jaw tightened. He scowled at
Martinelli and said, "I want to see you in my office when you're through
here." He slammed the door on his way out. "Young lady," the Businessman
said, his kind, fatherly tone reduced to a cold monotone. "This is not
what Senator Baker nor I care to see. Please tell me about your plan to
splice tetrodotoxin protein onto a Group A streptococcal virus."

Julie glared at him. For days she had mentally prepared herself for this
moment. Now, suddenly, she found herself facing a mental block. What
would she tell him? Where would she begin? Her lovely features drew
taut. She shook her head and said softly, "This has become a nightmare.
Doctor. I'm genuinely frightened about what's happened here."

"Be assured that I will keep our conversation in strictest confidence."

"I apologize for getting you into this. When I learned you were coming
here, I knew you were one of the few people who could help me."

The Businessman waved away her apology. You were correct to involve me.
Please begin."

She sighed, rolling her head and shoulders, loosening the
stress-tightened muscles. "For my original thesis," she began, "I
proposed a genetically reconstructed virus using neurotoxin protein.
That's why Dr. French was so eager to sponsor my internship here. The
army wanted to know if tetrodotoxin would be synthesized by the virus
and, if so, could it live outside a test tube. The experiment had the
potential to radically enhance the potency of the toxin and move the
virus into the category of a T4 supertoxin." The Businessman kept his
features rigid, refusing to give any clue to the excitement swelling
inside him. "But I never carried out the experiment," she said. "My
thesis adviser--Dr. Nancy Shaw--convinced me there was a real
possibility of a hazard if an anomaly of that sort somehow escaped this
center." She gestured to the screen. "So I chose another
project--something more useful."

"And you suspect that Dr. French went ahead with the experiment?"

She shrugged. "It all fits--his symptoms, the rapid rate of infestation.
Everything. Of course he did it."

"I must see it. Take me to his lab."

Julie shook her head. "It's in maximum containment--a level-four hot
suite. Only Colonel Westbrook can authorize entry."

The Businessman removed his glasses and wearily rubbed his eyes. "My
dear Julie, we must have proof. Senator Baker suspects you are
overreacting. If we do not do something, and without delay, the army
will quickly and quietly bury this incident."

"Of course. Doctor, you must convince the senator that splitting the
gene is far more hazardous than splitting an atom. Whatever French
created must be destroyed. I don't want to become known as the person
who helped create a virus that could wipe out the Eastern seaboard."

The Businessman sank back into the cheap fabric chair. "My dear Julie,
it appears as though you already have."

Chapter Seven.

USAMRIID Maximum Containment BL-4 Laboratory

Colonel Westbrook escorted the Businessman down a concrete corridor
beneath the USAMRIID building to a massive vault-like door. Theirs was
the only foot traffic down the dead-end corridor. The colonel, his face
a permanent scowl, did not like what he was about to do. He disliked
visiting this lab, its entry authorized strictly on a need-to-know
basis. Worse, he hated divulging its secrets to anyone, least of all to
a civilian. And he hated to be near what was inside. What choice did he
have?

Thanks to Julie Martinelli, Dr. Sterling knew everything about French's
blunder, and no doubt the world soon would know too. She had placed him
in an unconscionable situation. Westbrook decided to discharge her this
afternoon and end her career in military biochemistry. Fuck her
lieutenant colonel father. He had no choice now but to show Sterling the
virus and pray he had the brains to appreciate its strategic value to
United States security. It was imperative that Senator Baker keep his
mouth shut. The alternative was to endure a full-scale Senate
investigation into this ugly affair, which could forever change
Detrick's charter to some docile avenue of cancer research. If that
happened, he would lose his lab and with it his shot of becoming a
general. "Ready?" Westbrook snapped. The Businessman nodded, his
inquisitive eyes eager. Westbrook punched his personal ID code into a
keypad next to the door. A green pin light blinked on. There was a soft
buzz and a mechanical click. He pulled open the stainless-steel door.
"There's a step," he warned. The Businessman stepped over the eight-inch
sill and entered the lab's staging area, a cylindrical control center
with grated floors and walls lined with pipes. The door locked
automatically behind them. They passed several panels of instrumentation
that controlled the lab's environment down to subtle shifts in air
density. All automatic indicators glowed a comforting green. "This isn't
the usual BL-4 configuration," the Businessman remarked. "You've done an
extensive retrofit. Keeping something secure inside. Colonel?"

"Just don't touch anything."

One wall was lined with lockers, like a fire-station dressing room,
containing full-bodied polyurethane suits. Without a word of instruction
Westbrook began undressing. The Businessman stripped naked, then
selected one of the largest suits on the rack and began dressing. Soon
the Businessman stood clad in full gear, his suit inflated; he knew the
routine of entering a highly contagious pathogen research area. The
colonel moved awkwardly to don his polymer suit. When he finished, the
Businessman followed Westbrook to a narrow door not unlike a bulkhead
hatch on a freighter. Westbrook spun the releasing wheel. The airtight
door opened with a loud hiss. A rush of air sucked past them into the
lab; negative pressure, the Businessman noted. His inquisitive eyes
scanned the laboratory outfitted with expensive centrifuges, incubators,
freezers and computing workstations. At the opposite end of the lab,
sandwiched between two electron microscopes, sat a DNA synthesizer. Most
adequate, he concluded.

They were not alone. A figure, also dressed in a polyurethane suit, sat
hunched over a lab bench that rose like a pedestal under a sophisticated
exhaust hood that filtered away hazardous aerosols. The technician was
carefully inserting a micropipette into a beaker, touching nothing,
letting nothing touch him. He glanced up at the two, a frown conveying
his annoyance at the intrusion. Clearly visitors were not welcome here.
Visitors were a dangerous distraction in a lab where researchers
routinely handled the most hazardous and least understood bacteria and
viruses in the world. Westbrook and his guest attached their air hoses
to the central manifold and moved awkwardly into the lab, like deep-sea
divers tethered to a surface ship. When the technician recognized the
colonel behind the face shield, he put down the pipette and stood from
the stool. "You could have warned me," the technician said, his voice
oddly amplified by a special cylinder mounted in his face shield over
his mouth. "Blame him," Westbrook said, gesturing over his shoulder at
his guest. "This is Dr. Reinhard Sterling."

The technician's hand went out automatically, a civil offer the
Businessman refused for sanitary reasons. The technician realized the
mistake and withdrew his hand. "It's an honor, Dr. Sterling. My name is
Demarco. David Demarco."

"The pleasure is mine."

"You and I are the only ones who know Sterling's down here," Westbrook
informed the technician. "Let's keep it that way. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now kindly retrieve French's pathogen for us," Westbrook instructed as
casually as asking a bartender for another beer. The technician's grin
faded beneath his face shield. "Sir?"

"Save it. Sterling's on official Defense Department business for Senator
Baker. He knows all about French's fiasco.

Martinelli spilled her guts to him. I've agreed to show him the virus in
return for his and the senator's word to keep French's work in strictest
confidence. Now get me that specimen."

"Yes, sir."

Demarco opened a lab freezer, releasing a nitrogen-coolant mist that
clung to the floor. Inside, arranged in neat rows on metal racks, sat
two hundred tiny vials with plastic caps. Frozen within each glass
container was a tiny sphere of plasma containing billions of viruses and
bacteria, some exceedingly rare, named after the exotic, faraway places
from which they had been found: Lassa, Ebola-Marburg, Junin, Machupo,
Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, West Nile encephalitis, among countless
others. Demarco brushed a gloved finger along the back row, then
selected a vial from the collection of pathogens. He handed it to
Westbrook, who, in turn, passed it to his guest. "Here's what all the
fuss is about," Westbrook said. "A sample of Dr. French's blood."

The Businessman held the unassuming vial close to his face shield.
Scrawled across the label in barely legible handwriting was the name
Saint Vitus. The Businessman looked questioningly at Westbrook. "Why a
saint?"

"It was my idea," Demarco volunteered. "Thanks to French's infection, we
know some of the symptoms include a sensation of burning in the
extremities caused by contraction of the veins and arteries. As the
disease progresses it causes convulsions, hallucinations and purging of
bodily fluids wherever the tissues burst."

"I fail to see the connection."

"A fungal poison called ergot wiped out a third of Europe during the
Dark Ages. Ingestion of tainted bread caused victims to collapse in the
streets with convulsions. Others went insane. Some of those stricken
fled to the shrine of Saint Vitus. This pilgrimage didn't do a thing for
them, of course, but the trip at least took the victims away from the
source of tainted grain, and some survived simply by changing their
diet."

When the Businessman made no comment, Demarco added, "We needed a code
name. So I named it after the patron saint of epileptic convulsions."

"Indeed." The Businessman turned to the electron microscope. "Let me see
it."

Demarco reached into an incubator and carefully removed a glass slide
from a slowly revolving tray. With prudent competence, the technician
positioned the slide under the microscope's probe and fine-tuned the
focus. Satisfied, he stepped aside. The Businessman's face shield
prevented him from getting his eyes close enough to the screen to take
in a full view. Nevertheless, he could see the cytoplasm of French's
blood cells deformed to alarming proportions. "How long have you
incubated this tissue specimen?"

Demarco glanced up at the lab's clock. "Seven minutes."

The Businessman stepped back from the screen, his incredulous features
visible beneath the face shield. He had struck pay dirt. "Unbelievable.
The cell's nucleus already is distorted beyond even the most formidable
agents. Your pathogen is incredibly prolific. Dr. French has created a
very interesting new life-form."

"It's routine business inside this lab," the colonel offered. The
Businessman shook his head. "None like this."

"You might find this interesting," Demarco said. He retrieved a sealed
plastic container from the workbench and presented it to his guest.
"What do you see?"

The Businessman peered into it. At the bottom of the box lay a lab rat
jerking with fatal convulsions. "I see that soon you will be minus one
lab rodent."

"This specimen is already dead," Demarco said. The Businessman looked at
the lab technician, uncomprehending. "I do not understand."

"I killed this rat with chloroform more than an hour ago, then injected
the virus directly into its brain. It's been convulsing ever since,
though its movements are growing increasingly fainter."

"Are you claiming to have raised this animal from the dead?"

"Hardly." Demarco raised the container closer to the Businessman's face
shield. "The synthesized virus is feeding on the dopamine in its brain
and is producing electrical charges as a by-product. We're observing the
aftermath as muscle spasms. The result is an uncanny simulation of life.
Extraordinary, isn't it?"

The Businessman waved it away. "It is the stuff of nightmares."

"Seen enough?" Westbrook asked. "More than enough." The Businessman
considered the Saint Vitus vial in his hand, proof that man had climbed
yet another rung up the evolutionary ladder that separated him from his
Creator. He couldn't believe his incredible good fortune. He had counted
on obtaining one of the two known samples of the dreaded African Ebola
virus. But the vial in his hand contained something extraordinarily
different. Something that would allow him to double his fee to Gorgon.
"I assume you are aware. Colonel, that Dr. French's exploitation of
molecular biology for military purposes is a criminal act."

"I beg your pardon?" Westbrook said. "It was French's duty to preserve
life. Instead he betrayed and perverted his oath to science and medicine
by deliberately effecting the opposite." He held up the vial. "He
created an agent of mass destruction that will guarantee his name a
place on the list above the doctors at Auschwitz."

"Sterling, you're talking bullshit. That organism will never leave this
lab."

"Colonel"--the Businessman stepped to the freezer and opened the
stainless-steel door--"what else do you keep hidden in your house of
horrors? A bug that does not kill, but simply puts its host into a
lifelong coma? Or makes him violently ill after smelling a rose? Do you
have something that can change the mental capacity of an entire city? Or
suppresses a soldier's will to fight? I would wager you have all of that
in here, and more."

Westbrook's face flushed with anger. "Mister, the purpose of this center
is to defend the United States against a biological attack. Any crazy
group with a kitchen and a couple of dollars' worth of specimens bought
through a mail-order catalog can brew enough plague to assault any one
of our cities. For chris sake, man, Iraq is recruiting experts from
around the world to combine supertoxins for maximum killing effect, and
maximum speed and action. We know they put botulinum toxins,
enterotoxins and mycotoxins in their Scud warheads and fired them at our
ground troops. We must have deterrents. We must find antidotes!"

The Businessman felt suddenly weary inside his suit. He wanted out of
it, and quickly. He gestured Demarco forward. "Close up your circus from
hell."

Demarco, stunned by the outburst, obediently swept past the Businessman
to secure the freezer door. His gloved hand clasped the latch, but his
muscles refused to cooperate. His vision blurred. Confused, he looked at
the Businessman, who just watched him with clinical curiosity, making no
effort to conceal a small needlelike object in his palm. All in one
astonished moment, Demarco realized the man who called himself Sterling
had punctured his suit just below his right shoulder and injected him
with something. Why? He tried to speak, to raise an accusation, but his
tongue made only a lame sucking noise in the back of his throat. He
clutched his shoulder to stem the leak; a futile gesture. And then the
world turned black. Demarco's eyes rolled up inside his head as he
stumbled backward and collapsed with a crash between two lab benches.
"Jesus Christ!" Westbrook jumped to the technician's side. "Get security
down here!"

The Businessman made no move to carry out Westbrook's order. Instead he
reached into the freezer and withdrew a random vial labeled oropouche
fever and dropped it onto the metal floor beside the colonel. The glass
shattered with a sharp tink. That got the colonel's attention. "What the
f--" The Businessman drove his huge rubber boot hard into Westbrook's
face shield. It had all his weight behind it. The mask shattered, and
the colonel fell backward. He was out cold. The Businessman slipped the
Saint Vitus vial in his suit's deep utility pocket, knelt down beside
the colonel and thrust the needle into Westbrook's left shoulder. He
returned to the freezer and withdrew several more vials from it. He
began heaving them one at a time at the colonel. Some of the vials
bounced off the colonel's plastic suit with a muted pop, while others
shattered on the metal floor and cabinets, scattering their lethal
contents over half the lab. By the time the colonel recovered enough
sensibility to open his eyes, his shattered face shield was covered with
shards of contaminated ice crystals. His head spun, and he knew he could
not stand. Dazed, he tried to brush away the mixture of ice and blood
from his exposed face like a stunned skier after a bad spill, but his
gloves could not reach beneath his shattered face shield. Another vial
exploded on the floor by his feet. Then another. Westbrook looked at the
Businessman, but his eyes would not focus. His brushing actions
quickened as his senses cleared, then became frantic, bordering on
panic. "What in God's name are you doing?"

The Businessman, his eyes cold and calculating, offered no explanation
as he hurled still more vials. "You fuck!"

Colonel Westbrook struggled to rise, found that he couldn't and sank
back wearily, his breath short and labored. The room began to spin. The
melting ice had already started flooding the lab with billions of lethal
viruses and bacteria. "You fuck ... you fuck  ..."

Finished, the Businessman disconnected his air hose from the manifold
and walked to the lab's door as quickly as the suit would allow. He
closed the hatch with a thud, spun the wheel and gave it a secure tug at
the end of its threads. He entered a shower stall and doused his suit
with phenolic disinfectant. Only when the timer had counted to zero did
the automatic door admit him to the staging area. He went to work with
practiced mastery. In fifteen seconds he had shut down the lab's
communications, lights, electronics, ventilation and life-support
systems. Rows of pin lights blinked from green to red. The computer
displays, centrifuges, freezers, everything, systematically turned off.
Only the overhead emergency lights inside the lab remained lit. He
stepped to a console marked emergency and turned a final key. The
console went dead, as did the lab's emergency lights. He stripped off
the environment suit and put on his street clothes, carefully placing
the Saint Vitus vial into a thermal canister inside his coat pocket. The
Businessman exited the lab and closed the outer door behind him with a
solid click, sealing the colonel inside his tomb. The concrete hallway
was empty; there was no indication that anybody knew or cared that one
of the center's labs was now "hot." He rode the elevator to the main
level and walked past the colonel's aide into Westbrook's office to
retrieve his satchel. The thermal canister would keep its contents
frozen for seven hours. He would need less than half that time to
smuggle Saint Vitus out of the country. "Did you see it?" said a voice
behind him. The Businessman whipped around. Julie Martinelli, her eyes
anxious, looked questioningly at him from across the threshold. "My dear
Julie," he said slowly, "I did not expect--"

"Did French do it?"

The Businessman hugged the satchel close to his chest. Besides the
thermal container, his satchel contained a Browning 9mm automatic. "You
are a most persistent young woman."

"If you know, please tell me." ' "Yes, your intuition was correct. I saw
it. You needn't concern yourself any more. I will take this matter up
with Senator Baker. Please forgive me, my dear Julie, but I have already
kept the conference waiting too long."

"Where's Colonel Westbrook? He wanted to see me."

"He ... was detained. Something to do with an indicator in the lab's
staging area. I suspect he will return directly." He swept past her and
walked briskly down the corridor. She looked curiously after him. The
Businessman's performance was over and now it was time for payment. He
returned his ID tag to the reception guard, exited through the center's
double glass doors and climbed into a waiting car--a black Thunderbird,
a visitor's pass showing through the windshield. Tarra drove the car
uneventfully across the parade grounds and through the Fort's main gate.
Colonel Westbrook grabbed the lab door's releasing wheel and pulled
himself up to his knees, cursing the eternal darkness like a child. Not
even the emergency lights remained lit. The disorientation caused by
sudden and complete absence of light created in his mind images of
indescribable horrors closing in an inescapable circle. Mustering all
his strength he tried to move the wheel, but it would not budge.
Fighting a concussion-induced unconsciousness, he felt for the emergency
button and repeatedly punched it, but to no purpose. The lab was dead.
He sank wearily back to the floor, staring at eternal darkness. He
listened to the slow, sinking whine of the lab's priceless equipment
winding to a halt. Then silence. There was no one and nothing, only
absolute, terrifying blackness. For the first time in the colonel's
career, he was scared shitless. For Colonel Westbrook, the unspeakable
forces that surrounded him were not imagined. His face burned terribly
and his extremities felt heavy and unresponsive. His lungs were
congesting, and he could feel the onset of a peculiar headache. This was
no illusion. His body temperature was rapidly melting the ice crystals.
The room already was infested with billions of unseen organisms, with
billions more released with each passing moment. Most of them had no
known cure. He knew he was a dead man. The fight was finished. He had
lost. The air within the lab grew increasingly foul. Good. Let me
suffocate. Better to die that way than to face the alternative.
"Demarco!" he shouted, his voice phlegmy. There was no sound of movement
from the darkness. Perhaps the technician was already dead. His thoughts
returned to Sterling. A clever bastard. Very clever. He had guaranteed
that no one would ever touch his corpse. Like a radioactive spill, it
would take months of decontamination, perhaps years, before a team could
enter the lab and determine what Sterling--or whatever his name was-had
stolen. He had gone to a lot of trouble to steal French's supertoxin.
Why? He expelled a hoarse laugh at the absurdity that he had simply
handed it to him. Only he and Demarco knew what French had created, the
enormous ramifications of what Sterling had taken. No--there was Julie
Martinelli. How much did she really know?

The colonel pulled off his gloves and reached deep inside his suit to
retrieve the appointment book and pen from his shirt pocket. With
consciousness fading and in absolute darkness, he began writing.

Chapter Eight.

Iraq

Friday, 1600 hours

Special Forces Maj. Marshall sat down at the base of the steep dune that
had brought the CH-53E Super Stallion to a halt. The temperature was
falling rapidly. This damned desert. He had crossed Iraq's borders a
dozen times on clandestine missions before and during the war. This was
his first crossing in almost four years. Nothing had changed. The
terrain brought back memories, harrowing memories, of some of those
missions. The rescue operations had been the worst. For his last mission
of the short war, he had flown a Black Hawk helicopter two hundred miles
into Iraq to extract a special operations team under attack. He had had
to move quickly, flying across these same dunes in daylight, a deviation
from normal nighttime operations, to rescue seven of his colleagues from
a waist-deep ditch just thirty-five feet from an enemy position. He had
saved their lives. The poor bastards had held off a company of Iraqi
soldiers plus some armed Bedouins who joined in the fracas for six hours
until he arrived. "Joe, this'll knock your socks off," hollered the
major's gunnery sergeant, J. C. Williams. Marshall jumped to his feet.

The sergeant walked briskly up to the major, leading a pair of Delta
commandos who were dragging a prisoner between them. One of the soldiers
carried a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile launcher. The soldier
dropped both his prisoner and the launcher at the major's feet. Their
prisoner, an Arab boy, directed a pair of piercing eyes at Marshall. The
major looked deeply into those deep, dark eyes and didn't see a trace of
youth left in them, only the hard look of a seasoned assassin. "Where'd
you find him?" Marshall asked. "At Gorgon's camp," Williams said, "or
what was left of it after Ivan's gunship got through with it."

"Any other survivors?"

"There were no casualties," the sergeant said. Marshall looked at him
uncomprehendingly. "I don't get it."

Williams shrugged. ' "Except for this asshole, the camp was abandoned.
Has been for days."

"What?"

""Fraid so, Joe. We've got three squads combing the area. Don't think
they'll find anybody, though. Looks like we've been suckered."

"Jesus. Get this prisoner aboard the carrier. I want every bit of
information we can get out of him."

Radio operator Corporal Savage rushed forward, a portable Comsat
receiver thrust before him. "It's patched through to a General Medlock
in Washington, sir," the corporal said. "Top priority." He added in a
whisper, "He sounds pissed."

General Medlock? Marshall rubbed his hands for warmth before taking the
receiver. "Marshall."

"Sounds like you're having a real bad night," a voice barked over the
secured satellite channel. "The mission's over. One of the Stallions is
down. Gorgon may not be in Iraq--"

"You're damned right he's not in Iraq. You've been set up--a diversion
while he made his move to South America. The bastard's getting too
close. I want you on a Mach-One transport to Fort Bragg within the hour.
We'll pick you up there. You're to be at Bragg no later than tomorrow at
oh five hundred hours."

Marshall glanced at his mountain watch. No way! "What's this all about?"

"Right now it's none of your goddamn business. I don't want to hear
excuses. Just get your ass moving."

"How many troops should I deploy? I've got two units mobilized--"

"One," Medlock said. "One unit?"

"One man."

The general wasn't making sense. Marshall looked quizzically at Williams
and shook his head. "Sir, I've got men on the ground equipped--"

"One man," General Medlock repeated. "Who?" Marshall snapped, letting
his irritation be known. "Your best."

Chapter Nine.

The hills of Tampico, Mexico

Friday, 1703 hours

The Businessman made his way through the gathering dusk up an overgrown
path to what once had been a cabin. The years had been unkind. Time had
reduced the structure to little more than a ramshackle hut, its timber
severely sagging, its moss-covered walls leaning at frightful angles.
The Businessman put his shoulder to the warped cabin door and wrestled
it open with a crack. He passed inside. The cabin's single filthy room
offered few furnishings, which included a small table supporting an
ancient oil lamp that gave off more smoke than light. The Businessman
wasn't alone. He could sense more than see the three figures watching
him, mere shadows beyond the lantern's pale glow. They were killers of
the worst sort, and he knew them all well. They had all made their way
to Tampico alone, each using a different route. "Sit," ordered a deep,
menacing voice that cut through the gloom like a foghorn. The
Businessman sat on one of the table's chairs, which sagged and cracked
under his weight. He scratched his closely cropped silver beard, a
nervous habit left over from his Sterling masquerade, anxious to
consummate a deal with these people. The glow of a cigarette pierced the
gloom to his left like a burning eye, followed by a stream of smoke that
reeked of heavy Russian tobacco. When the Businessman's eyes adjusted to
the dimness, he could see the cigarette's owner, a woman with short,
black hair, watching him. It was Tarra, Gorgon's first lieutenant. The
Businessman's eyes shifted to the figure seated next to her, a man with
a black beard and a squashed nose, the Arabian driver who had also
helped in Sterling's abduction. But it was the massive man seated aloof
in the corner, a huge shadow fondling a curved Bedouin dagger, who
demanded his undivided attention. Gorgon sat there, intently observing
the Businessman, studying him like a leopard eyeing its prey. "I cannot
see you," Gorgon said, his accent a hybrid of Middle Eastern dialects.
The Businessman leaned forward, allowing the lamp's scant illumination
to bathe his face. Gorgon laughed when he saw the Businessman's altered
features. "Well done. Your new face improves you."

Gorgon's grin vanished and the stark creases of his forehead deepened
when he looked into the Businessman's eyes that stared back with frank
candor. Gone was the serious academic gaze that was the Businessman's
signature, replaced by the furtive glances of a conspirator, a man with
a plot. Those eyes were a warning to Gorgon. A scheme simmering in the
Businessman's head was dangerous. There was no room in the plan for a
self-indulgent plot hatched by one of his confederates. Operation
Harness demanded absolute loyalty from his troops. The arrangement must
be carried out exactly as ordered; otherwise his plan was finished. And
Gorgon needed what only the Businessman could provide. "Do you have it,
Herr Wynett?"

The Businessman nodded. "Show it to me."

"Impossible. It must remain frozen."

Gorgon seemed to accept that. "You had no difficulty?"

"None. Detrick's security is pathetically lax. In two weeks you will
command a formidable plague."

Gorgon leaned forward, his head bobbing vulturelike. "Very good. Then
let us hasten to Mazatlan--" The Businessman raised his hand in a
halting gesture. ' "Not so quickly, Mr. Gorgon. First we will discuss my
payment."

There came stifled laughter from the other two, followed by another waft
of heavy cigarette smoke; Gorgon eased back in his chair, and when he
spoke there was benign superiority in his voice. ' "No advance
compensation. I do not trust you. Most men would simply abscond with my
generous down payment and live comfortably for the remainder of their
years. You would do the same, I am certain."

The Businessman's eyes grew dark and angry. "I gave you my word I will
deliver--" ' "You brought me no proof. I will pay you after I have the
tanks ... nothing before. I have decided."

The Businessman's head flew back and out came forced laughter. "Then go
to Mazatlan alone, Mr. Gorgon."

The giant slammed his fist against the wall, splitting the planks. "You
will do as I order."

"No, Mr. Gorgon. This is my business arrangement. I will synthesize the
organism without your muddling interference. When I have incubated the
virus in the quantity you require, I will allow you to purchase it. Your
cost will be ten million American dollars--two million for each tank."

Gorgon rose quickly to his feet. "You are mad to come here and demand
new terms."

"A service fee, my friend. My price has doubled. What I have is worth
far more than I am asking."

The others, stunned by the Businessman's brazen demands, glanced mutely
at Gorgon for instruction. The giant said slowly, "You will not leave
this room alive, Herr Wynett."

The Businessman, fueling his confidence, dismissed the threat with a
smirk and played his last card. "Then you will have nothing. Your
ridiculous plan will be finished. If this is about money, Mr. Gorgon,
then you place a very low value on His Excellency's regime. The price of
a thermonuclear device, even if a reliable one could be assembled and
purchased, would be one hundred times what I am asking. I am offering
you a weapon far more effective and far easier to deploy. If you cannot
acquire the sum, then tell His Excellency he must go back to plotting
his revenge on a small scale with amateurs."

Gorgon stepped into the light, revealing cold, dark features chiseled
from coal. He scrutinized the Businessman with piercing eyes that
discharged hatred through thin slits. Gorgon knew enough about men to
understand the Businessman would deliver what he promised--for his
price. He could trust him. Gorgon drove his dagger's curved blade into
the table's splintered top between the Businessman's left index finger
and thumb. His guest didn't flinch. Gorgon, grinning an odd blend of
amusement and contempt, said, "I have been chosen to change the face of
the world. I do not care what it costs. I will defeat the evil enemy and
crush their arrogance. I have but one weakness--you, my Achilles' heel.
I will not tolerate treachery. I will show you."

Gorgon plucked the dagger from the table and, with startling swiftness,
spun dancelike on his heels and hurled it across the room with
remarkable strength and accuracy. There came a dull thud as the blade
struck bone, followed by the gasp of a man expelling his final breath.
The Arabian driver died instantly, his head pinned to the wall, his
brutish face contorted in an incredulous look of horror. Only the hilt
of Gorgon's dagger still protruded from what had once been his left eye.
Tarra gave a throaty chuckle, amused by the noisy evacuation of the
corpse's bowels and bladder. "Remove his brain," Gorgon said to her,
"and send it as a warning to those who paid him to betray me."

Tarra gave the Arab driver a lingering kiss on his still trembling lips
before wrenching the dagger from his eye and driving the blade into his
skull with a sickening crack. Wynett winced. Gorgon said to the
Businessman in a voice that sent a cold warning, "For money he told my
enemies the location of my camp. For money! I should have killed him
slowly, but I am in haste. Now I must keep moving. What proof will you
offer that you will not betray me?"

The Businessman had negotiated shrewdly, leveraging his advantages and
sealing the deal under his own terms. "You have my word. And that, my
friend, is all I will give you until my work is finished."

Frederick, Maryland Saturday, January 16 1203 Hours There came a severe
knock on Julie's door, and a deep, resonant voice full of authority
snapped, "Miss Martinelli?"

Julie swung away from her Macintosh computer and drew in her breath
sharply when she saw two men--a black man in a suit and an army security
officer--standing on the threshold of her apartment. She had expected
official-looking men with unnerving stares to show up on her doorstep.
Still, the specter of authority scared the hell out of her, her
intuition shouting warnings. "You are Miss Martinelli?" the black man
asked again, stepping into her apartment. He was tall, with huge
shoulders and sharp, intelligent eyes that scanned the room with its
clutter of computer peripherals and books. "Who are you?" Julie asked.
"How did you get in here?"

"The door was open ... ajar, actually," he said. "You should be more
careful. Your ID please."

"I asked who are you? I want to see your ID."

"Miss Martinelli, there isn't time. We're twenty-two minutes late."

"Your ID--now."

He stepped assertively forward, maneuvering around the pillars of books
stacked across the floor. He reached inside his coat pocket, produced a
shiny black wallet and opened it: STONY ROBINSON, CIA. Oh shit. Julie
leaned back into her cheap wicker chair, unable to think clearly. So she
was being taken into custody-by the CIA! The adrenaline surged to her
head, producing strange light patterns in front of her eyes. High
treason and violating countless international treaties, for
starters--who knew what other charges would be filed against her. No
Ph.D. No residency. No future. Her career was over, her life in ruins.
Don't panic; think this through logically. Had she made the right
decision sending Senator Baker that self-righteous letter, which she now
realized was full of vague suspicions and naive righteousness? And no
proof. She was certain Dr. French had created a dreadful new organism--a
creature she undeniably had dreamed up--but there was no way to prove
she wasn't intimately involved in his project. Could she trust Dr.
Sterling? Perhaps he had implicated her. With no tangible defense she
would go to prison as an accessory. Maybe there would even be a
manslaughter charge thrown in there somewhere. "Your ID, please,"
Robinson said. Julie held up the Detrick identification tag still
clipped to her camel V-neck sweater. He put his nose to within inches of
the tag and scrutinized it with intense, narrowly focused eyes that saw
and recorded every detail. "Your Stanford ID," he said. Julie found her
purse, fished out the plastic university ID card and offered it to him.
He looked hard at it before giving a slight nod to the security officer,
who spoke into a handheld radio. "Command, three-eight. We have her. ETA
in three minutes."

The radio crackled an acknowledgment. "Miss Martinelli," Robinson said,
"please collect your things and come with me."

"Let me finish sending a note to my adviser," she said, her fingers
hovering over the keyboard.

"There isn't time."

"Then a phone call. I want to call my father."

"No time."

"He's a lieutenant colonel in the army."

"I know. Miss Martinelli. We have a vehicle waiting."

"I'll need to power down the equipment."

Robinson's impatient sneer warned Julie that she'd made one request too
many. "It will be taken care of."

What was the point dragging out the inevitable? she decided. Julie
nodded and picked up her blue leather jacket and purse, then felt the
security officer's fingers encircle her arm above the elbow and lead
her--not too gently, she thought-into the hallway. We have her. On her
way out she shot a sideways glance at her cat. Tad, sitting rigid on the
chair by the door, his acute hazel eyes watching her leave, his ears
pinned back in disapproval. Tad was her one true friend, the only
creature on Earth that seemed to care what happened to her. See ya
later. Tad--maybe. A third security officer stood just outside her door.
Several neighbors were huddled in a small group, talking in hushed tones
that stopped abruptly when Julie emerged from her apartment. The door
across the hallway opened and a young couple--he wearing a terry-cloth
robe that barely covered the tops of his thighs, she wearing only a
T-shirt--watched her with surprised looks. He pushed her gently back
behind him, protecting her. The two were very much in love, or so Julie
thought, and she couldn't help wonder what it would feel like to have a
kind man always be there for her. As the security officer led her into
the hallway, she decided there would never be a good man in her life.
She was intelligent, independent--and selfish. That was why no man with
the generous qualities she desired would ever be interested in her.
Sure, men always looked approvingly at her body, and there was never a
shortage of suitors as long as she left her brains and independence back
in the lab. She always intimidated her dates, or so many of them had
told her. She had an obsessive need to control, mandatory if she was to
succeed in the male-dominated field of biochemistry. And when her
emotions and mind were at war within herself, it was always her mind
that successfully conquered all. As a scientist, Julie Martinelli knew
she would always remain an observer. Those qualities were too deeply
etched since childhood to believe she might one day change--to become
someone willing to give and accept people who were less intelligent than
she. So, until then, she was content to experience life through
textbooks, computer programs, on-line databases and electron
microscopes, studying life at the molecular level, never living it.
Julie pulled out her keys. "Leave it open, please," Robinson said.
"Sergeant Ryan will power down your equipment. Whatever else you may
need will be provided."

I won't need much in jail. "I've got a cat."

"We'll take care of it. Miss Martinelli."

"There's coffee on a hot plate--" "We'll turn it off."

Agent Robinson avoided the main entrance and led her out through the
building's side entrance, where a Ford Econoline passenger van sat
idling, waiting for them. Julie realized she was shaking. Hang in there;
maintain control. She had always found it easy to numb out her feelings.
"Let me take your coat," Robinson said, sliding open the side door. He
helped her inside, then slid in next to her, while the security officer
climbed in front with the driver. The van left immediately. Julie's mind
raced through the logic of the situation, trying to formulate a defense,
but all she could imagine was the ugly interrogation that was sure to
come. Not until the van pulled onto the Washington National Pike leading
to D.C. did Julie dare ask, "Are you taking me to the State Department?"

Without looking at her, Robinson said, "State Department?

No, ma'am--Dulles International."

"The airport?" She tried unsuccessfully to keep the emotion out of her
voice, which came out as anger. "Why? Where are you people taking me?"

Robinson directed his uninterested gaze out the window. "Dulles, ma'am.
That's where they usually keep airplanes. Your father has a C-20 waiting
for us."

"My father? He doesn't know anything. Don't drag him into this."

Stony Robinson snapped his head around and looked at her--really looked
at her--for the first time. "He has communicated with you, hasn't he?"

She shook her head, more confused than ever. "Not since this whole thing
started."

"He was supposed to communicate with her." Robinson looked sharply at
the security officer in front, who just shrugged. "He told me this
morning he would call her."

Julie suddenly realized that the computer in her apartment had been
linked to Stanford's mainframe via a modem since six-thirty that
morning, tying up her phone line. No one could get through. "Communicate
what? Where are you taking me?

Someone please tell me what's going on!"

Robinson's staunch demure melted; he looked genuinely embarrassed. "I've
spent one fucked morning in Pentagon briefings--I'm in no mood for
this." He shed his military manner and said to her apologetically, "Your
father was supposed to brief you. Miss Martinelli. There's been another
incident at Detrick. As a personal favor, he asked me to pick you up on
my way to meet him at Kirtland Air Force Base. He's taking you with us
to Brazil."

Chapter Ten.

Mato Grosso, Brazil

The Amazon Basin

Saturday, 1647 hours

The Businessman called his plantation Stonecutters Garden, a name he had
chosen to remember his days in London. He arrived at dusk, alone,
emerging from the rain-spawned mist that hung like great cobwebs from
the jungle's thick foliage. He had made quick work of the two-mile hike
from the road, a path with a pair of tire tracks rutted into clinging
moss. There he had abandoned his truck and continued on foot, a rucksack
draped carefully over his shoulder, his hand always upon it. Finally the
overgrown path with its immense canopy of trees gave way to high stalks
of sugarcane. The crop belonged to him. Though the soil of this region
yielded poor results, the Businessman smiled knowingly every time he
inspected his harvest. Only an utter fool would break his back tending
this patch of cleared acreage that fought a never-ending battle against
the invading ocean of jungle. He knew of more lucrative ways to earn a
living off this wilderness. And indeed he had. The Businessman stepped
from the last row of stalks and saw a man on horseback, partially
silhouetted against the estate's high pole lamps, ride straight at him.
The rider wore a huge straw hat, boots, a garment that looked like a
leather dress instead of pants and a white shirt opened wide to show off
a broad and woolly chest. He carried an automatic rifle, and an enormous
holstered revolver hung loosely from his hip. "The beard distinguishes
you, chefe," the rider called down to him in Portuguese. The dark
cavalier dismounted, and the two men patted each other spiritedly on the
shoulders, the usual welcome of the region. "Come inside. Doctor," the
rider said to his employer, gesturing toward the farmhouse, a grand
English manor worth far more than the land on which it sat would ever
earn. "I will round up the others and we will drink to your return."

"Later, Tucco," the Businessman said in the rider's native Portuguese.
"First I must inspect the barn."

"The barn?" Tucco teased. "Your bed is too soft?"

The Businessman was not in a whimsical mood after a hard eighteen-hour
trip. "First we will work. Then we will drink together."

Tucco spat and led the way through a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped
with barbed wire, which surrounded the estate on all sides. Each stout
support pole, buried deep inside slabs of granite, had been built to
withstand a tank assault. Inside, they crossed landscaped grounds
accented with marigolds and edged by several acres of closely cropped
sod maintained by an elaborate underground sprinkling system. The two
made their way to an impressive stone barn, which housed feed, trucks
and farm equipment. They passed inside. The Businessman rarely visited
the barn; on its best day the storehouse reeked of an offensive mixture
of manure and oil, which he refused to inhale, however briefly. But he
knew few places would serve him as well. "The cellar, Tucco," he said.
The rider removed his straw hat and wiped his already perspiring brow.
"So late. Doctor? First we sleep--"

"Now," the Businessman demanded. A resigned Tucco lit an oil lamp and
led the way to the back of the barn. He raised the light over a slab of
stone, half hidden by the straw, and passed the lantern to the old man.
Tucco found a pick and, hissing and grunting, pried up the slab and
tilted it over with a bang. A waft of damp and fetid air drifting up
from below drove Tucco back with a scowl on his face; no one had gone
beneath the barn in more than a year. The Businessman extended the
lantern over the black opening and peered into it. A wooden staircase,
half rotted from unchecked moisture, descended into the gloom. The
Businessman said to Tucco, "There is equipment on my truck. Take eleven
men with you and bring it down here. Be certain they are careful with
it. Then you will clean and paint the cellar and make it habitable."

Tucco cocked his head at the strange request. "I will do whatever you
ask, chefe."

"There is one more item you must initiate immediately."

The Businessman's eyes grew dark and firm. "We will need more men who
can use guns. Many more. I have a formidable client, Tucco. And we must
be strong when he comes here for his merchandise."

Tucco's grin vanished. "Already I do not like this customer of yours."

"He is a strong man, Tucco. An extraordinary man. In forty-eight hours I
want at least ten more men with guns on my payroll. Now please hurry."

Tucco vanished to wake his roustabouts. The Businessman stepped into the
hole and, with one hand on the wall for support, carefully tested each
twisted plank before applying his full weight. His first visit to the
barn's basement would be a short one; a year of fungus and mildew had
rendered the air beneath the barn unbreathable. A handkerchief over his
mouth, the Businessman lifted the lamp high to let its light touch every
corner. The cellar reminded him of a catacomb, a place of death and
decay. Squat wooden arches supported the low ceiling, and niter and moss
had all but covered the cinderblock walls. Soon it would become a
nursery, a place where new life would grow.

Satisfied, the Businessman nodded and hugged his rucksack maternally
under his left arm. He had brought his adopted children home. Now he
would nurture them and make them multiply. Tarra had chosen an ideal
hiding place, a patch of tall grass beyond the field's leveled crop of
sugarcane, directly across from Wynett's main gate. She lay spread-eagle
in the mud, concealed by the tall blades, watching the Businessman's
estate through a pair of low-light binoculars. Her arrival at dusk that
afternoon--three hours before the Businessman--afforded ample time to
study the movements of the farm's thirty soldiers, workers and their
families. She took meticulous notes. She recorded Wynett's interest in
the stone barn behind the house and watched a contingent of roustabouts
march single file into the jungle, most likely to retrieve equipment. He
intends to keep it in the barn, she concluded. Tarra stared patiently
through the binoculars and watched. And waited.

PART TWO Containment ' "Mankind already carries in its own hands too
many of the seeds of its own destruction." President Richard M. Nixon,
abolishing the United States' biological weapons program November 25,
1969

Chapter Eleven.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Saturday, 2205 hours

Marshall and Williams heard it before they saw it, four massive turbofan
engines powering up, the telltale sound of a military transport about to
taxi. The Jeep's driver, a young corporal named Boyd, keenly aware of
General Medlock's tight schedule, accelerated toward the huge hangar at
the end of the airstrip. The major and his gunnery sergeant both reached
for a handhold, bracing for the sudden turn that threatened to throw
them headlong onto the tarmac. Thanks to a stiff Atlantic headwind,
their aircraft arrived at Fort Bragg--Delta Force's home base--twenty
minutes behind schedule. Medlock's strict orders didn't allow Marshall
and Williams time to shower at Bragg's "stockade" quarters. Nor, to
their objections, were they permitted to secure additional gear. Each
would have to make do with a single duffel bag, which contained a
shaving kit and a change of clothes, and another, longer case, limiting
them to one weapon each. "A lot of folks are up late," Williams said to
the major. "An op's under way."

Marshall acknowledged him with raised eyebrows.

The Jeep rounded the hangar and jerked to a halt beside an aircraft that
had just finished refueling, a red tank truck unhooking from its wing.
The aerial beast, easily the size of a city block, was a Lockheed C-141
Starlifter, a cargo transport capable of moving entire battalions,
including tanks and choppers.

"Word around here says the Starlifter's from Kirtland Air Force Base,"
Corporal Boyd said, "but there's no record of the aircraft scheduled to
land here."

"Nor is there likely to be," Marshall said, then added unkindly, "Where
I come from, corporals don't pump the officers for information."

"Yes, sir."

A soldier wearing combat fatigues and a serious frown, cradling an M-16,
beckoned Marshall and Williams out of the Jeep. Corporal Boyd screwed
his neck around and said to the two as they jumped onto the runway,
"Hey, good luck, you guys."

The tone of his voice said he was genuinely concerned for their safety.
Marshall returned a halfhearted salute; the corporal seemed to know a
lot more about what was going on tonight than he did. He and Williams
started to brush past the no-nonsense guard, who stopped them with a
quick snap to attention. "Your IDS," the soldier ordered. He was a young
man with a narrow face, wearing a tight expression that suggested a
six-inch railroad spike had been driven up his ass. The C-141's engines
surged to taxi power, making it difficult to hear. "Quickly!"

The two fished through their fatigues, then flashed him their cards. The
guard scrutinized the IDS under the light of a hammer-sized flashlight,
then directed its beam into a pair of annoyed faces. Satisfied, he
presented the two with a rigid parade-ground salute. Marshall bolted up
the staircase that had been rolled to the transport. Someone called down
to them, "Move your butt, Joe!"

The voice belonged to a man in camouflage fatigues standing backlit in
the forward doorway of the Starlifter, just behind the flight deck.
Marshall recognized that voice. He stopped midstride. "Tony?"

The man stepped onto the landing with a hoot and offered his hand. "You
bet your nuts. Your butt's mine now, Joe."

He belted a laugh that rang out over the engine's roar. Marshall
accepted the sincere handshake. Col. Anthony Martinelli,
salt-and-pepper-haired and about to find out what it was like to turn
fifty, offered Marshall--twelve years his junior--a congenial smile and
enthusiastic eyes. Age hadn't sapped the colonel's energy level; in fact
he looked younger than Marshall remembered, solidly built and ready for
action of any kind, the tougher the better. Colonel Martinelli had
pulled the right strings to get Marshall into the Special Forces. He had
been his mentor, a military father figure. But they had lost touch over
the past year; a special assignment had swallowed him whole. Colonel
Martinelli acknowledged Williams with a casual salute. "Glad you're
still taking care of my young man. How's your aim these days?"

"Never better, sir." Williams grinned. "Good. We may need your unique
talent." Then he looked at Marshall, his eyes turning serious. "I heard
you had a rough night in the desert."

Marshall waved away any discussion of the past twenty-four hours. "We'll
talk later. I never thought I'd see you again at Bragg. Why aren't you
spending the army's retirement money in the Canadian Rockies?"

"Who has time?" the colonel said, leading the way back into the
transport. "I'm up to my eyebrows in the most interesting assignment of
my career. I want you to know something, Joe; I insisted you be part of
the team I'm putting together. I wanted you to be in on this."

Marshall stopped him cold. "Tony, I left a lot of good men in Iraq, some
of them hurt bad."

"Is Gorgon important enough to haul your butt over here on short
notice?"

Marshall's hardened expression affirmed that it was. "We're going to
nail the bastard this time," Martinelli said. "I'll have you back at
Bragg within the week."

Marshall gave his mentor a curt nod. They had no sooner set foot inside
the Starlifter than the ground crew pushed the steps quickly away. The
transport began to roll along the taxi-way. "Get cozy," Martinelli
shouted over the throttling engines, pulling the door shut behind them.
"There'll be a briefing as soon as we're up. When this is over we'll all
retire on our bonuses." He gave the two a reassuring thumbs-up before
disappearing into the flight deck. Marshall took one look around the
inside of the Starlifter and nearly dropped his duffel bag, his jaw open
noticeably. This was no cargo aircraft. The Starlifter had become a
flying command center, complete with sophisticated surveillance
electronics and overhead displays. And people--Marshall estimated at
least fifteen, plus crew--scrambling like traders in the soybeans pit at
the Chicago Board of Trade. What was going on here?

"You're late," a steel-chisel voice barked at the two. The voice
belonged to an older man dressed in common khakis and a short-sleeved
shirt minus any indication of rank. He wore a holstered military-issue
.45 under his left armpit. He reminded Marshall of a peregrine falcon,
lean and tough, his movements quick and constant. General Medlock?

Before Marshall could introduce himself, the falcon pointed to a pair of
fold-down seats along the fuselage. "Strap in."

Then he shouted into the flight deck, "Let's get this circus in the
air."

Marshall and Williams stowed their gear under the seats, buckled in and
settled back for takeoff. Men in uniforms squirreled away maps and
charts, technicians in white overalls strapped themselves in before
banks of electronic equipment racked in high metal cabinets, and a
couple of civilians buckled themselves into cushioned seats around a
conference table. At the far end of the crowded cabin, a dozen
treacherous-looking soldiers, most black or Hispanic, raced through a
sliding hatchway into the Starlifter's rear compartment. Marshall caught
a glimpse of a squat, black, disassembled armored helicopter before the
last soldier pulled shut a bulkhead door behind him. Impressive. The
turbofan engines roared to full power and the eighty thousand-plus
pounds of combined thrust pushed Marshall and Williams sideways in their
seats. The aircraft began swaying and bumping along the runway,
gathering speed. With a final bump the aircraft was airborne, banking
right, steadily gaining speed and altitude. When the transport reached
twenty thousand feet, Marshall decided he had waited long enough to find
the head. He unbuckled and headed aft. "No one gave you permission to
move around in here," spat the peregrine falcon with the .45. Marshall
noted that the man wore the frayed look of a leader in the midst of a
battle he knew he couldn't win. "We haven't met," Marshall said,
softening his features with a winning smile. "I'm Major--"

"I'm General Medlock," he snapped, his eyes narrow and intense. "This is
my operation."

Bing ... bing ... The C-141 leveled off at twenty-five thousand feet
with a signal from the pilot that it was safe to move around the cabin.
There followed a rush of activity as the passengers resumed their
preparations--for what, though, Marshall hadn't a clue. Several men
descended on the general, demanding his immediate attention. Marshall
was quickly forgotten. The Starlifter's cargo area quickly became a
conference of solemn, cheerless looks, furtive conversations and civil
nods. The tough-looking soldiers returned to the main cabin. Huddled
together, they exchanged rowdy banter while checking an arsenal of
automatic weapons and strapping intimidating knives to interesting
hiding places on their bodies. Commandos, Marshall concluded, and well
equipped. "Stay clear of the general," Williams advised. "Whatever this
is all about, it's his show. And he doesn't seem too happy about it."

"It would behoove you to take your friend's advice," came a feminine
voice behind them. Marshall whirled and peered into the most striking
pair of brown eyes he had ever seen. Julie squinted back at him as
though she were uncomfortable around soldiers who looked like they had
just stepped off a battlefield. She wore her long, black hair pulled
back in a ponytail, her perfect body stuffed into a pair of tight
overalls. She wore no makeup that Marshall could detect. He noted her
face was perfectly angled, with high cheekbones and an elegant nose, but
it was those hypnotizing dark eyes that held his undivided attention.
Why hadn't he noticed her before?

"This is the worst possible time to get in the way," Julie warned. "I
suggest you either make yourself useful or find a corner and stay put."

Her voice had just the right intonation to put a professional edge on a
thoroughly feminine quality. The academic type, Marshall figured. Nice.
He smiled at her, a cynical grin softening the hard lines around his
equally piercing brown eyes. "And how do you suggest I make myself
useful around here?"

She scrutinized his solid, eternally serious face, then let her eyes run
down his sooted six-foot-three frame. "Depends. You're the Delta major,
right?"

"At your service."

"You could always covertly kill somebody."

And feisty, too; he liked that. "I have a softer side you might like to
get to know. I studied philosophy in college-existentialism."

Her eyes brightened. "Ooo ... perfect. Then strap your macho ass into a
seat and contemplate Kierkegaard and your army boots."

Marshall, smiling, bowed slightly. "Yes, ma'am."

"I've got a better idea," she said, brushing briskly past him, her
perfectly angled nose wrinkled. "Find a shower stall and knock yourself
out." She whispered to Williams, "Tell your commander he stinks."

Williams's stone features melted into a broad grin. "Right away, ma'am."

Marshall, basking in a sudden wave of self-consciousness, began
buttoning his well-traveled shirt. "I don't even know your name," he
called after her. "Martinelli," she said, taking a seat beside the
white-frocked technician. The two quickly became engrossed in some
technical discussion. Tony's daughter. Marshall hadn't recognized her.
He had met Julie once, and then only briefly, perhaps ten years ago when
she was barely out of high school. What was she doing here?

"You look like you just swallowed a turd you thought was a Reese's cup."
Colonel Martinelli laughed, slapping Marshall hard on his shoulder. He
gestured to his daughter. "Don't look so surprised. She's quite
capable."

Marshall didn't doubt it for a moment. "Since when did the brass start
allowing relatives in the same combat unit?"

"I got approval from the joint chiefs to put this team together any way
I want. It's that damned important."

"Did she enlist?"

"Nope. Julie's interning at Detrick to finish her Ph.D. She's already
one of the best biochemists in her field. We need her here." He was
quite the proud papa, Marshall noted. "What field. Tony?"

"Genetic engineering."

"Ten minutes to briefing, people," General Medlock announced to the
group, then beckoned the colonel to follow him aft. Marshall grabbed his
mentor's arm before he could rush away. "Where can I wash up?"

Colonel Martinelli gestured forward. "The head's behind the flight deck,
Joe. And while you're in there, flush that shirt of yours out of this
aircraft."

Chapter Twelve.

The Starlifter

Marshall emerged from the C-141's wash stall clean shaven and scrubbed
as thoroughly as the telephone booth-size head would allow. His hair was
toweled and slicked back, and his fresh, untucked shirt agreed with the
group's lax dress code. A voracious appetite had returned, threatening
to upset his plans to cop a nap. He wondered if anybody had thought to
bring along a couple of sandwiches. "Let's get started," General Medlock
shouted, igniting the cabin's already eager atmosphere. Marshall ignored
his protesting stomach and joined Williams on the fold-down seats away
from the conference table around which the rest of the group was
gathering. The sandwich would have to wait. "The name of this highly
classified operation is Containment," the general began, raising his
scratchy, nail-hard voice. "Some of you got to know each other over the
past two days. For the benefit of the newcomers we'll introduce
ourselves. I'm General John Medlock, a member of the Biochem Advisory
Council, chairman of BERT and commander of this task force. I'll be
monitoring this operation from Washington.

The man to my right is Colonel Anthony Martinelli, deputy commander of
the Alpha Special Forces Unit. He'll be in command once this transport
touches down."

Marshall shot a sideways glance at Williams. What the hell was Alpha?

"Colonel Martinelli brings with him a wealth of experience from several
Special Forces units, including Delta, the Green Berets and a stint with
the British SAS," Medlock continued. "He's stationed at Fort Detrick and
is the army's premier troubleshooter when it comes to bioterrorism.
Alpha is his baby. And you people are the Alpha unit."

Some of those in the room--notably the military types-didn't blink at
the news, while the civilians exchanged puzzled looks. "Alpha is the
code name for BERT--Biological Emergency Response Team," Medlock
continued. "Uncle BERT is a small, fast-reaction team of scientists,
military officers and specially selected antiterrorism commandos.
Martinelli, please introduce your team."

"Yes, sir." The colonel stood before his captive audience. His eager
grin was infectious. "The gentleman to my right is Stony Robinson, the
best damn deputy squad leader ever to wear an army uniform."

A black man in civilian khakis seated next to the colonel stood and
bowed smartly before the group. Stony was sturdily built, tall, with
keen eyes that exuded confidence and a sly grin that boasted he was
fully capable of taking care of himself and a whole lot of others when
the need arose. "The CIA recruited Stony from engineering at Fort
Sherman," Martinelli said. "We borrowed him from the CIA. His training
system is the best the army has ever produced--hell, it's the best
anywhere in the world. And he's used that system to train the most able
commandos I've ever had the pleasure to inspect. We are indeed lucky to
have his services."

Colonel Martinelli acknowledged Stony's men--eight soldiers--standing
along the aft fuselage. Far from the spitpolished professionals typical
of Special Forces units, they looked more like ex-cons than the army's
elite, Marshall noted. Some wore beards and mustaches, none was clean
shaven, and their hair varied from ponytails to bald. Very unmilitary.
He assumed they, too, were CIA. "These commandos are Alpha's muscles,"
Stony said in a resonant voice that reminded Marshall of Lou Rawls. "We
recruited these men from the military's covert strike force for drug
trafficking, and I've taken them through nine months of special commando
training. They can speak Spanish, Portuguese and English without an
accent. We handpicked each of them on his ability to infiltrate and
operate covertly in what we consider to be hot spots on continental
North and South America."

So far Marshall wasn't impressed. He was prepared to pit his troops
hand-to-hand against these pukes anytime, any place. "Next is
Telecommunications Lieutenant Dennis "DOS' Spangler, who is one of the
best satellite reconnaissance analysts in the business," Martinelli
said, indicating a balding, thin-faced man in his mid-thirties, wearing
a white technician's smock and cowllike, metal-rimmed glasses. "Spangler
will use a newly developed Comsat transceiver to make sure every finger
knows what the hand is doing. He'll also be monitoring every broadcast
frequency within eight hundred miles of our staging area. Spangler's job
will be to keep surprises to a minimum."

During the colonel's introduction. Lieutenant Spangler kept his studious
eyes fixed on a stack of three-and-a-half-inch diskettes he was
shuffling in his hands like playing cards. Marshall pegged him as the
nerdy computer sort, long on brains, handy with electronics, short on
everything else. "Next is our special-op pilot Captain David Youngblood
from Task Force One-Sixty, night reconnaissance flying in Desert Storm."

A blond-haired jock dressed in jeans and a Georgia Bulldogs sweatshirt,
seated comfortably with his right snakeskin cowboy boot resting on the
conference table, acknowledged the colonel with a raised fist. He was
the macho ladies-man type, Marshall noted, the antithesis of Lieutenant
Spangler. Youngblood riveted his women-charming blue eyes on Julie and
settled into a smug grin. She couldn't help but return his flirtatious
smile. "Youngblood will be flying a prototype of the Boeing/Sikorsky
RAH-66 Comanche NOTAR light helicopter, which is stowed in back. For
those of you unfamiliar with aircraft, NOTAR stands for 'no tail rotor.'
It's quieter, safer and twice as fast as conventional choppers in
sideways and rearward maneuvering."

Marshall gave Williams a raised-eyebrow nod of approval. "The team's
molecular biochemist is Julie Martinelli," the colonel said with a
special note of pride. "I don't have to tell anybody by now that she's
my daughter. Her field is theoretical biochemistry, specializing in
molecular bioengineering. One day we're going to read about how she
engineered a vaccine for the common cold."

The colonel's introduction drew polite laughter, prompting Julie to give
her father a scolding pout that quickly melted into a charming smile.
She had the cutest upper-lip pucker when she smiled, Marshall noted,
though he preferred the beauty of her more serious look. Youngblood
seemed taken by her too. The chopper pilot's dreamy gaze suggested he
was fantasizing about what she looked like out of those overalls, and he
appeared quite pleased with the result. "And, finally, meet Major
Marshall and Gunnery Master Sergeant J. C. Williams on loan from Delta,"
the colonel added. "The major and his sergeant were part of an elite
command in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. They handled many
of the riskiest, most covert jobs in the war: deception operations along
the Kuwait coast, reconnaissance missions inside Iraq and rescue
operations. They'll be riding shotgun for us. We'll rely on their broad
experience of staying alive in hostile territory to defend our staging
area. We're singularly fortunate to have them on our team."

Marshall fidgeted uncomfortably in his fold-down seat, unsure of what to
make of his role as a peripheral observer-- a goddamn baby-sitter. "Lady
and gentlemen," Colonel Martinelli concluded, "welcome to Alpha unit. I
needn't point out that some members of this team are not connected with
the military. If it wasn't so damned important, we wouldn't be asking
civilians to participate. There simply wasn't time to go through regular
channels. We needed the best and got clearances to recruit each of you
for this operation."

Marshall resisted the urge to fidget some more. He hadn't left his men
in Iraq and flown ten thousand miles at Mach 2 to listen to pep talks.
He was pumped for action. "One more thing, people," Colonel Martinelli
added. "While aboard this transport, the general and I need to know what
you all think. We don't have the time to coddle behind military
politics. So there will be no rank distinctions until we land. We expect
candor--frequent and relevant."

That's all Marshall needed to hear. "Tony," he called to the front,
"where is this aircraft going?"

General Medlock spat, "Antarctica."

There were puzzled looks around the cabin. Medlock looked directly at
Marshall and said, "This is a medical transport. It's on its way to
provide routine hospital services to a NATO meteorological research team
on Britain's South Shetland Islands on the Antarctica Peninsula,
something this transport has done each month without fail for the past
three years. This month, however, a mechanical problem will force it to
make a brief unscheduled landing at an abandoned airstrip thirty miles
outside of Sinope, in Brazil's Amazon basin. Texaco built the airstrip
to shuttle in seismic trucks and drilling rigs. It's huge. Hasn't been
used in two years, though. The runway is serviceable; our people have
made repairs. That's where most of you will get off. That airstrip will
be Alpha's staging area, and you'll direct surveillance from the field's
single hangar. The structure has a sagging roof and no utilities, but
otherwise it's intact. Colonel?"

Colonel Martinelli withdrew a page from a folder and laid it upon the
conference table before him. "What I'm about to tell you is highly
classified. This priority-one State Department cable was issued two days
ago. It says the U.S. government has information that Saddam Hussein has
ordered terrorist attacks against the United States mainland. And I
quote, "We believe these attacks will be deliberately designed to cause
U.S. fatalities and/or destruction to U.S. facilities. We consider the
Southeast as the most likely target, although no region can be
completely precluded.' End quote. This warning has been sent to all U.S.
military bases, international airlines, U.S. energy companies and other
multinational businesses. Our State Department analysts issued the
warning because of growing tensions over violations documented by the
U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq. But that's not the real reason.
This is."

Martinelli picked up a palm-sized remote-control unit. Someone dimmed
the cabin's lights, and an overhead projection TV snapped on. All eyes
turned upward. An image of a corpse-lined street filled the large
screen. An infant wearing a nightgown and bonnet, its face eerily placid
as though it were a doll, lay in the foreground. "This is the Iraqi
settlement of Kumar, about two hundred miles west of Al Kufra,"
Martinelli said. The next picture made even Marshall wince. It was a
close-up of a young man's face, an expression of convulsive terror. His
beard and coat were smeared with dried vomit, his barren eyes sunken
into his skull. "On Tuesday," the colonel said, "a deadly nerve gas
swept through Kumar and killed one hundred and three men, women and
children. Unofficially, Iraq accused the United States of deliberately
murdering the people of Kumar as a warning to show the effects of a
highly lethal nerve gas, which Hussein has stockpiled and hidden since
the war. There is no substance to this charge, of course. Israeli
intelligence suspects that the incident was the result of a spill from
an Iraqi tank car enroute from a manufacturing plant in Rabta. However,
we may never be able to prove that. In any event, neither side has taken
the issue public."

