POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+4:04
Two hundred and fifty miles away, Lieutenant Barry Charles slapped the helmet of the greenest private in his squad. "We ran through this in the simulator just last month, remember? The train extraction-that's exactly how we're going to do this. Get all the nice civilians out of the car first, then we take down the target. Don't let any of the nice civilians get hurt. Don't let the target get hurt, at least not too much. We've got orders to bring him in alive. You children understand what I'm saying?"
The four men Charles commanded all saluted. In their body armor and protective masks they looked like a mean bunch of sons of bitches, Charles had to admit that. They were the best men the 308th counterintelligence battalion had ever trained, and they were ripped and ready.
"Then let's take this train. By the book, soldiers!"
The men shouted a wordless response and swarmed toward the train. Command had signaled ahead and forced the train to stop ten miles north of Poughkeepsie, out in the sticks where collateral damage would be light. The train's conductor had confirmed the presence of the target and told them which car he was in. Charles had been given only the quickest of briefings on this mission-a picture of the target and a warning that the man he wanted was potentially armed and definitely dangerous, an escapee from a DoD detention facility upstate-but he had no doubt this was going to be a cakewalk.
"Unlock the doors now," he called-he was patched in directly with the train's own radio system and the conductor was ready to do as he said.
Looking up at the train now he saw the anxious faces of commuters and tourists staring down at him. He gave them a cheery wave to put them at ease and then turned to signal to his men. There were two doors on the train car, one at either end. He had four men-one to take the door, one to provide cover. Simplicity itself. He dropped his hand and the men hit the doors running, the pneumatic locks hissing open for them. The metal side of the train pinged in the morning sun. Through the windows Charles watched his men take up stations inside the train, covering one another just like they'd been trained.
There were a couple of screams and some angry shouts, but nothing Charles wasn't expecting. Civilians started pouring out of the train car in a nearly orderly fashion. About as orderly as you could expect from citizens with no military discipline or training. Charles shouted for them to head as quickly as possible to the safety of a big box hardware store a hundred yards behind him, and they did as they were told.
"Lieutenant, sir, we have him," one of his squad called. The voice in his ear sounded pumped up and excited. "He's just sitting there, looks like he might be asleep."
Talk about your lucky breaks. "Well, whatever you do," Charles said, "don't be rude and wake him up. Are the civilians clear?"
"Sir, yes, sir," another of the squad called.
"I'm coming up. Just keep your eyes open."
Charles got one foot up on the door platform and grabbed a safety rail. He let his carbine swing across the front of his chest as he hauled himself up into the airlocklike compartment between train cars. The door that lead into the car proper was activated by a slap plate. He reached down to activate it.
Hell broke out before the door even had a chance to slide open.
"Sir, he's moving-" someone shouted.
"-does not appear to be armed, repeat, I see no weapons-"
"What the hell? What the hell did he just-"
The door in front of Charles slid open and he looked into a scene of utter chaos. A man with a scraggly beard had picked up one of Charles's men, and as Charles watched, the target threw the soldier into one of his squad mates, sending them both sprawling over the rows of seats. A third squad member came at the target with his carbine up and ready to fire.
The target reached forward, grabbed the soldier's arm, and twisted it around like he was trying to break a green branch off a tree.
Charles heard a series of pops like muffled gunfire, but he knew what they actually were-the sounds of the soldier's bones snapping, one by one. A second later the soldier started screaming. He dropped to the floor, down for the count.
Charles started to rush forward, to come to the defense of his men, but he nearly tripped over what he thought was luggage that had fallen into the aisle.
It wasn't luggage. It was his fourth squad member. Looking down, Charles saw the man was still alive but broken like a porcelain doll. His mask was gone, and his face was obscured by blood.
Lieutenant Charles looked up at the man who had neutralized his entire squad and for a moment-a split second-he stopped and stared, because he couldn't do anything else. The man's eyes. There was something wrong with the man's eyes. They were solid black, from side to side. Charles thought for a moment he was looking into empty eye sockets. But no-no-he could see them shining-
He didn't waste any more time. He brought his carbine up and started firing in tight, controlled three-shot bursts. Just like he'd been trained. Charles had spent enough time on the firing range-and in real life, live fire operations-to know how to shoot, and how to hit what he aimed at.
