* * *
"My money’s on the superbomb," Elvis Haynes said as he leaned back in his chair.
Elvis, Schofield, Gant and Mother were sitting in one of the glass-walled offices by the main doors of the hangar.
With them were Colonels Grier and Dallas, all the other Marines stationed on board the Presidential helicopters, as well as the three remaining Secret Service agents.
In a not-so-subtle division of management and labor, all the White House people who had remained up in the hangar either sat in the other glass-walled office on the southern side of the hangar or worked inside their helicopters, which, they said, were more suited to their rank than the spartan Air Force offices.
They also - so Nicholas Tate had said to Gant when he had invited her to stay on Marine One with him - had better coffee, plunger stuff.
Gant went with Schofield and the others.
Ramrod Hagerty, on the other hand, sat over with the White House people.
"No way, man," a small bespectacled corporal named Gus Gorman said. "The superbomb doesn't exist."
Gorman was a thin, nerdy looking individual, with thick glasses, a big nose and a narrow scrawny neck. Not even full dress uniform could make him look sexy. Popular with the other troops for his almost-photographic memory and sharp wit, his call-sign "Brainiac" was a compliment, not an insult.
"Bullshit," Elvis said, "DARPA made it in the nineties, in conjunction with the Navy..."
"But they could never make it work. Thing depended on some element only found in meteorites and they could never find a live specimen of it"
"You guys'll believe anything," a softly spoken voice said from the other side of the office.
Everybody turned, Schofield included.
The speaker was a new sergeant to the unit - an intense young man with a heavy-browed face, pug nose and deep brown eyes. He didn't talk much, so when he did it was something of a special occasion for the team. At first, it had been a trait which some had mistaken for contempt. But soon it was discovered that Sergeant Buck Riley Jr. just didn't like to talk unnecessarily.
Riley Jr. was the son of a highly regarded Marine staff sergeant. His father, Buck Riley Sr., had also been a man Shane Schofield had known better than most.
They had met under fire - back when Schofield had been in a god-almighty mess in Bosnia and Riley Sr. had been on the rescue team. They had become good friends and Riley Sr. had become Schofield's loyal staff sergeant. Sadly, he had also been on that fateful mission to Antarctica - where he had been murdered in the most brutal fashion by an enemy whose name Schofield had been forbidden to mention by the Official Secrets Act.
Sergeant Buck Riley Jr. - silent, intense and serious - bore his father's call-sign with pride. He was known throughout the unit simply as "Book II".
Book II looked at Elvis and Brainiac. "Do you guys seriously believe that DARPA has built a bomb that can destroy a third of the earth's mass?"
"Yes," Elvis said.
"No," Brainiac said.
"Well, they haven't The superbomb is an urban myth," Book II said, "designed to keep the conspiracy theorists on the Internet and the gossipy old women in the United States Marine Corps happy. Want me to give you a couple more examples? That the FBI sends agents into prisons as deep cover operatives. That the United States Air Force has nuclear bombers stationed in commercial hangars at every major airport in the United States for use in the event of a sudden outbreak of war. That USAMRIID has developed a cure for AIDS but hasn't been allowed to release it. That the Air Force has developed a magnetic propulsion system that allows vehicles to float on air. That the losing tenderer in the bid to build the stealth bomber proposed a supersonic plane that could attain complete invisibility through the use of nuclear-powered air refraction - and built the plane anyway, even after they lost the bid. Heard any of those?"
"No," Elvis said, "but they're way cool"
"What about you, Captain?" Book II turned to Schofield. "You heard any of those before?"
Schofield held the young sergeant's gaze. "I've heard about the last one, but not the others."
He turned away from the debate, scanning the office around him.
He frowned. Someone was missing.
And then it hit him.
"Hey, where's Warrant Officer Webster?" he said.
* * *
The President of the United States stared out through the slanted observation windows, his mouth agape.
