He turned on his heels and went downstairs. He asked Kelly, a willowy redhead with flashing green eyes, if he could come into the office.
“You the Homeland guy?” Her voice had a trace of Georgia in it.
“Yeah.” He introduced himself.
She was concentrating on the desk. It was a large, elegant maple table strewn with papers. A laptop computer was parked on one corner. Off to the right, next to a half-full bottle of Budweiser, was a Dictaphone.
Kelly said, “The tape’s at the end. I wonder…” With a latex-gloved finger she rewound the tape and pushed PLAY. A flat, soft male voice said, “…work is progressing on the experiments with ribaviran and monkey pox with IL-4—“
”Do you understand that?” Kelly asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.” They had been testing an antiviral drug on monkeys infected with a genetically engineered form of monkeypox, a disease similar to smallpox that only infected monkeys. The monkeypox had been modified with a molecule that seemed to make pox work on monkeys vaccinated against monkeypox, in effect, neutralizing the vaccine.
Suddenly, in the background, there was a crack, and screams, followed by voices. A confusion of voices, the television on in the next room. Then Scully’s voice, clear because he was so close to the microphone. “What the fuck?” followed by what was probably the pounding of feet.
As suddenly as it began it ended. The TV, which had been playing what sounded like a cartoon, was clicked off.
And then a voice. Clear. Male. “Take the kids upstairs. Dr. Scully, sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”
“What do—“
”Sit. Now.” There was a sharp, female cry. “Do it.”
Rustling.
“Get her clothes off.”
“Hey!”
“Not another word until I tell you to speak. Do it.”
More rustling. Sobs.
It went on and on. Pilcher and the three other agents had crowded into the office, listening intently. Kelly, the ERT, said, “Dear God,” almost a moan.
They questioned James Scully about where Chimera M13 was located at U.S. Immuno. He refused to talk. At first. They threatened to cut off his wife’s little finger and burned her to convince him they were serious. Scully tried to be vague, to tell them it was in a secure area of the facility. They cut off his wife’s finger and he told them it was on the second floor in the front storage room of the Hot Level 4 Biocontainment area. They asked more questions. Even when he was clearly being honest and straightforward, they burned his wife and threatened to cut her again, and when he answered they cut her anyway.
Scully talked. Begged them to stop. He would tell them everything. Everything. If only they would stop.
A half hour later, after they cut off his wife’s ear, but before the killers cut off a nipple or gouged out an eye, the tape came to a merciful end with a final click.
Everyone in the room looked stunned.
Derek looked worse, if that was possible. His face had grown pale and gray and sweat once again had begun to trickle down his forehead and armpits. He felt the back of his shirt cling to his spine.
That voice. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
He wondered if he was going crazy. If the stress had gotten to him. He was hallucinating. Had to be.
He recognized the voice of the interrogator.
But…
The owner of the voice was dead.
8
“Get that tape into evidence,” Derek snapped. He glared at the tape machine. “Go back. Let’s see, it was around 0183 on the meter.”
Kelly obliged, rewinding. She hit PLAY.
Pilcher said, “What’re you listening for?”
Derek held up his hand to shush the agent. That voice came on again.
“Okay, Doctor. Which freezer is Chimera M13 in? Think about your answer…”
There was a pause that was filled by an indistinct sound in the background.
“There,” Derek said. “Play it again and jack up the volume.”
Kelly did. There was a lot of tape hiss, but the sound was better. They all held their breath, straining to hear.
Pilcher said, “Somebody said, ‘Fallon.’ I’m pretty sure that’s it. ‘Fallon,’ to get this motherfucker’s attention. Then… something like, ‘the kids are…’ something.”
“‘Secure,’” Kelly said. “‘Fallon… Hey, Fallon. The kids are secure.’ That’s it.” She turned the tape off. “Sounded like he had an accent. German?”
Derek nodded, his mind spinning. Fallon? He blinked, not processing his surroundings, trying to remember. Fallon?
Without warning Derek turned and strode out of the room, heading for the front door. Outside, leaning against the Taurus, he punched out a number on the cell phone. It was picked up on the first ring.
“Sam Dalton.” Dalton was the second-in-command of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Sam, it’s Derek Stillwater. I’m not on a secure phone.”
“Get to one. We need an update ASAP.”
Derek told him where he was. “I need a ride to the Pentagon. I can get on a secure phone there and fill you in, but I need to get to the Pentagon. The HMRU’s at the facility, they’ve got Hueys—”
”They’re already on their way to Detrick. Can you drive?”
“During rush hour? Clock’s ticking. What about the Coast Guard?” Derek glanced at his watch. He clenched his jaws and tried to ignore the panic rat.
“Okay,” Dalton said. “They’re on the way.”
Pilcher appeared a few minutes later. He held his own cellular in his hand and stared curiously at Stillwater. Derek had retrieved a portable CD player from his pack and was sitting on the hood of the Taurus sipping from a bottle of water.
“What’re you listening to?” Pilcher asked.
“‘Chant II.’”
Pilcher stared in disbelief. “What?”
“Benedictine monks singing Gregorian chants. They were really popular in the 90s. Put out a bunch of CDs, but the public sort of lost interest after the first two or three.”
Pilcher squinted his eyes. “Jesus Christ!”
“That’s the idea.”
“Who the hell are you? Didn’t you see what happened in there?” He moved toward Derek, head bobbing like a fighting cock.
From the south came the approaching beat of helicopter rotors. Derek stood up and said, “I’m going to head out back. That should be my ride.”
He grabbed up the backpack and the duffel and started to walk around Pilcher. Pilcher grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What the hell are you—”
Derek caught Pilcher’s wrist in one hand and twisted it at a sharp angle and torqued the arm behind the agent’s back, applying pressure and using the man’s weight against him. For just a moment Derek applied more pressure, then suddenly let go.
“You’ve got things under control,” he said. “I’ve got to get over to the Pentagon, make a report on a secure phone.”
“Who’s Fallon?” Pilcher said. He followed after Derek, snapping at his heels like a cocker spaniel. “The look on your face. You know something. This isn’t the time to withhold information, Stillwater. What do you know? Who’s Fallon?”