“Now the smallpox.”
Gideon looked from Dart to the men. The expression on their faces was more than unfriendly. They were looking at him as if he were the enemy. Could it be they still believed he was a terrorist? Impossible.
Nevertheless, something felt very wrong.
“Call the director of USAMRIID down here,” Gideon said. “He must be on the premises. I’ll give it to him.”
“You’ll give it to me,” said Dart.
Gideon looked from Dart to the soldiers. He was unarmed and really had no choice. “All right. Tell the lieutenant to back off. I’m not doing this with a gun pressed to my head.”
Dart made a motion and the lieutenant stepped back, keeping his pistol leveled.
Gideon slid his hand into his pocket, his fingers closing over the puck. He slipped it out.
“Easy now,” said Dart.
Gideon held it out. Dart stepped forward to take it, his hands closing over the puck.
“Kill him,” said Dart.
71
But Dart had spoken too soon. Gideon clamped his fingers around the puck and turned abruptly, checking Dart hard with his shoulder, while at the same time extending his hand with the puck over his head.
“Don’t shoot!” Blaine cried, from the floor. “Wait!”
Gideon stared at Blaine. There was a sudden silence. The lieutenant didn’t fire. None of them did. Dart seemed paralyzed.
“Drop your weapons,” Gideon said. He cocked his arm as if to throw the puck and Dart jumped back, the soldiers following his cue, alarmed.
“Don’t throw it, for God’s sake!” This came from Blaine, still lying on the ground. He rose awkwardly to his feet. “Dart, you reallyscrewed up,” he said angrily. “This isn’t the way to deal with this situation.”
Dart was sweating, his face white. “What are you doing?”
“Fixing this mess. Cut this off.” He held out his wrists.
Dart obeyed, using a scalpel to cut off the surgical tubing.
Blaine rubbed his hands together, fixing Gideon with his deep blue eyes but speaking to the captain. “Gurulé, you can get up now, too. We don’t need to keep up this pretense any longer.”
Full comprehension dawned in Gideon’s mind as the captain rose to his feet, his dark eyes flashing with triumph. He was staggered by the realization: Dart and Blaine were co-conspirators.
Blaine turned to the soldiers. “Lieutenant, you men, damn you, lower your weapons!”
A hesitation, and then Dart said: “Do it.”
The lieutenant obeyed and his men followed.
“Give me my sidearm,” rumbled Blaine, holding his hand out to Dart.
Dart handed him back the Peacemaker. Blaine hefted it, opened the gate, spun the cylinder to make sure it was still loaded, and tucked it into his belt. The 9mm was restored to the captain.
While this was going on, Gideon remained standing with the smallpox still poised threateningly over his head, his arm tense. He spoke quietly. “I’ll smash this on the ground if you alldon’t lay down your weapons. On the ground. Now.”
“Gideon, Gideon,” Blaine began, shaking his head, his voice quiet. “Will you please listen to what I’ve got to say?”
Gideon waited. His heart was hammering in his chest. If he starts talking about Alida…
“Do you know why we’re doing this?”
“Blackmail,” said Gideon. “I read your book proposal. You’re just in it for the goddamn money.”
“Ah, I see,” said Blaine chuckling. “You have no idea, noidea, how wrong you are. That was merely a trifle, a plot point for a book. None of us is after money. We couldn’t care less about that. We’ve got a much more important use for the smallpox. Something truly beneficial to our country. Would you like to hear it?”
Gideon remained tensed like a spring, his arm cocked. But something perverse inside him wanted to hear what Blaine had to say.
Blaine gestured at Dart. “You see, I’ve used Myron, here, to vet my book ideas from time to time. And it was he who told me that this idea, Operation Corpse, was too good for a book. It was something we could actually accomplish.”
Gideon said nothing.
“I’m telling you this because I’m pretty sure you’ll want to join us. After all, you’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. You will certainly understand. And…” He paused. “It seems you love my daughter.”
Gideon flushed again. “Don’t bring her into it.”
“Oh, but I will…I will.”
“Blaine, you’re wasting time!” said Dart.
“We’ve lots of time,” said Blaine calmly, turning back to Gideon with a smile. “What we don’thave time for is an accident. Frankly, Gideon, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who’d be able to smash that on the ground. And kill millions.” He raised an eyebrow inquisitorially.
“I will if it keeps it out of your hands.”
“But you haven’t heard yet what we plan to do with it!” This was said in a genial, protesting fashion.
Gideon said nothing. Blaine wanted to have his say—let him.
“I was in the British intelligence service known as MI6. Captain Gurulé here is CIA. Dart is not just involved in NEST but has also worked for a black agency at DIA. Because of our mutual background in intelligence, we all know something you don’t, which is this: America is secretly at war. With an enemy that makes the old Soviets look like the Keystone Kops.”
Gideon waited.
“The very survival of our country is in the balance.” Blaine paused, took a deep breath, and began again. “Let me tell you about this enemy. They are single-minded. They are sober, extremely hardworking, and highly intelligent. They have the second largest economy in the world and it is growing at five hundred percent the rate of ours. The enemy has an immensely large and powerful military, they have advanced space weapons, and they have the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world.
“This enemy saves forty percent of what they earn. They have more university graduates than America has people. In the enemy’s country, more people are studying English than there are English speakers in the entire world. They know all about us and we know almost nothing about them. This enemy is ruthless. They operate the last imperial, colonialist power on earth, which occupies and brutalizes many of the formerly independent countries surrounding it.
“This enemy has brazenly and openly stolen trillions of dollars of our intellectual property. In return, they send us poisoned food and medicine. They don’t play by the rules of international law. They are corrupt. They oppress freedom of speech, oppress the free exercise of religion, and murder and imprison journalists and dissidents on an almost daily basis. They have openly cornered the market in those strategic metals critical to our electronic world. This enemy, having little oil, now dominates the world’s technologies and markets in solar, wind, and nuclear power. As such, they are on track to become the new Saudi Arabia. This enemy has accumulated almost two trillion of our own dollars through unfair currency and trade practices. If dumped on the world market, this sum would be enough to annihilate our currency and wreck our economy in a single day. Basically, they have us by the bollocks.
“Worst of alclass="underline" this enemy despises us. They see how we conduct business in Washington, and they’ve concluded that our democratic system is an abject failure. And they think we Americans are weak, lazy, whiny, self-important global has-beens, inflated with a false sense of entitlement. In this, they are probably correct.”
Blaine’s rolling, mesmerizing speech ceased, leaving him breathing heavily, his face slick with sweat. Gideon felt sick to his stomach, as if the words had been physically bludgeoning him. Still he held the smallpox up.
“They have the population, the money, the brains, the will, and the guts to beggar us. They have specific plans to do this. And they are in fact doing it.While America just sits on its arse, doing nothing in return. It’s a one-sided war: they’re fighting, we’re surrendering.”