Tennant said a few more words, none of them very reassuring, then invited Dr. Robert Gant to the microphone to fill in the audience on the chemical itself.
The doctor was the head of a countywide network of emergency physicians drilled as first responders to a chem-bio attack-"bugs and gas terrorism," as he called it. He spoke quickly and fluently, discoursing on the chemical properties of VX. Tess caught the words "an organophosphate compound related to pesticides like parathion," but she wasn’t really listening. Her attention was fixed on Tennant as he made his way through the room.
Toward Andrus. And her.
"I hope the air filtration system in here is as good as they say," she whispered to the AD.
Andrus blinked. "Why?"
"Because the shit is about to hit the fan."
Then Tennant was at her side, leaning over her chair and looking right past her, at Andrus. "What’s she doing here?" he hissed.
Great. Another guy who talked about her in the third person. The Nose must be giving lessons.
"She’s on the RAVENKIL task force," Andrus began in a low, conciliatory tone.
Tennant wasn’t interested in conciliation. "I know she’s on the goddamned task force. She’s Tess McCallum. Black Tiger, all that shit. She was in Denver chasing Mobius, and now she’s in LA. And I want to know why the fuck she’s sitting next to you in this room."
"Because I invited her."
"Yeah, I figured that out. Damn it, I thought we agreed no task force members were going to be brought in."
"I brought myself in," Tess said, but both men ignored her.
At the microphone, in front of the wall of video images, Dr. Gant was reminding the audience of the Tokyo subway attacks in 1995. Sarin gas had been used that time. VX was more toxic than sarin. It was, in fact, the most toxic of all nerve agents.
"I do have some authority here," Andrus said coolly. "If I wish to call in Agent McCallum or anyone else, I don’t require your permission."
"When you’re in this building, you require my permission to breathe," Tennant said.
"Besides which," the AD went on as if there had been no interruption, "Agent McCallum knew most of what’s going on anyway."
For the first time Tennant favored her with a glance. "Knew? How?"
Tess met his eyes, unperturbed. Tennant might intimidate some people at the bureau, but not her. "You and your hazmat team weren’t as low-profile as you thought."
Tennant took this in with a scowl. "Who else knows?"
"Nobody," Tess said. "I didn’t share it with the others."
"That’s something, anyway."
"Although I probably should have," she added, just to piss him off.
Dr. Gant was reporting that VX had been stockpiled by the U.S., Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea, and could be manufactured by any industrial power. It was bought and sold on the international black market and was known to be in the hands of terrorist organizations.
"I don’t get it," Tess said to Tennant. "Why wouldn’t you want our squad in on this deal? We know Mobius. I know him better than anybody. I’ve been after him for nearly three years."
"That’s exactly why."
"Meaning what?"
"We don’t have three years, Agent McCallum. We may not have three days. Your methods, and those of the other members of your squad, have failed. I can’t afford failure in my operation. I’m not going to import failure or build on it or incorporate it into my plans."
She got hot. "You’re implying we haven’t caught him because we’ve screwed up."
"Right."
"There’s another possibility. Maybe he just hasn’t allowed himself to be caught."
"Criminals make mistakes, Agent McCallum. All criminals."
"Not Mobius. Not yet. He has a script, and he sticks to it. But maybe not this time."
"What’s different now?"
"The VX wasn’t in the script. It’s an unplanned development. It means he has to improvise. He may slip up. He can be caught."
"When he is, we’ll call you and let you know."
"I’m not leaving this case."
Tennant simmered for a moment, then dismissed her with a shrug. "Fine. Stay involved. Feel useful. Be a contributing member of our effort." He moved off, then added over his shoulder, "Just keep the fuck out of my way."
Tess watched him as he returned to the front of the room.
"I don’t like that guy," she murmured.
"Really?" Andrus smiled. "I find him rather charming."
Dr. Gant concluded his remarks, and Tennant went back to the microphone. He motioned to an ATSAC technician, who replaced the central image on the video wall with an aerial shot of a military base.
"Beginning in the mid-1950s, the U.S. government was a major manufacturer of VX and other chemical weapons. By treaty, these weapons are now scheduled to be destroyed. Pending their elimination, they have been stored in a handful of Army depots, including this seventeen-thousand-acre facility in Umatilla, Oregon. Officially the incineration of these weapons is ongoing, with their complete eradication expected by 2005.
"Unofficially, matters are different. Needless to say, what I’m about to tell you is highly classified and must not go beyond this room. The international ramifications of making this information public would be severe. But the fact is that after the September 11 atrocities, there was a reevaluation of U.S. military policy in this area. In the context of a new global war against terrorism, no weapon-no class of weapons-can any longer be ruled out. Trouble is, existing stockpiles of VX are aging and unreliable.
