“Copy that. It’s a beautiful day and we’re having fun. Out.”
Tanner frowned as he watched the sailboats take their tourists around the islands. Not that he expected the President to kowtow to the terrorists’ demands, but it would have been nice had the embassy shut down for any reason ahead of the deadline. If Hofstad had plans in place to do something about it, no doubt they would be putting them into effect now. His reply to Danielle had been simple coded language. “It’s a beautiful day” meant that they were on site, and “we’re having fun” signified that they were actively monitoring the situation but had encountered no action yet. The transmission itself was nearly as secure as possible, but you never knew who was listening physically, possibly even with long-range directional microphones.
Tanner searched the sky while Liam continued to scope out the water. Aircraft of all types were a serious threat, too. Small fixed wing planes, helicopters, drones…Hofstad had proven their versatility when it came to methods of attack. Of concern to Tanner right now were the numerous sky-ad planes that pulled banners over the bay, visible all across town. Presently, one reading LABOR DAY SEAFOOD FEST IN THE PARK was being towed through the air. In Hawaii, Hofstad had used a tourist helicopter to camouflage their assault. One of these banner planes could achieve the same purpose — it could be used to dump STX over the President’s yacht, the whole Seafood Fest, or both.
They could issue an alert to the White House, giving them the same intel that OUTCAST had. But would tipping their hand really achieve anything? Either the President would dismiss the information and decide not to act on it, or if he did, what could he do? Evacuate Boothbay Harbor and cause a panic? Hofstad would simply move the strike somewhere else. It would cause a delay, but wouldn’t solve the problem. They needed to catch Hofstad in the act and stop them.
And there was already a palpable defensive presence here, Tanner noted, switching his attention back to the water. It was not as if threats in general had been ignored. A sizable Coast Guard cutter was stationed about a quarter mile out from the president’s yacht, while Boothbay Harbor Police and Harbor Patrol boats crisscrossed the harbor at regular intervals. Should a suspicious aircraft be sighted, fighter jets could be called to the space within minutes. Up here in the park, police patrolled on foot as well as on horseback. Volunteer Community Ambassadors, wearing bright yellow shirts and carrying radios circulated throughout the event, assisting visitors, looking for anything out of the ordinary and notifying police when necessary.
Tanner finished off the last of his food, savoring the rich flavors. He eyed the stately Lincoln, floating serenely out on the bay.
What could possibly go wrong?
FORTY
Stephen Shah glanced at his watch again, pacing the laboratory like a tiger. Less than six hours to go and Jasmijn was still working away. She’d moved on from the sea anemones under the microscope and now stood in front of a centrifuge, test tubes full of a special solution whirling around inside the machine at hundreds of times per second, separating the various compounds by weight.
They’d had only a single interruption so far, when a university police officer knocked on the door. Jasmijn waited until the three OUTCASTs had put away their weapons and made themselves look like they were doing some kind of lab work before opening the door. The officer had simply asked if everything was all right, giving the lab a cursory glance. Jasmijn said she was fine, thank you for checking, and the man had left, assuring her that they now had extra men on patrol around the lab.
The centrifuge wound down and Jasmijn opened it and removed one of the tubes. She stuck this tube into another machine and then stood up and yelled, “Yes! I think I’ve got it!”
Next the operators watched as she went to the freezer with the biohazard warnings plastered all over it and removed the vial of STX sample. She loaded the vial into a special mister that would produce an aerosolized plume. They noted her extreme economy of motion around the sample. She passed around respirator masks to everyone in the room and told them to put them on.
Once all of the masks were secure, she ran to a cage with lab rats and extracted one. She held the rat on its back in one latex gloved hand and sprayed it with the mister. Then she put the animal in an empty cage by itself.
“In a few minutes it will start to die.” Jasmijn eyed the clock on her computer. She moved back to the centrifuge and used a hypodermic needle to collect fluid from one of the test tubes. She held the tube up to the fluorescent lights.
“My next gen STX antidote!”
“Does it work?” Naomi wanted to know, as did they all.
“We’ll find out in a minute,” Jasmijn replied, nodding at the lab rat, which stumbled once as it walked across its cage. When it reached the end of the cage and started to turn around, it fell over onto its side and didn’t get up. It scrabbled its front paws a few times in the air and then lay still, stomach rising and falling with labored breathing.
“Down for the count,” Dante said.
“It’s time.” Moving quickly, Jasmijn picked up the syringe containing the new STX antidote and pulled the dying rat from the cage. She held the animal on its back in one hand while she administered the prospective antidote through the syringe in her other hand. The rodent jerked its head once as the needle penetrated its skin and then lay still.
Stephen shook his head. “Looks pretty dead. How long should it—” He was interrupted by Jasmijn’s yelp of surprise as the rat wiggled in her hand. She set it down in the cage.
“It’s alive!” Dante grinned.
“Wow!” The surprise on Naomi’s face was evident.
The rodent ran around in fast circles, its movements hyper-quick. “Slow down, turbo!” Dante said.
And then the lab rat did slow down. It slumped against the wall of its cage and closed its eyes. It lay perfectly still.
“Is he—” Naomi couldn’t bear to finish the question.
Jasmijn reached into the cage and gently placed a fingertip against the rat’s abdomen.
“He’s dead.” She grimaced. “Something’s not quite right. This solution had more effect than the previous one — at least it temporarily revived the subject — but obviously the effect isn’t lasting. I think I know what it is, though…” She walked back over to the computer station as if in a trance, the three OUTCASTs watching her.
She turned to them as she sat down in the workstation chair. “I’m sorry. Unfortunately it’s sort of a trial and error process. I’ve got a long night ahead. I need to do a whole ‘nother round of redevelopment before we can try the test again.”
Nay headed for the coffee pot. “I’ll fire up the caffeine machine.”
Dante looked at Stephen. “Hopefully they have some good luck in Maine.”
FORTY-ONE
They sat on a park bench, Tanner pretending to read a local newspaper as he overlooked the bay, occasionally directing Liam to scope out particular things in more detail with the binoculars. He flipped a page of the paper and then registered motion out of his peripheral vision. Well outside the bay, a speedboat appeared to his right, visible only as a white streak that Tanner knew was the huge wake from the craft’s powerful engines. He continued to watch the boat move from right to left.
He glanced around at the crowd in the Seafood Festival, seeing nothing that raised his internal alarm sense. But when he looked back out at the water, the white streak that represented the speedboat was oriented differently. Instead of lying horizontally, it now appeared as a vertical line, meaning that the vessel had changed direction. It was traveling toward the bay. There was nothing unusual about that, Tanner knew. Lots of fast boats plied the waters outside of the bay at high speeds. Inside the bay, though, traffic was heavier and the speeds were lower. He was sure this one was returning home after a day of boating and would slow down any minute as it approached the bay.