Ethan nodded.
‘Veiron’s record will remain clear of any wrong doing but this whole thing is already in motion. We’re too late, there could be any number of military personnel both former and serving with these things in their heads and we won’t be able to stop them being activated.’
‘What’s Veiron’s medical history?’ Lopez asked. ‘Anything there that could connect him to General Thompson?’
‘The Navy’s looking into it right now,’ Jarvis replied.
‘What about the carrier?’ Hellerman asked. ‘Whoever was behind this must still be aboard.’
‘Again, we’ve informed the ship’s captain of what we know and he’s already going through the process of organising a search of the ship in order to try to root out whoever was behind this. Trouble is the aircraft carrier has no less than five thousand personnel aboard, so it could take a long time to figure this out as they couldn’t triangulate where the signals they detected were coming from with any accuracy, only that the transmitter was aboard ship when the event occurred.’
‘And that transmitter is likely now sinking to the bottom of the Persian Gulf,’ Ethan said. ‘In the confusion after that crash it would have been easy for the perpetrator to dispose of any evidence connecting them to the event.’
Lopez leafed through Sandy Veiron’s file and something leaped out at her from a page as she studied the pilot’s medical history.
‘This might be worth something,’ she said as she laid the file down on the table. ‘Veiron was admitted to a medical institution in Germany a year ago for a routine procedure to clear his sinuses.’
Jarvis leaned closer as he studied the same page of the file.
‘Commander Veiron had suffered from headaches and blocked sinuses,’ he read out loud. ‘The condition was believed to have been further inflamed by a series of long — range, high altitude flights during a brief deployment to forward operating bases in west Germany. Naval aviation doctors diagnosed the blockages and scheduled him for the procedure.’
Lopez looked at Ethan.
‘The US Army deploys to Germany from time to time, doesn’t it?’
‘Along with the Air Force,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘There’s a good chance that Thompson would have been stationed at some point in Germany, and if we can tie him to the same hospital or the same surgeon…’
Jarvis pulled his cell phone from his pocket and speed dialed a number. Within a few minutes, data was spilling across a screen in Hellerman’s office.
‘Got it,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Major General Thompson was stationed for two weeks at the Dagger Complex, a military base in Darmstadt, Germany and part of US Army Intelligence and Security Command. According to this, the complex houses the National Security Agency’s European Cryptologic Center, the agency’s principal Signals Intelligence unit in Germany.’
‘When was he there?’ Ethan asked.
‘Two years ago,’ Hellerman said, ‘and while he was stationed there he was treated for a minor sinus infection.’
‘Just like Commander Veiron,’ Lopez said. ‘What’s the time frame for their presence there?’
Hellerman looked at the data on his screen. ‘Veiron was never stationed at Darmstadt, but he was treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, an overseas hospital in Germany operated by the US Army and the Department of Defense. That makes sense as the hospital’s near Ramstein Airbase, where Veiron would likely have landed.’
‘Was Thompson treated at the same hospital?’ Lopez asked.
Hellerman nodded. ‘Yes, and the hospital is only fifty clicks south of Darmstadt.’
Ethan closed the file he was holding. ‘Who treated them? Is there a name of a surgeon or anybody on the teams involved that links both men?’
Hellerman scanned through the pair of files on his system and then he looked up at Ethan.
‘Doctor Heinrich Muller,’ he said. ‘The surgeon conducted both of the procedures under general anesthetic.’
‘I want to know where Muller is, right now,’ Ethan snapped.
Hellerman started work hunting the doctor down as Ethan glanced through the office windows and across the Watch Room’s ranks of desks. The massive television monitors arrayed across the walls portrayed news events from around the globe, and right now half of them were carrying the same story.
‘Kiera Lomas,’ Lopez identified the image of the reporter, her bedraggled features captured by a sharp eyed photographer as she was helped off the back of a C–130 Hercules aircraft somewhere in the Middle East.
‘The abductee,’ Jarvis acknowleged as he too caught a glimpse of the reports, ‘looks like they got her out.’
‘Here we go,’ Hellerman said as he pointed at his screen. ‘Heinrich Muller is still in Germany, runs a private practice south of Ramstein.’
Ethan grabbed his jacket and looked at Jarvis.
‘We need to have a chat with the good doctor and we need to be quiet about it.’
‘We can’t just snatch him,’ Hellerman pointed out, ‘he’s one of ours and still enlisted as US Army Reserve. We don’t have probable cause to pick him up.’
Ethan looked expectantly at Jarvis.
‘We’ve had two major incidents in the space of a few hours already and we’ve no idea what Muller might have done to countless subjects during otherwise routine surgeries. We can apply for an international arrest warrant, wait for the required clearances, hope that Muller doesn’t make a run for it and then talk to him for weeks with his lawyers present and hope that he ‘fesses up while crossing our fingers that nobody in the military stationed at nuclear silos has also been hacked and launches a bunch of ICBMs at Russia while we’re doing all of that…’
Lopez picked up the thread.
‘Or we can go to Germany, grab him and find out who he implanted.’
Jarvis nodded as he dialed another number on his cell phone.
‘Go, now. Get a flight down to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. I’ll liaise from here and arrange your transport to Germany.’
XI
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I’m not,’ Hannah Ford insisted as she drove the pool car down the highway and tried to keep from getting too animated. ‘That’s what he wants us to do. Direct order from the top, from the horse’s mouth in fact.’
Special Agent Mickey Vaughn was a junior agent not long out of Quantico and assigned to Hannah. Hannah was a ten year veteran of the Bureau and had already been disciplined twice for aggression in the field and an unlawful discharge of her weapon that had brought some disrepute to her field office and the wrath of Valery Jenkins, but now she held all the cards and was enjoying herself immensely.
‘Director LeMay’s got you on a covert operation and Jenkins has no control over what you do?’
‘That’s what he said,’ Hannah replied. ‘I report directly to LeMay until further notice.’
Vaughn let out a soft whistle. ‘Jenkins is going to go ape when she finds out about this.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping for,’ Hannah replied as she pulled into the field office lot and parked.
They walked together toward the office as Vaughn continued interrogating her.
‘So what is it that we’re after here? Did LeMay ask you anything about the research you’ve been doing?’
‘He’s interested in seeing Warner and Lopez brought to justice, was pretty much the run of it,’ Hannah replied.
‘Sounds like a revenge mission,’ Vaughn pointed out. ‘Is that even something you want to get involved with? What’s LeMay’s stake in this? Why does he want Warner’s ass hung out to dry?’
‘That much I don’t know,’ Hannah admitted, ‘and I’m pretty sure the Director’s not telling me everything, but then again I wouldn’t expect him to.’