Mrs. Leascht was already aboard, as was Sloane Ashby who had collected her from her house.
Bailing out of Palmer’s truck near the John Ericsson National Memorial, they ran up the Rock Creek Park Trail toward the bridge. With their night vision goggles, the SWCC team picked up on them right away and brought the blacked-out boat forward.
Up on the mall, Harvath could hear the DHS sirens, but it was too late. Once they were all on board, the driver punched it, and they disappeared down the Potomac.
CHAPTER 52
The CIA was down two helicopter pilots due to the virus. They couldn’t spare anyone to sit on a rooftop somewhere in D.C. not knowing when Harvath would show up with Justice Leascht. That was why the Old Man had turned to General McCollum.
McCollum had access to helos and pilots, but with a potential coup under way, he didn’t want to send a military bird into metropolitan D.C. They were too easy to spot, and there was too much that could go wrong. And so, they had come up with a compromise.
The SWCC team with the RIB had provided the first part of the extraction. Once they were safely under way, McCollum got a helicopter aloft.
They rendezvoused at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, just across the Potomac from Reagan National Airport. The base’s only aeronautical facility was a 100-by-100-foot helipad.
The RIB arrived just as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was touching down. After the passengers had been transferred, it lifted off for Camp Peary.
When it landed at the CIA facility, Lydia Ryan was already waiting for Harvath.
“We got it!” she said, once they were far enough away from the noise of the helicopter. “Helena gave Mordechai all the passwords she had intercepted from Damien. She had them backed up in the cloud. As soon as the Mossad had access to them, they were able to crack their copy of Damien’s hard drive. They transmitted everything here just before the Internet went down.”
Harvath stopped and looked at her. “The Internet went down? When? Why?”
Ryan nodded toward a waiting Suburban. “I’ll fill you in on the way to the TOC.”
Harvath let Ryan do all the talking, only interrupting her when he needed more specific detail on an issue.
In short, he was blown away by what they had uncovered. The fact that DHS had cited looting as being organized via social media in order to shut down the Internet didn’t surprise him at all. And technically, they didn’t shut it all the way down. They simply limited U.S.-based access to a key group of web sites like DHS.gov, CDC.gov, and NIH.gov, where they could control the flow of information. Blaming dangerous rumors that were contributing to panic and social unrest, they took over TV and radio as well.
The most stunning revelations, though, surrounded the virus — specifically who was protected and who was not.
Ryan explained how working with elements inside the United Nation’s health organization — the WHO — Damien and his Plenary Panel were able to impact the flu vaccine.
“There’s a global network of flu researchers. They all feed into the WHO. Every February in Geneva, the WHO makes its recommendation for the makeup of the next Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine,” she said. “They also produce a substance called ‘high-growth reassortants.’ Basically, it’s a mixture of the genes from different flu viruses that is given to private manufacturers from which they can grow their vaccines. But this time, it wasn’t just flu viruses they were ‘reassorting.’ They found a way to sneak in African Hemorrhagic Fever genes too.”
“So if you got the flu shot, you got immunity?” Harvath asked.
Ryan nodded. “But only if you got the special Northern Hemisphere version, which was limited to North America and Western Europe. Damien was very specific about who he wanted to see survive. In the U.S., for example, where there’s a population of over three hundred million, only about a hundred fifty to a hundred sixty million doses of flu vaccine get produced every year.”
“But they ramped it up this year. If you recall, every doctor, every public health official was banging the drum about getting a flu shot. Even the morning shows were talking about how this year looked to be one of the worst ones on record.”
“All of which was driven by the WHO.”
“I guess the Carlton Group’s ‘Flu Fair’ wasn’t so stupid after all then,” said Harvath. “I got my shot right at the office. But DHS wouldn’t have known that.”
“I have three words for you,” Ryan countered. “Electronic medical records.”
That made perfect sense. Anything was hackable.
“But the President, the Vice President, all of the people at the different agencies. None of them got the flu shot?” Harvath asked.
“They got last year’s flu shot and therefore no immunity to African Hemorrhagic Fever.”
“How, though? How do you control who gets what flu shot when you are dealing with that many people?”
“You said it already,” Ryan replied. “A Flu Fair. Damien’s person at the National Institutes for Health proposed a PR campaign that would showcase senior Federal leadership getting their flu shots early. They shot video of them rolling up their sleeves, took photographs of them smiling as they got their shots, and bombarded Federal employees with the images in the run-up to their Flu Fair where the real shots were given for free.”
“What about you? And Director McGee?”
“We both had to travel, so we got our shots early from an in-house CIA doctor. McGee posed for pictures to do his part, but it was all staged. We’re confident we’re going to be fine.
“Everyone on that Main Core VIP list also saw a private doctor, including Chief Justice Leascht. He participated in the PR campaign, but only so far as allowing his picture to be used to encourage Judicial Branch employees to get their flu shot. By skirting the PR campaign and the actual Flu Fair, he and the others avoided their shot being substituted with last year’s.
“Speaking of shots, Carlton reached out to Ben Beaman, who confirmed that everyone at the Matumaini Clinic, as well as the inhabitants of the adjacent village, had been vaccinated. CARE had arranged for the North American vaccine to be sent to them.”
It explained why Leonce and Pepsy had survived exposure to the virus and the rebel commander hadn’t.
“So, they would have survived the virus if Jan Hendrik and his men hadn’t been sent in to slaughter them,” said Harvath.
Ryan nodded again.
“So what do we do now?”
“Director McGee wants to take this directly to the Secretary of the Treasury,” said Ryan. “I can’t bring myself to call Dennis Fleming the President.”
“Have you had any word on Porter?”
“He’s a fighter. That’s all we know.”
“The Treasury Secretary is with everyone else at Mount Weather?” Harvath asked.
“He is. McGee is going to chopper up there, but he’s coming here first. He wants you and Justice Leascht to join him. Mordechai too. They’re going to patch the Israeli Prime Minister in on a phone call.”
“My God,” said Harvath. “Israel didn’t get the good vaccine, did it?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Has Colonel White at USAMRIID been brought up to speed on all of this? People who received the flu shot have to be informed that they’re going to be okay. Those who didn’t get it, if they stay indoors, maybe we can starve this thing of oxygen.”
“McGee says first we take down Linda Landon, and put DHS back under competent authority,” replied Ryan. “Then we tackle everything else.”
“What about Damien? Do we know if he’s at Mount Weather?”
“The Secret Service is covertly searching the facility right now.”