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
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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
Area 7 55
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 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
L-shaped 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,
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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."
Area 7 57
"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're 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 AsianAmerican
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
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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 ..."
Area 7 59
"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
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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
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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.