"They screw up and blame us," Marshall said. "That's nothing new."

"What's new, Joe, is Hussein may use the incident to divert attention
from the international outcry against his biological and chemical
weapons arsenal," Martinelli said. "He's looking for a way to rebuild a
coalition--an excuse to retaliate using the same weapon--and this
incident gives it to him. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't
deliberately wipe out this settlement as a means of setting his plan in
motion."

"Why are we fencing with that asshole?" It was chopper pilot David
Youngblood, speaking in his Georgia drawl. "Why don't we just blow off
his balls with another full-scale air assault?"

"Because of this man," the colonel said. The next slightly out-of-focus
video image was a long shot of a huge, sinister-looking man with narrow
eyes and short Afro hair, dressed in a combat trench outfit. No one
would deny that even from a distance he was frightening to look at.
Marshall leaned intently forward. This wasn't the first time he had seen
this rare photograph. "Abdul Banna," the colonel said, "better known to
the terrorist underground these days as Gorgon."

Marshall, for one, needed no introduction. This was no mythical
snake-haired bitch whose glance could turn beholders into stone. The man
on the screen was a murderer of the worst sort, who enjoyed killing and
never hesitated to take a life to protect his anonymity. Gorgon was the
reason his Delta squad had been on nearly continuous alert for the past
two years. A half dozen of his men were dead because of him. Now he
could add last night's incident to that dismal list. Colonel Martinelli
noted Marshall's keen attention. "I thought you'd be interested, Joe.
This isn't your ordinary terrorist, people. Gorgon is a freelance
mercenary. Very good. Very lethal. He isn't driven by religious
fanaticism--only money. Believing him to be operating out of either Iraq
or Libya, the Italian government has sentenced him to death in absentia
for the hijacking of the cruise ship and the murder of her crew. He is
being sought by antiterrorist officials on three continents for
hijacking, assassination and political violence. Israeli intelligence
now estimates he has more than three hundred mercenary soldiers at
covert bases throughout the Middle East. However, we believe his network
is much broader and includes an infrastructure in the United States. For
the past eighteen months the CIA has been working to develop sources,
identify Banna's associates and day-to-day movements and devise a plan
to intercept him. "On January thirteenth, the U.S Embassy in Cairo
received a warning from a reliable Arab informant," Martinelli said.
"The caller--a well-paid Lebanese national who has worked for Banna for
the past seven years--said that Hussein hired Gorgon to carry out a
terror assault on the U.S. mainland. Israel has confirmed this
information. We have reason to believe Gorgon will use a highly lethal
organism in that attack."

Unsettled murmurs swept through the cabin. "What organism?" Marshall
probed. "Indulge me for one moment, please, Joe. There is one more man I
want all of you to meet." Colonel Martinelli raised the remote control
and another face filled the screen. This one was a passport photo of an
older man with a weight problem. "Meet Dr. Carl Wynett, a former
biochemical engineer with Friedrich Chemical Company of Gronau, West
Germany. In the underground he is known as 'the Businessman,' and for a
good reason. Wynett has made his fortune selling arms to Iraq. During
the past four years he has sold at least seventy tons of arms to
Hussein."

The screen dissolved into another face--a distinguished looking
gentleman, sixtyish, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose above a
neat, silver beard. The quality of the image was not as good as that of
the first, but it was clear enough for Julie to recognize the man who
had duped her at Fort Detrick. "A surveillance camera at Detrick took
this picture," the colonel said. "This also is Dr. Carl Wynett. Only the
name on his Detrick ID tag last Monday said Dr. Reinhard Sterling."

The next screen showed two faces, on the right the distinguished image
of Wynett, and beside it a head-and-shoulder portrait of a man who bore
an uncanny resemblance to Wynett's altered image. The new face was
studious, decisive, utterly self-assured. "The man on the right is the
real Dr. Sterling, one of the world's leading experts in
bioengineering." For a moment there was only the steady rumble of the
Starlifter's engines. "Sterling was scheduled to take part in a debate
at Detrick sponsored by the American Society of Microbiologists. Wynett
showed up instead. His masquerade was clever enough to con Senator
Michael Baker, chairman of a special Senate investigation subcommittee,
and gain him access to a specially retrofitted BL-4 lab at Detrick."

"Has there been any word from Dr. Sterling?" Julie asked. "His wife
confirms dropping him off at the Frankfort Airport," the colonel said.
"We're not sure when Wynett took his place. But there's been no word
from Sterling after he boarded his flight. A police search is still
under way in both countries."

"What in God's name was Wynett after?" Lieutenant Spangler asked.
"Something to sell to Gorgon. Something very rare and very potent."
Colonel Martinelli passed the remote control to his daughter. "I'll
defer the specifics of that question to my expert."

Julie passed a five-inch compact disc to telecommunications officer
Spangler, who inserted it into a CD-ROM player attached to the overhead
monitor. She stood before the group, her eyes fixed on the remote
control in her palm. This was not the confident, self-assertive woman
Marshall had met earlier, he noted; she appeared deeply troubled about
something. When she spoke there was controlled anger in her voice.
"Wynett stole a vial containing a genetically engineered T4 supertoxin,"
she began. "It was a hybrid. A Detrick researcher found a way to splice
tetrodotoxin into a Group A streptococcal pathogen. He created an
airborne virus at least four hundred times as lethal as conventional
neurotoxins. Wynett now has it."

Marshall's empty stomach suddenly felt queasy. He glanced at Williams,
who shook his head in disgust. Julie punched a number on the remote
control, and a black and-white image of a laboratory filled the screen.
"This is Detrick's BL-4 lab following Wynett's visit."

The next image showed what used to be a man, half clad in a damaged
environment suit, contorted like driftwood on the lab's floor, his
features no longer recognizable. "This is what's left of Colonel James
Westbrook, commander of the United States Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Disease," Julie said. "Wynett sealed Westbrook
and a technician inside the lab after opening dozens of vials containing
the world's most lethal viruses and bacteria. He then turned off all
life-support systems."

She zoomed in on a pocket-size notebook opened beside the corpse,
greatly enlarging barely legible scribbling. It was a list of sorts,
each line more erratically written than the previous one. "Before he
died," Julie said, "Westbrook wrote the name "Saint Vitus' seven times
in his calendar notebook. This was no prayer. Saint Vitus is the code
name for the synthesized supertoxin--"

"Please note," General Medlock cut in, "that the name itself is highly
classified."

"Of course," Julie allowed. "Although it may be months before anyone can
enter the lab to be certain, we're assuming Westbrook was trying to tell
us what Wynett had taken."

"Miss Martinelli," Lieutenant Spangler asked, "just how dangerous is
this pathogen?"

"When tetrodotoxin protein was successfully introduced into the virus, a
highly lethal new organism was born," she said. "Tetrodotoxin is found
naturally in the skin, ovaries, liver and intestines of the blowfish or
puffer fish. It's one of the most poisonous substances known. Laboratory
analysis has demonstrated that it is more than one hundred and fifty
thousand times more potent than cocaine. I would conservatively rate it
five hundred times stronger than cyanide. A single lethal dose of the
pure toxin could rest on the head of a pin. "The army was interested in
the new organism because of the speed with which it attacks its host's
central nervous system. It's extraordinarily communicable, requiring
only several hundred particles to produce an infection, compared to
influenza, which requires several million. And unlike nerve gas, which
can dissipate rapidly in poor weather conditions, an organism can breed
and spread. An outbreak of Saint Vitus could produce a localized plague
for which there is no antidote. However, the organism can survive only
in an environment of pure oxygen. Once contaminated by carbon dioxide,
succeeding generations mutate rapidly into less volatile strains, which
is useful to the military from a tactical standpoint--after a few hours
soldiers can occupy the contaminated area. Specific data are not
available. The only remaining sample is now in Wynett's possession."

"And you think Wynett intends to sell this ... this bug to Gorgon?"
Youngblood drawled, more a conclusion than a question. "Absolutely,"
interjected the colonel, standing. "In fact, we're certain Gorgon hired
Wynett for the theft. Our informant was working with Wynett at the time
of the Detrick theft. Apparently Gorgon got wise to him. Our spy turned
up dead in an abandoned shack in Tampico, Mexico. His brain had been
removed and turned up at the State Department via pouch mail as a
warning. Gorgon was fucking with us. However, it did tell us he had left
Iraq, which bought us some time."

"But only one vial?" Lieutenant Spangler said. "How much of a threat can
one vial pose?"

"It's an unprecedented threat, DOS," Julie said. "Either Wynett or
Gorgon can incubate as much of the organism as he wants. They have no
lab data about the specimen; Wynett knows it's terribly lethal, but
little else. He has no way of knowing that if a gallon of Saint Vitus
was aerated over New York City, the organism would seek and kill
ninety-six percent of the population in less than one hour. Assuming
Wynett knows advanced molecular biochemistry, in two weeks he could
produce enough virus to infect the airspace from New York to San Diego."

The men around the table sat rigid, their expressions suggesting they
were visualizing corpse-strewn streets in their own neighborhoods far
more gruesome than the image of the Iraqi settlement of Kumar. Colonel
Martinelli broke the uneasy quiet. "Perhaps you now can appreciate what
Hussein is up to," he said. "What better way to counter worldwide
objections to his use of nuclear, chemical and biologic weapons than to
reveal in such a dramatic fashion what the U.S. Army is brewing in its
own labs? He wants to hoist us with our own petard. A malicious act of
revenge, pure and simple."

Marshall's mind was reeling, trying to digest the flood of information
and grasp all its ramifications. "Total candor?"

Colonel Martinelli nodded. "Why was Detrick messing with this stuff in
the first place?" he asked. "I thought we were out of the offensive
biological weapons business."

"Detrick is a defensive research facility," Medlock interjected, his
firm voice doing its best to convince. "This situation is the
unfortunate side effect of that research."

"I agree with the major," Lieutenant Spangler said, standing. "This is
going to feed a new-age biological weapons race whose end could become
the most efficient way to exterminate man from this planet."

"The man who dreamed up this poison should be up here risking his neck
with us," Youngblood shouted, fueling the objections. "I want to know
the fucker's name!"

"I did it," Julie shouted. The cabin fell abruptly quiet, and all eyes
shifted to her. "Saint Vitus was my fucking idea."

Julie dropped into her seat and locked eyes with Youngblood. He was too
surprised to do anything but stare back at her. Marshall looked away
from her. For a few awkward moments no one spoke--no one knew how to
react to the news. The revelation that the colonel's own daughter was
responsible, however indirectly, hung over the team like a thundercloud.

"What my daughter means," began Colonel Martinelli, his tone apologetic,
"is that she originally proposed a theory for the new organism as part
of her doctoral thesis. But it was just an idea; she declined to pursue
it. The notion was purely theoretical--she had no technological means to
pull it off. Unfortunately Detrick's experimental gene-splicing
technique is much more advanced than anything the universities have. Dr.
David French, an army biochemist, created the new strain without
approval or authorization. And he paid for it with his life."

"No one is happy about this, least of all me," General Medlock said.
"Nevertheless, the people of the United States have a very big problem.
We can't allow Gorgon to get his hands on this toxin--goddammit, we
can't let him set foot in the United States. Now that you've all asked
your questions, it's time we do something about this fiasco and make
sure it doesn't lead to further loss of life."

Medlock glared into the somber faces around the cabin, looking for
dissension. He found none. Despite their objections he knew he could
count on them all to do their jobs. "Good," he said. "Martinelli?"

The colonel surveyed his team, his infectious grin gone, his fatherly
eyes now a pair of dark spheres. "Hell, the world's not coming to an
end, people. We're going to get back our bug and with it Gorgon. Wynett
owns a plantation in Mato Grosso in Brazil's Amazon basin about sixty
miles east of the airstrip where we'll be staging. He calls the place
Stonecutters Garden. It's a front for his gun-running business in South
America and a damn good hideout. Our recon satellites are monitoring
increased activity on the plantation, and word's out he's recruiting men
who can handle guns to strengthen his already formidable security force.
We believe Wynett's on his way to the farm with Saint Vitus. If he shows
up there, officially the U.S. can't touch him. That's where we come in."
"So we enter a sovereign state illegally and assault the plantation,"
Marshall said. "How does that get us Gorgon?"

"By letting Wynett brew his poison," the colonel said. Unsettled murmurs
throughout the cabin confirmed that no one liked the idea. "Keep in
mind, people, that Gorgon no doubt has been paid a great deal," the
colonel said. "If he doesn't get his hands on this supertoxin, he'll
find another way to carry out Hussein's revenge. That's why we're going
to let Saint Vitus bring Gorgon out in the open where we can deal with
him permanently. The next time Gorgon and Wynett meet, we'll take down
both of them. Very quietly, very efficiently. We are not, I repeat, not
interested in making arrests. Our first task will be to get as many of
Stony's men as possible onto the plantation as hired guns. Those of
Stony's men who aren't recruited to beef up Wynett's security force will
work in the fields as roustabouts, picking sugar. Once inside they'll be
our reconnaissance and will make damn certain the vial Wynett stole
doesn't leave that plantation. And when I give the order, they'll be our
firepower."

"Too dangerous, too risky," Marshall said. "The price of failure is too
high."

Colonel Martinelli, his eyes coming alive again, said, "There's no risk
of Gorgon getting his hands on Saint Vitus. Wynett's incubated pathogen
will be worthless."

More quizzical looks. "I don't get it, sir," Lieutenant Spangler said.
"If the vial he stole from Detrick is the real thing, what's stopping
him from producing more?"

"As a chemical engineer," Colonel Martinelli said, "Wynett lacks the
expertise to incubate a synthetic neurotoxin. He's going to need help
from a molecular biochemist. We know he's used such a specialist at
least twice before, a professor on the staff of the biochemistry
department at the University of Sao Paulo. The man's got a lot of
problems, drinking being only one of them, but he knows his science and
Wynett trusts him. He's under our surveillance right now. If Wynett
contacts him to assist, one of our people will attempt to take his
place. If successful, our man will make sure the culture medium Wynett
uses in the incubation process is toxic to the organism. Wynett will
deliver to Gorgon a harmless stew."

"Suppose Wynett doesn't go for it?" Youngblood asked. "What if you can't
get a man next to him?"

"That's a very real possibility," the colonel said. "In that event
Stony's men will simply eliminate Wynett and return what he stole to
Fort Detrick. Under no circumstances can we allow Wynett to incubate a
lethal strain of Saint Vitus in any quantity."

The notion hit Marshall like a bag of wet cement: He intends to send
Julie to Wynett's plantation. Sure, she knew more about this virus than
anybody else, but using her was far too risky, Marshall decided. She
wasn't trained for covert sting operations. What if she panicked? He
shook his head, appalled by the idea. "Sir," Marshall said. "No
disrespect intended, but Julie won't last ten minutes inside Wynett's
camp. He'll cut her throat before she can open a notebook."

The colonel looked astonished. "Are you suggesting I send in my own
daughter to work with Wynett?"

Marshall scanned the faces in the cabin and saw no other likely
candidate. "Who else do you have in mind?"

Colonel Martinelli leveled a shrewd gaze at Marshall. "Me."

Chapter Thirteen.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sunday, January 17 0804 hours

Dr. Jorge d. Silva welcomed his drunken stupor. The alcohol's heavy
sedation numbed the deep cut above his right eye and his four broken
teeth. He didn't look much like a member of the University of Sao
Paulo's biochemistry department. He had been foolish to resist the two
goons, each easily twice his weight, when they pushed their way into his
apartment more than two hours ago. The three of them had been waiting
since dawn for a telephone call. Dr. da Silva had been sitting rigid for
two hours, staring through fogged vision at the two men, American FBI
agents or some other U.S. government agency that specialized in torment.
And waiting. To his distorted eyes they looked more like gorillas than
men. When the telephone finally rang, the anemic doctor let out his
breath in a sharp gasp, then winced at the pain in his chest from a
collapsed lung. What he needed was another drink to further numb his
pain and fear. But nothing was offered. By the third ring, one of the
goons had squeezed a listening device into his ear and nodded for the
doctor to answer. Dr. da Silva was no hero; he did exactly as he was
told. "Dr. da Silva," he said into the mouthpiece, trying not to slur
his words. "I need you again," Wynett said from his jungle estate's
study. The plantation's satellite link sounded remarkably clear. "I can
give you one week's work. Please be ready by eight tonight at our usual
rendezvous."

Dr. da Silva looked at the two goons glaring back at him with dark
expressions. "Sorry, Carl," da Silva said, paraphrasing the speech the
special agents had rehearsed with him. "I have a collapsed lung, of all
my dumb luck. A spontaneous thing. I was just leaving for St. Luke's
Hospital." Dr. da Silva coughed for effect and was rewarded with a
peculiar ache in his chest. His captors had made sure his excuse rang
true. A lengthy pause followed, and for an eternal moment da Silva
feared Wynett would hang up on him. If that happened he feared the goons
would mash him into the floorboards like a bug. Steady. Finally Wynett
said, "I am sorry to hear about your health. Nevertheless, it leaves me
in a bind, since I am in haste. I am prepared to pay you double."

He is up to something big--and that means cash, da Silva thought. Too
bad I won't be part of it. "I would never live to spend it, Carl," da
Silva said with a nervous laugh, watching his guards, then added slowly,
"Why not use Armstrong this time?"

"Who?"

"Dr. Henry Armstrong, the department's new American instructor I told
you about," he lied. He'd never uttered the name before. "We have become
good friends. He teaches biology, but his field is molecular
biochemistry in medical research. He is very good."

"I do not recall your mentioning his name." Another pause, then, "Can I
trust him?"

"We are pals." Dr. da Silva shot a sideways glance at the goons and
ad-libbed, "He does have one fault, though; an outstanding felony child
molestation charge in the States. He needs cash. He will jump at a
chance for freelance work."

Another long pause. "Describe him to me."

One of the gorillas held a 5 X 7-inch photo of Col. Anthony Martinelli
not a breath away from the doctor's face, too close for da Silva's
bloodshot eyes to focus properly. "He is older than I by 10 years, and
stockier. He wears his hair short, and it has much gray in it. He is
clean shaven and has a medium build." He leaned back to focus on the
photo. "Nothing spectacular."

One of da Silva's guards signaled him to end the conversation; the
longer da Silva talked to Wynett, the greater the chance of him blowing
this. "Carl, I have to go to St. Luke's."

"No," Wynett snapped. "I must speak with your Dr. Armstrong
immediately."

One of the goons nodded. "You can contact him through my secretary at
the university. He should be there now."

"Thank you. Dr. da Silva. I will miss our chess games. Does Armstrong
play?"

Dr. da Silva looked questioningly at his captors, whose expressions
remained blank; they were unprepared for the question.

"Yes, sir," da Silva volunteered, a mischievous grin melting his pained
features. He would like to repay the men who had beaten him. "We play
regularly. The man is a pro."

"Very good. Again, I am sorry about your health."

One of the goons disconnected the line, and Dr. da Silva replaced the
receiver with a trembling hand, expelling a long, relieved sigh, which
prompted another bout of chest pain. He looked expectantly at his
captors, but neither man's dark face offered any feedback on his
performance. One of the gorillas produced a bottle of Canadian Club and
passed it to da Silva. The doctor eagerly accepted the reward and downed
a quarter of its contents in two impressive swallows. His captors traded
amused glances--in five minutes the spiked liquor would put da Silva
into a comalike sleep. When he woke in forty-eight hours with a demonic
hangover, the doctor would be unable to explain how he ended up in a
hospital in Salina, Kansas. Sao Paulo, Brazil 0815 hours No one in the
biology department of the University of Sao Paulo heard Dr. da Silva's
office phone ring. Not surprising, considering it had been replaced with
a device that looked like a telephone but, in fact, had far different
functions--ringing not being one of them. The simple switching device
automatically transferred all incoming calls from Dr. da Silva's office
via satellite to a small office in the World Trade Center in New York
City, a room leased by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
Two people worked the office. One of them was Mrs. Hilda Gonzales, a
heavy middle-aged woman with six children, who had worked AT&T's
international switchboard for more than two decades. Each time her
console buzzed with an incoming call from the device, before answering
she switched on a cassette tape of a typewriter banging in the
background. She had taken a stack of messages for Dr. da Silva. Her
routine this time was no different. "Chemistry department," she said in
Portuguese. "I need a reference regarding a Dr. Henry Armstrong," Wynett
said. "One moment please. I will transfer you to his office."

"Madam, first I would like to speak to his superior."

"The dean will not be in today," she said, "but I can let you talk to
his assistant."

"Very good."

Mrs. Gonzales put the caller on hold, switched off the cassette tape and
looked at her boss for a cue. The dark man wearing a darker suit, the
phone's receiver already pressed to his ear, gave her a nod. She
connected the call.

"This is Dr. Ribera," the agent said, also in Portuguese. "How may I
help you?"

"My name is Ernst Stenger from the Bianco Nacional Bank of Sao Paulo,"
Wynett said. "I need a loan reference for a Henry Armstrong. Is he
employed by the University?"

"Yes, Mr. Stenger. He teaches biology."

"May I ask how long he has been employed there?"

"About four months."

"Would you be kind enough to give me a personal reference regarding his
loan application?"

The CIA agent sighed for effect. "Mr. Stenger, I can vouch for Dr.
Armstrong's integrity as a teacher--he is very good at what he does. But
I will have to decline comment about his personal affairs."

"I understand. Thank you. Dr. Ribera; you have been very helpful."

"May I transfer you to his office?" The special agent held his breath.
Go for it, bastard. "I would appreciate that very much. Dr. Ribera.
Thank you."

The special agent nodded to Mrs. Gonzales, who redirected the call
through the satellite system to Sinope, Brazil. He replaced the receiver
and, sighing deeply, gave her a sincere nod of gratitude. Sinope, Brazil
Ten minutes after the Starlifter had touched down on the abandoned
airstrip in the jungles of Sinope, the flight crew already had unloaded
half its equipment and supplies, stacking them neatly along the runway.
The transport's engines idled at twenty-five percent; it would be
airborne in another ten minutes. "We got company," Stony huffed, rushing
across the tarmac to the colonel. He carried an M-16 rifle cocked and
cradled. "A couple people are barricaded in the hangar. Four, we think,
and armed. They know we're here--one took a shot at us. Another bolted
into the jungle. Four of my men surrounded the structure. The others are
searching the brush."

"Goddamnit," General Medlock spat. "This place was supposed to be
secure. Word's going to get out."

"Who are they?" Julie asked, huddling next to them. "Most likely
guerrillas and cocaine traffickers," Colonel Martinelli said. He wiped
his sweat-soaked brow with the back of his camouflage cap and replaced
it over his equally soaked hair. "These valleys are a source of most of
the world's coco leaf. The jungle is full of illegal airstrips and drug
labs. When our people repaired this runway, a drug lord probably secured
this airstrip for his own use."

"How charming," Julie said. Marshall pushed in beside the colonel. "So
what are we going to do about it?"

"Colonel, don't fuck around," Medlock said. "Secure that hangar, and
fast." He looked at his watch. "I'm out of here in seven minutes."

"Get your men inside that hangar. Captain," the colonel ordered Stony.
"Take prisoners, if you can. But I want that hangar cleared in five
minutes. And be discreet."

Stony nodded and disappeared into the jungle. Colonel Martinelli looked
severely at Lieutenant Spangler and said, ' "I want your ear glued to
that radio. If you get the call from New York, give it to me. I don't
care what I'm doing, you come get me. You understand?" A pallid
Lieutenant Spangler looked as though he could have done without this
unscheduled skirmish. "Yes, sir."

The hangar was little more than a ramshackle barracks, overgrown with
jungle. When his men were in position. Stony entered first. He jammed
his boot solidly against the door and expected it to burst inward.
Instead, the planks shattered in a blizzard of mildew and rot. He
flattened his back against the planks beside the door and chanced a
quick glance inside. It was dim inside the hangar, too dark to make out
specifics, but he could hear hurried scuffles and could see figures
rushing into the shadows, taking up positions.

"Do it!" Stony shouted. His commandos burst inside, their silenced
weapons popping single rounds into the figures skulking in the shadows.
Stony could hear men screaming and kicking out the hangar's planks in
their desperate bid to flee the attack. A lone shotgun blast from the
inhabitants blew a hole in the hangar's roof. The shouting quickly
dwindled to a few short anguished cries, interspersed with sporadic
suppressed pops as the commandos rushed into each corner, pumping rounds
into anything that moved. An eerie quiet followed. In a few short
seconds Stony's men had secured the hangar. Its inhabitants lay dead,
their bodies riddled with wounds. None of Stony's men had even broken a
sweat. Outside, Williams pushed a curious Julie back from the hangar's
doorway and kept his Galil pointed at the underbrush along the runway,
scanning for movement. Marshall followed Colonel Martinelli into the
hanger, and both men took a quick inventory of the dead. Four men lay
scattered across the floor, their dusty faces soaked in red. "I want
light in here," the colonel demanded. Shutters were drawn back while the
colonel surveyed the carnage. Marshall shouldered his Franchi and also
inspected the dead. He stood over one of the casualties, a man lying
across the transom. The major's jaw tightened. The luckless man was at
least sixty, with thin white hair and worn-out clothing, his hands
callused from hard work. At his side lay an antique shotgun, which
Marshall doubted would do much damage even if it could fire. The corpse
stared vacantly out the ravaged door as if he had some particular
destination in mind. Neither he nor his companions were going anywhere.
"Looks like you saved us from some formidable villains," Marshall
mocked. Stony whirled from one of the dead and glared at Marshall.
"Sorry to mess up your day. Major. We're not about to blow this
operation over a couple of vagrants."

"Knock it off," the colonel ordered. "We have work to do. Get these
bodies out of here."

In the confusion. Lieutenant Spangler almost missed the flashing yellow
light on his portable satellite transceiver. "Jesus!"

He dashed across the runway and bolted straight into the hangar,
unmindful of any danger. "It's New York, sir," he yelled, slipping on
headphones to monitor the call. "I want it quiet in here!" Colonel
Martinelli's voice boomed into every corner of the hangar. Julie pushed
past Williams and stood watching from the doorway. The colonel lifted
the receiver from its cradle on Spangler's transceiver and put it to his
ear. "Armstrong here."

"Dr. Armstrong?" asked a voice on the other end, an older gentleman with
a German accent. The colonel allowed himself an inaudible sigh. "That's
what I said."

"I was told you could help me."

The colonel gave Marshall a serious nod. "Depends. Who is this?"

"My name is Dr. Carl Wynett. I am a research scientist. Dr. da Silva
assured me that I can trust you. I will pay you ten thousand American
dollars cash for one week of lab work as my assistant. Are you
interested?"

Martinelli paused several heartbeats for effect. Marshall yanked the
headphones off Lieutenant Spangler's head and placed them over his own
ears to monitor the call. "What kind of lab work?" the colonel asked
slowly. "Routine. How soon can you be ready?"

Martinelli glanced at Captain Youngblood leaning in the doorway. He knew
it would take at least three hours to assemble and prep the RAH-66
Comanche light helicopter. "First thing in the morning--if I'm
interested."

"Sir, if you want the job, you will tell me so immediately, then meet me
outside the currency exchange office on Iguatemi Street at eight
tonight."

Jesus Christ! One thousand miles to Sao Paulo in less than twelve hours
in a chopper that's still in pieces. That's cutting it too fucking
close, pal. "Ten thousand cash?"

"Yes."

"How will I know you?"

"I will find you--assuming you are on Iguatemi Street at eight tonight."

Martinelli allowed another pregnant pause. "Sure, why not?"

"Very good. By the way, your friend also assured me I can count on you
for a good game of chess."

Martinelli paused again, this time uncertain how to respond; he hadn't
uttered the word 'checkmate' since college, and even then he'd never
been much good at the game. The quickest way to blow your cover is to
make claims about yourself you can't fulfill, he reminded himself. "I
can hold my own," he allowed. "Good. Tonight at eight, then."

The line went dead. Martinelli replaced the receiver and looked into the
questioning faces of his team. "It's a go," he said, his expression
oddly barren of confidence. Julie, agreeably surprised that the hastily
prepared plan was working, touched her father's arm and quizzed, "I want
you to tell me what can happen when phosphate contaminates a nutrient
medium."

"We'll go over the lessons one more time later." Colonel Martinelli
looked at his watch and scowled. "I've got less than twelve hours to get
to Sao Paulo." He yelled at Youngblood, "I want that chopper assembled
now. Joe, I want you and your sergeant to help him. Goddamnit, I want
this place looking like an op staging area, not a drug-infested
latrine." The pilot and the gunnery sergeant vanished from the doorway,
but Marshall stayed stubbornly behind. The colonel ordered Stony, "Get
your men into town-now." Town was a farming community of drifters who
hung around drinking and waiting for work as Wynett's farmhands or
mercenaries. Mostly they drank. With luck, some of Stony's troops would
be in Wynett's employ within twenty-four hours, completing the second
phase of the colonel's plan. "Yes, sir." The ungroomed commandos
followed Stony single file into the jungle, while a tight-lipped
Marshall watched them leave. If it weren't for their weapons, they could
pass for a chain gang, he thought. The colonel said to Marshall, "Your
job is to take care of my people while I'm gone." He took Julie's hand
into his. "Take care of my laughter."

"I can take care of myself, thank you very much," Julie reminded him. "I
don't need one of your grunts standing guard over me."

Marshall grimaced at the word grunt. "You'll do exactly as Joe says,"
the colonel said, curt. "What bothers me. Tony," Marshall said, "are too
many 'ifs' in this plan of yours. How are you going to pull off this
masquerade?"

Colonel Martinelli scowled; this wasn't the time for self-doubts. "I've
been eating, drinking and living this material for the last two years at
Detrick."

"He knows biochemistry very well," Julie offered. "Relax, Joe. We're
going to nail these bastards." The colonel towered over Lieutenant
Spangler still sitting on the floor next to his transceiver, cradling
the headphones. "You look like you can play a mean game of chess."

Lieutenant Spangler gawked at him through his owllike spectacles and
nodded. ' "Yes, sir. I can beat my computer one out of three games."

"Good. You have one hour to teach me."

La Strata Air Base Cuzco, Peru Peruvian Air Force Capt. Laszlo Valachi
found himself in the middle of an uncommonly busy day. His morning had
been busy honoring a Peruvian Defense Council request to monitor and
record all transmissions originating from a remote Brazilian rain
forest. The order at first seemed routine--another snooping session on
the local drug traffickers. But this morning's events had proved most
interesting. For the past four hours the air base's surveillance
equipment had recorded scrambled satellite relay signals transmitting on
a frequency usually reserved for high-speed data links. Captain Valachi
wasn't a telecommunications expert, but he knew this was no drug
trafficker with a shortwave set. So much for early morning activities. ;
The second incident occurred just before noon. Valachi had monitored a
distress call to the Brazilian Air Force Command Center in Cuiaba from a
NATO transport plane requesting permission for an emergency landing at
an abandoned airstrip outside of Sinope. The airstrip was less than
sixty miles from the source of the satellite transmission. Thirty
minutes later, the pilot reported a critical oil leak had been repaired
and that the transport had resumed its flight plan to Antarctica.
Coincidence? Probably. Nevertheless, the captain reported the activity
to the Defense Council and took the initiative to order his tiny but
powerful air-force squadron--two Russian-made Mig-23s and a Hind Mi-1
gunship--onto yellow alert.

Chapter Fourteen.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sunday, 2007 hours

Colonel Martinelli waited outside the neon-lit currency exchange office
on Iguatemi Street and scanned the corrupt visages of each unsavory
passerby. This wasn't a good part of town. He rubbed his two-day-old
beard, then glanced at his watch again. Damn--seven minutes late. After
flying at full throttle for more than six hours at treetop level.
Captain Youngblood had delivered him to the outskirts of Sao Paulo an
uncomfortably close thirty minutes earlier. Still, he wasn't at his
appointed rendezvous. He had to jog nearly two miles down dark, narrow
side streets before finding a driver willing to take him to the worst
part of the city after dark. Not an easy task, he quickly learned. His
only comfort was his ever-present custom-made Beretta, hidden in a back
holster under his sweat-soaked shirt. He heldd at his side a duffel bag
stuffed with toiletries and spare magazine clips sewn into the lining.
While he waited, his mind swirled with facts and tables from the crash
course in microbiology his daughter had given him, tutoring sessions he
compared with trying to take sips from a fire hose.

He glanced again at his watch. Where was Wynett? Maybe he suspected
something and backed off. Maybe Operation Containment was already over,
only he just didn't know it. "Good evening. Dr. Armstrong," a voice with
a thick Portuguese accent said from behind him. Martinelli whirled. A
man, his face half obscured by a large straw hat, regarded the colonel
closely while drawing heavily on a fat cigar. Its glow cast a pale light
on a grizzled face that looked direly neglected. "You are Dr.
Armstrong?" Tucco asked in choppy English. Martinelli nodded. "You are
late," Tucco said. He noted the colonel's perspiring features. "You have
been running?"

"I couldn't get a cab," Martinelli said. Tucco nodded, understanding.
"Turn around, faz favor." He made a circling gesture, instructing the
colonel to face the other way. Martinelli reluctantly complied. Tucco
frisked the colonel and quickly found his holstered Beretta. Tucco
withdrew the handgun and admired its precision craftsmanship. "An odd
possession for a schoolteacher," Tucco said. "As long as I'm in this
country, it goes where I go," Martinelli said. Tucco removed the clip
and returned the weapon to the colonel. "You cannot come armed. There
are too many new faces arriving at his place, and I have no time to
check all of them properly."

A quick inspection of Martinelli's duffel bag yielded nothing of
interest. Then he scrutinized the colonel's appearance. "You must shave
before we arrive. He does not care about the farmers. But those who work
close to him must groom."

Martinelli just grunted. An eccentric bastard, this Wynett. Tucco
directed the colonel inside a waiting car with a jerk of his thumb. The
colonel slid into the front seat next to the driver, a Brazilian not
much more than a boy. Tucco squeezed the colonel to the middle. The
driver pulled the tiny late-model Ford--rare for this city--into the
light Sao Paulo traffic, heading south toward the airport. Sandwiched
tightly between the two, Martinelli winced at the powerful odor of sweat
emanating from the three of them and the brim of Tucco's straw hat
tickling his temples. "Care to tell me where we're going?" Martinelli
said. "I thought this was a local job."

"You thought wrong, amigo," Tucco said, then drew deeply on his cigar,
filling the car with thick, acrid smoke. "I hope you enjoy helicopter
rides."

Sinope, Brazil Monday, January 18 0530 hours Julie doubled over her cot,
writhing in agony from the severe pain spreading to every muscle of her
body. She knew what it felt like to be terribly ill; she had once had an
acute case of salmonella that put her in a hospital for two days. But
this pain was far worse than any food poisoning. She touched her right
arm and contorted in agony. The bloated appendage had become a black,
throbbing sack, which threatened to rupture in a pool of rancid blood if
she dared rub it. Saint Vitus!

She had become infected. The virus had reduced her body to an obscene
mockery of its former splendor, quickly ravaging her every organ, muscle
and tissue beyond any conceivable hope of repair. She whisked off the
sheet and stared in horror at two appalling bags of yellow sap that had
once been an enviable pair of legs. "Ganciclovir!" she shouted, but the
sound coming from her shriveled throat sounded like the hiss of a
crushed snake ... Julie sat bolt upright in her cot, clinging
desperately to her soaked sheet, which threatened to strangle her.
Another damned nightmare. Trembling, she slid from under the mosquito
net and put down a socked foot next to a Cane toad, which she first
mistook for a round, squat teapot. She and the toad exchanged curious
blinks before the warty teapot hopped under the frame of her cot.
Marvelous. Better vermin that hopped, she reassured herself, than ones
that slithered. Neither the climate nor the early hour agreed with
Julie. She had slept fitfully, thanks to a nonstop string of bad dreams
and the night's heavy rain, which sounded like firecrackers striking the
hangar's corrugated iron roof. Her nightmares alternated between seeing
the virus as an incarnation of Satan and seeing her father's decomposing
remains. By morning Julie felt like the old hangar looked--worn and
undesirable. The heat, even for dawn, was oppressive. Pulling a
sweat-drenched T-shirt down past her waist, she trudged across the
rotted and warped planks toward the bathroom before she remembered there
wasn't one. Nor was there any running water. "You sure can pick them.
Dad," she muttered to no one. The other members of Alpha were faring far
better this morning. Youngblood was the late riser, still stretched out
on his cot, sleeping off the effects of nightlong, low-level flying. Lt
. Dennis Spangler sat behind his computer terminal, having already
listened to the night's radio static on every long- and shortwave
frequency. Marshall was the only genuinely cheerful one this morning. He
enjoyed the old hangar; on more than a few occasions he had paid to
sleep in rooms far worse than this. He just hated the waiting. He
stifled a belch that tasted of his sardine breakfast and began his
predawn regimen of push-ups, stomach crunches and deep-knee squats. With
his body active, he let his thoughts drift to Tony and what he was
getting himself into. He didn't envy him, didn't envy his role in this
whole ugly affair. He did admire the colonel's courage. Tony was taking
one hell of a personal risk; one mistake would cost him his life--and
maybe a lot of others. There was a brilliant daring in the colonel's
plan, though, and the circumstances were just peculiar enough to see it
work. Sure, the stakes were high, but the reward was even
higher--Gorgon. Then his thoughts drifted to Julie. Too bad she wasn't
more sociable; he really wanted to get to know her better. Or did he
just want to get laid? He conceded that possibility. Maybe this old
hangar had gotten to her. No--it was something else. Maybe she felt
guilty for putting her father in danger, a situation he did not envy
her. Or maybe she was just a bitch who harbored a contempt for men who
were only interested in her body. He shrugged her off, grabbed his
Franchi and jogged into the jungle to relieve himself. The old Brazilian
trapper noted signs that the trespassers were awake. He saw fleeting
movement through the hangar's glassless window, then heard what might
have been laughter. But it was the sudden appearance of a woman in the
crooked doorway that softened the cracks around his dull, tired eyes.
What he saw riveted his attention as no other sight in the jungle ever
had. Stretching her arms aerobiclike, thrusting her ample breasts boldly
at him, Julie was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He just
stared at her, his eyes open wider than his mouth, and allowed her image
to burn into his mind, where he hoped it would linger forever. The
Brazilian half-breed jabbed a skinny hand through a mane of pure white
hair, replaced his yellow baseball cap and stroked his enormous drooping
mustache, giving his jungle-beaten features their first grooming in
weeks. What a fine wife she would make for his son, Roberto, he thought.
He damn well intended to make a good first impression on her--perhaps
his future daughter-in-law. He thought of his own wife. The last time he
had slept with her had been twelve years ago, two years before she had
died of tuberculosis. Loneliness had made him a bold man--a foolish man.
"Move and you're a dead man," said a cold voice behind him. "Understand?
Just nod if you do."

The trapper's hand instinctively touched his archaic double-barreled
shotgun, only to find a polished black boot on it. He chanced a look
over his shoulder and stared into the business end of an exquisitely
machined shotgun. He did not doubt that the gun's owner, a tall, sturdy
soldier dressed in camouflage fatigues, would use it to blow his head
apart. A sharp click drew his attention quickly to his right, erasing
any lingering hopes he might still harbor about his chances. A
powerfully built black man, standing naked to the waist in the
underbrush, was watching him through the scope of a high-powered rifle.
"I asked you a question," Marshall repeated. The trapper nodded. "Who is
he?" Williams called. "Damned if I know." Marshall said to the trapper
in poor Portuguese, "Que ves?"

"This is my camp," the old man answered in equally poor English. "You
make me sleep in the rain with the turtles."

Marshall raised his weapon into a more civil position, but kept his boot
on the trapper's shotgun. "Says he lives here," he said to his partner.
"He looks like part of the clan Stony's boys shot up yesterday. He's
lucky to be alive."

Williams kept his Galil pointed. "Careful, Major. He might be looking to
get even. He might have more family around here."

"He could be useful." Marshall ordered the old man to stand. "Tell me
your name."

The trapper scrambled quickly to his feet. "Jose."

"I'll make a deal with you, Jose. Let us stay at your camp for a few
days and I'll pay you in bolivares what it would take you ten years to
earn off the jungle." Marshall made the deal irresistible by adding,
"And I'll leave you twenty cases of sardines."

The old trapper showed the major a rotted set of teeth. "The woman," he
asked timidly. "Is she your wife?"

"Julie?" Marshall laughed. "She's not my type--she's nobody's type."

The old trapper's expression registered hope. First he would eat
sardines; then he would arrange for the woman to marry his son. This was
a good day, a very good day. Marshall picked up the trapper's shotgun,
with its wooden stock half eaten by algae and fungus, and led the way
back to the hangar. The trapper followed, grinning, walking behind in
his sandals. Lieutenant Spangler's announcement shot through the hangar
like a gun blast. "The colonel's in!"

Julie was the first at his side and peered over the telecommunications
officer's shoulder at several 8 by 10-inch glossy black-and-white aerial
photographs he was studying with a handheld magnifier. Marshall had just
entered the hangar with the trapper in tow when he heard the news. He
tossed the trapper's shotgun to Williams and went to the lieutenant's
workbench, pushing himself between Spangler and Julie, leaving the old
man standing wide-eyed and alone in the doorway. The computer-enhanced
KH-14 satellite images had arrived from Washington courtesy of General
Medlock a few minutes before as encrypted digital files. Lieutenant
Spangler downloaded the files into an automatic image processor that
looked like a high-tech Maytag dishwasher. The unit's 64-bit
microprocessor took less than four minutes to decompress and unscramble
the data, reconvert the bits into 2,400-dpi images and print three
high-resolution photos on glossy photographic paper. The detail of the
computer-enhanced black-and-white aerial images of Wynett's Brazilian
estate was extraordinary. "The conditions were good," the lieutenant
said, studying the photographs with the magnifier. "The rain ended early
and there was a break in the clouds. No haze, low-morning-sun angle ..."

Marshall took the first photo and scrutinized the black-and white image.
"When were these photographs taken?"

Lieutenant Spangler checked his console's digital clock against the
photo's time mark. "The first was taken forty-eight minutes ago, sir.
The others are one minute apart. Wynett's got one heck of a spread." He
used his pencil's eraser to point out the photo's more interesting
features. "This is the main house--looks big enough for about twenty
rooms--and the structure behind it could be a stable. The estate is
surrounded by a tall fence, and these look like guard towers on the east
and west corners. These spheres behind the house are satellite dishes."
The lieutenant's pencil slid to a cluster of houses behind the estate.
"These structures probably house the farmhands. I don't see any roads
leading in, though."

"Nice going, DOS," Julie said, moving around Marshall and sliding next
to the lieutenant's right shoulder. "How can you know my father's in
there?"

Spangler tried to ignore the distraction of her breasts nestled against
his back. "Simple--there's a helipad in the middle of this unharvested
field of sugarcane," he said, pointing out an object in the photo's
upper right corner. "See the chopper's main rotor blades? No one could
find this helipad from the ground."

"Yeah, but there's no way to tell if the colonel was aboard." It was
Williams, squeezing next to Julie. "There's more detail on the second
photo." Lieutenant Spangler put another photograph under a table
magnifier, a close-up of the area between the helipad and the estate's
main gate. "Two men are walking toward the house. Another man with a
rifle, probably a guard, is following about ten paces behind them."

"So you think one of the first two men is my father?" Julie asked. "Does
this help?" He put the third photo under the magnifier. The close-up
showed two men, one wearing a large straw hat and white shirt, the other
a shorter man with salt and-pepper hair, carrying a duffel bag. "I'll
bet a month's pay the man on the right is the colonel. He's carrying the
duffel bag. See?"

Marshall conceded with a nod. Julie took the photo and examined it with
Spangler's hand magnifier. "He doesn't look like he's being coerced."

"Just the usual precautions," Spangler said. "What do we do now?" Julie
asked, giving the photo back to the lieutenant. "How can we help him?"

Everyone looked to Marshall for an answer. The major just shrugged. "We
do just what the colonel ordered--nothing.

Tony's a resourceful man who managed to get himself right where he wants
to be. Now he's about to find out just how much he knows about
biochemistry."

Stonecutters Garden Tucco led Colonel Martinelli from the sugarcane
fields into the more civil world of Wynett's estate. Martinelli took in
the magnificent grounds, astounded. The lawn, a hardy green carpet
unblemished by weeds, flowed neatly around cobblestone paths and walls
supporting superbly pruned shrubbery and trees of every variety and
color. Wynett obviously appreciated horticulture artistry and indulged
that admiration with impressive results. But the real treasure was his
English Tudor house, standing sentinel over the grounds like a grand
mountain. Massive irregular granite blocks gave it the solidity of a
fortress. Impressive. Martinelli couldn't help wondering how many guns
Wynett had sold to transform part of the Amazon rain forest into a posh
European countryside. As they stepped inside the fence, an iron-grilled
gate closed automatically behind them, and someone shouted in Portuguese
to stand clear. There came a loud crack followed by the whine of an
electric generator. Cute. Martinelli assumed they would go into the
house straightaway to get settled. He guessed wrong. Tucco led the way
along an ornate cobblestone walkway, then across several acres of sod
that led down to a charming stone barn. Between the two structures sat a
cluster of satellite dishes and hefty petroleum storage tanks surrounded
by a high barbed-wire fence. There were a dozen men with tools working
in and around the barn. A few, however, carried rifles and looked as
though they knew how to use them. Martinelli scanned each farmhand's
face. He released his breath slowly when he spotted one of Alpha's men,
a shovel slung over his shoulder, walking toward the barn. How many more
of Stony's men had made it in? he wondered. A black man in stiff
overalls emerged from the barn and walked straight toward them.
Martinelli's expression tightened; it was Stony, sweating profusely, his
disinterested gaze fixed well past them. He carried a shovel, evidence
that the special-op captain had been unsuccessful in convincing Wynett
he could be trusted with a rifle. As he passed the two, Stony's right
hand came up quickly and batted an imaginary mosquito away from his ear.
He walked past them, never making eye contact with either man. The sound
of kids screaming drew Martinelli's attention back to the barn. A couple
of black boys, running and pushing each other, raced inside, staying
just ahead of a black woman chasing and scolding them. Martinelli's brow
furled with a look of displeasure. Women and children complicated their
plan. How many more were in here?

Tucco noticed the colonel's expression. "You like watching the boys,
yes. Doctor?"

"Say what?"

Tucco, grinning, waved away the remark. "Chefe has told me about your
problem in America."

"Yeah? You'll have to fill me in on it sometime."

The two entered the barn. Its darkened interior, was a welcome respite
from the region's early-morning sun. Inside, two workers stopped
grooming a magnificent equine specimen long enough to shoo away the
spirited boys darting underfoot. Tucco led Martinelli to the back of the
barn, where another of Stony's men--a commando nicknamed Buckshot--stood
sentinel over a hole in the floor, armed with a Kalashnikov automatic
rifle. Martinelli grinned. Nice going. Buckshot!

Tucco said something to Buckshot in rapid Portuguese, and the soldier
allowed the two to pass, refusing to make eye contact with the colonel.
Tucco stepped into the hole and descended a flight of twisted steps
reinforced with solid hardwood planks leading beneath the barn.
Martinelli followed. The air-conditioned basement was much brighter than
the barn above, thanks to a dozen rows of fluorescent fixtures suspended
from the ceiling's twisted rafters. Two heavy-duty ventilation units
attached to makeshift aluminum ductwork were doing their best to pump
out the cellar's disgusting odor of mildew, with moderate success. The
walls had been recently scrubbed and whitewashed, the paint fumes
masking some odor. A lovely concerto by Vivaldi from an unseen sound
system provided exceptional background music. Martinelli didn't like
what he saw down here. Wynett had transformed the cellar into an
advanced molecular biology laboratory, complete with lab benches, test
tubes, beakers and diagnostic equipment. To the colonel, the cellar's
most interesting pieces of equipment were two stainless-steel
fermentation units, which resembled old-fashioned diving bells, their
bases enclosed in steel pedestals. A myriad of pipes protruded from the
units, and a lone porthole on each curved top provided the only glimpse
of its interior. Martinelli was intimately familiar with these
apparatuses. At Fort Detrick he had worked with similar units engineered
to grow cultures for biochemical products that normally ended up in
pharmacies and hospitals. The microorganisms from these modified units,
however, could end up in warheads. They hadn't counted on Wynett getting
his hands on such sophisticated equipment, let alone two fermentation
units. Wynett would be able to work much faster than they had estimated.
At the far corner of the cellar, half hidden in an overstuffed chair
positioned before a Sun computing workstation, sat Dr. Carl Wynett.
Wynett's appearance surprised Martinelli. The old man looked more like
Dr. Sterling than did the photographs of Sterling. He also looked tired
and worn, the deep lines on his aged face evidence of an ambitious work
schedule, a man pushed to the max. Wynett pulled himself wearily from
the stuffed chair and offered his hand to the colonel. "Welcome to my
little garden in the forest. Dr. Armstrong," Wynett said, adding with a
grin, "Behind my back my employees call me the Businessman, a name I
find amusing. You may call me Carl. I trust your trip here was not too
uncomfortable?"

Martinelli accepted his host's firm grip. Spending the last fourteen
hours aboard two different helicopters, first rushing to Sao Paulo, then
back again, isn't my idea of a comfortable weekend, pal. "I enjoyed the
ride," he lied. Wynett regarded Martinelli curiously. He had expected
someone like Dr. da Silva, a squirrely lab assistant, long on brains at
the expense of his body, which he further diminished with alcohol and
drugs. Instead, Dr. Armstrong was a man who obviously took his health
seriously and, as a result, looked ten years younger than his fifty
years. His hands were not those of a scholar, he noted; they were
athletic hands with strong, thick fingers and callused palms. Curious.
Tucco stood behind the colonel, watching him. "Let us begin our
business," Wynett said, waving Martinelli into a folding chair next to
his. "It is critical that I get this laboratory operational this
morning. Later we will have time to chat so I can learn everything about
you. I trust you are familiar with the fermentation process?"

"Fermentation?" Martinelli feigned a surprised look. "Since when do you
ferment cocaine?"

It was Wynett's turn to look surprised, though his expression was
genuine. "You believe I asked you here to help me refine drugs?"

"I assumed--"

"Do not assume anything while in this laboratory," Wynett said, his
voice curt. "It could prove very costly to both of us."

Martinelli nodded an apology, afraid he had overplayed his naivete act.
"Of course."

Wynett's deep facial lines softened. "Excuse my impatience this morning.
I have spent the night unpacking this laboratory and making it
operational. I have very little tolerance left. I am not a drug dealer,
I assure you. Dr. Armstrong. You must first understand that I asked you
here simply to consult with me. I forbid you to touch this equipment.
Any adjustments will be my responsibility alone. If you believe a
parameter should be changed, you will immediately inform me and, if I
agree, I will adjust the process. Is that absolutely clear?"

Jesus. "Consult about what?"

"A culture medium. Its maintenance is tedious work. I cannot allow my
fatigue to introduce errors. That is why I will pay you a large sum
simply to be my watchdog."

"May I ask the nature of the microorganism?"

"A synthetic T4 neurotoxin."

Martinelli let out a low whistle, a reaction Wynett did not seem to
like. "Is there a problem. Dr. Armstrong?"

The colonel gave Wynett his best embarrassed shrug, reminding himself
about the first rule of cover stories: Never make promises about
yourself you can't keep. He intended to cover his ass. "I've never
worked on a synthetic neurotoxin before. But, hell, I'm willing to
learn." ' "No one has worked with this organism before. That is why we
must exercise extreme care. Because the organism's precise growth-factor
requirements are unknown, I have chosen a complex synthetic medium. I am
concerned that if the medium is too rich, the nutrients may become
toxic. I would like your opinion on the construction of that medium."

"Of course."

Wynett punched several keys on the computer, and a table of numbers
scrolled down the display. "I have analyzed the cells in the blood
specimen and refactored the requirements based on the growth results I
require. Study this list carefully. If I have overlooked anything, you
will please bring it to my attention. My notes are in this journal.
Please familiarize yourself with them."

Martinelli opened the notebook to a random section with the heading
Viral Pathology. Then he looked at the screen and grimaced. Water I
liter Energy source: Glucose 25 g Nitrogen source: NH4CI 3 g Minerals:
KHFOA 600 mg Fes04 7H20 10 mg K-flpoa 600 mg Mnsoa 4Hao 20 mg Mgsoa 7H.P
200 mg Organic acid: Sodium acetate 20 g Amino acids: DL-Alanine
L-Lysine L-Arginine DL-Methion. L-Asparagine DL-Phenyl. L-Aspart. acid
L-Proline L-Cysteine DL-Serine L-gliitam. acid DL-Threonine Glycine
DL-Tryptoph. L-Hist. HCL L-Tyrosine DL-Isoleucine DL-V aline DL-Leucine
200 mg 250 mg 242 mg 100 mg 400 mg 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg 50 mg 50 mg 300
mg 200 mg 100 mg 40 mg 62 mg 100 mg 250 mg 250 mg 250 mg Purines and
pyrimidines: Adn. sulf. H.P 10 mg Uracil 10 mg 2H:0 10 mg Xanth. HCL 10
mg Vitamins: Thiamine HCL I mg Riboflavin 5 mg Pyridoxine HCL 1 mg
Nicotinic acid 1 mg Pyridoxamine 3 mg p-Aminobenz. 1 mg Pyridoxal HCL 3
mg Biotin. 1 mg Cat. pantothenate 5 mg Folic acid 1 mg Jesus Christ,
he's way ahead of me! "Interesting."

"Oxygen is crucial to the organism's growth. How do you suggest I
accomplish that?" The old man was testing him, Martinelli knew.
"Continuously aerate the synthetic medium with pure oxygen. What about
phosphate contamination?" It was the colonel's turn to test him. "I am
considering adding insoluble carbonates to the medium to prevent
excessive changes in hydrogen ion concentration. The timing of that
introduction may prove critical. We will need to work out a schedule."

Martinelli just grunted, still staring at the screen. Bastard isn't
going to be tricked by me or anyone else. "And temperature?"

"Incubation will be carried out at elevated temperatures for precise
periods. The culture collection will be transferred at regular intervals
to ten-liter tanks, where they will be frozen in a vacuum. I have
written a program that will regulate the incubation temperatures. The
tank transfer also will be automatic."

The more Wynett talked, the more horrified Martinelli became at his
inability to sabotage the incubation process. He doesn't need anybody's
help, and he knows it. He realized he was helpless to prevent Wynett
from producing large, potent batches of Saint Vitus. His stomach heaved
involuntarily. He would need to work out a new plan to thwart the
incubation-but how? ' "Let me look this over and make some notes. Can we
take this up in a couple of hours?"

Wynett looked suddenly exhausted. "Take the remainder of the morning and
be accurate. Meanwhile I must lie down. After lunching we will begin."

Chapter Fifteen.

Sinope

Sunday, 1532 hours

Julie stepped to the hangar's glassless window. Outside, the others were
sitting against the wall. She watched, amused, while Williams showed the
trapper how to hand-load ammunition, while the major cleaned his
disassembled Franchi. She forced an expression that could pass for an
amiable smile, but said nothing. "So tell me why it's so important that
she becomes your daughter-in-law?" Marshall asked the trapper. The
grizzled old man held out his hands palms-up. ' "She is magnified."
Marshall laughed at him. "What if she disappoints you and your son,
Jose? What if she doesn't satisfy?"

The old man shook his head fiercely. "She would not. She would give me
many grandsons." The trapper's arms surrounded a large, imaginary
family. "I can see that it is her nature to please a man."

Julie couldn't keep from grinning. "Well, I wouldn't know anything about
that," Marshall said solemnly. Williams let out a belt of laughter.
"Joe, you sound like a man who hasn't been laid in two months and knows
he ain't gonna get any down here."

"This can't be happening!" Lieutenant Spangler shouted from inside the
hangar. "This can't fucking be happening!"

Julie reeled away from the window with a start. Marshall bolted inside
the hangar. "What is it, Spangler?

What's happening?"

The lieutenant handed him the unscrambled telex. "It's from General
Medlock, a priority-one message." 083100Z TOPSECRET PRI-1 FROM:
MEDLOCK--BAC TO: ALPHA-1 RE. OP CONTAINMENT SHORTWAVE TRANSMISSIONS
ORIGINATING IN YOUR AREA HAVE BEEN DECODED SOURCE GORGON * REPEAT SOURCE
GORGON PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION. A CODE RED HAS BEEN ORDERED ALERT
COLONEL MARTINELLI TO TERMINATE ORGANISM IMMEDIATELY REPEAT TERMINATE
ORGANISM IMMEDIATELY WYNETT AND GORGON SECOND PRIORITY NEXT COMMUNIQUE:
1600 END MESSAGE 083214Z BREAK Julie noted uncharacteristic anxious
creases on Marshall's forehead as he read the communique, which
triggered waves of dread that went off like an alarm in the pit of her
stomach. "What's wrong? What does it say?"

"Gorgon's come early for his merchandise," Marshall said, passing the
telex to his sergeant. "Say what?" Williams said, scanning the message.
"Gorgon's here," Spangler said. "Medlock suspects he may move now."

"That's his style," Marshall said. "He'll never follow anyone else's
schedule. Doesn't say how many men he has with him, though."

Youngblood, alerted by the shouting, emerged from his work area on the
opposite side of the hangar. The old trapper came too, stroking his
long, white mustache and listening, trying to understand the situation.
Julie appealed to Lieutenant Spangler. "Get word to my father right
now."

"Do what the lady says, DOS," Marshall ordered. "No can do. Major," the
lieutenant said. "Wynett's jamming signal is ingeniously layered.
Nothing has been getting in or out of that compound unless it's on his
private satellite channel. I'm having a hell of a time trying to crack
it."

"Then contact Stony's men in Sinope," Marshall said. "The next one in
will brief the colonel."

Spangler's perspiring brow threatened to slide the wire-rimmed glasses
off his nose. "Too late. The last one went in two hours ago. Wynett's
hard up for men."

"Jesus," Marshall spat. Julie grabbed Marshall's arm. "One of us must go
inside and warn him."

Marshall riveted a hard gaze at Youngblood. ' "Can you drop me five
miles from Wynett's compound without anyone knowing about it?"

The pilot shrugged. "Probably, but--"

"Jose," Marshall said to the trapper, "I'm enlisting you into the
Special Forces of the United States Army. You're going to lead me
through the jungle right up to Wynett's compound."

The old trapper drew himself up a full two inches taller than his normal
five-foot frame, though still more than a foot shorter than Marshall. He
stood at attention and shouldered his ancient shotgun. "I get you
there."

"Lose that weapon first," Williams said to him. "I'll issue you an Uzi."

Lieutenant Spangler stood quickly. "Sir, the colonel's orders state that
you're to guard this staging area. Hell, General Medlock's orders--"

"Screw Medlock's orders," Julie said. "There's not going to be an Alpha
unit left if we don't warn my father."

"Use your goddamn heads, people," Youngblood said. "Barging in there now
will blow their cover and get a lot of people killed. Stony's men can
take care of themselves. Stay put. Major. This is an upscale party and
you're not invited."

Marshall dismissed him. He couldn't stomach the thought of waiting until
the fighting was over. "Get your chopper ready. Or do I have to fly it
there myself?"

Stonecutters Garden Sunday, 1840 hours "We got problems," Stony said,
falling into stride beside Colonel Martinelli. Stony had waited until
after dark before risking contact with the colonel in an increasingly
suspicious attitude among Wynett's men toward the newcomers. "Guns?"
Martinelli whispered. "Yeah, guns."

"How many have you secured?"

Stony shifted the shovel to his left shoulder to conceal his face from
every angle except straight ahead. "Only two of my men are part of
Wynett's armed security force. The rest are picking goddamn sugarcane.
Getting our hands on weapons isn't going to be easy. They're too heavily
guarded."

"Do it," Martinelli snapped. "I don't care how, just do it. We're taking
out Wynett tonight."

"What about Gorgon?"

"Fuck him. We're putting Wynett out of business now."

Stony scowled. "That's not good enough."

"It has to be good enough," Martinelli said, raising his voice. Stony
stopped midstride. "Sweet momma ...  it's the bug, isn't it?"

Martinelli nodded. "Wynett didn't take our bait. I couldn't convince him
to change the culture medium. He's creating incredibly potent strains of
the virus and securing them in tanks that are practically
indestructible. And he's way ahead of schedule--only seven hours for
each batch. The bug is amazingly prolific when it amplifies. He already
has five tanks--he wants seven. Tomorrow I get paid and he ships me
out."

"Jesus. You're scaring the shit out of me. Colonel. You've got to slow
him down."

