A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [53]
One by one, each of the president’s team received instructions. The Hard Room would be the only safe area for communications, but that space was to be used only for emergencies. Cameras would either be dismantled or left on as decoys.
Doc, one of the early notes read, we must assume Genesis knows who you are and why we’ve brought you here. YOU ARE NOW A CONSTANT THREAT TO THEM … stay away from the House subway line until we tell you. That’s going to be your way out of here and back to your lab. J.A.
Griff felt his stomach drop. He had entered the Capitol complex fearing and not trusting the president. Now, it appeared, he was the target of Genesis as well.
Not safe, he wrote back. No decon zone. Risk outside exposure.
Help us make it safe. Many lives at stake. Military will help. J.A.
A team headed by Salitas discovered six cameras expertly concealed inside smoke detectors in the hallway outside the subway. The state-of-the-art video equipment was providing a window into the supply delivery route running from the underground entrance into the Capitol complex.
Allaire ordered half of the cameras inactivated and the rest redirected and left in place. None of them was to be in a position to record any unusual increase in activity.
The cameras were not the only discovery made during the next few hours. Hank Tomlinson had been unable to locate one of his officers, a five-year veteran of the Capitol Police force named Peter Tannen. Tannen had been assigned security detail at the breached checkpoint and was now assumed to be a part of Genesis. The FBI was dissecting the man’s life with the intensity of their 9/11 investigation. Suspicion already was that he might no longer be among the living.
Griff and Angie slipped into the subway tunnel. Their mission was to get out of the Capitol and back to the lab at Kalvesta. Griff glanced over at a nearby wall-mounted clock and made a mental note of the time following the initial exposure.
Twenty-eight hours.
In another forty-eight, the first fatalities might be reported. He did not need a clock to tell him that the deaths would continue until there was nobody left in the Capitol to die.
The military team with him was Special Forces, trained to be first responders following a bioterrorist attack. Before the operation got under way, Griff briefed the group on the dangers of WRX3883.
“We’re used to working with anthrax,” one of the operatives said at the conclusion of Griff’s brief presentation. “This shouldn’t be that different.”
“If you get infected with WRX3883, you’ll wish it were anthrax. Be careful, but work as rapidly as you can.”
Two hours later, the team leader for the Special Ops unit approached Griff in her blue biocontainment suit. He could see through her visor that, like himself, she was drenched in sweat.
“We’re ready for your inspection,” she said. “Whoever that Angie is, she’s a hell of a worker.”
“I know.”
They were well ahead of the timetable.
“Good enough,” he said, nodding his approval of what was really impressive work.
In amazingly little time, the Special Ops team had created a reasonably safe, fully functional decontamination zone between the House side of the Capitol and the subway line connecting the complex to nearby office buildings. He overheard one of the soldiers say that they had just built a doorway between life and death.
Time to head for Kalvesta, he wrote to Allaire.
A lot of people are counting on you, the president’s return note read. Don’t let us down.
Angie materialized beside him.
“How’d we do?” she asked.
“The Special Ops people want to adopt you.”
“Thanks. They were ready to walk through fire for you. More and more you’re reminding me of that cowboy in Kenya that I took such a shine to.”
Her eyes seemed to light up the space behind her visor.
“Are you ready to decontaminate?” he asked.
“Are we ready to go?”
“As soon as Allaire says we are.”
“Lead the way.”
“Simple,” Griff said. “First, we’re going to take an ultraviolet bath.”
He pointed to an area that contained several large saucer lights mounted on tall metal