“I don’t think so,” Gideon said slowly.
Fordyce stopped dialing. “You don’t think so.”
“Dart’s not going to believe us. He thinks I’m a terrorist and you’re a fuckup whom he relieved of duty and who’s now gone AWOL.”
“The proof’s on the computer.”
“In a Microsoft Word file that could easily have been created or altered by us.”
“…But the DES encryption!”
“Big deal. The filewasn’t encrypted—just the computer. Stone, think: this investigation is way too invested in the jihadist plot theory. There’s simply too much momentum for it to turn on a dime.”
“It doesn’t haveto turn on a dime. All Dart has to do is redeploy a dozen armed soldiers to guard that smallpox vault. It’s what any prudent investigator would do.”
Gideon shook his head. “While Dart isn’t stupid, he’s a prisoner of the book. He’s not the kind who thinks outside the box. You call Dart now and we’ll be arrested as soon as we show up with this computer. They’ll want to analyze the computer, make sure it isn’t a plant of some kind. They’ll debrief us at length…and meanwhile the smallpox will be stolen. Only then, when it’s too late, will they believe us.”
“Yes, but I know the FBI, and I’m telling you they’ll cover their asses by instantly deploying at least a few troops to guard USAMRIID.”
“This isn’t just the FBI now, or even NEST. It’s a monstrous, hydra-headed, out-of-control investigation that’s no longer acting in a rational manner. They’re drowning in false leads, red herrings, and conspiracy theories. We come in at the eleventh hour, babbling some out-of-left-field talk of smallpox… Think about it. Dart isn’t going to respond in time, and the bad guys will get the virus. You call Dart and they win. Game over.”
Fordyce slammed his fist on the dashboard. “Damn you, so what do you propose instead?”
“Simple. We go into Fort Detrick—I’m pretty sure we can talk our way in, especially with that shield of yours—and ambush the bastards when they come out with the smallpox. Catch them in the act. Then we take away the smallpox at gunpoint, hold them, and call the cavalry.”
“Why not stop them beforethey get the smallpox?”
“Because we need to catch them withit. If we just stop them at the door, there might be a scuffle, and then we’ll be arrested and they’ll go free—free to execute their plot. We need proof that the crime was committed.”
Fordyce laughed mirthlessly. “So, what—now you’ve got a hero complex? What if they show up with ten guys armed to the teeth?”
“They’re not going to do that. Think about it. This plan is all about quiet. Draw off the security and go in and out quietly.”
“I say we call Dart.”
Gideon felt a surge of anger. “I knowDart. He was director of the lab my first year at Los Alamos. Sure, he’s smart, but he’s also stubborn, defensive, and rigid. He’s notgoing to believe you, he will notput guards on the smallpox, he’ll arrest us both and dick around until it’s too late. Once they drive off with the smallpox, it’s over. Because all they have to do is toss one of those petri dishes out the window and the United States is fucked. We’re all freaked out about a loose nuke. Well, here’s a news flash for you: that smallpox is worsethan a nuke. A lot worse.”
A long silence. Gideon shot a covert glance at the FBI agent. Fordyce’s face was red with anger, but he said nothing. Gideon seemed to have gotten through.
“We will nottake this to Dart,” Gideon said. “We’re going to do this ourselves. Otherwise, I’m out.”
“Have it your way,” said Fordyce, his lips tightening.
There was a long silence.
“You want to hear my plan?” Gideon asked.
After a moment, Fordyce nodded.
“We socially engineer our way in. You stake out the lobby. I go to the Level Four lab where the smallpox is kept. I’ll put on a biosafety suit, unrecognizable. You call me when Blaine arrives, I ambush him in the lab after he opens the biosafe, and I hold him at gunpoint while you call in the cavalry. It’ll all take place in Level Four, so even if the smallpox does escape, it’ll be contained.”
“What if they’re armed?”
“I doubt it. That would be risky. Like I said: this whole plan is all about subterfuge and misdirection, not force. But if they are armed, I’ll have the drop on them. And believe me, I’ll shoot to kill if need be.” Even as he said it, he wondered just what it would mean if he killed Alida’s father. He pushed that unsettling thought out of his mind.
“That would work,” said Fordyce slowly, after a moment. “Yes. I think that might work well.”
65
Gaining entrance to Fort Detrick was a piece of cake: Gideon pretended to be Fordyce’s driver and Fordyce did his thing, waving his FBI shield around and explaining they were on a routine assignment, just checking out one of many undoubtedly false leads related to the nuke alarm. He was careful to say nothing about smallpox. The lone man in the security station helpfully directed them to the USAMRIID complex, drawing their route on a photocopied map of the base, which Gideon examined then stuffed in his pocket. The man waved them through, the base’s single main road winding around a golf course before heading for the main section of the compound.
At three thirty in the afternoon on a weekday, Fort Detrick was eerily deserted. Its green, extensive grounds, covering over a thousand acres, had an almost post-apocalyptic feeclass="underline" parking lots were empty, buildings vacant. The only sound was that of birds, chirping in the spreading oaks.
They cruised slowly through the leafy base. It was surprisingly attractive. In addition to the golf course, it had baseball diamonds, several suburban neighborhoods of neat bungalows or trailers, a small airfield with hangars and aircraft, a fire station, and a recreational center. USAMRIID was at the far end of the base, next to the base’s large motor pool—bristling with military vehicles, but apparently devoid of humanity save for a single mechanic. USAMRIID itself was a sprawling, 1970s-style building with a welcome sign on the approaching drive: The United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. The large, wraparound parking lot was, like the others, mostly empty. There was an air of desuetude, even abandonment.
“Blaine called it right,” said Fordyce, looking around. “Everyone’s in DC. Let’s hope we beat him here.”
“Not cool if Blaine sees his own Jeep parked in the lot,” Gideon said. He drove past the building to the lot of an unrelated complex, parking the Jeep behind a van. He shrugged into a new disguise, and they cut across the lawn, approaching the entrance.
As they’d discussed the plan, Fordyce had used the laptop’s broadband card to access USAMRIID’s website. In the process, they had learned quite a lot about the facility: that its name was pronounced You-Sam-Rid; that it had once been the hub of the country’s biological warfare program; that it now served as the main center for biodefense research in the country, its primary mission to protect the United States from potential bioweapon attacks.
And it was one of two repositories of smallpox left in the world. The virus, the website helpfully mentioned, was kept in a high-security vault in USAMRIID’s Biosafety Level 4 laboratory complex, located in the basement of the building.
They entered the lobby. There was a security guard at a locked entrance door at the rear, seated behind a small window of what appeared to be bulletproof glass. Fordyce was going in as himself; Gideon, on the other hand, had sorted through his arsenal of clothes, hairpieces, and accessories in order to create a new persona. He didn’t have a lab coat, but he deemed that overkill anyway. Instead, he went for the tweedy, somewhat disheveled absentminded professor look. “A cliché to be sure,” he’d told Fordyce, “but clichés often work when it comes to disguises. People like to have their prejudices confirmed.”