The Ares Decision Page 30

  Sarie glanced up and noticed that the canvas covering a number of the cages in the middle section of animals had blood on it. She jotted down the time on a pad next to her and went back to working on the brain.

  There were a number of potential strategies for making the parasite less dangerous, but almost all fell apart under the weight of any serious thought. The most obvious was to nurture the mutation that attacked the victim’s corneas in order to cause blindness. Biologically straightforward, but it was a bit far-fetched to believe that a bunch of infected animals wandering around bumping into things would escape notice. Omidi’s toadies weren’t world-class, but they weren’t complete idiots.

  Improving attention span had been her second plan. At first it had seemed perfect in a somewhat horrifying way. If she could reduce the infected’s ability to be distracted during an attack, she would increase the probability that they would kill their victims and stop the chain of infection. Unfortunately, though, the areas of the brain responsible for that type of focus were too diffuse to target. The parasite had been working on the problem for millions of years. Her time was somewhat shorter.

  The answer, surprisingly, had been lurking in the mirror neurons. The pattern of damage was easy to change, and she’d already managed to affect the way that parasite victims identified with each other—creating the first seeds of reciprocal animosity. While the plan had many obvious weaknesses, if she could get them interested in attacking each other, she estimated that she could reduce the rate of spread by as much as forty percent.

  Even more important, she’d discovered that the parasite had a significant exposure-response relationship—the higher the initial parasitic load, the faster the onset of symptoms. She’d used that to convince Omidi that she was actually making progress in reducing the time to full symptoms when, in actuality, she was just giving progressively larger doses of infected blood to the test animals.

  What he wasn’t happy about, though, was that this was creating a corresponding effect on the time to death. The fact that the believers were starting to slowly disappear seemed to indicate that Omidi was setting up an alternate group somewhere else in the facility to review her research and work on the time-to-death problem. She also had to assume that they would be testing her “modifications” on humans and that it wouldn’t be long before they figured out that they didn’t actually work.

  That’s why it was so important that phase two of her plan be enacted quickly and decisively. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet been able to come up with a phase two.

  Sarie finished with the brain and went through the primitive decontamination procedures before entering the large room next to the lab. Five softies manning somewhat-dated computers watched her as she took a seat in front of the only terminal with an English operating system.

  She was just starting to enter her notes when Yousef Zarin slid his chair up next to her.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he said, leaning close and keeping his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Excuse me?” she responded, continuing to enter numbers into a matrix of bogus mortality rates.

  “I’ve been looking at your data and examined some of your samples myself.”

  She smiled weakly through clenched teeth, refusing to let her growing fear affect her ability to think.

  “Mirror neuron damage is evolving very quickly.”

  “I have to apologize for my ignorance of neurology, Dr. Zarin. What are mirror neurons again?”

  It was his turn to smile. “You might be surprised to know that I actually read your paper on the effects of toxoplasmosis on human behavior. Your intellectual gifts and grasp of brain function were very much on display.”

  “I appreciate the compliment,” she said, sounding a little too cheerful for a woman in her position but finding it impossible to get the right balance. “It’s just that I’m not sure what—”

  His voice lowered even more. “I believe that if these changes continue, victims of the parasite will no longer be able to differentiate between infected and healthy people.”

  She stopped typing, but her fingers seemed frozen to the keyboard.

  “It’s very clever,” Zarin continued. “I would have thought you’d simply try to reduce aggressive impulses, but of course that would have been too obvious, wouldn’t it? How do you say… I take my hat off to you.”

  “I think you’re misinterpreting—”

  “I don’t pretend to be your equal, Doctor, but I am not an uneducated man.”

  “You…,” she stammered, trying to come up with something credible to say. “Maybe it’s a side effect of decreasing onset times that I missed. We could—”

  He shook his head and she fell silent.

  “No, the more I think about it, the more I see the brilliance of it. Given time, it could have a significant effect on the spread of the infection. Unfortunately, time is something we don’t have.”

  “What?”

  “We are not all fundamentalists and fanatics, Sarie. The time for more and more horrifying weapons is done. It must be. Technology has put too much power into men’s hands—the power to destroy everything that God has created.”

  Was it a trick? Was he just trying to find out the details of what she had done in order to reverse the damage? How the hell was she supposed to know? The bottom line was, she’d been caught. There was no point to further scheming or protests. If Yousef Zarin was truly with her, he could potentially help her save millions of lives. If he was against her, she was already dead.

