USAFRICOM C-21, Atlantic Ocean
November 11, 11:09 P.M.
The deal was simple and only four people knew about it: the president, Matt Berry—who crafted it—South Africa’s Chief of Navy Stefan Roodt, and now Chase Williams.
No one stands to lose anything, except the team in the field, Williams thought as he listened to Berry explain it.
The deputy national security advisor had woken Williams up with the news. Not that he minded. As much as he liked to stockpile rest before a long haul, there were a great many details still to plan—such as finding an approach to Barbara Niekerk.
At least the operational parameters for Grace and Rivette were falling into place. In exchange for real-time intelligence from the National Reconnaissance Office on Chinese activity on Prince Edward and Marion Islands, Roodt had agreed to allow the presence of two American operatives working undercover on the islands. After the C-21 landed at joint services base Thaba Tshwane in Pretoria, Grace and Rivette would be flown to Marion Island for a quick drop-off at a spot officially named Flat Cuff, but dubbed, by pilots who had used it, as “Flat Enough.”
The ground had been leveled for an airstrip in the days of prop planes, but the environmentalists would not permit the work to be completed. Because of the hills to the north and south, and the constant winds to the south at this time of year, the approach would be “silent enough,” as Berry put it.
Before leaving the aircraft, the Black Wasps would swap out their onboard oxygen supply for gas masks—though the risk of infection was deemed to be virtually nonexistent at that low altitude and given the prevailing winds.
Before finishing with Berry and briefing the others, Williams went over the latest China update, which he was just reading for the first time.
“The jetliner crash gives them cover,” Berry said. “They can always say they were there to help figure this thing out.”
“Wouldn’t be a lie, as far as it goes.”
“The woman in charge of South Africa’s response hates the poker-faced bastards,” Berry said. “Wasp has got to step carefully. Especially Grace. SAN rank and file won’t be getting the memo about our participation.”
Grace’s ancestry had not even occurred to Williams. People were just people until someone else made them categories.
“Apart from being obliged to fall on our swords, what’s your stand on us being forced to take someone down?” Williams asked.
“You mean what works for me?”
“Yeah.”
“The bug,” Berry said. “Especially with China there and Russia watching. As far as we can tell, they haven’t fielded a unit. They’ve got enough going on in Eastern Europe to worry about stepping on Chinese claims. Whatever the price, Chase, stop it, get it—either of those.”
Even if it comes back inside a cold, dead, infected but quarantined member of Wasp, Williams thought. Even so, he could not really blame Berry. If an enemy were to obtain the microbe, there was no limit to the scale and scope of blackmail and extortion they could enact.
Williams went up a few rows to talk to Grace and Rivette. Breen was awake and joined them. He stood beside Williams in the aisle. Throughout the briefing, the major seemed unusually distracted. He would check his phone, look out a window at the darkness, and seemed generally restless.
When Williams finished, he asked the officer for his reaction.
“None of that is surprising,” he said.
“But?”
“While you were asleep and they were studying,” he said, indicating the younger members, “I read a long e-mail from Becka Young in the TS/SCI-cleared folder. There was no tickler to us, I just decided to have a look.”
The blanket-cleared Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information folder was for all intelligence and defense agency personnel who qualified. The program was instituted post–9/11 to encourage the sharing of intel.
“The surgeon general was looking into this matter of what is still a theoretical microbe being unable to survive in the air for very long.”
“Looking into—how?”
“Running simulations on known bacteria and viruses that adhere to this kind of pattern. Active inside a welcoming, nutritious environment—the body—and perishing without that. She took thirteen known specimens, ran computer simulations in the two known ‘attacks,’ if you will, and felt strongly enough to write it up. There’s a problem with all this.”
Williams found himself growing increasingly concerned as Breen spoke. The major was nothing if not a calm, logical, reasonable man. The man standing before him was not that. Fittingly, given the topic, the mood itself was contagious. Even Rivette, who was prone to interjections, had been tempered by the man’s obvious concern.
“What problem?” Rivette finally spoke.
“Four of the sampled microbes did not die,” he said. “They simply became dormant. In the given situation, she wrote, the germs would be lifted to the upper atmosphere, where they would disburse and represent an infinitesimal danger. There would be no way for them to get back down or intersect with human activity. But,” he emphasized, “that ascension process depended on thermal currents providing more lift than crosscurrents blowing them sideways.”
“Meaning they might stay close to Earth,” Williams said.
“But dead, still, so what’s the big whoop?” Rivette asked.
Breen looked at him. “Not dead. Four of the samples she ran were just dormant. If they found a host, they came back. Fast.”
“So a germ that was released at Batting Bridge could float to—anywhere if the winds were with it,” Grace said. “It could cross an ocean.”
“Yes, especially in an area where thermals are either seasonally short-lived or nonexistent.”
“East or west, back home’s in the crosshairs,” Rivette said, thinking it through. “It’s like a damn sleeper cell. It can go undercover and wait till it’s ready to blow your ass off.”
“All right, everything about this is still speculative,” Williams said.
“Except for the fact that it kills, quickly,” Grace said.
“You could be walking the dog and drop dead,” Rivette agreed.
“Both true, but we do not understand the mechanism by which this happens,” Williams went on. “Our mission is to collect intel from a person or persons in South Africa and to try and stop the Chinese from securing a sample. Dr. Young, the CDC—those people are more highly qualified to do the worrying.”
That came out a little more like a unit commander than Williams had intended, but nothing was gained by having the team slip into a “what if” scenario over which they had no control. Non-hierarchal as Black Wasp was, each member still had to be focused on the task before them.
There was, in fact, only one thing Chase Williams knew for certain. By any means necessary, at whatever price, they needed to obtain a sample.