Quantico Part 15

Fouad was confused. 'How am I supposed to act when I see such things being done?'

'We need fresh detainees. We need them unspoiled. If, in your opinion, a detainee might have information of use, you will work to get him-or her-rendered before torture begins. We will interrogate them ourselves. We use techniques that produce remarkable results without much pain. If you can't accomplish that, you will report in exact detail who is being tortured and by whom. So, your first a.s.signment is unpleasant but very important. You will travel with a small team to Egypt and to Jordan, and to some camps in Kuwait, to observe rendition prospects and make reports. Are you up to it?'

'I will be saving them from torture?' Fouad asked.

'Only if they're useful. The rest, I'm afraid, will have to rely on Allah.'

Fouad's face grew dark. 'This American, Brown or Bedford, he is real?' Fouad asked.

'Sounds like hooey to me, but some people in Baghdad used anthrax on a few Shiite Muslims. Their leader might be a man called Al-Hitti.' Anger fixed his stare on Fouad. 'That's all we're cleared to know, for the time being.'

'You will use your techniques on this man?'

'No,' Anger said, shaking his head in disgust. 'They filled him full of crude drugs in Egypt. He's a wreck. If we do what we do best, we'd kill him.'

That afternoon, Fouad moved into a motel room near the Marine base and less than eight miles from the Academy. All the other rooms were filled with agents from Diplomatic Security, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA, and all had been instructed not to talk to each other.

BuDark indeed.

He had yet to learn the real name.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Temecula.

Sam-he had many names now, but to Tommy, he was just Sam-sat on the porch listening to the soughing of the mourning doves. Dawn was a hint of striated light in the east, like a flaw in his vision breaking up the perfect darkness. The land around Tommy's house was quiet but for the doves and a few songbirds tuning up for the morning battle of the bands.

Sam spread his bare toes on the splintery wood and sniffed the cool, sweet air. All he could see other than that blemish of dawn was a hard, rough road finally arriving, however long it might take, at failure. There were so many details to get perfect, so many pitfalls to avoid, and he felt sure that somebody would soon be on to him.

The disaster of the truck and the patrol car. And the glove. He could not remember what he had done with the glove after pulling it off with his teeth. He might have jammed it in his pants pocket. It might be near the burned-out cruiser, in which case it was in the hands of the police and probably the FBI. It might have fallen out on the long walk before he was picked up and given his ride. Good cops might work those miles of highway and find it. Either way, he had screwed up. Compounding that, his weakness: the woman in the green van, Charlene.

It was hard to remember what he had actually told told her. her.

Sam wanted a cigarette and he hadn't smoked in fifteen years.

They would get skin cells out of the glove. They would have the skin cells and the DNA from the blood, and oddly, they would not precisely match, and that would tell them there had been two a.s.sailants at the scene. Brothers, perhaps.

That might slow them down.

Everything about him came in pairs, including his moods-back-to-back despair and supernal confidence with nothing in between but little warning flashes, anxious sparks of light he could almost see.

Morning was the hardest for Sam.

Walking through the kitchen and the back door and down a flagstone path between overgrown lawn and what now looked like pasture, Sam used Tommy's ring of keys to open the first warehouse. He pa.s.sed between the stainless steel tanks rising from the concrete floor like the heads of giant tin-men with protruding steel mouths.

At the end of the warehouse a flight of plain wooden steps descended to the cellars-three concrete tunnels that stretched off for a hundred feet beyond the warehouse foundation. Sam switched on the ceiling lights. His soft-soled shoes padded silently down an aisle flanked by stacked casks of old French oak and cheaper young American oak. Here, sleeping in quiet darkness, the wine had been meant to age and acquire flavors from the wood-a hint of vanilla mostly-and soften its sharp edges in preparation for the bottling that had never come.

Tommy's parents had died before they could enjoy the results of their final vintage.

Last year Sam had used a gla.s.s funnel-a wine thief-to sample some of the casks through their rubber-stoppered bungholes. The wine had turned lifeless and flat and no wonder. The floor under the casks was stained purple, sticky and slick. The barrels had leaked.

