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November 20—1035 Hours GMT–5

The gloom was dispelled by a slide projecting an elegant line of stone buildings against a mountain backdrop. Brandon Gazenga zoomed in on three people standing at the top of a set of stairs.

“Starting at the far right, we have Lt. Colonel Jon Smith, a medical doctor and microbiologist attached to USAMRIID. He—”

“Brandon,” Lawrence Drake said, not bothering to hide his impatience. “Dave and I have a meeting in ten minutes. What’s so important about this that it couldn’t wait?”

“Yes, sir, I understand. But we have reports that a week before this photo was taken, Dr. Smith was at Camp Lejeune talking to the surviving SEAL from the Uganda operation. Apparently, he was there when he committed suicide.”

Drake leaned forward, feeling the muscles around his stomach tighten. “Okay, Brandon. You have my attention. Who’s the woman?”

“Sarie van Keuren, a name I think you’re familiar with.”

“The parasitologist. Are the Iranians still watching her?”

“Yes, sir. They have roughly the same photo you’re looking at.”

“And the man she’s shaking hands with?”

“That wasn’t as easy to figure out — he’s traveling on an Argentine passport under the name Peter Jourgan. His real name, though, is Peter Howell. Former SAS, former MI6, now retired and living in California.”

“If he’s retired,” Dave Collen said, “what the hell is he doing in Cape Town talking to van Keuren?”

“I should have said semiretired. He still does some consulting work, but the details aren’t clear.”

“I assume you’ve accessed the army’s records,” Drake said. “What are Smith’s orders?”

“He doesn’t have any. He’s officially on a leave of absence.”

“Bull. Is he military intelligence?”

“He’s been attached to Military Intelligence in the past,” Gazenga responded. “But there’s no evidence that he’s associated with them now.”

“And if he was still working for them, he wouldn’t be over there with a British freelancer,” Collen added.

“I agree,” Gazenga said. “You probably remember that Smith was involved in the Hades disaster through his job at USAMRIID. After that, though, he starts turning up in a lot of places that can’t be as easily explained.”

“Someone recruited him after he brought down Tremont,” Drake said.

“I think it’s a safe assumption, sir.”

“Who?”

“I can’t find anything that would even indicate a direction to look. If he is working off the books for someone, they’re incredibly good at staying in the shadows.”

Drake settled back in his chair and examined the stark blue of Smith’s eyes. Who had the juice to recruit and operate an asset like Smith? And who had an undue interest in Caleb Bahame? The answer to those questions had the potential to lead in a very dangerous direction.

“Where are they now?”

“On their way to Uganda.”

Collen turned his chair toward his boss and spoke under his breath. “Jesus, Larry…”

Drake nodded silently. “I want them followed, Brandon. I want to know everywhere they go, everyone they talk to, and everything they learn. And I want to know it in real time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I also want to know who the hell they’re working for.”

Gazenga nodded obediently but seemed increasingly uncomfortable.

“Do you have something else to say, Brandon?”

“No, sir.”

“Yes, you do. Speak up.”

He hesitated, shifting back and forth in the glare of the projector. “Sir, what we’ve done so far is…”

“Legal?”

“All due respect, I was going to say plausible. Everything we’ve said about Bahame’s methods and the Iranians’ interest has been completely reasonable and defensible from an analysis standpoint.”

“But?”

“While we don’t know specifically who Smith’s working for, it stands to reason that it’s someone on our side…”

“Are you making a recommendation or just stating the obvious?” Drake said.

Brandon stood a little straighter for the first time in their relationship. Defiance?

“In a way, this could have a silver lining for us, sir. The Iranians have been cautious up until now. An American virus hunter poking around could force their hand and give us corroboration of what Khamenei is doing.”

“So you think we should throw a year of meticulous planning out the window and rely on two foreign nationals and an army doctor with no apparent orders?”

Brandon didn’t back down. “I think we have to consider op—”

“The Iranians continue their nuclear weapons program,” Drake said, cutting him off, “and we slap them on the wrist. Now their country is destabilizing and could very easily fall into the hands of Farrokh, who has the confidence of the Iranian scientific community. What do we do? We stand by. And that’s what we’ll still be doing when they have nuclear warheads that can reach our shores and OPEC is controlled from Tehran.”

Gazenga’s resolve began to waver and he moved out of the beam of the projector in an obvious attempt to hide the fact. “If we—”

“That’ll be all, Brandon,” Dave Collen said.

“But…Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Drake reflected on how quickly and violently the world was changing as the young man hustled through the door. Russia and China were more easily controlled than people suspected — both countries had large, sophisticated bureaucracies, populations with predictable long-term goals, and an arsenal of economic and military weapons that remained inferior to America’s. Iran was different.

In direct opposition to Castilla’s policy of noninterference, Drake had been waging a silent war against the Iranians. The two nuclear scientists recently killed by car bombs and the Stuxnet computer worm that had damaged their centrifuges were all off-the-books agency operations. But he was just delaying the inevitable. The threat posed by the Islamic Republic needed to be made clear and, more important, the American military’s ability to deal with that threat had to be demonstrated. This time there would be no endless street skirmishes, no corrupt local politicians, no buried IEDs. Iran would be quickly and completely obliterated from the air.

The Muslim world had begun to mistake America’s obsession with preventing civilian casualties for weakness. It was a misconception that would be quickly dispelled as the world stood by and watched Iran’s few survivors scramble to eke out an existence in a land literally returned to the Stone Age.

Worldwide order would be restored and a clear message would be sent to the Pakistanis, the Afghans, and all the others: If you keep your fundamentalists under control, America will stay on the sidelines. But if you let them become a threat, you will be next.

All he needed was a catalyst, and Caleb Bahame’s parasite was perfect. Even by biological weapon standards, it was so visceral and terrifying that virtually every government on the planet would turn their backs on a country that used it.

If he allowed Smith and his team to confirm the parasite’s existence and learn of the Iranians’ interest as Gazenga was suggesting, their plan would be stillborn. The politicians would move in, rattling empty sabers while Iran issued denial after denial. Castilla and the UN would debate, demand more evidence, make pointless resolutions. And the war-weary, financially strapped American people would resist a call to arms over yet another unseen and unproven WMD program.

No, in order for the United States to regain the determination to retaliate with overwhelming force, the threat couldn’t exist solely in the mouths of newscasters and government spokesmen. The Iranians would have to be allowed to use Bahame’s parasite. The soft and increasingly self-absorbed American people would have to experience the consequences of their apathy.