Martinelli shook his head. "Can't do it. He won't let me near the
equipment, and he's got his best men defending the lab. Even if I could
smuggle a charge down there, an explosion would rupture the incubators
and release the organism. We're moving tonight."

"I'm looking for strong men with dry throats," said a husky female voice
from the cobblestone path ahead. Martinelli looked up suddenly at
Wynett's housekeeper, Renee, an attractive middle-aged black woman
educated in the States. Renee had done a splendid job turning Wynett's
jungle retreat into a civilized country home. From their first meeting,
the colonel had genuinely liked the good woman for her amiable but firm
manner. "Well, are you men thirsty or not?" she said, her generous smile
broadening. "You're a godsend, Renee," Martinelli said, returning her
cordial grin. Renee gave Stony a handsome smile that suggested more than
a drink offer. If she thought it strange that these two were sharing
company, however casual, she kept her suspicions to herself. "Evening,
ma'am." Stony rubbed his scaly, fly-bitten neck, Juscpn basking in a
wave of self-consciousness at the smell of manure venting off his filthy
overalls. "The boss man's in a very good mood tonight," she said. "He
put a keg of beer on the patio and everyone's welcome to share it. It's
from Germany. And I'll be putting salmon on the grill directly."

"Delightful, Renee," Martinelli said. "Tell the doctor I'll be there
after I log the latest readings."

But Renee was looking at Stony. "What about you, handsome?

The special-op commander bowed politely. "Yes, ma'am."

Another handsome smile. "Good. That's very good. I'll see you both on
the patio."

Renee continued her rush toward the house, and both men resumed their
leisurely stroll toward the barn, wary of other foot traffic on the
cobblestone path ahead and behind them. Martinelli's expression turned
cold. "How do we protect them. Stony? I don't even know how many
families are in this compound."

"Six--about twenty-three men, women and children who aren't part of
this. I'll be damned if Wynett isn't trying to make a go of this farm.
He's playing fucking Lawrence of Arabia way out here where he thinks no
one can touch him. He's only succeeded in building a prison for himself
and his people trapped inside."

"What about that fence?"

"Twenty-five hundred volts from an isolated generator behind the barn.
Wynett's banking on it to keep out trouble. I don't like it. He's
putting too many eggs in one basket. If that defense is breached, he's
shit out of luck."

"What else?"

"Our radios are useless, thanks to Wynett's jamming station. It's one
hell of a setup. He's a paranoid son of a bitch."

"So we're effectively out of touch with the others."

"Exactly."

"That's bloody wonderful. Get your men near some guns, and fast. I don't
care how you arrange it."

"What about you?"

"I've got my Beretta and two magazines. I'll take down Wynett."

When they reached the barn, Martinelli realized he'd been talking much
too loudly. Angry with himself, he abruptly broke from Stony and
proceeded to the back of the barn, where he bid a good evening to
Buckshot, still guarding the cellar steps, the Kalashnikov slung over
his shoulder. Martinelli descended the wooden steps into the laboratory.
Stony took a seat before a wiry old black man holding a hammer and a
horse's leg between his knees, tapping on a new set of equine shoes.
"Join me for beer on the patio?" Stony asked. The old man just grinned
and shook his head. Outside, Tucco emerged from the deep shadow of a
spruce tree and stuck a fat cigar in his mouth. He lit it without a
word, then drew in the heavy smoke, pondering the snippets of
conversation he had just overheard. He exhaled the smoke slowly, trying
to make sense of the odd acquaintance between a newly hired farmhand and
Wynett's lab assistant. La Strata Air Base Peru Sunday, 2000 hours Air
Force Captain Laszlo Valachi met the Mil-24A troop chopper as it touched
down on the Peruvian air base's helipad. Three men in Russian Army
uniforms, toting hefty gear bags, climbed from the chopper's troop
compartment and marched straight toward him. After a curt salute, the
lead soldier said to Valachi, "I am Colonel Golovko. You are aware of my
orders?"

The Peruvian captain nodded. This morning's Defense Council communique
instructed him to give full support to three spetsnaz special forces
officers enroute from Iraq--a high-priority mission involving
terrorists. The soldiers had made good time; he hadn't expected them
until morning.

Colonel Golovko presented the captain with a brown envelope. "This is
your new directive. Your gunship and its pilot are now under my
command."

Valachi frowned. "What is so important that I should give them to you?"

"I need to make a brief trip across the border. I intend to kill a
terrorist who enjoys shooting down Russian jets with children aboard."

Chapter Sixteen.

Stonecutters Garden

Sunday, 2118 hours

From the gloom of the jungle came a shadow. A shade blacker than the
enveloping darkness, the figure moved with stealth and purpose among the
tall stalks of sugarcane. The shadow stayed well away from the harvested
field, where a great bonfire blazed. A half dozen farm workers had
formed a semicircle around it, feeding the flames with armfuls of dried
stalks. Tarra didn't look at the fire, careful not to destroy her night
vision, and moved quickly through the tall rows of unharvested cane. She
stopped beneath Wynett's electric fence, where she could feel its
powerful electromagnetic field ripple over her flesh. Crouching, she
opened the rucksack and removed its contents, arranging the items on the
ground with meticulous precision. She anchored a spool of uninsulated
twelve-gauge Beldon wire to the ground and hooked its free end to a
projectile seated in a large cocked crossbow that appeared too heavy for
her slender frame. She raised the formidable weapon against her
shoulder, angled it and pulled the trigger. There came a muffled snap as
the steel projectile shot up into the night, boosted by gas from a CO;
canister. There followed a stinging metallic hiss as the spool rapidly
gave up countless meters of wire. One second ... two ... three  ... four
...  The arrow landed tip-first inside the compound, digging deep into
the sod with a solid thump. Its long tail of wire dropped onto the
electrified coils of barbed wire atop the fence. Crack!

The compound's lights sputtered out, plunging Wynett's Amazon estate
into a blanket of darkness. The sudden loss of power to the barn
prompted a startled outburst of protests from the roustabouts working
inside. Most of the men were genuinely afraid of the sudden blackness
and bolted outside. Buckshot, however, didn't move from his post by the
cellar's entrance. Stony's right-hand man flung his Kalashnikov off his
shoulder and pointed its muzzle at the barn's huge door, the only way in
and out. The open cellar door at his feet provided modest illumination
from the lab's emergency lights. No one would get near the fermentation
tanks unless he allowed it. Only one other worker remained inside the
barn with Buckshot--the wiry old stable hand, his fists filled with
horseshoes. Unfazed by the darkness, the old man set down his tools, lit
a lantern and hung it high on a stall beam. Buckshot gave him a cautious
nod of thanks. The barn door creaked open. Buckshot fixed the barrel of
his weapon on the roustabout leading a horse inside. With his attention
focused on the barn door. Buckshot didn't see the old stable hand pick
up a Browning automatic, a silencer fastened to its barrel. The old man
pointed it with military accuracy and squeezed the trigger. A 9mm slug
caught Buckshot hard in the chest just under his rib cage and slammed
the special-op commando back against the barn wall. Tucco was the first
to arrive at the generators, two hefty diesel-powered machines enclosed
in a huge steel cage. The air was heavy with the smell of burned wire
but, luckily, there was no fire. The compound's only illumination came
from Wynett's manor. Lit up in grand style, the house was immune to the
electrical outage that had blackened the rest of the compound, thanks to
the house's isolated generator. A group of men, some carrying
flashlights, others with guns, gathered around the generator cage. Even
the armed men looked spooked. Tucco scoffed at their petty fears of the
dark. He needed muscle and support, not a legion of infants. "Darkness
comes and everyone believes we have ghosts," Tucco spat, chomping down
on his cigar. "I command a crew of idiots."

Tucco unlocked the generator cage and found his way to the breaker panel
by the uneven beam of his flashlight. The generator hummed evenly. Tucco
located the main breaker, grabbed the handle and pushed it back into
place. There came another loud snap of protest, followed by a
frightening flurry of sparks. A second try netted the same result; the
circuit wouldn't close. He would need to find the source of the
electrical short and correct it before he could restore power to the
compound. The trouble most likely originated with the fence, he
reasoned, the damned, power-hungry fence. Tucco spat orders to his men,
directing them to search for the source of the shorted circuit. Yelling
and whooping, the workers charged off into the darkness. Tucco moved to
the entrance of the generator cage, cursing himself for hiring infants
instead of men. Puffing his cigar, his eyes scanned the vague movements
rushing through the bushes. He froze. At that moment even Tucco
considered the possibility of ghosts. A deep chill swept through his
soul and he withdrew his huge revolver. Before he could cock it,
something with the force of a sledgehammer struck him solidly in the
center of his chest, slamming him back against the bank of circuit
breakers. Tucco didn't feel the metal arrow that had transfixed his
lungs and protruded from his back. The 2,500 volts surging from the
opened circuits through his body masked all other sensations. Stony's
head jerked up, his eyes fixed on the darkened estate. The only lights
came from Wynett's house, which looked like a bright castle against the
black jungle. He glanced at the bonfire across the field and saw several
workers lying around it, lifeless. Even the mule was lying on its side.
His steel-set eyes scanned the fields, which were alive with moving
shapes, animated shadows moving in and out of the rows of sugarcane. Who
were they? In one wild instant, he realized his worst fears--Gorgon's
troops are here. He dropped to the ground and rolled next to a stack of
cut sugarcane, trying to become one with it. He ripped off his white
T-shirt and looked carefully around, his eyes constantly moving. He
tried to make sense of the ghostlike figures stalking toward him, and
cursed his blinded night vision. Sweet Jesus, I love you dearly, but I'd
sell my soul to the devil for a rifle. He glanced at the front gate.
Closed. Without power he knew it couldn't be opened. He would have to
cut his way into the compound. He thought of the families trapped inside
and shook involuntarily. Steady--think! Rigid military training forced
him to remain absolutely still. He knew that to reveal himself now would
be tantamount to a death sentence. Two black boys crouching over a jar
of fireflies saw the figures racing across the lawn. To their little
eyes, the shadow people were playing a game of hiding. The boys climbed
onto the porch of Wynett's manor, sat down on the top step and talked
about joining them. "Mom," one of the boys called into the house in
Americanized English. "They're playing in our yard."

Renee, a towel in her hand, stepped onto the porch and followed the
boys' gazes across the lawn. "Who's playing, Myron?"

Her handsome smile vanished. In her two years as Wynett's housekeeper,
she had never seen the grounds so dark. She had forgotten how black the
jungle could be. What had happened?

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness she saw them, though not
clearly--figures moving around the perimeter of the estate, taking up
what could only be aggressive positions. Something was wrong, terribly
wrong. Masters of stealth, these were not Wynett's people. Whoever they
were, whatever their purpose, she knew they were responsible for the
darkness that had overtaken the plantation. Dread ripped at Renee's
soul. Dear God, don't let them hurt my boys!

"Git home, both of you," she hissed, trying to mask her alarm. "It's
past bedtime. Go on. Git home. Git!"

The boys' playful grins vanished; the tone of their mother's voice told
them that all was not right with their little world. "I said git home!"
Renee screamed. Terrified, the boys charged off the porch, crying and
scurrying into the darkness toward the little cottage they called their
home. "Do you intend to spend the rest of the evening deliberating your
next move?" Wynett snapped, irritated. Colonel Martinelli ignored the
old man's prodding and remained seated statue-still before the
chessboard, staring at the ornately carved chess pieces. Instead of
thinking of chess moves, his mind was focused on taking down Wynett's
men. "Another marathon match," Wynett groaned, only half interested in
the intellectual contest he knew he'd already won. Dr. da Silva had lied
to him; Henry Armstrong was no player. Wynett stood up from the table,
stretched, and stepped to the window of his elegantly appointed
second-story sitting room to watch the plantation workers secure the
farm for the night. It was just an excuse to savor the moment, to enjoy
the evening. He relished its welcome respite from the clammy South
American heat. God, how he loved nights in the jungle. He drew back the
bedroom curtains and peered across the darkened compound. Bloody
hell--another problem with the generator. He waited for the backup
generator to take over. When it didn't, he realized the problem was not
with the generator, but with the system itself. He heard his men
shouting at each other in the darkness, running to investigate.
Something else he saw from his second-floor vantage point made him
stiffen. There was other movement out there in the moonlight, intruders
emerging from the jungle, breaching the fence, stalking toward his house
from different directions in several slack skirmish lines. Wynett stood
rooted to the sill. His civil eyes grew cold and dark as he considered
the ramifications. The bastard intends to rob me. Wynett watched
impotently as a roustabout led his magnificent quarterhorse across the
barn's threshold, their silhouettes framed by a lantern-lit doorway. A
shadow appeared from nowhere and brushed silently behind the worker. The
horse bolted. The roustabout slumped to the ground without so much as a
moan. Five more figures filed quickly inside the barn. The tanks. They
had come to take Saint Vitus from him. Below, his housekeeper stood on
the veranda, looking suspiciously at the shadowy activity on the lawn.
Wynett almost shouted down a warning to her, but thought better of it.
Instead he withdrew from the lighted window and backed into the safety
of the room's corner. "Stony?" Renee called from the porch. There came
no reply. The figures broke into a run toward the house. Jesus, save me!
Before she could move, a Tenon-tipped arrow pierced her larynx, smashing
her through the screened door, ripping it from its hinges. She fell
heavily onto the floor of the foyer, groping at the frightful flow of
blood pumping from her throat. Her vocal cords were shattered, her
jugular vein severed. Choking, her back arched in agony, Renee stared
helplessly at a man in black fatigues standing in the doorway. Stony
sprinted across the lawn, keeping well within the shadows. The night's
heat extracted rivers of sweat from his pores that washed over his skin
in tiny streams. Wynett's manor loomed twenty yards away. He crept
through a tight grove of birch trees, choosing each movement with care,
knowing that his life depended on his ability to remain unseen. One
thought consumed him: Warn Colonel Martinelli and the others. Do it now
or die. With daring boldness Stony sprinted toward the house, expecting
a bullet in his back. None came. He flattened against the side of the
manor, his eyes searching for the intruders. No one was coming. Bathed
by the house's queer half-light, he crabbed along the wall and looked
into Wynett's first-floor study. The room stood dark and empty. With
deft agility. Stony hauled his solid frame up through the open window
and set down without a sound inside the study. He moved nimbly to
Wynett's desk and took a seat in front of the shortwave transceiver. He
ignored the sweat pouring down his face as he powered up the set and put
on the headphones. He heard it immediately, the high-pitched squeal of
the jamming signal. He slid the frequency dial first right then left.
The squeal continued unchanged, evidence that its power for the signal
came from the same isolated generator that supplied the house. He flung
off the headset. Damn Wynett and his paranoia!

Two strides took him to Wynett's gun rack, a splendid oak cabinet that
housed a classic collection of hunting rifles. He deliberately willed
himself to slow down, fighting the urge to take in great lungfuls of
air. He pulled on the cabinet door and found the case locked. Damn! The
beveled glass was reinforced with steel rods. Stony swept around, his
eyes scanning the room for a weapon. A table lamp ... a bronze
paperweight ...  a halffilled bottle of Scotch ... a mantel clock ...
Then he saw it. Wynett's big-game Browning rifle hanging trophy like
over the mantel. He was there in an instant, lifting the intimidating
weapon from its mount. Cartridges? He returned to Wynett's utility
cabinet and opened the bottom drawer with a creak that to him sounded
like a scream. He paused, listening. Nothing. He rummaged through
several boxes of shells until he found what he needed and scooped up a
handful of thirty-caliber cartridges. The study's door squeaked open.
Stony's head jerked up. The intruder acted with practiced restraint, as
if listening for the intensity and duration of activity in the study.
Stony slid a single cartridge into the gun's chamber and pulled back the
hammer with an audible click. He lifted the huge weapon. The door moved
again, this time with bold force behind it. Stony had only the barest
glimpse of a large figure dressed in black fatigues and carrying a
weapon before he jerked the trigger. The blast transformed the door into
a blizzard of splinters. A blood-spattered wall to the left of the
doorway bore the only evidence that a man had been standing there. The
gunshot startled Martinelli from his chair, the Beretta appearing
automatically in his hand. "I'm afraid that weapon will be useless,"
Wynett said from his secure spot in the corner. "Sit down and move your
queen out of danger."

Martinelli flattened against the wall next to the window, his Beretta
pointed down in a two-handed grip. He could see nothing outside. What
had happened to the lights? Who had fired a rifle inside the house?

"Dr. Armstrong, you are about to meet a client of mine," Wynett said,
his voice civilly calm. "I advise you to move away from the window and
do not resist. I am telling you this so that you may live."

Martinelli swore bitterly. "What weapons do you have up here?"

"Sit down," Wynett ordered, his voice curt. "Or they will cut you down
like a holiday pig."

Stony stared down at Renee's corpse, her wide, glassy eyes gazing
helplessly up at him, warning him. Years of training, the resources of
an elite army--all of it had failed to protect her. He turned away from
her, feeling suddenly cold despite the heat, dull and empty in his head,
tired, old, too old. He bounded up the steps two at a time to the
house's second level. Martinelli thrust his Beretta at Wynett. "Don't
you fucking move."

"Intruders are in my laboratory," Wynett said. "They are taking what we
have worked so hard to produce these last few days. And neither you nor
I can stop them."

"Gorgon," Martinelli spat. Wynett's expression darkened. "How do you
know that name--" The bedroom door opened with a crash. Martinelli
whipped around, his Beretta pointed. Stony stood on the threshold, his
muscles glistening like oiled ebony, his eyes ferreting the interior of
the bedroom. He pointed the Browning at Wynett. The colonel lowered his
handgun. "Stony, what's happening?

Where are the others?"

Stony stepped into the room, keeping the huge gun pointed at Wynett.
"Dead. Ambushed."

The colonel sighed in defeat. "Jesus Christ, he can't get the organism.
I won't let it happen. We have to do something. We have to do
something!"

"We can't get word out," Stony spat. "This fuck's got every channel
jammed."

Wynett looked accusingly at Martinelli. "Who are you gentlemen?--CIA?"

They all heard it, a creak of the hallway floorboards. Martinelli
signaled Stony with a curt nod. The commando captain needed no orders.
Stony roared into the hallway, the gun braced on his hip. There were two
of them dressed in black fatigues, messengers of death creeping down the
corridor. Stony didn't know if they were black men or had merely painted
their faces to become one with the night. It didn't matter. "It's
suppertime," he hummed. The first raider jerked his weapon. Stony
squeezed the trigger and let the Browning explode. The blast from the
huge gun at close quarters tore the first intruder in two. His upper
torso disintegrated in a brisk shower of bone and red pulp, while his
disembodied legs kicked about the hallway. A shot from the colonel's
Beretta over Stony's shoulder put a slug in the center of the second
intruder's forehead. The raider jerked backward and actually thought he
could retreat with his wound before spilling headlong down the hallway.
Martinelli whipped around and pointed his Beretta at the opposite end of
the hallway. It was clear. Stony raced down the corridor to the top of
the staircase, discharging the spent cartridge as he ran and inserting
another. There were two more on the steps. His Browning took the first
intruder directly in the chest, hurling him into his comrade with the
force of a freight train. Stony reloaded. Before the second man could
rise, another blast from Stony's gun tore his head clear off. Wynett
slammed the door of the sitting room, barricading himself inside.
Martinelli whirled and pumped four rounds into the door. "You son of a
bitch."

The colonel saw movement from the opposite end of the hallway an instant
before a metal arrow came hurtling toward his head. He sprang backward.
The projectile whisked by his face and plunged into the bedroom's oak
door with a solid thud. The colonel dropped and rolled into a darkened
bedroom across from Wynett's, discharging two quick rounds down the
hallway as he moved. Stony could hear other men below entering the
living room. Reloading, he saw the shadow of another intruder
approaching the bottom of the staircase. Stony raised his rifle. He
never fired. A glint of metal appeared from the darkened bedroom behind
him. With startling swiftness, a machete thrashed out and nearly sliced
through his right arm above the elbow. Stony spilled forward with a
bloodcurdling howl, more from surprise than pain. The Browning clattered
loudly down the steps. The shock of spontaneous amputation came an
instant later.

Colonel Martinelli flattened against the bedroom wall and moved toward
the door, snapping his second magazine into the handle of his Beretta.
Something cold and sharp pricked the back of his neck. He froze and
screwed his eyes around. A frightful woman dressed in black held a
sighted crossbow cocked and ready to put an arrow through his throat.
The crossbow was merely for stealth. For serious firepower, Tarra would
revert to a Russian-made AK-47 automatic assault rifle hanging on her
shoulder. "He will not let me kill you yet," Tarra said. "He wants to
interrogate the military commander who set this trap for him."

Down the hallway. Stony glared up at the giant looming above him. What
he saw made him forget his arm wound that was rapidly draining away his
life with each heartbeat. Gorgon stared down at him with cold, dead
eyes. The killer carried a machete in his right hand and in his left a
crossbow made of steel. Stony tried to lift his head but found it
unbearably weighty. "Just like chickenshit to hit a man from behind."

Gorgon's features did not betray the slightest emotion. He lowered his
crossbow until the Tenon-tipped arrowhead was a breath above Stony's
left eye. Stony swallowed hard. "Like I said ... chickenshit ..."

There came a loud snap as the arrow pinned Stony's head to the hallway
floorboards.

Chapter Seventeen.

Sinope

2130 hours

Jose the trapper rubbed the stubby barrel of his new Israeli Uzi and
gave Williams a cheery wink of gratitude. Youngblood increased the
throttle of the chopper, while his passengers braced themselves for
liftoff. The aircraft didn't move. Youngblood sat rigid, listening to
his headset, then cut the engines to idle. "Get this thing in the air,"
Marshall shouted over the engine's roar. Youngblood screwed his head
around and yelled something about taking aboard another passenger.
Marshall craned his neck around and glimpsed a fleeting figure dressed
in camouflage fatigues carrying a gear bag around the opposite side of
the aircraft. There came two thuds on the compartment door. Williams
slid it open and Julie tossed her gear bag up to him. "Out of the
question," Marshall hollered. She climbed aboard with the sergeant's
help. Julie wasn't in the mood to argue about this with anyone, least of
all with the major. The notion of traveling with these men through a
Brazilian jungle at night wasn't her idea of a fun-filled evening in the
tropics. She took the seat across from Marshall and Strapped herself in.
"I go where the virus goes."

The whine of the Comanche's jet engines drowned out Marshall's curses of
protest. The helicopter lifted into the night sky, leaned windward and
proceeded due west at treetop level. Stonecutters Garden Colonel
Martinelli looked into Tarra's green eyes, trying to read his foe,
trying to understand this strange woman who was a finger-jerk away from
putting an arrow through his throat. He could see nothing in her eyes,
not the smallest hint of emotion behind her steely features. Any
resistance, he realized, would be suicidal. He let the Beretta slip from
his hands. "Can I at least know your name?"

"I will ask the questions," said a huge man in the doorway. Tarra's
features softened--became almost attractive--in the presence of an
intimidating man dressed in black fatigues and armor padding.
Martinelli's heart pounded savagely. Gorgon, carrying a crossbow at his
side, scrutinized the colonel with eyes that were like two dark holes,
absorbing every detail, every conceivable threat, all in the instant it
took Martinelli to expel a breath of resignation. Gorgon said, "I am the
man you so desperately wanted to meet. Captain--or is it Colonel?"

Wynett knew exactly what he had to do and the limited time in which he
had to do it. He removed a bulky pack from the closet's top shelf,
opened it and unfolded a full-body environment suit, complete with air
tanks and hood. On the room's mahogany table sat an innocuous-looking
thermal container. With his eyes fixed on the container, he began
dressing. Colonel Martinelli's furtive eyes stole around the bedroom,
rejecting one option after another. In one shattering instant he
conceded the inevitable--/ am a dead man. He had often imagined dying in
battle a brave, willful soldier. He didn't feel courageous right now. He
was scared shitless and needed to relieve himself. Gorgon signaled Tarra
with a jerk of his head. She grabbed the colonel's arm and dragged him
cruelly back against the wall. He resisted, and she clubbed him on the
side of his head with a heavy chain and cuffs, a vicious blow that left
him senseless. She had little difficulty shackling him to the room's
water pipe. Gorgon picked up Martinelli's Beretta and admired the
weapon. Leering down at his prisoner, he said, "You are a fool to plot
an ambush for me."

The colonel strained impotently against the chain. "Go to hell."

Gorgon pointed the Beretta at Martinelli. The colonel screwed his eyes
shut, anticipating the terrible blast that would end his life. There
came a sharp crack, followed by Martinelli's shriek of anguish. The slug
had shattered his right kneecap, almost amputating the leg at the knee.
Tarra grabbed Martinelli by the shirt and pulled him roughly upright.
"We know about your base on that miserable airstrip in Sinope. We have
watched you and your men infiltrate this encampment. And now we have
taken the tanks with your creation while you die in this rotting
jungle."

Martinelli wasn't looking at her; his unconcealed gaze of hatred was
riveted on Gorgon. His mind reeled with thoughts of Julie. All he could
think about was his daughter trapped in the hangar, a sitting duck for
this bastard. "I wish to know everything about your paramilitary group
and how you came to know my business," Gorgon said. Martinelli said
nothing. Gorgon discharged a second round into the colonel's left knee,
prompting another shriek from his prey. The giant laughed, a menacing
rumble from deep within his chest. "I will put the next bullet in your
groin."

Gasping, fighting the onset of shock, Martinelli pulled futilely on his
wrist shackles and forced his mind to focus on Julie. Don't black out
now ... not now ... Gorgon said to Tarra, "Bring Wynett in here. We have
business to finish."

She swung the Kalashnikov off her shoulder, charged into the hallway and
crouched in a firing position in front of Wynett's door. Two short
blasts from her assault rifle tore the oak planks from their hinges. She
caught only a fleeting glimpse of Wynett, clad in a full-body
environment suit, disappearing behind the door to the bathroom. Tarra
assailed the opposite wall with a second, longer, burst. "He is wearing
an environment suit," she shouted over her shoulder. Gorgon knew
immediately what Wynett planned to do. He threw the Beretta against the
wall with enough force to shatter plaster. "He intends to kill us with
his creation!"

Tarra emptied the Kalashnikov's thirty-round clip into the bedroom wall,
producing a blizzard of plaster, wood splinters and shards of aluminum
ductwork. Wynett huddled inside the porcelain bathtub as the rounds tore
apart the room around him. He fastened his environmental hood securely
in place and inflated the suit, making himself impervious to the outside
atmosphere. He cradled the thermoslike canister in his arms. "Gorgon,"
Wynett shouted, "I very much want you to meet a friend of mine."

Tarra replaced the clip of her assault rifle. ' "I will need a grenade."

"No! You will release the agent! We must leave here at once!" Gorgon
swung his crossbow around and discharged a steel arrow into Martinelli's
chest. The colonel grimaced in agony. The arrow pierced his right lung,
missing his heart by two inches. Gorgon fled the room and hastened down
the hallway with Tarra at his heels, his spiked boots echoing back on
the hardwood floorboards. They charged out onto the veranda, where the
two soldiers stationed there snapped sharply to attention. "Burn this
house and everyone in it," Gorgon ordered, before storming off the porch
toward the jungle. Upstairs Wynett waited a prudent thirty seconds after
hearing Gorgon's retreat before crawling from his bathroom sanctuary and
walking stiffly into the spare bedroom in which Martinelli lay dying.
The Businessman ignored the colonel and watched through the window as
Gorgon's soldiers fled through his fields of sugarcane, vanishing into
the jungle. He opened his revered canister and carefully withdrew a
glass vial. Fighting off the anesthesia of unconsciousness, Martinelli
raised his swooning head and saw Wynett's vial. "Don't do it," he said,
his voice strained, his breath short. "Christ, you don't know what you
stole ..."

Wynett disregarded him. He shook the bottle furiously, breaking up the
frozen ball inside, before opening it. Martinelli let out a sigh of
despair and sank back into a pool of his blood. "It's too late ... you
bloody fool, it's too late ..."

Wynett hurled the bottle through the open second-story window and
watched it shatter onto the veranda below at the feet of the two
mercenaries. He giggled with childlike glee as one of the soldiers
crushed the innocuous-looking shards of glass with his boot. The hot,
humid ambient night air immediately began melting the ice crystals.
Neither soldier at first felt anything unusual, despite having ingested
the most powerful neurotoxin in existence. Colonel Martinelli felt a
short-lived euphoria that rapidly mounted to a feeling of dread. His
mind grew numb; his senses dulled. A cacophony of strange noises filled
his head, while still stranger phantasms obscured his vision. His brain
screamed; his mind, full of human paradox, betrayed him. He knew the
sensations had nothing to do with his wounds. This was different. He
felt as though an army of ants was swarming through tunnels burrowed
beneath his flesh. He drew in a deep breath and expelled a cry from the
worst chest pain he bad ever experienced. He tried to speak, but instead
of words he expelled flecks of blood and lung tissue. His limbs began
undulating, dancelike. Wynett, rooted to the window, watched Gorgon's
mercenaries below struggling on their knees in deep agony. The
Businessman found the sight thoroughly amusing, his throaty laughter
fogging his face shield. "You will not cheat me, Mr. Gorgon. You cannot
see my army, but they will find you. Wherever you hide in this jungle,
my army will find you and kill you."

A shriek, long and terrifying, drowned out Wynett's glee. The
Businessman drew back from the window and stared in mute surprise at
Martinelli, his throat swelled to six times its normal size. Gorgon and
Tarra whirled at the terrible shrieks of agony coming from Wynett's
manor, inhuman sounds that sent shudders through all who heard them. He
could see no sign of the flames that by now should have consumed the
house. Tarra slid the Kalashnikov off her shoulder. "I will finish him."

Gorgon grabbed her roughly by the arm. "No! It would mean death to go
back. I have what I came for. Let us leave here and unharness the
beast."

Wynett watched with detached curiosity as his lab assistant became an
abomination of humanity. As the virus devoured its victim's nervous
system, rapidly reproducing itself. Col. Anthony Martinelli became a
beast. The thing lashed out at Wynett with a roar, trying to rip its
arms from their sockets in a mad effort to tear the shackles and pipes
from the wall. Wynett recoiled, awed by what he saw. He hadn't
considered this, hadn't considered this at all. The colonel's bucking
became so severe that Wynett feared he would break the shackles and come
tearing after him in a foaming rage. Homicidal aggression as a result of
brain-cell destruction, he reasoned. He had no way of knowing how wrong
he was. Wynett was so taken by the macabre sight that he failed to
notice the stuffy air inside his suit. At first he attributed it to his
exhilaration. When the air grew increasingly foul, he rechecked his
tanks, designed to deliver two hours of air with normal exertion. The
gauge read slightly less than full, yet he could barely breathe. He
fumbled with the valve, felt something odd and strained around to look
at it. One of Tarra's bullets had taken a hefty bite out of the valve,
rendering it inoperable. In a rush of panic, he realized he was
suffocating inside a polyethylene coffin. I must leave here!

Wynett bolted from the bedroom, consumed with the singular thought of
escaping the farm before exhausting the precious pocket of air inside
his suit. He knew the virus had a short life span, a matter of minutes,
after which succeeding generations mutated into increasingly less
volatile strains. Could the, air outside his suit already be safe? He
was loath to find out. Without warning, his legs swept from under him,
spilling him headlong down the second-floor hallway. He twisted around
to see what had tripped him and cried out in revulsion. It was Stony,
his good arm nailing in a spastic arc. The man was quite dead, the arrow
through his head had seen to that, yet his corpse was moving as though
eager to avenge its owner's death. Wynett didn't doubt that the thing
would have pounced on him if Gorgon's arrow had not effectively pinned
its head to the floorboards. Wynett clawed on hands and knees down the
staircase to the living room and beheld another nightmare. In the center
of the room, struggling to rise, lay his housekeeper, Renee, an arrow
splitting her throat. She offered him a grin that was the hideous rictus
of death. Her lips seemed to be struggling to form words. If the good
woman could speak, Wynett believed her corpse would have acknowledged
him with a caricature of her former cordiality and scolded him for this
mess. He looked away, revolted. Wynett stumbled blindly out of the
house, fleeing this nightmare. Gone were Gorgon's stricken soldiers who
only moments ago had collapsed on the veranda. He looked warily around
for them, fearful they would come charging out of the night and drag him
to hell with them. His vision blurred, his oxygen-starved mind
evaporating. And then he saw it. A light. The lantern-lit barn. That was
his destination, his salvation. He staggered toward it, arms
outstretched, groping for the door that to his eyes looked both within
his reach and miles away. Although the wind was quiet, the sculpted
shrubbery swayed as though alive, inexplicably reaching for him. Wynett
shrank past them, horrified. He stumbled through the barn's doorway and
fell heavily onto the straw-covered floor. He lifted his head. The view
of the barn's floor was more shockingly gruesome than he could have
imagined. Gorgon's soldiers had used the barn as a morgue for the slain
farmhands. The carcasses refused to lie still. The victims of the
massacre lay twisting and arching, as though straining to rise and
launch a collective effort to retaliate against the forces that had
murdered them. Wynett pulled himself into a sitting position with his
back against the stone wall. He could go no farther. His hollow eyes
stared vacantly at the corpses, watching their grotesque movements,
trying to see through this trick of his oxygen starved mind. Why
wouldn't they lie still?

The corpse of a young black man at his feet turned its barely attached
head to look at him. Instead of the glassy stare of a dead man, he
thought he saw real anger in those sallow eyes. The corpse's mouth split
into an appalling sneer, revealing teeth that gnashed and snapped at
him. Wynett screwed his eyes shut, blocking the terrible image from his
mind. Lie still!

The air inside his suit was exhausted. Blackness descended. Either he
would take his chances with the virus-contaminated air or he would
suffocate. He contemplated doing nothing, thus putting a definitive end
to his horror; however, his survival instinct would not allow him to
remain passive. His gloved hands released the seal with a hiss and swung
the hood off his head. Sweet air refreshed his lungs, lifting the mist
from his oxygen-starved mind. The illness came quickly. It started as a
bitter taste in his mouth; then his head began to ache, as though a dull
metal drill were boring into his brain. Strange phantasms paraded before
him. He could feel the organism at work within his brain, devouring his
mind, hollowing out his skull. But he did not die. The virus indeed had
mutated. Instead of death, it carried the seeds of insanity. He was
helpless to prevent the corruption of the very fabric of who he was.
Wynett's eyes, sunken and hollow, darted from one corpse to the next. He
didn't believe in the soul, yet as he watched the unnatural movements of
the bodies, he knew they were mere shells, flowing with a powerful new
life force. Saint Vitus. The organism could move what death had stilled.
A grin formed on his lips when he considered how much the organism would
be worth. Far more than he dared dream. A hiss erupted from his throat
and rose in pitch before turning to laughter--a laughter born of
madness. Oh yes, Mr. Gorgon, you will pay!

Chapter Eighteen.

Stonecutters Garden

Tuesday, January 19 0520 hours

The Russian-made Mil-24 Hind-E assault gunship descended from a
purple-rimmed sky, its belly-mounted spotlight probing the strange fog
below. The Peruvian pilot, a seasoned captain named Juan Batlivala, saw
no activity on the barren plantation. What the hell had happened down
there? It would be daylight in ten minutes, and before that happened his
orders were to have the aircraft down and the troops dispersed. He
didn't like this mission, didn't like the way it had been hastily
organized and executed. He hadn't been properly briefed, nor given an
explanation for the order to fly without a forward weapons officer. He
had no authority to enter Brazilian airspace. He knew little about the
three spetsnaz soldiers in the gunship's troop compartment or what they
hoped to find on this bizarre estate in the middle of the Brazilian
jungle. Colonel Golovko had given him only an altitude and a compass
bearing. Nothing else. Captain Batlivala wanted to finish this mission,
fast. He set down the gunship between the house and the barn, creating a
whirlpool of white dust that enveloped the aircraft long after he cut
back the jet engines to ground-idle and disengaged the rotor. Visibility
was zero. What was this strange dust?

He powered off the troop compartment's red lights, an aid to night
vision once the troops were outside, and turned on the exterior spots.
The main cabin door slid open and out jumped the three special forces
soldiers, with AK-47 automatic assault rifles. The powerful halogen
lamps turned the fog into a golden nether world, where men became wispy
apparitions. The pilot watched them vanish into the strange mist. "Sweet
Mary, mother of God, stay with me," he muttered. The pilot opened the
scrambled TAC channel to his Peruvian air base four hundred miles
northwest of the plantation. He spoke in Spanish into his helmet's
mouthpiece: "Specter One to Father. We are down."

The sharp whip-whip-whip of a descending military helicopter roused
Wynett from a sound slumber. He sat up slowly, unsure of his
surroundings and with no memory of how he got here. His head felt like
mud and his ears buzzed. He wasn't even sure who he was, nor did he
especially care. His dark, scarlet eyes scanned the barn's body-strewn
floor, his mind yielding only the tiniest bits of the previous evening.
He thought he recognized most of the corpses' bloated and twisted faces,
visages seemingly carved from wood. Were they friends of his? If so, the
camaraderie must have been part of another lifetime an eon ago. Perhaps
someone else's life. Then he remembered a Henry Armstrong--no, he had
another name, didn't he? A general or some other military title?

It didn't matter. The image of his helpless lab assistant chained to a
bedroom wall struck him as terribly amusing. The phrase You don't know
what you stole percolated up from the depths of his memory, though he
couldn't recall the context in which he had heard it. In a loud voice
full of spirit, he began singing in German, "Somebody calls you, you
answer quite slowly, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes ..."

The three Russian soldiers approached the barn, vigilant for any signs
of life. They weren't interested in the house. A thermal scan of the
plantation from a reconnaissance satellite detected a single entity
inside the barn that still gave off enough body heat to be classified as
a living human being. There were no such heat signatures inside the
house. Special Forces Colonel Golovko stooped beside a manshaped carcass
lying before the barn door. He had almost missed the corpse, mistaking
it at first for a thick, twisted tree trunk. The remains--shriveled,
leathery, unrecognizable--sent a rush of nausea through him. He had seen
corpses before, many in deplorable condition, but he had never seen one
as unsettling as this. What happened here? The spetsnaz commander
decided to forgo a probe for the cause of death, which he knew would
have been futile. Then he heard singing, a deep baritone voice, coming
from inside the barn. "The barn door is bolted from the inside," his
first lieutenant reported. The colonel spotted an open window along the
side of the barn . His rifle held ready, he led the others to it in
silence. The singing stopped. The barn's interior was dark, too dark to
make out specifics. Colonel Golovko could see vague shapes spread over
the floor, possibly men, but he couldn't be sure without a closer
inspection. Holding his rifle loosely at his side, he grabbed the window
frame with his free hand and lifted a leg inside. The barn reeked of
death. The smell of manure laced with decay caused his stomach to heave
involuntarily. He paused, straddling the windowsill, listening,
straining to make sense of this gruesome warehouse of shapes and
shadows. Golovko heard movement, a shuffling among the straw. Rats? With
stunning swiftness, a man dressed in a strange white suit sprang up
before him, pointing something at him. The light was practically nil,
and several moments of stunned silence passed before the Russian officer
identified that "something" as an American-made automatic assault rifle.
There came a sharp report that resounded off the barn's high-beamed
ceiling. The point-blank burst into Golovko's chest hurled him backward
out the window, giving Wynett a clear shot at his two comrades squatting
behind in the fog. The next two bursts from Wynett's weapon produced a
line of plum-shaped holes across each soldier's chest. They spilled
backward, their rifles spraying indiscriminate rounds into the side of
the barn. Wynett discarded his empty rifle and retrieved Golovko's
AK-47. He checked the clip, pulled back the bolt with a precision click
and braced the stock solidly against his shoulder. He loved the feel of
a Kalashnikov. The Hind pilot heard muffled shots above his idling
engines. He strained to see what had become of the Russian colonel and
his spetsnaz soldiers, but he could see nothing beyond the swirling dust
cloud created by the rotor's downdraft. A shadow of a man appeared
through the lamplit fog just beyond the cockpit door. Thank God they're
finished-But it wasn't Colonel Golovko. Nor was it one of his men. A
white-bearded man wearing the remains of a peculiar oversuit walked up
to the gunship's cockpit door. The pilot felt an odd rush of emotions as
he stared into the business end of a Kalashnikov. The bearded man sang
to him, "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."

Captain Batlivala reached for the TAC controls. Wynett squeezed the
trigger. A burst from the assault rifle shattered the Plexiglas door and
raked across the cockpit, tearing the pilot through his shoulder
harness.

Chapter Nineteen.

The jungle

Tuesday, 0515 hours

Gloom. An endless forest of dense, dark foliage grabbed and scratched at
Marshall's group, holding them willfully at bay. Youngblood had inserted
them into the jungle seven hours ago, and since that time the group had
hiked five miles through the jungle, excellent time, considering the
thick terrain. The air was damp and rotten, the heat steamy even before
sunup, the ground an unbroken carpet of dense, clinging, wicked smelling
humus. Marshall acknowledged an overpowering claustrophobia as they
hacked their way beneath the dark, cathedrallike canopy of branches that
blocked out every trace of moonlight. The sun would rise in another
fifteen minutes, but it would take hours before they noticed its light.
Even at noon, only a dim half-light ever touched the jungle floor. Jose
ceased chopping the undergrowth with his machete and called back to
Marshall, "Animals and birds are gone. Insects too. We are alone. Very
strange."

Marshall, suddenly aware of the jungle's unnatural stillness, brought
the others to a halt with a raised hand. "This is far enough."

Williams swung the Galil rifle off his shoulder and unfolded its metal
stock. "Something here ain't right, Joe."

"I can feel it too." Marshall marched past Jose and directed his
high-powered lamp toward the overgrown wall of vegetation ahead. What he
saw unsettled him. Instead of pervasive green, a vulgar tropical blight
had destroyed the foliage, leaving in its wake withered and white husks.
Jesus wept! He didn't need a botanist's degree to know that this flora
damage was no natural infestation. The devastation reminded him of a
swath of jungle scorched by Agent Orange or a similar defoliant, only
this was notably different and far more potent. Marshall waved the
sergeant forward and swept his light along the ruined foliage. ' "Ever
see anything like this? Christ, all that's left is the shell of the
plant with its heart burned out." He directed the light at his map.
"We're less than an eighth of a mile from Wynett's plantation. What's
the connection?"

Williams let out his breath in one long, low sigh. "I think we just
found our god damned bug."

"Martinelli," Marshall called back to Julie. "I need you up here."

Julie stumbled to catch up with the others and dropped a briefcase-size
package at her feet with a groan, relieving herself of the
eighteen-pound box that none of the men had offered to carry. Her legs
had the consistency of rubber and her sweat-soaked clothes made her feel
as though she had just been dragged from the river. Marshall directed
his lamp at the foliage. "What do you make of this?"

"What the--" Julie approached what had once been a lowgrowing plant.
Crouching, she touched the damaged flora and rubbed it into a fine white
ash in her hand. "Holy Mother Teresa." She opened her instrument package
and quickly brought the unit to life. The gridded amber screen displayed
a waveform pattern spiked with jagged peaks, identifying the presence of
airborne organisms. A sample of air, automatically fed into the unit's
processor, classified each organism, its strength and the approximate
area contaminated. "A class T4 pathogen--artificially engineered," she
said, her drawn face bathed with the display's queer amber light. "One
part per one hundred thousand cubic meters of air."

Marshall watched her, a finger on his lips. "Is it yours?"

"Yes."

"We have to be certain."

Julie shot him a superior glance. "This system gathers metabolic
fingerprints with a microplate of ninety-six miniature wells, each
filled with dye, nutrients and a different chemical. When exposed to a
microbe, the wells turn various shades of violet. The computer
identifies the microbe based on the color pattern."

"In English, please."

"This system is very accurate," she said. "I designed it to look for
Saint Vitus. And we just found it. The virus is alive and well and
living in this South American rain forest."

"Son of a bitch!" Williams spat. "And we stepped right fucking into it."

"We're on the fringe of the infestation," Julie said, reading new
information from the screen. "The organism's genetic fingerprint has
changed. Saint Vitus has mutated."

"Mutated into what?" Marshall asked. "Into something harmless, or at
least let's pray that it has. The organism is genetically programmed to
lose its toxicity after several generations of mutation. Otherwise we
would have been dead about a hundred yards back."

The whip-whip-whip of an approaching helicopter disturbed the jungle's
unnatural quiet. A slight breeze stirred the ash into a fog. Marshall
glanced at the azure predawn sky through the cracks of leafless
branches. "I'll be damned ... it's a gunship." He shot a look at
Williams. "Gorgon?"

"Whoever it is, they're in for one hell of a surprise if the area is
still hot."

Marshall knelt down beside Julie. "I need to know if we have a lethal
environment here or not."

Julie, her shirt clinging to her back like a filthy wet dishrag, felt
the pressure to produce an interpretation of the data beyond her--or
anybody else's--abilities. "Statistically, there's a high probability
we're safe. I just don't know enough about the organism. Major, I'll
need a radio linkup with Detrick to interpret this data." ' "Relay
everything you get to Lieutenant Spangler as a Code Red." He said to
Williams, "Have you raised the hangar yet?"

The sergeant shook his head. "I can open a channel, but Spangler still
won't answer. Youngblood should be there shortly."

Marshall swore loudly. Julie opened her backpack and unfolded a bright
orange nonporous suit with a battery-powered air supply. "What do you
think you're doing?" Marshall asked her. "If you men will excuse me, I'm
going to find my father."

Peruvian Air Force Capt. Laszlo Valachi bit down savagely on his Cuban
cigar. Something had gone wrong. The Hind pilot had missed two radio
check-ins. Eighteen years of active duty on this base told him that the
Russian colonel had botched the mission and lost his gunship. What
terrorist is so damned important that Golovko would take such a risk?

Valachi lifted the telephone receiver and secured an instant connection
with his airfield's hangar. "Full alert," he shouted at the officer on
the other end. Three minutes later, two Russian-made MIG-23s under his
command were rolling onto the runway. Julie's heart skipped a beat as
she emerged from the jungle into an incredible white world. The estate
was an abomination of decay. She sucked in her breath sharply as she
scanned Wynett's estate through her suit's face shield. The effects of
the organism were far more devastating than she had dared imagine.
Despite the clammy South American heat, the farm stood cold and dead
beneath a layer of white ash that had turned the regal grounds into a
shimmering snowfield. Wynett's huge stone manor rose from the decay like
something out of a perverted Lewis Can-oil story. "A horse appeared,"
she whispered, "deathly pale, and its rider was called Plague, and Hades
followed at his heels."

Julie's thoughts turned to her father. What have I done, Dad? Determined
to find out, she crawled through a hole deliberately cut in the
chain-link fence, careful not to rip her suit on the naillike ends. She
proceeded toward the house, her eyes scanning every direction. The
morning sun had broken through the treetops, giving an eerie warmth to
the devastated grounds. She saw no one. The white, crisp grass turned to
a fine powder under her boots, and she was hot, almost to the point of
swooning. Julie hated her army-issued Racal full-body environment suit
for not allowing the evaporation of perspiration. Its manufacturer
assured comfort for prolonged wearing, unless temperatures rose above
seventy-five degrees. The morning jungle already exceeded that by ten
degrees, turning the inside of the positive-pressure suit into a sauna.
"Marshall," she said into the hands-free mike threaded inside her suit's
hood. "The vegetation on the northern end of the plantation is devoid of
pigment. I suspect that as the organism mutates, its nutritional
requirements change. Maybe at one stage it feeds on chlorophyll. A
breeze apparently carried the organism to the north. The epicenter of
the dead zone appears to be the house."

Marshall, huddling with the others in a healthy part of the jungle well
behind the estate, touched the send button on his belt-mounted
transceiver and said into the minimike clipped to his collar, "What
about the chopper? Do you see troop activity?"

"No. I'm going to investigate."

"Negative. I want you to stay put."

"Sorry, Major. I'm quite capable of taking care of myself."

Marshall turned off the mike and said to his gunnery sergeant, "I don't
want her in there alone."

Williams released the safety of his Galil. "It's your call." Marshall
said to the old trapper, "You don't have to go."

Jose nodded firmly and pulled back the bolt on his Uzi. "Welcome to your
first biological battlefield." The major swept around and bolted through
the jungle toward Wynett's estate. Julie rechecked her bio unit. The air
samples registered in the normal range, yet the display indicated trace
genetic patterns she couldn't identify. She longed for her workstation
at Port Detrick and an afternoon brainstorming session with her adviser.
Dr. Nancy Shaw. She snapped on her transceiver. "Marshall, are you
listening?"

Marshall reached the edge of the plantation, and there he stopped, taken
by the sight. He could see Julie at a distance approaching Wynett's
grand manor, which rose from the fog like a medieval castle. "Marshall?"

"I'm right here," he said. "Christ, what happened here?"

"What's the status of that radio relay?"

"Still no word from the hangar. Youngblood's almost there."

"Keep trying. I need to upload my data to Detrick for collation--" She
suddenly cried out over the radio. "What is it, Julie? What's wrong?"

No answer. Marshall and Williams stooped through the hole in the fence
and broke into a run across the field, their boots stirring up angry
puffs of white ash as they ran. Jose trailed at a comfortable trot. They
reached Julie, who was standing statue-still, staring down dazedly at a
corpse at her feet. Marshall shot glances at the other carcasses strewn
over the lawn, dozens at least, effectively covered and camouflaged by
the powderlike ash. Julie looked up quickly. "You're crazy," she
screamed. "You could get yourselves killed coming in here without
suits!"

Marshall ignored her as he turned over the badly decomposed body with
his boot. It was a boy with negroid features, clutching a handful of
smooth sticks that appeared to be part of a game. A graphite arrow had
struck the boy in his lower back and protruded from his chest. The
arrow, fired from a high-powered compound bow, was designed to bring
down large game. Quick and silent, it heightened the pleasure of
killing, a sport Gorgon excelled in. "Fucking bastards," Williams spat.
Julie crouched beside the corpse. Her heart pounded. She'd never seen a
dead body outside a funeral parlor, let alone a child that looked this
bad, and murdered with an arrow. She felt queerly fascinated. Williams
squatted next to her. "Looks like he's been dead for weeks."

"No more than a few hours," she speculated. Williams looked at the
biochemist, puzzled. "Radical hemorrhaging and dehydration is one of
Saint Vitus' symptoms." Julie withdrew from her instrument pack a
folding plastic case with five culture containers on one side and a
scalpel kit on the other. She removed a scalpel handle, inserted a
blade, careful not to puncture her airtight suit, then went to work on
the boy's wrist. "Is that necessary?" Marshall said, looking away.
"Very. I'll need to analyze tissue samples." Julie parted the boy's
skin, excised a piece of the radial artery and sealed it in a culture
container. She filled a second container with a sample of the ubiquitous
white ash. Marshall walked among the dead, gazing numbly at the
decomposed faces that still harbored traces of shock and confusion.
Gorgon's raiders had ruthlessly murdered Wynett's soldiers, workers and
their families. He wondered if any had managed to escape into the bush.
He turned away from the unspeakable carnage and spotted the giant dust
cloud rising beyond the house. He hollered to his sergeant, "Let's find
that chopper." He pointed at Jose. "Stay with her."

The old trapper readily agreed. Marshall and Williams followed the
outline of what once had been a charming cobblestone walkway around to
the opposite side of the house. A grand sight greeted them--a Mi-24
Hind-E, an advanced Russian gunship with Peruvian military markings, its
twin turbo jet engines idling. Marshall couldn't tear his eyes away from
it. It bothered him that they'd found no one else alive, including the
chopper crew. "Not even Gorgon could get his hands on this kind of
hardware," Williams said. "Must be part of a paramilitary unit."

Marshall grunted, keenly aware of the importance of their find.
Examining a Hind-E intact would be a coup for U.S. Army intelligence.
There was one small problem: Peru's militia wasn't in the habit of
leaving one of its premier military aircraft unattended without good
reason. Its owners couldn't be far away. Julie and Jose caught up with
them and stared mutely at the armored helicopter. The gunship, cloaked
in the ash's fog, reminded Julie of a prehistoric mastodon, its scaly
wings poised for flight. "Dead men," Jose said, pointing toward the
barn. The old trapper was right; several corpses in dark uniforms,
relatively clean of ash, lay strewn in front of the barn. The Hind crew?
Marshall wondered. He said to Julie, "I want you to stay here."

"I'm searching the house." She turned and began trudging toward Wynett's
manor. "Jose, you stay with her," Marshall ordered. The old trapper
nodded and followed her, while Marshall and Williams broke into a run
across the lawn. The major motioned Williams to take the barn, while he
explored the gunship. Marshall's pulse quickened when he reached the
aircraft, an adrenaline rush from his excitement. He was certified to
fly an AH-64a Apache gunship, a flying battle cruiser. The Hind was its
Russian counterpart. The gunship touted four fixed 23mm cannons, 160
27mm unguided rockets, and a dozen laser-guided antitank missiles. This
single aircraft could inflict more damage on a Contra stronghold than a
regiment of troops with armor and artillery support. Marshall stooped
beneath the gunship's rotor blades and opened the shattered cockpit
door. Inside, slumped against the controls, sat the slain Hind pilot, a
Peruvian officer. A dozen wounds had produced an appalling stream of
blood that soaked the armored seat and gathered on the floor in a
puddle. Several rounds had shattered the windscreen, but the flight
control deck didn't appear damaged. The major saw no telltale signs that
the pilot had succumbed to a neurovirus, man-made or otherwise. Bullets
had killed the pilot, not a virus. Bullets from whom, though? he
wondered. Marshall climbed into the cockpit, removed the corpse and took
its place in the pilot's seat. He activated the electrics and
hydraulics, then throttled the jet engines and idled them at twenty-five
percent. The ship could be airborne in seconds. The fuel gauge
registered fifty percent. He gripped the control column firmly and felt
the powerful aircraft growl under his gloved hand, becoming part of him.
Marshall had flown an older Hind-C captured in Afghanistan. This
aircraft was similar, though quite improved. He switched on the ship's
main tactical screen and summoned up the moving map of the upper
continent. Everything was there for his inspection--radar installation
coordinates, airfields, villages, farms, mountains and roads. Julie
stepped up onto the veranda of wynett's Tudor manor and moved slowly,
hesitantly, toward the massive double oak doors. Jose followed two paces
behind her, his tired eyes darting from one ash-covered shape to
another. Julie felt an eerie foreboding about the way the house's front
doors stood open for her, swaying in the slight morning breeze,
beckoning her inside. Absent were the familiar jungle sounds, which
should have filled her ears even inside the suit. Her breathing
accelerated, threatening hyperventilation. She tried to relax, but her
pulse continued at a dead run. Against her better judgment she stepped
inside. The living room's bright panels of stained glass framed a clear
central window. Her heart pumped violently as she surveyed the scene of
horror that greeted her there. What remained of a woman was sitting
upright on the floor, a metal arrow jutting from her throat, staring at
Julie with twin sockets for eyes. Radical dehydration had aged the
corpse a decade in a few hours. Is she laughing at me? Julie wondered.
Jesus, it looks like she is. She turned quickly away, letting her rapid
breathing fog the face shield to block her view. Jose stood rooted in
the foyer. Blessing himself with the sign of the Lord's cross, the old
trapper said to her, "I must wait outside."

"Jose, I need you with me--" But he was gone. Damn it. She didn't want
to be alone in this house of horrors. But something deep inside
compelled her to continue, with or without Jose's support. She found
evidence of a battle throughout the house's lower level. A numbness
seized her when she stooped to examine the remains of a soldier in black
fatigues heaped outside the study, its leather visage reminding her of a
museum mummy. A bead of sweat rolled into her right eye, stinging it.
She tried to knock it away, but couldn't reach beyond the face shield.
Wrinkling her nose in discomfort, she forced herself to continue, aware
of her own labored breathing. Julie entered the study, where she
imagined Wynett sitting pensively with his books and newspapers
specially delivered to him from around the world; then into his dining
room, an elegantly appointed chamber with dishes still set out. Wynett
was a neat and orderly man, or at least employed someone to keep him
that way. He had a taste for the expensive, affirmed by the original
paintings and elegantly carved ivory figurines, which filled every wall
and shelf space. Now the white ash covered everything like centuries-old
dust. In the kitchen Julie opened a door to a flight of stone steps
leading to a black cellar. She did not descend. Her childhood
imagination shifted into high gear as she visualized a pit full of
ghouls waiting for her down there. She shut the door and opted to search
upstairs. Despite her best efforts to suppress such thoughts, she could
think only of her father. She refused to accept the possibility that she
would find him here among this collection of monstrosities, refused to
accept the possibility that her bug had killed him. With the suit as her
shield, as if it would protect her from every danger seen and unseen,
Julie climbed the gore-covered steps to the house's second level. She
reached the landing and paused, her eager eyes taking in the hallway's
sinister-looking shapes created by the early-morning shadows. There were
bodies everywhere. She saw several open doorways, each eclipsed in
darkness. For a moment her fear was so great that she felt a firm grip
on her heart trying to kill her. Pushing against it, rebellious,
infuriated, she continued. She gazed down at the twisted and shrunken
face of a man who looked somehow familiar to her. An arrow, the same
type of Tenon-tipped projectile that had slain the woman and boy, was
buried midshaft above its eye. She gasped ... Stony. She stumbled
backward. How? Stony, what in God's good name happened here?

Fighting off a wave of nausea, Julie raised a hand to her face shield
and realized she was trembling, an uncontrollable shivering that
threatened to cripple her with spasms. She dreaded the thought of what
else she might find up here. She drew in a deep breath and proceeded
down the hallway, her suit growing distressingly warmer. She found
nothing amiss in the first two bedrooms. The third, however, was a
shattered wreck of bullet holes and wood splinters--a true battlefield.
Pieces of an elegant marble chessboard lay scattered among the
fragmented plaster. Then she saw it--the Beretta lying in the hallway
like a welcome mat. His handgun. She walked to it and picked it up.
Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her eyes to the bedroom's drapery,
rolling in the breeze, beckoning her attention. Then she saw it. The
sight forced a muffled gasp from inside her hood and she thought her
heart had stopped. Only a few feet from her, chained to a water pipe
beneath the window, lay a twisted ragdoll corpse of a man with
distinctive peppery hair and dressed in familiar beige khakis. Its dark
eye sockets were staring at her with a look of stern disapproval. What
have you done to me? his expression seemed to ask her. She didn't need
to look long or closely to know that this awful thing used to be her
father.

Chapter Twenty.

The sound of automatic gunfire startled Marshall from his investigation
of the Russian gunship. Through the shattered windscreen he saw Williams
roll clear of a burst of erratic fire coming from the barn's window. The
gunnery sergeant took up a defensive position against the side of the
stone barn and returned several rapid shots with his Galil. Julie bolted
out onto the veranda, where Jose stood waiting for her. She stopped
suddenly, her vacant eyes behind the face shield betraying the shock of
seeing what had happened to her father. Jose just stood there, as pale
as she, nervously stroking his white grizzled mustache. His gaze fell on
the Beretta in her gloved hand. She gripped it awkwardly, seemingly
unaware that she was even holding it. Without a word she raced off the
veranda and across the lawn, struggling in her bulky suit to get far
away from the house. Marshall jumped from the gunship, cocked his
Franchi shotgun with a commanding clack as he ran and flattened against
the barn's stone wall beside Williams. Whoever had fired on Williams
from the barn was gone. He surveyed the three slain soldiers in Russian
spetsnaz. commando outfits lying beneath the barn's window, each riddled
with enough rounds to assure a kill. The pieces began to fit. The
Russians had followed Alpha here. Like Iraq, they had come to claim
Gorgon for themselves. "Did you see who fired?" Marshall asked. "Yeah,
an old man with a neat white beard," Williams said. "Wynett?"

"Fuck if I--" They heard laughter and singing coming from inside the
barn--a disturbing noise of someone possessed. Williams jerked his rifle
toward the window, but no one appeared. The laughter tapered off, as
though the source were retreating down a long hallway. Marshall stripped
off every piece of excess gear except his cartridge belt. "Watch my
back."

He took a running leap through the barn's window and rolled into a deep
shadow, bringing his Pranchi up all in one fluid motion. Williams
covered him from the window. Marshall methodically directed his shotgun
at each indistinguishable shape, every manlike silhouette. He saw no
movement. Bodies, a dozen of them, lay in untidy rows across the
strawcovered floor, corpses too badly decomposed for him to determine if
Stony's commandos were among them. The cavernous barn reminded him of a
crypt, the humid air thick with death, Williams eased through the window
behind him. Marshall moved carefully through the shadow and felt
something spongy under his right foot. He glanced down. His boot rested
on the neck of a corpse whose head barely remained attached by a thin
strand of sinew. Disgusted, he kept moving. They both heard the sound of
stone scraping stone. The hair on the back of Williams's neck bristled.
Marshall, his expression grim, moved to the back of the barn, pointing
his Franchi into every darkened crevice. He found an AK-47 assault
rifle, its magazine clip missing, lying next to a crack of light between
a slab of stone--a trapdoor. He motioned Williams forward. "Help me move
this."