The vaults echoed and the cool still air smelled of moldering oak and dead wine.

At the end of the longest tunnel, during the winery's construction phase, Tommy's father had left a room twenty feet square open for Tommy's use. The room had been plumbed with hot and cold water, two large steel sinks, and a floor drain. A small high window could be poled open for ventilation. There, he had trained his son in basic biology and wine lab techniques-yeast culture and fermentation.

Perhaps that had been only way they could connect emotionally. Sam tried to imagine the father's satisfaction at his son's native ability.

The rest Tommy had figured out for himself or researched on the Internet, a cornucopia of odd knowledge. According to Tommy both his mother and his father had been thrilled that Tommy was finally revealing his talents. Still they had never bothered to check up on what he was actually doing. Toward the end, they had had their own troubles. Tommy had been kept busy and out of their hair. Whatever scientific equipment he had asked for, in their guilt they had bought, despite the cost-and he had asked for some unusual things.

Sam opened the metal door and switched on the sunwhite lights. The lab glowed. In pristine silence, he looked across tables crammed with a centrifuge and incubators, stirring platforms, small hot boxes-sealed Plexiglas cubes with glove holes, neat arrays of pipettes on white plastic cutting boards, a shelf covered with antiseptic spray cans and wipe dispensers, gla.s.s beakers and test tubes mounted on wall racks, small packets of French wine yeast.

Near the back stood a much larger box made of sheet steel and half-inch Lexan: eight feet tall, twelve feet wide, three feet deep. The seams had been caulked with thick beads of silicone putty and the whole was now mothballed-wrapped in multiple layers of translucent Visqueen and strips of duct tape and blue masking tape. This had been the first of Tommy's amateur production facilities. He had built it at the age of fifteen. At that time, he had been convinced his parents were out to kill him-the first of his major delusions. And so he had set about cultivating Clostridium botulinum Clostridium botulinum-while contemplating the contents of a small vial he had been unfortunate enough to find at his high school.

That had been the turning point in Tommy's life: someone's simple if egregious oversight, a monumental mistake made for reasons no one would ever understand by a man unknown, perhaps dead.

Tommy had spent much of his free time in the high school's science storage room arranging supplies and cleaning gla.s.sware. He had found a wax-sealed vial wrapped in cotton in a taped-up cardboard box, pushed back on a high shelf behind jars of chemicals. He did not know how long the box and vial had been there: perhaps since 1984, just after the school had been built.

He had immediately recognized the name penciled on the vial's red and white paper label: B. anthracis. B. anthracis.

Tommy had no idea where the vial had originally come from but Sam could hazard a guess. It might have been purloined by a teacher who had once worked in bio-weapons research. Perhaps he had smuggled it out of some lab as a souvenir or a trophy.

Perhaps he had dreamed of being allowed to teach a course on the glories of germ warfare.

Tommy had pocketed the vial and taken it home, where, he told Sam, he had spent many nights lying in bed staring at the beige powder, wondering what it all meant, whether it was even real.

So much potential potential.

So much power.

His parents were fighting every night, driving him under his bed pillows, weeping in terror. He had seen a cable TV program about prehistoric animals that depicted the plight of a pair of reptile parents two hundred million years ago. Harried by a small, swift dinosaur predator, they realized they would have to find another burrow-pull up roots. But they could not move their newly hatched offspring. To avoid wasting precious nutrients, they ate them.

Tommy had become convinced that this was what his parents were planning-not to eat him, but certainly to kill him and move on. In self-defense, he had laced an open can of mushrooms in the kitchen with just a drop of liquor from his toxic culture of C. botulinum C. botulinum. To Tommy, the logic had been obvious-but he did not watch television any more. He found movies and TV programs too disturbing. Even comedies gave him nightmares. The expressions on the faces terrified him.

