CHAPTER 14
C urtis O’Connor read through the summary of airport interrogations, signed off on the file and threw it into his out tray. In the last 24 hours, Customs and Border Protection had plucked no fewer than 141 people out of queues waiting to board aircraft and passenger liners. The interrogations had not been entirely random with most being American citizens of Muslim background or of Middle Eastern appearance. The results were no different from any other day. Three people had been detained for visa irregularities, and a petty thief wanted by police in Las Vegas for assaulting a prostitute had been arrested but nothing of substance had caught O’Connor’s attention. Based on their destinations he marked five citizens for routine surveillance – two in Syria, one in Jordan, one in Indonesia and an academic who was writing a book on the architecture of the Silk Road and who was trying to get into the North-West Frontier near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The war on terror was taking its toll, increasing the demand for surveillance. Out in the field CIA agents were struggling to cope.
In a basement of the US embassy in the Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad, Washington’s relentless demands for information on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts had been flooding in on a daily basis. The White House was also fending off mounting complaints in the US media that the Taliban were avoiding capture in Afghanistan by slipping across the border into Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. The Administration had assigned too few troops to Afghanistan, repeating the mistake ten times over in Iraq, but the White House had dismissed the criticisms and, despite the lack of resources, Esposito was pushing for something concrete the President could use to rebut his critics. In Islamabad the pressure was beginning to tell. Rob Regan, a big man with close-cropped grey hair was the CIA’s Chief of Station and he had been pulling some appalling hours. He read the latest ‘Top-Secret’ cable from Washington with disbelief.
‘Fuck me!’ he muttered.
‘No thanks,’ Tony Carmello, his younger, dark-haired and ever cheerful deputy said. ‘Washington?’ he asked.
‘Got it in one. We’re up to our armpits in alligators here and now they want us to mount a surveillance operation on some obscure academic who’s writing a book on Islamic architecture and the Silk Road. Another riveting bestseller. I don’t think those dickheads back in Washington would know if a Foggy Bottom bus was up their ass,’ Regan grumbled.
‘Well, not until the people got off,’ his deputy said with a grin, ‘and in the Secretary of Defense’s office you’d have to ring the bell.’ Neither of the CIA men could understand why the politicians and generals in the Pentagon had gone into two wars in the region without enough troops or equipment to do the job, and now the whole of the Middle East was in danger of going up in flames.
‘Who’ve we got spare?’
‘Only the new guy.’
‘Crawford? I don’t think he’s started to shave yet. He’s only been here five minutes.’
Regan’s deputy shrugged. ‘Bit wet behind the ears but he’s all we’ve got left. He has to learn sometime.’
O’Connor leaned back in his chair, thinking about what would be happening out in the field. In many ways he envied agents. Fieldwork had always been his forte and he longed to be back there.
The CIA’s most experienced counter-terrorism officer had no way of knowing, but he would get the opportunity much sooner than he expected, and in a part of the world that was as inhospitable and dangerous as it got.
CHAPTER 15
D r Kate Braithwaite flung her backpack into a corner of her small, ramshackle office in USAMRIID, and flopped down behind a desk that was almost totally covered with files and papers. The wall behind her had floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were crammed with books and file boxes that detailed some of the most deadly pathogens known to man. Weary from the early morning flight, Kate ran her hand through her unruly curls and leaned back in her battered leather swivel chair with a sigh. Her jeans were spotlessly clean but faded, as was her favourite cream-coloured sweatshirt with ‘Sydney University’ written across the front.
The US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, had been set up by President Nixon in 1969 to protect America’s armed forces from biological attack. The Fort Detrick campus was nestled in the distant shadow of Catoctin Mountain and the Appalachians on the outskirts of Frederick, Maryland. With the whole country on edge since September 11, USAMRIID’s role had widened and Fort Detrick was under heavy guard. Even so, Kate was pleased to be back albeit only for a short while. The encounter with Maverick and the other chimpanzees had depressed her more than she realised and she’d asked her boss, Professor Imran Sayed, to make one last attempt to have the experiments stopped. With a sigh she began clearing a space on her desk.
‘Goodness! Not tidying up are we?’ Imran Sayed’s smile was warm and genuine. Imran was dressed in an expensive suit, his shirt a soft, understated pink. His olive skin was slightly pockmarked, his short dark hair brushed roughly into place. Imran had a long, aquiline nose, and his tortoiseshell glasses gave him a serious demeanor; his dark eyes were keen and alert. Kate knew that he also possessed a wicked sense of humour, particularly when they were alone. At sixty-three, he radiated the quiet confidence of a professor at the height of his powers. Kate had first met him when she was one of his post-doctoral students at the Yale School of Medicine and she had immediately warmed to him. Despite impressive international recognition for his stunning achievements in the world of virology, Professor Sayed still managed not to take life too seriously.
‘Don’t you start,’ Kate responded with another sigh.
‘How are your charges at the CDC?’ Imran asked more seriously. He had mentored this young scientist right from the start, carefully nurturing her career. After years of working with her he was immediately sensitive to her mood.
‘Still restless. I can’t put my finger on it, Imran, but Maverick in particular seems to sense something’s about to happen.’
‘The alpha male?’
Kate nodded. ‘Because he’s restless, it’s keeping the whole group off balance. It’s crazy, Imran. We’re going to subject these wonderful creatures to insane doses of the virus, yet in all the centuries that smallpox has ravaged the planet there’s never been a single case of that virus infecting the animal kingdom. It doesn’t make sense.’
Imran nodded. ‘I agree, but making sense is not this Administration’s long suit right now. Next time you go down to CDC I’ll come with you to see for myself, although I’m not holding out much hope of stopping this. You will have heard about the new Colonel?’ Imran asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘He’s just sent around a memo demanding key scientists sign an endorsement for the retention of our stocks of smallpox. No doubt they want that as ammunition for the Secretary to wave at a bunch of journalists next time he gets quizzed.’