The two men lifted the boulder-size stone with an agonizing screech,
unearthing a crimson emergency light source and a cool draft of mildewed
air laced with the medicinal smell of formaldehyde. They set the slab
roughly aside. A wooden staircase descended into a cellar. Without a
word Marshall stepped into the opening and descended. Williams followed.
The air beneath the barn reeked of chemicals, and both men had to strain
to see under the emergency lighting. They saw no one. The cellar
reminded Marshall of Frankenstein's laboratory, with its squat arches
supporting a moss-dripping ceiling over a roomful of modern lab
equipment. In the center of the room sat twin high-capacity fermentation
units. Here, in the middle of the primal Amazon jungle, they had found
one of the better-equipped biological laboratories Marshall had seen
outside a research center. Williams let out a low whistle. "How did
Wynett manage--"

They heard it again. Laughter, a deep hysterical fit, coming from behind
the lab's only other door. "I want him alive," Marshall said. Nodding,
Williams withdrew a single, special round from his SAS belt and slipped
it into the Galil's chamber. The cartridge contained a nonlethal serum
that could paralyze a bear for ten minutes or a medium-size man for
several hours. Marshall changed the mode of his Franchi to
semiautomatic, then lay spread-eagle in front of the door, belly down.
Williams stood behind him and directed his rifle at the center of the
door. Marshall fired four quick shotgun blasts at the door in a cross
formation, shredding the planks. The tiny room beyond was a storage
closet, filled with glassware. Through the smoke and flying debris,
Marshall saw a stocky, white-haired man huddled in the corner, holding a
canister. "He's got a grenade," Williams yelled. "Move against me and I
will kill us all," the man said to them. It was Wynett, wheezing
heavily, his eyes crimson, the corners of his mouth twisted into a
demented smile. ' "Tell me if you are American."

Both soldiers remained motionless. Wynett stood and stepped from the
closet, his canister-filled hand raised. "I must know--"

"Major," Jose called from the top of the steps. "Julie is gone. She run
away."

Wynett glanced up. Williams fired. The cartridge struck Wynett square in
the chest. He grunted and doubled over. Marshall bolted forward and
squeezed Wynett's palm in a viselike grip, holding the canister
immobile. Wynett struggled momentarily until he lost consciousness.
"Appreciate it, Jose," Marshall said over his shoulder. The old trapper,
descending the cellar steps, looked curiously at the roomful of lab
equipment. Marshall pried the aluminum canister from Wynett's grip.
"It's not a grenade."

The canister weighed only a few ounces and measured three-quarters of an
inch in diameter and six inches long, evidently from Wynett's extensive
collection of arms paraphernalia. Its tiny metal safety pin was still in
place. Marshall had seen similar devices used in covert operations that
could fire compressed gas from an ampule inside. "What do you think's in
it?" Williams asked. "My bet is it's what we came here for," Marshall
said. Julie ran toward the farming cottages behind Wynett's manor which,
miraculously, had been spared contamination. None of the surrounding
foliage had been damaged by the organism, thanks to a nightlong breeze
that had pushed the lethal cloud to the opposite end of the plantation.
She tried to wipe the stinging mixture of tears and sweat from her eyes,
but the face shield denied her gloved fingers access. Nauseous and
afraid of shock, she increased the ratio of oxygen pumping into her
suit. She didn't feel any better. Julie found modest comfort in the
purely mechanical act of running across the plantation. She couldn't
face Marshall and the others right now. She kept telling herself her
father was dead, though not believing it. She had almost convinced
herself that the thing she had seen in the house was someone else.
Inwardly, however, the truth was tearing her apart. He was gone, and
part of her was dying with him. Still, she believed she would find him
waiting for her inside one of these charming servant houses, ready to
scoop her up into his arms in a bear hug, something he had always done
when she was a girl. You know I wouldn't leave you out here alone, she
could hear him say. Julie climbed the steps of the first house. She
entered the solidly built ranch and surveyed the living room with its
neatly appointed furniture. To her utter disappointment, no one was
here--he wasn't here. She stood absolutely still, listening to the
oppressive silence inside her suit, feeling the rush of another wave of
grief. She heard crying. Somewhere nearby a child was suppressing the
urge to break into uncontrollable sobbing. Julie returned to the porch
and listened. The crying came again, louder--beneath her. She hurried
down the steps and, crouching, peered beneath the porch. In the meager
half-light, she saw a black boy, no older than ten, huddled in the
corner, defending himself with a pair of sharpened sticks. He looked
like a curled-up puppy, terrified of a world where everything appeared
large and menacing. He just stared at her, shaking. A metal arrow
protruded from his abdomen, and he seemed afraid to touch it. How could
he survive that wound? she wondered.

"Jesus," she said. "Jesus ... Jesus  ..." / must look like a monster to
him in this suit. An alien. She unfastened the snaps, removed her hood
and shook the long, flowing hair from her face. The air filling her
lungs felt rejuvenating. She hastily wiped some moisture from her face
before crawling to the child and offering her hand. The boy would not
give up his sharp sticks. "Mommy promised," he said in Americanized
English. "She promised nothing would happen to us here."

Julie fought back the swell of emotion in her throat. Reaching forward,
she took the sticks from him, then gripped his tiny hand. She held his
hand tightly until he stopped crying and there was no life left behind
those innocent, vacant eyes.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Sinope, Brazil

0545 Hours

Youngblood banked his NOTAR RAH-66 Comanche in a wide arc over the
hangar before setting it down on the airstrip's runway. He cut back the
throttles to ground-idle and disengaged the rotor, letting the engines
diminish to a growl. He saw no lights in or around the hangar, no
activity of any kind. It was sunrise, but the overcast sky and the
thick, enveloping trees surrounding the airstrip kept him in darkness.
Youngblood grabbed a flashlight and stepped down from the cockpit. He
stood motionless before the sagging hangar, ignoring the steady rain
that had begun falling. He waited and watched. The old hangar appeared
deserted, and some foreboding would not allow him to relax his guard. He
didn't believe in ghosts, but standing before the lifeless structure he
could feel malicious spirits watching him. Youngblood approached the
bent doorway slowly, his eyes roving. His right hand unbuttoned the
leather strap of his .45's side holster. Stepping inside, he slipped
quickly into the deep gloom beside the doorway and listened. He could
hear nothing but rain popping onto the corrugated iron roof and the
distant rumble of his chopper's engine. He couldn't see anything. His
right hand slid the .45 out of its holster and held it ready at his
side. He switched on the flashlight and played its beam around. Alpha's
equipment sat dark and useless. Their staging base had been powered
down; most likely the generator was out. The stacks of crated supplies
likewise sat untouched. No one, not even jungle marauders, had intruded
here. He swept the light beam across Spangler's communication console
and illuminated a figure in a white technician's frock slumped facedown
over the equipment. "Spangler!"

Youngblood bolted to him, grabbed Spangler by his shoulder and turned
him over. Only it wasn't Spangler. A dark man with short, black hair and
a closely cropped beard, grinning at him, brandished a wicked knife.
Youngblood recoiled with a shout, his flashlight clattering to the
floor, and lashed out blindly with his .45. The heavy handgun connected
with the intruder's jaw, a blow that sent him sprawling with broken
teeth. In the confused darkness, Youngblood heard a shuffling and
banging of crates as the man scrambled away, spewing a string of Arabic
curses. Youngblood discharged several rapid rounds at the vague figure
retreating in the dimness. There came a muted grunt as the intruder flew
against the wall, ripping through the rotted planks. Youngblood
scrambled to find the flashlight and directed its beam across the floor,
searching for others who might be hiding there. The light fell upon a
body lying on its back, half concealed behind a stack of crates. He
stepped closer, thrusting his handgun before him. This time it was
Spangler. A gash the size of his palm had opened his throat, and half
his blood volume had poured into an awful pool around him. Youngblood
looked away, his jaw tightening in frustration. The major's orders were
to protect the staging area and everyone in it. They all had fucked up,
including him. "Sorry, DOS. I'm so sorry." * * * Marshall kicked open
the double barn doors, and he and Williams half carried, half dragged an
unconscious Wynett into the yard. Jose followed, covering them with his
Uzi. "Where's Julie?" Marshall hollered. "She run away," Jose said.
"Something scare her."

"Damn it! Go find her--"

"Major!" she called. The men turned in unison. Julie raced across the
lawn without her environment suit, leaving behind an ash cloud as she
ran. When she reached them, he noted her eyes and cheeks were flushed
from crying. His heart almost stopped when he saw the colonel's prized
Beretta in her hand. "God, no  ..."

Her eyes drifted downward, spilling tears. "It was a massacre. ... Major
... they  ..." The words choked in her throat. Marshall let out a long,
weary sigh of regret. The loss crushed him. Williams looked away.
Marshall's grief quickly turned to an outrage even Gorgon's blood
couldn't abate. Tony, why didn't your men kick his ass to hell? He made
a silent oath to his friend to finish this ugly business; he owed Tony
that much. "Dad just bought a super house in the Canadian Rockies,"
Julie said, forcing a smile to mask her grief. "When this was over, he
planned to ... we were going to ..." She couldn't continue; her heart
sank under the weight of a torrent of painful emotions. Marshall touched
her shoulder in a gesture of support. "Julie, I'm--" She jerked away
from him. "I don't want to hear you say it." She glared at him as though
he were responsible for what had happened to her father and was
surprised to see a single tear spill from the corner of his eye. "I
promise I'll get Gorgon for this," Marshall said. Julie's eyes melted
away from his. She didn't care about Gorgon; that was her father's
obsession, not hers, and it had killed him. She just wanted him back in
her life. Her eyes flared with anger when she saw Wynett slumped against
Marshall's arm. She exploded with rage.

"Bastard!" She lunged at Wynett, clawing and scratching him savagely
about the face and neck, screaming obscenities at him. "You did this.
You did this!"

Wynett stirred groggily. Marshall struggled to contain her with his free
arm. "Julie, we need him right now ... we need answers ..."

Julie didn't hear him. She continued her thrashing, obsessed with
killing the old man. Nor could Williams, supporting Wynett's other arm,
keep her away from his prisoner--she was that determined. Jose hurried
to prop up Wynett so Williams would be free to subdue her. Before they
could finish the handoff, the old trapper let out a grunt and collapsed
onto both knees, a Tenon arrow protruding from his side. Julie reeled
back and stared horrified at Jose, who returned her stare with sad eyes
full of longing. His eyes rolled up into his head and he dropped
facedown onto the ash-covered lawn. Marshall dropped Wynett and whipped
off his Franchi. "Where did that come from?"

Williams slid the Galil off his shoulder, his eyes scanning the brush
beyond the harvested fields. On the southern edge of the field,
concealed by the healthy foliage, stood a man in black fatigues cocking
a military-style crossbow. Williams's uncanny squirrel eyes spotted two
similarly camouflaged men squatting in the brush beside him. "Do you see
him?" Marshall demanded. The gunnery sergeant nodded and leveled his
Galil sniper's rifle at the brush--a simple thirty-yard shot. The
soldier in the center of Williams's scope raised his crossbow. Williams
fired three rounds in quick succession. He could hit a target at a
thousand yards. At thirty yards he could drive a nail into a board.
Before Williams's rifle report faded, three of Gorgon's mercenaries were
dead, a perfectly centered shot through each's chest. Marshall looked
bitterly at the lifeless trapper. A halo of blood flowing from under the
corpse had turned the ash around him a sloppy red. The arrow could have
taken out any one of them, he realized; the poor man just got in the
way.

Julie whispered, barely forming the words, "Jose, I'm so sorry." She
closed her eyes, brought her hand up wearily to her face and began to
pray. "God, I can't undo this terrible thing I've done. This abomination
of mine, this creature, kills whoever it touches. It killed my father.
God help me, I don't know what to do."

Williams hadn't seen a fourth mercenary, a young man with long hair,
sitting with his back against a tree, while his comrades fell dead
around him. One of his men had been stupid, careless, he reasoned. Their
orders were simply to observe, not open fire. Now three were dead. Who
were these people and what sort of threat were they? He intended to find
out. The mercenary lifted a handheld transceiver and said in Arabic,
"Take one of them alive."

Williams saw movement in the brush on the southern edge of the field,
then more movement farther east. "Here they come, Joe."

Julie's grief turned to dread, and she thrust her father's Beretta
before her, ready to use it. ' "What are we going to do?"

"Get inside the chopper," Marshall ordered. Williams helped wrestle
Wynett's deadweight inside the gunship's troop compartment, then climbed
aboard. Julie climbed in after them. Marshall handed her Wynett's
canister. "Don't let this out of your sight."

She tucked the Beretta into one of her jumpsuit's deep pockets and
accepted the strange-looking cylinder. ' "What is it?"

"Pandora's box--a little gift from Wynett."

Julie's stomach tightened. "I don't want it."

"Buckle in," Marshall said, then jumped out the troop compartment.
Williams closed the door behind him. "Can he fly this thing?" Julie
asked the sergeant. "We'll find out together."

Marshall climbed into the Hind's cockpit and grabbed the shoulder
harness, which he realized was too damaged to do him any good. He jammed
his Franchi beside the pilot's seat and advanced the throttles to flight
idle. He waited what seemed an eternity for the aircraft's turbo engines
to power up to seventy-five percent before engaging the rotor clutch.
Overhead, the ship's five massive rotor blades began to slice the air.
Through the shattered windscreen Marshall saw at least a dozen men
dressed in black fatigues charging toward the gunship in a tight
skirmish line. He inched the throttles forward. As the rotor's velocity
increased, he felt rather than heard brief power losses, no more than a
fraction of a second each, yet persistent enough to give a seasoned
pilot serious thoughts to finding another mode of transportation. He
watched the tachometer dip slightly with each power interruption, aware
that at high speeds a serious vibration would tear apart the aircraft.
Then he saw it beside the altimeter. A bullet hole--deep, wide, dark. It
looked like an open mouth, frozen in a silent moan of defeat. How did
you miss this one? He wondered if the aircraft's electronics had enough
redundant circuits to keep the bird airborne. If not, this would be a
very short ride. "Armed men approaching from the south and east,"
Williams said from the narrow passageway between the troop compartment
and the cockpit. "I see them."

The aircraft's threat alarm sounded twice. Marshall switched on the
gunship's radar display and saw two dots representing approaching
aircraft forty miles to the east. "Fighters approaching."

"Christ, what else?" Williams said. Marshall switched off the ship's
radar, an acoustic beacon the fighter pilots could hone in on. The twin
Lotarev D-136 turboshaft jet engines whipped the gunship's main rotor
blades into a dishlike blur. As the engine's rpms increased, the
troublesome mechanical flutter became less noticeable. Marshall knew,
though, the problem hadn't gone away. It was lurking somewhere in the
background like a coiled snake waiting to strike. He glanced out the
windscreen; the men in black fatigues were storming toward the aircraft
firing their weapons. The rounds ricocheted off the gunship's armored
plating. Williams inched open the troop compartment door, raised his
Galil and squeezed off a full clip in several seconds. The gunnery
sergeant's accurate report dropped four soldiers as they scattered in
disorder. "Get us out of here, Joe."

Marshall drew in a deep breath, released the brakes and pulled up on the
collective control lever. The gunship shuttered, refusing to move.
"Lift, you son of a bitch," he hissed through clenched teeth. He
increased the throttle. The twin engines roared. C'mon. Slowly, almost
imperceptibly, the altimeter needle began to quiver.

Chapter Twenty-two.

Stonecutters Garden

Alpha open channel to the Mig pilots, "The gunship. Do you see my
gunship?"

"Negative," the pilot responded. Valachi smashed the cigar into his
desk, unaware that he'd never lit it. Scavengers! he surmised.
Scavengers working for the drug czars had killed the crew and stolen his
gunship. The fucks would use my formidable aircraft against me! He
loathed giving the order that would likely end his less-than-brilliant
military career. What other choice did he have? Allow the aircraft to
escape and he would be letting it butcher untold numbers of soldiers and
civilians. Destroy the gunship now and he could blame its loss on
Colonel Golovko, who had confiscated it on orders from the Russian
Defense Council. But first they had to find it. "Locate the gunship," he
said slowly and deliberately so there could be no misunderstanding. "And
destroy it."

Peruvian Air Squadron Comdr. Alfonso de los Heros surveyed! the green
blur sweeping by below him. He dropped his Mig's? nose, extended its
flaps and eased the fighter to the dangerous edge of a stall. A mere
four hundred feet above the treetops, a mistake now could cost Peru one
of its few highperformance aircraft, not to mention one hell of a good
pilot Marshall engaged the Hind's turbo booster and felt the G-force
acceleration press him back into the armored seat. He kept the engines
screaming at full throttle and skimmed the treetops thirty feet below,
avoiding the Migs' radar by hiding inside the ground clutter. One
hundred seventy knots ... one hundred eighty ... one hundred ninety  ...
[ His thick swirls of black hair were soaked with sweat and his
shoulders ached from the tension. He could feel the tension crawling
down his back. He couldn't shake the awful image of two fighters riding
his ass with enough air-to-air missiles to down a dozen choppers. He
kept one eye on the out-sideders, watching for them, while the other
scanned the forest >elow. A bleak ache gnawed at the pit of his stomach.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. "You've got this thing
moving!" Williams hooted, squatting behind the pilot's high-backed seat.
"She handles like a tank," Marshall spat, his knuckles white from his
overprotective grip on the pitch-control column. "How's the fuel?"
Williams asked. At two hundred knots. Commander de los Heros and his
wing man had only two seconds to complete a visual inspection of the
plantation. And then green, a vast ocean of monotonous green. But two
seconds were enough to give then an eyeful. If he didn't know better, de
los Heros would swear he had just overflown a snowfield in the middle of
a tropical --: jungle. How was that possible? He shoved the stick
forward and brought his aircraft up in a wide arc, preparing for a
second run. "Dove One to Nest," he said in Spanish into his helmet mike.
"The plantation is deserted. It is  ..." He paused, groping for the
right word." ...  devastated."

Inside the Peruvian air base hangar four hundred miles to the west.
Captain Valachi spat out a cigar bit and said "Half. Maybe enough to get
us to Bolivia by way of the Rio Madeira River."

"A lot of bad neighborhoods between here and there. Are you sure about
this?"

"Hell no."

Suddenly Marshall's headset crackled. "Alpha eight-seven two, this is
Odessa seven-four. What's your status? Over."

"Son of a bitch, it's Youngblood!" Marshall keyed in the hangar's
frequency on the communications display and spoke deliberately into his
helmet mike. "We're airborne. Can't tell you our position. Code
nine-two. We've missed you. What's the story at the hangar? Over."

"Spangler's dead--our terrorist friends."

Marshall sighed. "Jesus  ..."

"I wouldn't advise returning there," Youngblood said "I'm airborne,
proceeding east. Let me give you a rendezvous point--" A warning tone in
his headphones overrode Youngblood's transmission. The Hind's threat
display tracked a pair of re blips above and behind them, seven miles
from their tail an closing rapidly; two fighters approaching at twice
the gun ship's speed had them targeted and locked. The fighters had
honed in on the radio transmission. Marshall activated the aul weapons
console, then hesitated. Fighter pilots in high-tec confrontations were
notoriously trigger-happy. And there was no way he could outduel them.
Steady. Marshall slid a glove finger over the countermeasure console, a
much better option for the moment. The fighters grew in his outside
mirror until he could see their distinctive Peruvian markings. At the
last possible moment, the fighters broke attack formation and roared
past in blur, shaking the gunship. A scouting sweep, Marshall reasoned.
They want their $30 million gunship back. "Migs," Marshall spat. His
headset crackled again. The Mig commander's voice filling his ears spoke
to him in rapid Spanish, and he didn't sound happy.

Julie watched Wynett sleeping fitfully on the floor of the noisy troop
compartment. She gave serious thought to opening the compartment's door
and shoving him out into the jungle before anybody could stop her. Or,
better yet, wrapping one of the aircraft's repelling cables around his
neck and hanging the son of a bitch outside. If that meant a murder
charge, she didn't give a damn. Wynett began to stir. Julie grew rigid.
His hands twitched spasmodically, and he uttered a few incoherent words,
as though wrestling with a bad dream. "Williams," she called to the
front. "Get back here-- now." Wynett's eyes suddenly fluttered open. He
gazed up at the compartment's roof, dazed, then twisted his head around
and looked at her with cold, dark eyes that terrified her. "Sergeant!"

Wynett's voice when he spoke was deeper than she remembered at Derrick.
"We have met before, have we not?"

Julie withdrew the Beretta from the pocket of her khakis, pulled back
the hammer and, with two trembling hands, pointed it at his head. "This
gun belonged to my father. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I used it to
blow off your fucking head."

Peruvian Air Force Commander de los Heros opened the TAC channel to the
gunship and said to Marshall in Spanish, "I have you targeted and
locked. You will not be permitted to continue. You will climb to ten
thousand feet and proceed on a heading of two-two-four. Over."

Marshall understood something about being destroyed, but little else. He
keyed the mike and said to the Mig commander, "I have a critical oil
leak. I'm losing my drive train. Give me your base coordinates. Over."

"Ah, the Yankees have joined the Latin American drug trade," the pilot
squawked in broken English over Marshall's headset. "Climb to ten
thousand feet and proceed on two-two-four. Deviate from this flight
path--even for a moment--and I will destroy you."

Marshall grinned. "Whatever you say, comrade."

The Migs roared past, regrouped on the heading back to their base and
quickly lost visual on him: Marshall pushed the control column right and
eased up on the throttle, turning the gunship around gracefully until it
matched the Migs' heading. He knew they would be monitoring his
compliance by radar and he intended to show them what they wanted to
see. Marshall keyed the troop-compartment intercom. "Buckle in back
there. This could get bumpy."

"What's he doing?" Julie asked. "Just do as the major says," Williams
said. His tone was anything but reassuring. Marshall brought the
aircraft to a hover eight hundred feet above the treetops. He activated
the ship's autofire controls, keyed the mike and said to the Peruvian
pilot with as much panic as he could feign, "Mayday. Mayday. Losing
power. Fires in both engines! I can't keep her in the air--" He dipped
the gunship's nose sharply and fired four wingmounted air-to-ground
unguided missiles, then punched the countermeasure console to release
several bundles of chaff. The jungle below erupted in a fireball. The
radar signature would show the detonation, followed by scattered echoes
of countless chaff foils, which he hoped the Mig pilots would interpret
as fuselage debris. Marshall dropped the collective and yanked the
control column hard to the right, rolling the gunship around ninety de-
d grees down hard and fast, faster than he intended. He gnashed his
teeth from the G-forces and squeezed the control column while the
aircraft shot away from the explosion at a right angle, low, diving for
the jungle's ground cover. He pulled out of the dive and felt the
treetops whipping the aircraft's undercarriage.

In the troop compartment, Julie felt as though she were riding a runaway
elevator that had just plunged thirty floors. She, grabbed Williams's
solid frame. "Marshall ...  I" Doubling back. Commander de los Heros saw
a huge, black column of smoke billowing from the jungle. He could not
find the Hind--not on radar, infrared, visual. Nowhere. The Migs moved
past the fireball, making a visual sweep of the area. ;ad the Hind pilot
been telling the truth about the engines? s wondered. Something bothered
him. He throttled and [imbed, and ordered his wingman to begin a
methodical ;arch of the area. Marshall activated the moving map display.
Rivers, hills, jungle, villages--there wasn't much to choose from. They
'ere approaching the foothills of the Serra dos Parecis Mounims. His
mind raced, calculating coordinates and airspeed. his plan was
uncomfortably thin: follow the Parecis mountains into Bolivia and
rendezvous with Youngblood at the first tearing along the Rio Madeira
River. Ten minutes. Marshall needed a precious ten minutes to hide the
aircraft in the protective folds of the Maderia river valley. The Migs'
radar would be useless in that terrain, forcing the pilots to mount a
visual search for them. That tipped the odds slightly in his favor.
Marshall listened to the pilots' Spanish babble over the radio, probably
reporting their position and describing the ;orched jungle. Take the
bait, you sons of bitches, and swallow it whole. The fighters would be
burning fuel rapidly while working the search area. He assumed their
mission range wouldn't extend much beyond the plantation. Any moment
they would need to head back to their base. Marshall glanced at his
watch, at the display once more, then out at the terrain. He shifted
uncomfortably in his seat and felt his shirt stick to his back; he was
keenly aware that the party would be over if the Migs found them again.
The blip that pinpointed their position on the display entered the
moving map's Parecis highlands a little more than forty miles from the
Bolivian border. Rolling valleys were rising round them, offering cover
and protection. Isolated by the Serra dos Parecis Mountains, the Madeira
River valley was haven for drug-trafficking camps. A valley of thugs. He
searched the tactical display for steep cliffs and deep canyons any
closed topography inaccessible to high-performance fighters, while
offering a chopper hiding places. Real cat-and mouse terrain. But the
Parecis had none of that, only gentle sloping river valleys and
highlands. "Terrific," he muttered. As the hills rose higher around him,
he felt turbulence. All updraft gave them some free lift, while a head
wind blowing strongly across the ridges on each side of the valley
buffeted the aircraft. He eased off the power, dropping the Hind's speed
in half, and hugged the side of the valley about halfway up the best
defensive position he could negotiate. They came without warning. The
Migs roared past, flying over the valley in a searel formation. Their
sudden appearance startled Marshall, and he nearly lost control of the
column. Did they see us? He knew a fighter pilot's vision would funnel
to the bottom of the valley, perhaps missing a chopper flying halfway
up. But two pilots? His headset had become unsettlingly quiet while the
Migs' engines thundered down the valley. He watched the sleek aircraft
disappear, his mind cold with uncertainty. Did they see us? He brought
the gunship over the crest of a hill and into the next valley, a wider
canyon, and sank quickly to the bottom. Halfway down the hill, the
forest suddenly gave way to, clearing, an encampment. He brought the
aircraft to a hover over the makeshift barracks and tents, and watched
about a dozen men scatter from beneath his rotors' downdraft. Did he
dare set down here? Rounds from small arms and rifle fire ricocheted off
the gunship's armored undercarriage. He could see more men joining the
fray, some carrying what looked like ground-to-air and antitank rockets.
His jaw tightened. This was no mining camp, he realize< He shouted back
to Williams, "We're over a fucking dru factory."

"Jesus, Joe."

In the outside mirror Marshall saw the Migs arcing back, regrouping in
attack formation. Shit. He clenched the control column, lifted the
collective pitch lever and increased the throttle. The gunship shot away
from the encampment, making a dead run down the valley. The major's
stone-set eyes watched the moving map display, searching for a smaller
side valley with deep terrain he could wrap snugly around them. But
there was nothing. Nothing!

He no longer had a plan. There was only the present moment and survival.
The cat was on the mouse's tail, and he had to outrun it or be eaten.
"Joe, what are you doing?" Williams called from behind him. Marshall
ignored him. The Migs were rapidly approaching from the rear in attack
formation. Careful. Marshall saw spurts of flame as the Migs launched
four AA-8 infrared homing missiles. Four of them! They weren't taking
any chances. They were determined to end the hunt right here. He had
played his bluff hand and lost; the game was finished. The missiles
shrieked over the encampment and headed straight for them. Don't look at
them, for chrissake. Move your ass!

He pushed the throttle full forward, broke hard to the right and pitched
up while pulling on the collective. The turboshaft engines screamed
their protest. The gunship turned ninety degrees and began racing for
its life at treetop level up the valley wall. He had gained a precious
second. He could sense rather than see the AA's sweep around after him
in a wide arc like a couple of burning arrows, homing in on his engines'
exhaust. Marshall's fingers pressed all eight countermeasure buttons.
His console blared as radar-jamming circuits activated and load after
load of flares and chaff decoys dropped behind the gunship like
stardust. Would it gain him another precious second, he wondered? Give
it to me!

Whomp.

One of the missiles detonated in the chaff. What about the other three?

The valley crest loomed above him, a sanctuary of solid rock. His
full-throttled engines screamed--one hundred ninety knots, two-ten. A
few more seconds. His knuckles strained from his brutal grip on the
control column; his eyes locked on the crest of the valley, which seemed
as far-off as the top of Everest. Marshall's gut felt like he had just
been kicked by a steel-tipped boot. The threat warning tones screeching
in his ears sounded like desperate cries for help, declaring the
missiles' inevitable impact and the pronouncement of his own death.
There was no room left to maneuver. His life and the lives of the others
depended on the gunship's ability to outrace three A-88 missiles to the
top of a mountain. Damn ...  it would be close. "Major--" Williams
shouted. Suddenly the hill gave way to bright blue sky, and the rocky
peak swept by in a blur beneath them. Marshall shoved the pitch control
forward, bringing the nose of the chopper down into a steep dive.
Another ocean of green stretched down and away from them into a splendid
river valley like a great sweeping curtain. There wasn't time to savor
the view. His every muscle strained to get the gunship out of the
missiles' way. He felt no fear, only numb movement. The ridge behind
them exploded with the force of an angry volcano. The concussion from
the simultaneous detonation of three A-88s pounded his eardrums and
threw him viciously against the flight console as his knuckles fought to
keep their grip on the pitch column. He cursed not having a shoulder
harness. The Hind's speed dropped alarmingly. The Hind's rudder pedals
suddenly felt stiff and unresponsive; the hydraulics were going.
Damage-control lights above the cockpit windshield warned of a half
dozen system malfunctions. The chase was over. Marshall used the sudden
decrease in power to maneuver the tail rotor and spin the ship around
while skidding sideways down over the treetops. He wrestled with the
pitch-control column, but as hard as he tried he couldn't keep the
aircraft horizontal. The gunship angrily slapped the treetops, a living
jungle that meant to devour them. "Judas pri--"

Chapter Twenty-three.

Marshall maneuvered the gunship into a precarious hover over the
treetops. He moved his hands and feet briskly, dancelike, working the
column and pedals to steady the angle of the aircraft. The engines were
burning--wires, hydraulics, turbines, everything. The gunship's
pendulumlike swinging became a quick recipe for airsickness, aggravated
by hot, acid-tasting smoke pouring into the troop compartment. Williams
jerked open the troop compartment door to vent the fumes. He saw the
Migs disappear well beyond the next ridge, soaring around in a huge arc.
He had no doubt that they would be back in attack formation, launching
more missiles at them. Williams surveyed the thick treetops blanketing
the valley below, then hollered to the cockpit, "No way you're gonna put
her down here, Joe."

"The main rotor's going," Marshall said into the intercom. "I can't keep
it horizontal. Get out of here fast."

Williams grabbed one of the gunship's two repelling cables driven by a
winch powerful enough to hoist trucks. He looked at Julie, then at
Wynett, who was sitting Buddha-like with his dark eyes locked on him.
"God help us," he muttered, then pointed to Julie. "You first."

"Sergeant, I can't--" "Move!"

Julie slung the instrument case over her shoulder and let Williams
fasten the winch harness under her arms. "I'm lowering Wynett next,"
Williams said, leading her to the edge of the compartment. "If he gives
you any trouble, use the Beretta on him."

Julie didn't hear him; her eyes were locked on the swaying treetops
below. "Tell me you're not serious."

Williams chuckled good-naturedly, but it came out without a trace of
humor. "You don't have to do anything; I'll feed the line from here."

Fighting back a panic blitz, Julie screwed her eyes shut as Williams
spun her around and eased her out of the compartment. A yelp tore from
her throat when she thought she was free-falling. But the winch cable
controlled her descent, though it was still much too fast, she thought.
She kept her eyes closed as she sank into the branches that slapped and
mauled her like claws. A half-darkness enveloped her. Eighty feet
beneath the treetops, she hit the ground with a solid thud. Down! Julie
couldn't see the chopper through the great liana-festooned trees
towering over her, but she could hear it, a sputtering reminder of those
still trapped above. She scrambled out of the harness, gave the cable
two hard jerks and watched her lifeline vanish up through the thick,
leafy canopy. A dreadful thought occurred to her: Suppose Wynett makes
it down, but Marshall and Williams don't. The notion scared the hell out
of her. / wouldn't just be stranded in the middle of the jungle, she
realized; I'd be stranded in the middle of the jungle with Wynett! If it
came down to that, she decided, she would kill him with her father's
Beretta. "You're taking too much goddamn time!" Marshall yelled into the
intercom. Williams finished fastening the winch's harness under Wynett's
arms. "If you even say 'boo' to the lady down there," Williams spat,
"I'll kill you. Do you understand me, motherfucker?" Wynett, smirking,
said, "I suggest we remain up here, sir. A much safer option--" Williams
gave his prisoner a powerful shove out of the gun-ship, activated the
winch and watched Wynett plunge into the forest below. The aircraft had
become increasingly unstable. Williams slung his rifle and munitions
pack over his shoulders and hollered to the front, "I'm outta here."

Williams grabbed the second repelling cable, swung out of the
compartment and pushed himself away from the aircraft. The gunship
bucked angrily away from him as he slid downward, the cable burning
through his gloved hands. Swinging and sideslipping, the aircraft weaved
an unpredictable path across the sky, viciously dragging the sergeant
through the treetops. Williams twisted and turned, kicking a path
through the branches, protecting his face with his arm. The gunship
dipped sharply, plunging him thirty feet before the cord became
hopelessly enmeshed in the branches, suspending him ten feet off the
ground. Williams let himself drop. He landed heavily in the mulch and
dissipated the impact in a controlled roll through the high, twisted
stalks. He rose shakily onto his knees. "Sergeant!" a voice called
through the din. It was Julie, half concealed in the brush. Williams
sprinted to her. She had Wynett sitting beside her, the Beretta pointed
at his head. He didn't appear even to know where he was. Her frenzied
eyes scanned the treetops, searching for Marshall. She couldn't see him;
she could only hear the gunship fighting its losing battle to stay in
the air. "Where is he? Why isn't he climbing down?"

"He's coming down the hard way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That chopper's too unstable. Once he lets go of those controls, the
ship goes down. He has to land that thing in the trees."

Marshall could feel the mounting vibration in the pitchcontrol column as
the rotor blades fought a valiant battle to hold on to the sky. His
face, streaked with rivulets of perspiration, exhibited a blend of
determination and desperation as he worked to keep the gunship airborne.
He could see the Migs finish their arch and resume an attack formation.
For the moment that was unimportant. More critical was the main rotor
torque gauge sinking dangerously downward as the ship lost power. The
radar-lock warning siren screeched through the cockpit. The display
showed four points of light moving rapidly forward of the Migs. They had
fired four more missiles. He drew in a deep breath--possibly his last,
he realized--and eased the Hind downward until he heard the treetops
slapping the undercarriage.

Now!

Marshall eased down on the collective. The gunship dropped into trees,
slamming him into the instrument panel like a hundred-and-seventy-pound
sack of flour. He fumbled to extinguish the two Lotarev engines. The
rotor blades struck the branches and shattered, hurling ribbons of steel
through the jungle at 1200 mph. He made a desperate grab at the back of
his seat for support, his legs functioning like steel springs, pushing
him away from the windscreen. With its nose angled downward, the gunship
rolled dangerously to port, dumping him sideways against the cockpit
door with a force that paralyzed his lungs and left his head feeling
like a heavy lump of mashed potatoes. He was falling, but he was too
stunned to do anything but ride eighteen tons of metal down through the
branches. He screwed his eyes shut. The image of his mashed and broken
body, indistinguishable from the scattered metal when he hit the jungle
floor, was unbearable. But there was no impact. The aircraft slid to a
stop. Marshall's eyes blinked open with a start. Dazed, unable to
comprehend why he still was alive, he stared at the jungle floor twenty
feet beneath him. "Major!" The sound of Williams's voice startled his
mind back. "Move your ass!"

The branches split and groaned under the weight of the gunship. The
aircraft was sinking downward, twisting and cracking through the
branches that struggled to hold it in their embrace. Marshall seized his
Franchi and kicked open the cockpit door. He grabbed blindly at the
branches and half climbed, half slid to the ground and rolled hard onto
his right shoulder. The fall left him stunned. He became aware of
another sound, a roar bearing down on them. Two hands reached under his
arms, pulled him effortlessly to his feet and pushed him forward.
Marshall limped blindly through the jungle on two bruised legs that,
mercifully, weren't broken. "Keep moving!" Williams roared. Two pairs of
AT-6 Spiral laser-homing missiles tore into the treetops and detonated.
The twisted wreckage that had once been a Russian gunship turned onto
its back like a dying dragonfly and tumbled onto the jungle floor.
Hurricanelike winds shrieked through the trees and sucked the heated air
from their lungs. The twin Lotarev engines exploded with an impossible
concussion, turning the wreck into an angry fireball that rolled into a
thick, black pillar of smoke. The Migs roared overhead. Marshall and
Williams saw none of this while racing out of the fireball's reach.
Burning fuel chased after them like a fast-flowing stream of superheated
lava.

Chapter Twenty-four.

Williams led the way through the living curtain of jungle to a slight
clearing overgrown with creepers, parasitic orchids, vines and moss. The
climate of the upper river valley was damp and fetid, the heat
oppressive and debilitating, the ground damp and clinging. They found
Julie, Beretta in hand, standing sentinel over Wynett. Seeing the major,
she let her breath out quickly as though she had been holding it since
landing. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

Marshall brushed coldly past her. "Put that gun away."

"Yes, sir." She added under her breath, "And it's nice to see you too."

Wynett had discarded what was left of his environmental suit and sat
watching Marshall with intense dark eyes. ' "Have you any notion of the
danger you have placed us in, sir? Our situation is hopeless without a
radio."

Julie looked suddenly at Marshall. "No radio? How will you contact
Youngblood?"

"We won't," Wynett said evenly. "Without a radio, we are effectively
sequestered from the rest of the world. Any notion of simply marching
out of this valley is absurd."

Marshall looked severely at him. "Cork it."

"Friggin' great." Julie wiggled the equipment pack off her shoulders
with a groan and eased into a sitting position at the base of a liana
tree. She felt the slightest nervous tickling on the back of her neck
and, reaching back, touched a bug the size of a locust with long, thin
legs and an ugly bloodsucking snout. She sat up suddenly. The tree was
crawling with the strange-looking insects. "Reduviidae," Wynett said.
"The assassin bug. Don't let them sting you, my dear Julie. They carry
Chagas' disease."

Julie sprang to her feet, brushing her shin, while Wynett chuckled
silently, his shoulders jiggling as if on springs. A birdlike whistle
startled everyone into silence. Whooooo! Whooooo! came the answering
call. Williams swung the Galil off his shoulder and directed it at the
path of trampled grass leading into their floral cove. "The natives call
them the fierce people," Wynett said, hi; voice low. "They are soldiers
of the drug cartel. They own these valleys."

Everyone looked at him. "The Indians are terrified of them," he
continued. "The value they put on their privacy is priceless. They are
not after our wreckage. No doubt they believe we are a part of the
militia that is at constant war with them. They will hunt u down until
they find us--even if it means combing the wreckage for our charred
bodies. And when they find us here alive within the week the authorities
will fish our mutilated bodies out of the Rio Madeira River, just as
they have done wit eighty other bodies this year alone. The corpses
typically have their throats slit, their faces disfigured and their
fingerprints removed with acid to make them difficult to identify--"

"Shut up," Julie said. "Make him shut up."

Marshall slapped his hand over her mouth and pushed her down behind a
crude barricade of moss-covered tree stumps "Not a word." He said to the
others in a raspy whisper, "Everyone stay absolutely quiet until I tell
you otherwise."

Williams saw them too, well-camouflaged figures with rifles, skulking
through the jungle's gloom. He could hear the squawks of handheld
radios. The sergeant rolled next to the major and scanned the movement
through the scope of his Galil. There were at least a dozen out there.
The forest was spawning them like a womb. Julie saw them too, though not
clearly. When Marshall removed his hand from her mouth, she looked at
him, terrified. "Oh, Jesus!"

A long, undulating, sustained chorus of screams shot through the forest
like a train whistle. Whoohooohooo!

Marshall and Williams raised their weapons. "Fire a single round.
Major," Wynett said, "and you will be killing all of us. I suggest you
set your guns aside and put your hands on the back of your heads. That
is our only chance."

Marshall and Williams ignored him. Suddenly they heard bullets hissing
over their heads, men screaming, foliage rustling furiously, everything
blurring in a drone of confusion. We're going to buy it, Marshall
realized. We're going to buy it in the middle of this goddamn jungle!
Faces and gun barrels pushed through the claustrophobic sea of
vegetation around them, some of them firing rounds. Wynett put two
fingers in his mouth and let out a deafening whistle, one long and one
short. The whooping and shouting ceased for an awkward moment; then
laughter broke out. The soldiers were laughing at them! The major stared
bitterly into the deadly end of a firing squad of gun barrels closing in
around his group, the dark faces behind the weapons eager to use them.
He reached for his SAS knife. "Don't do it," said a voice in English
with a thick Portuguese accent. Marshall screwed his neck around. The
voice belonged to a dark, oily-faced officer, pushing through the tight
circle of soldiers that had enveloped them. The officer scrutinized each
of them with a look of contempt. His lips formed a grin when he saw
Wynett sitting among them. "Ah," he said. "It's the good doctor. And he
has brought friends with him."

"Good day. Colonel Perez," Wynett said. "It is always a pleasure."

Williams slid a furtive hand down the length of his Galil. The colonel's
ferreting eyes leaped to the sergeant. "Touch the trigger, colored man,
and my men will cut out your heart."

Chapter Twenty-five.

A small but well-armed contingent of soldiers marched their prisoners
through the gates of a hidden jungle encampment that accommodated a
single barracks in need of a good paint job. A driving rain had returned
in sheets, washing the mud off them. Activity inside and outside the
wretched compound consisted solely of natives in loincloths hoisting
bales of coco leaves on their shoulders and binding them to mules. It
occurred to Marshall that the drug lords were using the forest's
indigenous people for the menial harvesting chores the same way Southern
plantation owners used slaves to pick cotton. The civilized world had
introduced commerce to the jungle, and the industry was thriving.
Marshall held no illusions about his fate. As the senior American
military officer commanding an illegal operation in a sovereign state,
he knew he was finished. If they had been apprehended by the Borlo,
Brazil's secret military police, at least he could have looked forward
to spending the rest of his life alone in a dark concrete cell, slowly
losing his eyesight. But they weren't in police custody. By morning he
would be dead, his features erased with a knife. As for the others, they
would die too, he realized. There would be no prisoner exchange or
daring rescue attempt-even if General Medlock knew their whereabouts.
The U.S. State Department would deny Alpha's existence. Inside the
United States military establishment, Marshall and his group did not
exist; Dr. Carl Wynett, Col. Anthony Martinelli and his commandos did
not exist. And certainly Saint Vitus did not exist. They were on their
own. Marshall surveyed the barracks and allowed his eyes to wander the
length of a radio tower rising from its corrugated iron roof like a
high-tech steeple. He stole a sideways glance at Williams, who
acknowledged him with raised eyebrows. Julie and Wynett, sloshing
through the mud with hands clasped behind their heads, didn't appear to
notice the hardware that provided the only thin portal to the civilized
world. He knew Julie only cared about the canister still hidden in a
pocket of her khakis. The barracks' interior was as dismal and rude as
its exterior. The place reeked of rot, sweat and urine. Fungus seeped
between cracks in the floorboards like sloppy mortar. An abomination of
torn plaster, bare light fixtures and decomposing furnishings, the
barracks housed men who were more repugnant than the jungle vermin it
was built to keep out. Inside, Marshall counted five men, all unwashed
and unshaven, each toting an automatic rifle. They were thugs of the
worst sort, beasts wallowing in their native wasteland. One of the
guards, all hair and muscle, reminded Marshall of Blackboard the pirate,
complete with eye patch. The brute stood whirling a large-gauge chain as
if it were a pocket watch while considering each of them with his single
good eye as they entered. His woolly beard shifted and his eye glistened
when he saw Julie. He lumbered to her. She shot a frightened glance back
at Marshall when the brute began thoroughly frisking her, her eyes
urging the major to do something, anything, to help her. Blackboard
quickly found Wynett's strange aluminum canister hidden in a buttoned
pocket of her khakis and tossed it to the oily-faced colonel who had
apprehended them. "You mustn't touch that," Julie shouted. "Please."

The colonel considered the canister in his palm. Marshall stiffened, a
reaction the colonel was quick to notice. "Tell me what this is?"

"Joe," Julie shouted, "for God's sake don't let him open it!"

Marshall stifled a rush of frustration, struggling to keep his feet
planted and his arms firmly at his sides. He couldn't do a damn thing.
"The container is mine," Wynett said, stepping forward. "I will tell you
its secrets, but for a price."

The colonel laughed and nodded. "My friend. Always the deal maker, yes.
Hen- Wynett? We must talk."

The colonel cocked his head. A guard pushed Julie curtly down the
hallway, while two others led Williams at gunpoint down a flight of
narrow stone steps leading beneath the barracks.

Marshall tried to conceal the defeat his eyes must have shown as they
led Julie away, the corrupt laughter of her captors echoing back. He
couldn't listen anymore. He dug his heels into the slippery floorboards
and lunged at the guard closest to him, a man not much older than
twenty. He saw a blur of movement behind him and felt a cruel blow to
his kidney as his hands clawed for the guard's rifle. He fell to his
knees, the haze of unconsciousness rapidly descending. Blackbeard's
heavy chain wrapped around his neck and yanked him roughly backward. He
grabbed ineffectively at it before another hammerlike blow to his kidney
knocked him insensible. "I wish to know your name," said the colonel,
stepping into Marshall's view. "I wish to know the names of the men I
kill."

The chain around Marshall's neck slackened so he could breathe. "five,"
he gasped. "Bernard five. My friends call me Barney."

"American CIA?"

"Deputy sheriff of Mayberry."

The colonel nodded to Blackbeard, and the chain again tightened its
death grip. All Marshall could manage was a lame sucking noise deep in
his throat. He saw the officer's lips move but could hear nothing.
Mercifully, the bottomless void enveloped him and he was out cold. Julie
waited alone in a small, dim room that served as the soldiers' sleeping
quarters, with filthy mattresses strewn across the floor in no
particular order. There were no windows, and the only exit was through
the door by which she had just entered. She wasn't there long before a
soldier joined her. It was Blackbeard. He closed and bolted the door
behind him and let his good eye follow her body's shapely contours.
"Listen to me very carefully," Julie implored him. "You must convince
your colonel not to open that canister. He doesn't know what he has. You
must get him to return it to me so I can destroy it. The contents of
that container will kill us all."

Blackbeard laughed--a deep, ugly rumble that made her wince--and leveled
a lustful gaze at her. Julie doubted he understood a word of English. He
was breathing heavily, his hot, foul breath pouring over her. He
unfastened his pants and let them drop to his ankles, revealing a
scrotum that looked like a hanging wasps' nest. Julie covered herself
with crossed arms. "Marshall!"

Marshall thought he was dreaming. How else could he explain the
subterranean nightmare of shadow and gloom that reminded him of a B
horror movie? But this was no dream. The stench that assaulted his
nostrils, a horrendous blend of rot and excretion, was more effective
than smelling salts. He woke with a start, his senses clearing, and
assessed his predicament. He sat naked to the waist, strapped in a
sinister looking chair in the barracks' sub-basement. The leather
straps--one around each arm and leg, another around his forehead,
another around his chest--held him completely immobile. He caught only
the barest glimpse of Williams from his peripheral vision strapped
similarly to a chair beside him. What in God's glory is happening?

The cellar's only light came from a harsh incandescent bulb dangling
above them. There were large puddles everywhere and a constant echo of
dripping water. He could make out a shadowy collection of cauldrons and
ovens lurking beyond the cobwebbed archways, and beyond them stacks of
petroleum drums. Between an archway, a fiendish-looking hulk of a man
with a long drooping mustache sat sharpening a wicked knife on a
foot-driven whetstone. A dungeon, Marshall thought, a dungeon right out
of the Dark Ages. "Where's Julie?" Marshall asked. "It's about time you
woke up," Williams said. "Welcome to the party."

"Where's Julie?"

"They're not gonna waste her down here," Williams said, then let out a
huff of nervous laughter. "They're not gonna waste her on a death of a
thousand cuts."

"I don't know what you mean."

"An Oriental contribution to the art of execution. A guard happily told
me all about it. See the drain under your chair?" Marshall tried to look
down, but the strap held his head upright. "No."

"Take my word for it. Genghis Khan over there intends to cut fine, razor
incisions from our temples to our ankles. He's making the blade so sharp
the incisions will hardly bleed. He'll cut us until we slowly bleed to
death; The guard guaranteed we'll be aware of the pain until the very
end."

Marshall sat watching the executioner, who was silhouetted by the flurry
of sparks from the whetstone. "Charming."

Wynett stood staring at the room's paint peeling down the walls in long
sheets, while Colonel Perez examined each piece of Alpha's gear laid out
on the room's only table. He was particularly interested in Julie's
instrumentation pack. Finally he faced Wynett, riveted his old friend
with a cold gaze, studying him. Wynett offered the colonel a smirk. "You
are a puzzle to me," the colonel said. "You are a well-respected farmer
and a man of considerable property, yet you steal a gunship belonging to
Peru's military with your American friends. As an officer of Brazil's
elite militia, I have access to all military intelligence coming in and
out of this country. I am not aware of an operation involving foreigners
in our valleys. Why is that so?" Wynett gestured to the room's only
other soldier, a guard, standing behind him. "It isn't prudent to speak
in front of him."

"He will stay."

"As you wish. The gentlemen and the woman are part of a commando special
force that illegally infiltrated your borders to kidnap me. I assume the
gunship offered a way out of the jungle. I cannot be certain because I
was insensible when they abducted me and commandeered the aircraft. I
can assure you, sir, that neither I nor they have any interest in your
drug camps."

The colonel remained still, giving no indication that he believed or
disbelieved the old man's story. "Now I must ask you for a favor.
Colonel," Wynett continued. "It is imperative that you deliver me to
U.S. authorities. They will reward you quite generously, I promise you."

The colonel blew out the smoke of his cigar. The aroma suggested his
fondness for Cuba. "Why are you so important?

Why would the U.S. military go to these lengths to retrieve you from
this country?"

Wynett looked puzzled, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him before.
"Why not?" he finally exclaimed. "It's bloody good fun." He couldn't
contain his laughter, and began giggling.

The colonel shook his head, truly disappointed. His old friend was mad,
the colonel could see it in those dark eyes of his, and grossly
unreliable. What had happened to him? The colonel returned his attention
to Julie's waterproof instrumentation pack and, brushing cigar ash from
the controls, pressed several buttons until the unit came to life. Its
gridded amber screen displayed a waveform pattern he could not
comprehend. "It is a transceiver? But much too sophisticated for voice
communications. This device records and unscrambles our transmissions.
Yes?"

Wynett shrugged. "I believe the system identifies metabolic fingerprints
from air samples. You must ask the woman for specifics."

The colonel returned the case to the table, then retrieved Wynett's
six-inch aluminum canister. "Such a curious container. You will tell me
what this is."

"I will tell you everything in exchange for transportation to the
States. I must be in Virginia no later than thirty-six hours from now."

"I can arrange transit for you to Sao Paulo. That is all."

Wynett shook his head firmly. "That is most unacceptable, Colonel."

Frowning, Colonel Perez removed the canister's safety pin and, holding
the trigger arm secure, thrust the cylinder beneath Wynett's nose. "Tell
me what is inside or I will open it."

Wynett drew in a deep breath and put his hands on his head as though
expecting the ceiling to fall on him. "Sir, I should warn you that it is
dangerous to hold that container in so careless a manner. If you release
the handle, you will fill this room with gas."

Wynett swung his arms down from his head with surprising swiftness. The
vicious impact struck the colonel's canisterfilled hand, and the
cylinder clattered to the floor, hissing and sputtering. The colonel
looked at his prisoner, astonished. Wynett screwed his eyes shut. There
was no visible gas cloud, but an acute odor accosted the colonel, a
stench unlike anything he had ever experienced. The guard reached for
Wynett but never laid a hand on him. He doubled over, unconscious before
he hit the floor. Colonel Perez drew his sidearm, a Walther PPK fitted
with a twelve-bore silencer. His eyes burned terribly. He exploded in a
coughing fit, fell to his knees and began hacking up pieces of his
lungs. * * * Blackbeard knocked Julie senseless with a wild brush of his
hand, then grabbed her shirt and tore it off her back with one quick
motion. She screamed. He ran his huge, callused hands down her back. She
whirled around, enraged, and slapped his face. "God damn you!"

Blackbeard's features darkened as he withdrew a handgun from his
shoulder holster. He cocked the hammer. He didn't see Julie lock her
hands in a double fist. She struck the side of his head as though she
were taking a home run--size swing at a hardball. "Asshole."

The brute stumbled backward with a grunt. His feet became entangled in
his loose pants, and he scrambled to keep his balance. Julie lunged,
throwing her weight on him. Desperately she grappled with him to get the
handgun. The weapon fired, and a bullet tore into his leg. The brute
howled as he lost his balance and, together, they fell backward against
the wall with an awful crash, shattering the rotting planks and landing
heavily in a heap together. Blackbeard looked in stunned disbelief at
the splintered edge of a board jutting through the right side of his
chest just beneath his rib cage. Julie rammed his hand against the wall,
forcing him to drop the gun, then rolled off him. Blackbeard struggled
to rise but the board kept him impaled. He returned Julie's astonished
stare with an eye that radiated dark waves of loathing. She crawled to
the handgun. He snarled at her and spewed blood between his broken teeth
when she picked it up. Flailing his arms, he grabbed for her, but she
reeled out of his reach. She examined the weapon, a well-traveled .45.
She didn't know enough about guns to determine if its safety was on or
off. Blackbeard slammed his palms against the wall. He let out a wail
and, with animallike determination, began rocking back and forth,
struggling to split the board from the wall and free himself. Julie
moved into the corner, as far away from him as the room would allow.
"Marshall!"

The executioner lifted his considerable bulk from the stool and moved to
his prisoners, directing a lecherous gaze first at Marshall, then at
Williams. He appeared to derive erotic pleasure from running his
hideously scarred thumb down the length of the knife's blade. He was
ready to begin. The executioner touched his knife's razor tip to
Williams's right temple. The sergeant inhaled sharply. Marshall glared
at the brute. "You fucking swine."

The executioner ran the tip of the blade lightly down the side of
Williams's face and neck, stopping at the edge of his shoulder. Tense
and resentful, Williams felt the veins on his temples and arms stand out
like branches as he strained helplessly against the straps, sweat
cascading down his ebony features. The brute stepped back to admire his
handiwork with a perverse look of pleasure. "Stings a little," Williams
huffed, almost giddy. "Bastard didn't hurt me!"

The executioner grinned, an amused look that told both men there was
much more fun to come. He turned his attention to Marshall, touching the
ominous blade to the back of the major's right ear as if considering how
best to cut it off in one clean slice. Marshall remained absolutely
still and stared into the brute's dead eyes. The executioner jerked his
hand, and Marshall felt a warm, slow trickle down his neck. "The bastard
cut me!"

The brute grinned again, opened his palm and showed Marshall his right
ear. "Jeesssuuuus Christ--" The cage door at the top of the steps
creaked open, followed by descending footsteps. The executioner's face
darkened and he swept his massive torso around to see who had breached
his sanctuary. He abhorred intrusions once he began. A figure, backlit
by the corridor above, stole down the steps. It wasn't a barracks
soldier. The executioner tossed the major's ear into a puddle, grabbed
his knife by the blade and prepared to throw it. The shadow on the steps
assumed a half-crouch and raised a handgun with both hands. There came
three hollow cracks from a silenced weapon. Three rounds struck the
brute square in the chest, pushing him backward with a grunt. He didn't
go down. Three rivulets of blood streamed down the front of his
butcher's overalls as he staggered forward, the knife still raised.
Three more muffled cracks augmented the wounds on his chest. The
executioner's massive head bowed in defeat and his bulk toppled forward,
landing with a heavy splash on the mud floor. The figure descended the
remaining steps and moved into the ring of light beneath the chairs. "I
am in need of your assistance. Major," Wynett said. "It is imperative
that you escort me to the States and deliver me to your superiors."

Chapter Twenty-six.

"Wynett!" Marshall shouted. "For chrissake get these straps off us."

"I am prepared to make a trade with your government," Wynett said
deliberately. "My safe return for a major American city."

Marshall's hardened gaze locked with Wynett's. "What are you talking
about? What city?"

"I must be on United States soil no later than thirty-six hours from now
or there will be no deal. I want your word as a soldier of honor that
you will do everything in your power to deliver me to your superiors in
that time frame. Otherwise I will leave you here and take my chances
with the Brazilian guerrilla militia."

"What city?"

"Jesus, Joe," Williams said. "Tell the man what he wants to hear!"

"You got yourself a deal," Marshall spat. "I'll carry you home on my
back, if I have to."

Wynett retrieved the executioner's formidable knife and hardly flexed as
the keen blade slit the straps binding Marshall to the chair. He
similarly released Williams from his binds. The sergeant jumped up and
drove his boot into the chair, shattering it with a single, solid kick.
He said to Marshall, "Jesus, Joe. Your ear ..."

Marshall retrieved his shirt and used it to mop the flow of blood
running down his neck. "Fucking bastard."

"There are three soldiers upstairs," Wynett said. "Where are the
others?" Marshall asked, pressing the bloody shirt over his missing ear.
"Where's the colonel?"

"He was foolish enough to open my container."

"He what?"

"The colonel and his guard became victims of pois gratter," Wynett said,
rolling the term around his tongue like a shot of fine whiskey, "a
species of Mucuna plant. I synthesized a colorless crystalline compound
that rapidly assaults the respiratory and central nervous system. On the
skin it feels like slivers of glass. Inhaled, it causes excessive
secretion to rapidly fill the lungs. A victim will quickly drown on his
own mucus."

"So what makes you immune to pois whatever?" Williams asked, delicately
touching the fine, deep cut on his face that now stung like bloody hell.
"Pois gratter is fatal only if inhaled. Sergeant. To the skin and eyes
it is merely an irritant. I simply held my breath while in the room"--he
held up the Walther--"and borrowed this from the good colonel after he
succumbed."

Marshall reached for the Walther. "I'll need that to get you out of
here."

Wynett relinquished the handgun but made no secret that he intended to
keep the executioner's wicked-looking knife. Williams found a sturdy
hatchet under the executioner's grindstone table and noted its
razor-sharp blade. Marshall checked the Walther's magazine, snapped it
back and charged the breech; there were only two rounds left. "Let's
go."

The major led the way up the stone steps to the barracks' main corridor.
It stood empty. They passed the interrogation room, where Colonel Perez
and his guard lay stretched grotesquely across the floor. Marshall could
see the two had not gone quietly to eternity. Williams spotted his Galil
among their gear on the table and made a move to retrieve it. "Leave it
for now. Sergeant," Wynett warned. "Pois gratter is a heavy compound and
does not dissipate rapidly."

Williams grunted his protest. Electronically distorted voices
reverberated from the end of the hallway. "The radio," Wynett said to
the major. "I suggest you contact your people and arrange a rendezvous."

"Where's Julie?"

"Under close guard, I suspect."

Marshall moved swiftly down the hallway and slid next to the only open
door. Two soldiers sat with their backs to the door in front of the
outpost's radio, one listening through headphones, the other thumbing
through pages of a lewd magazine.

Marshall eased open the door with a crack. The magazine reader glanced
back at him. Marshall smiled amiably. However, there was nothing amiable
about the silenced Walther he held steady in his hand. The soldier stood
up suddenly. A dull crack from the handgun sent him looping backward.
The second soldier, still wearing the headphones, whirled in his chair.
Marshall didn't give him a chance to stand. The Walther's final round
turned his face into a spray of blood and shattered bone as his body
nailed backward, ripping the headphone jack from the console. "My
compliments. Major," Wynett offered in professional admiration. The
three slipped quickly into the radio room. Williams searched the slain
soldiers for weapons and cursed aloud when he found none. A shot roared
from the room next to them, followed by shouting that was unmistakably
Julie. Marshall and Williams burst into the hallway. The sergeant, his
knuckles pale from an overly tight grip on the hatchet, half ran, half
leaped at the door, his right leg thrust before him like a battering
ram. The heel of his boot connected solidly and the door burst inward.
He spotted Julie crouching in the corner, still pointing a handgun at
Blackbeard, who lay at her feet, a shattered board jutting from his
back. A large-caliber exit wound had taken off the back of his head,
revealing a half-empty cranial cavity. Marshall went to her and eased
the gun from her grip. She looked up at him, her distant eyes unfocused.
At first she didn't appear to recognize him. Then she saw his wound.
"Oh, my God! Joe, your ear ..."

Marshall covered the side of his head with the shirt that he still
carried. Wynett thrust his head through the doorway. "Call your people.
Major."

Marshall returned to the communications room and took a seat in front of
the radio, a multicalibrated transceiver with satellite relay
capabilities. He reset the frequency. Suddenly a voice, loud and with
minimal distortion, began cracking orders in Portuguese through the
speaker. "Radio traffic between two helicopter pilots," Wynett said.
"They work for the drug czar who owns this compound and many like it.
They cannot be far."

