Sirens howled outside.
The garage was in chaos, more survivors coming in all the time, paramedics running by with stretchers, the police struggling to keep control of the situation, their communications down or jammed—no one knew what was going on. Paxton couldn't locate the Special Agent In Charge, so they headed down to the next level, walking quickly through the crowd. Drake scanned the faces passing by, flinching at the hollow eyes, the burns and lacerations, the children wandering through the garage, crying for their parents. His hands were shaking and he squeezed them into fists, trying to control his breathing. Huntley was still missing, Paxton explained. So were Marshall and Douglas. Ogilvie had turned up in one of the staging areas—broken ribs, burns, nothing major. The President was flying back to Washington with a fighter escort. He'd escaped somehow, but his speech writer was dead. So were two of his aides, three Secret Service agents, twenty defense honchos. That was the list so far. An absolute disaster. Everyone was running for cover, pointing fingers, tying themselves in knots denying they had any prior knowledge of the convoy. Headquarters had raised the threat level to red—severe risk of terrorist attacks—but it was too little, too late. Homeland was in deep trouble, Paxton said. So was Bill Adder.
"Where is he now?" Drake asked quietly.
"Leave him alone, Matthew." Paxton was studying his face with concern. "I can't believe he deliberately lied to us about the cargo. Maybe he was misinformed. We don't know. Whatever happened, he was just following orders."
"He was stalling, Cable. You heard him."
"We've got to be careful," Paxton said. "Headquarters is backing him up so far. They've got to. Nobody can afford to admit they screwed up." He dragged a sleeve across his mouth, his eyes darting from side to side, watching the crowd. "This isn't over by a long shot. They recovered one of the canisters in a ventilation duct in the sub-basement engineering level, just like Hahn said. One canister did all this and there are five more of them floating around out there."
"Did they find out what it was?"
Paxton shook his head. "Not a clue so far. The canister's on its way to Fort Detrick for analysis. CDC's got a field team analyzing surface, air and tissue samples, but they haven't found a damn thing. I mean nothing. Not a trace. It wasn't a pathogen. It obviously wasn't a nerve gas. It wasn't any known CBW agent as far as they can tell. The profile suggests a deliriant, but they ran tests for anticholinergics like BZ and they all came back negative. They've never seen anything like it before."
"What about Gena? Did they run a check?"
"Viddy's working on it," Paxton said. "He's trying to find some connection between Chertok, Ahmad and this Radek character who walked in on you, not to mention some evidence that Chertok's still alive. We're sweeping the neighborhood, but it's a madhouse. Chertok's long gone if he was ever here at all."
Drake stared at him. "Don't tell me you bought that crap."
"We have to check it out. You know that."
"She's lying, Cable." Drake glanced back at Gena again, but she wasn't paying any attention to them. Exhausted, shuffling along between her guards, she was watching the crowd, worried about ambushes, probably. "Take my word for it. You'd have to be crazy to believe anything she says."
"She was right about the canister." Paxton stopped, looking around. They'd reached the north end of the level and the city glittered through the gaps in the walls. He surveyed the crowd, then glanced at Gena standing with the guards about fifteen feet away and lowered his voice. "Listen," he said, checking his watch. "She says Chertok's meeting the rest of his team at eight-thirty this morning. Some warehouse in Roseville. She claims she doesn't remember the exact location, but she could find it again if we take her there."
"Yeah," Drake said. "I'll bet she could."
"I had to pass it on." Paxton scratched his jaw, nervous. "She'll cooperate with the investigation and help us find the warehouse, but she wants immunity and she'll probably get it."
"You've got to be kidding."
"They're talking about a raid," Paxton said. "If she's telling the truth, Adder and the Deputy Secretary will get the credit. If she's lying, guess who's going to take the fall." He focused on Drake, seemed to make up his mind. "Medical's going to check you out, then I'm sending you home on leave. I want you out of this. We'll post a watch on your house and set up monitors on your landlines and router. If they make another try, maybe we'll get lucky."
"I'm all right, Cable. I need to keep working."
"What you need is rest. We'll find Nastya, I promise."
"There's no way I'm going to sit this out at home."
Paxton studied him for a minute, stepping aside for a team of paramedics wheeling an elderly woman by on a gurney. Hands folded on her chest, one of her wrists in a cast, she was staring up at the ceiling lights, blinking in confusion.
"All right," Paxton said, checking his watch again. "It's a mistake, but I won't argue as long as Medical concurs. The truth is that I need you, but they've got the final call, understood?" He looked around the garage, then signaled to Gena's guards and started towards an exit sign in the distance. "Come on. There's the SAC. I'll ask him to sweep the garage, but your friends are probably long gone by now. We've got a van waiting outside. Two blocks away. I think we're OK now."
That's when the shooting started.