Human targets, though, couldn't move as fast as the thing in front of him. It got one foot up on the armrest of a train seat, then the other was on the headrest. Charles tried to track the thing but he couldn't-it moved too fast as it crammed itself into the overhead luggage rack and wriggled toward him like a worm.
Suddenly it was above him, at head height, and its hands were reaching down for him. Charles tried to bring his weapon up, putting every ounce of speed he had into reacquiring his target.
The thing was faster. Its hands tore away Charles's mask, and then its thumbs went for his eyes.
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+4:41
Laughing Boy had a car waiting right outside the fitness center, a black Crown Victoria with Virginia plates. Chapel got in without a word, and the two of them headed straight for the Pentagon.
Chapel didn't ask for the man's name. CIA told you what you needed to know and they didn't like it if you asked them questions. He resolved to keep calling the guy Laughing Boy, if only in his head.
They had a long drive together during which neither of them said more than ten words. Mostly they were about whether there would be much traffic on I-95. Fort Belvoir was just south of Mount Vernon, only a few miles from the Pentagon-it wasn't a long ride-but you always hit a snarl of traffic when you approached the Beltway that surrounded the District of Columbia. Half the country seemed to be trying to get into D.C. to do some business or just see the sights. The Pentagon was still in Virginia, technically, but that didn't make things any easier. As the car slowed down to a crawl outside of Arlington, Chapel got impatient and started drumming on his side of the dashboard with his artificial fingers.
Laughing Boy seemed to find that very funny.
There wasn't a lot, it seemed, that didn't amuse Laughing Boy. He never stopped laughing the whole time they were in the car together, though as he focused on his driving it dropped to a kind of dry giggling that grated on Chapel's nerves. When they got to the Pentagon's parking entrance, he pulled the car into a reserved spot but before he got out he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills.
"Gotta show due respect, right?" Laughing Boy asked, with a hearty guffaw. He popped three pills in his mouth and dry swallowed them. The effect was almost immediate. He grimaced and rubbed at his chest and sweat broke out on his head, slicking his crew cut. Eventually he recovered and looked over at Chapel with a grim smile. "Can't take those when I'm driving."
Chapel got a quick look at the pill bottle before Laughing Boy put it away. The pills were something called clozapine-Chapel had no idea what they were for, but he did notice that Laughing Boy stopped laughing after taking them.
Thank heaven for small favors, he thought.
The two of them headed inside through the security checkpoint, where Chapel had the usual hassles that came with having part of your body replaced by metal. The soldiers who did his pat-down and search were at least respectful-he doubted he was the only amputee they'd seen that day. Chapel and the CIA man were given laminates, and a helpful guard gave them directions on how to get to the office Laughing Boy named.
Chapel was not surprised when, five minutes later, Laughing Boy ignored the directions altogether and took him deep into C Ring and to an office on the wrong side of the building. They passed quickly through, ignored by all the clerks in their cubicles, and back to an elevator in an otherwise empty hallway. When the elevator doors opened, Chapel saw two soldiers inside carrying M4 carbines. The soldiers demanded to see their laminates and then let them in. One of the soldiers punched a button marked H and they started to descend.
Chapel was a little surprised by that. The Pentagon was built in five concentric rings of office space, rings A through E. There were two sublevels underground called F and G that he knew of. He'd never heard of an H level at all.
When the elevator doors opened again, he looked out into a long hallway with unadorned concrete walls. The floor and ceiling were painted a glossy battleship gray. Unmarked green doors stood every dozen yards or so down the corridor, which seemed to stretch on forever. There were no office numbers, nor any signs distinguishing one door from another. "How do you even know which office you want?" Chapel asked Laughing Boy as they headed down the echoing hall.
"If you're down here and you don't know which one is which, you're already in trouble," Laughing Boy told him.
