“One potential weaponized bioagent is ricin. Others out there, the filoviruses like Ebola and Marburg, as well as arenaviruses, can cause viral hemorrhagic fevers. Their classification is Biosafety Level-4 pathogens, or BSL-4s. A spread among the general public would be swift and difficult to contain. These viruses cause massive simultaneous organ shutdown and hypovolemic shock. Field medics treating hot zones in the Third World called it hell on earth, and that’s using restraint. It’s a messy, painful, gruesome death.”
Rook turned to Nikki. “Personally, I’d lose that blazer.” The laughter that followed was brief but welcome. Everyone needed to breathe.
The CDC expert paused and took another sip of water. Everyone waited, nobody moved. This was now The Dr. Don Rose Show. “Smallpox, if you don’t know, was officially eradicated in 1979. Only two stores of Variola major and Variola minor exist in the world. In Russia and at the CDC in Atlanta. We watch for it, but unless someone manages to cook up a batch, smallpox is under lock and key. And for good reason. Smallpox is one of the bad boys. It has a thirty-five percent mortality rate.”
“How would one of these bioagents likely be spread?” Agent Bell asked.
“Could be person-to-person. Could be food- or product-borne. But that would be a slower process, albeit unsettling. For your terror bang for the buck, I expect the release would likely be aerosol. Probably from a sealed metal container carrying it in liquid form with a propellant to help it get atomized.”
Nikki asked, “What size container?”
“In a dense population center like this? We’re talking mere gallons.” As the needle-in-a-haystack implications sunk in on all of them, he added, “Also, any part of New York City exposed to a mass release would be shut down and quarantined indefinitely.”
“So we know the ugly,” said Callan, turning to his DHS intelligence coordinator. “How bad’s the bad?”
“Bad about says it,” answered Agent Londell Washington. He looked to be in his late forties, but sleeplessness and stress had added ten years. You aged fast in this business. “We’ve ramped up surveillance since this landed in our laps. We’re leaning hard on all our informants and undercover agents. Nothing. We’ve tracked movements of all known and suspected terror likelies on our Watch List to see who’s gathering, who’s become suddenly active, and who’s gone underground. There’s no anomalous behavior. We’re monitoring phone calls, e-mails, chat rooms, Tweets, taxicab two-ways, even Love Line record dedications on the radio-I kid you not-nada. All the jihadists and ideologues are acting to pattern; there’s no chatter like we usually get before an event, no spike in sick days among employees at the power plants, train stations, and so forth.”
Rook said, “Maybe it’s not ideological.”
“Then what?” asked the bow tie, the professor not sounding so eager to hear theories from a hack with a visitor’s badge.
Undaunted, Rook replied, “In my work I’ve met war criminals in The Hague, guerrilla fighters, cat burglars, even a former governor with a fetish for over-the-calf socks. People who go out of bounds do it for a lot of reasons. Subtracting zealotry, their motives usually go to revenge, ego, or profit. My ex-KGB friend always says, ‘First, follow the money.’ Now, he stole that from Woodward and Bernstein, but you get the idea.”
“With all due respect,” said the professor, “I don’t buy stateless terror. This has to be a government-sponsored plot. With all the logistics and expensive players like Tyler Wynn and his crew, who else would have the financial wherewithal to fund it? My intel points to the Syrians.”
Callan tossed his pen on his blotter. “So after all this, we’re still three, maybe four days out, and have nothing to go on.”
“Perhaps we can go at this a different way,” said Yardley Bell, addressing Cooper McMains, the head of the NYPD counterterrorism unit. “Commander, can you run down your top targets of opportunity?”
“Certainly. For this type of strike, the high-value targets are population-rich, symbolic venues. So, in no particular order: Times Square, the Empire State Building, Grand Central, Penn Station, Union Square, SoHo… and, of course the ballparks. And, since we’re talking about Saturday or Sunday, I’d add Central Park. Weather’s supposed to be good, it’s going to be packed.”
“Thank you,” said Bell. She got up and went to the LED board at the head of the table and stood beside the list of targets, which had been bulleted on the screen as Commander McMains spoke.
“Detective Heat, you have a special connection to this case, we all know that. And this includes some persons of interest you developed from subjects your mother had under surveillance years ago.” An odd sensation passed through Nikki. The acknowledgment of her efforts felt supportive, yet laced with a mild wariness that the recognition came from Yardley Bell. “Maybe instead of sitting here dead in the water, listening to the clock tick, we could examine some leads you developed. Tell us about a Jamaican immigrant by the name of Algernon Barrett.”
“Barrett was on my short list of murder suspects before I determined who my mother’s real killer was. However, I’ve revisited him in the past few days and he doesn’t add up for me as part of this terror plot.”
“Interesting.” Agent Bell strolled back to her place at the table, walking the room like a TV lawyer making a summary to the jury. She put a hand on Rook’s forearm and said, “ ’Scuse me, would you?” and she tugged a gray file from under his elbow. “He’s in the food business, right?”
“Jamaican jerk chicken. He retails spices and has some food trucks.”
“Right, Do the Jerk, I’ve seen them. But our foreigner is making some changes to his business model all of a sudden.” Bell opened the gray file and cited notes as she prowled back to the head of the room. “He told you about his-what are they called now? — ‘pop-up’ stores?” Nikki’s mild wariness had gone full-bore, and it must have shown. “Don’t worry, I haven’t been tapping you. Rook told me.”
Heat turned to him. His expression resembled that of a dog who’d just dookied the new rug.
“You zeroing in on something, here, Agent Bell?” asked Callan, growing impatient.
“I am. For those who don’t know what they are-they probably don’t have a lot of pop-up stores in Atlanta…”
“Mom-and-pop’s about it,” said Dr. Rose.
“… Pop-up stores are short-term retail or food spots that ‘pop up’ overnight, in vacant store fronts, do business with groovy, social media-connected millennials for about a week, and then move on. Very hip, very happening, and maybe, very deadly.
“Here’s the list of where Algernon Barrett’s jerk chicken stores are popping up this weekend.” She positioned herself to stand beside the bulleted list of Targets of Opportunity on the LED, and recited from the file, “Times Square. Across from the Empire State Building. Grand Central’s Eastern Passage. Penn Station. Next to Barnes amp; Noble in Union Square.” She scanned the target list with her forefinger. “Huh. Seems we covered most of them, except for SoHo and the parks.”
Heat said it felt like conjecture, but her words couldn’t fight the hard silence that filled the Situation Room as Yardley Bell returned to her seat. At last, Agent Callan scanned the faces of his task force and said, “Sounds to me like we should pop up at Algernon Barrett’s.”
From there things happened quickly. The search warrant. The plan. The unchaining of the hounds. Homeland drilled for moments like this, and in Domino’s delivery time, Heat found herself riding shotgun in Special Agent Callan’s black SUV in a siren-and-lights convoy smoking uptown. He heard something he liked in his silicone earpiece and said to Nikki, “Bell says her advance team is in place and confirm Barrett at the location.” She didn’t reply, just sat chewing on her misgivings about this operation and how it had steamrolled so rapidly from a speculative mention in the Situation Room.