The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Read online

  Senator Homer Johns, Jr. (Democrat, New Hampshire), was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and loved to be on TV.

  Roscoe laughed, and added, “‘Would you repeat the question, Senator?’”

  Waldron laughed, then offered his own answer: “‘Senator, I don’t have much of a memory. I’ve been retired from the Army because I am psychologically unfit for service. I just don’t recall.’”

  “‘Well, then, Colonel, did you or did you not steal two Russians from under Miss Dillworth’s nose and fly them to Argentina?’”

  Roscoe picked it up: “‘Two Russians? Senator, I don’t have much of a memory,’ et cetera.”

  Waldron, still laughing, reached into another drawer of his desk and came out with two somewhat grimy glasses and a bottle of The Macallan twelve-year-old single malt Scotch whisky.

  He poured.

  “Nectar of the gods,” he said. “Only for good little boys and naughty little girls.”

  They tapped glasses and took a sip.

  “That’s not going to happen, Roscoe,” Waldron said, “unless we make it happen. And I’m not sure if we could, or even if we should.”

  “In other words, let it drop? I wondered why you brought out the good whisky.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Waldron said. “You open for some advice?”

  Roscoe nodded.

  “Don’t tell anybody what you’re doing, anybody. If there’s anything to this, and I have a gut feeling there is, there are going to be ten people—ten powerful people—trying to keep it from coming out for every one who’d give you anything useful.”

  Roscoe nodded again.

  “I can see egg on a lot of faces,” Waldron said. “Including on the face of the new inhabitant of the Oval Office. He’s in a lose-lose situation. If something like this was going on under his predecessor, and he didn’t know about it, it’ll look like he wasn’t trusted. And if he indeed did know there was this James Bond outfit operating out of the Oval Office, stealing Russian defectors from the CIA, not to mention strangling Russians in Vienna, and doing all sorts of other interesting, if grossly illegal, things, why didn’t he stop it?”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “One thought would be for you to go to beautiful Argentina and do a piece for the Sunday magazine. You could call it, ‘Tacos and Tangos in the Southern Cone.’”

  Roscoe nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Thank you.”

  “Watch your back, Roscoe. The kind of people who play these games kill nosy people.”

  [THREE]

  U.S. Army Medical Research Institute

  Fort Detrick, Maryland

  0815 4 February 2007

  There were three packages marked BIOLOGICAL HAZARD in the morning FedEx delivery. It was a rare morning when there wasn’t at least one, and sometimes there were eight, ten, even a dozen.

  This didn’t mean that they were so routine that not much attention was paid to them.

  Each package was taken separately into a small room in the rear of the guard post. There, the package—more accurately, the container, an oblong insulated metal box which easily could have contained cold beer were it not for the decalcomania plastered all over it—was laid on an examination table.

  On the top was a black-edged yellow triangle, inside of which was the biological hazard indicator, three half-moons—not unlike those to be found on the tops of minarets of Muslim houses of worship—joined together at their closed ends over a circle. Below this, black letters on a yellow background spelled out DANGER! BIOLOGICAL HAZARD!

  Beside this—in a red circle, not unlike a No Parking symbol—the silhouette of a walking man was bisected by a crossing red line. The message below this in white letters on a red background was AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!

  This was apparently intended to keep curious people from opening the container to have a look at the biological hazard. This would have been difficult, as the container was closed with four lengths of four-inch-wide plastic tape, two around the long end and two around the short. The tape application device had closed the tapes by melting the ends together. The only way to get into the container was by cutting the tape with a large knife. It would thus be just about impossible for anyone to have a look inside without anyone noticing.

  Once the biological hazard package was laid on the table, it was examined by two score or more specially trained technicians. It was X-rayed, sniffed for leakage and the presence of chemicals which might explode, and tested for several other things, some of them classified.

  Only after it had passed this inspection was the FedEx receipt signed. The package was then turned over to two armed security officers. Most of these at Fort Detrick were retired Army sergeants. One of them got behind the wheel of a battery-powered golf cart, and the other, after putting the container on the floor of the golf cart, got in and—there being no other place to put them—put his feet on the container.

  At this point the driver checked the documentation to the final destination.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “It’s for Hamilton personally.”

  J. Porter Hamilton was the senior scientific officer of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute. It was said that he spoke only to God and the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute, but only rarely deigned to do so to the latter.

  Although he was triply entitled to be addressed as “Doctor”—he was a medical doctor, and also held a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford and a Ph.D. in molecular physics from MIT—he preferred to be addressed as “Colonel.” He had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with the class of 1984 and thought of himself primarily as a soldier.

  Colonel Hamilton had the reputation among the security force of being one really hard-nosed sonofabitch. This reputation was not pejorative, just a statement of the facts.

  Colonel Hamilton—a very slim, very tall, ascetic-looking officer whose skin was deep flat black in color—showed the security guards where he wanted the biological hazard container placed on a table in his private laboratory.

