DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE ASSISTANCE
WASHINGTON, DC
Brian Turner. You’re absolutely sure?” asked CIA director James Vaile as he sat in Gary Lawlor’s office, admiring an oil painting of George Patton.
“I know what I saw,” replied the head of the OIIA. “He and Senator Carmichael were both in that hotel together.”
Vaile took another sip of his coffee before responding. “This is pretty serious stuff-for everyone involved.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it here, away from Langley.”
“You know, we normally like to handle our own problems in-house,” said Vaile.
“Except your problem has become the president’s problem.”
That was true, and it was also something the CIA director didn’t have an immediate answer for. “What do you suggest we do?”
“As far as the CIA as a whole?” responded Lawlor. “Nothing. But I do want you to make it harder for him to get hold of his information. Let’s see how good he really is.”
“It could compromise us in a lot of ongoing operations.”
“No, it won’t. At this point they’re baiting for only one type of fish. I don’t want there to be any indication that we’re on to them. In the meantime”-he paused as he reached into his desk and withdrew a small envelope containing a CD-ROM-“I’d like you to plant this information for me.”
“What is it?”
“Open it up when you get back to your office and you’ll see. Let’s just say that I think it will prove irresistible. Make sure you bury it deep enough that it appears authentic, but not so deep that he’ll never find it.”
“Consider it done,” said Vaile as Lawlor’s assistant walked into the room and handed him a message.
Right away, the CIA director could tell something was seriously wrong. “What is it?”
Lawlor looked at his watch and replied, “In three hours, the president is going to convene a National Security Council meeting in the situation room. We just got word that our mystery illness has officially made its debut in the United States.”
“Jesus,” said Vaile as he set down his cup. “Where and how many infected?”
“The trail starts with a Muslim food importer by the name of Kaseem Najjar in Hamtramck, Michigan, and extends to several UPS workers throughout their processing and delivery system beginning in Michigan and ending in Manhattan. The FBI, as well as teams from the CDC and USAMRIID, are already en route.”
“Do we know if it was intentionally released? Are there any more victims?”
“Apparently, that’s all they know. Hopefully, we’ll have more information by the briefing this afternoon.”
“We’d better have more than just information. You saw how fast that thing moved through that village in Iraq,” replied Vaile, already racing through worst-case scenarios in his mind. “If we don’t get a handle on this, the death count is going to be astronomical. It’ll make the plague look like an outbreak of strep throat-” Vaile was interrupted by a text message that came over his secure pager.
This time it was Lawlor’s turn to read his friend’s visage and inquire as to what was going on.
Looking up from his pager, the director of the CIA said, “The president’s chief of staff is looking for me.”
“Chuck Anderson? Why?”
“They’re concerned that a major offensive with the illness could already be under way and that it’s only a matter of hours before they start seeing casualties inside the Beltway. He wants to talk about moving the president out of DC.”
“If a major offensive is under way, this thing could turn up anywhere. Where do they want to move him?”
Vaile set down his pager. “They want to greenlight the doomsday scenario.”
“Operation Ark?”
The DCI nodded his head. “ Anderson is going to recommend that the president, the cabinet, Congress, and everyone else on the continuity of government shortlist be evacuated to the underground facility at Mount Weather.”
Lawlor was quite familiar with the emergency command and control continuity of government center built more than a mile beneath the surface of an antenna-studded mountain in northwest Virginia near the West Virginia border. It was a top-secret, self-sufficient subterranean city designed during the Cold War to withstand multiple direct hits from the biggest and baddest nuclear weapons America’s most serious enemy, the Soviet Union, might ever unleash. Whenever the media reported the president or members of the government being evacuated in times of crisis to a “secure and undisclosed” location, nine out of ten times it was Mount Weather. “That’s what Anderson ’s paid for,” replied Lawlor, “to plan for the worst.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Vaile. “He’s planning for the worst, all right. The president has already initiated the Campfire Protocol. We’ve got bombers and fighter jets being outfitted with nukes as we speak. “Pausing for a moment to consider what America was on the verge of becoming, he slowly added, “I pity any location in this country that shows signs of this illness taking hold.”