"This isn't where DIA DX has its offices," Chapel pointed out. "I've seen those before. This isn't-"
He stopped because Laughing Boy was staring at him. Waiting for him to ask a question. Chapel was certain there would be no answers.
"Never mind," Chapel said.
"Good dog."
The CIA man took the lead, setting off at a good clip, and Chapel followed. He did a double take when, for the first time, he saw the back of Laughing Boy's head. There was a bad scar there-more of a dent-where the flesh had turned white and no hair grew.
"Come on," Laughing Boy said. "We're already late." He stood next to a door exactly like all the others, his hand on the knob.
Chapel hurried to catch up with him. Laughing Boy turned the knob and revealed the room beyond-which was nothing like what Chapel had expected.
THE PENTAGON: APRIL 12, T+4:59
Classical music filled the air, soft and almost lost under the sound of falling water coming from a splashing fountain in the center of the space. The room beyond the unmarked door was lined with wooden shelves full of leather-bound books, and the floor was covered by a rich blue carpet. There were, of course, no windows-they had to be a couple hundred feet underground-but the fountain kept the room from feeling claustrophobic.
Armchairs upholstered in red leather were gathered around the room in small conversation areas, while to one side stood a fully stocked wet bar with comfortable-looking stools. On the other side of the room stood a massive globe in a brass stand and a giant map cabinet with dozens of drawers.
It didn't look like an underground bunker. It didn't look like an office, either. It looked like a private club, the kind of place where old diplomats would sit and discuss foreign affairs over snifters of brandy.
"Fallout shelter," someone said from behind Chapel's shoulder.
He turned and saw a man of about sixty dressed in a three-piece suit and a bow tie. The suit was tweed-elegant but not exactly stylish-and the man in it looked like a throwback to the nineteenth century, with long sideburns and a pair of tiny wire-rimmed glasses. He smiled warmly as Chapel stared at him.
"You're wondering where you are, of course," the man said. He held out a hand and Chapel shook it. "This whole level was supposed to be a private fallout shelter for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I doubt it will surprise you to know they demanded it have a pleasant little tavern. The other rooms on this level aren't like this, sadly. Mostly they're full of metal cots and preserved food from the 1960s. This room is my favorite."
"It's . . . nice," Chapel offered. Maybe a little stuffy for his taste, but it definitely beat his cubicle back at Fort Belvoir.
"Rupert Hollingshead," the man said, and let go of Chapel's hand. "I'm the one who sent you all those pesky text messages. I am also, despite appearances, a member of the DIA directorate, though not of DX, I'm afraid."
"Captain James Chapel, sir, reporting," Chapel said, and gave Hollingshead a salute. If Hollingshead was DIA, then he had to be military, either a full bird colonel or a brigadier general. The fact that he was out of uniform didn't matter one whit.
Hollingshead returned the salute. "Oh, do be at ease, Captain. As I was saying . . . fallout shelter, yes. Never used for that purpose, of course, and abandoned for years. When I needed a quiet little place to set up shop, I figured it would do. The walls are concrete six feet thick and it's swept for listening devices every day. Can't be too careful. I do apologize, Captain, but will you allow me to show you a seat? Time is rather . . . ah. Short."
"Damn straight," someone else said.
Chapel hadn't noticed the bar's only other occupant until he stood up from his chair. This one was much more what Chapel thought of when he imagined a high-ranking intelligence official. He wore the customary black suit, power tie, and flag pin. He had heavy jowls that made him look a little like Richard Nixon, and he stood a little hunched forward as if his posture had been wrecked by years of whispering into important ears.
The two of them, Hollingshead and this man, couldn't have been less alike. But Chapel could tell right away they had the same job. Spymasters-the kind of men who were always behind the scenes pulling strings and counting coup. The kind of men who could start wars with carefully worded position papers. The kind of men who briefed the president daily, but who never let their faces show up on the evening news.
Chapel had been in intelligence long enough to know that you never, ever questioned or messed with men like that. You saluted and you said sir, yes, sir and you did what they said and you never asked why.
You couldn't keep yourself from wondering, though.
"That's Thomas Banks," Hollingshead said. "CIA, though-shh! Don't tell anyone I told you that."