  After they’d left, he eyed the container curiously. It had been sent from the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida. Just who they were didn’t come to mind. They had paid a small fortune for overnight shipment, which also was unusual.

  He went to a closet, took off his uniform tunic, and replaced it with a white laboratory coat. He then pulled on a pair of very expensive gloves which looked like normal latex gloves, but were not.

  “Sergeant Dennis!” he called.

  Dennis was a U.S. Army master sergeant, a burly red-faced Irishman from Baltimore who functioned as sort of a secretary to Colonel Hamilton. Hamilton had recruited him from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

  Hamilton, doing what he thought of as his soldier’s duty, often served on medical boards at Walter Reed dealing with wounded soldiers who wanted—or who did not want—medical retirement. Dennis had been one of the latter. He did not wish to be retired although he had lost his left leg below the knee and his right arm at the shoulder.

  There was no way, Hamilton had decided, that Dennis could return to the infantry. On the other hand, there was no reason he could not make himself useful around Building 103 at Fort Detrick, if that was the option to being retired. He made the offer and when Dennis accepted, he’d asked, “Can you arrange that, Colonel?”

  “I can arrange it, Sergeant Dennis. The chief of staff has directed the Army to provide whatever I think I need for my laboratory. Just think of yourself as a human Erlenmeyer flask.”

  Dennis appeared. “Sir?”

  “What do we know of the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida?”

  “Never heard of it, sir.”

  “Good. I was afraid that I was suffering another senior moment. Right after we see what this is, find out who they are and why they sent me whatever this is.”

  “You want me to open it, Colonel?”

  “I want you to cut the tape, thank you. I’ll open it.�
��

  Dennis took a tactical folding knife from his pocket, fluidly flipped open the stainless-steel serrated blade, and expertly cut the plastic tape from the container.

  Hamilton raised the lid.

  Inside he found a second container. There was a large manila envelope taped to it, and addressed simply “Colonel Hamilton.”

  Hamilton picked up the envelope and took from it two eight-by-ten-inch color photographs of six barrel-like objects. They were of a heavy plastic, dark blue in color, and also looked somewhat like beer kegs. On the kegs was a copy of The Miami Herald. The date could not be read in the first shot, but in the second photograph, a close-up, it was clearly visible: February 3, 2007.

  “My God!” Colonel Hamilton said softly.

  “Jesus Christ, Colonel,” Sergeant Dennis said, pointing. “Did you see that?”

  Hamilton looked.

  The envelope had covered a simple sign, and now it was visible: DANGER!!! BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4!!!

  Of the four levels of biological hazards, one through four, the latter posed the greatest threat to human life from viruses and bacteria and had no vaccines or other treatments available.

  Hamilton closed the lid on the container.

  “Go to the closet and get two Level A hazmat suits.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Dennis asked.

  “After we’re in our suits,” Hamilton said calmly.

  Two minutes later, they had helped each other into the Level A hazmat suits. These offered the highest degree of protection against both direct and airborne chemical contact by providing the wearer with total encapsulation, including a self-contained breathing apparatus.

  The suits donned by Colonel Hamilton and Master Sergeant Dennis also contained communications equipment that connected them “hands off” with each other, as well as to the post telephone system and to Hamilton’s cellular telephone.

  “Call the duty officer and tell him that I am declaring a potential Level Four Disaster,” Hamilton said. “Have them prepare Level Four BioLab Two for immediate use. Have them send a Level Four truck here to move this container, personnel to wear Level A hazmat gear.”

  A Level Four BioLab—there were three at Fort Detrick—was, in a manner of speaking, a larger version of the Level A hazmat protective suit. It was completely self-contained, protected by multiple airlocks. It had a system of highpressure showers to decontaminate personnel entering or leaving, a vacuum room, and an ultraviolet-light room. All air and water entering or leaving was decontaminated.

  And of course “within the bubble” there was a laboratory designed to do everything and anything anyone could think of to any kind of a biologically hazardous material.

  Colonel Hamilton then pressed a key that caused his cellular telephone to speed-dial a number.

  The number was answered on the second ring, and Hamilton formally announced, “This is Colonel J. Porter Hamilton.”

  “Encryption Level One active,” a metallic voice said three seconds later.

  Hamilton then went on: “There was delivered to my laboratory about five minutes ago a container containing material described as BioHazard Level Four. There was also a photograph of some six plastic containers identical to those I brought out of the Congo. On them was lying a photo of yesterday’s Miami newspaper. All of which leads me to strongly suspect that the attack on the laboratory-slash-factory did not—repeat not—destroy everything.

  “I am having this container moved to a laboratory where I will be able to compare whatever is in the container with what I brought out of the Congo. This process will take me at least several hours.

  “In the meantime, I suggest we proceed on the assumption that there are six containers of the most dangerous Congo material in the hands of only God knows whom.

  “When I have completed my tests, I will inform the director of the CIA of my findings.”

  He broke the connection and then walked to the door and unlocked it for the hazmat transport people. He could hear the siren of the Level Four van coming toward Building 103.