As the exchange continued, Marshall watched the VU meters' needles
bounce from vehicle to vehicle. "They're approaching from the
northwest." He glanced at the digital readout. "Amplitude twenty
decibels--sixty miles. They'll be here in twenty minutes." Marshall
thrust a finger at the large wall map. "I need our coordinates."

Williams quickly pinpointed the outpost's position and read off the
longitude and latitude coordinates of the camp, while Marshall reset the
transceiver to the hangar's frequency. When the digital readout
indicated an open channel, he spoke slowly into the microphone: "Alpha
eight-seven-two to Odessa seven-four. Factor nine-two. Code
one-seven-zero-one. Post error. Position one-seven-zero, four-two-seven.
Repeat. One-seven-zero, four-two-seven. January Alpha
one-nine-seven-zero. January two-seven-zero-four. Repeat--" A shrill
howl blared from the speaker, pegging the VU meters. Marshall grimaced.
"What's wrong?" Julie demanded.

"Jamming," Wynett said. "Our drug lord friends are on to us. Did you get
through to your pilot?" Marshall's expression registered anything but
certainty. "I don't even know if he's still out there to hear me."

"Even if you did reach Youngblood," Julie said, "he'll never find us
here in the jungle at night."

Marshall looked hard at Julie. "He'll see us burning this dump to the
ground."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

In the dungeon beneath the barracks, Williams dumped three barrels of
stored aviation fuel across the mud floor. The fumes nearly overpowered
him. He watched the liquid wash around the executioner's corpse with a
particular note of satisfaction. "Get up here, Sergeant," Marshall
hollered down to him. "Now."

Williams bounded up the stone steps two at a time and met Marshall up
top, kerosene lantern in hand. The major hurled the lantern down the
steps. The glass shattered, igniting the fuel with an audible whump.
Within seconds the basement was consumed by flames. Both men scrambled
outside, where they joined Wynett and Julie huddled in the bush. They
watched the barracks in silence. The flames already were stretching
their fingers up through the corrugated roof, feeling for a grip that
would tear the structure down. The basement's remaining barrels of
aviation fuel ignited and exploded, turning the structure into a
fireball that roared high into the night. Those who sifted through the
smoldering rubble in the morning would find nothing in the foundation
crater but charred grit and twisted metal. "I've never seen you so
jittery, Joe," Williams said. Marshall looked curiously at his sergeant.
"Jittery? I'm not jittery. Eager, maybe, but not jittery."

Williams pointed to the major's hand. "Then what's with the shaking?"

Marshall was surprised to see his right hand shaking spasmodically, as
though he were scared shitless. He ignored it, touched the bandanna
Julie had fashioned to cover his ear and watched the blaze in silence.
He saw the flames as Saint Vitus, a deadly and uncontainable force that
consumed flesh the way the fire was consuming the barracks. He loathed
to think that Gorgon now possessed it. Why didn't Tony's men kill him in
this godforsaken jungle and be forever rid of him? The virus had become
Marshall's real adversary now. He, Gorgon and Saint Vitus were
inseparable, their fates inextricably intertwined. Like it or not, he
was a soldier on a high-tech battlefield, the organism a part of the
arsenal of a powerful enemy he swore to bring down. Marshall heard the
murmurs of a chopper approaching from the south--low, just above the
tree line. Although he could see nothing in the night, he recognized the
telltale wisps of the NOTAR RAH-66 Comanche, its rotors in whisper mode.
Julie heard it too and clutched Marshall's arm, panic swelling up inside
her. He put a strong arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to
him. He lifted her chin and searched those deep brown eyes of hers for
the self-assured woman he had grown fond of. He hardly recognized her.
"I'm taking you home."

Julie responded with a forced smile. Williams stepped out of the bush
and began waving his arms. A half a minute later, Youngblood's sleek,
black helicopter descended from the night sky and set down in a clearing
a prudent distance from the conflagration. "You really piss me off,"
said Youngblood, climbing down from the cockpit. "I've been chasing you
all goddamn day. Now hustle your asses. I picked up two choppers on
radar approaching from the north about fifteen miles out."

"The major will need medical attention," Wynett said to the pilot.
Youngblood's boyish grin vanished when he recognized Wynett from the
briefing photo. Then he noted the solemn look on each of their faces and
Marshall's hastily bandaged ear. "Sweet Mother ..."

Wynett attempted to help Julie into the chopper's passenger compartment,
but she pushed him rudely away. "Don't you ever touch me." She slung her
instrument package over her shoulder and stepped up into the chopper.
Williams and Wynett followed. Marshall climbed into the cockpit next to
Youngblood and strapped himself in. "Jesus, Major," Youngblood said,
"what happened back there? Where's Colonel Martinelli, Stony and his
men?"

"Just get us out of here, cowboy. Get us out of this damn jungle."

PART THREE "While the United States debates the development of a massive
defensive effort against nuclear attack ...  the fact remains that this
nation is almost entirely defenseless against chemical, biological and
toxic weapons of mass destruction. Some of these weapons may already be
secreted within our borders; others could be synthesized by our enemies
within a matter of hours, or days at the most." --Defense Consultants D.
Douglass, Jr. and Neil C. Livingstone

Chapter Twenty-eight.

Tuesday, 1445 hours

The Caribbean Sea

Twelve miles off the coast of St. Martin

The coastline of the Virgin Islands sank beneath the wing of the
twin-engine seaplane as it banked into a clear Caribbean sky. Neither of
the two cabin passengers paid notice to the view. Tarra withdrew a fully
loaded Uzi from her leather rucksack and gripped the weapon firmly,
drawing strength from its sleek power. She checked the clip, drove it
home with a precision snap, then screwed on a fburteen-bore silencer.
Gorgon knew she loathed flying. He smiled at her preoccupation with the
weapon, which seemed to have a calming effect on her. Her nervousness
amused him. He couldn't resist taunting her anxious look during the
plane's occasional sudden loss of altitude during the ascent. My poor
Tarra, his spirited eyes mocked her. He touched her chin with playful
fingers. "I know one experience that can always thrill you. Yes?"

She slapped away his hand, scornful. "Put your thoughts elsewhere," he
told her. "Think of pleasant things. Think of the tanker."

Seven hours.

That was how long it took the seaplane to cover twelve hundred miles of
open sea before reaching the intercoastal waterway of South Carolina.
The cabin's transponder signaled that they were in range of their
target. "We are landing?" Tarra asked, eager to be out of the plane,
even if it meant trading it for a raft on the open sea. Gorgon said
nothing as he moved to the cabin's electronics rack and activated a
modified Doppler radar unit. The size of the tanker ten thousand feet
below them made it impossible to miss, even if the seaplane had
inadvertently strayed miles from the shipping lanes. He fine-tuned the
scan and relayed the ship's coordinates to his pilot. The aircraft
banked awkwardly to intercept it, dipping too steeply to port and
spilling Tarra hard against the bulkhead. She cushioned the impact with
her Uzi. Gorgon frowned at her. "Put it away."

He picked up the microphone, nipped the low-powered radio to transmit
and adjusted the directional antenna on the aircraft's underbelly. When
he spoke his voice was cold and serious, his English flawless.
"Charleston, Charleston, this is Cessna four-seven-nine-two. Emergency.
Repeat, emergency. We are four-six miles east-southeast of you,
thirty-one degrees north latitude and eighty-two degrees west longitude.
Two on board. Engine fire. Oil pressure zero. Losing altitude. I will
attempt a water landing. Repeat. I will attempt a water landing. Stand
by ..."

The radio had only enough power to broadcast the Coast Guard distress
call thirty miles in a single direction. That was far enough. Tonight he
wanted only one ship to hear his call. Central Virginia Twenty-five
thousand feet Reluctantly, and with great effort, Marshall dragged
himself from beneath the mist-fogged depths of an exhausted sleep,
recalling with more than passing irony that they were returning home
aboard the same C-141 Starlifter that had taken them to Sinope. Only
tonight the huge aircraft bore little resemblance to a flying command
center. There was no team left to command, no operation to monitor.
After Youngblood had delivered them to a neutral air base in Kingston,
Jamaica, a crew of American army medical volunteers had ushered them
into a retrofitted vacation trailer, a cozy compartment with padded
high-backed chairs. A medic had stitched and patched what was left of
Marshall's right ear and gave him something to ease the throbbing. Once
aloft, Marshall and the others spent the afternoon debriefing on a
four-hour conference call patched directly to General Medlock at the
Pentagon. Now the team was indulging in long-overdue sleep. Marshall and
Williams had conditioned themselves to function capably for days without
adequate sleep, as long as they could doze for at least twenty minutes
twice a day. Marshall agreed with Charles Lindbergh that any sleep at
all adds to wakened strength, whether it was minutes or even seconds.
Julie wasn't as fortunate. She was out of touch with her body's needs
and hadn't felt the least bit sleepy or hungry since leaving Brazil. She
felt restless and agitated, and couldn't wait to be on United States
soil. "We'll be landing in about twenty-seven minutes, people," the
pilot's serious-sounding voice informed them over the aircraft's
intercom. "There are garments for each of you in the lockers. Please put
them on at this time."

Julie, grateful for something to do during the tedious ride home, opened
one of the lockers and sorted through the suits. Her expression
registered confusion. These weren't civilian clothing, nor were they
standard army gear; the locker was full of coveralls and masks or, as
Julie instantly realized, biological isolation suits. There were sizes
for everybody. Someone wanted to make damn sure they didn't bring any
strange pathogens ashore. "The army's not taking any chances," Julie
said to Marshall. "They're treating us as though we have the plague."

Marshall kept his eyes shut, ready to drift back to sleep if she would
let him. "Come again?"

She held up a face mask. "They want us to wear these environment suits.
A precaution, I'm sure, just like the first astronauts coming back from
the moon. Routine isolation."

Williams's eyes fluttered open. "Gimme a break. I feel fine."

Slowly, reluctantly, Marshall opened his eyes and found it difficult to
focus them. "We are okay, aren't we?"

Julie didn't answer. She was mulling over the situation in her mind,
processing the data. They had all been exposed to a mutated strain of
Saint Vitus. Did the Pentagon know something she didn't?

"Our bodies are fouled," Wynett offered from his seat in the corner of
the trailer. "The abomination has made a home inside our bodies."

Youngblood, reclining next to him, stirred irritably and readjusted the
cowboy hat over his eyes. Williams snapped his seat upright. "You're
full of shit, Wynett. I feel fucking fine."

Wynett smiled darkly, his face bathed in the trailer's eerie half-light.
"No symptoms yet. Sergeant. Give it time. The virus is exploring our
bodies, adapting as it propagates. Your people are aware of this and
certainly will monitor us very closely. We are offering them a rare
opportunity to study the effects of the organism on humans. They will
learn much from our autopsies. Relax, sir; you will know what Saint
Vitus has planned for you--but in its own time and in its own way."

Marshall dragged himself out of the pillowy chair and said to Julie,
"Give Wynett another sedative so I don't have to hear his voice."

"He's already ingested the max. His mental state is extremely unstable.
He'll go in and out of delusions. One moment he'll seem normal, the next
..." She shrugged. Marshall tried the door handle at the rear of the
trailer. It wouldn't move. He grabbed the intercom mike and said to the
cockpit, "What's with the locked door. Jack?"

"Relax, Joe," the pilot's metallic voice blared over the trailer's
intercom. "We'll be on the ground in a few minutes. Then you can ask the
brass all the questions you want."

Marshall didn't like what he was hearing; the pilot was stalling until
he could hand them over. But to whom and for what purpose?

"I want you to tell Medlock we're not putting on environment suits,"
Marshall said into the mike. "Jack, we're not infected. This bug works
fast. You should have seen what it did to the plantation. We would be
dead by now if it were still dangerous." He appealed to Julie. "Tell
him!"

"No one's said you're infected, Joe," said the pilot's disembodied
voice. "Washington just wants to be careful."

"Jack, you're bullshitting me."

The pilot's voice turned cold. "Joe, you can make this easy or you can
make this difficult. Either way, once we're on the ground all of you
will be wearing those suits."

The U.S. Eastern Seaboard Twenty-two miles off the coast of Charleston,
S. C. 2213 hours A man aboard a small craft might have mistaken the
80,000deadweight-ton crude-oil tanker Lucy for a moving mountain in the
night. The length of two football fields, the tanker was traveling from
Venezuela with a cargo for Universal Oil Company's refinery in Yorktown
when Capt. Sergio Carlucci, master of the Lucy, received a radio message
from a distressed plane. The call alerted him that a single-engine
aircraft with two persons on board was going down somewhere in these
waters. A routine call to the Coast Guard only added to the puzzle. The
ship's radio officer had been unable to send or receive any other
transmissions, nor could he locate the source of the problem. Captain
Carlucci, a quiet, religious man with a strong sense of duty to aid his
fellow man whenever possible, immediately ordered his engines cut to a
crawl and posted his nineteen-man crew as lookouts. A pair of high-power
binoculars to his eyes, Carlucci surveyed the shallow swells. He saw
nothing but blackness. And it was calm, perhaps too much so. His usually
confident manner tonight was restless and apprehensive, his hopes of
finding anybody alive out there diminishing with each minute. He stood
by the rail, legs apart, and hid from the rest of his crew the deep
lines of doubt etched around his fifty-four year-old eyes. Darkness, had
settled in like a black shroud on their chances of spotting survivors.
At least the weather was in their favor. Skies were clear with only
light trade winds and calm seas. Unfortunately, the moonless night
reduced the already small chances of finding wreckage or a lifeboat. A
pity. Life was so precious. A few minutes more, Carlucci decided, and he
would have no choice but to order the engines back to eighteen knots ...
"I can hear it!" shouted a port-side lookout, Lucy's first officer
Francesco Amorosi. The young officer stood stiffly at the rail,
listening. Captain Carlucci moved quickly to his side. Both men stood
staring into the darkness, breathless, neither uttering a sound. Then
Carlucci heard it too, a distant whistle piercing the night like a
frantic bird cry. A minute later Carlucci was on the bridge turning the
rudder hard over to port, initiating an emergency maneuver called the
Williamson Turn, named after its developer, Comdr. John A. Williamson of
the U.S. Naval Reserve. When the ship swung sixty degrees from its
initial heading, Carlucci shifted to full rudder in the opposite
direction until the tanker returned to its reverse heading. Because of
Lucy's size and speed, the ship would have passed whoever was out there
by some distance. The Williamson Turn allowed the vessel to reverse
direction and head back along its original path, a critical procedure to
locate a person who had fallen overboard. Carlucci handled the controls
himself, refusing to let anyone take responsibility for the precision
turn. The former Italian naval officer completed the maneuver
flawlessly, then ordered the engines cut to dead slow ahead-stop speed.
Carlucci, his gray-flecked hair glistening with sweat, raised the
handheld radio to his lips but, as with ship-to-shore radio, he could
neither receive nor send messages. Cursing, the captain retrieved a
bullhorn from storage, stormed out onto the wheelhouse "wing"--an
outdoor deck off the bridge that offered him a view of the ship's fore
and aft upper decks--and called down to first officer Amorosi in
Italian: "I want all deck- and searchlights directed into the water.
Divide the men and position them on each side of the ship. And pray to
God while you hurry; we will not get a second chance."

The crew on Lucy's port side spotted something on the fringe of the
searchlights--a small rubber dinghy with two men on board wearing
florescent orange life jackets, waving their arms. Carlucci piloted the
vessel with its 600,000 barrels of crude oil to approach them. It took
the crew less than twenty minutes to pass a line with a safety strap to
the dinghy and bring both men aboard. The rescue went smoothly, by the
book. Once completed, the fully laden oil tanker swung slowly around in
the Atlantic and resumed its original course and speed north toward the
Chesapeake Bay. Carlucci watched the rescue from the wheelhouse wing
deck. He nodded agreeably when he saw that both men could walk without
assistance. Good. Very good. "Bring them up to the bridge," he called
down to Amorosi through the bullhorn. ' "Tell them I will have my
steward standing by with hot coffee while the medic examines them."

Captain Carlucci was pleasantly surprised when the door to the
wheelhouse opened and he discovered that one of the lives he had helped
save tonight was a woman's. His four other officers gathered to greet
the survivors, and there were handshakes all around. The two guests
remained mostly cold and detached--understandable, considering what they
had just been through, Carlucci thought. He could not deduce their
nationality. He watched the woman while the ship's medic tried to
examine her for injuries. She remained uncooperative and reacted with
irritation to his probing. Her dark, closely cropped hair and
penetrating green eyes on an otherwise attractive face betrayed her
rebellious soul, a youthful style Carlucci found offensive. Her
companion, a massive, intimidating man with dark features, appeared
interested only in the bridge's instrumentation, which he surveyed
meticulously with his probing eyes. While the steward served coffee to
the guests and the officers on the bridge, Carlucci stood detached,
regarding the two curiously. Both were wearing oilskin jackets beneath
their life vests and carrying shoulder bags as though they had expected
a water landing. Neither appeared particularly fazed by the crash, an
experience that would have stricken most men with nervous shock. "I
apologize for inconveniencing you. Captain," Gorgon said in perfect,
though accented, English, a language all foreign officers on American
petroleum company ships were required to speak. "Nonsense," Carlucci
said. "It is my duty." He said to his communications officer, ' "Are you
able to use the radio?" The officer shook his head. "Still no luck,
sir."

"Then use the Marisat transceiver to contact the Coast Guard though the
Houston office. Inform them of the rescue."

"Your radios do not work," Gorgon said. "A seaplane circling your ship
at four miles is equipped with very powerful radio jamming gear. It is
the same aircraft that brought us to you." Gorgon withdrew a Ruger Mark
1 with suppressor from inside his jacket and pointed it at the captain's
head. He drew back the hammer. "I am taking command of this vessel."

The radio officer reacted first. As he reached for the telephone
receiver on the main console to alert the crew, a burst from Tarra's
silenced Uzi tore his heart in two before he could depress the call
button. The chief steward made a dash for the door, sidestepping Gorgon.
The terrorist lashed out and grabbed the steward's head, breaking his
neck with a swift, hard pull backward. The two remaining officers on the
bridge watched in horror as Tarra swung her weapon around and executed
each of them with a brief, silenced burst. Not a single round damaged
any of the bridge's instruments. She watched with alluring eyes until
the last of her victims had stopped kicking. Gorgon discharged a single
round into the back of each's head to be certain. Tarra had effectively
cleared Lucy's bridge but spared Carlucci, whose kind, fatherly eyes
were glazed in shock. He could only stare helplessly at Gorgon, silently
asking why. He soon had his answer. Tarra peered into the hood of the
ship's JRC radar display, set the range for forty miles and adjusted the
antenna beam for a narrow eastern scan. She moved the cursor over one of
the phosphorescent signatures in the southwest quadrant and touched the
identification button. The smaller vessel's transponder affirmed its
identity. "I have them," she announced. "Bearing one-eight-seven. Range,
twenty-six kilometers. They are on a crossing course on my starboard."

Gorgon noted the ship's compass heading and instructed Carlucci, "You
will alter your course seven degrees to starboard."

When the captain did not move, Tarra said, "I will do it."

"No!" Gorgon's deep voice resonated off the bridge's stark walls like a
gun blast. He riveted his steel eyes on Carlucci. "You will do it."

Carlucci could hardly form the words. "Put away your weapons. This ship
carries a highly volatile cargo. A catastrophe out here will benefit no
one."

"I am well aware of what you carry. Captain," Gorgon said. "Cooperate,
and I will need no weapons. Cross me, and I will destroy your
hundred-million-dollar ship and its cargo."

"For God's sake, why? Who are you? What do you want?"

"You need only know," Gorgon said, "that I am the man who has taken your
ship. I will have your cooperation as well."

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Fort Detrick

2243 hours

The quarantine trailer crept back into the loading dock of one of Fort
Detrick's bunkerlike buildings dedicated to biological research. The
faceless structure looked disturbingly like a prison. Inside the trailer
Julie, stuffed into a pair of bulky environmental overalls, slid next to
Marshall on the trailer's wraparound sofa and waited, for what, she
wasn't quite sure. She had given him one of her black bandannas to cover
the bandages over his right ear, and he wore it like a headband. She
liked the way he felt so close to her--strong and full of
confidence--even if she had to feel him through a thick layer of
nonporous material. Marshall didn't notice her; his eyes were fixed on
his left hand. After they had boarded the Starlifter, his hand had
become prone to spastic fits of trembling, as though the limb had a mind
of its own. The fingertips of his right hand were numb most of the time
and his mouth was always dry. He tried to put it out of his mind by
focusing instead on where they were going. He thought it strange that no
one was talking to the survivors of Alpha about their eventual
destination. Their handling had been quick and methodical, like a
shipment of machine parts. Their only view of the night was through a
narrow windscreen at the rear of the trailer. Marshall moved to the
window and didn't like what he saw. An armed contingent of soldiers was
overseeing their arrival under a forest of intense carbon-vapor lamps
mounted on high stands. Dronelike technicians in white down coats were
draping a polyurethane fabric shield over the trailer. A gigantic
prophylactic, Marshall thought; they don't even want us breathing the
air. He appealed to Julie. "What is this place?"

Julie joined him at the window. "The Slammer."

"Come again?"

"They're putting us in the army's biological receiving lab, eighty-three
thousand square feet of lab space devoted to studying bacterial
pathology. Casualties of a biological war are supposed to be brought
here for observation and quarantine."

"You know a great deal about this facility, young lady," Wynett said,
his alert eyes watching her closely. Julie ignored him and explained to
the others: "I spent two days of my internship here participating in a
crisis exercise. I was role-playing a patient."

"Welcome to the real world." Youngblood snorted, squeezing next to Julie
for a glimpse out the narrow window. He wasn't interested in the
building. He wanted a closer look at the Bell-Ranger helicopter sitting
under the spotlights of Detrick's helipad. It had the military markings
of a VIP aircraft, the sort usually equipped with advanced
telecommunications equipment intended for a mobile command vehicle.
"Helloooooo," he said, studying the chopper until it disappeared from
his view. His gaze shifted back to the loading dock. Scowling, he took
his seat and said, "Quarantine, my ass. I feel like a fucking prisoner."

"And so you are. Captain," Wynett said, adjusting the strap of his face
shield before putting it on. He looked like a fat scuba diver in his
environment suit. "When you surrendered your weapons and stepped into
this compartment, you ceased to be a soldier. Your war is over. Now you
are lab specimens."

Williams appealed to the major. "Say the word and I'll have us out of
here in thirty seconds. I'll kick a hole right through that glass."

"Spare us the heroics, Sergeant," Wynett said, trying without luck to
make the mask fit comfortably over his face. "Violate the integrity of
this trailer and you will risk spreading a plague that could very well
ravage your country."

"Don't bullshit me," Williams barked. "I feel fine. And since when did
you care about spreading--"

"That's enough," Marshall snapped. But he could well understand the
others' frustration; he too loathed confinement of any kind, especially
hospitals. The trailer gave a sudden jerk as it came in contact with the
receiving dock, and there followed the sound of a heavy crash door
grinding shut behind them, sealing them inside the fortresslike
quarantine building. The intense light from the carbon lamps vanished as
the doors closed, replaced by the warmer glow of the garage's
incandescent bulbs. "Please exit the vehicle and proceed into the
building," a feminine metallic voice blared through a bullhorn with
enough volume to penetrate the trailer's aluminum skin. "Do not remove
any personal possessions from the trailer. Do not attempt to breach the
quarantine area."

Julie draped the instrumentation package over her shoulder. "This goes
where I go." She slid on her face mask. Marshall likewise snapped the
mask over his solid features before pulling back the exit handle. The
door opened easily, and he felt a distinct draft of air flow past him.
"Negative pressure," Julie noted, her voice muffled by the face shield.
"Say what?" Williams asked, wincing from the too-tight mask over his
bulging jowls. "Air pressure inside the building is lower than the air
outside," Julie explained. "If there's a leak, the negative pressure
will draw outside air in, preventing stray organisms from escaping."

"I'll sleep better tonight." Marshall waved them forward. The group
proceeded single file out onto the receiving dock. Their respirators
concealed from them the smell of the dock's heavy oils, which sat in
smeared puddles over the cracked concrete. They exited through a lone
door into a small room outfitted with a tiny refrigerator, offering
token hospitality to the center's new guests. The receiving room
reminded Julie of the tiny kitchen in her campus apartment. The door
closed automatically. They could hear a highpressure shower flooding the
garage area, rinsing the trailer and their footprints with
industrial-strength disinfectant and bleach. A second door opened into
the complex. "You are now in quarantine," the metallic voice informed
them through the ubiquitous intercom system. "Please leave your suits in
this room and proceed inside."

Williams yanked off his mask with a protesting snap. "Thank you."

The others peeled off their environment suits and tossed them
unceremoniously in a pile in front of the refrigerator. Wynett chose to
keep his suit and mask on. Julie led the way into the complex's L-shaped
corridor, a sterile place with white walls and fluorescent lighting.
Somewhere far-off a telephone was ringing. She proceeded down the longer
of the two hallways, with the others following. The facility resembled a
clinic with its stark walls, a pervasive smell of antiseptics and closed
doors with clipboard holders outside. Marshall thought he smelled
alcohol, without realizing that the air itself was sanitized, the
environment controlled down to the last drop of moisture and air
pressure. He already disliked the place for its resemblance to a
hospital. He hated hospitals. Julie opened a door, passed inside and
snapped on the switch, filling the darkened surgery with harsh
fluorescent light. She set her instrumentation case on the examining
table, then opened one of the room's many cabinets and surveyed the
well-stocked supplies. When she returned to the hallway, Williams was
emerging from the room next door. "There's a dentist's chair in here,"
the sergeant said. "I think this is a goddamn CAT-scanning unit,"
Youngblood said, closing a door to another. "It's a magnetic resonator,"
Julie corrected him, then gestured to the doorways down the hallway. The
other rooms are biochemical labs, and there's also an X-ray area."

"Where's the staff of doctors and nurses?" Marshall asked. "There aren't
any," she said. "This center is completely isolated from the biosphere.
There's no need for anybody to risk coming down here with us, even
wearing an environment suit. All examinations can be done remotely.
There are fifteen private quarters in here, a kitchen, lounge, dining
room, laundry, a gym--" Farther down the corridor, a telephone began
ringing again. Marshall cocked his head at Williams. "Check that out."

Williams nodded and moved briskly down the hallway. The others continued
their tour. "So how long do we have to stay in here?" Marshall asked
Julie. "At least twenty-four days," she said. "Say what?"

"We could be here longer. Twenty-four days is the incubation period for
most viruses. Unfortunately, St. Vitus is a complete mystery. Some tests
can take months."

"You mean the rest of our lives," he spat. "Joe, remember what we're
dealing with."

"You're starting to sound like the rest of the brass. Maybe you want to
make sure this creature of yours stays locked up, even if it means
burying us in here with it."

Julie's face flushed with anger. "That's unfair!"

"While you people bicker amongst yourselves," Wynett said, removing his
mask and running a hand through his tousled mane of white hair, "someone
please direct me to a shower. I wish to turn in."

"Joe, the phone's for you," Williams shouted down the hallway. "It's
General Medlock. And he doesn't sound happy."

"Terrific." Marshall thrust a finger at Wynett. "Consider yourself my
prisoner. You and I are going to get to know each other very well. You
don't eat, you don't sleep, you don't take a crap without asking my
permission first. You got that?"

Wynett responded with a throaty chuckle. Marshall said to Julie, "See if
you can get some of this equipment up and running. I want blood tests
started tonight."

"Joe," Williams hollered, "answer the goddamn phone." , Marshall rushed
down the hallway to find the telephone. While the others ventured off to
find their quarters, Julie slipped into the corridor's last room--her
favorite lab. The room was filled with refrigerator-size equipment
covered with plastic dust covers. She found the light switch, and when
the overhead fluorescent lights blinked on, her grin mirrored her
satisfaction. She pulled the plastic cover off a Sun minicomputer,
powered it up and rolled a chair in front of the workstation. Despite
the center's seventy-four-degree ambient temperature, she felt chilly.
She longed for her favorite mug filled with flavored coffee and cream.
Maybe she could persuade Marshall to brew some for her in exchange for a
communications hookup with her Stanford adviser. She put the machine in
a terminal emulation mode and logged on to Stanford's VMC mainframe.
Just like home. Out of habit she sent a quick message to her adviser.
Dr. Nancy Shaw: u there?

Julie was surprised when a message beeped back almost immediately: i
heard you were back in town. what's up?

Julie looked at her watch and frowned. She typed: you're AT THE OFFICE
LATE. I DON'T SLEEP MUCH THESE DAYS. GENERAL MEDLOCK SAID YOU WERE
COMING IN, AND I KNEW YOU WOULD LOG ON AND CHECK YOUR MAIL. NEED
ANYTHING?

I MIGHT AFTER I GET SETTLED. ANYTHING GOING ON?

I LEFT A FEW NOTES IN YOUR E-MAIL IN-BASKET. NOTHING URGENT."

THANKS. I'LL LOOK AT THEM TOMORROW. I'LL BE HERE FOR A WHILE, IF YOU
WANT TO CHAT. THANKS. THERE'S A GREAT DEAL I'D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT. BUT
NOT RIGHT NOW. TOMORROW. SEE YA.. .. Julie logged off the VMC mainframe
system and requested Detrick's mainframe environment. password?

She typed april to log on to the army's mainframe and requested access
to the lab's programs. *****RESTRICTED ACCESS DENIED*****
*****RESTRICTED ACCESS DENIED***** *****RESTRICTED ACCESS DENIED*****
"Oh, you bastards." Someone anticipated she would want to look at those
files and wasn't about to oblige her curiosity. Her fingers performed a
well-choreographed dance over the keyboard as she disassembled the
Master User ID file into its program code. The army's security measures
were competent, but not nearly clever enough to keep her from simply
rewriting the code so the program would authorize her password. She had
yet to find a computer she couldn't "crack route"--penetrating to the
deepest level of the computer's operating system. Detrick's network was
no exception, and once she cracked into the system's server, she would
have the omniscience of the center's highest-ranking officer. She
reassembled the machine language and repeated her request.

RESTRICTED ACCESS. ENTER USED ID She typed in zjcmoi. PASSWORD?

She again entered april. The computer hardly blinked as it checked her
authorization, found nothing wrong with it, then obediently displayed a
list of options. She highlighted the first item on the menu: FORT
DETRICK'S BIOLOGICAL RECEIVING LAB. The computer complied, showing her
the Slammer's layout from its electronic security system all the way
down to the last penny nail. Lucy U.S. Eastern Seaboard off Charleston,
S.C. Lucy's first officer Francesco Amorosi didn't like the way Carlucci
had summoned him to the bridge. The captain's intercom message, brief
and unbecomingly curt, smacked of trouble. Had he fucked up? Hardly. The
rescue had gone superbly well under his direction, and he already had
visions of a company commendation and his picture in the employee
magazine. And maybe a bonus too. Nothing less for a hero. Still,
something about the captain's summons bothered him. It wasn't like
Carlucci to get a bug up his ass and bark orders at his men like a
boot-camp sergeant, especially after saving lives. He should be sharing
the crew's jubilation. What the fuck was his problem?

Amorosi entered the wheelhouse and found the main lights switched off,
forcing him to grope about in the glow of the ship's multicolored
instrumentation. As he reached for the main light switch, something cold
and hard touched the back of his neck, something made of steel.
Startled, he feigned a calm response and raised his arms in an gesture
of capitulation. The twenty-seven-year-old seaman didn't need much
imagination to visualize someone with a gun standing behind him a
finger-jerk away from blowing off his head. What was going on?
Robberies, though common while anchored in African waters, were rare at
sea. He knew better than to resist. He had no intention of giving his
life to protect someone else's cargo. "Are you First Officer Francesco
Amorosi?" asked a deep, sonorous voice behind him. Amorosi kept his
gazed fixed forward. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness he saw another
figure standing between two of the ship's radar consoles. It was Captain
Carlucci; the poor man didn't look at all well. Now Amorosi understood
the captain's curt radio message. It had been a warning made under
duress. His eyes begged the captain for an explanation, a reassuring
signal that all would be well. But Carlucci's eyes remained downcast,
helpless, deeply ashamed of what was happening to him. Amorosi's hands
began shaking. "Are you Amorosi?" the deep voice hissed, its owner's
lips close to the young mate's ear. "I will not ask you again."

The young officer drew in his breath sharply and screwed shut his eyes,
expecting the worst. He nodded. "Good," Gorgon said. Amorosi winced when
the cold metal jabbed the back of his neck and prodded him forward. He
walked several paces between the consoles, his legs moving
automatically, the gun barrel boring into his neck. Spent shells on the
floor felt like rocks under his feet. Gorgon ordered both men out onto
the bridge's port wing deck. The open air had grown cold and windy and
the night black. They were entering a storm system. Amorosi, in the
lead, saw several figures huddled against the chest-high metal wall. He
could smell a peculiar stench in the chilly night air, a smell that
reminded him of sawdust. Some primordial instinct told him that this was
the smell of death. He heard a woman's voice, a throaty moan combined
with long, heavy breaths, as though she were enjoying some deep
satisfaction. His mind couldn't comprehend the contradiction of sight
and sound and smell. A figure rose from the shadows, stepped into the
glow from the wheelhouse and riveted a pair of haunting green eyes on
Amorosi. Despite the dimness he recognized the woman from the sea
rescue, standing naked to the waist, rubbing bloodsoaked fingertips over
her ample bosom. "He is yours," Gorgon said to her. Tarra smiled
alluringly and took Amorosi's trembling hand into hers. Her touch felt
wet, warm, soft, reassuring. His breathing eased; he didn't want her to
feel the convulsive fear that had tied his chest into knots. She led him
into the shadows at the end of the deck, and Captain Carlucci heard a
sucking sound that suggested deep, lustful kissing. It didn't last long.
Amorosi let out a shriek, a hideous sound Carlucci would never forget.
He cursed in his native Italian and forced himself to move to help the
boy, but Gorgon launched a huge hand, blocking his way. "Why do this to
my men?" the captain implored. Gorgon put a finger to his lips, and they
both listened to the young mate's anguished whimpering. Amorosi's
tortured cries grew muffled as though he were being roughly gagged. And
then came a silence, an emptiness far more unsettling than any shriek.
Carlucci shivered as Gorgon put a bearlike paw on his shoulder and led
him forward. The captain looked past the silent figures sitting with
their backs against the wall. In the corner sat Tarra, rubbing her hands
seductively over Amorosi's naked chest. Gorgon ordered her away, then
pressed a flashlight into Carlucci's hands. "See what she has done,"
Gorgon said, gesturing to the line of motionless figures. Carlucci
shivered. He held no illusions that he too would sit here among these
corpses if he didn't do exactly as the beast ordered. Cursing his lack
of courage, he knelt before the figures and switched on the flashlight
with trembling fingers. He probed each face with the light and
recognized his chief steward, radio officer, ship's medic and chief
engineer. All of them were dead, of course. Carlucci crawled on hands
and knees for a closer look at the fifth man. At first he did not
recognize him. Amorosi's blood-soaked cheeks were bloated as though he
had been forced to eat something he had violently resisted. A strange
appendage still protruded from his mouth. "My God ..."

Amorosi's eyes ceased blinking and turned lifeless, staring vacantly
back at the captain in solemn resignation, warning him that any
resistance simply wasn't worth risking a similar fate. Carlucci bowed
his head, deeply ashamed. Forgive me, my son, for letting you die at the
hands of these barbarians. Would he vomit or pass out? He probably would
do both, and in no particular order. "You will follow my instructions,"
Gorgon said. "Disobey me, and you will sit here among them."

Carlucci rose unsteadily to his feet and, fighting the urge to retch,
turned away from his hideous group of comrades, his face a white
plaster. "Why ... murder him ... and torture him ...  ?"

Tarra cocked her head questioningly. "Torture? He shared with me an
experience any man would give his life to enjoy."

Carlucci directed his rage-filled eyes at the woman and said in a voice
still phlegmy with fear, "For the love of God, you fed him his own
testicles."

She ran her tongue over her lips. "He would tell you how much he enjoyed
it ...  if he could still talk." She giggled wickedly. Carlucci threw up
all over himself. Half-digested beans dripped down the front of his
shirt and smelled of vomit. He collapsed onto both knees until the
contents of his stomach had emptied onto the rubber mat between his
legs. He noticed another odor; he had urinated in his pants. A large
hand rested solidly on his shoulder. "Tarra has a peculiar need for
men," Gorgon said, his voice queerly apologetic. "At the age of eight
years, four men raped her and left her for dead in the desert. The
incident only aroused her hunger for coitus--she obsesses on it as few
women do--and she satisfies her contempt for men in this perverse way.
Never again will she be used by a man. Do not let her see your love for
this ship or it will anger her; she is very jealous. Meanwhile, you
still are Lucy's captain. I will not take that from you. I need a man
sufficiently skilled to handle this vessel. Only her true master will
know how this ship will behave under all circumstances. You will keep
normal radio contact with the owner of this vessel and proceed without
incident to your destination in Yorktown. Do exactly as I say and you
will live and prosper from our acquaintance. Disobey me, and I will let
her kill you--her own way. Do we have an agreement?"

A wave of total helplessness washed over Carlucci; his fear of these
monsters was more crippling than anything he had ever experienced in his
life. "But you killed my officers  ... my first mate ..."

"Tarra will be your first mate, and I will provide you with a new crew.
In exactly twenty minutes I want you to stop all engines and stand by.
Will you carry out those simple instructions for me. Captain?"

Carlucci, shivering spasmodically, nodded. "Good. Captain Sergio
Carlucci, you will now take charge of the bridge."

An hour after Gorgon and Tarra had come aboard, only Captain Carlucci
knew that Lucy had been hijacked. If the remaining crew of sixteen
suspected anything, no one came forward with their suspicions; no one
called the captain to ask questions. On Gorgon's command, Carlucci
stopped all engines and ran out the cargo boom. Carlucci quickly
dismissed the barrage of inevitable questions from the ship's officer of
the deck that followed. And then they waited. A fifty-foot tramp steamer
slipped alongside in the moonless night and offloaded three truck-size
pallets. Seventeen minutes later, Lucy resumed her original heading and
speed, with fifteen of Gorgon's soldiers who brought with them a special
cargo.

Chapter Thirty.

Quarantine

Marshall slipped inside a closet-size room off the quarantine center's
recreation area and sat down at a tiny desk with a reading lamp and a
push-button telephone. The door closed with a solid click, causing a
pressure change in his ears. The room was a soundproof anechoic chamber.
Marshall picked up the phone's receiver and said abruptly, "Tell me what
the hell is going on."

He heard only the low static of a poor connection, as though Medlock had
hung up. Finally the general's voice, chillingly terse, said, "Know just
one thing, mister: you don't talk to me like I'm one of your goddamn
grunts."

Marshall pictured Medlock's vulture face and clenched beak on the other
end ready to chomp off his head in a single bite. The major breathed a
sigh of apology. "Sir, it's been a bad week. And it isn't helping
matters that we're locked up with a raving psychotic. You can make it up
by sending me and Williams back to Fort Bragg."

"I can't do that. Major," Medlock said, his tone tempering. "You'll stay
in quarantine for at least three weeks. And sorry about the
arrangements; under the circumstances it's just not possible to stow
Wynett anyplace else. Besides, we'll need to interrogate him." The
apology was in his statement, not his voice. "Sir, what about Gorgon? As
I explained to you this afternoon, we have to assume he's planning an
assault on the U.S. mainland with at least five tanks of the organism--"

"Slow down, Joe. It's being handled."

"Handled? What's being handled? Who's handling what?"

"We're assembling a group of commandos from all Special Forces units and
flying them to our staging area at Oceana."

"Sir, let me mobilize Delta."

"I must be speaking Arabic." Medlock grunted. "Didn't I make myself
clear about your quarantine?"

"I want you to put Major Warren in charge of Squad Six. He knows the
drill. I can feed him intelligence--"

"Negative. The situation is being handled."

Marshall could barely contain his anger. "Sir, don't write us off yet.
Hell, nobody's even examined us yet. I owe Colonel Martinelli--"

"You'll do exactly as I tell you, mister. Be thankful you're alive, for
chrissake. Meanwhile, you're still part of Alpha. You can help me a
great deal by getting Wynett to talk. I need every goddamn piece of
information you can get from him."

"General ..."

He heard a click; then another voice came on the line. "Major, this is
Commander Frank Haake of the State Department. I need to ask you some
very specific questions about Operation Containment. Just give me five
seconds to make sure this machine is recording everything."

Marshall sank back wearily in his cheap fabric chair. The silence inside
the soundproof room was unsettling. He couldn't remember ever feeling
this impotent. Lucy Gorgon's fifteen soldiers, their faces blackened,
swept through Lucy with meticulous precision and speed, leaving in their
wake a trail of corpses. Four mercenary soldiers split off from the main
assault group and descended deep into the bowels of the tanker. With
sawed-off shotguns braced in front of them, they marched methodically
through the engine room, control room, boiler room and lower pump room.
They checked behind every pipe and conduit large enough to conceal a
man. Their weapons and cartridges were carefully chosen to protect the
machinery, pipes and bulkheads from damage. Lucy's crew never had a
chance to offer even token resistance. Seaman Dinelli, the ship's chief
engineer, reacted instinctively to the sight of the death squad storming
into the boiler area. The Italian officer's fist closed around the only
weapon he could find--an eleven-pound steel wrench. An earsplitting
blast from a shotgun tore off his wrench-toting arm at the elbow, while
a second blast blew the pale look of shock from his face ... and every
other feature. One of Dinelli's maintenance men, a young Filipino,
grabbed the intercom mike, opened a channel to the bridge and shouted in
poor English, "Captain, there are guns ... men in the boiler--" A blast,
and then he too was dead. The three remaining crewmen in the engine
room, their hands raised in an unmistakable gesture of surrender, stared
helplessly at the row of stubby shotgun barrels pointed at them. Their
startled faces, white and strained, pleaded for mercy. A series of rapid
blasts from the shotguns transformed them into a heap of slaughtered
corpses. Their business of killing finished, Gorgon's mercenaries filed
out of the engine room, leaving behind rivers of blood streaming like
rain through the grated catwalks. The assault had been easy, far easier
than the elaborate scheme had called for, evidence of Gorgon's
commitment to painstaking planning and careful execution. None of Lucy's
unarmed crewmen had offered any serious resistance. The tanker was a
product transport vessel, not a warship, and there were no weapons
aboard to oppose the assault. Minutes after the mercenaries boarded, all
but one of Carlucci's crew lay dead. The lone survivor--a young crewman
named Palombini--was led hands on head outside to the ship's upper deck,
where he sat under close guard in the chilled night air. Gorgon walked
out to him. Tarra strolled at his side, as did a slumped Captain
Carlucci, his eyes downcast. Gorgon towered over the young crewman who
had lost four fingers on his right hand in the brief struggle to take
the ship. He was cradling his bloodied hand in his lap, his face wet
from weeping. Gorgon's intense dark eyes memorized every fear-induced
line in the young Italian's face as he sat huddled on deck, trembling.
Gorgon said to him in English, "Your injuries are unfortunate for a man
so young. Tell me how much you loathe me for what I have done to you."

Palombini didn't understand him, his stricken eyes staring questioningly
at the captain. "He is a good man with a family," Carlucci said. "He
operates the ship's cargo pumps, a job very useful to us."

Gorgon shook his head viciously. "That is not why I had him spared until
now. I wanted you to see this."

Gorgon signaled Tarra with a quick jerk of his head. She drove her Uzi
into the young crewman's disbelieving face and squeezed off a single
round. Palombini let out an animallike yelp and spilled backward,
spouting blood from both his mutilated hand and his head wound. Tarra
knelt down and gently kissed his forehead. "I wanted you to see the
death of your last crewman."

Carlucci, his face pale, collapsed onto his knees and wept openly, his
fists clenched in frustration and despair. Crushed was his spirit to
challenge these unspeakable atrocities. He kept asking his God, What
should I have done? What should I have done?

Chapter Thirty-one.

Quarantine

2255 hours

Julie didn't hear him slip into the room behind her. She had no idea how
long he'd been standing there watching her stare at the computer screen
before he gently placed his strong hands on her shoulders and began
massaging the muscles at the base of her neck with deep, sensual
movements of his thumbs. His probing fingertips felt very good, but his
closeness made her uncomfortable. Feeling her tense up, he spun the
chair around and squatted in front of her. "You don't like that?"
Youngblood drawled, taking her hands into his. "Let me try something
else."

Julie's eyes grew wide when he leaned forward and planted a perfect kiss
on her lips. She rolled backward, ramming her chair into the computer
workstation's table. "I'm sorry," Youngblood said. "That really wasn't
planned. Ever since I met you I've wanted to do that. No woman has ever
interested me as much as you. God, you're beautiful ...  and smart, very
smart."

Julie was speechless. Not that she didn't find Youngblood attractive;
she did, just as she imagined every other woman did who laid eyes on
him. She just couldn't picture them together. No, that wasn't it, was
it? She couldn't picture herself with any man, especially a good-looking
one she had to work with. Relationships always got in the way of her
work; besides, this wasn't the time or place for romance. There you go
rationalizing again. The truth was she didn't know how to respond to
Youngblood's affections, or anyone else's for that matter. She hadn't
been programmed for affection, hadn't done any research on intimacy.
Romance 101 wasn't a required course in her Ph.D curriculum. Nor had she
ever seen how it was done at home, she realized, having been raised by a
stoical father who kept his feelings hidden from her. "Julie,"
Youngblood said gently, "what I'm trying to say is that when we get out
of here I'd like to take you out to dinner, or to a show, or ...  hell,
anywhere you like. Just name it. But if you're involved with someone
else ... or just don't want to ..." His voice trailed off and he gave
her a sad, though thoroughly charming smile. "Is there a problem?"
Marshall's curt voice boomed from the doorway. "A problem that takes two
of you to solve?"

Julie and Youngblood whipped around with a start. Something was
wrong--Julie could see the tension lines on Marshall's face. For a
hopeful instant she thought it might be jealousy. "I'm calling a meeting
in the lounge," Marshall said. When neither of them moved, he added,
"Right now."

Youngblood rose stiffly from his squat in front of Julie. "Jesus, Joe,
can't it wait till morning? It's been a long day and we're all spent.
Maybe after a good night's sleep--"

"Save it, mister," Marshall said, his voice as empty and frigid as
Arctic rock. "Yes, sir," Youngblood snapped. Julie grinned. Yes, perhaps
he was jealous. Interesting. "And as for you," Marshall said, riveting
his hardest military stare at her, "I want you to draw blood samples
from everybody and find a way to test it. Send the samples to your
friends upstairs, if you have to. Do whatever you need to do, but I want
to know by morning if we're sick."

"Oh, so I'm your nurse now."

But Marshall was gone, the sound of his boots echoing heavily down the
corridor, sending a not-to-subtle warning for everybody to hustle their
ass. Marshall directed everyone to a seat in the center's lounge, a
congenial study area that offered several overstuffed sofas and deep
chairs, a wet bar and two circular tables ideally suited for card games.
The room could have passed for a lounge in a university student union.
Julie commandeered one of the tables and laid out a medical pouch
containing a syringe kit and blood specimen vials. "Oh, Jesus,"
Youngblood said when he saw the needles. "I hope you've done this
before."

"Only once." She grinned, attaching an eighteen-gauge needle to the
first syringe. "On a hamster. And I'm sorry to say it died in the
process."

"I need to build up iron in my blood with a midnight snack." Youngblood
stooped before a knee-high refrigerator behind the wet bar and opened
it. "Helloooo. Can I interest anybody in a cold beer? I also have blush
and white wine  ... and diet Cokes."

"A blush sounds perfect," Julie said. "You got it," Youngblood said,
grabbing a chilled zinfandel.

Wynett sank comfortably into an overstuffed chair that meant to swallow
him and said to the chopper pilot, "What is the chance of securing a
Scotch and water?"

Youngblood opened the lower cabinet of the wet bar and inspected two
rows of hard liquor. "Someone thought of everything."

"Negative on the liquor," Marshall said. "Alcohol is offlimits in here."

Youngblood frowned; he had had his heart set on one of those beers.
Williams, grinning, sensed a barroom brawl brewing.

"Major," Wynett said, "surely you are not pretending to still be on
duty? There is a time to make war and a time to recharge. I believe it
is now time to indulge our vices."

Williams chuckled good-naturedly; he knew Marshall's prohibition of
alcohol when on duty. That meant they would be drinking lots of Cokes.
"The Army's gone to a lot of trouble to make this prison comfortable for
us ... too comfortable," Marshall said. "Forget the booze. We're not
sacrificing our edge for a couple of beers."

"What edge?" Youngblood snorted. "Stow it," Marshall said. Julie held up
the syringe. "People, let's just get this over with so I can turn in.
Who's first?"

When no one volunteered, she beckoned Youngblood with a mischievous
crook of her finger. In bold macho fashion, he took a seat at her table
and rolled up his sleeve. "Hurt me, baby."

"Make a fist," Julie instructed. He created an impressive muscle for
her. She wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his arm above the elbow and
searched for a suitable vein to tap. She found one and hastened the
dreaded anticipation by getting quickly to the point. Two minutes later
she had three vials full of his blood, which she labeled and secured in
the carrying case. "Who's next?"

Again nobody volunteered, so Marshall volunteered Williams. When the
gunnery sergeant made no effort to move from his chair, Julie brought
her syringe and tourniquet to him. Youngblood, flexing and unflexing his
needle-pricked arm, said, "So what did Medlock have to say?"

Marshall settled his weight against a table and folded his arms over his
chest. "General Medlock isn't going to let us out of here until he's
certain we're not sick. And that could take weeks. Meanwhile he's going
after Gorgon, though he won't say how or when. But Gorgon's ass is mine.
We've got to convince Medlock there's nothing wrong with us. The sooner
we get a clean bill of health, the sooner we get out of here."

Williams and Youngblood bobbed their heads in agreement. "Spare us your
military bravado. Major," Wynett scoffed. "Your war is over. Now please,
I wish to return to my quarters, preferably with a bottle of Seagram's
and a cache of ice. I would very much like to fall into a deep sleep
with both those items under my arms."

Marshall dragged a chair from beneath the table, spun it around in front
of the old man and sat astride it. "You're our ticket out of here. I
need to know what Gorgon plans to do with those tanks you brewed up. And
you're going to tell me everything."

"Major, I don't see the point belaboring--" Marshall lunged forward,
spilling his chair, and grabbed the front of Wynett's shirt into his
fists, popping two buttons. Stunned, everyone looked mutely at him.
"Listen to me, you shithead," Marshall hissed, his rage held fragilely
in check. "I've had a very bad week, thanks entirely to you. Don't fuck
with me." Wynett, sitting arrogantly composed, said, "You still don't
understand, do you. Major?"

"Understand what?"

"That Gorgon owes me ten million American dollars."

Marshall's grip on him tightened and his teeth clenched. "For chrissake,
what's that got to do with anything?"

"Gorgon stole from me. I fully intend to secure payment from him or
reclaim my merchandise. I don't want your muddled interference."

Marshall released Wynett and looked hard at him. For the first time he
saw him as he truly was: a madman. ' "Is that all this means to you?
Money?"

"I am a realist. Major," Wynett said, "not a fool driven by misplaced
notions of honor. God or patriotic duty. I have no intentions of writing
Mr. Gorgon from my books. I cannot stay in business if I give away what
I labor to produce."

"You're not going to see a dime from this."

"I disagree. Major. Your superiors will provide whatever I request. They
will even take me to Gorgon under military escort, if I decide that will
serve my best interest. I still am deliberating my options."

"Screw your options. You're gonna hang."

"There will be no charges filed against me. Not now. Not ever.
Considering what I know and the short time before Gorgon reaches your
shores, your superiors will need to act very quickly. I will give them a
statement for a price: twenty million American dollars and no charges
against me. The deal is nonnegotiable."

Julie knelt next to Wynett's chair with her syringe kit. "Roll up your
sleeve."

Wynett ignored her, keeping his eyes locked on the major's. The two just
stared at each other, deadlocked, each knowing full well what was at
stake. Julie helped herself to Wynett's arm and wrapped the rubber
tourniquet above his elbow. He didn't react when she inserted the needle
into his vein; in fact, he didn't appear to feel anything. Three minutes
later Julie put away her syringes, retreated to the table with his blood
specimen and watched Wynett carefully. Almost immediately he began to
perspire as though the climate-controlled room had become too warm for
him. "I believe you are next. Major," Wynett said. "Though I doubt Miss
Julie will draw anything but idiocy from those veins of yours ..."

Wynett looked suddenly pale. A wave of nausea swept over him, and his
arm where Julie had pricked him began to burn. He directed his
suspecting eyes at her, his fingers touching a tender welt on his
forearm. When he spoke his words were slightly slurred. "What have you
done to me. Miss Julie?"

Marshall glanced questioningly at her. "A sedative," she said. "If you
want specifics, it's an alkaloid--C 17H21 N04."

Wynett let out a huff of laughter, his eyes assuming an inward look.
"Scopolamine. My dear Julie, I am disappointed. I would have preferred
datura stramonium, a far more effective sedative and much more
interesting to the patient, though I have seen it used only by a remote
tribe in Brazil. Believe me, it is worth the trouble to obtain it."

"Sorry, but scopolamine was all I could find. It's a proven method of
loosening tongues."

"You'll have to ... do ... better ..."

Wynett's eyes rolled back into his head and his jaw dropped. He appeared
deathly ill, and for a moment Marshall feared he would go into cardiac
arrest. The major looked at Julie, who signaled reassuringly that the
old man's reaction was normal. "He's yours to question," she said,
"until he passes out."

"How long?" ' "I may have given him too much. He can go under at any
moment. He'll fight you. And you'll have no way of knowing if his
information is accurate."

"Terrific." Marshall, willing to try anything, expecting nothing, knelt
before Wynett's chair. "Okay. Tell me all about it."

Wynett rolled his head around in euphoric rhythm. "You may have stumbled
onto something. Miss Julie, though it is not as pleasant as Scotch."
Then he frowned. "Bastard stole my merchandise, ..."

Williams moved next to Marshall and whispered, "He's hung up on this
deal with Gorgon. Go with it."

Marshall looked hard at the old man. ' "What will he do with your
merchandise?"

"Bastard ... stole my merchandise ..."

"Yes, yes. Is your merchandise worth the price?"

Wynett's eyes suddenly opened, and he appeared alert. "Oh, yes. I gave
him quality merchandise."

"How much does he have?"

Wynett grinned. "Five."

"Five? Five tanks?"

"Yes. Twenty-five liters."

"Twenty-five liters of Saint Vitus?"

"Yes."

"How will he deploy it?"

Wynett's eyes drifted shut and he appeared troubled. "Several ways ...
missiles  ..."

"Missiles? He has Scud missiles?"

Wynett shook his head. "No, sir. Even the improved Scuds's
surface-to-surface launcher could not adequately deploy a viral warhead
..."

"What then?"

"Procyon computer-guided, independently targeted warheads ..."

"Jesus. How did he get his hands on those?"

Wynett smiled. "He purchased them from me."

Julie looked questioningly at Marshall and mouthed, "What's a Procyon?"

"He will harness the creature," Wynett said. "Operation ...  Harness
..." ' "Tell me about Operation Harness."

"Distribution ... law of supply and demand ... addiction ...  you are
addicted to it and he knows it."

"Addicted?" Marshall looked at Julie for an answer. She had none. "Are
you saying the virus is addictive?"

Julie shook her head. Marshall realized how stupid the question sounded
as soon as he'd asked it. Wynett slurred, "You will welcome him inside
your borders because you are addicted ..."

"You're not making sense." ' "Trojan House ... you will welcome him and
the creature inside ... and then he will be free to strike ... the
missiles are merely his backup." Wynett's head began rolling from side
to side and his speech became notably more slurred. "Sweet crude ...
sweet crude ... sweet crude  ..."

"Sweet crude? Do you mean oil?"

"No one will stop him ... you will welcome him inside  ... you are
addicted to it ...  you need it ..."

"Wynett--"

"No one will stop him ... you are addicted ... you need what he carries
..."

"I don't understand."

"So secret ...  floating city ... floating bomb ... no one can touch him
...  too dangerous ..."

Marshall's icy stare was riveted on his interrogatee. "I need to know
where Gorgon is taking the virus."

Wynett let out a huff of laughter. "Pay me first ..."

"Negative."

" ...  grand lady ... follow her down to a bridge by a fountain ...  she
sits in the sky ... with diamonds  ..." Wynett laughed deliciously.
Marshall appealed to Julie. "What's he babbling about?"

"He's fighting you."

"I can see that."

" ...  marshmallow pieeessssss  ..." Wynett's head rolled forward onto
his chest, where it remained, unmoving. He was out cold. Marshall rose
stiffly to his feet. He felt suddenly tired. "Marshmallow pies? Was he
just babbling?"

No one had an answer. With Wynett out Marshall knew there was nothing
more he could do tonight; besides, he needed time to sort out the old
man's rambling. "What about the blood analysis?" he asked Julie. "How
long before you know something?"

"I'll put the specimens in the pathology lab's PCR unit and let it run
through the night. We should know something by morning."

Marshall nodded agreeably. "There is one unfinished piece of business
before I can get started," she said. "Name it and you got it."

She stuck an eighteen-gauge needle on a syringe. "I need some of your
blood."

General Medlock pushed himself away from the small conference table and
considered everything he and his staff had just heard over the table's
360-degree speaker. The general's solid military demeanor allowed a
smile. In fact, he felt giddy. The session had gone surprisingly well,
better, in fact, than he had dared to hope. The fidelity from the
quarantine center's strategically placed microphones surprised even him,
giving him the bizarre feeling that he had been part of the group's
meeting two floors below. Leaving Wynett in quarantine with Marshall had
been a masterstroke. The general stood up, stretched the cramps from his
legs and moved to a rack of audio gear at the opposite end of the
conference room. He squeezed the technician's shoulder, quietly thanking
him for the audio hookup. "I want you to send a copy of that tape over
to my office for analysis," Medlock said. "Yes, sir."

General Medlock turned to Dr. Nancy Shaw sitting rigidly at her computer
terminal, a solemn frown pasted on her face. He placed his hands on her
shoulders. She shrugged them away. "I just want you to know how much I
appreciate what you're doing for me," Medlock said. "Don't make this any
worse by bullshitting me. General," she said, her eyes glaring. Her
blunt features were taut and intense and stone serious, chiseled from
seventeen years of fighting higher-academia politics. "I'm not one of
your grunts, nor did I volunteer to be here. I fully intend to file a
complaint with the State Department at my first opportunity."

Medlock waved away her threat. "Exercise whatever rights you think you
need to, ma'am. But I know you'll feel differently after shaking hands
with the president and hearing him thank you personally for your help
during this crisis."

"I don't like spying on people, especially one of my students. Why don't
you level with them? Why manipulate them like this?"

"Because I'm out of time. Small cohesive groups will draw on
extraordinary powers of problem-solving when they're backed against a
wall. Marshall's a very resourceful man. I'm counting on him to find out
what an interrogation team may not. Bonding is a powerful motivator, and
I will exploit it to the fullest."

"That's bullshit. General."

"Considering the lives at risk here, I'll use every resource available
in whatever ways I see fit. And that includes your services. Are you
clear on that point or do I have to get an executive order?"

"Yes, sir. General. Very clear."

Medlock's birdlike features broke into a self-satisfied smile. "Good. I
want you to use your database to unravel Wynett's babbling. Draw
correlations. See if it means anything. Get me whatever you can."

Medlock didn't wait for her acknowledgment. He returned to the
conference table, where the members of his task force were brainstorming
each part of Wynett's interview, developing hypotheses. "Okay, people.
What's it all mean? Higgins?"

Maj. Samuel Higgins, bert's logistics officer, cleared his throat as he
stood. He worked best on his feet, pacing. "We agree that Wynett's
reference to sweet crude means a lighter grade of crude oil, which has
little or no sulfur."

"No shit," Medlock spat. "So how's he going to use it?"

Major Higgins smiled broadly. "Wynett told us, "Floating city, floating
bomb.' Gorgon may be smuggling the virus aboard an oil tanker." Heads
around the table bobbed in eager agreement. "What about those goddamn
Procyons? Jesus, that sucks. Can he launch them from a tanker?"

Dr. Theodore Gruber, bert's science consultant, nodded. "No problem.
Even the smallest tanker would have a deck wide enough to accommodate
the launch platform and electronics van."

Lieutenant Hernandez couldn't contain his eagerness. "The name of the
ship. Find out the name of the goddamn ship and we've got him!"

"Lucy!" Dr. Shaw shouted from her workstation. "Gorgon's tanker is named
Lucy.'" AM eyes turned to her. "Where in hell did you come up with
that?" Medlock said, standing. "The song," she said, barely containing
the excitement of her find. "That's what Wynett was raving about. He was
teasing us, reciting the lyrics to the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky
With Diamonds.' He was telling them, yet hiding it from them."

