East London, South Africa
November 12, 9:11 A.M.
“You’re with me or you’re dead.”
Foster’s quiet words struck Katinka’s ears like a church bell. She shook hearing them enter the office with their bodies armored and weapons raised.
“What are you going to do?” Katinka asked as the STF team took their time to move through the desks, surrounding and covering everyone in the office.
“One of them is Sea Rescue. They had to have found the boat, bodies, God knows. If we go with them, they find out the rest.”
Foster swiveled around. Ducking low behind the desk, his back to the room, he pulled on the gas mask and reached for the canister. Though the office glass was bulletproof, the door was not airtight.
“God, no,” Katinka said.
“The mask,” he said thickly as he twisted the lid. “Do it!”
Sobbing, Katinka did as he instructed, even as two officers closed on the office.
“Hold where you are!” the head officer shouted. She was an African woman, her Vektor SP1 semiautomatic aimed at Foster through the glass.
“Don’t,” she told Foster.
He stepped away lest she lunge at him, and removed the lid.
“Get out!” Katinka screamed at the room.
The officers stopped moving. In a gut-kick flash, they realized who and what they had stumbled onto.
“Everyone go, workers go!” the squad leader cried, whipping her gun toward the door.
Desks nudged and chairs flew. Within moments the door was clogged with panicked MEASE employees, followed by STF officers who were crowding after them, pushing them through.
Holding her breath, the leader backed away with a look so venal that Katinka wished she had remained onboard the Teri Wheel. The room cleared quickly and all Katinka heard was her own labored breath.
The two waited in the office, Foster listening. After nearly a minute, he smiled under the mask.
“It’s safe to go,” he said. “Do you hear?”
Katinka wasn’t listening. She shook her head forlornly.
“They’re on the steps,” he said.
“Waiting? Why?”
“Coughing,” he replied flatly.
“Sweet God—”
Foster put the canister in a backpack with the other container then took a compact Ruger SP101 pistol and a burner phone from a desk drawer.
“Come on,” he said.
He unlocked the door and led the way, listening as he moved through the disarray of chairs and desks. He ignored Katinka’s tears and stumbling progress. He was too busy calculating his next move. There was no rush; the longer they took, the safer they would be.
The door was open and he looked out.
The two Special Task Force officers who had approached his office were sprawled on the staircase. The leader was lying with her head facing down, convulsions causing her to hop like a frog. Her companion was below her, facedown on the tiles. He was hacking hard and trying to get his arms under him to push up. He failed.
“Help him,” Katinka blurted.
“With what, a bullet? He’s already dead, you know that,” Foster replied.
Foster eased around the leader as blood began to run from her mouth, spewed with each cough. They were careful to avoid the spray lest the bacteria get on their clothes.
Reaching the front door, Foster looked into the street. It was already empty as the surviving STF members ordered people to leave. Most seemed all right; a few were coughing. He felt bad for the people in the car dealership. They had probably been overlooked in the quick retreat. That was where Foster was headed.
Katinka grabbed his windbreaker and pulled her face close.
“Shut it!” she implored.
“Not until we’re away! People have to fall or they will come after us!”
“No!”
Katinka pulled at him and Foster spun with impatience. He thrust the gun to her cheek. “Stay if you want but do not interfere!”
By the time Foster looked back at the street, a few officers and pedestrians were already on their knees, some doubled over. His van was out front but he did not want to go outside where police could gun him down. A basement connected the two businesses, and was used for storing spare parts and shared office supplies. Foster unlocked the keypad-controlled door and went down the concrete stairs, Katinka trailing.
“Let me go up and warn them to leave,” she pleaded.
“All right,” he said. “Hurry!”
Katinka crossed the small area and ran up the opposite stairs. She stopped halfway up; a moment later, two salesmen stumbled down, blood on their hands and mouths.
Foster ran forward and pulled them down the stairs, one after the other, then pushed Katinka ahead.
“The van in back, move!” he shouted.
It was a vehicle Foster kept in readiness for an escape. He always imagined he’d be fleeing one of his clients, not a ham-fisted STF team, but that did not matter now. The van was out back behind the showroom. Katinka was there, standing too late beside the manager. He was still at his desk, wearing a look of puzzlement, his bloodshot eyes staring. There was blood coursing over his chin and down his neat tie. Then he simply fell forward across his desk.
“Come on!” Foster yelled.
Katinka moved like a somnambulist. She followed Foster out the back door. The rows of cars offered them cover from any police who might be hiding in the distance.
Foster slid the door back hard, placed the backpack inside, and ordered Katinka to go to the passenger’s side. She was droning about closing the sample but Foster had no intention of doing that until they were away. South Africa had always suffered under clouds of death in the streets.
“This isn’t happening!” she moaned.
Foster did not bother to tell her to shut up. She was too young and too inexperienced, too unworldly to understand.
This was just one more blow to the naïve notion that a wall of any skin color could bring peace to this socially and financially corrupt nation.
He turned on the police scanner and drove slowly through the rows of vehicles. The STF team had obviously not thought to bring hazmat masks. There were no police, no one at all in the car-filled area.
Except for a boy who had been kicking a football against the dumpster in the back. He was faceup and dead. The ball was beside him, adhering to the blood in which he lay.
Foster was sorry for that, and as he drove off he closed the container before passing into the residential area through which they would be driving. His move had a core of compassion but it was also practical. He had no idea how this germ worked. He did not know how much of it he had left. A payoff to stop killing had a top limit. The sale of a potential bioweapon did not.