  [ONE]

  Laboratory Four

  The AFC Corporation—McCarran Facility

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  0835 4 February 2007

  Laboratory Four was not visible to anyone looking across McCarran International Airport toward what had become the center of AFC’s worldwide production and research-and-development activity.

  This was because Laboratory Four was deep underground, beneath Hangar III, one of a row of enormous hangars each bearing the AFC logotype. It was also below Laboratories One, Two, and Three, which were closer to ground level as their numbers suggested, One being immediately beneath the hangar.

  When Aloysius Francis Casey, AFC’s chairman, had been a student at MIT, he had become friendly with a Korean-American student of architecture, who was something of an outcast because of his odd notion that with some exceptions—aircraft hangars being one—all industrial buildings, which would include laboratories, should be underground.

  This had gotten J. Charles Who in as much trouble with the architectural faculty as had Casey’s odd notions of data transmission and encryption had done the opposite of endearing him to the electrical engineering and mathematics faculties.

  Years later, when Casey decided that he had had quite enough, thank you, of the politicians and weather of his native Massachusetts to last a lifetime, and wanted to move at least the laboratories and some of the manufacturing facilities elsewhere, he got in touch with his old school chum and sought his expertise.

  Site selection was Problem One. Las Vegas had quickly risen to the head of the list of possibilities for a number of reasons including location, tax concessions to be granted by the state and local governments for bringing a laboratory/ production facility with several thousand extremely well-paid and well-educated workers to Sin City, and the attractions of Sin City itself.

  At Who’s suggestion, just about everything would go to Vegas.

  Charley Who, Ph.D. (MIT), AIA, had pointed out to Aloysius Casey, Ph.D. (MIT), that all work and no play would tend to make his extremely well-paid workers dull. It was hard to become bored in Las Vegas, whether one’s interests lay in the cultural or the carnal, or a combination of both.

  Construction had begun immediately and in earnest, starting with the laboratories that would be under Hangar III. They were something like the BioLabs at Fort Detrick in that they were as “pure” as they could be made. The air and water was filtered as it entered and was discharged. The humidity and temperature in the labs was whatever the particular labs required, and being below ground cut the cost of doing this to a tiny fraction of what it would have cost in a surface building. They were essentially soundproof. And, finally, the deeper underground that they were, the less they were affected by vibration, say a heavy truck driving by or the landing of a heavy airplane. Almost all of Aloysius’s gadgets in development were very tiny and quite delicate. Much of the work on them was done using microscopes or their electronic equivalent. Vibration was the enemy.

  What Casey was working on now in Laboratory Four, his personal lab—“My latest gadget,” as he put it—was yet another improvement on a system he had developed for the gambling cops, or as they liked to portray themselves, “The security element of the gaming industry.”

  Many people try to cheat the casinos. Most are incredibly stupid. But a small number are the exact opposite: incredibly smart, imaginative, and resourceful. Both stupid and near-genius would-be thieves alike have to deal with the same problem: One has to be physically in a casino if one is to steal anything.

  Surveillance cameras scan every inch of a casino floor, often from several angles, and the angles can be changed. The people watching these monitors know what to look for. If some dummy is seen stealing quarters from Grandma’s bucket on a slot machine row, or some near-genius is engaged with three or more equally intelligent co-conspirators in a complex scheme to cheat the casino at a twenty-one table, they are seen. Se
curity officers are sent to the slot machine or the twenty-one table. The would-be thieves and cheats are taken to an area where they are photographed, fingerprinted, counseled regarding the punishments involved for cheating a casino, and then shown the door.

  The problem then becomes that stupid and near-genius alike tend to believe that if at first you don’t succeed, one should try, try again. They come back, now disguised with a phony mustache or a wig and a change of clothing.

  Specially trained security officers, who regularly review the photographs of caught crooks, stand at casino doors and roam the floors looking for familiar, if unwelcome, faces.

  When Casey had first moved to Las Vegas, he had been very discreetly approached—the day he was welcomed into the Las Vegas Chamber of Gaming, Hospitality and Other Commerce—by a man who then owned three—and now owned five—of the more glitzy hotel/casinos in Sin City.

  The man approached Casey at the urinal in the men’s room of the Via Veneto Restaurant in Caligula’s Palace Resort and Casino and said he wanted to thank him for what he was doing for the “boys in the stockade in Bragg.”

  “I don’t know who or what the hell you’re talking about,” Casey had replied immediately.

  But Casey of course knew full well who the boys in the stockade in Fort Bragg were—Delta Force; their base had once been the post stockade—and what he was doing for them—providing them with whatever they asked for, absolutely free of charge, or didn’t ask for but got anyway because Casey thought it might be useful.

  “Sure you do,” the man had said. “The commo gear. It was very useful last week in Tunisia.”

  “How the hell did you find out about that?” Casey had blurted.

  “We have sources all over.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Like you, people who happen to be in positions where we can help the good guys, and try quietly—very quietly—to do so. I’d like to talk to you about our group some time.”