He gave that warm smile again and Chapel couldn't help but return it. He found himself liking Hollingshead already.
Banks, on the other hand, was going to be a hard man to love-that was evident from his whole manner. "We need to get this started," he growled. "We've already lost five hours. Five hours we'll never get back."
"Of course," Hollingshead said. "As for your friend here, will he be staying?"
Chapel and both officials turned to look at Laughing Boy, who had taken up a position just to one side of the door. Laughing Boy didn't so much as squirm under the scrutiny.
"He's been cleared. Your man is, too, I assume," Banks said. "What are his qualifications? Doesn't look like much."
"Captain Chapel's a war hero, actually," Hollingshead said. He went over to the bar and poured himself a glass of water. He raised one eyebrow at Chapel, but Chapel shook his head to say he didn't need anything. "If you were to ask him about his past, I'm sure he would be unable to tell you a thing, and quite right. His entire service record and most of what he's done since he came home is oh, quite classified. So I'll have to sing his praises myself. He was one of the first to put, ah, boots on the ground as they say, in Afghanistan, as part of Operation Anticyclone."
"What, that mess with the Taliban?" Banks asked.
Chapel had kept quiet about Afghanistan so long even hearing other people talk about it made him feel weird. He kept his peace, though-a captain didn't speak to men at this level until he was spoken to.
"Hmm, yes. He was dropped into Khost Province with a number of Army Rangers. The idea was they would make contact with some highly placed mujahideen and arrange with them to support our incursion there. This was right after September eleventh, of course, when we still thought we had friends in the Khyber Pass. Chapel and his men grew beards to honor the local customs, and, more important, they carried briefcases filled with cash. The men he was supposed to meet with were, after all, the same men the United States had once armed and paid to fight the Soviets. That all happened on your side of the aisle, Banks, I'm sure you remember-"
"That was before my time," Banks grunted.
"Of course. Of course," Hollingshead said, waving away the protest. "The point is, Captain Chapel did his job and made contact. Sadly, the men he was meeting with had already chosen their path and decided the future lay with al-Qaeda. When the negotiations, ah, collapsed, the captain found himself on the wrong end of a rocket-propelled grenade. This unfortunately killed all the Rangers with him and left Captain Chapel badly wounded. His captors refused to give him medical attention until he told them every single thing he knew about U.S. troop movements in Afghanistan. He refused. By the time our boys rescued him, his arm had gone septic and had to be removed."
"He's a cripple?" Banks demanded.
"Look for yourself, Banks. He's fine."
"This is the best man you could find me? I guess on short notice-"
"Captain Chapel has my complete confidence," Hollingshead shot back. His eyes flashed with anger. "He is exactly the man we need."
"What's he been doing since we scraped him up and brought him home?"
"Oversight on weapons system acquisitions. It should come as no surprise to anyone here gathered that the private firms we employ see defense contracts as an opportunity to rob America blind. Captain Chapel here is in charge of keeping an eye on them and bringing them to justice when they actually break the law."
"So he's a professional snitch," Banks said.
Hollingshead sighed a little. "I prefer the term whistle-blower. The point is, simply, that you are looking at a man with Special Forces training, field experience, and a finely tuned mind for police work. Who, not least of all, knows how to keep a secret. Am I beginning to approach your idea of a satisfactory candidate?"
"Maybe," Banks said. "Considering the desperate circumstances, and the sensitivity of the matter-"
"There's certainly no time to find anyone else," Hollingshead said, with those flashing eyes again. Chapel got the sense that for all his genial nature, Hollingshead loathed Banks with a passion. Banks just seemed like he hated everyone.
Hollingshead took a sip of his water. "Captain Chapel," he said, "I'm afraid there's no room for ceremony here. We need you to come work for us and I'm sorry, but you aren't allowed to say no. As of this moment, you've been seconded to this office and I will be your new reporting officer."
"Sir, yes, sir," Chapel said.
"And God help you, I've already got a job for you. God help us all."
