Brian said, ‘Okay. Let’s agree that airborne refueling is off the table. We already know that the crew can’t reach the canisters from where they are. Is there any way to block those air-conditioning exhaust vents from the outside?’
‘Oh, sure,’ Randy said, his voice sharp. ‘We’ll just ask for volunteers from my machinists. We’ll go up in an open-cockpit aircraft, like a Sopwith Camel, a two-seater, maybe, and my guy will reach up and plug the vents with chewing gum. Is that what you want?’
Monty leaned forward. ‘No. What I fucking want are some goddamn ideas, that’s what, some suggestions on how to fix this goddamn problem.’
Randy shouted back, ‘It wasn’t our goddamn problem to begin with! We listened to you, we trusted you, and look what the fuck happened! We’re hours away from killing hundreds of thousands of people, and I’m telling you, we can’t get to those canisters! We can’t! And it’s your fucking fault!’
And in the silence following this outburst, a new voice was heard in the room:
‘Excuse me, could somebody tell me what all the screaming is about?’
Somehow, somewhere, the word got out to the news media, and as usual the first stories were a mix of truth and supposition, seasoned with ill-informed speculation. With the story breaking of the color change to red in the Homeland Security threat level — coupled with the story of the evacuation of the President, his Cabinet and Congressional leaders off to secure areas — there was a media frenzy as reporters, assignment editors and network and newspaper executives, some of them awake for less than a hour, worked the phones.
MSNBC was first, followed by Fox and then CNN, reporting that the government was responding to a threat involving AirBox aircraft and airborne anthrax. In addition to this bit of truthful news, the story was also broadcast that the aircraft had been hijacked and were now heading for major metropolitan centers.
And in these same major metropolitan centers, within less than an hour, outbound highways were clogged with American citizens desperate to get away from what they thought was going to be a new Ground Zero. As a result of this unofficial evacuation the very first civilian deaths associated with Final Winter began to occur as traffic accidents happened, the elderly and the ill succumbed to the fear and, in a few cases, police shot looters taking advantage of the chaos.
The unplanned and unanticipated evacuation also meant that instead of being concentrated in target cities the exposed population was now spreading out to the suburbs and countryside, increasing the possible target areas for the still-airborne AirBox aircraft.
Victor Palmer came into the conference room, groggy and confused about what was going on, still feeling weak from the rigors of the flight that had picked him up in Maryland and brought him to Memphis. He went into the room, laptop under his arm, and took a seat. He looked at the faces, recognized them all, and turned to Brian, the only one he felt truly comfortable with. He knew bad news was just seconds away from hitting him, and for some reason he wanted it to come from the police detective. They were experts at passing on bad news.
‘Brian?’ he asked. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Lots, doc. I’m not sure where to begin.’
Victor said, ‘I don’t understand. Adrianna told me two days ago that Final Winter was canceled. That the vaccine wasn’t going to be distributed. What happened?’
Monty sat up at that. ‘Tell us, doc. Tell us what she said.’
Victor looked again at the other men, thinking of his residency, thinking of all the times that groups of men and women had asked and poked and prodded. He hated all those questions, all those demands. He just wanted to be left alone.
God, did he want to be left alone.
‘She… she called me at home. She said Final Winter had been canceled, the Syrian cells had been rolled up, that I should take some time off. Which is what I was doing when…Brian, what’s going on?’
And damn that man if his voice didn’t change, like he was doing his old job, telling a husband or mother or grand-mother that someone they loved and cherished dearly had been killed by a bullet, a knife, or a drug overdose.
‘Doc, what happened is this… it’s something that makes Pearl Harbor and 9/11 look like overwhelming victories… Adrianna Scott.’
Brian paused, and Victor said, ‘Yes? What about her? How come she isn’t here?’
Monty made to speak but Brian raised a hand. ‘Doc, she’s on the run. Her real name isn’t Adrianna Scott. It’s Aliyah Fulenz. She’s an Iraqi. She’s been here since she was a teenager… I think her parents were killed in the first Gulf War. And she’s been plotting for years.’
A feeling returned to him, only an hour or so old, of what it had been like, going up in the air in that Air Force fighter jet, his guts squishy, his limbs tingly, like he was on the edge of something magnificent and terrifying.
‘Final Winter…’
Brian said, ‘It’s a reality. It’s happening now. Adrianna lied to all of us. There are canisters aboard nineteen AirBox aircraft, nineteen aircraft that are airborne. And those canisters are carrying airborne anthrax. All of them.’
Somehow Victor got the words out. ‘But… but the canisters… they have the automatic radio altimeters. If those jets descend, they’re going to release the anthrax…’
Monty said, ‘That’s right.’
Victor tried to speak. Tried to gather the words. He… It…
Everything slid into darkness.
Emptiness.
And a voice:
‘I think the poor son-of-a-bitch has fainted.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Randy Tuthill saw the cop and the military guy gather around the doctor, sprawled out on the floor. Randy looked out through the window. He had been in the Operations Center off and on over the years, usually trying to solve some last-minute mechanical problem that was bedeviling an aircraft, either in the air or on the ground. At those times the Center had been a low-key place, murmurs of conversation, men and women at the terminals, the low ring of telephones. But now…men and women were racing from desk to terminal, the ringing phones were now a roar, and the chatter of the people out there in the Operations Center almost drowned out the conversations of the Tiger Team guys.
‘General,’ he said.
‘Yeah, Randy,’ the General replied, joining him by the window.
‘You’ve… you’ve got to keep tight control here, sir.’
No reply.
‘Every politician, every nut, every reporter, is going to be calling here and pressuring you and trying to grab a chunk, trying to solve the problem, trying to assign blame, trying to do a lot of shit.’
Randy gestured to the three men in the corner. The doctor was now sitting up. Randy said, ‘Like it or not, if we’re going to take care of this shit-mess it’s going to happen in this room.’
The General turned to him, and Randy felt a little something in him die away. The General looked like he had aged a decade in the last ten minutes.
‘All my years, all the years of my life…I’ve dedicated to protecting this nation and its people. I’ve sacrificed my health, my happiness…I’ve been stationed in places with no running water, with heat so hot it could melt your brain at noon on the flight line, and I’ve been in places so cold that lubricants turned into jelly. I…’