“How? Aren’t those systems supposed to have redundancies?”
“Yes,” Church agreed, “so we can presume that they were deliberately taken off-line.”
I thought about that. “Then he can’t be doing this alone. No way the security cameras are controlled from the Hot Room or the other labs.”
Prebble smiled approvingly. “Good call. No, the fail-safe on the surveillance system has a set of manual controls, and they are in the security office on the other side of the complex. So figure at least one other person. Could be more.”
“Is there a shutdown protocol?” I asked. “And is that connected to the door seals?”
Hu said, “There are manual controls for all functions of the outer lab and the Hot Room, but it’s only used when the bio-vault is locked and the fish tank sealed. They use it when they’re installing new equipment or making repairs to doors and such, and under those conditions the bio-vault with the active samples is sealed and guarded. That system is connected via satellite uplinks to coded routers in a national security satellite. The uplink has been terminated at the source. Same for the hard-lines that connect to the TAT-fourteen transatlantic telecommunications cable. The satellite and cable are functioning normally, but both report a disconnection.”
“There’s got to be a fail-safe … a dead man’s switch.”
“Sure,” said Hu. “But like everything, there is a bypass to it. Bug has pinged it and he’s sure that the system has been taken off-line. In fact, the only way to bypass this kind of security is through deliberate and coordinated human action.”
“Shit.”
“You can’t prevent human error,” said Hu fussily. “You can only advise against it and encourage adherence to rules.”
“It gets worse,” said Church. “Because the main lab is not part of any active virus research protocols, it has looser safety features. In fact, it can be manually integrated into the main air-conditioning system for the whole lab facility.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. “What kind of moron would approve that design?”
“The bureaucratic kind,” said Church.
“Christ. Can the vents be blocked from outside?”
“Under normal circumstances, yes, but it appears that at some time prior to today Grey or someone working with him disabled the vent overrides. We’ll have to review weeks of security tapes and logs to see who worked on it, and that’s beside the point. It’s damage done. The vent controls have been entirely routed to the Hot Room. All Grey has to do to flood the building is throw a switch.”
“What are the options? Can you disable the electrics? Cut the power?”
“Essential services like venting, lights, and air-lock functions have battery backups. It’s a safety measure to make sure the automatic seals never lose power.”
“What about an electromagnetic pulse? How fast can you drop an E-bomb on the place?”
“This is a hardened facility,” said Prebble. “We’ve examined the option of carpet bombing the facility, but we would need an exact mix of bunker busters and fuel air bombs, and that’s tricky. Destroying the building is easy … making sure we fry every single microscopic germ is another matter altogether, and our best computer models give us only a probability of ninety-four percent success.”
“And since we’re talking about airborne Ebola, that might as well be zero,” said Hu.
“Yes,” agreed Prebble, “and prevailing winds are not in our favor today. On the other hand, there’s a carrier just over the horizon and I’ve had a quiet word with the captain. He’s an old mate of mine. If there’s so much as a wee hint that the facility’s outer containment is failing, then I make a call and we’ll all be having tea with Jesus before you can say ‘oh, shite.’”
“You’d drop a nuke?” I asked, appalled. “And only part of my concern is based on the fact that we’re flying there. Dropping a nuke on an illegal American bioweapons lab would be …” I fished for a word bad enough to describe it and came up short.
“I agree,” said Church grimly. “Aside from the physical damage and risk of fallout, neither country would recover from the damage to their credibility on a global scale. It would truly be catastrophic.”
“Nevertheless, gentlemen,” said Prebble, “should things turn against us I’ve prepared a set of recommendations for the Prime Minister that includes a nuclear option.”
“Let’s make sure that things don’t turn against us,” said Church quietly. “We have several overlapping quarantine protocols in operation, and a Chinook is flying in rolls of industrial-grade quarantine draping. We’ll disable all of the external cameras and then drape the building. That should give us an extra step toward first base in the event of a containment breach. Once that’s in place we’ll roll out our primary response.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Me, in a hazmat suit, with a gun.”
“Can you recommend something else?”
“Sure. A whole bunch of shooters in hazmats with guns. Seal the outer doors, take out the inner doors with an RPG, burn everything else with flamethrowers, let Dr. Grey be the one having tea and crumpets with the Messiah, and we call it a day.” I looked at Church. “But that’s not the play you’re going to call, is it?”
He said nothing for a moment. This was the kind of moment in which he’d usually reach for a NILLA wafer while the rest of us sorted it out and got into the same mental gear as him. Prebble hadn’t supplied any cookies. Church looked almost wistful. He said, “You’re the senior DMS field commander on-station, Captain. Do you see that as the best tactical option?”
I sighed. “No.”
“And why not?” Church asked, like Socrates guiding a student through a logic puzzle. I hated when he did this.
“Because with that plan we don’t get to ask any questions … and we need to know why he’s doing this.”
Church and Prebble nodded.
There was a faint bing-bing and then the pilot’s voice said, “Touchdown in five, gentlemen.”
Interlude Sixteen
T-Town
Mount Baker, Washington State
Three and a Half Months Before the London Event
Hugo Vox stood in the doorway to Circe’s office. His face looked haggard, his eyes dark.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Circe couldn’t speak. It felt like a steel hand was clamped around her throat.
Grace … ? Her mouth formed the name silently as the first tears fell.
Vox nodded. “Down in the Bahamas. A big DMS action. I don’t have the details, but the word is that she died in combat. A lot of people died. The DMS took a lot of losses. It’s … it’s a terrible tragedy. For them … and for all of us.”
“Grace,” Circe murmured, finding a splinter of her voice, but the name stuck in her throat. “God …”
“I know you two were close,” said Vox.
Circe put her face in her hands. “I just saw her the other day!”
“The DMS was facing something really big. Something really, really bad. From what Gus Dietrich told me, Grace may have saved us all. That new guy, Ledger, was able to wrap it up, but Grace Courtland did her part. Yes, ma’am, she did her part indeed. Best of the best, she was.”