“Ah.well, that would be the reason that Abdallah Amir is here in the Tower project.” Anselm replied, his voice moderately chagrined. “I suppose I should tell you what I know.”
“Yes, Please.”
Anselm sighed, nodding. He quickly outlined the situation as he knew it, explaining what he knew about the virus that Abdallah had been developing, and confessed that he wasn’t certain why he had chosen the Project as he base of operation, but neither he nor Gwen thought that it mattered now. A Biological weapon of terror of this nature was, by international treaty, defined as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
WMD’s, as they were known, were nightmares of civilization for a damned good reason. Unlike traditional weapons of military forces, there was not even the slightest pretense that a WMD could be used as a `surgical’ weapon. They were designed to kill indiscriminately within their range, sparing no person whether soldier or civilian, child or adult.
No civilized nation would allow them to be used if there was any possible way to stop them. Once maybe, but not now. And the idea of one being released on her country’s soil gave Gwendolyn Dougal shudders of revolted terror.
“My God,” She whispered, shaking her head. “We have to stop him.”
“We will,” Anselm promised, “It’s just a matter of getting in some appropriate backup.”
“We have twenty officers on the force, and another forty we can deputize.” Gwen told him, “Let me call my Captain, We’ll get an electronic warrant issued out of Sydney and.”
“No. Not yet.” Anselm shook his head, speaking emphatically.
“Why the bloody hell not!”
“We don’t know how many are in there,” He told her, “Listen, Gwen, They have an impressive infrastructure dug right into the Project facility. I’ve got the employee database on my Portable, it’s already running a comparison through the computer’s in Stockholm. Half hour, and we’ll know how many people have infiltrated the officials of the Project.”
“A half hour” She asked, taking a deep breath.
“A half hour for that,” He told her, “After that, we’ll decide what to do.”
“Fine.” She told him, “You have your half hour, Agent Gunnar.”
Chapter 7
Half a world away from where two police officers struggled with the existence of a man made horror beneath their feet, there was a room filled with computers which were all linked to other rooms similarly filled. In that room every proverbial red flag, buzzer, siren, and other methods of saying `hey! There is some bad shit going down here!’ was currently sounding.
“This better be good,” A woman in a professional suit snarled as she threw her handbag against a cubicle wall, letting it thump to the desk below, “I was at a dinner with the President.”
“Uh.” A white coated man goggled, swallowing.
“Oh for crying out loud, Howard, talk to me already,” She growled, rolling her eyes.
“Uh. Yes Ma’am.” Howard replied, shaking himself quickly and trying to regain some semblance of poise. “It’s Agent Corvine, Ma’am.”
Natalie Cyr, Deputy Director Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, frowned at that. “What about Joshua”
She and Joshua Corvine were contemporaries, they had been recruited into Langley only a year apart. Their careers had mirrored each other in many ways, she rising through the analyst division while Joshua excelled in the field, and she herself had been his Control on several missions following the 9/11 crisis in Oh One.
“He uploaded a lot of data about an hour ago, Ma’am. It’s hot stuff.” Howard told her.
“Hot” Natalie raised an eyebrow, “How hot”
“It’s a Fire Swarm Alert, Ma’am.”
Cyr’s eyes widened as her jaw dropped slightly, the code words penetrating quickly but understanding taking a measure of time even so. Fire Swarm was the current Federal Code Word for a Biological Threat to the United States or her Allies, specifically used in cases of potential bio-terrorism. Similar code phrases had been used more often than most people realized in the past, but they spared no fear in Natalie Cyr for all their unfortunate familiarity.
“Confirmation”
“Digital only,” Was the immediate response. “Agent Corvine has not yet contacted us for a personal confirmation.”
Damn.
Natalie winced. It was, if not Agency protocol, then certainly her own not to interfere with an agent in the field unless absolutely necessary. The advent of technology had allowed a greater and greater degree of worldwide micromanaging, if a person was inclined to that sort of thing, which had resulted in some spectacular disasters which, thankfully perhaps, would never be reported to the public at large.
“Do we have a lock on his portable”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Howard nodded, tapping in a command.
The wall screen lit up instantly, showing a map of Australia, then zoomed in quickly using real world imagery to show the Australian desert, then the immense tower facility, and finally a small home built along the strange little ring city that had grown up around it.
“Is that his hotel”
“No Ma’am.” Howard tapped a few more keys, “It belongs to a.Gwendolyn Amelia Dougal.She’s an Inspector with The Tower City PD.”
“Police” Natalie resisted the urge to curse, “We don’t need any local police involvement. What’s he doing there”
Howard shrugged. There wasn’t really much more he could do, under the circumstances. The technology involved in surveillance satellites was probably fifty years ahead of what the public believed them to be, considering the classified nature of the programs that developed the down looking technology, but they had yet to orbit a bird that could look into a man’s mind and tell what he was thinking.
Hell, they hadn’t even developed one yet that could reliably look inside a man’s house.
Speaking of which, Howard tapped a few keys, and the image shifted color frequencies. “There are.two people in the domicile in question, Ma’am. Both located in the living room if I’m reading the floor plan correctly.”
Natalie nodded, sighing. “Do me a favor, Howard, ping his portable. No audible signal, if you please.”
“You’ve got it, Ma’am.”
They were still waiting on the completed database comparison to come through when the portable Anselm had recovered from the American agent began to buzz softly on the desk as its soft vibrate feature caused it to shiver across the glass desk he had laid it on.
He exchanged a glance with Gwen, who just shrugged, so Anselm looked back at the device that had, up until a moment earlier, been entirely dead.
“Are you going to pick it up” Gwen asked him after a moment.
“I suppose I should,” He said, a little reluctantly.
If it was someone, as it almost certainly must be, trying to contact the Agent, Anselm was going to have to give them some very bad news. He’d always hated that part of his job. Of course, he supposed that no one liked that part of the job, or if they did they were very disturbed people indeed. He reached out and picked up the common looking portable and fanned it out with a flick of his wrist.
“Yes” He said as the screen flickered to life.
“Who is this!” The voice on the other side was sharp, angry even.
Given who Anselm thought it probably was, more or less, he understood entirely. It was also probably best to give her the truth. “Agent Anselm Gunnar, Interpol. May I ask who this is”
The screen went dead before he got out the fifth word.
Natalie Cyr automatically killed the signal with a single touch of her finger, then glared at Howard. “Give me a full file on that man. I want to know if he’s who he says he is.”