Through the windows, in the middle of a high ceilinged, hall-like room, he saw a large freestanding cube made of a clear glasslike substance.
It just sat there in the middle of the hall, not quite reaching the ceiling, not quite reaching the walls, a glass cube the size of a large living room, bounded on two sides by the elevated Lshaped observation structure.
It was what lay inside the glass cube, however, that seized the President's attention.
Indeed, he couldn't take his eyes off it.
"The cube is made of high-tensile polyfiber, and has its own separate oxygen supply. It is completely airtight," Colonel Harper said. "Should its structural integrity be compromised, the cube's internal air pressure is automatically raised, so that no contagions can enter it."
Harper gestured to one of the three scientists who had been up on the tarmac earlier. "Mr. President, I'd like you to meet Dr. Gunther Botha, the guiding force behind Project Fortune."
The President shook Botha's hand. Botha was a fat, wide-faced, balding man of fifty-eight, and he spoke with a guttural South African accent. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President."
"Dr. Botha is from..."
"I know where Dr. Botha is from," the President said, a trace of disapproval in his voice. "I saw his file yesterday."
Gunther Botha was a former member of the South African Defense Force's notorious Medical Battalion.Though not widely known, throughout the 1980's South Africa was second only to the Soviet Union in the creation and stockpiling of biological weapons, principally for use against the black majority. "
But with the fall of the apartheid regime, Gunther Botha quickly found himself out of a job and directly in the firing line of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His clandestine hiring by the United States government in 1996 was not unlike its harboring of Nazi scientists after World War II. Specialists in Botha's chosen field of expertise were exceedingly hard to come by.
The President turned back to look out through the observation windows. "So this is the vaccine..." he said, gazing down at the clear fiberglass cube.
"Yes, sir, it is," Botha said.
"Tested?" The President didn't turn as he spoke.
"Yes."
"In serum-hydrate form?"
"Yes."
"Against the latest strain?"
"We tested it against 9.1 yesterday afternoon, as soon as it arrived."
"Mr. President," Colonel Harper said, "if you'd like, we can give you a demonstration."
A pause.
"All right," the President said. "Do so."
* * *
"Where did he go?" Schofield asked as he stood in the middle of the wide main hangar of Area 7 with Libby Gant.
Warrant Officer Carl Webster - the man in charge of the Football - wasn't in either of the two Presidential helicopters, nor was he in the hangar's two offices. And a quick check with the Secret Service people had revealed that he hadn't gone with the President on the tour of the facility.
Warrant Officer Webster was nowhere to be found.
It was cause for concern because there were strict rules of protocol as to Webster's movements. If he wasn't with the President, he was supposed to stay close to Marine One at all times.
"Take a look at the welcoming committee, the famous 7th Squadron," Gant said, eyeing the three groups of P-90 armed commandos stationed at various points around the hangar bay. The crack Air Force troops just watched Schofield and Gant impassively.
"They look pretty mean to me," Schofield said.
"They'r
e jacked up," Gant said.
"What?"
"Yellow tinges to their eyes."
"Steroids?"
"Uh-huh," Gant said.
"No wonder they look so edgy," Schofield said.
"Elvis doesn't like them," Gant said. "Says he heard somewhere that they're, quote, 'unofficially racist.' You'll notice that there are no black members in these squads."
It was true. Apart from a couple of Asian American members scattered among them, the 7th Squadron units in the hangar were absolutely lily-white.
"Yes, I've heard those rumors, too," Schofield said. Although no one liked to admit it, in some sections of the armed forces, racism - particularly against black soldiers - was still a problem. And with their brutal selection courses, special forces units like the 7th Squadron could easily wield subtle discriminatory powers.
Schofield nodded at the leaders of the three ten-man groups, distinguished from the others by the fact that they didn't have to hold their P-90's in their hands. Their machine guns were secured behind their shoulder blades, in back mounted holsters. "You know what they call the five 7th Squadron unit commanders at exercises?"
