Amateurs.
They put him inside the running bird, which sounded to him like some kind of Sikorsky, probably a UH-60 Black Hawk. He was in the hands of the enemy, now, and in God’s, Cassie would say. He sure hoped she was right. He could use some God right now. Closing his eyes, he said a prayer, and let the pounding of the rotors lull him to sleep.
***
It had taken five days for Nightingale and Nguyen to work their way back up through Mexico, eventually crossing using false documents at San Ysidro, the busiest border station in the US. Checked into a nondescript motel in Mission Hills, California, they ate free continental breakfast and watched the headline news.
“Search and rescue forces of three nations were mobilized today as the cruise ship Royal Neptune was reported overdue to arrive at Port Canaveral, Florida from Bermuda. While the US Coast Guard cautions against speculation, the internet is already buzzing with talk of the latest victim of the Bermuda Triangle.”
The two men turned to each other with ill-concealed horror.
Larry downed his coffee. “Damn. DJ was right. They hijacked it, quarantined it,” he whispered.
“Or sunk it to the bottom. The war, it is starting.”
“I guess it is. So let’s go fight it.”
They drove their rental car the mile or two to the north edge of the fence line surrounding the Van Norman water treatment plant. There was a communications conduit thirty yards inside the fence, where it ran from the main structure to a point where it dove into the ground. Beneath the earth, it would join and run alongside the enormous pipes of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, providing a secure fiber-optic link all the way up the pipeline. The line connected the whole system together, computers at each critical node – control valves, hydroelectric generators, pressure sensors – and the water treatment plant in front of them. But right here, it was exposed.
Larry checked his watch. “Some time in the next hour, I’d say. You still think you can do it fast enough?”
“As long as nobody shooting at me, I do it in under one minute. If they are, I do it even faster.”
Larry shrugged, resigned. “Sure hope you’re right. This is gonna take some nice timing.” He stared at his phone.
Seventeen minutes later the phone beeped and the go-code displayed.
They immediately exited the car, walking up to the barrier. Larry worked heavy-duty wire shears along the cyclone fencing, making a hole within seconds big enough for Spooky.
The small man slipped through with a tool bag in his hand, his eyes roaming over the concrete and steel facility. They were far away from any of the plant workers’ usual locations, and the fence line only got checked twice a day. Dropping to his knees next to the conduit, he took a battery-powered saw and sliced carefully through the thin conduit pipe. Peeling it away with pliers, he exposed the fiber-optic lines within.
With a few deft movements of his fingers he attached a clip-on shunt, which interposed itself into the line. Now, unknown to the plant managers, Spooky had access to the computer that ran the whole system. He pressed a button and the LED on the shunt started flashing. Slipping back across the hot dry dirt, he ducked through the fence and into the car.
The tiny flash drive in the device dumped the cyber-worm Vinny had prepared into the line, where it burrowed its way in and immediately started taking over the system. Within two minutes the control computer, though otherwise unaffected, would ignore all commands to shut down water distribution. It would take tens of minutes or even hours to manually close valves and stop the contaminated liquid from flowing out into greater Los Angeles. By that time it would be too late.
Larry put the sedan into reverse, backing into a position away from the fence but facing down the long perimeter road. “I know he said to leave right away, but I ain’t gonna miss this.”
“It will not make us happy. We cannot interfere.”
“I know.”
So they had a front-row seat for the Daniel Markis road rally. They cheered as he started the sprayer and crashed through the fence; they pounded the dashboard as he cut off the pursuit and kept the mist going; they groaned when the truck rolled, and the helicopter landed. And they sweated as they watched the blue-wrapped bundle carried on a stretcher into the helicopter, both men wondering to themselves whether Markis was alive or dead.
-24-
Infection Day Minus One.
Elise Markis steered the bulk milk truck down the gravel track under the trees that line the little landing field outside of Athens, Georgia. She checked her watch. Ten minutes to go. She didn’t want to be too early; the less time sitting around, the less time for people to question her presence.
She pulled the truck over before the rough road broke out of the tree line, at the downwind end of the runway. Hopping out of the cab, she made a final check of the hose, the pump, and the fittings.
Elise looked up from her check as a single-engine, low-winged airplane roared overhead and landed lightly on balloon tires. It turned around and taxied toward her. She jumped back in the truck and drove out to the end of the runway, meeting the aircraft as it turned around and lined up for takeoff. As she pulled up, she looked over the plastic tanks, tubing and brass nozzles of the crop duster.
A much-younger-looking David Markis waved at her as he climbed down from the cockpit. My father-in-law. He looks so much like Daniel now he’s rejuvenated, Elise thought. She could see his expression was anything but happy, however, as he reached back in to drag a struggling figure out of the second seat. It looked like a woman, her mouth, hands and feet taped and her eyes wild with fear and anger.
“Sorry, I had to take her with me. She was too suspicious about me wanting to rent the plane.”
“It’s all right. I’ll deal with her.” At the bound woman’s muffled shriek, Elise reassured her. “You won’t be harmed, miss. And neither will anyone else. You probably think we’re terrorists but this stuff won’t hurt anyone. And I’m sure you’d love to argue about it but I don’t want to hear it right now.” She dragged the prisoner over to the truck cab and boosted her gently into it. From there she started the pump.
The senior Markis hooked up the hose fitting and quickly transferred the full capacity of five hundred gallons to the plane. As soon as he had it in, he unhooked and leaped back into the aircraft, taking off into the puffy clouds of the burning Georgia summer sky.
Once she had parked back in the trees, Elise looked over at the bound woman. “Look, I know you’re scared, but really, there’s nothing to worry about. If I take that tape off your mouth will you behave?”
The young woman nodded, wide-eyed.
Elise’s phone beeped at her. She looked at the incoming text, nodded in satisfaction, and then worked the tape gently off of the younger woman’s face, revealing a strong chin and defiantly furrowed brow. They stared at each other for a long moment.
“What’s your name, hon?”
“Janet Bills. You don’t look like a terrorist.”
“What does a terrorist look like?”
She squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Crazy eyes? Crazy talk?”
“Well, you happen to be right. I’m not a terrorist, we’re just doing something illegal. But it won’t hurt anyone, so don’t worry about it. In a couple of hours I’ll let you go and everything will be fine.”
“Where’s he going? In the plane?”