He checked a freezer beside the trolleys. Inside he found frozen packets of bear bile from the Qingdao Bear Farm. A more thorough search of Halliwell’s dark world would later reveal a supply of anthrax spores with a sophisticated coating of silicone particles engineered down to microns. The spores would prove to be identical to those found in the Daschle anthrax.
The door to Halliwell’s office opened and one of the patrol officers came in to report that Halliwell had been taken away under heavy police guard. The security guards were being taken in for questioning and the Chief of the Atlanta Police was on his way up the drive.
‘Split personality schizophrenic?’ the young patrol officer asked, genuinely shocked that such a dark side could exist in a man running for the Presidency of his country.
‘It’s too early to make that judgement,’ Curtis said. Young patrol officers like this had to learn on the job, and even in the middle of a crisis Curtis found a few seconds for his education. ‘No doubt Halliwell’s highly paid lawyers will come up with a defence along those lines but don’t be too shocked when people in powerful positions turn out to have fatal personality flaws,’ Curtis added, accurately reading the look of disillusionment on the young officer’s face. ‘Power and corruption often go hand in hand.’
While Kate sat on one of Halliwell’s couches with Simone, her hands no longer shaking as the Chivas calmed her, Curtis sat at Halliwell’s desk, waiting for his connection to the CIA’s internal computers to spool in. He turned to Rob Bauer.
‘For the moment it will be best if the administrative areas and pharmaceutical laboratories of Halliwell are allowed to operate normally,’ he said, ‘but I want the entrances to both of the Level 4 laboratories sealed off.’ When the pound man returned with two more vagrants the following day he would get a nasty shock, but the vagrants would be given another chance at life. ‘You’re going to have to trust me on this one again, Rob, but there’s another activity in Washington that we’ve yet to close in on and if any of this becomes public, that might be at risk.’
‘You got it, buddy,’ Rob replied, and as Simone was led away for questioning by one of the patrol officers, Special Agent Bauer disappeared to meet the Chief of the Atlanta Police Department.
‘You sure you don’t want a medical examination?’ Curtis asked Kate as the results for the checks on Alan Ferraro’s movements appeared on Halliwell’s computer, together with movements of the George Washington .
‘I’m fine,’ Kate said as Curtis scanned the movement schedule from the Port Authority of Savannah. The west coast port of Georgia was the nation’s sixth largest container port, and Curtis knew the departure of the ocean-going tug two weeks earlier would not have raised a ripple. Despite the demands for imagery over Baghdad and the border regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Hindu Kush, the Administration kept a very careful watch on the growing threat from China, and the latest US satellite surveillance of Chinese ports had found the George Washington not far from the headquarters of the Chinese Northern Fleet in the harbour of Qingdao.
‘I’ve got to get going,’ Curtis said. ‘The packets of frozen bear bile in Halliwell’s freezer came from the Qingdao Bear Farm but I’ve got a hunch there’s more to that bear farm than meets the eye.’
‘Why don’t you get the Chinese to raid it?’ Kate suggested.
‘Because they’d keep the Ebolapox for their own research. This virus needs to be destroyed, and that goes for the world’s stocks of smallpox as well. I’m almost certain that I’m going to find al-Falid at this bear farm and probably Dolinsky as well. There’s no guarantee that Kadeer hasn’t infiltrated the Chinese police force and that they’ll be tipped off. I won’t be happy until I’ve got these vials back in our Embassy in Beijing and in the black bag.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Kate said firmly.
Curtis shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘Haven’t I earned my spurs yet,’ Kate snapped, but then her anger subsided quickly. She could see that Curtis was only trying to protect her, and for that she was grateful.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘we haven’t seen enough of each other for me to have had time to tell you this, but much to my father’s annoyance I used to be a member of a pistol club. I can handle that. 44 Magnum of yours probably better than you can.’
Curtis grinned and raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘really?’
‘You and I both know there’s a very strong chance that if those vials are at the Qingdao Bear Farm, they’re headed for a Beijing crammed with three million extra people from God knows how many hundreds of thousands of towns and cities around the world. You might know a bit about polymerase chain reactions,’ Kate said, her green eyes recovering their sparkle, ‘but I’m the expert on viruses and I’m coming with you.’
‘What about Imran?’ Curtis suggested in a last but futile attempt.
‘Because he’s a man?’ Kate responded.
‘I’ll need to use the secure phone in your office,’ Curtis said, not entirely disappointed Kate would be accompanying him. ‘Tom McNamara will need to hold off the Wunderkind and getting a CIA jet to Beijing is a bit above my pay grade, although it might have a double bed!’
Kate punched him in the shoulder as they made their way to the floor below.
CHAPTER 96
P resident Bolton was surprised to find the Speaker of the House, Davis Burton, waiting for him as he arrived on Capitol Hill to address a history-making joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. He’d been briefed that procedures would be identical to those employed when a President delivered a State of the Union address and that he would be escorted by the Sergeant at Arms. No President could enter the House Chamber without first being issued a formal invitation and being escorted to his place at the podium.
‘I apologise for the break in procedure, Mr President, but a matter of the utmost importance has arisen that you need to be briefed on.’
‘Can’t this wait, Burton, I have a speech to make,’ President Bolton replied irritably.
‘No it can’t, Mr President. I need to brief you in my office before you enter the chamber.’
‘This better be good, Burton,’ President Bolton snapped.
The Sergeant at Arms followed at a discrete distance, determined to do his duty, but still struggling to come to terms with the enormity of the conspiracy to attack the world in Beijing and his President’s involvement. A short distance away, an unusual silence had descended on the packed and normally vocal chamber.
‘Are these yours, Mr President,’ Davis Burton asked, pushing a document across his desk towards President Bolton seated on the other side. The document contained details of the nearly $50 million in bribes that had been deposited in Bolton’s account under the name of Charles Boardman.
‘How dare you!’ President Bolton exploded. ‘I’ll have you flung out on the street for this.’ The President had turned a peculiar shade of pale.
‘I don’t think so, Mr President.’ Right to the last, Davis Burton adhered to the protocol of calling the disgraced and criminally negligent President by his title. Speaker Davis Burton pressed a button on the high fidelity recording the CIA had provided of the conversation between Bolton and Richard Halliwell in his office. As the tape finished, President Bolton had become paler still. ‘A super virus is no respecter of international borders, Richard. I don’t give a shit how many millions of these slanty-eyed Chinese we wipe out, the more the better, but we’d want to make damn sure we had a vaccine to protect Americans, especially our athletes before we released it.’ ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, Chuck. Dolinsky is one of the few people, and perhaps the only one who could develop both the virus and its vaccine quickly. I can look after the distribution in Beijing, but I’d need your help to get the virus in through the black bag.’