Her eyes darted from the digital clock on the dashboard to her rearview mirror. She stared at the four-foot-tall skeleton doll buckled into the back-seat, the figure dressed in a bridal gown and wearing a red wig that matched her own hair. “Santa Muerte, I’m running out of time. Guide me, Angel. Show me the way.”
Moments passed. Then the two lanes on her left miraculously surged forward. She swerved over from her right lane, skidded briefly on a patch of ice, then turned onto East 45th Street, in desperate search of a parking space.
The traffic crawled west, crossing Second Avenue. The parking garages were all full, the snow-piled curbs off-limits. The digital clock advanced to 8:54 A.M. She slapped her palms in frustration on the steering wheel, shattering the rosary beads in the process.
This is no good. You’re heading too far west.
The baby kicked in her belly as she turned right on Third Avenue, then right again on 46th Street. Having looped around the block, she was once more heading east in the direction of the United Nations Plaza. She crossed over Second Avenue, her pulse pounding in her temples. Don’t get stuck on First Avenue again or you’ll be late. She glanced up at the rearview mirror. “Please skinny girl, help me find a place to park.”
The alley on her left was so narrow she nearly passed it. Nestled between two high-rise buildings, it was an alcove reserved only for deliveries. She turned down the path, following it sixty feet until it dead-ended at a steel trash bin.
Cloaked in shadows, allowing for privacy while still within walking distance of the UN — perfect! “Thank you, Santa Muerte. Bless you, my Angel.”
The no parking — violators towed signs were posted everywhere, but she would only be ten minutes, fifteen at the most, and besides, God had led her here, He would never abandon her now. She parked in front of the immense brown trash bin, turning off the car’s engine.
It was time.
Mary pulled away the wool blankets stacked on the passenger-side floor, revealing the metallic attaché case. A biohazard warning label adorned its smooth surface, the USAMRIID logo embellished with a silver scythe.
She pulled the attaché case onto her lap. Turned her attention to its combination lock. Maneuvered the seven digits to 1266621 then flicked open the twin latches.
The steel locks popped open—
— tripped a microcircuit that sent a remote electronic signal to a secured receiver located 245 miles to the south.
The biodefense laboratories located at USAMRIID were the largest and best equipped of the three facilities in the United States designated to handle highly hazardous microbes. Expanded in 2008, Fort Detrick’s campus now included the National Biodefense Analysis & Countermeasures Center (NBACC), a billion-dollar, 160,000-square-foot complex operated under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security. The new facility housed approximately sixty thousand square feet of Bio-Safety Level-4 labs, designed to allow researchers to work with the most dangerous germs known in existence.
Dr. Lydia Gagnon’s office was located in Building 1425 on the National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC), one of the original facilities still in use. The pathologist from Ontario finished her second Pepsi of the morning, allowed herself one more minute before she had to leave for her nine o’clock staff meeting. She was in the middle of reading a personal e-mail from her sister when the Internet screen abruptly shut down.
attention: level-4 biohazard breach
The warning flashed over and over, the encrypted message prompting her to enter her security code. She typed in the seven-digit identification number and read, her blue eyes widening in fear behind her prescription glasses. After thirty seconds, she grabbed her office phone and dialed a three-digit extension.
“This is Gagnon in the NIBC. We have a Level-4 biohazard breach — repeat, we have a Level-4 biohazard breach. I want two A.I.T.s on the helodeck ready to deploy in six minutes. Tell Colonel Zwawa I’m on my way up!”
Mary Klipot opened the metal case, revealing molded foam compartments. There were three items secured inside: An inhaler designed to fit over the nose and mouth, an aerosol injector attachment, and a three-ounce glass vial containing a clear liquid, its capped top sealed with an orange biohazard sticker.
Methodical now, she removed the empty aerosol injector. Unscrewed its top. Placed it in one of the molded compartments so it stood upright. Carefully, she removed the glass vial. Peeled away the decal. Gently poured a single fluid ounce into the bottom of the empty aerosol dispenser.
A breath to calm her nerves. Then she reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew a Plexiglas test tube containing a chalky gray substance. A genetic modifier: The X factor of her labors. She unscrewed the cap, which doubled as the handle to a tiny internal measuring scoop the size of a head of a tack. She filled the scoop with the gray powder. Tapped off the excess. Added the scoop to the clear liquid in the aerosol dispenser, then capped the test tube and placed it in an open foam compartment. Replaced the aerosol dispenser’s lid and gave the sealed ingredients a dozen delicate shakes. Satisfied, she attached the dispenser to the inhaler, then laid the device on the foam padding.
She checked the clock: 8:59 A.M.
From her purse she removed the envelope containing the forged United Nations identification card. Mary glanced at her photo, now assigned the name: Dr. Bogdana Petrova, Russian embassy. Dr. Petrova had been a microbiologist. Mary had met her at an international convention seven years ago in Brussels. Bogdana’s remains had turned up six weeks later in a trash bin in Moscow, her death blamed on an Internet date gone bad.
We’ll get them back for what they did to you, Dana. For what they did to all our colleagues.
She slipped the shoestring attached to the fake identification card over her head, then picked up the inhaler. Her heart pounded, her hand trembled. This is it, Mary, this is why you were chosen. Scythe can’t hurt the baby, you’ve already inoculated the placenta, but it must be properly inseminated to summon the Rapture.
Staring at the red-wigged Grim Reaper doll in the rearview mirror, she recited the ninth passage from the nine-day cycle of prayers to Santisima Muerte, taken from the novena booklet she received in Mexico two months earlier. “Blessed Protector Death: By the virtues that God gave you, I ask that you free me from all evil, danger, and sickness, and that instead, you give me luck, health, happiness, and money, that you give me friends and freedom from my enemies, also making Jesus, the father of my child, come before me, humble as a sheep, keeping His promises and always being loving and submissive. Amen.”
She pressed the inhaler over her nose and mouth. Squeezing the trigger, she inhaled the pungent elixir deep into her lungs.
The deed over, she laid her head back. Her heart beat wildly. Her eyelids fluttered. Her body quivered with adrenaline.
The internal voice, suppressed by the meds, now urged her haste.
She exited the car, slammed the door, and locked it before remembering the telltale metal attaché case. Clicking the keyless entry, she opened the door and grabbed the case, stomping her feet in the slush-covered street to keep her full bladder under control in the twenty-seven-degree chill.