"Accordingly, last year the government secretly contracted with a private chemical laboratory to resume production of VX.
"The laboratory is located in Hermiston, Oregon, only a few miles from Umatilla, where a quantity of older VX remains in storage inside specially constructed warehouses called igloos."
Another video image, captioned UMATILLA K-BLOCK, showed rows of earth-covered, rounded buildings inside a double cyclone fence topped with barbed wire.
"The plan is to use these igloos to store new stockpiles of VX as they are manufactured. The first delivery of VX to the Umatilla depot had been scheduled for next month. Approximately fifty tons of the agent were to be moved via convoy from the lab to the Army base. Because the movement of VX was expected to be a clandestine operation, the convoy would have been small and only lightly guarded.
"One month ago, foreign intelligence sources informed our office of unusual activity among black-market arms dealers. It appeared someone was offering to reveal details of the convoy operation in exchange for a seven-figure cash transfer to an offshore account. In other words, someone familiar with the VX shipment was willing to set up the convoy for an ambush, thus allowing a substantial quantity of nerve agent to fall into the wrong hands.
"Subsequent investigation identified the likely suspect as Amanda Pierce." A photo of Pierce, possibly from her driver’s license or an ID card, appeared on the video wall. "Pierce was an officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency before entering the private sector as a security consultant. She was hired by the Hermiston lab as chief security officer for the manufacture and transfer of VX. She was the only person possessing both detailed knowledge of the security procedures and the necessary sophistication to contact arms brokers working abroad. Pierce tested normal on psychological evaluations at the time of her DIA service, but through interviews with former friends and associates we discovered a more complex personality profile with pronounced sociopathic elements. She was evidently one of those people who can fake normal on standardized tests.
"Two days ago, on Thursday evening, Pierce drove out of the Hermiston area, heading south. Because she had scheduled Friday as a vacation day, we’d anticipated that she would take advantage of the holiday weekend to make her move. We also knew from our foreign intel sources that the liaison with her unknown contact was to take place in Los Angeles. Thus we were in position to follow her as she drove into California. She stopped for the night at a motel in Salem, Oregon, then continued her drive the next day, arriving in the Los Angeles metro area on Friday night.
"Unfortunately, after entering LA, Pierce executed a variety of countersurveillance maneuvers. It was at this point that she broke containment. In simpler language, we lost her."
" You lost her?" one of the city councilmen said from his seat next to the mayor.
"Yes, sir. I did. It was my fault exclusively. I take full responsibility." He added, "I fucked up."
Tess almost had to admire him for that. He had not survived three decades in the bureau by playing cover-your-ass politics, at any rate.
There was silence for a moment, and then Tennant went on.
"Pierce was not reacquired until early this morning, by which time she was dead. Evidently she had some very bad luck. She appears to have allowed herself to be picked up by a locally active serial killer who previously operated in Denver, killing four people there. He uses the name Mobius. He took her to his hotel room, which he’d charged to a phony credit card. He had sex with her, and he killed her-his usual MO. Then he left, and now he’s in the wind.
"So Pierce is dead, another notch in Mobius’s knife. Which we might say was just as well-even that he did the world a favor this time-except for one thing.
"In order for Pierce to establish her bona fides and seal the deal, she was supposed to hand over a sample of the VX produced at the Oregon lab. The lab had earlier confirmed to us that seven hundred and ten ccs, or twenty-four ounces, of the nerve agent were unaccounted for. It’s a safe assumption that Pierce smuggled out this quantity of VX, probably in its original packaging-a metal canister approximately ten inches long and two inches in diameter. The total package-cylinder and contents-would weigh two pounds. When she traveled to LA, she would have brought it with her, most likely in her suitcase."
"You could have intercepted this woman at any time," the mayor interrupted to ask, "isn’t that correct?"
"Yes, sir. We were holding off until she met with her contact. We wanted to collar them both."
"But you didn’t, and now she’s dead, and the VX…?"
"Is gone."
"Taken by this man Mobius?"
"We think so, yes."
"A serial killer."
"Yes."
"A serial killer who’s now armed with a weapon of mass destruction. A weapon that can kill ten thousand people."
"That’s it in a nutshell, sir."
The county sheriff put in a word. "Have you considered the possibility that her contact killed her and made it look like the work of this Mobius just to throw us off?"
Tennant hesitated. For the first time he was stumped.
"It was Mobius," Tess said from the back of the room. Heads turned. "I’ve worked the case for years. The signature of the crime scene is distinctive. There are details that couldn’t be copycatted, because they were never made public."