Weeks after their deaths, in between court appearances and even in the presence of his first court-appointed guardian, Tommy had begun his second phase. His brilliance had almost immediately manifested itself. He had started by culturing pinches of anthrax in a broth whose recipe he had found on the Internet.

The bas.e.m.e.nt lab had filled with the scent of stewing meat.

Since not every sc.r.a.p of information he had needed could be found on the Internet, Tommy had improvised. He had devised several original techniques for preparing and refining his goal: weapons-grade aerosolized material.

Washing, re-drying and re-grinding had removed the dead cell debris, leaving a solution of almost pure spores. The resulting fine powder still had a tendency to clump, however, because of static when dry, and because of moisture when exposed to humidity. He had experimented with suspending the powder in various liquids, and finally arrived at his own ideal formula, using chemicals actually found in printer inks.

Some of those early products he had stored in jars, to avoid waste and as a record of his progress.

But Tommy had known from experience that simply drying and grinding would not prevent clumping. The problem had then become to re-deposit the anthrax in very fine grains, already separated and containing fewer than four or five spores per grain. His brilliant answer: common inkjet printers. He had replaced the ink in the disposable printer cartridges with his special solution of chemicals and, at first, brewer's yeast as a subst.i.tute for anthrax. (Once again, Tommy had suspected that using anthrax's close relation, BT or Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus thuringiensis, ordered from a garden supply store, might result in his being tracked. Yeast, however, he had in abundance-left over from the winery.) ordered from a garden supply store, might result in his being tracked. Yeast, however, he had in abundance-left over from the winery.) First on heavy paper, then on eight-by-ten-inch gla.s.s plates, Tommy had printed out millions of dots of dry solution-tiny granules containing only one or two spores, far finer than he had believed possible. The solution, when expelled through the printer cartridge nozzles, produced a microscopic, silica-wrapped bead that sat high on the gla.s.s plate when dry, but strongly resisted mechanical dislodging. The plates could in theory be carried around with minimum precautions, separated only by waxed paper.

Tommy had worked through ten pairs of glove holes arranged in two levels, front and back. A rolling stepped platform once used to stack barrels had allowed him to reach the upper level.

His next act of genius had been to array the plates on a rack in a vacuum chamber at the right end of his large hot box and statically charge them using an apparatus he had borrowed from an old office Xerox machine. The microscopic granules had lifted free and flown to a grid of tiny wires where they had discharged, flocked up briefly, and then been drawn by gravity to a Teflon-lined chute and into small jars. He had kept a long brush in the box, just in case the spores stuck on the wires or in the chute.

He had then networked six printers, so modified, and had finally begun depositing the real thing: weapons-grade, aerosolized Bacillus anthracis Bacillus anthracis. Throughout, he had kept everything sealed in his hot box factory, even the gla.s.s plates, which he recycled.

If there had been accidents he had not told Sam-but despite never having been vaccinated or taken antibiotics, both of which could also have been traced, Tommy was still among the living.

After filling two jars with superfine spores, he had capped them, sealed them with caulk, and soaked their exteriors in bleach to destroy any residue.

He had finished in early 2001, just as his aunt had moved into the house. This first lot-fifty grams-had taken Tommy six months of hard, steady labor.

For a complete amateur, working alone, he had done very well indeed.

A year after starting his project, in the company of Aunt Tricia, Tommy had traveled to visit relatives in New Jersey and Florida. Along the way, he had insisted on dropping by local post offices to buy commemorative stamps. Taking walks alone at dusk, he had visited public mail boxes, carrying his specially prepared envelopes in plastic bags within a larger bag. From these boxes Tommy had injected fifteen light, deadly packages into the bloodstream of the U.S. mail.

Five had eventually been discovered.

He had no idea where the other ten were.

Tommy was one of the most wanted people on Earth. In the summer and fall of 2001, his hobby had shut down the U.S. postal system and much of the American government. He had killed five people, sickened dozens, and terrorized tens of millions.

By fitting n.o.body's profile, he had eluded the greatest manhunt in domestic American history.