"What?"
"The Five Snakes. As the overall squadron leader, Kurt Logan commands one ten-man team, the first one, Alpha Unit. The other four units are run by four captains - McConnell, Willis, Stone and Carney. And they're good. When they've cared to show up at the interservice combat exercises at Bragg, they've always come in at number one. One time, a lone 7th Squadron unit took out three SEAL defensive teams all by itself - and that was without Logan."
"Why do they call them the Five Snakes?" Gant asked.
"It started out as a jealous joke among the other field commanders. Three reasons. One, because tactically they resemble snakes: they strike quickly and with maximum force, and with a total lack of mercy. Two, because, personally, they're all very cold individuals. They would never mix with their counterparts in the other services. Always stuck together."
"And the third reason?"
"Because each of their call-signs is a variety of aggressive snake."
"Nice," Gant said wryly.
They kept walking. Gant changed the subject: "You know, I had a good time last Saturday night."
"You did?" Schofield turned to face her.
"Yeah. Did you?"
"Oh, yeah." Gant said, "I was just wondering, you know, because, well, you didn't..."
"Wait a second," Schofield said suddenly. "Something's wrong here."
"What?"
Schofield looked at the three 7th Squadron units stationed around the hangar again.
One squad stood guard over by the regular elevator. The second group of ten men stood beside the wide aircraft elevator shaft. The third unit stood on the southeastern side of the hangar, over by a door that led into the two-story control building.
It was at that moment that Schofield saw the sign on the door behind the third group of 7th Squadron men.
And then, in his mind's eye, he saw it.
"Come on," he said, heading back toward the offices. "Quickly."
* * *
'The arming codes have been entered, Sir," Logan said. "The Football is ready. Warrant Officer Webster was most… forthcoming."
The radio operators inside the control room continued their verbal updates:
"...Emergency sealing system ready..."
"...Self-contained oxygen supply ready..."
"Major Logan," one of them said, "I'm still picking up those trace heat signatures in sector nine outside, out by the EEV."
"Size?"
"Same as before. Between twelve and seventeen inches. I'm not sure, sir, but I'd swear they've moved closer to the vent since the last time I looked."
Logan looked at the satellite image. A zoomed-in black and-white shot of the desert to the east of the main complex showed about twenty-four rod-shaped white blobs arrayed in a wide three-hundred-yard circle around the Emergency Escape Vent.
"Twelve to seventeen inches." Logan peered closely at the image. "Too small to be men. Probably just a pack of desert rats. Get an enhanced image from the satellite, just to be sure. Keep an eye on them."
The shadowy figure turned to face Logan. "Where is the President now?"
"He's down in the testing lab on Level 4."
"Contact Harper. Give him the green light. Tell him we're ready. Tell him the mission is go."
* * *
"Subject One has not been immunized with the vaccine," Dr. Gunther Botha said in a neutral scientific voice.
The President now stood in near darkness, in another area of Level 4, facing two brightly lit test chambers.
Inside each chamber stood a completely naked man. Both men, in perverse contrast to their nakedness, wore gas masks and a series of electrodes attached to their chests.
"Subject One is a white, Caucasian male, five foot seven inches, one hundred and sixty pounds, age thirty-six. Subject is wearing a standard-issue anti-contagion gas mask. Releasing the agent now."
There was a soft hissing sound as a light mist of mustard-yellow aerosol particles was released into the first man's chamber. He was a thin man, gangly. He looked about himself fearfully as the gas entered his airtight room.
The President said, "Where did you get the virus?"
"Changchun," Botha said.
The President nodded.
Changchun was a remote town in northern Manchuria. Although the Chinese government denied it, Changchun was the Chinese Army's chief biological weapons testing facility. It was said that political prisoners and captured foreign spies were sent there and used as guinea pigs for virus and nerve agent testing.
The naked man in the gas chamber was still standing, still looking nervously about himself.