Medlock looked to the others for validation. He counted two nods, the
rest shrugs. "Never listened to them," the general said, making his way
around the table to her workstation. "I prefer Nat King Cole."

He glanced over her shoulder at the hypercard program on her Macintosh
screen. His eyes quickly followed the stacks of opened cards, reviewing
her search path. She had simply entered key words from Wynett's rambling
into the program and let the computer find correlations from the
hypercard's optical storage database. One of the last windows showed the
crimson back cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, complete with
lyrics. Some of the highlighted words on one of the songs matched bits
of Wynett's ravings. The final card displayed an oil tanker registry;
the seventeenth name on the list, flying a Liberian flag, was Lucy.
"Doc, you're a genius," Medlock said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "A
goddamn genius. Send Miss Martinelli an electronic message. Get her to
talk about the interview with Wynett. See if she's filed any notes on
her computer. Will you do that for me?"

She shrugged off his hand. "Do I have a choice?"

Medlock patted her shoulder affectionately, then returned to the
conference table. "In one hour I want every piece of information you can
secure on that tanker," he said to the group, "engineering blueprints,
schematics, everything."

"What about Wynett's offer?" Lieutenant Hernandez said. "Are you willing
to pay his price?"

"Negative," Medlock said. "Every offer can be negotiated. I want to meet
this son of a bitch face-to-face."

Dr. Shaw stared at her computer monitor, her arms folded defiantly
across her chest. Spying on Julie was too easy. She simply could share
her computer session and open any file on Julie's personal storage disk
for General Medlock's inspection. That was worse than spying; that was
prying into Julie's personal mail. "Sorry, honey," she said to the
screen.

Chapter Thirty-two.

The U.S. Eastern Seaboard

Wednesday, 0603 hours

Capt. Sergio Carlucci moved carefully among the melange of crates and
steel containers Gorgon's soldiers had stacked in the ship's lower
pumping room. The inventory of armaments was as unconventional as it was
extensive. He ran his fingers over an unopened crate's military symbols
and serial numbers, speculating what new weapon lay hidden inside. How
powerful?

And for what purpose?

He stole frequent glances at two mercenaries assembling a curious piece
of military hardware that reminded him of a Galling gun, only much
larger. They worked quickly and with seasoned mastery, transforming
unassuming pieces of metal into a formidable weapon. When finished, they
would install it on the ship's upper deck, Carlucci figured, as they had
done with other exotic killing machines they had brought with them. The
soldiers allowed him to watch. Gorgon wanted Carlucci to see the extent
of his considerable firepower, a strong persuasion against resisting.
Besides, Carlucci still was Lucy's master. His orders were to operate
the ship normally; see that everything about Lucy's journey remained
absolutely routine--or as routine as seventeen highly trained killers
would allow. To do that he needed limited freedom, including access to
the lower decks. The captain took full advantage of this privilege to
investigate the extent of Gorgon's hold on his vessel, probing for
weaknesses. So far he had found none. Carlucci slipped into the pump
room's maintenance shop, one of the few areas that had been specified
off-limits to him. No one was inside. He spotted the cylinders
immediately. At first he mistook them for beer kegs; they were the same
relative size and shape. But vats of beer would have been grossly out of
place among Gorgon's crates of armaments. Five in all and arranged
neatly against the far wall, these were no ordinary containers. He knelt
before the first and ran his hand down its gunmetal gray surface. It was
unlike anything he had ever seen before, each tank capped with a very
sophisticated, very strong valve mechanism. He was afraid to touch it
again. Were they bombs? If so, they resembled nothing like he had ever
seen during his sixteen years as a naval officer. He stood and surveyed
the rest of the workshop. On a bench sat six disassembled conical
projectiles, each a meter high. They reminded him of missiles, except
smaller. He moved to them, sticking his nose to within inches of one,
scrutinizing the integrated circuit boards inside- They were warheads,
he realized, warheads for missiles. Next to the workbench sat an open
crate containing tubelike cylinders, each the same relative shape and
size of a wine bottle. There were dozens of them in this single crate,
and there were many crates. He tapped one of the cylinders with his
pencil. Hollow. Empty tubes and warheads. How would they figure in
Gorgon's plan? He looked again at the larger keglike tanks,
deliberating. Somehow they were the key, he knew. Carlucci checked the
bulkhead door to see who was watching him. No one was coming; no one
knew he was in here. His confidence rising, he returned to the larger
tanks and probed the valve on the first, determined to learn Gorgon's
secrets. The valve was made of a material more durable than steel. He
tried to move what he thought must be the valve's lever. Frozen. Only
someone intimately familiar with this mechanism--an engineer--could open
these tanks, he concluded.

He would have to find another way to open them. The notion hit him with
a rush of excitement. If these tanks were crucial to Gorgon's plan as he
believed they were, opening them might render him impotent. Tampering
also could get him killed, he realized. Was his life too high a price to
pay to thwart Gorgon? He thought not. The last twelve hours had been
worse than any nightmare. His men, good men under his care, were dead.
He had allowed them to die. This moment offered him perhaps his only
chance to stop the madness that had overtaken his ship and avenge the
deaths of his crew. Take it!

He pulled a pair of pliers from his coat pocket. Too small, too
ineffective. A wrench lay on top of an oil drum. He seized it and
considered the fourteen-pound steel tool. Too large for the tanks'
valve, it nonetheless might prove useful. Did he have the courage to go
through with it? Did he have the courage to die?

Captain Carlucci swept around, wrench in hand, and hovered over the
first tank. Gazing downward, he saw the container as his own coffin.
There was only his own heartbeat and the deep rumble of the ship's
engine. His father had once told him that conquerors and cowards feel
exactly the same fear. Conquerors just respond to fear differently. He
raised the wrench high over his head and brought it down onto the tank's
valve. The blow produced a crash that echoed through the ship's lower
hold, yet it hardly dented the metal. He would have to work harder--much
harder. He raised the wrench and began hammering the valve again and
again, some blows finding their mark, others bouncing harmlessly off the
tank's side. Open, you son of a bitch! But the tank remained stubbornly
intact, refusing to succumb to his attack. When Carlucci raised the
wrench for perhaps the tenth time, his (open partition refined chart
him. "Refined crude oil," Gorgon explained, "is sent to distribution
terminals throughout the country through a pipeline net-work such as
this one. To isolate one product from the next-|a higher octane gasoline
from a lower octane product--a t-lcylindrical separator known as a 'pig'
is put into the pipe population ahead of each product." He picked up the
orange, ribbed circled object. "This is a pig designed for a petroleum
pipeline. It rides something firm and strong caught his hand in midair
and held it tightly. Wheezing, out of breath, he glanced helplessly
upward. Another hand, easily the size and strength of a bear's and
possessing the strength to crush his bones with a single flex, held him
immobile. The solid, mechanized clicks of cocking shotguns drew his
attention to the hatchway. Two soldiers stood inside the maintenance
room, ready to fire. Gorgon twisted the wrench from Carlucci's hand. The
captain winced in agony. "You made a grave mistake," Gorgon said,
tossing the wrench aside. He stooped to inspect the tank's damaged valve
and frowned. "One more day. I need you alive only one more day."

Carlucci didn't comprehend any of it. "Why? To what end will all this
serve?"

Gorgon allowed a smile, an expression of sympathy for those
insignificants who would never understand his destiny. "You will never
understand why. You only need know that your kind will pay with blood
for the sins of your leaders. As for how, it is time you learned who I
am and what role you are playing in the new world I will fashion. Come
with me. I will show you something."

Gorgon and Carlucci rode the tiny service elevator up to the
superstructure's master deck, one level below the bridge. They entered
the captain's quarters. Behind a glass partition four of Gorgon's men
hovered over a conference table layered with charts, maps and diagrams.
Gorgon led Carlucci to the head of the table so he could see everything.
The captain gazed down at a marine chart scribed with a detailed route
into the Chesapeake Bay and ending in the York River at West Point.
Another sheet was a comprehensive schematic of a refinery. A third was a
diagram of the refinery's off-loading dock. Still another drawing, the
most puzzling to the captain, detailed a product pipeline the work
starting at Yorktown and leading to major do] centers throughout the
east-southeastern United States. in red were New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore/Washington, [Richmond, Atlanta and Jacksonville. He understood
little of |what he saw. On the table sat one of the tube-shaped
cylinders Carlucci had found in the crate in the maintenance shop. This
one was open, its top unscrewed and sitting to one side. Inside was a
thermal vessel, capped with a small valve. The cylinder's interior
reminded Carlucci of a miniature version of the larger tank he had tried
to open. He couldn't take his eyes off it. Next to the cylinder sat a
curious-looking orange object made of polyurethane, a foot in diameter,
with ribbed sides. "The tanks you treated so irreverently," Gorgon said,
"hold a genetically altered vims developed by the United States
military. If you had succeeded in opening the tank, we all would be
dead. I have enough and more of the organism to kill every man, woman
and child in North America and in every ally nation in the U.N."

Carlucci shook his head. "Even if this ... this ... weapon is what you
say, you cannot use it. The movement of this tanker is severely
restricted. And she is slow."

Gorgon laughed wickedly. "The voyage of this tanker is only the means.
Captain, not the end. Tonight you will dock and off-load your cargo as
scheduled." He drew the pipeline schematic to him. "Look at this
diagram; Yorktown represents the beginning of a major distribution
network for transporting refined crude throughout the north and
southeast United States. No doubt you are aware how such a pipeline
system works, Captain?"

Carlucci remained silent, offering nothing that might help ahead of the
product, pushed by the pressure of the liquid behind. When it arrives at
a distribution terminal, an operator diverts the incoming product to the
appropriate storage tank. The pig is recovered in a simple relief
valve."

Gorgon picked up the cylinder from the table and handled it reverently,
as though it were a precious artifact. "One of these cylinders will be
placed inside each of my pigs. Each cylinder will carry one quart of my
organism. Tonight I will put seventy-four of these containers into the
pipeline system at Yorktown. These containers will open automatically
and release their contents the moment they are removed from the relief
valve. No other intervention is required. The contents of each container
will contaminate at least seven hundred square miles. Within twenty-four
hours, my people will be avenged." Carlucci said nothing, his mind
spinning with the enormity of Gorgon's plan. He couldn't speak, only
listen. Gorgon's voice rumbled with a volcanic fervor that spoke of his
madness. That he was entirely mad in his brilliance, Carlucci did not
doubt. Carlucci's eyes shifted to the charts, but he was unable to focus
them. At that moment he knew what he had to do, knew his destiny. He had
spent his career as a seaman protecting the ships and crews under his
command. Today he must develop a plan to destroy this ship and sink her.
A scheme began to form in his head, and he began to tremble. The ship's
closed-loop inert-gas system pumped carbon monoxide from the exhaust of
the huge diesel engine into the cargo tanks, replacing the oxygen. The
system minimized the chance of accidental combustion. That was the key.
Turn it off, and the cargo could ignite with a single spark. Gorgon
would be dead, and with him this horror he carried. Would he be allowed
near the pump-room controls? And, if so, how would he introduce that
spark?

For a long moment there was silence. Suddenly Gorgon shattered the
silence with laughter that sent tremors of dread to the core of
Carlucci's soul. "As you can see. Captain," Gorgon said, "my new order
has already begun."

Chapter Thirty-three.

Quarantine

0918 hours

"Jesus, I don't believe this."

The results from the pathology lab's Polymerase Chain Reaction unit
weren't what Julie had expected to see. The columns of numbers scrolling
down her monitor showed in great analytical detail the DNA sequence of
thousands of mutant genes in the blood cells of each sample she had
drawn the night before. Had a biological change taken place in their
systems?

Without a doubt. Would they survive? Well ... "Looks like you're having
a bad morning," a deep voice said from the doorway. "I can come back."

Julie whirled. It was Williams. "Sergeant ...  you startled me. Come in
... please." Williams, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and running shoes
soaked from a hard three-hour workout in the center's weight room,
closed the pathology lab's door behind him and approached her
workstation. His eyes were fixed on the monitor, searching for some
encouraging news among the numbers and symbols. But nothing he saw made
any sense to him. "Thought I'd drop by in case you needed something."

"You mean in case I could tell you something."

Williams dumped his huge frame into the cheap molded chair next to her.
"Now that you mention it."

For the briefest moment she considered lying to him, telling him what he
wanted to hear, that she could find nothing unusual in his blood. He'd
never know; only you can interpret the data, she thought. But lying to
her friends would only make a bad situation worse. Stop being a
caretaker and deal with this appropriately, she scolded herself.
Besides, he would know soon enough. She wanted to share her findings
with someone, share her feelings. Why not with Williams? She felt safest
around him. Why? Because he doesn't pose a romantic threat to you,
that's why. "I might know something this afternoon," she said slowly,
"after I run more tests."

"You're stalling." His congenial grin vanished, and he looked suddenly
weary and beaten. "How bad is it?"

She sighed and shook her head. Here goes. "You and Joe can forget about
Gorgon; the army will never let any of us out of here. We can all look
forward to a hefty medical disability."

"How long do we have?"

"I can't tell you that." She pressed a finger to the screen. "Do you see
these numbers?"

Williams leaned forward and stared glassy-eyed at the screen. "Don't
know what any of it means."

"I'm still running tests to find correlations from the tissue and plant
samples I took from the plantation. It'll take weeks to sift through the
data. Even then I may never get a straight answer. What's fascinating
about Saint Vitus is the fiendishly clever way it adapts to its
environment. The organism catalyzes its own replication in simple
chemical systems without the help of enzymes. That's why it spreads so
fast. It brings together two molecular building blocks to create its own
template molecule and accelerates their coupling to form a second
template. The new molecule catalyzes its own reproduction. It makes
copies of itself by promoting this reaction between its two building
blocks while they're bound to the template. It's really quite
remarkable."

Williams wore the confused look of a third-grader mistakenly stuck in a
calculus class. "Haven't a clue what you're talking about."

She smiled apologetically. "Sorry. What I'm getting at is each
generation of Saint Vitus is less toxic than the one before. Man built
artificial toxicity into the organism, while nature gives it up in
exchange for adaptability."

"Is that supposed to be good news?"

"Yes. That's why we're still alive." Julie rolled her chair away from
him and parked it in front of the lab's electronscanning microscope. She
clicked on the postcard-size display. Williams followed and peered over
her shoulder at the display's luminous circles of life. "I can show you
slides of each of our blood cells," she said. "There are abnormalities
with the same genetic fingerprint in mine, yours and Joe's cell
cytoplasm. Youngblood's sample shows no deformation because he didn't
come in direct contact with the organism on the plantation. He's the
only healthy one among us. That suggests Saint Vitus isn't airborne
contagious once it infests the host. Wynett's the worst. His blood shows
evidence of gross malignancy, which isn't surprising, considering the
length of time he was exposed to the virus. I'd like to see a magnetic
resonator image of him. He most likely has tumors in advanced stages in
his brain."

Williams let out a long, weary sigh. "After putting my ass on the line
so many times, I'm gonna buy it from a goddamn germ."

"It's too early to start planning your funeral. Sergeant. The toxicity
could take years to break down our immune systems."

Williams's brow furrowed. "Did you see the major's hand this morning?
The trembling's gotten worse."

Julie looked hard at him. "No, I haven't. Sergeant, I don't know what
this synthetic aberration in a mutated state will do to us or how long
it will take before we see symptoms--it's a total black box. And there's
something else I can't figure. I found a gene I can't identify imbedded
in the infected cells. I suspect it has something to do with a mutated
version of Saint Vitus, but I won't be sure without further testing. If
I can talk the army into giving me time on one of its Crays, I might be
able to identify the enzymes and see what Saint Vitus is up to."

Williams sank back into his chair. "I'd like to keep this between us for
now. If the brass gets wind of what you've found, they'll bury us in
here."

"They already have. I'm going to need the medical opinion of a highly
specialized team, something on the order of the NIH's Recombinant DNA
Advisory Committee. And that means turning over this data to someone on
the outside. I'll consult with my adviser. Dr. Shaw. She'll know how to
get discreet answers."

"Just make sure she can keep her mouth shut for now. When are you gonna
tell Joe?"

Julie turned away from him. ' "None of this will matter to him. He
doesn't have any feelings."

"He feels, Julie. He feels a great deal more than you're likely to ever
know. Except he's programmed not to show it."

He emphasized the word programmed as though it would mean something
special to her. "After fifteen years in the service, he's forgotten how
to show his feelings. It'd do him a world of good if you could bring him
out of his suit of armor--before he dies stuck in there. All he knows is
you'd rather talk to this computer instead of him. He needs to know you
trust him."

She looked at him, hurt. ' "This is very difficult work. I need to find
the precise shape of the virus. To do that I need to crystallize the
protein, then take a long series of X-ray pictures. Processing these
photos through a computer will give me a three-dimensional image."

Williams rolled his eyes. "There you go, making excuses just like those
workaholic assholes in Washington who only know how to organize
committees. When you sit in front of that screen you're a queen in your
own world. Safe and sound. The computer doesn't talk back to you or make
you feel vulnerable; it does just what you tell it to do. You control
it. It's safe, as close to a kingdom as you're likely to find ... except
there's no people in there."

"What's your point. Sergeant?"

"Don't have a point, except the way I see it you're using your work to
avoid Joe--same as Joe's using Gorgon to bury his feelings for you.
Maybe a man like Joe is something you've never experienced before. And
you're not comfortable with the way he makes you feel."

"Sergeant--"

"So go back to your keyboard; it won't reject you. At this rate you'll
both become just like your machines--you a computer, him a tank."

Julie sat speechless. He couldn't possibly know how she felt about her
work or about Marshall. Deep down, though, she knew he was flirting with
the truth. You're afraid Joe will reject you, abandon you. And that
scares the hell out of you. Williams was on his feet, heading for the
door. "You've got work to do and I need a shower." He opened the lab's
door, turned and added, "Maybe you'll live long enough to find out what
you're missing--about Joe, that is."

USAMRIID Fort Detrick General Medlock's hand remained frozen around a
polystyrene cup half filled with cold, black coffee. It had been a long
night. He needed sleep, and his drawn expression showed it. He had
removed himself from the discussion around the conference room table to
mentally devour several pages of statistics on crude oil tankers
registered to U.S. oil companies. On one of the pages an analyst had
highlighted the name Lucy, an eighty-thousand-deadweight-ton oil tanker
registered to Universal Oil Marine Transport Company in Houston. An
eighty-thousand-deadweight-ton oil tanker--that translated to six
hundred thousand barrels of crude oil. Maj. Samuel Higgins, bert's
logistics officer, was on his feet, listing the technical issues of the
crisis on an electronic "chalkboard" that could print out hard copies of
anything written on it with a washable marker. "Lucy loads medium
gravity crude from Universal's oil fields in Venezuela. She has a
cruising radius of seventeen-thousand nautical miles. Her route takes
her across the Caribbean, up the United States' Eastern Seaboard to the
Chesapeake Bay, where she'll dock at her company's refinery in
Yorktown."

"It fits." Medlock grunted. "Lucy's perfect, sir," said Lieutenant
Hernandez, a young officer with serious lines of maturity blemishing his
baby-smooth features. "She's small by tanker standards, which means she
won't need special port handling. Fully laden and retrofitted with
armaments, she'd pose one hell of a threat if he intends to use her to
gain entry to this country. At the very least he can threaten a
first-class oil spill if we try to intercept her--that's if Gorgon
doesn't release the bug first. That bastard's got himself a floating
fortress."

Medlock stared over his coffee cup at Lieutenant Hernandez with eyes
cast in steel. "You sound like you wish you were on that goddamn ship
with him."

The young lieutenant's enthusiastic grin evaporated like a desert
mirage. "Sir, I was only pointing out--"

"Where the hell is Lucy's schedule?" Major Higgins interrupted. "We need
to find out where she picks up a river pilot."

He thrust his marker at Lieutenant Hernandez. "Get on the horn to
Universal's headquarters in Houston and find out where Lucy is now and
which pilot station she uses. Find out if anybody's noticed any change
in her routine radio messages. I want to know if she's done anything out
of the ordinary."

Lieutenant Hernandez punched a preprogrammed button on his phone and
relayed the major's instructions to his staff. "Let's ask Universal to
take a look," Major Higgins suggested. "One of their choppers can drop
in for a surprise inspection."

"Negative," Medlock said. "When we find out where she picks up a pilot,
we'll put in our own num. Though I'd bet Gorgon won't allow a pilot
anywhere near the vessel.*' "He won't have a choice."

The phone in front of Lieutenant Hernandez rang. Thirty seconds later
the lieutenant relayed to the group: "Houston says Lucy's last routine
message came three hours ago over the Marisat channel. She's at
thirty-seven degrees north latitude and seventy-six degrees west
longitude, approaching the Chesapeake Bay. She'll arrive at the pilot
station offshore of Cape Henry this afternoon. She's scheduled to dock
at the company's Yorktown refinery at 1830 hours tonight. And so far
there's been nothing unusual about her voyage. Let me take this to a
Code Yellow, sir."

Medlock shut his report with a snap. "Negative. Let's go slow and easy
until we get more facts. Make a call to the joint chiefs and brief them.
Meanwhile let's try to get a man aboard on a recon. Find an enlisted
seaman who can pilot that tanker upriver and get him wired. If they
won't let him aboard, that'll at least tell us what we need to know. If
I have to I'll call the Chief of Naval Operations and have him order a
blockade."

Dr. Theodore Gruber, bert's science consultant, cleared his throat
apologetically while running his fingers through his surviving wisps of
white hair that always drifted up and outward. Slouched in a bland blue
blazer and gray slacks that looked like he'd just awakened wearing
them--and he had-Gruber was an MIT engineering professor, who last year
headed Raytheon's technology development program. "Excuse me,
gentlemen," he said. "I believe this Gorgon fellow has made a serious
er-or." All eyes shifted to Gruber. Medlock said, "Let's have it, Ted."

"A Procyon missile," Gruber said, making copious notes on the yellow
legal pad in front of him, "is designed to deliver an explosive warhead
with a maximum range of nine hundred and fifty nautical miles. Let's
assume he is using a conventional warhead canister that jettisons on
reentry and spins to the ground while dispersing its contents--the only
way a bacterial and chemical agent can disperse from a warhead."

"What are you getting at?" Medlock spat, impatient. Gruber slid back his
chair, walked slightly stooped to the head of the table and took the
black marker from Major Higgins. He wiped off several of Higgins's notes
on the board to make room for his crude sketch of the slope of a missile
path from the tanker. "As designed, the missiles' trajectory is far too
steep for the warhead, and upon reentry it would be traveling much too
fast."

Medlock leaned back thoughtfully in his chair, touching his fingertips
together. "Ted, are you saying his warheads won't work?"

"Not unless he's reengineered the boosters to reduce the trajectory and
speed--and that would take a team of engineers and technicians. It's a
gamble, to be sure. And to complicate matters for him, a storm front is
moving across the northeast seaboard from the west, and he's riding
straight into it. Dispersing an airborne toxin in thirty-knot winds
would be ineffectual. No, he must have something else planned. Perhaps
he is taking the neurotoxin inland for a larger attack."

"That's why we're not going to let him reach that refinery," Medlock
said. "The only question is how."

"I say our best option is a covert commando assault of the vessel,"
Major Higgins said. "Once on board, a commando team can neutralize the
missiles by simply taking out the electronics truck. Then Gorgon's
vulnerable to a full-scale assault."

Medlock nodded. The speed of organizing a small, covert assault force
intrigued him. At the very least it was the genesis of a plan--a solid
plan. "Too many unanswered questions, too many risks," the general said.
"If we're to have any chance at all, we must do a recon of the tanker
first. I want to know how many men Gorgon has on board, where he keeps
the tanks and even what they look like. That's going to take a lot more
time than we have."

"Perhaps not," Gruber said, wiping his writing hand on a blue tie
emblazoned with golden statistical symbols. He looked directly at Dr.
Shaw seated in the far corner of the room. "Would you kindly download
and print out Julie Martinelli's Collated data on the organism? I need
to know if they are still airborne contagious." Then he appealed to
Medlock, his exhausted, academic features enlivened. "I think it's time
you cut a deal with this Carl Wynett."

The White House Oval Office 1154 hours

The president and Senator Baker were absorbed in a lively discussion
about the limits of Hussein's nuclear capability when Michael Brennan
was shown into the Oval Office. Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, Brennan didn't need an appointment to meet with his boss. He had
access to the president twenty-four hours a day. Unassuming and sporting
horned-rimmed glasses and a crew cut, Brennan looked more like a staff
accountant than head of the world's most powerful intelligence
organization. The president and his guest turned in unison as Brennan
entered the office, their discussion ending abruptly. "Excuse me, Mr.
President, Senator Baker," Brennan began, sporting uncharacteristically
serious lines on his usually benign features. The president gestured the
CIA director to a blue highbacked chair beside him, inviting him into
their circle of discussion. "What is it, Mike? I don't like it when you
get that look on your face."

Senator Baker touched the president's arm. "Perhaps I should go."

The president looked at Brennan for affirmation. "What about it, Mike?
Want him to leave?"

Brennan sat down stiffly on the proffered blue suede chair in front of
the office's ornate fireplace. "That's not necessary, sir. This also
concerns the senator. In fact, in a way he started this whole business."

Senator Baker hid his curiosity beneath an expression that remained
nonconunitally passive. "Whatever you say," the president conceded.
Deliberately, and with what seemed to the others glacially slowly,
Brennan removed his glasses and used a handkerchief to wipe the oil from
beneath each eye. Then he tucked the handkerchief inside his coat and
cleared his throat. ' "Mr. President ...  a situation has developed that
I think you should know about."

Chapter Thirty-four.

Quarantine

1300 hours

Marshall knocked twice on the door and didn't wait for permission before
slipping into her room. He found Julie sitting at the small circular
table, her father's Beretta lying before her like a funeral wreath. She
had been grieving, which her dark glistening eyes affirmed. Startled by
his unexpected appearance, she quickly wiped away her tears with the
back of her hand and brushed back her hair with her fingers. "You're not
welcome in here right now," she said, fumbling through her sweater
pockets for a tissue. "Please respect my space."

"I knocked first."

She looked at him coldly, then blew her nose into a tissue. "I want to
be alone."

"You're always alone." He closed the door quietly behind him and walked
around her bed, slowly, his eyes drifting down to her father's Beretta.
He took the weapon slowly into his hand and felt his mentor's strength
in its heavy, elegant metal. He sat down on her bed and contemplated the
weapon, paying his respects to its owner. The gun was so much like the
colonel. It was as though he were here with them, his soul residing in
this finely crafted handgun. "It reminds me of him," she said at last,
tucking the spent tissue into her sweater pocket. Marshall looked
thoughtfully at her. He didn't tell her that those were his thoughts
too. "He once told me," she said, "that a gun gives a man a perverse
power only God should have. Still, I love it. It reminds me of who he
was, what he was. I never touched his guns, but I can't let go of this
one ... I can't let go of him."

Marshall saw the Beretta for what it really was: a handsome handgun
without a magazine clip, an impotent piece of metal unable to protect
its owner. Useless. The Beretta was just like him: a custom-made, finely
tuned weapon, unable to do its job. Marshall replaced the Beretta
reverently on the table in front of her. "I'll never forget him."

Despite her best effort to control herself, tears rolled freely down her
cheeks. She was vulnerable now, he could see. She wasn't accustomed to
showing her feelings, especially intense new ones. "Joe," she said, her
voice unsteady, "I ...  made some terrible mistakes. I ..." She reached
as though to touch him, kept her hand there, but dared go no further. He
took her hand and completed the bond she seemed reluctant to make. His
touch gave her strength and lifted a great burden from her. She felt
safe. "I miss him so much. I'm nothing without him."

"You're everything without him," Marshall said firmly. "You're the
strongest woman I know."

Julie forced a smile. "I've been thinking about how everything has
changed since he died. How I've changed. Without him I have no compass,
no one to guide me. How am I going to make it on my own, Joe?"

"You don't need anyone to guide you." He tugged on her arm ever so
slightly. She slid off the chair easily, as though waiting for his cue,
and almost landed in his lap on the bed. He slid his arms around her.
"What if I told you that I'm the one who needs you."

Julie wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him more tightly than
she intended, pressing her face into his strong, muscular neck. She wept
freely, no longer ashamed to hide her tears from him. The man in her
arms wasn't her father, yet she felt as though she could share her most
intimate feelings with him. He was a more potent reservoir of strength
than she had ever dreamed. His effect on her was liberating. "Oh, Joe.
I've treated you terribly."

"Forget it. We're exactly the same, you and I, shaped from the same
mold. We can help each other." He pushed her gently away from him so he
could look deep into her moist brown eyes. She returned his gaze, unable
to speak. A rush of compassion filled him, and he saw her for the great
woman she was. He felt an overwhelming desire for her, coupled with a
profound respect for her frail vulnerabilities and insecurities. He
leaned forward and kissed her lips ever so lightly. They felt wonderful.
When he drew away, she looked at him, and they both knew it was
right--no, perfect--to be together. This time she kissed him, a long,
deep, lingering kiss that set new boundaries. A great exhilaration
seized her, obliterating every fear and regret within her soul. She
kissed him again, and this time there was a painful urgency in her kiss,
as though this were the last time she would be with a man. She was
hungry for him. It was Julie who undressed Marshall, pushing him down on
the bed with gentle insistence, then taking her time exploring his
strong, handsome contours as she removed each item of his clothing. She
smiled as she ran her hands admiringly over his muscular chest, then
brushed a finger playfully over his face, feeling his sandpaper-rough
week-old beard. She loved the musky way he smelled. He watched her,
happily, feeling his excitement build as she handled him. Her touch was
electric, and she could readily see the effect it was having on him. She
wanted to keep him prone and continue touching him, but he didn't let
her--not yet. Instead, smiling, he sat up and pushed her back onto the
bed and undressed her completely. And he too was pleased by what he saw.
Her body was absolutely perfect. He pulled her into his arms, though
awkwardly, new lovers that they were. Pressed against him, she felt
indescribably warm and wonderful. The clumsiness passed, and quickly,
naturally, they became one. "You feel so good," she breathed into his
ear. He ran his hands down the supple curves of her back. "So do you,"
he whispered, than locked her in another deep kiss. They explored each
other's mouths, letting go completely, giving themselves freely to each
other.

USAMRHD

1330 hours

General Medlock pushed his way into the interrogation room and looked
questioningly at Lieutenant Hernandez standing by the door, waiting for
him. "He'll talk only to you," the lieutenant said. "Then get your men
out of here," Medlock snapped. The lieutenant led his staff quickly from
the room, and Medlock secured the door behind him. The general dragged a
folding chair across the concrete floor with a screech and sat down in
front of Wynett. "So start talking."

"I regret that this meeting must be a short one," Wynett said. "Simply
stated, I sold Abdul Banna the armaments to defend the ship and I know
how he will use them. You are in a very dangerous situation. General. I
do not envy you. An explosion on any of the tanker's decks will effect
the release of the organism you wish to contain. Your mistake now could
cost millions of lives. If you are to have any chance at all, you must
take immediate action. Unfortunately, that puts you at a negotiating
disadvantage."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means. General, that in exchange for my information in any quantity
and quality I choose to give, you will give me exactly what I want."

"And that is?"

"I need a supercutter to escort me to the oil tanker Lucy while she
still is on the Chesapeake Bay. Once under way, I will supply you with
information that will allow your men to board the vessel and disable the
Procyon missiles. That is all I can offer you. The rest will be up to
you."

Medlock scowled. "That's insane. Why the hell would you want to meet
Gorgon now?"

"I have unfinished business with him."

"Maybe you want to team up with him again. Maybe he needs you with him
before he can carry out his attack."

"That is the first risk you must take. General, time is short and I need
to ask you one question."

"No one's stopping you."

"I am dying, am I not?"

Medlock shrugged. "Ask a doctor."

"Sir, you must be candid with me if we are to continue our business
relationship. I am certain that you know the results of Miss
Martinelli's blood tests. I simply am asking you to share them with me."

General Medlock let his breath out in a long sigh. "Yeah, you're dying."
He waited for him to react. When he didn't, he added, "A brain tumor."

Wynett nodded, and his eyes grew distant and reflective. "I suspected as
much from the headaches. Then let us begin. What a fine tomb Lucy will
make."

The White House Situation Room

1415 hours

General Medlock walked briskly
to the foot of the elongated table and stood almost at attention across
from the president of the United States, who faced him with his hands
locked behind his back. Medlock quickly scanned the room. Around the
table sat the director of the CIA, the chairman of the joint chiefs and
the national security adviser--the men who embodied the president's
mantle of power, whose faces he knew. In the corner lurked an
ashen-faced Senator Baker, conspicuously avoiding the general's gaze.
There were no aides present. A pessimistic mood hung over the room like
a noxious cloud of smoke. The president quickly drew the general into
their circle of discussion. "I'm not at all pleased," he began, "with
the way this situation has been handled. I understand you've been
managing this disaster ever since the organism was stolen from Detrick.
What I can't understand is how you allowed matters to come to this. I'm
appalled that Saddam's terror group has penetrated U.S. territory under
our noses, carrying with them this ... this ... scourge of yours." The
president almost spat in disgust. General Medlock frowned; Saint Vitus
wasn't his. "Sir--"

"I want this stopped," the president said, glaring at the general as
though Gorgon were coming after him personally, "and I want it done
immediately. If you can't do it, damn it, I want somebody who can. That
organism must not be released, not by a missile, not by any means. My
God, this can precipitate a plague the likes of which  ..." He grew
rigid, a hand on his forehead, barely containing his rage. When his
passion quelled, he continued, though strained. "Under no circumstances
can this incident become public. He's trying to castrate me with my own
knife. I won't become the brunt of an international scandal over this
abomination, regardless of how this situation turns out. Most of all, I
don't want an Iraqi victory hanging over my head, not now, not ever."
The president hurled the words at him, hammered them at him. "Sir--" The
president raised a hand, his face drawn and bitter. He damn well
intended to get his way. "I don't want an explanation, General. I want
you to carry out a single directive."

"Yes, sir."

"After considering every option, we have only one choice"--the room was
silent, all eyes on the president--"a tactical thermonuclear warhead."

There it was. The phrase floater in the air like the very plague the
solution was meant to stop. No one dared move, no one dared breathe it
in for fear of contamination. Medlock was the first to react, his lips
parting in a bleak, wintery smile. The president looked at him,
astonished. "Did I say something funny. General?"

"Sir, a nuclear detonation over the ship is a drastic step that will
hardly keep this incident quiet--"

"For the past three-quarters of an hour," the president said, "these
gentlemen and I have been debating every option to resolve this crisis,
from effecting an assassination of Hussein to doing absolutely nothing.
The joint chiefs are already at Code Yellow and are standing by to
address Congress. This is an act of war. Saddam believes Allah has given
him another chance. We've considered every available option and each
poses a risk that his terrorists will launch those missiles-every
option, that is, except one. We agree that a nuclear detonation in U.S.
waters, however abhorrent, is preferable to the release of the organism.
A point-one-megaton nuclear warhead is just large enough to vaporize the
ship, while evaporating most of the crude oil and scattering the remains
over a four-mile area. If we detonate before the tanker reaches the
Chesapeake Bay, the impact on civilian areas will be minimal. Drastic?
Yes. Effective? One hundred percent."

"The fallout--"

"We'll evacuate. The radiation will dissipate out to sea, unlike your
monster that breeds and spreads."

"Sir, what you're suggesting poses unacceptable risks, not to mention
the scandal of nuking our own waters."

The president's glance circled the room; he seemed to be debating
whether to share with the general an ugly secret. "The U.N. weapons
inspection team in Iraq," the president said slowly, "has already made
public Hussein's attempts to test a primitive nuclear device. Iraqi
scientists have openly declared to United Nations inspectors that they
are rebuilding Iraq's nuclear weapons program. We will fabricate
evidence that this maniac smuggled a small-yield nuclear device into
U.S. waters aboard the tanker and detonated it. No scientific
investigation team will be able to discern the difference. Sure, a lot
of people will want my ass when this is over. But I'm sure the American
people will stand behind me when I initiate a plan to finally overthrow
that tyrant."

General Medlock placed his hands palm-down on the table's mirrorlike
mahogany surface and leaned forward. "With all due respect, sir, let me
offer you another option. We don't believe Gorgon plans to launch the
Procyons. We believe the missiles are merely a backup threat to
camouflage a larger operation, the scale of which we can only speculate.
A Special Forces team is standing by in Oceana to carry out a covert
assault on the tanker. We can deal with this quietly and effectively; no
one need know this organism or Saddam's terrorist plot ever existed."

Warily, the president listened to the general, hoping to hear another
way out of this crisis, but in the end he wasn't persuaded. He shook his
head. "The organism is a great threat to the American people, regardless
of how he intends to use it or when. The bastard's smirking at us, for
chrissake. He knows this country--any country--is entirely vulnerable to
this sort of attack. We've got a fleet of warships and attack aircraft
standing by at Oceana ready to sink that tanker, yet we can't use them.
We can't use them. This is worse than nuclear blackmail. No, General. I
wish there was another way out of this, but every minute we allow that
tanker to continue, we are risking more lives. There simply isn't time
for further discussion."

"Then allow a compromise, sir, one that won't undermine your option."

"What is it?"

"We'll stand by with your nuclear option. The moment something goes
wrong with my plan--if any bugs are released or a launch becomes
imminent--we nuke the ship, special op team and all. We can accept the
sacrifice in the interest of saving a lot more lives. You can have it
both ways."

The president didn't like the general's proposal. He wanted guarantees,
which only the nuclear option seemed to provide. Too much was at
stake--perhaps even his own life. During the planning of the liberation
of Kuwait, the joint chiefs had quickly ruled out a nuclear option as
unnecessary. In this situation not only was it necessary, but
mandatory--and in U.S. waters! Could he really have it both ways? He
wished it were so. "No deal," the president said. "Sir, my commandos are
the best. The elite from every Special Forces unit--SEALS, Delta, Green
Berets ... We're patched into the navy's LINK II combat information
system and are monitoring the tanker's movements from our control center
in a hangar at Andrews Airfield. We're ready to move. The name of the
operation is Maximum Containment."

For a full minute the president said nothing, his back to the group. The
silence was frightening. Then he turned, riveted an acute glare at
Medlock and said, ' "General, can you guarantee me one hundred percent
that the organism will not be released?"

Medlock drew in a deep breath and told the president what he wanted to
hear. "Yes, sir."

"Then you have my authority to act. And God damn your soul if you're
wrong."

Chapter Thirty-five.

Quarantine

1700 hours

"He's gone," Julie whispered into his ear. Marshall woke suddenly from
the deepest sleep he had enjoyed in a month, with no idea where he was
and no memory of how he had gotten here. Dream-soaked images of Julie
swirled through his mind. Had he just heard her voice or was he still
asleep? Then the events of the afternoon came flooding back, and he
remembered he was in her bed. It felt good. His desire for her stirred
again when he smelled her sweetness flowing over him and saw her
standing above him. He wrestled her down onto the bed, rolled on top of
her and drove his semi-tough member between her legs. She was fully
clothed in an abrasive jumpsuit. "Did you hear what I just said?" Julie
said, pushing him off her. "Wynett's gone."

"Jesus." Marshall fumbled in the darkness to find his watertight
chronometer on the table. The luminous dial said he had been asleep for
more than three hours. He switched on the lamp. "Gone? What do you mean
gone?"

Julie sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "We searched
the whole frigging center, and the son of a bitch isn't here. Williams
and Youngblood are going through every room again."

Marshall pulled on his jockey briefs with a snap and stormed out of her
room and down the hallway, his bare feet slapping the sterile linoleum.
His mind was racing. Gone?

How was it possible?

He found Williams sitting cross-armed at one of the lounge's tables and
noted the sergeant's look of frustration. The remains of a penny-poker
game and empty Coke cans littered the table, while Clan Fogelberg's
"Part of the Plan" blared from the center's audio system. "Going to
church in your Sunday best, Joe?" Williams snorted as the major charged
through the lounge. Marshall, clad only in barely adequate briefs,
jabbed the CD player's off button with his index finger. "So where is
he?"

"Hell if I know," Williams said. "But he ain't in here."

"How thoroughly did you check the pathology lab?" Marshall asked. "He's
nutty enough to lock himself inside a goddamn freezer."

"He ain't here," Williams repeated, a note of annoyance in his voice.
Youngblood strode into the lounge and dumped himself into a chair across
from Williams. "You're not going to believe what I just saw." The pilot
paused to survey Marshall's perspiring chest and briefs and knew he had
just crawled from the sack. Julie's sack? He watched disapprovingly as
she tossed Marshall a pair of khaki pants and a long-sleeved flannel
shirt. ' "Believe what?" Marshall demanded. "Medlock's people pulled
Wynett out of here," Youngblood said. Marshall stepped into the khakis.
"What are you saying?

How do you know?"

Youngblood cocked his thumb in the general direction of the center's
communications room. "I saw it on the outside monitors. A bunch of
officers whisked Wynett out to the helipad and loaded him onto a UH-1B
troop transport chopper. It's on tape, if you'd like to see for
yourself. My guess is a delegation of top brass will follow in the VIP
command chopper; the pilot's started his preflight."

"Don't look now, ladies," Marshall said, buttoning his flannel shirt,
"but I think we've just been conned."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Julie asked. "We're not contagious, and
Medlock knows it."

Marshall stormed down the corridor, slipped inside the phone room,
lifted the receiver and waited an impatient thirty seconds for someone
to answer. A woman finally said, "How can I help you?"

"Talk to me. What the hell's going on up there?"

"This is Sergeant Mcginnis. I'm filling in for Lieutenant Lowe, who
isn't available. What can I do for you?"

"Where are they taking Wynett?"

Her youthful voice dropped a full octave. "I'm sorry. Major. I'm not
authorized to give you any information. General Medlock will brief you
personally in the morning. I have strict instructions. I'm sorry."

"Let me speak to someone whose nose isn't buried six inches past the
brass's sphincter."

"I have strict instructions, sir. I'm sorry." Her tone had taken on the
dull, mechanical quality of an answering machine. He threw down the
receiver. "This is bullshit."

"Meet me in the computer lab in two minutes," Julie hollered down the
hallway. "And dress warmly."

Marshall scrambled out of the telephone room. "Say what?"

"I'm getting us out of here," Julie said, then disappeared into her
computer lab. "You heard what the lady said," Marshall said, his
adrenaline pumping. "Move your asses and dress warmly."

Marshall hustled back to his quarters and grabbed his boots and a pair
of wool socks from his closet before joining the others in the computer
lab. They were all putting on extra layers of flannel shirts and tucking
them into overalls. Williams was strapping his wicked black-blade
serrated knife to his right ankle, while Julie sat in front of her
computer, her favorite coffee mug, half-filled and cold, in her hand.
Beside the terminal lay her father's Beretta. Marshall slid his chair
next to Julie's and stomped his boot on. "So tell me your little secret.
How are you going to get us out of here?"

"While you were on the phone," she said, "I found a message waiting for
me in my electronic in-basket."

"What's it say?"

Youngblood and Williams pressed behind them as Julie jabbed the
keyboard's PF2 key to access her incoming electronic mail. The main menu
gave way to a screenful of addresses and subject lines listed in the
descending order in which they were received. At the top of the list was
a message from a Dr. N. Shaw. "Who's N. Shaw?" Marshall asked. "Nancy's
my Stanford adviser." Julie pressed the PF1 key to view the note:
julie-I'M SORRY I DIDN'T TELL YOU BEFORE THAT I'M HERE AT DETRICK TWO
FLOORS ABOVE YOU. I'M UNDER A STRICT GAG ORDER. THERE'S A TASK FORCE UP
HERE LISTENING AND WATCHING EVERYTHING YOU SAY AND DO. WYNETT HAS
INSISTED ON MEETING GORGON'S HUACKED OIL TANKER, WHICH WILL REACH THE
CHESAPEAKE BAY IN ABOUT TWO HOURS. A COVERT ASSAULT TEAM WILL BOARD AND
ATTEMPT TO STOP HIM. THEY'RE CALLING THE OPERATION MAXIMUM CONTAINMENT.
ALL HELL'S BREAKING LOOSE UP HERE WHILE MEDLOCK GETS READY TO FLY TO HIS
COMMAND HANGAR AT ANDREWS AIRFIELD. I'M NOT SURE WHERE THE TROOPS ARE
STAGING. THE GENERAL DOESN'T WANT YOU INVOLVED. I WANTED YOU TO KNOW
WHAT'S GOING ON--I'M TIRED OF ALL THE SECRETS AND ALL THE BULLSHIT. MY
JOB HERE IS JUST ABOUT FINISHED ANYWAY AND I'M GLAD. SORRY I HAD TO BE
SO SNEAKY. PLEASE HIT PF4 NOW TO DELETE THIS NOTE. NANCY "Bastards have
been spying on us all along," Youngblood said. Marshall put a finger to
his lips, signaling each of them to remain quiet. He whispered into
Julie's ear, "Get me out of here."

She grabbed her legal pad, scribbled a note and showed it to them. Any
idea where they're taking Wynett?

Marshall snatched her pad of paper and pen and scribbled, My bet is
Oceana. That's three hours minimum. He thought a moment, then finished.
That's IF we can drive a car out of here. "I vote we follow Wynett in a
chopper," Youngblood whispered.

Marshall responded with a questioning shrug. Youngblood grabbed the pad
of paper from Williams and wrote. There's a chopper on the helipad.
Marshall laughed out loud when he read Youngblood's note. "You've been
hanging out with Wynett too long." Youngblood said, "I don't think you
have any other option."

"I think it's a splendid idea," Julie said. "They're treating Wynett
like a goddamn VIP. Well, I'm not letting him get away scot-free.
Besides, we're plumb out of time." She typed a command into her
computer, slid back in her chair and bit her lower lip. They all watched
the word watt appear briefly in the lower left corner of the screen
before the screen returned to the system prompt. Marshall said, "What
are you up to?"

Julie raised her hand for silence. They all listened but heard nothing.
They sat there for ten seconds waiting for something to happen ...
twenty ...

Nothing did. Youngblood shook his head. "All dressed up and
nowhere--"

"Quiet!" Marshall shouted. More silence. Youngblood, smirking, stepped
into the hallway and mocked, "No one here 'cept us ghosts ..." He
stopped, his jaw dropping. "Well, I'll be the south end of a northbound
horse."

Marshall stood suddenly. "What is it?"

Julie too was on her feet, her expression hopeful. "The crash
door"--Youngblood looked at the major, his face wide-eyed and
boyish--"is open."

Marshall bolted into the hallway. Youngblood was right; the
electronically controlled door leading into the receiving-dock area
stood ajar. Beyond it they could hear the muted sound of a larger
mechanical door moving--the service-bay door to the outside. "Yes!"
Williams said, his fist raised in victory. Marshall swept Julie into a
bear hug as she dashed from the lab. "You're beautiful."

"Nothing to it." She laughed, hugging his neck. "A simple shell program
I put together last night in case of an emergency."

Suddenly the center's emergency red lights began flashing and the alarms
erupted in a deafening cacophony of sound. A metallic, emotionless voice
boomed over the intercom: "Quarantine has been breached. Do not attempt
to leave quarantine. Repeat. Do not attempt to leave quarantine."

"We're screwed if that door shuts!" Julie shouted. The four of them
sprinted down the hallway. "Quarantine has been breached. Do not attempt
to leave quarantine."

Marshall burst into the receiving room and entered the center's
cavernous loading dock, where a fierce January storm poured into the
garage. The quarantine trailer was gone. A loud, staccato buzzer and
spinning yellow light warned them to stand clear of the great steel
service-bay door rolling shut. "A fail-safe routine," Julie said. "The
security program is automatically compensating for the failure my
command introduced into the system and is sealing the building."

"Everybody out!" Marshall hollered. Williams and Youngblood bolted
across the loading dock. Marshall grabbed Julie around the waist and
tackled her back into the center. "Sorry, honey," he said. "You're
staying here." He planted an impeccable kiss on her lips and snatched
the Beretta from her. "I'll see you tonight."

Before she could protest, he sprinted into the receiving room and
slammed the steel door behind him, automatically locking it with a
mechanical click. Stunned, Julie drove her shoulder against the metal
door; she might as well have rammed a brick wall. "Marshall!"

The service-bay door had less than three feet to go before Marshall too
was sealed inside. Youngblood, peering beneath it from the outside,
beckoned him to hurry. "Get your ass out here. Major!"

Marshall bolted across the dock, jumped down onto the concrete and raced
toward the massive door as it rolled closed. He flattened onto his
buttocks as though sliding for home and pushed his legs under the door.
His upper torso wouldn't clear. He felt the door's crushing weight begin
to press down on him. He couldn't stop it. Two pairs of hands grabbed
him by his legs and yanked him cruelly out into the cold January night.
The service-bay door closed behind him with a pneumatic mechanical thud.

Chapter Thirty-six.

USAMRIID

The wind had picked up considerably as the weather deteriorated.
Youngblood blew on his hands and rubbed them together for warmth. "I
wish I had my bomber jacket."

"I wish I had a bomber," Marshall said, grabbing Williams's hand and
pulling himself to his feet. The major led the way across to the
helipad, where the VIP command helicopter sat idling. A large uniformed
security officer stood rigid by the open compartment door, watching the
three men approach through the driving curtain of sleet, not quite sure
what to make of them. He put a hand on his holstered .45. Marshall
ducked under the rotor blades and thrust Martinelli's empty Beretta
before him. "Don't take this personally."

The guard's roving eyes darted from one man to the next, then back at
the chopper as he looked for a bold way out of his cornered predicament.
Marshall pegged him as a reckless jock who would eat a urinal deodorant
cake on a dare. While the major kept the Beretta tucked neatly under the
guard's chin, Youngblood relieved him of his sidearm. Marshall beckoned
Williams forward. "Take care of him."

Before the soldier could protest, Williams drove the palm of his hand
into the bridge of the guard's nose. He was out cold, his nose broken.
Youngblood opened the cockpit door and said to the pilot, "New orders.
You're wanted inside."

The helicopter pilot, a seasoned flier with sharp features who didn't
like getting jerked around, pulled off his flight helmet and roared at
Youngblood, "Who the fuck are you?"

Youngblood offered him his best Georgian grin. "Don't shoot me; I'm just
the messenger."

"My ass." The pilot reached for his radio. Youngblood pointed the
confiscated .45 at the pilot's head. "One way or another, in ten seconds
you're gonna be out of my life."

Youngblood could see the pilot's bleached face.even under the low light
of the flight deck's multicolored instrumentation. The pilot scrambled
out of the cockpit. Youngblood strapped himself into the pilot's seat,
engaged the rotor clutch and throttled the turboshaft engines for
takeoff. The prop blades bit into the thick winter air. Marshall and
Williams climbed into the troop compartment, an airborne combat
communications center loaded with racks of electronics. Williams secured
the compartment door behind them. A frail-looking gentleman with glasses
and thin wispy hair sat buckled into a seat, a briefcase full of papers
spread out on the table before him. Dr. Gruber recognized Marshall and
Williams from then dossier photos. "Good God ..." He slid a handful of
papers into his worn shoulder bag and clutched it to his chest. "I
suppose you want me to leave."

Marshall let him see his Beretta. "Depends. Who are you?"

"Fuck you."

Marshall flashed Gruber a congenial grin and took a seat across from
him. "Have it your way. I don't really care who you are as long as you
can bring me up to speed on this situation real fast."

The helicopter gave a shudder as it lifted off the helipad. "Are you
insane?" Gruber shouted. "This vehicle is General Medlock's
communications link to the command hangar at Andrews Airfield. You're
jeopardizing the entire operation. A lot of people are going to die if
you continue this nonsense."

"The general doesn't know Gorgon like I do," Marshall said. He indicated
the electronics behind him. "Nothing's in jeopardy. You have my
permission to keep the flow of information moving, if that's your job.
Meanwhile I want you to get on the LINK II and inform all parties that
we're part of Maximum Containment on special assignment. You can start
by telling me how many assault troops are staging at Oceana."

"Two hundred," Williams said, sifting through Gruber's paperwork. "It's
all here."

General Medlock marched briskly into the bone-chilling wind in time to
see his helicopter bank to the east and, gathering speed, disappear into
the storm, leaving in its wake a whirlpool of snow. His chopper pilot
rushed up to meet him. "A couple of assholes commandeered my aircraft at
gunpoint."

Medlock, his stern features now grim, passed a weary hand over his face.
"Marshall just earned himself a felony courtmartial. I'll see he gets
life for this stunt." Then he recalled Julie's prognosis and realized
Marshall had nothing to lose and certainly nothing to fear from a
general. He leveled a frightening glare at the pilot. "Get my goddamn
car."

Marshall made his way to the flight deck and said to Youngblood,
"Where's Wynett's chopper now?"

"He's thirty miles ahead of us," he said, checking the radar. "ETA in
Oceana should be about thirty minutes."

Marshall nodded and started to withdraw when Youngblood hollered back,
"Can I ask you a question?"

"No."

"What's Julie like?" he asked anyway. Marshall dismissed him with a
scowl and headed aft. "So don't tell me," he said to himself, then
muttered, "Let me find out for myself."

Quarantine

Julie sat behind the quarantine center's communications
console and watched the helicopter take off on the TV monitors. She was
barely able to control her anger. "Marshall, you son of a bitch."

Marshall had blown her last chance to stop this nightmare. Now her
Catholic upbringing was pouring guilt back into her heart, filling her
with shame for her creation that was about to kill a lot of people. She
no longer dreamed of being infected. Now she dreamed about starting a
fire in a forest that spread around the world. Ever since South America,
Julie accepted the possibility that there might indeed be a God--or at
least she allowed for the possibility of divine intervention in her
life. She had come to accept the notion that a God, or some reasonable
facsimile, had allowed her to live long enough to undo this terrible
wrong she had committed. Stopping Gorgon would have been her penance.
Now she was trapped in quarantine, impotent. Perhaps the Almighty
intended to make her an example to the rest of the world--See what
happens, my children, when mere mortals meddle with creation. Julie
Martinelli, the Creator. Come see what she's done. Damn you, Marshall,
she thought, for leaving me behind. "Julie, are you there?" It was
Marshall's voice coming over the UHF band. Her trembling fingers set the
broadcast channel to all frequencies. She slid the headset over her ears
and pressed the transmit button. "Marshall? Marshall, are you hearing
me?"

Seconds later Marshall's voice boomed over her headset. "Set your
frequency on one-two-nine. There's a scramble channel on the console.
Find it and turn it on so we're in sync."

Julie did as he instructed and a hideously garbled noise filled her
ears. She heard three sharp sync tones; then Marshall's voice came in
loud and clear. "How's that?" he said. "Fine. I'm furious with you right
now."

"If you want to bitch at me, it'll have to wait."

"You had no right to leave me out of this."

"There's nothing you can do out here. I need you safe and sound where
you can do me some good."

"There's no such thing as safe and sound. We're dying, you son of a
bitch." Her words came out in a controlled sob. There was a pause from
the chopper, then, "No one gets off this planet alive. Stay on this
channel." The LED readout indicated that Marshall had ceased
transmitting. "Bastard." Julie spun away from the console and nearly
shouted outloud when she saw a woman standing in the doorway, holding a
hefty stack of papers. "Thought you might want some company," said Dr.
Shaw. Julie whipped around to compose herself, and even then all she
could manage was, "Nancy  ..."

"I eavesdropped on your last conversation and figured out what was going
on," she said. Julie looked past her academic adviser to see if the
cinderblock corridor was empty. "Don't worry," Shaw said. "I'm the only
one who bothered to listen in. Everybody else was either too busy
getting ready for the showdown or making plans to get upwind of Dodge.
Anyway, I knew Marshall wouldn't take you with him."

"He's a bastard. He doesn't give a damn about me."

"Cut the crap and save the self-pity for your analyst. He did you and
himself a favor. You're both right where you belong. If he didn't give a
damn about you he'd have brought you along and let you kill yourself."

Julie frowned at her. "Why did you come down here? I may be contagious."

"No, you're not, otherwise Medlock would never have taken Wynett out.
It's all in here." Shaw lifted a stack of printouts the size of the D.C.
telephone directory. "Here are the numbers you wanted run through the
Cray. I did it on General Medlock's orders. Knock yourself out."

"Nancy, I'm scared shitless."

Dr. Shaw gave her a mock look of surprise. "You? Scared?

I don't buy it."

Julie struggled to lift her left hand, which seemed terribly weighty,
and showed the doctor trembling fingers that were bent unnaturally at
right angles. Shaw bit her lower lip. "It feels so strange," Julie said,
"like it no longer belongs to me."

The general's personal white Lincoln Mark VII LSC skidded to a stop in
front of him, its wipers pushing sloppy piles of sleet to each side of
the windshield. General Medlock, his neck veins throbbing, climbed into
the backseat and yelled at his driver, "Get me to Andrews Airfield as
fast as you can drive this thing."

Marshall searched the chopper's armament cabinet, found a 9mm magazine
clip and pushed it into the handle of the empty Beretta. He grabbed a
leather pilot's jacket from a locker and slipped it over his heavy
clothing. Williams did likewise. Marshall sat down next to Gruber and
snatched the shoulder bag he still clutched to his chest. "I need every
piece of information you've dug up about Gorgon's movements in the last
forty-eight hours."

"It's all right in front of you," Gruber said. Marshall sifted through
Gruber's satchel and found a map of Virginia detailing the tanker's
route approaching the Chesapeake Bay. He spread it on the chart table
before him and noted a dotted line plotting the tanker's projected
course up the York River to a refinery just north of Yorktown. Marshall
followed its route with a quivering finger, an impairment Gruber was
quick to notice. "It's getting worse, isn't it?" Gruber asked. Marshall
looked suddenly at him. "What's getting worse?"

"Your viral affliction. It's affecting your motor coordination. I think
I understand what this is all about; you want to kill Gorgon before
Saint Vitus kills you. A noble exchange. But you're denying the fact
that you can't possibly be effective in your condition. All you'll
succeed in doing is getting others killed. You're a terrible threat to
the success of this operation."

Williams thrust a finger at the old man and shouted, "There's nothing
wrong with us. I feel fucking fine!"

The pencil in Marshall's hand suddenly snapped, though he wasn't aware
that he'd put any pressure on it. "Save it, both of you." He hid his
trembling hand in his lap. "Sergeant, I want you to monitor all voice
communication. Tell me what's going on."

Williams put on a pair of headphones and patched into the navy's LINK II
combat information system. "If Gorgon intended to launch," Marshall said
to Gruber, "he could have done it by now--he could have struck dozens of
targets hours ago without jeopardizing his escape. Why is he boxing
himself in? Why does he need to dock that tanker?" Marshall paused,
considering, then said, "Unless he intends to take Saint Vitus inland."

"We considered that," Gruber said. "He surely must realize he's a dead
man without the threat of those missiles. There's a sixty-percent
probability that something's gone wrong with his launch system. We're
running the logistics though the Cray--weight ratios, payloads,
trajectory, thrust, weather, everything. In any event, the assault
team's first priority will be to take out those warheads. There's no
margin for error."

"What if he starts pumping crude oil into the bay?" Williams offered.
"You're going to piss off a lot of watermen."

"An environmental mess is the least of our problems," Gruber said. "We
haven't even factored that into our equation."

"Where's the ship now?" Marshall asked. Without much thought, Gruber
said, "Thirty-two miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay." He looked
at his watch and twisted uncomfortably in his seat. "What's your problem
with the time?" the major asked. "The president won't allow the tanker
to reach the bay."

"Not a whole lot he can do about it," Marshall said tonelessly.

Gruber looked timidly at the major, anxiety written on his face. "Yes,
there is."

Quarantine

Julie sat at her computer workstation, her legs tucked
comfortably beneath her, making notes with her good hand on the stack of
printouts her adviser had given her. Dr. Shaw sat across from her,
watching her pupil over a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee. "Here's
something I didn't expect to see," Julie said, circling a group of
numbers on the printout. "It doesn't make much sense. There's another
virus present in our blood cells along with Saint Vitus."

"A coincidence?"

Julie shook her head. "It's too prolific, too consistent. It's in every
single one of our infected cells."

"Could be part of the mutation," Dr. Shaw said, stirring her coffee.
"You could be looking at a new variation of St. Vitus, several
generations removed."

"Not this virus," Julie said. "I've been able to track the pattern of
Saint Vitus' mutations. This other virus hasn't changed a bit. And I
think I can identify it."

"Is it manmade?"

"Nope." Julie looked up at her. "It's a friggin' mousetumor virus." ' "A
mouse-tumor virus? Are you certain?" Julie flipped through her printout
and confirmed, "It was gene-splicedsaint Vitus introduced it into our
systems."

Dr. Shaw, feeling suddenly warm, set down her coffee mug before her
suddenly shaking hands could spill it. "Do you know what you're saying,
dear?"

"I think I'm saying that Dr. French was one clever son of a bitch."
Julie looked hard at Dr. Shaw. "Would you get me six cc's of the
antibiotic ganciclovir?"

