“Wait,” Bauer said. “My colleagues should hear this.” He switched to the speakerphone and motioned for Nina to close the door.
Diebold continued. “If our information is accurate, this subject will be contagious about twenty-four hours after exposure, and will die a few hours after that.” Diebold paused. “I have some knowledge of your agency’s activities, Agent Bauer. Do you have the subject in custody? Do you know when he was exposed?”
Jack felt the hand try to tear his heart from his chest. “Yes,” he said quietly. He checked his watch. “About eight hours ago.”
“He needs to be isolated immediately,” Diebold said. “He’s no danger to anyone yet, but we expect lesions to appear on the skin. Once they break open, the patient is contagious and the virus can spread.”
“Isn’t there anything—?”
“A virus is a difficult thing to kill,” the NHS doctor replied. “There is no cure for Marburg.”
“You said this was the second case…?” Henderson asked.
“The other was reported to us from Brazil, from an area called Minas Gerais. We’re guessing that’s where the virus originates. Was your subject recently there?”
“No,” Jack said. But he was distracted. Tony Almeida’s eyes had widened at the doctor’s words.
“Agent Bauer,” Diebold said. “It’s imperative that we get your subject quarantined as soon as possible. If this virus is half as contagious as Marburg, it could take out half the population of Los Angeles in a matter of days.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jack said. He hung up. “What?” he said to Tony.
Almeida frowned thoughtfully. “That’s the second time I’ve heard someone mention that place. Minas Gerais, or something like that? Dyson talked about it this morning, right before he tried to kill me. He was talking about coffee. I didn’t think there was any kind of connection.”
Jack felt frustrated anger boil up inside him. His daughter was dying and didn’t even know it, and Almeida was forgetting important information. “Did he say anything else?” he said evenly.
Tony saw the fire in Bauer’s eyes and countered it with cool professionalism. “Not unless you count the babbling he did right before he died. He saw me and mumbled something about a joke I made about monkeys earlier today. He talked about gangs of monkeys.”
Jack’s eyes lit up. Monkey Wrench Gang. He turned to Henderson. “We have to find Mercy Bennet right away.”
The ocean breeze blew across the southern face of the Santa Monica Mountains, cooling Nurmamet Tuman’s grounds, which had turned gold-green in the late afternoon sunlight. Tuman stepped out of the house to enjoy the breeze, leaving behind the two Secret Service agents who were stationed in his living room.
Out in the backyard, his “gardener” was moving equipment and clipping the hedges. He was butchering them, of course, because that’s what Ayman al-Libbi was: a butcher.
Tuman had been anxious ever since the female Federal agent had come to his door. He’d managed to hide his anxiety from her, of that he was sure. He had spent a lifetime concealing his thoughts and desires, even in the face of the most startling surprises. But although he could hide his fear from the woman, he could not hide it from himself. If one division of the government had concerns, they would eventually share it with the Secret Service, and Tuman’s carefully scripted plans could all be exposed in one fell swoop.
And, adding to his nervousness, the People’s Consulate had called him. Oh, they had no idea of his plans, of course. They were as blind as bats. But they had called him, concerned about the inquiries of the American government. What, they wanted to know, was “Marcus Lee” doing to attract so much attention?
Tuman approached al-Libbi and said for the benefit of any Secret Service ears that might be listening: “You’re wrecking my morning glories. Please stop hacking them up!”
Al-Libbi turned toward him, a light sheen of sweat on his face, his dark eyes gleaming in the sun. He actually seemed to be enjoying this work. He nodded, tipped his cap, and went back to work.
“We have to call it off,” Tuman whispered.
The terrorist stopped his attack on the hedge. “What?”
“First the Federal agent. Now my own consulate is calling me. I don’t like it.”
Al-Libbi jabbed the head of the clippers into the grass and rested his hands on the two extended handles. “For a man who worked as a double agent inside China for twenty years, you are very jumpy.”
“I listen to my instincts,” Tuman replied. “I convinced them for years that I had left my ethnic loyalties behind, that I was a party member first, a Uygur second. I could always sense when someone didn’t believe me and I have that sense now. Someone out there knows that I’ve helped ETIM, and sooner or later that person is going to tell them!”
“Don’t worry about them,” al-Libbi said. He leaned over the handles of his clippers. “Listen, my friend, it is too late to stop this.”
“It is not too late,” Tuman insisted. “We’ll refund your money.”
“Really?” al-Libbi replied in his perfect American tones. “Did you really think I was going through all this for two million dollars?” He smiled. “I took this job because it will put me back where I belong.”
“At the top of the most wanted list?”
The small smile widened across his face. “Two lists: most wanted by Western governments, most wanted by Middle Eastern employers.”
“It can’t happen now.” Tuman stepped around so that his body blocked any view from the living room. A small semiautomatic had appeared in his hand.
11. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Mercy drove away from UCLA Medical Center in her borrowed Crown Vic, her arm still stinging and stiff where they’d drawn the blood. As soon as the coroner and more officers had arrived at the house on Fourteenth Street, Mercy had evacuated herself to the hospital. Few of the words Copeland had spoken made sense to her, but the word virus rattling out of his bloody mouth nearly stopped her heart. She remembered the way he and his gang had reacted when she crashed into those vials in the other house. They hadn’t run from her, they’d run from the accident. She had inadvertently released some kind of virus. She’d stopped by UCLA and asked them to run some tests. They could find nothing wrong with her immediately and released her, promising to call her as soon as they had any information.
She had to get back to her desk and regroup. Her original case had been the investigation of Gordon Gleed’s death. Her intuition now told her that Copeland wasn’t responsible for his murder, at least not directly. Frankie Michaelmas had done it. She seemed to have a fetish for bludgeoning people to death, and, following her practice of instant impressions, Mercy sensed that Michaelmas was far more violent in her heart than Copeland was. Frankie was her target, but Frankie had proved elusive.
Mercy stepped on the accelerator.
Ayman al-Libbi smiled at the gun as though it might have been a bouquet of flowers or a borrowed book. “Are you going to shoot me?” he said calmly. “That will expose you as much as any rocket attack.”
“I’m a hero,” said Tuman, who had thought of this option long ago. “I stopped a wanted terrorist who had somehow slipped past the Federal agents.”
“You waved me through the door,” al-Libbi said. “You told them I was all right. Don’t you think they’ll ask about that?”
Tuman continued to spin his story. “You killed the agents first. I managed to get you while you were focused on them.”