Agent Fallon Jessup finished with a flurry and added the exclamation point. Raines was silent for a few seconds.
“How do we know it’s tularemia and that it’s headed for Turkmenistan?” Groenwald asked.
“We’re on that train right now,” Daniels said, “and the shipment is verified.”
“The Iranian connection?” Raines asked.
“Pure speculation at this point as we try to connect the dots. But Ashgabat is a relatively large transportation hub; trains and trucks, all just 21 unfettered miles to the northern Iranian border,” Daniels said.
“General Ferguson is in the loop?” Raines asked.
“He’s been briefed and in turn he’s passed the intel on to the Alpha Team heading up Camp’s mission.”
Raines glared at Special Agent Daniels.
“What mission?”
Daniels looked over at Jessup, and they both fell silent.
Raines got up and paced over to Groenwald’s white board. She pulled out a black marker and began to draw.
“Two SkitoMisters are sold by an Illinois company to the City of Hamburg, Germany. The machines go missing and are reported stolen. A port in Jakarta, Indonesia records the serial numbers and a black market importer hocks them to a buyer in Pakistan. Now a Russian train carrying Cold War stockpiles of tularemia along with a CIA informant on-board is heading for the Iranian border. Whether or not the tularemia can be aerosolized is irrelevant because we have no capacity during three to five days of an outbreak to meet the medical demands of people infected with rabbit fever. The world can logically blame nature and poor sanitation for tularemia. One nation collects cash for an old bio-weapon while another state kills, or at least terrorizes, millions.”
The room was silent as Raines continued.
“So let me guess… you want to see if we can create an aerosol version of tularemia? Better than our Rabbit-Fever-In-A-Can from the 1950s. You want something toxic, effective and lethal — not garden variety — but pandemic and widespread.”
“Something like that… we need to know what they might try,” Jessup said.
“You want me to play Terrorist Raines and cook up something they might reasonably cook up. Existing vaccine doses and antibiotic supply? I’m sure you’ve done the numbers… what do we have?”
“We’re working on that part,” Daniels said begrudgingly.
“And ground zero for all of this? The target? Let me go way out on a limb… Israel?”
FOB Lightning
Paktya Province, Afghanistan
Captain Henry walked into the Level One clinic carrying a handful of letters from the post office. He made his way through the Ambien slug-line at the counter, and set the mail down on the exam bed before walking down the 40-foot corridor toward Miriam’s room. A young specialist was finishing his shift guarding her door.
“Anything new?” Henry asked.
“Sir, she’s taking her walks up and down the hallway as you requested. She seems to have a good appetite and slept most of the night.”
“Thank you, specialist. Hit your rack and get some sleep. We’ve got her until the night duty guard comes in.”
Henry opened the door and entered the room. Miriam was sitting in a chair and reading the same four-month-old newspaper from Kabul that she had read a hundred times before.
“Good morning, Miriam. I understand you slept well and are getting some exercise.”
Miriam said nothing. She was both a patient and a prisoner, something the US Army was having difficulty defining with an official designation.
“Well, I have some news for you.”
Miriam looked up from her newspaper.
“We’re moving you to Kabul.”
“I don’t want to go to Kabul,” Miriam snapped. “I’m from Khost.”
“You’re dead, Miriam, and don’t forget that… it was in all the papers and on Radio Television Afghanistan. If you go back to Khost, you won’t live five minutes, especially after you provided some intel to the infidels. I’m guessing the Haqqani network would not be pleased with that.”
“What about my son?”
“Captain Campbell is working on that as we speak. As soon as we know something — you’ll know something.”
“I’m not going to Kabul without my son.”
Henry reached down and pulled the sleeve on her hospital gown up so that he could examine the dressings from the escharotomy.
“You’re healing up nicely, Miriam… no infection. That’s nothing short of a miracle. Infection kills most burn victims. Fortunately, Captain Campbell put you out before you could melt like the wicked witch of the west, or wherever the hell we are.”
Miriam spat on the floor and returned to her old newspaper.
“Miriam, the gratitude and humility leaves me speechless. We are so going to miss your cheery smile and happy heart around this clinic,” Henry said with a full dose of sarcasm not lost on Miriam. “You’ll be on a bird in the morning at 0730 hours whether you like it or not. Kabul can figure out what to do with you next.”
Miriam threw her paper down, stood up and walked to the door and opened it.
“Going somewhere?”
“My doctor told me to exercise, so I walk up and down this hallway a hundred times a day. Every step I take I curse the day when I first met an American.”
Miriam disappeared down the hallway.
“Seriously, lady, you are welcome. It was our sincere pleasure saving a suicide bomber from herself. Hope you have a great life!”
Miriam paced up and down the hallway as Captain Henry retreated to his back office. The Ambien candies were all dispensed, and the line was gone. The on-duty medic was behind the counter resupplying the cabinets with bandages, dressings and pills. Miriam ventured a bit further out into the open bay before doing her 180 and heading back to the other end of the hallway near Henry’s office. She turned again and walked completely into the exam bay the next time where she noticed the day’s mail scattered on an exam bench. One envelope caught her attention. It was addressed to Captain Seabury Campbell, Jr. with a return address of only a first name, Eileen, then Lightner Farms, Baltimore Pike, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She did her turn and headed down the hallway again. She looked into Henry’s office and saw him on his computer as she turned again. The medic still had her head buried in the medicine cabinet as Miriam brushed past the exam bed, picked up Camp’s letter and tucked it into her hospital gown as she headed back down the hallway. She walked into her room and placed the envelope inside her Koran.
14
Hindu Kush
North Waziristan, Pakistan
The 14 soldiers from the Special Forces Operation Detachment Alpha Team, along with Finn, Camp and Omid, made their way across an unmarked border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. The footpath had been narrow and snow-covered all the way from their ingress 42 hours and 17 miles earlier.