Chapter Thirty-seven.

Andrews Air Force Base

1705 hours

General Medlock's driver negotiated a turn onto a frontage road that
took the Lincoln around to the far side of Andrews' number-three runway.
Every five hundred feet a soldier with an automatic rifle waved the
general's vehicle quickly past. Medlock stared at the dashboard's
digital clock--five-zero-five. Wynett would be on his way to the tanker,
and he demanded to be part of it. The car stopped abruptly in front of a
brightly lit hangar, thick with activity. A tall, lanky officer minus a
jacket, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, opened the passenger door.
"Sir, Wynett took off about seven minutes ago. We're taking him as far
as Cape Henry, where the tanker is scheduled to pick up a river pilot.
If he doesn't get aboard he comes right back here."

"What about Phase Two?"

"Already initiated."

Phase Two rolled out of the hangar and taxied toward the runway--two
F-15 Strike Eagle bombers, followed by an EF-11 Raven for jamming
support. Medlock noted the F-15's unconventional payload, two tactical
nuclear glide bombs hanging from each wing. His eyes took on a distant
look of resignation. "Jesus Christ, all those good men I'm sending out
there. What's happening to us?"

"Sir, Marshall's chopper just landed at Oceana. Say the word and we'll
have him shot on the spot."

Medlock climbed out of the car and watched the first F-15 roar off the
runway and vanish into the night. "Sir," the officer pressed, "what
about Marshall?"

Medlock shook his head. "Get him on that tanker. He's the best damn
chance I have."

Oceana Naval Air Station Virginia The skids of Medlock's command
helicopter had barely touched down when Williams and Marshall were out
of the troop compartment and racing across the tarmac. Special Forces
Commander Alexander Stem met them halfway, holding a drawn .45 at his
side. "Jesus Christ, Joe," Stem said, "I never thought I'd be taking
your ass into custody at gunpoint."

Commander Stem was a commando's commando--tough, mean and highly
skilled. Large framed and eager to show off an all-muscle body, he
didn't let his age of forty-seven years keep him from participating in
every op under his charge. One hell of a tactical planner, he also was
one hell of a soldier. ' "How in Christ did you manage to get yourself
into this mess, Joe?"

Marshall saw the drawn .45 in Stem's hand and the dangerous squint in
his eyes that said he was ready to use it on him, if necessary. "Stem, I
need your help tonight."

"Damn right you do, pal. I have orders to arrest you on sight ...  or
put a bullet into your fat head if you resist. I don't need this right
now."

Marshall matched Stem's rock-steady eyes. "I'm asking you as a friend to
let me be part of this op tonight."

Stem thrust the .45 into Marshall's face and drew back the hammer with a
dangerous click. "Not a fucking chance. Jesus, Joe, don't make me use
this."

"Commander," yelled a first lieutenant running across the tarmac with a
handheld Comsat transceiver. "It's Medlock at Andrews. Says he has a
priority-one directive for you."

Stem never took his eyes off Marshall as he grabbed the transceiver from
the lieutenant and put it to his ear. "Stem here." His face remained
frozen as he listened, and Marshall watched him slowly lower the .45,
reseat the hammer and slip it into his side holster. "Yes, sir." He
thrust the transceiver back at the lieutenant, an uncharacteristic grin
breaking his features. "Medlock says you're in. Don't ask me how or why.
We're out of time, Joe. Hell, maybe you and the sergeant are just what
we need tonight--ha, a couple of kamikaze commandos."

Marshall, his adrenaline flowing, let out a long, silent sigh as he
walked Stem back to the hangar. "How many men do we have here?"

"Two Delta squads from Bragg and every SEAL within eight hundred miles,"
Stem said. "We're putting thirty SEALS on the tanker in the first
assault. Forty Delta troops are standing by in Sea Stallions. We have
regular ground troops waiting in Yorktown in the unlikely event the
bastard makes it that far upriver. General Medlock wants you and your
sergeant on the tanker with the first assault."

Marshall nodded his approval. "I need a Franchi and my sergeant needs a
Galil."

Commander Stem checked his clipboard. "I'm putting you on launch number
nine. Lieutenant Greenberg on the dock will get you whatever you need.
This weather's going to be a problem for the watercraft. Get your ass
moving, Marshall. You're shoving off in five minutes."

Stem hustled back to the hangar. "Congratulations, Major," Gruber said,
appearing at Marshall's elbow. "Looks like you got your wish. If you
manage to get on board the tanker alive, it's imperative that you
immediately sever the power cable between the launch vehicle and the
missile pallet. Do that and you'll kick the son of a bitch in the balls.
He won't be able to target those missiles."

"But he can still launch?" Marshall asked. "Yes, the missile platform
has a redundant launch system, which he can fire manually," Gruber said.
"A bullet in the platform's motherboard should prevent the missiles from
firing at all. Got it?"

"I got it." Marshall extended his hand to Gruber. "And thank you. I
appreciate your help." Gruber took his proffered hand. Besides a firm
shake, he could feel the unmistakable tremor of a very ill man. Gruber's
half-smile faded. "Good luck. Major. I know you'll do what you have to
do. Just don't let that bastard kill any more people."

Cape Henry United States

Eastern Seaboard

Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Lee tightened his grip on a pair of highpowered
binoculars as though that might steady his view against the even rolling
of the launch's deck. Three weeks past his twentieth anniversary in the
service of the United States Navy, Lee was tall, very tall, and the
heavy oilskin breaker gave his substantial frame the gray, rocky
appearance of Mt. Rainier. Lee's keen hazel eyes buried beneath twin
outcrops of gray brows peered through the night binoculars with a
laserlike intensity that could find any object with radar precision in
the roughest seas, day or night. He spotted her immediately. Locating
something as large as an oil tanker hardly required a psychic sense; he
hoped getting Wynett aboard would be just as easy. Commander Lee lowered
the binoculars, his lips curled in a half-frown. His launch looked more
like a pleasure craft than an armed navy vessel, a disguise which had
worked exceedingly well in drug-trafficking patrols off Miami. A good
seaman's eye, though, might suspect something, and that bothered the
hell out of him. Lee, watching the tanker six miles off his starboard
bow, became aware of someone at his elbow. He half-turned and saw
Wynett, dressed from head to foot in an orange one-piece survival suit,
staring vacantly in the direction of the tanker. "She still isn't
answering us," Lee said. "Nor has she stopped. There's a strong
possibility they won't let you board. Did you consider that?"

Wynett, his distant eyes narrowing, shook his head. "I will meet with
him."

Lucy

"Approaching vessel," Tarra said, her eyes buried in the
ship's radar hood. Captain Carlucci whirled at the news. Tarra narrowed
the tracking beam on the bridge's radar display to a west-northwest
scan. "Range, five-point-three kilometers, bearing three-two-seven ...
on an interception course." She pressed the headset to her ear. "The
river pilot is requesting permission to board."

"I can see him," Gorgon said, scanning the rising swells through a pair
of night binoculars. A gray half-light was rapidly yielding to a
blackness that would soon swallow the bay and give him cover. "Let him
board and bring him directly to me. Impatience now will cost us
everything." Gorgon lowered his binoculars and said in a low voice as
though to himself, "A horse appeared, deathly pale, and its rider was
called Death, and Hell followed at his heels."

"I did not hear you," Tarra said. Gorgon shook his head. "The journey we
began at the settlement of Kumar is almost at an end."

Oceana Naval Air Station

1709 hours

Marshall and Williams climbed down into the rubber Zodiac launch beside
Lieutenant Greenberg, a seasoned Special Forces officer who would be
their pilot and navigator. "Commander Stem just radioed me about you
gents," Greenberg said. Marshall regarded the slightly short, slightly
stocky, slightly aging Navy SEAL. Despite Greenberg's disarming,
fatherly smile, Marshall didn't doubt he knew at least a half dozen ways
to break a man's back. "What did Stern tell you?"

"Says you're Delta's best," Greenberg said, shaking first Marshall's,
then Williams's hand. "Glad to be on your team tonight."

Clad in black rubber wet suits, hoods and taut, slipperlike boots, the
three men went to work, only vaguely aware of the other teams along the
dock also loading and readying their launches. There were no lights
illuminated throughout the staging area, no light anywhere. Only the
sounds of men working.

Marshall smeared black camouflage paint onto his face, obscuring the
boundaries between wet suit and flesh, then tugged on a pair of
skintight leather gloves. He clamped a miniature transceiver to his SAS
belt, put the headphone over his good ear, adjusted its tiny microphone
over his mouth and switched on the belt unit. Williams did likewise. "A
lot of gents in Washington will no doubt be monitoring everything we say
tonight," Greenberg warned the two. He grinned. "So be careful who you
hurl your curses at."

A soldier on the dock passed down munitions satchels and a pair of
weapons--a Franchi military shotgun and an Israeli Galil sniper's rifle.
He also gave each of them a pair of Phillips Electro-Spezial
image-intensifying goggles and a tiny waterproof notebook, detailing
Lucy's deck plan. Marshall slipped on the goggles and focused them. The
world once again became visible in a strange new dawn with an eerie
greenyellow glow. "Let's go."

Lucy

A very winded and exhausted-looking Wynett met Captain Carlucci at
the top of Lucy's gangway. Wynett sat down heavily on a pipe, unable to
breathe. He looked ghastly. His face was beaten, his skin the pallor of
death, his bloodshot eyes deep-sunk in hollowed sockets, his lips
bloodless. Carlucci thought the old man might pass out. Wynett struggled
to focus his eyes on the sea captain standing over him and wheezed,
"Requesting permission to board, Captain."

Carlucci's suspicious eyes moved from Wynett to the disguised launch
racing away from the tanker, then back to Wynett. "You are not a pilot,
are you?"

Wynett, struggling to take a breath, put a spasming hand on his
forehead. "No, sir. My business is with the man who commandeered your
vessel."

Carlucci looked curiously at him. ' "Then am I to understand the
American military knows about this murderous madman?"

"You are correct, sir."

Carlucci nodded. "Then God has heard my prayers tonight."

Chapter Thirty-eight.

1710 hours

Cmdr. Buzz Hayes eased his F-15 Strike Eagle into a gentle bank that
would scribe another forty-five-mile arc around Lucy. Hayes and his
wingman reduced power to their twin turbine engines to conserve fuel.
The night promised a long wait. The bombardier, a young lieutenant named
Peter Booker, once again checked the position of each armament switch on
the aircraft's newly retrofitted tactical bombing system, which
functioned identically to the conventional air-to-ground bombing unit he
had trained on. He noted the time in his kneeboard log; a simple
tactical exercise. He glanced at the threedimensional computer image of
Lucy on his heads-up display, then moved the cursor over the ship's
radar image and pressed a key to retarget and lock the tanker on the
autotracking system. Piece of cake. The length of a football field, Lucy
was a ridiculously easy target to track. An alert tone blared in
Lieutenant Booker's headset, and coded data flashed across the bottom of
the VDI display. New orders. He mentally decoded the display information
and felt every muscle in his body involuntarily tighten. This was no
exercise. Shit--that's fucking Newport News down there! Somebody had
made one hell of a mistake. Or had they? The bombardier shifted his
unfocused eyes on the infinite blackness outside the canopy. "Jesus," he
said into his helmet mike. Commander Hayes chuckled, but it was a cold
laugh. "You're not likely to get his help tonight." Then the pilot's
voice hardened. "You got a problem. Lieutenant?"

"Negative."

The bombardier opened the scrambled UHF to the command hangar. He heard
the voice scrambler beep, then said, "Hawk One to Father. Request voice
confirmation."

The radio was silent for several seconds before a voice responded,
"Stand by to attack target at coordinates two-six-four and
one-seven-nine. Repeat. Stand by to attack target at coordinates
two-six-four, one-seven-nine."

Booker didn't acknowledge. Jesus, this is really happening! Another tone
sounded in his headset as the orange autopilot disconnect light blinked
on. He felt the aircraft roll left as Hayes began the bomb run. One
button, the bombardier mused. That was all that stood between him and a
bona fide hell. For the first time in his military career his hands were
trembling ... trembling during a fucking mission! One button. Why me,
Jesus? Why am I the one? He would press one button, and two minutes
later a low-yield tactical nuclear bomb would transform the tanker into
a thick, stinking cloud of hydrocarbons.

The White House Situation Room

"What the hell's happening out there. General?" the president hollered
into the phone's receiver. "The deteriorating weather is slowing us
down, Mr. President," Medlock said from the hangar at Andrews Airfield.
"My troops will rendezvous with the ship in approximately nine minutes."

"General," the president said, "I'm taking a terrible risk with your
plan. Damn it, I don't want that tanker on the bay."

"Nine minutes, Mr. President," Medlock said slowly and deliberately. "In
nine minutes my men will be on board the tanker, and this business will
be finished."

Quarantine

Dr. Nancy Shaw inserted the syringe into the permeable tip of
the bottle and withdrew six cc's of the antibiotic ganciclovir. "Give me
your arm."

Julie reached for the syringe with a trembling hand. "I'm perfectly
capable of giving myself a shot."

"Give me your arm," Shaw insisted. Julie acquiesced, allowing the
injection. "This is three times the normal dose," Shaw said, pulling the
syringe out of her arm and pressing a cotton ball hard inside her elbow.
"We'll give it ten minutes, then take another blood specimen."

Julie nodded and let her thoughts drift to Marshall. Where was he now?
What was he doing? She didn't try to push him from her mind. Quite the
contrary. She drew newfound strength from the mental image of him.

The mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

1717 hours

The Zodiac rubber water raft skimmed smartly across the bay in complete
darkness. It began sleeting again as the storm gathered, rendering
practical visibility to zero. Marshall and Williams peered through their
night goggles at the rising storm, but could see nothing. Neither could
those aboard the tanker. The foul weather was a godsend they intended to
exploit to their full advantage. For the moment they didn't need to see.
An Air Force AWAC plane circling 20,000 feet above them was feeding the
tanker's position to the teams' GPS receivers. Lieutenant Greenberg's
eyes darted continuously from the compass to the receiver, which told
him the tanker was only five hundred feet to port. There were no ship
lights to act as beacons. Nine other Zodiacs with three-man crews bore
down on the tanker from different headings. The plan called for the
troops to rendezvous on the ship and disable the missile pallet. How
they managed that feat once on board would depend entirely on their
opportunities. There had been no elaborate setup, no training, little
planning. There simply hadn't been time. Medlock was gambling that the
tanker was too large for Gorgon's men to patrol every foot of bulwark.
He figured that ten teams--thirty men--would raise the odds for success
in their favor. There were a lot of crossed fingers tonight in
Washington. Marshall had too much time during the short crossing to
contemplate what could go wrong. What if Gorgon saw them approaching?
What if only one of the teams managed to get on board? What if the
missiles fired? What if the virus was released? What if ...  what if ...?

They all saw it at once, a shape the size of a large island rising up
before them. It was Lucy. She looked gigantic. Her deck and
anticollision lights were out, making her virtually invisible. Marshall,
sitting motionless except for the knuckle he tapped thoughtfully on his
lips, watched the massive ship approach. Williams, sitting at his side,
watched with a growing eagerness he found hard to contain. They felt the
wind decrease as the huge wall of the tanker loomed up over them,
shielding them. No one said anything. All Marshall could think about was
Julie. Thank God she was safe. He found it difficult to stop the flow of
feelings between his brain and his heart. The sensations were new to
him. He couldn't rid her from his mind. He closed his eyes and struggled
to focus on the op. He grew rigid, rocklike, forcing himself to once
again become a machine. But he couldn't. Something was different this
time, he realized. It was Julie. She was with him--a part of him.

Lieutenant Greenberg let the craft bounce off the tanker's hull, which
towered over them like a great cliff, then adjusted the muffled outboard
motor to match the ship's speed. They worked quickly in the ship's wind
shelter to secure the launch. Despite the rough water, Lucy rolled
slowly and evenly, her fully loaded cargo tanks stabilizing the ship
deep in the water. No one had seen them approach--or at least they
trusted no one had seen them. The element of surprise was their most
potent weapon. Marshall could barely make out the ship's bulwark on the
forward bow only fifteen feet above them. ' "Can you secure a line to
the anchor aperture?" Greenberg squinted upward. "Piece of cake."

"Watch that rail," Marshall ordered his sergeant. "If you see anything
that looks like a head, put a bullet through it."

Williams swung his Galil assault rifle off his shoulder and scanned the
bulwark above through the weapon's night scope. He saw nothing but
sleet. Lucy Wynett followed Carlucci sluggishly across the deck, while a
soldier in black fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov fell in behind him.
Wynett felt neither fear nor intimidation, only a fatigue that bore to
the core of his soul. Lucy was everything he had expected and nothing he
had imagined. Her vast size astounded him, and he could feel her
solidness beneath his feet. With a road of pipes stretching the length
of the vessel to the superstructure, she looked more like an industrial
facility than a ship. He knew she was both fortified and inviolable.
Wynett had no memory of walking the lengthy ice-crusted deck, entering
the superstructure or climbing the narrow stairwells to the bridge deck.
Only after he entered the wheelhouse did his attention return to the
pressing reality. He was on Lucy's bridge, which was crowded with
soldiers in black fatigues. The wheelhouse reeked of death, as though an
animal had died inside the walls where nobody could get rid of it.
Before Wynett could get his bearings, Gorgon peeled away from the chart
table and loomed over him, his hands arrogantly on his hips. Carlucci
moved into the corner and watched. Gorgon's face turned to stone when he
realized who the river pilot was. Wynett betrayed no emotion at all to
again meet his partner.

Gorgon greeted his old friend with a sneer. "You." His eyes narrowed. "I
would not have believed you capable of this."

Tarra swung away from the main console and let out a shriek when she saw
Wynett. "If he is here, then the United States militia must know who we
are and what we carry. They will not let us proceed." She grabbed
Gorgon's arm. "The missiles. You must launch the missiles now and finish
this."

"Give this up," Carlucci said, making his way forward. "I implore you in
the name of sanity to surrender this vessel."

Two of Gorgon's men pushed Carlucci cruelly back with their weapons.
That didn't deter him. "It is madness to continue."

He appealed to Tarra. "Tell him. Make him listen."

"I demand to know why you came here." Gorgon's voice was low, vicious.
Wynett said soberly, "To collect money."

"What?" ' "Ten million American dollars. I delivered to you the most
effective weapon of mass killing ever devised and you gave me nothing in
return. I am here to collect my fee per our agreement."

Gorgon's head flew back and out roared a great laughter, an ugly sound
that boomed off the wheelhouse's metal walls. "You are truly mad."
Gorgon's face darkened, and when he spoke there was cold contempt in his
voice. "In Tampico you saw how I deal with treachery. Before I kill you,
you will tell me what the American military intelligence knows about
Operation Harness."

Wynett's eyes fluttered, and he looked every bit the old, dying man he
was. "They know we are having bloody good fun ..."

Gorgon gave a quick, irritated jerk of his head, and three of his
soldiers surrounded Wynett, their weapons pointed at his chest. The old
man did not react with the slightest alarm. Beep ...  beep ... beep  ...
Tarra moved to the ship's radar console. The unit was reading sporadic
signatures of several small craft approaching Lucy from different
directions. She swung around. "Watercraft. Several of them. Range, one
hundred meters."

Gorgon whirled at Wynett. "What is this trap?" The old man said nothing.
"Alert the deck," Gorgon ordered. "Tell them to stand by for a boarding
assault."

Gorgon moved to the bridge's window but could see nothing but blackness
beyond the ship's forward bow. When he spoke, his tone was subdued. "No
navy on earth can undo the seeds I have sown. Soon the world we once
knew will change. No one can stop that. No one can stop me."

Chapter Thirty-nine.

Lucy

Marshall twisted through the narrow opening between the anchor aperture
and the massive chain and lay facedown on Lucy's forward deck. Williams
followed and slid beside him. The deck had a coating of ice, and a
stunningly cold blast of wind lashed at them. Neither moved. The quiet,
broken only by the churning river sweeping past the ship's sides, was
eerie. Marshall scanned the deck through his image-intensifying goggles.
He could see vague shapes and protrusions across the deck. Gorgon's
troops were strategically stationed, some manning the ship's armaments,
some patrolling, some scanning the bay through binoculars. Through the
night goggles they looked like cardboard cutouts. The terrorists
appeared hypervigilant, expectant. Marshall counted seven on the
forecastle, nearly invisible in their black uniforms. Marshall screwed
his neck around. His eyes widened. A soldier stood at the bulwark
several feet behind him, his unmistakable silhouette a shade blacker
than the night, scanning the bay forward of the ship. Williams saw him
too. Marshall withdrew Martinelli's Beretta from his back holster and
pointed it, but his trembling hand couldn't keep the gun still. Williams
hissed, reached for his ankle and unsheathed his black serrated knife.
The sentry whirled at the slight sound. There was a blur of hand
movement as Williams's knife vanished. Marshall saw nothing, not a trace
of metal glinting. The soldier gave a short grunt and grabbed the base
of his throat. He collapsed against the rail before sliding soundlessly
to the deck. Commander Stem steadied his balance in the small, swaying
Zodiac and lifted what looked like a miniature bazooka onto his
shoulder. He took an inordinately long three seconds to sight the
tanker's bulwark, aimed high to compensate for the rising and falling
swells, then pressed the trigger. There was a sharp puff, and the thin
nylon cord unraveled quickly as it spiraled upward. The rubber
four-pronged grappling hook flew over the rail and landed with a muted
thud on Lucy's steel deck. Stem pulled, caught the hook on the bulwark
and quickly secured his end to the raft. He could barely see another
team aft already halfway up the ship's Jacob's ladder. Don't think about
it, he told himself. Just act. "Let's do it."

Stem covered the fifteen-foot climb in just under ten seconds. His two
commandos followed him, M-24 assault rifles strapped to their backs.
Stem swung his legs over the bulwark and landed in a halfcrouch on the
ship's darkened deck. All he could see were vague shapes rising from the
tanker's open deck; there simply wasn't enough light for the goggles to
amplify. His two men crouched at his side and unfolded the metal stocks
of their weapons. Stem made a quick sweep of the deck through his
rifle's night scope, searching for the missile platform. Where was it?
There were too many unrecognizable shapes--pipes, hatches, valves ...
How many other teams made it on board? The sleet made it impossible to
make out anything specific. Damn it, he needed time to acquire his
bearings. Movement caught Stem's eye--man-size objects at ten yards. He
shifted his rifle. Bright flashes--rapid bursts--an instant sooner than
his highly trained reflexes, negated his fire. A dozen rounds tore into
Stem and his two men. He felt only a cold numbness as he died. Marshall
saw several of Gorgon's soldiers running aft, shouting. The unmistakable
sound of gunshots ripped through the night. Marshall grimaced. Gorgon's
soldiers were launching a barrage of fire at the troops storming Lucy's
side. The poor bastards don't stand a chance. The port and starboard
30mm chain cannons simultaneously began firing at the Zodiac rafts on
the bay, filling the winter night with their awful pounding. It would be
a massacre. "Do it," Marshall hissed. Williams nodded. He raised the
Galil to his eye and sighted the starboard 30mm chain-cannon operator
through the infrared laser-assisted scope. He positioned the laser beam
on the soldier's chest halfway between his heart and throat and fired a
single, silenced round. A plum-shaped wound appeared beneath the laser
marker. The terrorist looped backward over the bulwark and disappeared
into the bay, his huge gun falling silent. The gunnery sergeant placed
his scope's beam similarly on the port cannon operator and fired. The
mercenary crumpled to the deck, his cannon also abruptly silenced.
Williams kept his Galil moving, a cold, calculated sweep of the upper
deck. Patiently, methodically, he fired. He took out a third terrorist
running with an AK-47 braced on his hip. The soldier flew against a wall
of pipes and dropped. Williams took out a fourth soldier. A fifth. A
sixth. Each went down silently, the well-placed round inflicting too
much damage to warrant even a cry of protest from the victim. In the
first minute of the assault, Williams had secured Lucy's forward deck.
"Radio them," Tarra shouted at him. "Tell them you will release a plague
if they do not call off the assault and let us pass. They will listen to
you."

Gorgon remained rooted before the wheelhouse window, listening to the
gunfire over the howling wind. He had no intention of bartering with the
opposition. There would be no deals, no terms, no communication, no
change in his plan. He stood, staring, watching the occasional muzzle
flashes on deck. "They will not let us pass," she screamed. "We must
abandon--"

Gorgon whirled and struck Tarra's face with a wild brush of his hand.
Her head flew backward, but she remained upright, accepting the blow,
and struggled to focus her eyes on him. Wynett chuckled, amused by their
bickering. Gorgon thrust a finger at her. "I will regard talk of
desertion as treachery. I have no intention of joining Allah in
paradise."

He stepped to the main console and lifted the phone off its cradle.
"That promise is a fantasy to pacify children."

The time had come to unharness his creatures and take his revenge. "Mr.
Balla, you may begin Unharness."

A voice squawked an acknowledgment. Mid-deck, four soldiers drew back a
tarpaulin from a platform the size of a small trailer. The pallet
carried nine computer-guided Procyon missiles mounted on a hydraulic
launch vehicle. Attached to the platform by way of a thick power cable
was a smaller armored semitrailer containing the electronic control
equipment. Captain Carlucci moved to the wheelhouse window and watched
the men prepare the weapons platform. He recognized the missiles'
conical-shaped warheads, the same projectiles he had seen in the pump
room's workshop with the odd-looking tanks. The enormity of what Gorgon
intended to do suddenly became clear to him. The missiles would carry
the organism inland. "No, no, noooo! You must not do this." The guards
pushed Carlucci back. "Remain at your post," Gorgon ordered him. He
depressed the transmit button and said into the intercom, "Target one
and two for Norfolk."

From the missiles' launch vehicle, a woman's voice barren of emotion
crackled back, "Positioning."

Carlucci returned to the window and stared, unblinking, at the
twenty-three-foot missile pallet rising slowly on its hydraulic legs.
When the platform reached an angle of sixty-seven degrees, the hydraulic
pistons stopped, the warheads positioned. "Arm one and two," Gorgon
said. "One and two arming," the woman's voice crackled. A pause, then,
"Launch ready."

"Launch on my order," Tarra giggled wickedly. Carlucci drew in a deep
breath and held it. For an eternal moment the silence was deafening.
"Launch!"

Carlucci bolted from the wheelhouse and charged out onto the wing deck
just as the solid-rocket boosters on the first two Procyon missiles
ignited. The brilliance of their tails, as bright as the sun, burned his
retinas. He threw up a hand to protect his eyes. There came a terrible
shriek as the missiles burst from the launch platform and roared into
the night storm, leaving a fiery wake. A noxious trail of smoke
blanketed the deck like a death shroud before rapidly dissipating in the
wind. Carlucci couldn't move. He just stood there, silent, watching,
listening to the fading thunder. "May God have mercy on all those in its
path."

The decks lit with the brilliance of day. Marshall and Williams shielded
their ears against the auditory assault of the missile blast's pressure
wave. Marshall, gritting his teeth in frustration, averted his eyes as
the Procyons roared into the night like twin giant magnesium flares,
swallowed by the storm. "We're too late," Williams spat. "That's only
two," Marshall said, his expression set in stone. "He still has seven
more."

Andrews Airfield The communications officer spun away from the radio
console and said to Medlock, "The AWAC reports two missile launches.
Trajectory northwest. First possible target is Norfolk."

The hangar grew somberly quiet. Every eye remained riveted on the
general. For several long seconds no one moved. Medlock's jaw tightened,
"Inform the president. Tell him to order Phase Three."

The communications officer spun back to his console to carry out the
order. General Medlock, suddenly weary, his shoulders hunched in defeat,
swept around and walked briskly across the hanger, opened the door and
vanished into the storm-swept night.

Quarantine

Julie didn't realize Nancy Shaw had slipped into the room behind her
until she put a hand on her shoulder and said softly, "I just heard it
on the secured channel."

Julie whipped around, panic swelling inside her. "Joe? Is he ...  ?"

"It's the missiles. Gorgon just fired two of them."

"Oh my God." Julie turned away. "Then there's no stopping it now. God
forgive me."

White House Situation Room

The president's aide set down the phone receiver. "Two missiles have
launched. General Medlock has ordered Phase Three."

A grim-faced president accepted the inevitable news with a shallow nod.
"Proceed, Mr. Nicholas."

The F-15's heads-up display flashed the go signal. The bombardier would
receive no further authorization. Lieutenant Booker depressed his
console's autofix button, which downloaded Lucy's current position into
the glide-bomb's onboard computer while simultaneously arming it. He
touched an orange switch labeled weapon release. "God, forgive us our
trespasses ..." he muttered, the only prayer fragment he could think of,
then depressed the switch. The orange weapon release lamp flared as the
nine-hundredpound tactical nuclear bomb disengaged from the hydraulic
wing launcher and disappeared into the bomber's slipstream.

Chapter Forty.

Chesapeake Bay

Off the coast of Norfolk

Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Lee stood alone on the launch's quarterdeck, staring
into the blackness, wondering whether the eccentric old man he had
delivered to the terrorist-held tanker had just thrown away what was
left of his life. Most certainly, he conceded. Either the man had
astonishing courage or he was a bloody fool!

A crackle from the launch's loudspeaker roused Lee from his musing.
"Incoming projectile bearing zero-two-two ... airspeed five hundred
twenty-two knots. Estimated impact approximately three thousand feet to
our starboard." The metallic quality of the announcement couldn't mask
the distress in the pilot's voice. Commander Lee whirled and looked
skyward, eastsoutheast. He immediately spotted the bogey--overlapping
globules of light hurtling through the veil of storm clouds off his
starboard beam. He stiffened, his face bone-tight. A goddamn missile!

Lee thrust the radio to his lips and exploded, "Full speed ...  hard
left rudder ...  move your ass!"

Commander Lee braced himself on the rail as the launch swept around,
while keeping his eyes riveted to the rapidly descending bogey. Within
moments he could see two distinct tails. Christ, two of them! He saw a
small flash as the warheads separated, spewing their contents as they
spiraled toward the bay. It would be close, he knew, damn close. He
watched the twin tails of fire hurtle downward until they reached sea
level, where they disappeared in an instant, consumed by the eternal
blackness of the bay. Lee braced himself for the shattering 'concussion.
But there was no detonation, no explosion, no great eruption of water.
Only a strange wind, warmer than the frigid ambient night air, that
swept unnoticed over the deck and quickly dissipated. "Haley Alpha Two
to Andrews," Lee said over the secure naval channel to Medlock's command
center at Andrews. "Two missiles down thirty-seven degrees north
latitude and seventy-six degrees west longitude. Estimated impact
approximately three thousand feet on my starboard--" The radio fell from
Lee's grip and shattered on the ice-crusted deck. He turned toward the
launch's pilothouse but was unable to focus his eyes. The pain rippling
over his skin felt like fire. He tried to call for help, but had no
control of his voice, no motor control of his extremities. Jesus help
me!

A paralyzing fear gripped him; he knew he was dying and hadn't a clue
why. Commander Lee felt a bizarre sensation in his extremities, as
though his veins were curling like snakes beneath his skin. In a panic
he dug his fingernails deep into his flesh and peeled back the skin of
his forearm as though it were the skin of a fruit. His legs buckled and
he collapsed in a convulsive fit. He screamed as his convulsing
extremities viciously pounded the deck again and again and again,
mashing his limbs into a paste. He continued screaming long after the
back of his head had smashed to an eggshell pulp against the steel deck.
Lucy

Wynett let out mocking laughter, and all eyes in the pilothouse
shifted to him. "Mr. Gorgon, there is something you should know about
your missiles."

Gorgon looked at him with dark and questioning eyes. Carlucci noticed
the terrorist's uncertain expression and asked Wynett, "The missiles?
There is a problem?"

"It is all as I have commanded." Gorgon's voice was as icy as the wind
that swept over the ship. Wynett could not contain his laughter. "I
would have been delighted to explain to you the fundamentals of Procyon
aerodynamics, but you left my estate in such haste."

Gorgon towered over the old man. "What is this nonsense?' ' "A Procyon,"
he said, "has a maximum range of nine hundred and fifty nautical miles.
That poses a problem for the warhead. To achieve that range, the
missile's steep trajectory and high speed would prevent the virus from
dispersing. To disperse the agent effectively, the missile must not
reach an apogee of more than six thousand meters or exceed a velocity of
nine hundred seventy kilometers per hour. So you see, I was forced to
make radical recalibrations to the boosters."

Carlucci looked at him, puzzled. "I do not understand."

"The range," Gorgon demanded. "Tell me its range."

"Twenty miles," Wynett wheezed. "You must move this tanker very close to
its target. Washington is out of the question, I'm afraid. The storm is
moving against us. Now this vessel is on a collision path with Saint
Vitus, and you have put your vessel at risk. Pray that the wind
adequately disperses the virus before we reach the vicinity of the
missiles' impact."

"Twenty miles will be enough," Gorgon said. "My seven remaining warheads
will carry the organism along the United States' eastern seaboard." He
thrust a finger at Carlucci. "I want the engine ahead full."

Carlucci implored Gorgon, "This is madness--"

"Do it! Or you will die where you stand."

"Kill him," Tarra said. "I will pilot this ship."

Captain Carlucci raised his hand in defeat and moved to the ship's main
console, his heart swollen with foreboding. Increasing the ship's speed
was a simple task. If not him, then someone else--his lieutenant
Tarra--could easily do it. You cannot die now, he reminded himself. You
must scuttle this ship!

Carlucci obeyed his master's order and pushed the engine lever forward
to full speed.

Oceana

Dr. Gruber heard the news of the missile's scuttle
from the AWAC aircraft and slammed his hand hard onto the desk. "His
missiles have no range," he yelled. All heads in the staging hanger
within earshot turned toward him. Gruber lifted the receiver of the
emergency telephone tied directly to Medlock's handheld unit and waited
several impatient seconds for the general to answer. Andrews Airfield
General Medlock stood at the edge of the runway without his overcoat,
listening to the night. So far he'd heard nothing over the driving
winds. No sonic boom, no distant thunder. How would a nuclear detonation
one hundred miles away sound? Would he feel its heated wind?

Medlock's portable phone began ringing. He raised it to his ear.
"Medlock."

"Gorgon's Procyons can't reach land," Gruber blurted. "At least not yet.
They fell eight miles short of Norfolk. At eighteen knots the missiles
will be in range of land in about twenty minutes. Your commandos must
take out that missile pallet now!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Medlock spat. "We're already a minute and a half
into the drop." Medlock pressed a button on his phone and secured a
scrambled channel to the White House Situation Room. There was a click
in Dr. Gruber's ear, and Medlock was gone. A solemn-faced Gruber
replaced the receiver. A minute and a half too late. The F-15 pilot and
bombardier both saw the message flash across their individual heads-up
displays: abort in large, red letters, accompanied by a high-pitched
warning screech in their headsets. "Jesus, are you copying this?"
Commander Hayes said to his bombardier. Lieutenant Booker didn't
respond. He depressed the auto abort button on his weapons console with
a trembling finger and prayed the prototype system would function as
designed. He wondered, almost giddily, if he was the first person in
history to disarm a nuclear weapon about to reach its target. Two
thousand feet above Lucy, the bomb's trigger mechanism jerked back into
its safety position, rendering the device inoperable, while the footlong
plutonium canister jettisoned and parachuted for immediate recovery. A
second and a half later, thirty-six pounds of high-yield plastique
explosives detonated.

The shell of the tactical nuclear bomb disintegrated in a spectacular
fireball over Lucy. Lucy Gorgon listened to the growing firefight on the
ship's forward deck. ' "They are using the darkness to infiltrate my
ship. They would come prepared for the darkness." He whirled away from
the pilothouse window. "The lights! I want them all on."

Tarra slid from her stool in front of the radar hood and appealed to
him. "Lights will show them the way to the platform--"

Gorgon, sneering, pushed her viciously aside and threw a bank of
switches on the main console. On the ship's upper deck, powerful
sodium-arc lamps atop the loading arms and crow's nest flared, lighting
Lucy's deck with the brilliance of day. A harsh, naked light washed over
Marshall and Williams like a huge consuming wave, burning their retinas.
The lights blinded Williams as he fired. The silenced round hit wide of
its mark by two inches, piercing the terrorist's right lung. He went
down with a wail in front of his comrade, who watched him thrash and
gurgle to death. "Jesus wept," Williams spat, shaking his head to rid
himself of the painful afterimage. Marshall cursed loudly as he tore off
his night goggles. "Clear me space around that truck."

The major leaped over the anchor mounting and sprinted aft, crouching
behind the network of pipes as he made his way to the missiles' armored
electronics van, the brains of the Procyon. In one swift motion Williams
lifted his Galil, sighted the armed sentry next to the van's partially
opened rear door and fired. There was a quiet flash from the Galil's
muzzle. The bullet's impact lifted the second mercenary off his feet and
slammed him back against the van with an audible whomp. Gorgon watched
through his binoculars as Marshall ran aft toward the missiles. Other
soldiers in black wet suits were climbing over the bulwarks. Gorgon said
into his transceiver, "Officer of the deck, there are intruders on
board, mid-deck, moving aft. Defend the Procyons."

When Gorgon received no acknowledgment, he replaced the binoculars to
his eyes and realized his folly. His officer of the deck was dead, as
were all his troops stationed forward. The intruders had breached his
forward defenses and were killing his men as they retook his ship. In
that instant he realized that Lucy had reached the end of her voyage.
"Gorgon to Harness," he said into his transceiver, "arm the remaining
missiles. I order you to launch the remaining missiles at once. I
repeat. Launch the Procyons."

"Sloppy, Mr. Gorgon," Wynett scoffed. "Very sloppy."

Gorgon fixed Wynett with a baleful stare and said to Tarra, "Escort
these men to the deck and put them in the tank. See that they have an
interesting death."

Inside the armored electronics van, a woman with alluring features
seated at the command controls acknowledged Gorgon's order to fire. She
released the missiles' safety, keyed in the new launch sequence code and
watched the green status lights flare to active. The seven remaining
independent pretargeted missiles armed automatically and waited for her
command to launch. She glanced at the radar. The display was clouded
with blotches of green. Jammed. Useless. It no longer mattered. A
frightful blast rocked the van, and the partially opened rear door blew
off its hinges. She jerked upright in her chair. Her eyes caught only a
glimpse of the silhouetted figure standing outside the rear doorway,
bracing a shotgun on his hip. Her hand shot to the missile launch
button. Marshall fired. The shotgun blast hit her squarely in the chest.
She tore backward out of the chair, her hands grasping and clawing at
the air. He pumped three more rounds into the vehicle's instrumentation,
creating a fountain of electrical sparks, fire and glass. Marshall spun
away from the rear door and pointed his Franchi at the thick electrical
cable that fed power and instructions to the missile platform. He didn't
see another dark figure moving stealthily around the front of the van,
pointing a Kalashnikov at his head. But Williams did. The right half of
the terrorist's skull disintegrated in a thick red storm that blew in
the direction of the exiting bullet. Nearly headless, the terrorist
jerked to attention, blood pumping from his hollow skull, before
dropping. Marshall discharged a shotgun blast at the electrical cable,
severing it with a coarse hiss of sparks that sounded like an angry sea
snake. Now for the pallet's onboard computer-destroy it, Marshall knew,
and Gorgon would be impotent. Two more soldiers materialized from behind
the raised missile platform and charged him. Marshall's Franchi blast
tore off the gun-toting arm of the first soldier, who went down with a
shriek. The second mercenary, wielding a Kalashnikov, fired a wild burst
at Marshall. Bullets ricocheted off the side of the armored van as
Marshall dove to the deck and rolled under the vehicle, its high axle
offering him plenty of room to maneuver. While the mercenary kept the
major pinned under the vehicle with a series of short bursts, another
soldier, a technician, leaped to the missile platform and went to work
on the Procyons' keypad, manually resuming the launch sequence. "The
missiles are still operable," Marshall yelled into his transceiver. "Two
men are at the platform ...  can you get them?"

Across the deck, Williams leveled his Galil at the missile pallet. But
the van blocked his targets. "Joe," the sergeant said, "move that damn
truck for me."

Gorgon's technician, a slim soldier with glasses, leaned into the
missile platform's opened electronics bay and rerouted the cable on the
manual launch system. The standby light on the keyboard blinked from red
to green. He now had control of the missiles. He keyed a series of
protocol commands into the platform's onboard computer to begin the
manual launch sequence. There was no way to hasten the process.
Eagerness would be foolhardy, he knew. A single wrong entry would lock
up the system, forcing him to reboot the onboard computer and start the
procedure again. Another sound more alarming than gunfire nagged at the
fringes of his consciousness, taking precious concentration away from
his work. He keyed in the final command and watched impatiently as the
lengthy instruction code downloaded. It wasn't until his ears filled
with the roar of twin turbine engines that he realized the nagging sound
was an approaching jet. The technician reeled backward as an AV-A8
Harrier jet descended from the storm in front of the ship, its engine
exhausts bringing the aircraft to a hover over the forward deck as
though it were a helicopter. The technician, shielding his face from the
jet's powerful downdraft, glanced at the keyboard and cursed. The launch
ready light remained stubbornly red. Slowly and with incredible
precision, the jet began creeping aft. The Harrier's superheated exhaust
washed over the technician like a hurricane from hell. The terrorist
took refuge behind a wall of deck valves and huddled there, hands cupped
over his ears, his string of curses lost in the roar of the exhaust. The
Harrier pilot was damned good, he mused. The missiles couldn't launch,
not without bringing the jet crashing down on the ship's deck. In
seconds, when the missiles were ready, he need only touch one key to
launch. And then his job would be finished. One key!

But he couldn't. Not while the Harrier remained airborne. Inside the
Harrier, Youngblood moved the jet forward and brought it to a hover one
hundred and fifty feet directly over the missile platform. He saw two of
the terrorists scatter from beneath the aircraft's superheated exhaust.
Grinning, he pirouetted the aircraft around and maneuvered it to match
the ship's roll and forward speed, creating a metal ceiling over the
missiles. "I figured you might need some help," Youngblood said over the
scrambled LINK II frequency. Marshall, lying on his back under the
semitrailer, pressed the headpiece to his ear. "Youngblood? You crazy
son of a bitch--"

"At your service. Our navy brethren at Oceana were kind enough to loan
me this outstanding piece of hardware for the evening. I promised to
return it in one piece." Several rounds raked off the Harrier's
starboard wing. Youngblood's boyish grin vanished as he gripped the
stick harder and nudged the throttles forward to gain a few precious
feet of altitude. A sheen of sweat soaked his brow and began to seep
down his forehead and nose. "Get a move on. Major, and disable that
pallet. They're not going to let me stay up here all night."

Williams moved closer to the van, using the drain-tank pipes as cover.
He saw four more of Gorgon's men scatter among the network of pipes,
working their way forward to defend the missiles. He couldn't get a
clear shot at any of them without rupturing a pipe, nor could he target
the missile pallet. That fucking van ...

Another wave of SEALS, clad in black rubber wet suits, climbed over the
ship's bulwarks and unfolded the collapsible stocks of their M-24
automatic rifles. "That's right, keep them occupied," Williams muttered.
Gorgon's soldiers leveraged their positions among the ubiquitous pipes
and divided their fire between the boarding assault troops and the
Harrier. "Watch your back. Major," Youngblood radioed to Marshall.
"There's scum heading your way, and they seem pretty determined to
launch those missiles."

"Joe," Williams cut in, "get that damn van out of the way."

Marshall rolled from under the van and shielded his eyes against the
jet's downdraft. A vicious volley of fire ricocheted off the van's armor
skin as what remained of Gorgon's army jockeyed forward toward the
missile pallet, weaving between the pipes. The major dove through the
van's open driver's window. Two of Gorgon's men moved around the side of
the van, their automatic weapons raised and ready. The first soldier
flung open the driver's door and stared mutely down the barrel of a
military shotgun. Marshall fired. The close-range blast tore off the
soldier's head and lobbed it across the deck like a football on a
touchdown pass. His spastic torso flailed back into the arms of the
second soldier. A simultaneous round from Williams's rifle transfixed
the second soldier's chest, and the two terrorists, arm in arm, dropped
together in a macabre dance. Marshall brought the van's engine to life
and slammed it into first gear. His foot jammed the throttle as he
released the clutch. The armored van lurched forward with a sharp
protest and began rolling clumsily along Lucy's upper deck, exposing the
missile platform. "Thank you very much. Major." Williams, lying
spreadeagle on the deck, sighted the missile pallet and waited for one
of Gorgon's men to appear. "Go for it, assholes, and I'll blow your
motherfuckin' heads off."

The van's huge armored wheels skidded on the slick metal deck as
Marshall sent the truck hurtling aft toward the superstructure. He
revved the engine and drove the truck through pockets of firing
soldiers, scattering them. A lone mercenary, a large man with dark
features, stood defiantly in the center of the deck firing his automatic
weapon. Marshall saw the muzzle flashes and heard the bullets ricochet
off the van's armored front; then the windshield shattered in a hail of
glass pellets. He felt glass crystals shoot past his face like BB
pellets. Marshall ignored his stinging forehead and concentrated on the
confounded look in the terrorist's eyes only a few feet in front of him.
The impact flung the mercenary under the truck's huge front wheels. The
tires bounced and skidded over supple flesh, tearing skin from bones,
mashing limbs and crushing his skull nearly flat. Marshall felt hardly a
bump. The truck smashed through pipes and conduits, and left in its wake
clouds of vapor erupting from the ship's damaged closed-loop inert gas
system. Marshall opened the driver's door, jumped clear of the van and
rolled hard against the steel wall of the boat deck. Stunned, he watched
the van careen and crash into the ship's pumping conduits like a ball
shot from a cannon. The truck tumbled, flipped onto its side and smashed
headlong into the superstructure.

Chapter Forty-one.

Lucy

Tarra and two of her soldiers escorted Carlucci and Wynett to the ship's
upper port deck. She spun the toggle dogs and lifted a hatch, releasing
a heavy waft of petroleum vapors. "You will be safe down here," she
said, then broke into a peculiar laugh. Tarra's features hardened as she
jerked her head, and the soldiers prodded their prisoners into the
narrow circular opening. Carlucci climbed down first, hand over hand,
down forty feet of narrow ladder to the bottom of the gloomy
compartment. The rungs were slippery and left his hands muddy. The only
light shone down from the open hatch above. He could see vague patterns
of elaborate pipes and valves, countless beams and struts, nooks,
crannies, and crevices, and the gray walls of the great metal tank
rising high above him. The fumes were strong. He held his breath, heaved
it out again and knew there would be no escaping it. Toxic or not, this
was the only air he had. Wynett followed and was heaving terribly by the
time he reached the bottom. The hatch overhead banged shut, and the
toggle latches creaked as they locked. The two stood in absolute
blackness, listening to the ship's deep rumble. There were no other ship
sounds, no faint noise of sea strain or stress or creaking. Only the
occasional hurried scuffles of boots on the steelwork high overhead. "A
cargo tank, I assume," Wynett offered. "We are in a slop tank," Carlucci
corrected him, then shuddered when his disembodied voice boomed back
from the darkness. "When the cargo compartments are cleaned," he said in
a muted voice, ' 'the remaining sludge is pumped into this tank until it
can be disposed of properly."

"Delightful," Wynett said. "This tank has been flushed and cleaned,"
Carlucci said. "Otherwise we would be dead by now." The captain turned
around, tried to acquire his bearings, couldn't, and squatted on the
slippery floor. Carlucci heard Wynett scuffle into a sitting position
against the far steel wall. "I suggest you make yourself comfortable,
sir," Wynett said. "We are not going anywhere."

Tarra took a seat before the pumping room's computercontrolled station
that electronically governed the flow of crude oil in and out of the
ship's massive storage tanks. She activated a series of switches and
brought the ship's cargo pumps to life. The schematic's valve indicator
on the port-side slop tank blinked from red to green. She giggled. Deep
inside the ship a hydraulic valve opened, and crude oil from the
number-seven cargo tank began flowing into her makeshift prison.
Carlucci felt the floor vibrate slightly. He could hear a sloshing
sound, like something living was slithering down into the hold. It was
the sound of medium-gravity crude spilling onto the steel floor.
Carlucci felt the crude flow around his feet and stood suddenly, staring
into the unspeakable darkness. The agonizingly slow flow rate would take
hours to fill the compartment. Whoever was doing this took perverse
pleasure in a slow, tortured death, he thought. "Holy Mary mother of God..."

"Mr. Gorgon is frightened," Wynett rasped, not a trace of panic in his
voice. "Or he would not be killing us."

Quarantine

Julie didn't dare believe what she was seeing, didn't dare
believe the demon had been excised. It had been ten minutes since Dr.
Shaw had given her the injection of ganciclovir. During that time she
watched her twisted fingers relax to normal and, despite some residual
numbness, her hand once again felt like her own. Incredible. Dr. Shaw
slipped into the room. "Your blood tests are normal."

Shaw's words flowed over her with dreamlike buoyancy; in fact, the
entire room had taken on an aura of unreality. "Did you hear what I
said?" Shaw persisted, gripping her shoulder. Julie spun around and
looked at her; then her eyes fell to the summary printout in Shaw's
hand. The numbers were there in black and white, very thorough, very
meticulous, numbers that proved St. Vitus could be defeated. Shaw, her
eyes ringed with deep lines of concern, stooped in front of Julie's
chair. "I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't read it myself.
How do you feel, dear?"

Julie, unable to express how she felt, managed, "Fine."

"Fine? Just fine? You've come back from the dead and you're just fine?"

Julie broke down and wrapped her arms around Shaw's neck, holding her
tightly. A stunned Dr. Shaw scrambled to keep from spilling backward.
"Hey." She laughed. "I'm glad to see you too."

Streams of tears rolled from Julie's eyes. She pulled back from her
mentor and, embarrassed, said, "I'm so friggin' stupid."

Shaw frowned at her student. "Stupid? I think not. Lucky maybe, but not
stupid."

"No. I mean about the ganciclovir. It was right in front of me all the
time, but I didn't see it. Jeez, I'm so dense. I even dreamed about it,
for chrissake."

Shaw nodded thoughtfully. "You saw what you thought you were supposed to
see and didn't consider any other possibility. I'm still half in the
dark. Tell me how you figured this one out."

Julie leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply; she felt as though a
gruesome creature with deep claws and sharp teeth had just been wrenched
off her back. She blew her nose in a tissue and stuffed it into the
pocket of her sweater. "It's ingeniously simple. Dr. French wanted to
broaden the safety margin of his experiment, so he spliced another gene
into Saint Vitus--a suicide switch. He used a mouse-tumor virus to make
Saint Vitus sensitive to the antibiotic ganciclovir. It acts as a switch
to inactivate Saint Vitus. French wanted to be able to turn off the
experiment with the antibiotic in case something went wrong."

"So why didn't he use it to save himself?"

"He had no way of knowing how potent the first generation of Saint Vitus
would be or how quickly it would spread through the nervous system. He
never had a chance. But as the virus mutates, its toxicity decreases and
spreads much more slowly through the host's system, though it's still
inevitably fatal."

"What about Joe and his sergeant?"

Julie stood suddenly, and Dr. Shaw had to run to keep up with her as she
stormed down the hallway to the communications room. "The son of a bitch
is determined to get himself killed."

"If you're thinking of calling him," Shaw said, "you'll never get access
to the channel, not now, not during the operation."

Julie sat down at the communications console and punched into the LINK
11 network. "I'm calling General Medlock. He's got to patch me through
to him."

Lucy Carlucci pushed on the hatch's lever. Frozen. He would die in here,
he realized. Refusing to succumb, he looped an arm through the top rung
of the tank's ladder and held his wrist tightly, locking his arms
together like a safety pin. The air in the compartment was too foul to
breathe. He was dying, and he knew it. In a few seconds he would black
out. Then his body would fall from the ladder and sink beneath a lake of
crude oil. He withdrew a pair of steel pliers from his coat pocket and
began pounding the hatch with them. The sound of metal against metal
reverberated loudly around the compartment.

He no longer heard Wynett's groans below him. The poor bastard probably
was dead. Was Carlucci afraid to die? Not now, he thought, not after
watching so many of his men perish. As the blackness of eternity
enveloped him, Carlucci realized that death, in whatever guise it came,
embodied only finality, the nonexistence of all he was. What he found
unconscionable was his inability to stop Gorgon and the abomination he
was determined to unleash. His life would end, while the monster lived.
And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Carlucci began
choking. Still he managed to reach up and pound the hatch one final
time. His lungs ached, no longer able to take in another breath. As
death came for him, he began to tremble. Yes, he was frightened. His arm
began slipping from the rung. Let it end now. He heard the gurgle of
crude below, augmented by another sound, a strange creaking noise as
though the ship's seams were coming apart from within. What was it?

An intense white light washed over him, and with it came a cold draft of
air that roused his sensibilities. The heavy hatch banged onto the deck.
He gazed up into the bright sodium-arc lights and felt his retinas ache.
A face broke the circle of light above--a soldier's face painted with
black camouflage. It wasn't one of Gorgon's men. "Well, prick my ass!"
the soldier said in a flat, American Midwestern voice. He grabbed both
of Carlucci's wrists and hauled him out of the tank with a groan. The
SEAL could see Carlucci was no terrorist. "You don't fucking move, pal.
Not until I know who you are."

Carlucci rose to his knees. "I am the ship's captain ... he put us in
the tank to die ..."

"Us? Who's us?"

"The bridge," Carlucci managed between great lungfuls of the crisp night
air, "I must get to the ship's bridge and stop this vessel."

Youngblood felt rather than heard the Harrier's systems fail. The
stick's vibration grew appallingly worse. He gripped it harder, flexing
his arm muscles until they ached from the tension. He ascended another
hundred feet, giving himself precious room to maneuver if he had to.
"Hold on tight, boys and girls," he said to himself. Both crimson
engine-fire warning lights glared at him like the eyes of a raging night
beast, while the cockpit's alarm sirens wailed in his ears. The rpm,
hydraulic and oil readouts all told him to eject his ass out of
there--fast!

Youngblood ignored them all. He felt remarkably alive, pushing the
Harrier's flying envelope further than any other pilot could have done.
He took in all the aircraft's readouts at once. Saw everything. He
focused every molecule of his being on tweaking extraordinary
performance out of the Harrier to maintain its position over the missile
pallet. He knew that once he moved out of the way, the missiles could
launch. He vowed not to let that happen. "Oh, what fun it is to ride
..." The aircraft dipped as it momentarily lost power in both engines.
He jammed the throttles forward, raising the aircraft still further."
...  in a one-horse open sleigh."

The missile technician knew the Harrier was in serious trouble, knew it
had sustained too much damage from ground fire to remain airborne much
longer. But how long? He could hear the choking sound of its turbo
engines struggling to maintain their revolutions. Yet the aircraft hung
there, stubbornly, like an annoying wasp over a picnic plate. The
Harrier would have to maneuver out of the missile's way in the next
seconds if it were to set down safely. And when that happened, he would
charge the platform and launch the missiles. But the Harrier wouldn't
move. He gritted his teeth. How much longer? Seconds, no more. Suddenly
the Harrier began falling. The technician froze; his eyes opened
impossibly wide--the only indication his brain registered what was
happening. A cry caught in his throat as the Harrier dropped straight
down onto the missile pallet. "I'm outta here."

Youngblood grabbed the eject lever on the side of his seat an instant
before the awful concussion. Too late. The Harrier's engines shattered.
Countless pieces of turbine blades traveling at twelve hundred miles an
hour sliced through the cockpit, ripping the flight deck to ribbons.
Sparks and fire replaced the flying glass. An instant later,
Youngblood's remains were indistinguishable from the Harrier's shattered
instrumentation. The missile platform disintegrated in an appalling
upheaval. The wreckage scattered across the deck, ripping apart anybody
and anything unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. The Harrier
crushed the pipe conduit behind which the technician huddled. He died
instantly. The wreckage continued its tumble across the deck like a
flaming Catherine wheel and burst through the ship's bulwark. A
tremendous fireball lit the black Virginia sky as the tangled Harrier
and missile platform fused into a single mass of metal and cartwheeled
grotesquely into the Chesapeake Bay. Marshall pressed his back hard into
the metal wall of the ship's boat deck and, wiping the mixture of sweat
and sleet from his face, watched the Harrier go down. The orange-white
fireball leaped high into the night and rolled into a thick, black
cloud. It was gone an instant later, swallowed by the night, as though
the Harrier and the missiles had never existed. The major touched his
mouthpiece and said slowly and without emotion to all military channels,
"Harrier down. Missile pallet destroyed. Missile capability negated.
Repeat. Missiles negated."

Andrews Airfield Marshall had barely finished when General Medlock
opened a channel to Oceana and said, "I want the air assault to begin
immediately. Repeat. Mobilize full air assault."

Gorgon entered the ship's pumping room and stepped to the main console.
He knew a larger assault force would try to take the ship now that his
missiles had been destroyed. He ignored the myriad switches and gauges
that controlled the ship's cargo movements and fingered a single toggle
lever his technicians had installed under the main console. He engaged
it. Light crude and condensate from the top of the number-four cargo
tank began spilling across Lucy's upper deck like an open fire hydrant.
Instead of flowing through the off-loadling lines, the oil flowed
through the conduits his men had retrofitted so the cargo would spill
onto the deck. It had been done merely as a precaution, a remote
contingency. Now its use was mandatory. It would buy Gorgon the time he
needed to finish his business. He withdrew his Ruger, used it to shatter
the pump-room window, then discharged a single round at the deck. A
holocaust. The fuel ignited, and twenty-foot flames turned Lucy's deck
into an image of Dante's Inferno. Gorgon's eyes widened with glee while
he watched an ocean of fire engulf what was left of his army and the
assault commandos. He caught occasional glimpses of men against the
sheer wall of flame briefly as they dove headlong over the bulwarks and
into the bay. There was no escaping it. And then there was nothing but
flames.

Chapter Forty-two.

Williams propelled himself through the wall of fire that whipped and
thrashed at him like living claws. He had no way of knowing how far the
sea of flames stretched before him, spewing off the deck like an
enormous gas stove. It didn't take long to find out. Williams burst from
the inferno into the open winter air and slammed his back against the
steel wall of the superstructure next to Marshall. Sleet driving down on
his face felt cold and refreshing, while heat seared through the bottom
of his boots. Gorgon's defense was impeccable. No one could survive this
firestorm, much less set down a troop helicopter in the middle of it.
The sergeant touched his smoldering vest with cracked and callused
fingers. Marshall looked incredulously at him. "Are you okay?"

Williams found it difficult to breathe. "Son of a bitch is gonna blow
this ship right out of the water. When it goes, we go with it."

"And the others?"

"A handful went over the side." Williams gestured toward the black
thunderclouds of billowing smoke where the Harrier had gone down. "Why
did Youngblood do it?"

Marshall, his eyes set in stone, methodically slid more cartridges into
his Franchi. "He was a brave soldier who put duty before his own life.
He gave us a way to finish this business."

He cocked and chambered a round, then shifted his severe gaze to
Williams. "I'm not leaving here till I see that bastard's blackened
corpse."

"What are we waiting for?"

Marshall and Williams slipped into the superstructure through the upper
deck side hatch. The ship's interior, dark and cool and quiet, was a
welcome respite. They crouched on either side of the hallway and
listened. Nothing. The boat deck quarters appeared deserted, the lights
out. Marshall pulled a notebook from his SAS belt and consulted the
general arrangement plan of the ship's superstructure. The floor plan
showed the wheelhouse four decks above them. "There's a staircase
halfway down this hallway."

They moved down die corridor, pointing their weapons into every darkened
quarter. They came upon the bodies of two SEALS, their corpses riddled
with neat wounds from automatic fire. "Poor bastards were ambushed,"
Williams said. Marshall motioned the sergeant to be quiet as he slipped
into a steep, narrow staircase leading up to the next deck. The steps
above him were empty. Marshall ascended the first flight to the bridge
deck, then continued to the officer's deck, while Williams covered the
stairwell behind them. The major heard no troop movement, only the
pounding of his heart. As he made his way up to the captain's deck, a
silhouetted figure appeared on the lightless landing directly above him.
Marshall dropped to one knee and fired. The figure vaulted into the
hallway as the wall at the top of the stairwell exploded with buckshot.
The figure began screaming in a heavily accented voice that reverberated
throughout the superstructure. The voice sounded Italian, but Marshall
couldn't be sure with the yelling. The major leaped up the steps two at
a time and charged into the hallway. "Don't shoot!"

Marshall jammed the barrel of his Franchi into Carlucci's throat. The
old seaman used his hands as a shield against another shotgun blast. His
right leg was bleeding; two inches to the left and he would have lost it
at the knee. Marshall read real fear in the old man's eyes. He wore a
badly sooted seaman's uniform, not the black khaki fatigues worn by
Gorgon's soldiers, Marshall noted, and his gray hair, weathered
features, accent and generous paunch didn't fit the terrorists' profile.
"Who the hell are you?"