"Secondary infection occurs via indirect ingestion through dermatological orifices - hair follicles in the skin, open cuts," Botha said blandly. "Without administration of an effective vaccine, death will occur approximately thirty minutes after contact. For indirectly ingested nerve agents, this is a relatively fast kill rate.
"But," Botha held up a finger, "when compared with the effects of direct inhalation of this agent, it is highly efficient." He pressed an intercom switch and addressed the man in the chamber. "Would you please remove your mask."
In response, the man gave Botha the finger - firmly.
Botha just sighed and pressed a button on a nearby console. Subject One received a severe shock through his chest electrodes.
"I said, would you please remove your gas mask."
Subject One slowly took off his mask.
And immediately - violently - the virus took effect.
The man clutched his stomach and coughed a deep, hacking cough.
"As I said, far more efficient," Botha said.
The man doubled over, started wheezing.
"Gastrointestinal irritation begins within approximately ten seconds of onset."
The man vomited explosively, splatting brown-green vomit all over the test booth's floor.
"Stomach liquefication within thirty seconds..."
The man dropped to his knees, gasping for air. A chunky liquid dribbled down his chin. He clutched at the booth's glass wall, right in front of Botha.
"Liver and kidney liquefication within a minute..."
The subject puked a bloody black sludge all over the window. Then he fell to the ground, shuddering and shivering.
"Total organ failure within ninety seconds. Death within two minutes."
Soon, the naked man inside the chamber - coiled in the fetal position - lay still.
The President watched, trying to hide his revulsion.
It was beyond cruel, this method of death, even for a man such as this.
Nevertheless, he tried to justify Subject One's grisly death in the light of what Subject One had done during his life. With a friend, Leon Roy Hailey had tortured nine women in the back of his van, laughing at them as they begged for mercy. The two men had recorded the girls' deat
h throes on a video recorder for later gratification. The President had seen those tapes.
He also knew that Leon Roy Hailey had been sentenced to four hundred and fifty-two years in prison for his crimes He was never to leave prison alive. And so, after five brute years in jail, he - like every other test subject at Area 7, all of them serving multiple life sentences - had elected to submit himself to scientific testing.
"Subject Two," Botha said tonelessly, "has been given the vaccine in serum-hydrate form. Serum was mixed into a glass of water he drank exactly thirty minutes ago. Subject is a white, Caucasian male, six feet eight inches, two hundred and fifteen pounds, age thirty-two. Releasing the agent now."
Again, the hissing came, followed by the sudden puff of mustard-yellow aerosol mist.
The man in the second chamber saw the gas enter his booth, but unlike the first test subject, he didn't do anything in response. He was much bigger than the first man – broad chested, too, with bulging biceps, enormous fists and a small elliptical head that seemed way too tiny for his body.
With his gas mask on and the yellow mist falling all around him, he just stared out through the one-way glass of the test chamber, as if a painful agonizing death didn't worry him in the slightest.
No coughing. No spasming. With the gas mask on, the virus hadn't affected him yet.
Botha flicked the intercom switch: "Take off your mask please."
Subject Two obeyed Botha's command without objection, removed his mask.
The President saw the man's face, and this time he caught his breath.
It was a face he had seen many times before - on television, in the newspapers. It was the evil tattooed face of Lucifer James Leary, the serial killer known across America as 'the Surgeon of Phoenix'.
He was the man who had killed thirty-two hitchhikers, most of them young backpackers, whom he had picked up on the interstate between Las Vegas and Phoenix between 1991 and 1998. In every case, Leary had left his trademark - a piece of the victim's jewelry, usually a ring or necklace, lying on the roadway at the spot where the victim had been abducted.
A disgraced former medical student, Leary would take his victims to his home in Phoenix, amputate their limbs and then eat those limbs in front of them. The discovery of his house by FBI agents - complete with blood-smeared basement and two live but partially eaten victims - had horrified America.