  “You’re not going to tell Omidi?” she said, mindful of the ever-present cameras bolted to the ceiling above them.

  “Omidi is a pig. This is an act of desperation—an evil perpetrated by politicians trying to cling to power and disguising it as piety. I will help you. But I’m afraid the path you’ve taken is of no use.”

  He was right, of course. It had been her own act of desperation. In the unlikely event that she was given the time necessary to perfect the genetic modifications, they wouldn’t last. The parasite was too adaptable—if it were released in a place that didn’t have Africa’s geographic isolation, it would evolve with devastating speed, hiding its symptoms, modifying the way it spread, extending the contagion period in the people it infected.

  In the back of her mind, she knew she should be cautious, but she so desperately needed someone to stand with her. To not be alone anymore.

  “Is there a way out, Yousef ? Or a way to communicate with the outside world? I have friends who might be able to help.”

  The Iranian shook his head. “We are a hundred meters underground and all messages leaving the facility have to be approved by Omidi personally.”

  “Then we have to think of something else.”

  He nodded. “And quickly. I suspect that the scientists who are no longer with us—the ones loyal to Omidi—are working on a way to transport the parasite outside the human body.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “He came to me and asked if I agreed that work on transportation should wait until the final genetic sequence was done and I supported you, but he asked questions that were too technical for him to have devised on his own. It was clear that his people were advising him that the modifications wouldn’t affect transportation modalities.”

  “Then we have to get out of here, Yousef. We have to get help.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. However, we are not powerless.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was brought here years ago when this was a secret bioweapons lab and asked to write a report on safety issues. There were many problems—systems that are archaic or nonfunctional, poorly thought-out procedures, unrepaired cracks in the walls and ceiling. The government counted on the facility’s isolation. The closest population center is a village two hours’ drive from here.”

  “As near as I can tell, they didn’t listen to you. This place is a disaster waiting to happen.”

  He nodded. “Shortly
after my inspection, America attacked Iraq because of the WMD program they believed was going on there. My government feared the same fate could befall Iran and shut the facility down.”

  “So you still understand the weaknesses in the systems here?”

  “Better than anyone, I imagine.”

  She leaned back in her chair and stared past him, watching the other people in the room doing their best not to call attention to themselves. She wondered what they’d say if they knew what she and Yousef were about to doom them to.

  74

  Above Central Iran

  December 4—1014 Hours GMT+3:30

  THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN HELICOPTER felt like it was going to rattle apart as it skimmed across the top of the ridge. Smith gripped the rusted instrument panel as the ground fell away and Farrokh dove hard toward the valley below.

  He hadn’t been given access to his phone or any other method of communication, and all questions—about the search for Omidi and the parasite, about where Peter Howell had disappeared to, about when the hell they were going to do something—had been politely deflected.

  “There,” Farrokh shouted over the sound of the rotors. He pointed toward a group of fifty or so people who were still at the very edge of visibility, some in formations that were obviously military, others moving quickly over what may have been an obstacle course.

  “Our newest training ground,” the Iranian explained, tracing a sweeping arc over the men and then setting down in the shadow of a towering cliff. “Before this, we were focused on purely peaceful protest techniques enhanced with technology. But the more successful we are, the more desperate and violent the government becomes.”

  “So you’re developing a military arm?”

  The Iranian shut down the engine and jumped out with Smith close behind. “It isn’t intended as an offensive force. I believe that if we’re patient, we can win without blood on our hands. Trying to depose the old men entrenched in our government would be a poor strategy.”

  “Better to just wait for them to die and quietly replace them.”

  “Just so,” Farrokh said. “Overt violence against the government would be a publicity disaster for us. I suspect it’s no different in the United States. No matter how despised the government, any attempt by a group to physically overthrow it would be wildly unpopular. On the other hand, having no capability to protect my followers seemed irresponsible.”

  “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” Smith said. “It’s a policy that’s always worked for me.”

  He shaded his eyes from the sun and watched two men fail to climb a ten-foot obstacle course wall, then scanned right to a line of prone men having mixed success shooting targets at fifty yards. An instructor paced impatiently behind them, occasionally stopping to adjust a poor position or give a piece of advice. His face was shaded by a broad straw hat, but the athletic grace and pent-up energy were unmistakable.

  “Will you excuse me for a moment?” Farrokh said, breaking off and heading toward a knot of men studying something rolled out on a collapsible table.