The man's voice when he spoke was full of terror. "My name is Sergio
Carlucci, I am Lucy's master, a prisoner on my own ship. Please. I am
trying to stop this ship."

Marshall pulled Carlucci to his feet and frisked his clothing for a
weapon. Finding none, he prodded him back out of reach. "I could have
killed you," Marshall snapped in a voice he meant to sound benevolent.
"Tend to that leg before you bleed to death."

Carlucci never took his eyes off the major as he withdrew a
grease-covered handkerchief from his jacket pocket and used it to stop
the blood running down his shin. "How many of Gorgon's men are on the
bridge?" Marshall demanded. "None. They have all gone below and
barricaded themselves in the engine room."

Marshall helped Carlucci into the stairwell and prodded him up the
steps. "Show me the bridge."

Carlucci tripped his way up to the navigation bridge. The three of them
entered the wheelhouse, lit up like day by the blazing deck below. "Stop
the engine," Marshall demanded. Carlucci moved to the helm and took the
ship off autopilot, shut down the engine and released the anchor.
Nothing happened. The ship's readouts indicated that the massive diesel
engine was still turning at full power, pushing the ship up the York
River at eighteen knots. While the captain worked, Marshall rifled
through the scattered piles of maps and photographs on the chart table.
Williams joined him. There were dozens of grainy photo images and
detailed technical drawings of docks, buildings and odd bits of heavy
equipment. One chart was a pumping schematic of a refinery's off-loading
facility. Another was a blueprint of a petroleum product storage
terminal. Marshall studied a marine map of the York River from Yorktown
to West Point, scribbled with checkpoints, headings, logarithmic speeds
and times. Someone had marked a comprehensive route for the ship that
ended at a refinery on the outskirts of Yorktown. "He intended to use
the pipeline to send his weapon inland," Carlucci said. "So we spoiled
his party," Marshall said. "He still has the organism," Williams said.
"Why is this ship still moving?" Marshall demanded. Carlucci
repositioned every backup switch and tried the routine again. The ship
would not respond. He could not stop Lucy. Carlucci spread his arms
palms-up in exasperation. "He commands Lucy from belowdeck. He has taken
over the engine control room and is letting the computers steer the ship
to Yorktown. The system works off the ship's gyrocompasses--the
repeaters are tied into the ship's steering system. But it is only meant
for deep seas, never in closed navigational areas. What he is doing is
very dangerous. He has rewired the system and I cannot disengage it from
here."

Marshall moved to the captain's side and pointed his Franchi at the main
console. "This will stop it."

"No," Carlucci said, placing himself between Marshall and the console.
"He controls everything from below. He does not need the bridge."

"What about his escape plan? How does he intend to get off this ship?"

Carlucci shook his head. "I do not know."

"The bastard's not suicidal. There must be a way out from below deck.
Think, man!"

"There is an emergency door in the engine room, just above the
waterline."

Marshall heard choppers approaching and motioned the others away from
the window. An Apache A-64 gunship descended from the storm-swept sky
like a hawk in the night and hovered to port of Lucy's blazing
forecastle. "What does he think he's doing?" Williams huffed. Marshall
could see two C-l Sea Stallions maneuvering into holding patterns a
prudent fifty yards forward of the ship, one port, one starboard,
waiting to deploy troops. They just hung there. Setting down in a sheer
sea of flame the size of a football field was out of the question. A
second Apache gunship swooped down in front of the ship's
superstructure. "Get down!" Marshall tackled Carlucci to the floor as
the gunship opened fire with its 30mm chain-fed cannon. The wheelhouse's
windscreens shattered in an appalling blizzard of flying glass while the
equipment consoles exploded in sparks and metal. Carlucci swallowed hard
as he watched the rounds tear apart his bridge. As the gunship moved on,
its forward weapons officer directed fire from one window to another,
methodically clearing the ship's quarters with 20-round bursts of 30mm
high-explosive dual-purpose rounds. "Stop firing!" Marshall yelled into
his transceiver. "The navigation bridge is secure. Cease fire. Repeat.
Cease fire!"

A metallic voice squawked into Marshall's ear. "Stay the hell put before
you lose that sorry ass of yours. I'll relay your position to the
assault force commander. Stay the hell put."

"Gorgon has the organism stashed somewhere belowdeck," Marshall yelled.
"An explosion could rupture those tanks."

"Tanks?" Carlucci grabbed Marshall's arm. "He keeps tanks in a
maintenance shop on the bottom deck, a place where he assembled the
warheads for his missiles. I have seen them."

Marshall rose quickly to his feet. "Show me."

The first Sea Stallion maneuvered into a hover over Lucy's
superstructure, its rear troop compartment door open, the pilot
mustering more than twenty years of flying experience to match the
ship's forward speed and roll. Despite buffeting twenty-five-knot winds
he actually made the precarious hover look easy. The Special Forces
commander studied the narrow bridge deck below, appraising the
feasibility of rappelling his men down onto it. Dangerous, with no
margin for error, but doable. He keyed his headset and radioed back to
Medlock's command hangar, "I can put some of my men onto the bridge's
wing deck. Say the word and I'll have them inside the wheelhouse in
three minutes."

The communications officer at Andrews Airfield spun away from the radio
console. "Marshall's inside. The bridge is secure."

There was an outburst of victorious hoots and hollers from the men in
the corner of the command hangar that had been converted into General
Medlock's decision center. The officer pressed a palm against his
headphones as more information poured into his ear. "The upper deck's on
fire, sir," he said. "The choppers report a twenty-foot wall of flame
the length of the ship, though the source doesn't appear to be the cargo
tanks. The ship's still moving at eighteen knots."

Another aide thrust a portable phone at the general. "It's the
president, sir."

"Jesus." The room fell silent as the general accepted the phone.
"Medlock here."

"I want an update," the president snapped. "Lucy's upper deck and
superstructure are secure, sir."

"Congratulations, General," the president offered. "Is the ship
anchored?"

"Sir, the ship's upper deck is ablaze. Deploying troops will take time."

"Goddamn it, that's not what I want to hear. I want that ship stopped
now. Get that organism back into military hands. That was our deal. Do
we understand each other?"

"Yes, sir," Medlock said after the line had gone dead. He shoved the
phone back to his aide. General Medlock gritted his jaw. What the hell
is that son of a bitch Marshall doing? If he's in command of the bridge,
why is the fucking ship still moving? "Christ, we can't have an
explosion. Not now, not now. Can we deploy more troops?"

The communications officer raised his hand for silence. "Sir, the op
commander on the number-one Sea Stallion says he can rappel some of his
men onto the starboard bridge wing deck and get them inside the
superstructure."

Medlock slid his finger along the ship's diagram to the wing deck next
to the wheelhouse and nodded. "Tell him to get his ass down there."

Major Higgins, bert's logistical officer, beckoned the general to his
chart table. "Sir, in eight miles the ship will reach the Coleman
Memorial Bridge at Gloucester Point," he said, his finger thrust solidly
on the lower right-hand corner of the nautical chart. "It's a swing
span, opens at right angles. The tanker's draft is forty-two feet, which
won't take it much past that bridge. We'll need to alert the bridge
operator to open the bridge. Once past it, the ship will scuttle in the
shallows."

Medlock's eyes swept the large general arrangement blueprint of Lucy,
searching for a solution, seeing nothing but problems. Every minute
brought the tanker closer to more people. Fuck you, Gorgon. Fuck you,
you smart-ass son of a bitch. "The drawbridge stays closed. That tanker
isn't getting past it."

"Sir, it's just a precaution--"

"It stays closed. That ship isn't going anywhere, not now, not with my
men aboard."

Carlucci, Marshall and Williams descended the narrow staircases, around
one landing after another, until they reached the superstructure's boat
deck. They ruled out using the tiny service elevator, which could take
them directly to the engine room. Too dangerous, too exposed. The lights
were out on the ship's lower decks, and to descend further meant
proceeding in total darkness. A large bead of sweat rolled into
Marshall's eye, reminding him that he was sweating profusely. Part of it
was a cold, clammy sweat produced from a continuous dose of adrenaline;
the majority, however, reflected the buildup of heat from the engine
room one deck below them. "We're walking into an ambush," Williams said.
Marshall retrieved the ship's schematics from his SAS belt and looked
for another way down. There wasn't any. Gorgon could easily cover every
access to the engine room. "In here," Carlucci said, leading them into
the third-deck pump room. Unlike the sophisticated high-tech station on
the ship's upper deck, the pump room was all muscle, boasting a
labyrinth of valves and pipes that extended deep into the ship. Carlucci
opened a tall tool locker and retrieved a wrench the size of a baseball
bat and an equally long flashlight. Marshall and Williams followed him
to the port bulkhead, where he knelt down and went to work. Carlucci
fitted the wrench's huge teeth over one of several lug bolts embedded in
the wall and, grunting, twisted it loose. The captain winced with each
flex of his arm. Marshall took the wrench from him and forced his
shaking hands to remove the remaining bolts. The three of them lifted a
three-foot steel plate off the wall and set it roughly to one side.
Marshall thrust his head into the opening and could sense rather than
see the depth of the crawlspace, which dropped several stories below
them. Carlucci squeezed in beside him and played the beam of his
flashlight off the steel braces that supported the ship's outer hull.
"I'm afraid to ask what you have in mind," Marshall said. "There are six
meters of space between the hulls," Carlucci said. "Yeah, so?"

"We will climb down."

Chapter Forty-three.

Carlucci climbed hand over hand down an uneven row of rusted footholds
imbedded in the side of the number-seven cargo tank. Marshall and
Williams followed, without the benefit of the captain's flashlight. The
space between the hulls offered little breadth, but it was deep,
reaching four stories below them like a cave fissure. The dank and heavy
air lacked a pervasive petroleum odor, Marshall noted, evidence of the
effective closed-loop inert ventilation system, which had kept the tanks
from igniting. Still, each of them was keenly aware that if a cargo tank
erupted, they would be cremated beneath a fiery oil pit. At the bottom,
Carlucci moved to the next section of crossstruts and directed the
flashlight's beam on a service aperture with a tiny, twisted ladder
descending still deeper into the ship. Carlucci sat on the edge of the
hole and, with the flashlight in one hand and the massive wrench in the
other, descended into the blackness. Marshall swung the Franchi over his
shoulder and followed. The ladder took them into a pit that afforded
just enough room for the two of them. Williams watched from the ladder
above. "Where to, skipper?" Marshall asked, feeling a distinct
claustrophobic squeeze. Carlucci handed Marshall the flashlight.
Kneeling, the captain went to work with his wrench on the first of a
dozen floor bolts. As Carlucci loosened the floor panel, Marshall
expected a sudden surge of river water to come shooting up through the
hull like a geyser. But as he worked, the wrench echoed hollowly against
the steel plate, suggesting another void beneath. He made quick work of
loosening the bolts, and the two wrestled the steel plate noisily to one
side. A waft of chilled, rusty air rose up to greet them. Carlucci
reclaimed his flashlight, lowered himself through the new opening and
splashed down into a foot of bilgewater. There wasn't enough clearance
to stand upright. Marshall followed and, crouching in the bilge,
surveyed the area illuminated by Carlucci's light. A vast, unholy cavern
supported by steel cross-beams and struts stretched ahead and behind
them as far as the light would reach. Marshall could hear the massive
ship groan heavily above them. "Where in hell are we?"

"The ship has two hulls," Carlucci said. "We are standing between them.
This space runs the length of the ship along the keel."

Williams lowered himself down beside the two. "Sweet Christ, I've been
in some hellholes before ..."

"This way," Carlucci said, trudging aft, taking the light with him.
Gorgon, dressed in a rubber wet suit, carefully set the rucksack on the
maintenance shop's workbench. The bag held a brick-size high-yield
plastique explosive with a layer of electronics embedded into its top.
As Gorgon armed the mechanism, Tarra quickly finished her inspection of
the row of Saint Vitus cylinders stacked against the far bulkhead. She
hated to be near them. "What if it does not work?" she asked,
apprehensive, watching the corridor outside the shop. "What if the tanks
do not rupture?"

"It will work," Gorgon said. "In seven minutes there will be a very
large hole in this ship's hull. There is enough explosive force in this
bag to rupture the tanks and aerate the creatures through the ship and
across the river. My sleeping children will awake to avenge the murders
of our people."

Gorgon activated the device and inspected the tiny panel of red timing
lights blinking methodically, counting down to detonation seven minutes
from now. He lifted the bag of explosives with extra care and set it
behind the row of tanks. "It is almost finished." He noted the
foreboding look on Tarra's features. "What is troubling you? Your Allah
is pleased."

"There is too much activity on the river," she said. "Surely someone
will see both of us leaving. And will we be far enough from the
explosion to avoid contamination?"

Gorgon scoffed away her concerns. "My dear Tarra, no one will see us.
The engine room's emergency door is well hidden. In seven minutes we
both will be upwind, watching the death of this vessel from shore. When
the militia recovers the charred corpses from the bottom of this river,
they will believe we died with them. Come. Let us begin our new lives
together."

Gorgon turned and slipped through the hatchway, leaving Tarra to lock
the bulkhead hatch behind them. Carlucci crawled to the end of the low
cavern and played his light upward, searching the silted panels for a
set of latches. Marshall and Williams waited uneasily in the bilge
behind him. Finally the sea captain found what he was looking for and
began beating back the six toggle dogs with the tip of his huge wrench.
Gorgon and Tarra heard the erratic echo of metal striking metal above
the engine's deep rumble. "They are coming for us," she hissed. Gorgon's
eyes scanned the floor of the pump room and spotted the manhole cover.
"There."

Tarra swung the Uzi off her shoulder. "I will finish them."

Gorgon raised a firm hand. "You cannot fire a weapon in this room. A
ricochet will rupture a pipe."

She nodded and withdrew a wicked-looking knife. "Go. I will meet you at
the emergency outlet."

Gorgon swept around and vanished, moving briskly between two boilers on
the way to the engine room. Something he saw made him stop suddenly. A
dark figure detached itself from the boiler and blocked his path. At
first Gorgon did not recognize the man in the half-light, but he
couldn't refute his intentions. The tousled intruder, slicked with crude
oil and barely able to support himself, held a Kalashnikov cocked and
pointed. "Greetings, Mr. Gorgon," Wynett said. "You and I have business
to discuss."

Carlucci drove his hand upward and pushed the manhole cover aside with a
clang. Marshall and Williams followed him up through the hole into the
ship's lower pump room. Countless rows of pipes lined the ceiling and
walls. The major could feel the steel under his feet resonate from the
massive three-story diesel engine turning at full power in the next
compartment.

Carlucci pointed aft. "The boilers are through that service hatch, and
the engine room is just beyond them." He swept around and indicated the
maintenance locker. "That is where he keeps the tanks. I've seen them."

Marshall squatted next to the locked hatch to the maintenance shop,
threw back the four toggle locks, then slid cautiously to one side.
Williams covered him, his rifle aimed at the center of the hatchway.
Marshall kicked open the hatch, his shotgun raised. The room appeared
empty. They sprinted inside. Williams charged the row of tanks and
immediately spotted the satchel with the red riming lights readily
visible inside. "The son of a bitch has rigged the tanks to explode."

"Jesus, he's stashed away Armageddon in here," Marshall said, stooping
next to him. He probed the bag with his spasming hand. He noted that
Williams's hands also had begun to tremble. "There's no way we're going
to disarm this thing."

Williams carefully lifted the bag. "Then let's get it off this ship."

Tarra pounced on Williams's back and drove her knife into the vulnerable
spot between his shoulder blades. Williams grunted in surprise, dropped
to his knees and threw her sprawling over his shoulder. Marshall whipped
around. Tarra sprang up and rammed her shoulder into Marshall's chest,
slamming him hard onto the deck. She dove on him, tigerlike in her
ferocity, her wicked blade angled at his throat. Marshall grabbed
Tarra's knife-wielding hand with both of his and pushed back with all
his strength. The effort was negligible against her brute force. The
blade sank steadily toward his neck. Suddenly Tarra's head jerked
sideways with a sickening crack. Her knife hand grew limp. There came a
whisk, followed by another bone-shattering crack. Again her head jerked
unnaturally. Marshall flung Tarra off him as Carlucci swung his huge
wrench a third time like a baseball bat, producing another crack as it
connected with her skull. Marshall grabbed his Franchi and discharged
two deafening blasts into Tarra's chest at close range, the sound
amplified in the closed steel compartment. She flew back against the
metal wall with a screech, then flopped around in a pool of her blood,
struggling to rise. A third shotgun blast into her face finally stilled
her. "Williams--" Marshall joined Carlucci at the sergeant's side.
Williams rose onto his knees, laboring to draw a breath. "How bad are
you hit?" Marshall asked. Williams shrugged off his jacket, revealing an
SAS tactical assault vest. "She knocked the goddamn wind out of me."

He slipped off the vest and inspected the damaged cartridge pocket.
"Damn. The bitch trashed my only detonator."

Marshall, grinning, slapped the sergeant's arm. Williams grabbed the
explosive satchel. "Gotta go." He bolted into the outer pump room and
charged the open manhole in the deck. Carlucci ran after him. "No! You
will be trapped down there. An explosion will rupture the cargo tanks
and the hulls. She will drop her cargo as she sinks."

Williams whipped around, looking desperately for a way out. "Through the
engine room," Carlucci shouted, pointing to the service hatchway. "There
is an emergency door on the aft hull just above the waterline. Quickly!"

Williams rushed into the boiler room and nearly ran headlong into
Gorgon. Time froze for the gunnery sergeant. He just stood there, mouth
open, as though he were meeting Satan himself. Something was wrong, he
noted. Gorgon just stared at him, his lips pressed together in an
uncharacteristic look of frustration. His eyes shifted to the satchel in
Williams's hand, producing ever-deepening creases of apprehension on his
forehead. Still, he made no move. "Do not fear him. Sergeant," Wynett
said, stepping from the deep shadows of the number-one boiler.
Williams's eyes darted to the old man wielding an assault rifle, which
he held pointed at both of them. Wynett's skin was pulsating as though
alive. Williams bit his lower lip in disgust. "You will find Mr. Gorgon
a docile fellow, even pleasant," he said, "when he has an automatic
rifle pointed at his back."

Chapter Forty-four.

The York River Gloucester Point

Simon Goski, the Coleman Memorial Bridge's second-shift operator,
scowled at the road-weary man in a long wet raincoat standing in the
doorway of the drawbridge's pilothouse. The man clearly was having a bad
day. His lips were moving but his words were masked by a distorted oldie
blaring from the room's cheap radio. The portly operator looked past the
sleet-soaked stranger and saw an armed soldier on the roadway outside,
directing the arrival of a camouflaged military transport truck large
enough for two dozen troops. Through the pilothouse window he could see
several unmarked cars skidding to a halt on the bridge. What the hell
was going on?

The man in the wet raincoat didn't ask permission to turn off the radio;
he just did it. "Simon Goski, my name is Timothy O'Connor." He flashed
an ID. "CIA. During the next hour you'll do exactly as I say."

Goski gawked at the leather ID wallet long enough to read every word
three times. "Mr. Goski, I need your absolute cooperation."

The drawbridge operator pushed back his chair with a raw screech as he
rose and pressed past the CIA man. For the moment, his sole interest was
the bridge's radar, an ancient machine that still ran on vacuum tubes.
"Not till I open the bridge," Goski rasped. "There's a fuckin' tanker
headin' straight for us, and her crazy captain won't put down anchor in
this storm. And he won't answer his fuckin' radio."

"Mr. Goski," the CIA agent said firmly, "please take your hands off
those controls or these soldiers will take you into custody. Do you
understand?"

Goski, baffled, let his tree-trunk arms fall to his sides. He didn't
understand any of this, but the instructions sank in: Do as you're told
and don't ask questions. Agent O'Connor peered through the pilothouse
window at the sleet-swept night. He couldn't see anything, not even the
river. But he knew Lucy was out there. Somewhere in that darkness she
was moving silently toward them. "Mr. Goski," he said, his eyes still
locked on the darkness, "no matter what happens in the next hour, no
matter what instruction you may receive to the contrary, this bridge
will stay closed."

Lucy Williams lifted the rucksack to show Wynett the electronic
detonator blinking inside. "One of us had better get rid of this."

Wynett understood immediately. He had sold Gorgon several of these
explosive devices cleverly engineered to take longer to disarm than the
detonating timer would allow. "Up to mischief, Mr. Gorgon?" he said. "I
see you intend to punch a very large hole in this ship and blow the
organism into the slipstream. A desperate move, I should think, one that
will vastly limit your effective range. I am disappointed that after so
much planning--so much hardware procurement--you would resort to such
desperate means to complete your mission. Anything but failure, yes?"
Gorgon said nothing, his keen eyes never wavering from Wynett's. "Take
it, Mr. Gorgon," Wynett said, his voice dropping a chilled octave. "Take
that bag from the sergeant or I will empty this clip into your back."

Gorgon didn't move. "Mr. Gorgon," Wynett said, "I will allow you only
three seconds more to comply before I open fire."

Gorgon, his expression grim, reached forward and grasped the Satchel's
leather handle. "Son of a bitch," Williams said, placing the bag's full
weight in Gorgon's hand. "It's all yours, pal." He slid the Galil off his
shoulder. "No, Sergeant," Wynett said. "I forbid you to touch your
weapon."

Williams disregarded him. "Screw you, old man ..."

"Take your hand off that weapon." Wynett discharged a single round into
the boiler beside Williams and saw it ricochet into the engine room,
absorbed by machinery. "Yeah, I hear you." The sergeant let the Galil
drop to his side. "Well, I'll be damned," Marshall said, slipping
through the bulkhead hatch behind Williams. Carlucci watched from beyond
the hatchway. Marshall and Gorgon exchanged icy stares. "Oh, how I'm
going to enjoy this," Marshall said, raising his Franchi. "I'm taking
you down right here. We'll call it a debt I owe to a good friend."

"I will not allow that. Major," Wynett said. "Mr. Gorgon and I are about
to complete a business transaction. He will be satisfying his debt to me
by holding that bag when it detonates. I am offering him a very generous
deal. Mr. Gorgon will become a martyr for his country--a barren region I
know he loathes."

"Wynett," Marshall said, taking a cautious step forward, "the explosion
will release the virus. You'll be letting this son of a bitch fulfill
his contract."

"My tanks are constructed of one-inch-thick Belfast steel, which can
withstand forty thousand pounds of pressure per square inch," Wynett
said. "Considering Mr. Gorgon's needs, I had no choice. An explosion
between these boilers will not be sufficient to blast through two steel
bulkhead walls and rupture my tanks."

Wynett lowered his eyes to the satchel. The pattern of blinking lights
had changed, indicating the device's preprogrammed microprocessor had
begun its final sequence. "Only a few seconds more ..."

Gorgon swung the dangling satchel upward, catching Wynett hard on the
jaw. It had all his strength behind it. The old man's teeth cracked, and
he collapsed onto both knees with a grunt. The satchel landed at
Williams's feet. "Sheeeeeiitttt."

Gorgon stormed out into the engine room amid the roar of heavy
machinery. His eyes darted up to the emergency door above the waterline
two catwalks above him--his only way out. Marshall swung his Pranchi
around. "No fucking way--" Williams pushed Marshall aside, grabbed the
satchel and hurled it with all his strength across the engine room.
Gorgon dropped facedown into a metal trough between the generators as
the bag landed with a dull thud on the second-story catwalk. For a
heart-stopping moment nothing happened, no one moved. The plastique
detonated. A terrible blast ripped out the heart of the massive engine
room. The great upheaval shattered the catwalks and pipes, and hurled
them missilelike through the control room's huge glass window, smashing
the computerized instruments within. The twin ten-ton generators rent
from their stools and pitched sideways, cutting power throughout the
ship against the diminuendo of machinery screaming to a halt. The damage
was extensive and spectacular. The blast tore a gaping hole the size of
a truck in Lucy's aft hull. Thousands of gallons of river water roared
into the room with the ferocity of a raging waterfall, cascading over
the ruined machinery. Amber emergency lights blinked on, painting the
room with a dim, bloodlike glow. Gorgon owed his life to the shield of
the massive generators. He pushed himself off the grated deck and let
his eyes focus slowly on the gunmetal gray of a military shotgun barrel
pointed at his head. The barrel was shaking terribly. "Stand up,"
Marshall demanded. Stunned, his hearing numbed, Gorgon ignored the blood
trickling from a dozen lacerations and crawled into a sitting position.
Williams, his Galil leveled, maneuvered carefully to cover Marshall. The
terrorist still had the resolve and the stamina to stand unassisted. An
earsplitting crack from a Kalashnikov tore the Franchi from Marshall's
hand and twisted its barrel. "Christ, you nearly took off my fingers."

"He is not your prisoner," Wynett said, touching the redhot muzzle to
the back of Williams's ear. The sergeant winced and lowered his Galil.
An amused look of contempt crept onto Gorgon's features. Wynett waved
Carlucci out of the boiler area into his line of fire. The captain
complied. ' "Sergeant, deposit your gun in the water where it cannot be
recovered."

Marshall, effectively disarmed, gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Wynett, for chrissake ..."

Wynett redirected his Kalashnikov at Marshall with an amazingly steady
hand. "I am growing weary of you. Major. I saved your life once so that
you could deliver me to your people. You served my needs admirably, and
I am grateful for your cooperation. However, I will kill you and your
sergeant if you continue to interfere in my business."

Icy river water foamed rapidly around their knees. Marshall didn't trust
Wynett to finish this. Still, he knew the next burst would kill them
both, while allowing Gorgon a chance to escape.

Wynett's expression darkened. "Sergeant, please discard your weapon into
the water."

"Shit." Williams, suppressing a wave of bitter helplessness, angrily
flung his Galil into the water, where it disappeared into the boiling
surge. Wynett circled Gorgon before jabbing him viciously in the back
with the barrel of the Kalashnikov. "Mr. Gorgon, you will now come with
me. I wish to introduce you to someone."

Gorgon, his stony features betraying nothing, followed Wynett's orders
and led the way back through the boiler area. Marshall withdrew the
Beretta from his back holster and directed it at the two as they marched
between the boilers and disappeared through the bulkhead hatchway--he
couldn't stop the grotesque spasming of his hands. "Whatever we're gonna
do, Joe," Williams said, "it's gotta happen right now."

Marshall lowered the Beretta. "Christ, I'm losing it."

Carlucci moved to the twisted railing and made a quick damage assessment
of the ship's drive train. The incoming water was pushing the ship down
by the stern. He hollered to the others, "This vessel is a runaway. The
ship's momentum will take her far upriver, where she will ram a bridge
pylon."

"So let it ram a pylon," Marshall said. "She will rupture her hulls. I
will try to reengage the rudder manually from the bridge."

Carlucci scanned the damaged catwalk above; all that remained were
twisted pieces of steel hanging precariously over the flooded
compartment. "A good climber can scale the hull and reach the
stairwell."

"You'll never make it," Marshall said. "Use the way we came in."

"There is no time," Carlucci said. "I must use the stairwell."

Carlucci charged into the ice-cold surge, fighting the strong current of
river water pouring into the engine room. What first impressed the
captain as an easy swim quickly proved unmanageable as he fought the
buffeting rapids surging between the heavy machinery. Twice Marshall
lost sight of him and thought he would drown, but each time the
captain's head broke the surface as he continued his desperate struggle
to reach the hull. The ship began listing aft, spilling tools, barrels
and gear toward the rear bulkhead. The unstoppable flow of water swept
Carlucci against the hull, where he grabbed the first steel brace and
pulled himself out of the water. He began hoisting himself up the side
of the engine room's hull. Williams put a hand on the ear of his
headpiece in response to an incoming message. "Joe, you're not going to
believe this."

"What is it?"

"It's Julie ... she's tied into the LINK Two."

Marshall fumbled with his headset. "My unit's dead. What's she saying?"

"Saint Vitus."

"What about it?"

The sergeant looked curiously at Marshall. "She says she has an
antidote."

Wynett prodded Gorgon into the maintenance shop and bolted the hatch
behind them. There was no other way out. Gorgon saw Tarra's mutilated
corpse heaped against the bulkhead and grimaced. Stupid bitch--you let
them in here. He faced Wynett, his expression arrogant. "So you intend
that we both drown in here. Your lack of creativity disappoints me."

"Drown, Mr. Gorgon?" Wynett said. "I have a much better deal for you..."

Gorgon lashed out at him with a sudden sweep of his hand. He grabbed the
barrel of the Kalashnikov and twisted it from Wynett's grip with
maniacal fury. The old man, disarmed, just stared at the terrorist, his
toothless mouth agape. Gorgon, his eyes cold and dark, skillfully
maneuvered the weapon around in his hands and discharged a quick burst
into Wynett's abdomen. The blast hurled Wynett backward against the row
of virus tanks, toppling them all with a crash. A long, weary sigh
poured from the old man's lungs. Gorgon, savoring the sight of his
agony, raked another brief burst across Wynett's legs. The old man
didn't seem to feel anything. The terrorist laughed wickedly. "A better
deal? There is only one way to deal."

Wynett, gasping, hugged one of the virus tanks and fondled its valve. He
had engineered the apparatus himself and knew it well. He twisted the
valve's regulating element. ' "Mr. Gorgon,' ' he spat, blood foaming
down his chin. ' "It is my pleasure to introduce you to Saint Vitus,
your comrade in arms."

Gorgon emptied the clip directly into Wynett's head. In the strange
stillness that followed, all he could hear was a snakelike hiss as the
tank's contents emptied into the compartment.

Chapter Forty-five.

Marshall tore off his Comsat headset. "I need your unit."

Williams relinquished his miniature transceiver to the major, who
fumbled to put it on. He said into the mouthpiece, "This is Marshall in
Lucy's engine room. Who's on this channel?"

"This is Major Higgins," came a static-laden voice--the reception deep
inside the ship was poor at best. "I'm with General Medlock at Andrews
Airfield. We need to know the status of those tanks. Are they secure?
Has Gorgon been eliminated?"

"Negative on both counts," Marshall said. "We will proceed--"

"Joe"--it was Julie--"you must leave the ship immediately."

Marshall pressed the headset to his ear. "Where are you?"

"I'm in a troop helicopter on my way to Yorktown. I'll meet you there.
Joe, the virus need not be lethal. An injection of ganciclovir destroys
the infected cells. It works; I've tried it. But you can't delay the
treatment. Get off that ship now."

Marshall stared at his spasming hands that felt as though a strong
electrical current were flowing through them. His condition was rapidly
deteriorating. "I can't do that ...  not yet. I'm not finished here."

"Joe," Julie pressed, "every minute you wait will advance the infection.
I don't want to lose you. Get off that ship immediately and meet me in
Yorktown."

"Do what she says. Major." It was Higgins again. "We have troops aboard.
They'll handle this now."

"That won't be easy. An explosion caused heavy damage to the engine room
and blocked the accesses."

"Joe, listen to me--"

"Sorry, honey. I'm going to finish this." Marshall turned down the
volume of his transceiver and said to Williams, "Let's do it."

Carlucci kicked and crawled his way up the damaged stairwell,
negotiating the broken steps that had turned the steep passageway into a
scrapyard of twisted metal. Once past it, he rushed headlong up the last
three nights to Lucy's bridge and stormed into the wheelhouse. He found
a contingent of American commandos huddled over-the ship's controls,
trying to make sense of the shattered readouts. The overhead fluorescent
lights were out, but it hardly mattered. The number-four center tank had
ignited, unleashing a mountainous fireball on deck that rolled into
black clouds high over the ship. "Hold it right there," hollered one of
the soldiers, a Special Forces captain named Elliott. A bright young
captain, ROTC alumni. Captain Elliott's first impulse was to shoot the
intruder on sight and be rid of the distraction. But common sense
prevailed. "Keep your hands where I can see them or you're a dead man."

Carlucci, his hands raised, moved cautiously forward. The acrid haze
from the inferno on deck stung his eyes terribly, forcing tears that
flowed freely down his cheeks. "I am Captain Sergio Carlucci," he said
flatly. "Lucy is my ship; he took her from me."

Captain Elliott frisked Carlucci while another soldier, a sergeant,
covered him with an automatic rifle. Satisfied Carlucci wasn't a threat,
Elliott led him to the helm and pushed the other soldiers rudely away.
Introductions were disregarded. "We have a situation here," Elliott
said. "There's a swing bridge a half mile upriver. It's not going to
open. If you're who you say you are, then stop this ship right now or
you're going to have one hell of a mess to clean up."

Carlucci stepped to the helm and took command of Lucy, once again
responsible for her cargo and every man aboard. Beyond the bow he could
see the Coleman Memorial Bridge looming from the storm, blocking their
path like a dark, steel giant. "Holy Mary--what have they done? Radio
and tell them to open that bridge."

Elliott shook his head. "Can't do that. The orders are to keep the
bridge closed. My job is to stop this ship."

Carlucci scanned the instrumentation. The damage was substantial, the
equipment useless. He turned the pilot wheel full left, then full right.
In the flooded engine room seven decks below, the hydraulic arms on
either side of the ship's rudder arm banged loudly as they flew first
one way, then the other without moving the rudder. The explosion had
severed the links. "There is one chance," Carlucci said. "I can try to
move the rudder manually and scuttle her in the shallows along the bank.
We must take our chances and pray the hulls hold together."

"Whatever you're going to do, mister, make it quick."

The drawbridge already was in hailing distance. Carlucci knelt beside a
floor panel and uncovered the ship's emergency steering assembly, which
bypassed the rudder's hydraulics. "Tell your men to evacuate the ship,"
Carlucci ordered, tossing the panel aside. "There is nothing more they
can do here."

Elliott ordered his men off the bridge. Some of the commandos raced out
onto the wing deck to the outside stairs; others bolted down the
stairwell. Carlucci inserted a specially fabricated rod into a floor
pipe and began pumping it back and forth as though it were a horizontal
slot machine, manually moving the ship's rudder. The effort quickly
proved too much for him, and he began to swoon. Captain Elliott was the
last to leave the bridge. He glanced back at Carlucci struggling with
the tool and knew he couldn't manage without his help. He returned to
Carlucci's side. "Tell me what to do," Elliott said, taking over the
strenuous pumping. Under Carlucci's direction, Elliott did manage to
move Lucy ten degrees to port. The slight change in course wasn't
enough, though, not by a large margin. Lucy's forecastle slipped between
the bridge's pylons, and the swing bridge passed over her forward deck
like a dark beast of prey. The crow's nest was the first casualty,
sheared off with a great crash. As Lucy continued her journey under the
span, the bridge cut down the ship's loading booms like a sickle
chopping weeds, then headed for the ship's superstructure.

Carlucci and Captain Elliott, absorbed in the business of manually
moving the ship's rudder, never saw the cold steel beast that had come
for them. Lucy's superstructure struck the Coleman Memorial Bridge at
fourteen knots. The impact was devastating. An endless tearing and
screeching of metal howled through the night. The wheelhouse collapsed.
The entire superstructure and funnel disintegrated in a tangle of metal,
lurched backward, then slowly, ponderously, tumbled into the York River
behind the ship in a mammoth heap. Carlucci and Special Forces Captain
Elliott were dead long before the labyrinth of mangled steel settled on
the riverbed seventy-five feet below the surface. Nothing even remotely
resembling human remains would ever be distinguishable from the wreck.
Marshall and Williams felt the shock of the collision that lifted Lucy's
bow out of the water and viciously jarred the entire length of the
vessel. They braced themselves while clawing through the knee-deep water
to the ship's lower pump room. Lucy began listing dangerously aft.
Williams pressed his back against the bulkhead hatch and pushed it open.
The amber emergency lights inside the compartment offered little
illlumination. Marshall entered first, scanning the dimness and
listening. Williams slipped in behind him. "So where are they?" Marshall
asked. Williams found Carlucci's huge flashlight and played its beam
along the forward bulkhead. All they could see were pipes. Against the
roar of incoming water they heard another curious noise--a groan of
metal and the cracking of a hatch seal. Suddenly the hatch to the
maintenance shop flung open with enough force to bend its steel hinges.
The two of them whipped around and stared mutely at the hulking form
beyond the transom. It was Gorgon, his face an unrecognizable mask of
mutated fury. Saint Vitus had created a beast, a maniacal, cold-blooded
beast. Gorgon's bloated eyes flared unnaturally at them. Marshall
withdrew the Beretta. "Sweet Judas priest."

Williams instinctively grabbed for his weapon, then realized he no
longer had one. He blessed himself with the sign of the Lord's cross,
unable to imagine that this mutated aberration had once been human.
Gorgon stooped through the transom and poured himself into the pump
room. From deep in his throat came a series of guttural moans that
bespoke excruciating pain. It was the sound of a dying animal. Every
muscle, every strand of sinew, was alive, each bloated with an unnatural
strength. Gorgon's mind remained absolutely in control of his body's
rapidly decaying extremities. "Sweet Mother," Williams gasped, "don't
let me end up like him."

Marshall leveled the Beretta at Gorgon but could not keep his hand
steady. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can," Williams said. "Send that bastard to hell. Do it now!"

Gorgon never took his eyes off Marshall. He began walking slowly,
spastically, toward him, his undulating, twisting legs reminding the
major of a lifelong cripple who suddenly, miraculously, could walk. A
massive hand unfurled from a stub of flesh that had once been an arm and
reached for him. Gorgon's lips parted and out came a low, guttural noise
that sounded like "Martyr."

Marshall fought to steady the Beretta with both hands. He let Gorgon
move within reach before discharging three rounds into his chest in
rapid succession. Gorgon went down with a hideous growl. "Yes!" Williams
hollered. Marshall raised the volume of his transceiver and shouted into
the mouthpiece, "Julie?"

"I'm right here."

"At least one virus tank ruptured in the ship's lower pump room.
Gorgon's infected. I just dropped what was left of him. And don't ask me
to describe what he looked like. Jesus, we're breathing the same air."

There came a crackle of fading static in his ear; then he barely heard
Julie say, "Joe, water is an ideal growth medium for the organism. If
the virus spreads past the bulkheads and enters the river, it will
devastate the Eastern Seaboard. You've got to contain it."

"I'm losing you. Tell me what you want me to do."

In the Bell-Ranger helicopter whipping over West Point at one hundred
and fifty knots, Julie grabbed the young lieutenant's arm more firmly
than she intended and jerked him toward her. "I need the tanker's
pumping schematics."

"And I need you to prepare for a landing at Yorktown in five minutes,"
the lieutenant said.

The lieutenant pulled the chart out of a file folder. Julie snatched it
out of his hands and flattened it over the chart table. Using her finger
to trace the intricate network of pipes transversing the compartment,
she quickly located the pump room on the tanker's lower deck. "Joe,
flood that compartment with crude oil--and do it quickly."

"Repeat that." Marshall felt the angle of the deck increase, spilling
aft everything not fastened to the deck. Frigid water surged around
their ankles. "I don't understand what you want me to do."

"Crude oil is extremely toxic," Julie said. "It will kill the organism."
She ran her finger over the pumping diagram, trying to match the
schematic with the chamber's ribbons of pipes. Goddamn, it was too
complicated! "Find the offloading lines. Most of the oil movement is
controlled by automatic hydraulic butterfly valves. Look for a circular
hand-operated valve to the emergency flow inspection line. It's manual.
Open it to start the flow, then rupture the line."

"Which line?" Marshall asked. "Say again. There are dozens of pipes."

"Just open that valve and rupture every friggin' pipe in that
compartment, if you have to."

"What's she saying?" Williams hollered. Marshall's eyes scanned the
labyrinth of pipes lining the walls and ceiling. "She wants us to flood
the compartment with oil to kill the organism."

"Say what?"

"Give me some light. I'm looking for a circular valve."

Williams moved the flashlight's beam along the pipes until it
spotlighted a single manual valve nestled on the far wall. Marshall
thrust a finger at it. "There. Open that valve. I'll find a way to
rupture the pipe beyond it."

Williams lunged for the valve, but he didn't make it. Gorgon sprang up
from the water with an unsettling cry. His arm lashed out like a cobra,
catching the sergeant with the tips of his fingers. The blow drove
Williams headlong into the bulkhead wall, where he fell into a squatting
position, stunned by the ferocity of Gorgon's unnatural strength. A
single, well placed blow, he realized, would have broken his back.
Marshall whirled. "Bastard!--" He leveled the Beretta with both hands
and discharged the last two rounds into Gorgon's back point-blank.
Astonishingly Gorgon remained erect. If he felt any pain from his
wounds, he showed nothing. Marshall's spasming fingers felt his SAS belt
for another Beretta magazine before he realized he hadn't brought a
spare. Williams crawled to the valve on hands and knees. Gorgon's eyes
blinked excessively while watching him, his muscles rippling as he
struggled to maintain control of his rebellious extremities. Williams
grabbed the valve wheel and pulled himself up. Flexing his back muscles
into tight ropes, he began turning. There came a sharp hiss as crude oil
flowed into the inspection line. Gorgon rammed his tentaclelike arm
against Williams's neck with brutal force that would have killed him had
he not driven the gunnery sergeant's head into a crevice between two
exposed pipes, protecting the bones in his neck. Williams struggled to
fill his lungs with air, while using the flashlight as a barrier between
him and the monster. Thrashing and kicking, he managed a groan of mixed
dread and agony. Trapped, unable to push Gorgon away, he could only
stare into the monster's bloated, rage-filled eyes only a breath away
from his. For the first time in his life, naked fear shone in Williams's
eyes. Gorgon's grip on Williams tightened. The gunnery sergeant flexed
every muscle in an unsuccessful attempt to push the monster away. His
strength was rapidly draining. He was blacking out from exhaustion.
"Break those fucking pipes!" Williams gasped. Marshall stormed into the
maintenance shop and grabbed Wynett's Kalashnikov. He checked the clip,
found it empty and, cursing, threw it down. The deck's dangerous angle
continued to rise, filling the compartment with frigid water at an
uncontrollable rate. Lucy was going down. He looked at Tarra's spasming
and undulating corpse. Pursing his lips, he knelt down and felt through
her munitions belt, opening one pocket, then another, letting the
contents spill. There were spare Uzi magazines, detonator fuses, chokes,
cartridges ...  He found what he needed in a side pocket--a concussion
grenade. He slipped it into his palm, then charged through the knee-deep
water back into the pump room. "Get this thing off me!" Williams cried.
Marshall found Carlucci's huge wrench, lifted it onto his shoulder and,
charging forward, swung it with both hands into Gorgon's back. The
weighty piece of steel connected with a dull thud, caving in the pulpy
flesh. Gorgon flew away from Williams and reeled down the sloping deck,
stumbling back into a deep swell of oil and river water. His throat
involuntarily opened with a moan of anguish, and thick, foul water
poured into his lungs. Still, death would not intercede. Long after his
mind should have surrendered to the void of eternity, Gorgon remained
aware of what was happening to him. Saint Vitus made sure of that. The
virus needed its host conscious, needed the enzymes only cognizant brain
activity would produce.

Williams searched four feet of water for the open manhole in the deck.
All he could see was black. "The crawlspace is flooding," he yelled to
the major, who was fighting his way to the pipes on the forward
bulkhead. "Joe, get the hell out of here!"

Marshall jammed the grenade behind the manual valve wheel on the
inspection line. "I'm right behind you."

The sergeant filled his lungs to capacity before diving headfirst into
the water and feeling his way to the manhole. Marshall pulled the
grenade's pin and dove under the icy water after him. Gorgon struggled
to rise, his squidlike fingers working themselves into fists, his
unearthly eyes glazing over. Eight seconds later, the grenade detonated
with an earsplitting blast, shattering the pipes in a microsecond. A
volcanic eruption of flame and crude oil blasted through the
compartment. The full brunt of the explosion struck Gorgon solidly in
his upper torso, hurling him through the open hatch into the flooded
engine room. His fingers stretched helplessly outward as he smashed
against the unyielding boiler, and was crushed.

Chapter Forty-six.

Marshall and Williams swam through the flooded crawlspace between the
ship's hulls, a dense, black passage that rose steeply like a great
well. The frigid water transformed their limbs into weighty planks of
lumber. Their lungs ached. In their muffled, liquid world they could
hear me muted groans. and screeching of metal as the ship's frame
buckled under the pressure of the imploding river. The uncommunicated
fear mat the crawlspace was completely flooded from one end of the ship
to the other gnawed at the edge of their consciousness, and neither
cared to think about becoming entombed between the rusted hulls of a
sunken tanker. Twenty yards farther they surfaced in a black cavern and
took in great lungfuls of air that reeked of oil and river water. The
atmosphere was thick and foul, nearly devoid of oxygen. Williams clawed
his way up the steel plates and, coughing, snapped on Carlucci's huge
flashlight. The sputtering beam protested its weakening batteries. '
"Christ, Joe, we were exposed. Why didn't we end up like him?"

"Sergeant," Marshall said, coughing and crawling after him, "we'll
discuss it later over a case of cold Heineken."

They felt earthquakelike tremors resonating through the steel panels
beneath them and heard sounds like muffled thunder. They exchanged
anxious looks, realizing their worst fear. "The cargo tanks are going,"
Marshall said. The two men pushed on, hunched beneath the great support
beams of the steepening cavern between the hulls. Thirty yards farther,
the flashlight's beam played off the forward bow. "A rucking dead end,"
Williams said. Icy water foamed around their legs. Marshall took the
flashlight from Williams and, stooping, directed its flickering beam
overhead along the ship's hull, scanning the riveted panels of steel. He
found what he was looking for--another access cover similar to the one
Carlucci had used to get them into the lower pump room. He passed the
light to Williams. "What are you going to do?" the sergeant asked.
Marshall didn't answer. He withdrew the empty Beretta and used the butt
of the handgun like a hammer to pound open the latches. The frigid water
swirled around Marshall waist, and he felt as though his lower
extremities were encased in solid ice. Williams looked uneasily at the
blackness behind him. The ominous echo sounded like a moving waterfall,
rapidly making its way toward them. "Where are you going. Major?"

"Haven't a clue," Marshall huffed, "as long as it leads up."

Marshall knocked open the last of the six latches, tucked the Beretta in
his back holster and placed both hands on the access cover. He struggled
to maintain his balance in the swift, icy water that battered his head
and shoulders. Through the numbing cold he could feel his legs slipping
and his wet suit being scraped from his back as his feet scrambled for
purchase against a cross-beam. The pressure was unbearable. He pushed
the cover upward until it yielded with a reluctant screech. Marshall's
legs gave out, and the strong current swept him forward against the
hull. He swore bitterly, certain they would die in this hellhole. He
whipped around, frantic, losing all sense of direction as the onrushing
water flooded the space between the hulls. He wanted to scream. He felt
Williams's hand grab his leg and push him forward. Marshall clawed
blindly at the void. There were no air pockets. His lungs ached. He ran
his trembling fingers along the steel plates, feeling his way aft. Then
he saw it. A dim light piercing the darkness ahead, a shade of gray
lighter than the cold, inky blackness smothering him. He moved toward
it, a dream in the night, all the while feeling Williams's persistent
hand on his leg. Marshall found the manhole, pulled himself through the
opening and clawed his way upward. His head broke the surface and he
inhaled lungfuls of heated air between fits of coughing. Williams
surfaced beside him. "Nice work. Major," Williams said. An intense light
radiated above them. It was as though their world had turned upside down
and they were staring up into the mouth of an active volcano fueled from
the two forward crude compartments that had ignited. Marshall scanned
the high, narrow compartment. They were in the frame webbing between the
forward peak ballast tank and the ship's outer hull. Lucy's 25,000-pound
beams were swaying in slow, undulating curves. "She's going," Williams
said. "Climb the scaffolding and don't stop to smell any roses."

"Yes, sir."

Their climb went rapidly, thanks to the extensive web of steel beams
that held the ship's hulls together. They heard the shrieks of steel
twisting and bending against the unnatural forces tearing the ship
apart, a grotesque noise that sounded like a wounded night beast. Lucy
was surrendering to the inevitable, making her final journey to the
bottom of the river that would become her grave. At the top of their
climb, a steel drain grating blocked their access to the ship's upper
deck. Beyond the grid a frightful blaze was consuming what was left of
Lucy. Where there wasn't fire, thick black smoke rolled across the deck
like storm clouds. The heat radiating through the opening felt like an
open blast furoace; its ferocity boiled paint off the metal surfaces.

Marshall drove his shoulder against the grating but the searing heat
forced him quickly back. Williams looked down at the rising water; the
flood that rushed eagerly to swallow them was only a few feet away. With
steely determination, the sergeant braced his back against a horizontal
support beam and jammed his boots against the grating. They could smell
the stench of rubber burning off his soles. He took in a deep breath,
held it, and, with a single swift kick, knocked out the steel grid with
a crash. Water roared over the bulwark and cascaded down what little of
Lucy's deck still remained above water, allaying the heat, while
sweeping everything not welded to the ship into a boiling surge of
debris. The metal surfaces sizzled. Marshall gripped Williams's
shoulder. "You'll join Julie and me tonight for a late supper?"

Williams smiled grandly. "I thought you'd never ask, Joe."

The major's expression turned grim. "If things go bad  ... tell her ..."

"I know."

The two men looked into each other's eyes. They gripped hands; then
Williams said, "Hey, we'll go out for some ribs."

The sergeant rolled through the opening and vanished into the black
smoke. Marshall rolled out onto the deck after him. He grabbed a boot he
first mistook for the sergeant's. It was the remains of a man consumed
by fire. All that remained were a set of leg bones thrust into boots, a
charred spinal column, a skull fused to the bulwark. The ship's listing
increased, threatening to dump him into a raging cauldron of boiling
oil. Marshall caught fleeting glimpses of Williams crawling toward the
aft bulwark. The firestorm made it impossible to determine direction
with any degree of certainty. Before they could negotiate the railing
and take refuge in the river, the river came to them. The flames didn't
sink with the ship. The burning crude simply lifted off the deck and
rode the turbulent waves as though it were a living aquatic entity,
licking and twisting, creating a gauntlet of fire around them.
"Williams--" Marshall shouted before a wall of water crashed down on
him. The deck vanished under his feet, leaving him thrashing in a dense,
turbulent whirlpool. The sucking force created by the tanker pulled him
downward with the force a powerful magnet. He felt himself spiraling
down into a stream of suffocating foam, buried in a turmoil of angry
water. He clawed and kicked upward through the liquid blackness that
held him prisoner. The burning in his chest was unbearable. After what
seemed like a lifetime, his head broke the surface, and he sucked in
huge gasps of air. He couldn't get enough--the greedy flames devoured
all the life-giving oxygen on the surface of the river. Flotsam from the
wreck bobbed everywhere. Lucy was gone, but she left a legacy of angry
flames and rolling black smoke. Even the sky was on fire as hydrocarbon
vapors flared with strange, spontaneous combustions. The unforgiving
heat of the air was a strange contrast to the near-freezing river.
Marshall didn't fear the fire; the frigid water would kill him in
minutes. He felt his convulsing limbs tighten. To his horror he realized
he could no longer move his arms. His muscles broke into uncontrollable
convulsions. "Williams," he shouted. He sank downward. He thrust his
rigid arms into the air as he sank under the swells. "Williams!"

Foul, icy water poured down his throat. He let out an animal cry of
despair. Blackness. He sank in a cold, black world  ... sinking with the
tanker, sinking ...  sinking ... sinking ... A half-empty oil drum spun
past Williams. He threw himself over its top and, balancing his frame
across it, used his weight to keep the drum stable. The right side of
his face and shoulder ached, and he could taste blood. He looked
desperately across the waves for a glimpse of Marshall among the
flotsam. "Joe ... goddamn you!"

With his legs dangling in the water behind him, he began kicking in
circles, negotiating the columns of fire in his search for his friend.
But he was gone. "Goddamnit! Goddamnit!"

He heard the sound of approaching choppers, and one of the Sea Stallions
roared directly over him. A second chopper appeared, then a third, their
powerful spotlights sweeping the river as though it were a great stage,
assessing the damage. The turbulent downdraft created by their rotors
augmented the ferocity of the swells. Williams tightened his grip on the
drum and kicked himself toward the riverbank several hundred feet away.
A spotlight followed him to shore, where he discarded the oil drum and
stumbled up onto the rock-strewn bank like a drunkard. The brisk wind
felt like steel whips on his exposed skin. He collapsed in a light bed
of snow, paralyzed by the cold. "Fuck you, Gorgon," he muttered. "Fuck
your miserable soul."

The sergeant, breathing heavily, touched his bleeding face and shoulder.
What remained of his vest was a charred rag. He scooped up a handful of
snow and pressed it against the side of his face like an ice pack. The
pain only grew worse. The shriek of a whistle cut through the night, and
suddenly there were soldiers everywhere, sliding down the embankment
with their weapons drawn. Amid the frantic shouting Williams could hear
the unsettling clicks of safeties releasing and bolts being pulled back.
The lead soldier yelled at him, "Put your hands where I can see them."

Williams was too cold to comply, his spasming uncontrollable. The
contingent of soldiers formed a tight circle around him, pointing a
dozen gun barrels at his head. "Identify yourself," the lieutenant
roared in a voice bordering on hysteria. He held a military-issue .45
with both hands. A weekend National Guard warrior, Williams thought. He
was afraid the soldier would panic and start shooting anything that
resembled a terrorist. Williams, his trembling now a deep, unyielding
spasm, said to the lieutenant in an unsteady voice, "Put me in jail ...
just as long as it's got an electric blanket and hot soup."

Another voice--a female's--shouted, "Let me through. Let me through!"

It was Julie. The circle of soldiers broke as she pushed them roughly
aside. "Williams!" Julie knelt beside him and hollered back to someone
he couldn't see. "It's the sergeant!"

Julie said to the lieutenant hovering over her left shoulder, "This man
has third-degree burns. Get a stretcher down here fast." The lieutenant
holstered his .45 and bolted up the bank. Williams watched her prepare a
syringe from her medical kit. She was crying as she pushed the needle
into his arm. She managed to ask the question he dreaded to answer.
"Where is he?"

Williams grabbed her hand and held it tightly. "I'm sorry ...  he wanted
me to tell you that he loved you."

Julie touched the sergeant's arm to steady herself, fighting to hold in
her grief. She almost passed out. She looked away from him, averting her
eyes to the river, and stared at the enormous pillars of heavy black
smoke laced with roaring columns of flame. He was out there, cremated in
that maelstrom of disaster. Why did you have to leave me too? She put a
hand over her face and let the sobs pour out of her. "Why? Why ... ?"

"We have another one," a soldier hollered from the riverbank.

Julie whirled. Several soldiers splashed knee-deep into the river to
retrieve what she first thought was a piece of wreckage. As they pulled
it ashore, she could see a quivering manlike mass attached to it. She
scrambled down the bank on hands and knees, dragging the medical kit
behind her. It was Marshall wrapped around a watertight case with
latches and military markings, one of Gorgon's munitions containers used
to transport missiles. "Oh, my God!"

He was writhing and undulating as he held the case in a death grip. It
took three soldiers to pry him off the unlikely raft. "Thank God! Thank
God!" Julie cried over and over as she prepared a syringe. Marshall
never felt the needle pierce his arm at the elbow. Nestling his head in
her lap, she hovered over him like an angel, her face, cast in gold by
the fiery river, a mask of divine strength. She smiled at him and ran
her fingers through his matted hair. "You're safe with me now. You're
safe with me now."

He tried to return her smile but failed pathetically. She stayed there
as he drifted off into his own thoughts. He did feel safe with her, a
wonderful contentment he had never known in his life. A brisk wind
whipped over him. He couldn't feel the cold; he couldn't feel anything
at all. Only safe. His mind drifted deeper, dreamily, and then there was
nothing.

Epilogue

Fort Detrick Quarantine Center

Thursday, 0700 hours

Marshall sat slouched in one of the quarantine center's overstuffed
chairs, his feet up, thoughtfully sipping his fourth mug of black coffee
since arriving the night before. The mug in his hand was rock steady.
Outside, the frosty air was quiet. The storm had moved on, exposing a
clear blue sky. Staring vacantly ahead, boasting a self-satisfied grin,
Marshall ignored the right side of his head swathed in bandages and,
instead, kept running his fingers through clumps of hair that felt like
mesh wire. Three shampoos with dishwashing detergent--the best oil
solvent for hair--had done a number on his dome. "I'll have it shaved,"
he said to Williams. The gunnery sergeant, lying on his back across the
lounge's sofa, winced when he touched the thick layer of bandages
covering the right side of his face and shoulder. "You'd look goooooood
with a bald pate." Nancy Shaw let out a deep, throaty chuckle from her
chair by the door. Marshall knew the sergeant was in considerable pain;
he also knew Williams would never let on that his injuries were anything
but minor. The sergeant no doubt would insist on returning to active
duty while most men with burns as severe as his would still be on their
backs in a trauma unit. Julie sat behind them at a computer workstation,
making notes on a thick stack of printouts, her legs tucked beneath her.
She had moved from her chair near Marshall only once during the night
and only when summoned to participate in the conference-call debriefing
with the joint chiefs. "Morning, people." General Medlock stood grinning
in the doorway of the quarantine center's lounge, his arms outstretched
like a proud papa greeting his children. He appeared genuinely happy to
see them. Marshall screwed his neck around and looked at the general the
way one would look at a lunatic. Williams did likewise. So did Julie and
Dr. Shaw. Medlock had brought with him a well-traveled copy of the
morning's the Washington Post. "Well, well," Dr. Shaw said. "So you've
ventured into the lair of the cursed plague people. Aren't you afraid
you'll catch your death?"

General Medlock scowled away her remark. "I'm convinced you're all
safe." He shrugged off the subject about their health. "I'm on my way to
the White House to meet a very happy president. He'd like to give each
of you the Congressional Medal of Honor, but you understand why he can't
go public with this incident for national security reasons. You're all
under an indefinite gag order. He says he'll make it up to you some way.
Meanwhile"--he waved the morning's paper--"I wanted you to see this." He
showed them the front-page headline: tanker sinks; its oil still trapped
on board. Williams sat up and extended his hand. "Let me see that."

Medlock passed the newspaper to the sergeant. "I'll take the travel
section," Julie said, setting aside her printouts. "I'm taking Joe home
to the Canadian Rockies."

"Unless," Marshall interjected, "you're having us committed to a
military hospital."

"You're free to leave here anytime you'd like," General Medlock said.

Williams, scanning the front-page article, let out a short, harsh laugh.
"I'll be damned. There's not a word in here about Gorgon or a terrorist
plot. Listen to this: "The crippled oil tanker Lucy sank in the York
River near Yorktown about eight forty-five p.m. yesterday with much of
its seventeen million gallons of crude apparently still on board,
offering hope that an environmental disaster could be averted.
Authorities gathered at the site throughout the night to inspect the
tanker, submerged in seventy feet of water, to determine how badly its
double hull had been damaged. The inspection will determine if the
ship's oil tanks would remain watertight so rescuers could eventually
pump out the crude. The number of dead crewmen from the explosion aboard
Lucy last night still has not been determined and no survivors have been
reported. Some reports speculate the initial explosion occurred while
crewmen were cleaning an empty oil tank. Volatile fumes that can remain
in tanks may accidentally be ignited. The tanker was on a routine trip
from Venezuela to a refinery in Yorktown. Early speculation suggests the
winter storm that swept through the area last night may have played a
role."

Marshall raised his arm in victory. "Nice work with the media. General."

General Medlock accepted the accolade with a nod. "The media would have
my ass if they knew one of those inspection teams is a special army
underwater salvage squad." He said to Julie, "Have you figured out why
these men are still alive after that virus tank ruptured?"

Julie picked up her mug and thoughtfully sipped the creamy brew.
"Because we built up an extraordinary immunity against Saint Vitus. I've
never seen anything like it. Our exposure to a mutated strain on
Wynett's plantation produced remarkable antibodies in our systems. It'll
take months to sift through this first round of data from the Grays to
construct a model of our long-term health profile. But it doesn't appear
the antibodies will affect the quality of our lives." She set down her
mug, then jumped up from her chair and plopped down into Marshall's lap,
slipping her arms around his neck. "I don't care if we're on our
deathbeds, I'm holding you to your promise of a lobster dinner tonight."
Marshall pulled her closer. He planted a lingering kiss on her lips,
then looked deep into her eyes. "I wouldn't have it any other way." Then
he glanced at Williams. "You're joining us, of course."

Medlock frowned. "This man needs a hospital."

"The Knicks are on tonight," Williams said, scanning the sports page.
"I'll have the place to myself, there's cold beer in the fridge and I'm
not moving from in front of that TV."

General Medlock chuckled at the sergeant's resilience. "Suit
yourselves." Then his expression turned serious and his eyes declined to
look at any of them. "I'm truly sorry for not trusting you. I thank God
you overcame my stubbornness to do what you believed was right. I
congratulate you all."

"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," Marshall said. "By the way, Colonel
Martinelli mentioned something about a bonus."

Medlock nodded. "You and the sergeant can retire comfortably tomorrow,
if you'd like."

Before Marshall could respond, the general turned and was gone. They
could hear his spit-polished shoes knocking briskly down the sterile
corridor on their way out of the center and into the sunshine.