"Details like what?" a councilman challenged.
She could have answered: Like the fact that the carotid arteries were not cut…that the victim’s wrists were taped to the headboard…that duct tape was applied to her mouth…
But she said only, "Details that have to remain undisclosed for the sake of the investigation."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s as much of one as you’re going to get."
Suddenly everybody was talking at once. The room seemed hotter and more crowded than it had been a moment earlier. People were talking back now, unwilling to yield the floor any longer. Tess had seen this behavior in every briefing she’d attended. Powerful people would not stay quiet for long.
"Folks," Tennant yelled over the clamor, "we need some order here. Chief Florez has to discuss the details of the counterterror procedures that are already under way."
The room quieted down as Sylvia Florez outlined the emergency plans.
"In the event of a mass-casualty situation, an emergency broadcasting system alert will notify area hospitals storing antidotes to biochemical weapons. Additional meds are being flown in from federal stockpiles. Medical strike teams will be mobilized to set up decontamination showers and other mobile facilities. We estimate that one hundred twenty nurses and fifteen doctors can process and decontaminate up to one thousand victims per hour.
"The efforts of the forty-nine thousand first responders in LA County will be coordinated with those of the Department of Public Services, the Departmental Operations Center, and Emergency Network Los Angeles.
"The LAPD’s antiterrorism division has been mobilized. The department’s response plans for a terrorist threat, available on the LAPD intranet, call for heavy deployment of LAPD undercover and uniformed units, concentrating on likely targets-sports venues, federal buildings, amusement parks, and so on.
"In compliance with Presidential Decision Directive Thirty-nine, federal assistance has been requested. National Guard units trained in WMD crisis management and U.S. Army chemical defense units are now on alert. Another available resource is the U.S. Marine Corps Chemical-Biological Incident Response Force-three hundred seventy-five men trained in NBC incident containment.
"Health and Human Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the EPA have been notified. As you’ve seen, the FBI is on the case."
Someone muttered audibly, "And doing a bang-up job."
Tess sucked in a hard breath. She didn’t like having the bureau dumped on. But the fact remained that the FBI had lost Amanda Pierce-and now the FBI had to find Mobius and stop him before it was too late.
When the presentation was over, Florez asked for questions. Tess raised her hand, but Florez wasn’t looking toward the back of the room and Tennant ignored her. Finally she stood without being recognized.
"When do we go public with this?"
"Never," Tennant said.
Tess wouldn’t accept that answer. "It’s Saturday. People will be going out to ball games, concerts, all sorts of crowded places. You already said that sports arenas are possible targets. So are theaters and shopping malls. People need to know."
"So they can panic?"
"So they can take precautions."
"What precautions, exactly, can the general public take against a psychopathic serial killer with a terrorist weapon?"
"Maybe we need a curfew."
The mayor waved off the idea. "There will be no curfew. We’re not throwing this city into chaos."
"I don’t think there’ll be chaos," Tess persisted. "We’ve had government alerts periodically since the World Trade Center attack."
"And most of those alerts," Tennant said, "have been false alarms based on unsubstantiated information."
"This one isn’t."
"We don’t know that, Agent McCallum. Suppose Mobius doesn’t even know what the hell he’s got. Then he hears about it on the TV news. Then we’ve given him the information he needs. We’re aiding and abetting."
"He won’t need our help. He’s smart enough-"
"I know, I know, he’s an evil genius who never makes mistakes. So let’s say we do it your way. We hold a press conference at two o’clock. Guess what the situation is as of two-oh-five. Every freeway is jammed bumper-to-bumper with people trying to hightail it the hell out of town."
"That’s ridiculous. If the information is presented the right way-"
"The right way? What precisely is the right way to tell ten million people that a nutcase is running around with enough nerve gas to depopulate an entire neighborhood? You’ll have mass panic, mass evacuation, breakdown of order, looting, riots, the whole nine yards."
"People are better than that," Tess said. "They’ve proven it in the past. Give them a chance, and they’ll prove it again. And they deserve to be told."
"Well, thank you, Agent McCallum, for airing your uplifting view of human nature. We can all benefit from your wisdom and perspective. But just in case you happen to be wrong, there will not be any public announcement."
The mayor seconded this, as did all the city council members.
Tess sat down. "What do you think, Gerry?" she asked Andrus in a low voice. "Am I crazy?"
"Probably." But he said it with a smile.
"So you wouldn’t announce it?"
"No. I wouldn’t."
"Suppose you had a wife or a son-"
"I’d tell them."
"So they get to know, and other people don’t?"
"Life isn’t fair, Tess." Andrus sighed. "I thought you already knew that."
She did. But she just kept learning it all over again.