Tommy Juan Battista Juarez was the Amerithrax killer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

Seattle.

William Griffin sat at the tiny table in the old coffee shop on Broadway and waited for his coffee to come up. He rubbed one eye with a knuckle and stared through the window at the rainy street. Last night had been rough and he had not been able to get to sleep until four a.m. Griff's heart had stopped for the ninth time. The doctors had expertly re-started it, then continued surgery.

Six days of surgical procedures. Maybe Griff's spirit was already downing drinks with the old boys up in Omega Precinct. Maybe they were laughing and laying bets on how long it would take Griff's body to realize the owner had gone AWOL.

William pursed his lips and felt his eyes go out of focus.

Hey, Griff, time to choose your heavenly name.

Heaven? Christ, boys, I a.s.sumed...I mean, the liquor in this bar is terrible.

a.s.sume nothing. We make the booze ourselves. G.o.d likes cops, Griff.

Bulls.h.i.t. G.o.d's a judge, not a cop.

Then what are angels? You come up here, join our precinct, pick up your flaming sword, and you go back down, invisible like, and kick some a.s.s. Never have to Mirandize anybody. And the judge never denies a warrant.

'Americano, no sugar?' the waitress asked.

William accepted the cup. Taking his first sip, he saw a slender woman with a bandaged cheek, intense hazel eyes, and auburn hair peering through the window. She was wearing a gray pantsuit and a peach-colored blouse with a loose ruffled collar. Another bandage covered her right hand. She gave him a small wave, then opened the door, setting off a clang of cowbells.

'Mind if I join you?'

'Excuse me?' William asked. He was in no mood for conversation.

'My name is Rose. Rebecca Rose.'

Now he placed the face and he certainly knew the name. 'Sorry,' William said, transferring his cup and holding out his hand. 'I'm William Griffin.'

'So I guessed,' Rebecca said. 'Pardon me if I shake southpaw. Sprockett told me you'd be here. I'm your driver.'

William looked incredulous and pulled out a chair.

She sat. 'I'm taking you with me to the farm.'

'Thanks, but I'd like to stay here until they know something for sure.'

'You're on FBI time. Keller thinks you need a break from the hospital, and so do I. They checked me out an hour ago. Then they let me see Griff. Your father's not going to recognize anyone for days, maybe weeks.' Rebecca stretched out her long legs. She had a third bandage around her left ankle. 'Hiram Newsome thinks Griff might have broken open an important case. Maybe two cases, one old, one new. He asked Keller for you to be temporarily a.s.signed to the taskforce.'

Newsome was another legend. William had met him once in a hallway at the Q, a big, bear-like man with a square face and large, sympathetic eyes. Despite his exhaustion, William's pulse quickened. He looked around the coffee shop. There were two other customers, both in a far corner, and the barista was busy grinding beans. 'I'm listening,' he said.

Rebecca leaned forward, drawing in one leg. 'The h.e.l.l you say.' She tapped the table with a long fingernail, freshly polished. Some of the polish had smeared beyond the cuticles. She had applied the polish herself, William judged, with her bandaged hand. 'You are about to pa.s.s Go and dance straight on over to Park Place. You'd better do a h.e.l.l of a lot more than just listen listen.'

William felt the coffee kicking in. 'Is this for my sake, or for Griff's?'

Rebecca leaned her head to one side. 'Right. Someone will tell Griff we're giving his son a free pa.s.s, a terrific case, outside of the rules, and that will give him the will to live. That will perk him right up.' She raised her eyebrows.

'Sorry,' William said.

'Farrow recommended you.'

'He did?'

'That puts three aces up your sleeve.' Rebecca shaped her hands into cups, then pretended to mold something in the air over the table. William watched her bright eyes. She had the tightest little dimples. 'When Griff is himself again, we'll bring him back in-and you will brief him. Four aces. It doesn't get any better than that for a junior G-man.'

Rebecca finished molding and tossed him an invisible ball.

He held up one hand and caught it.

'There you go,' she said. 'Simpatico.'