THE PENTAGON: APRIL 12, T+5:19
Hollingshead went behind the bar and pressed a button hidden among the whiskey bottles. On the far side of the room a shelf of books slid away to reveal a flatscreen monitor. It displayed the DIA seal, a stylized earth orbited by red ellipses and surmounted with a torch.
"This is going to be a quick briefing," Hollingshead said. He sounded apologetic. "Since most of what we have is strictly need to know. I can't stress enough how sensitive this mission is."
Chapel wanted to ask why he was privy to it, then. He was hardly the man for a top secret mission, not anymore. But he kept his mouth shut.
"A little more than five hours ago-that would be ten past six in the morning-a person or persons unknown carried out an attack on a Department of Defense facility in upstate New York. At this time we suspect domestic terrorism."
"It doesn't matter why it happened," Banks insisted. "Stick to the what."
Hollingshead took another sip of water. "Very well. The purpose of the facility is classified, but I can tell you it housed seven individuals who were not allowed to leave."
"Permission to ask for a clarification, sir?" Chapel said.
"Absolutely granted," Hollingshead told him.
"These men were prisoners?" Chapel asked.
"Need to know," Banks said. In other words, Chapel wasn't cleared to even know that the prisoners were in fact prisoners.
"The DoD refers to them as detainees," Hollingshead said.
Ah, Chapel thought. Prisoners, yes. But not criminals incarcerated in a prison. Individuals held, most likely without trial, for unspecified reasons. That suggested they were terrorists, or at least that they possessed information regarding terrorism, and had been held under extraordinary rendition.
Chapel bit his lip. He was already jumping to conclusions and the briefing had just started. The first thing he'd learned during his military intelligence training was to never assume anything.
"Six of the individuals escaped from the facility. The seventh is presumed dead. Why we presume this is-"
"Need to know," Banks jumped in.
Hollingshead nodded. "The six who left the facility were tracked to the best of our ability, of course, and we are very good at that sort of thing. Two of them were picked up en route and . . . neutralized. The remaining four were followed by satellite reconnaissance as far as a train station in Rhinecliff, New York, where we picked them up on a closed-circuit camera." He pressed another button and the television screen flickered to life, showing grainy black-and-white footage of a train platform.
Chapel leaned forward to get a better look.
Four men were on the platform. They paced back and forth, acting agitated. It was hard to tell them apart-they all had shaggy hair and beards and their clothes were little more than rags. A train pulled up to the platform and one of them got on. The other three didn't even so much as wave good-bye.
"The four you see here each took a different train, headed to a different destination. About the same time I started texting you, I dispatched counterintelligence units to pick them up before they got off the trains. Sadly none of these units was successful."
"The detainees never showed up at the destinations? They left the trains en route?" Chapel asked.
"Ah. No. The units were-well. They are units no more."
"The detainees killed your people?" Chapel asked, amazed. The DIA didn't mess around with terrorists (assuming, of course, these were terrorists, he reminded himself). If they sent squads of soldiers to pick up the detainees, they would have gone in heavily armed and ready for anything.
"The detainees are dangerous people," Hollingshead said. "They're stronger and faster than-"
"Need to know," Banks said, nearly jumping out of his chair.
Damn it, Chapel thought. He had a bad feeling about where this was going. They were going to ask him to lead an investigation to track these men down, but they weren't going to give him enough information to do it properly. Government bureaucracy at its very worst, and he was the one who would have to take the fall.
He said nothing, of course. These men were his superiors. He didn't have to like Banks or approve of the man's obsessive need for secrecy-but he did have to treat him with respect. That was part of what being a soldier meant.
"We have to find these men, and soon," Hollingshead said. He switched off the flatscreen. "You see, they are carrying-"
"Need to know!" Banks said, nearly shouting.
Hollingshead stared at his opposite number. He didn't turn red in the face or bare his teeth or ball his fists. It was clear to Chapel, though, who had been trained to read people, that Hollingshead was about to blow his top.
"I appreciate the sensitivity of this situation," Hollingshead said. Chapel could tell he was picking his words carefully. "But you're putting my man in danger by keeping him in the dark like this."
"You know what's at stake," Banks said.
