When they were gone, Hlasek sank back into her chair and stared at the stack of lab reports for a long minute. Then she picked up her phone and punched a long international number.
“Otto?” she said when the call was answered. “We have a problem.”
“Tell me.”
She told him everything that Panjay and Smithwick had told her. The man on the other end of the call, Otto Wirths, listened patiently and then sighed.
“That was careless, Arjeta. We shouldn’t be at this point for three days.” He made a clucking sound of disapproval. “You’re sure that only four people know about this? The two doctors and the nurses?”
“Yes. They came to me first.”
“How long before anyone else is likely to make the same kind of report?”
“I don’t know… it’s still confined to the Akpro-Missérété Commune. I can quarantine it quietly. Say, two weeks. Three at the outside.”
“We only need a week,” he said, “but we need the full week. Find out what hotel the doctors are staying in.”
“I don’t want any of this to land on me, Otto. Headlines won’t help.”
Otto laughed. “An electrical fire in a cheap hotel in Cotonou will barely make headlines even in Cotonou. And as for the nurses… something will be arranged.”
“Do whatever you have to do, but keep me out of it.”
Otto chuckled again and disconnected.
Dr. Hlasek hung up the phone and stared at the stack of reports. Then she stood up, straightened her skirt, picked up the reports on the sickle-cell outbreak, and carried them over to the paper shredder.
Chapter Fifteen
I drove randomly for another hour, then pulled in behind a Cineplex and swapped license plates with another car. I stopped in a McDonald’s to wash up as best I could, and then I closed myself in a toilet stall, leaned against the wall, and tried to sort this out. The reality of what was happening caught up to me again, and shock outran adrenaline. My hands were shaking and I forced myself to go still and quiet, taking long, deep breaths until the panic eased its stranglehold on my nerves.
I was on the run from the NSA, and there was a real possibility that the whole DMS could get torn down. If that happened I was screwed. I’d already passed up the opportunity to start at the FBI academy. My old job with Baltimore PD was probably still there if it came to that, but a bad report in my jacket wouldn’t do much for my career.
The main thing, though, was that since I’ve been running Echo Team for the DMS I’ve seen a much bigger picture of the world and how it works — and of the major wackos who were trying to burn it down. The DMS was doing good work here; I knew that for a fact. Hell, even I was doing good work here. Having this organization destroyed would do a lot more harm than just screwing up my career path. How could the Vice President not see the value of the Department of Military Sciences? Hell, we’d saved his wife’s life less than two months ago.
I guess my problem was that I found it hard to buy that the Vice President was doing this because he believed Church was blackmailing the President. That didn’t feel right. Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but it seemed to me that there had to be some kind of hidden agenda.
Of course, there was about one chance in a zillion that I’d ever find out what it was. Maybe Church would, if he wasn’t in jail. I tried calling him but got no answer. Swell.
The smell of the bathroom brought me back to the moment and I washed my hands again and left the grungy little room. Outside I bought a sack of burgers and a Coke, then got back in the car and drove to Druid Hill Park in northwestern Baltimore. I parked the car and walked into the park, wolfing down the burgers to put some protein in my system. After wandering around to make sure that I had nobody dogging me, I sat cross-legged on one of the tables inside Parkie’s Lakeside Pavilion and pulled my cell.
This time Church answered on the second ring. He never says “hello.” He simply listens. You called him, so it’s on you to take the conversational ball and run with it.
“I’m having a moderately trying morning, boss,” I said.
“Where are you?”
I told him. “What’s the status on my team?”
“I’ll tell you, Captain, but in the event that anyone is within visual range of you I want you to keep everything off your face. This isn’t good news.”
He told me about Big Bob Faraday. There was no one else in the Pavilion, but I kept it off my face. I also made sure to keep it out of my voice, too, but inside there was an acid burn working its way from my gut to my brain.
“These were Russians?” I asked, and from the tone of my voice you might have thought I was asking about last season’s baseball scores. “Care to explain how my team gets ambushed by Russian shooters in Wilmington?”
“We’re short on answers today. We’re running their prints through NCIC and Interpol. Too soon for returns, but I suspect we’ll get something.”
“Since when does the NSA hire out hits to the Russians?”
“They don’t, and as of now we have no evidence of a connection between Wilmington and the NSA other than the bad luck of this happening on the same day as the Veep’s run at the DMS.”
“You don’t think they’re related?”
“I said that we have no evidence of that. And, let’s face it, that isn’t a likely scenario.” He paused. “Actually, a lot of unusual things have happened in the last twenty-four hours, Captain. Some old colleagues of mine have died under unusual circumstances over the last few weeks, and I just got word that a close friend of mine was killed in Stuttgart yesterday.”
“Sorry to hear that. Is that related to this NSA stuff?”
“Again, we have no evidence of it, but my tolerance for coincidence is burning away pretty quickly.”
“I hear you.” I sighed. “Is Big Bob going to make it?”
“Too soon to tell. He’s at a good hospital and getting top-quality care, but he had a collapsed lung and damage to his liver, his right kidney, and his spleen. He’ll probably lose the spleen and, unless he’s very lucky, part or all of one kidney.”
“When this NSA bullshit blows over I’m going to run this down,” I said.
“I have no doubt. Use whatever resources you need. Carte blanche.”
“Thanks.”
“Losing men is hard, Captain. It never gets easier.”
“No, it fucking well doesn’t… and it pisses me off that I can’t be there with my guys because of this bullshit.” I only had three active operatives in Echo Team. There were six others almost ready to join, but they were in Scotland doing some field training with a crack team from Barrier, the U.K.’s most covert special ops unit. With Big Bob down that left Top and Bunny. It made me feel like they were suddenly vulnerable.
“For what it’s worth, you’re not the only one on the VP’s most hated list. There are two NSA agents in the hospital in Brooklyn. They attempted to forcibly arrest Aunt Sallie, but that didn’t go as they expected. Some convalescent leave and a few months of physical therapy and they’ll be fine.”
“Ouch.”
Church said, “There’s more, and this probably does have something to do with Wilmington. We’ve lost touch with the Jigsaw Team out in Denver.”