That done, and Katinka weeping like some Greek figure of tragedy behind her mask, Foster turned his mind to where he would go to make a deal … and warn the police about the price they would pay for any further interference.
“We are ordered to set down wherever we can!”
The pilot’s update was not even a mild surprise. Breen already had a feeling something was wrong. Five minutes from the helipad at the East London Airport he had noticed red and blue police lights, all moving toward them. But they were not converging on a spot behind them. They appeared to be blocking traffic into a sector.
According to the map on his open tablet, it was one that encompassed their destination.
“You been watching—” Williams began.
“They’re quarantining the target,” Breen interrupted. “No air traffic. He’s released the bug.”
The helicopter set down in a small park just south of the Nahoon River. “Gents, we’re about a half mile due east of where you needed to be.”
“Thank you,” Williams said. “Which way is the wind blowing?”
“Southwest. Why?”
“We’re okay,” Breen said privately to Williams.
There was no need to break out the masks and frighten the pilot.
“We’re going to step outside,” Williams told him. “We’ll be grounded for about an hour.”
“How do you know that, then?”
“History repeats,” he replied.
“Do you know something about what all this is?”
“Not enough. Not yet,” Williams said.
Leaving the puzzled man behind, Williams and Breen removed the headphones and got out. There was an eerie silence. The distant sound of sirens made it seem even quieter than it was, in a strange way. Whoever was here had departed, and did so in a hurry. Blankets and even a baby stroller had been left behind, adding to the sense of desolation.
“Be right back,” Breen said, stopping suddenly and turning back toward the helicopter. “I want to check something.”
Williams got on the phone with General Krummeck. The South African wasted no time.
“Commander, where are you?”
“On the ground in an East London park.”
“The target got away in a black SUV headed east, but that’s all we know. We have nothing airborne, no one trailing them.”
“Deaths?”
“Locally, so far—we think he did it to get away, nothing more.”
“What is the response going to be?”
“The Minister of Defence is conferencing the members of the secretariat now. I suspect the senior military advisors will push for a missile assault.”
Williams saw the future unfold precipitously. China in the South Indian Sea and now—
South Africa did not have a sophisticated missile defense and targeting system. No nation below Northern Africa did. The Southern African Development Community was organized in 2003 to promote mutual defense but the member states had been unable to fund the undertaking and it was largely on paper only. Fearing expansionism from Beijing, South Africa had secretly signed a pact with Russia for military support in exchange for limited diamond mining rights.
And thus is born the next superpower battleground, Williams thought. Never mind that Foster might seek refuge in a hospital or church. Putin would take him and his bioweapon out. Then, of course, a Russian team would be sent in to make sure the area was fully decontaminated.
And collect samples.
“There has to be a way to stop him on the ground,” Williams said, searching the street for some sign of Breen. “Where might he go?”
“Teams have been sent to his home, not that we expect him to return, but there may be clues to other residences. The two surviving STF members said there was a woman in the office with him and they apparently left together. She may have a place to go. We’re trying to determine who she was.”
“Payroll records?”
“We’re checking. She may not be staff—legitimate staff. The way they described her, young and attractive, she may have been one of his paid companions.”
Williams was not surprised that Foster had more angles than a ziggurat. These smugglers and black marketers usually did. Just now, Williams missed his old Op-Center team. While he could call Berry, asking the deputy national security advisor to locate a nondescript black SUV somewhere in or near East London would take time.
“Hold on,” Krummeck said. “Here’s the defence ministry order.” The call went silent for a moment. When Krummeck returned, he said gravely, “As soon as the SUV is located, it will be hit with a low-yield SLBM.”
“General, the smallest submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Russian arsenal will still take out a half-dozen city blocks. I know. I prepared a lot of those reports.”
“I agree with this decision, Commander. We also require help finding the SUV by satellite before he goes to ground and—air traffic, commerce, nothing is moving. It cannot go on.”
“We can give you satellite support—”
“And a Tomahawk strike?”
“General, that may not be necessary. Give my partner and me a chance—a few hours. The collateral damage will be extreme.”
“We call it ‘severe deployment’ and, unfortunately, our history is written in it.”
“That doesn’t need to be—”
“Are you telling me? I’m the man who tried and failed to bury this thing. The decision is made, Commander. Thank you for your assistance. I will let you know when it’s safe to depart.”
The general hung up and Williams looked around for Breen. He was still in the helicopter, sitting next to the pilot. Williams walked over. Breen had the headset on and was playing with the dial.
He removed the headset and stepped out as Williams approached.
“What’s the latest?” Breen asked.
“Russian missile launch as soon as they find the vehicle.”
“Our pilot is former air force. He said they’d blast whoever did this.”
“I didn’t come all this way to watch the good guys kill more people than the bad guys,” Williams said. “It’s insanity. Forty years under my belt and I’m helpless.”
“Not necessarily,” Breen said.
“Why? What were you doing?”
“Did you know that civilian ownership of police scanners is illegal in South Africa?” Breen said.
“No. How does that help us?”
“I’ve been listening to the radio,” Breen said. “There’s no public information about police movements anywhere on the public spectrum. Given Foster’s business, he would need a scanner, don’t you think?”
Williams brightened. “Those who track can be tracked.”
Breen nodded. “Scan the area by sea or satellite, filter out the police, and all you have left are felons.”
“What’s the frequency?”
“Police dispatch is 407.94000,” Breen said.
Williams punched Berry’s number and stepped away from the helicopter. The pilot leaned toward the open door.
“Say, just who are you guys?” he asked.
“I’m a lawyer and he’s a bureaucrat,” Breen answered. “Just the people you want to gum up any operation.”