"And I'm telling you," Hollingshead replied, "that if you don't clear this particular piece of information right now, I'm pulling out of this operation."
"You wouldn't dare," Banks said, with a snort. "You know this needs to get done. You know what we stand to lose."
"Indeed. Oh, yes, indeed I do. Which is why, after ejecting you and your agent from my office, I'll take this right to the Joint Chiefs. And write it up for the president's daily briefing, where I'll suggest that we mobilize every soldier we can get our hands on until this is taken care of. Of course, the press will want to know why we're doing that."
Banks looked like he'd been hit in the face with a shovel.
"This is bigger than you or me or our little fiefdoms," Hollingshead went on. "It should be handled out in the open, frankly. I'm of half a mind to do this even if you relent. But I'll give you one chance to reconsider."
Banks set his mouth in a hard line. He grasped the arms of his chair hard enough that the leather creaked. Chapel expected him to jump up and walk out of the room. But he didn't.
"They're carrying a virus," Banks said, finally. "A human-engineered virus."
THE PENTAGON: APRIL 12, T+5:31
Chapel had no idea what to do with that news.
It made him want to take a shower. It made him want to shower in bleach.
He couldn't help but ask the first question that came to his mind, whether or not he was a good soldier. "A virus . . . are we talking Ebola or the common cold, here?"
"Neither, and that's the one bit of luck we've had," Hollingshead told him. "It's bloodborne, not airborne. They can only infect others by direct contact, and then only if they break the skin."
"That sounds manageable. What's the chance of them bleeding on someone? It's got to be pretty slim," Chapel said. His relief made his heart skip a beat.
Then he saw the look on Hollingshead's face-and the identical expression on Banks's features.
"Why is nobody agreeing with me?" Chapel asked.
"I mentioned the detainees were violent," Hollingshead said. "I was understating the case, honestly. They're . . ." He glanced at Banks and then at Laughing Boy, who was still standing by the door. "Mentally deranged is the nicest term I can think of. I can assure you, the chances of them breaking someone's skin-or, to be frank about it, biting them-is quite high. In fact it seems to be their chief joy in life."
"All right-that's enough," Banks said. He went over to the bar and poured himself a highball. "That is the absolute limit of need to know. Tell him what he has to do, Rupert, so he can actually get to it."
Hollingshead took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. "Easy enough to say, of course. Much easier than it will be to do. But we need you, Captain Chapel, to go into the field and recover these men."
"Sir, yes, sir," Chapel said, standing up. "You want me to lead an investigation to locate them, so we can send in appropriate squads to pick them up. I'll need to rendezvous with local police and National Guard units in New York State to-"
"No." Hollingshead held up his glasses so he could look through them, presumably so he could find any remaining smudges. Or maybe so he just didn't have to look Chapel in the eye. "No. Nothing that simple. We're asking you to go into the field and deal with these men personally."
"You mean I'm to track them down . . . on my own," Chapel said, because he was certain that was what Hollingshead had just said. Even if it made no sense whatsoever. "Four men who each took out-single-handedly-a rapid response team."
"We're saying that we need you to find them and remove them from play," Hollingshead said.
"Remove them from play?"
"If you get a clear shot on them," Banks confirmed, "you take it. Bringing them in alive is not required. They're much more valuable to us dead than they are on the loose."
"You want me to kill them," Chapel said.
"It's the damned sensitivity of the thing," Hollingshead said.
For once Banks had more to say. "The public can never find out what's happened. It can't learn where they came from, and it can't learn what they're carrying. We can't risk any more high-profile incidents. It's been hard enough covering up what happened to the original teams." The CIA director swallowed his liquor with a grimace. "It has to be just one man, to keep our involvement quiet. Secrecy is imperative here."
Jim Chapel was no stranger to the need for secrecy. He'd spent his professional life keeping secrets and not asking questions. He knew how this sort of thing worked, and he knew what Banks wasn't saying. That the blowback from a leak in this operation would be devastating. Which meant that these detainees weren't just terrorists, and the human-engineered virus they were carrying wasn't the product of some black laboratory in a rogue state.