  Smith nodded and kept walking, cupping his hands around his mouth as he neared the range. “Peter!”

  Howell turned and then barked something at the men on the ground. A moment later, they were running in formation toward a scaffold hung with climbing ropes.

  “I was starting to worry about you, old boy,” he said, taking Smith’s hand and shaking it warmly.

  “I could say the same. But you don’t look any worse for the wear.”

  “A cot and three squares a day. What more can men like us ask for?”

  It was an interesting philosophical question, but one better dealt with later. “What have we got?”

  “Forty-eight men with a few months of combat training and nine army veterans, two of whom have a special forces background. They’re like me, though—a little long in the tooth.”

  “What about the forty-eight? Can they fight?”

  Howell frowned. “They’re dedicated and smart as hell. But I’ll bet at least half of them are carrying inhalers, if you take my meaning.”

  “You go into battle with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.”

  “Indeed. Just make sure you’re behind them when they start shooting.”

  75

  Central Iran

  December 5—0201 Hours GMT+3:30

  JON SMITH ADJUSTED HIS stiff legs into a slightly less uncomfortable position on the hard ground. They were 180 miles northeast of Farrokh’s training camp, and the last quarter of the trip had been done on horseback. Quiet and efficient in the torturous terrain, granted, but a mode of transportation he’d last employed at his fifth-birthday party.

  He swept the tripod-mounted night-vision scope slowly, taking in the double chain-link fence, the guard towers, the machine-gun placements. Worse, though, was what he didn’t see: a building. The entire bioweapons lab was underground—deep underground if Farrokh’s intelligence was right.

  There was a stone outcropping at the center of the heavily defended perimeter, and he could see a smooth gray section set into it. Steel doors about twenty feet square and of unknown thickness. It was hard to imagine a worse scenario that didn’t actually involve giant alien robots.

  “You still haven’t been able to get a schematic of the facility?” he said quietly. They were lying in the rock-strewn sand a mile east of the fence. Getting any closer would demand military skills his companion lacked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Farrokh replied.

  “Old building permits? Architectural plans? Inspection reports?”

  “The information blackout is absolute. In some ways, too absolute. It was the sudden disappearance of all information relating to this place that first led us here.”

  The towers and the outer fence looked new and haphazardly constructed of local materials. The apparent shoddiness, though, was an illusion—the result of the Iranians’ trying not to erect structures that would create a pattern that could be identified from above.

  Smith adjusted the scope again, focusing on the base of the easternmost of two towers protecting the entrance. Even though he knew exactly where to look, it was an impressive thirty seconds before his eye picked up movement.

  Peter Howell and an even older retired Iranian special forces operator had spent the last five hours beneath a dirty piece of canvas, inching their way toward the facility’s outer defenses. They’d finally made it to the top of the low berm that was their objective and Smith heard the vibration of the phone on Farrokh’s hip. The Iranian looked down at it for a moment and then held it out so Smith could read the text on the screen.

  Ditch. 2Ms deep 4Ms wide. bridge booB trapped.

  He’d suspected as much but had been hoping for a little luck. Any assault that attempted to breach anywhere but the main entrance would get trapped and cut to pieces by the machine guns in the towers.

  “So it’s through the front door or not at all,” Farrokh said.

  Smith nodded in the darkness but couldn’t help thinking that the most likely scenario was not at all. There was no way for an adequate force to approach without being seen for miles and no way to avoid stopping on the bridge, which was apparently rigged to blow at the first sign of trouble.

  Farrokh punched in a brief response and then returned to his spotting scope as Smith rolled onto his back and looked up at a sky full of stars. He wondered if Sarie was still alive. If she was in that bunker.

  “What can you bring to the party, Farrokh?”

  “Fifty good men willing to die for what they believe in.”

  And that was exactly what his green troops would do if they went up against battle-tested soldiers in an entrenched position.

  “Artillery?”

  “No. We have some explosives, but no way to deliver them other than by hand.”

  “What about technology? Can we cut communications to the facility?”

  “No, they’re using satellite and there’s no practical way for u
s to jam the signal.”

  “What about power?”

  “There are no lines in, so it must be generated on-site.”

  Smith let out a long breath. This wasn’t an operation that could be done by half measures. Breaching the security and then not finishing things created the possibility of the parasite escaping. If they got in, the place had to be sterilized. And Sarie van Keuren had to be either retrieved or eliminated.

  “You need to let me talk to my people, Farrokh. We might have enough information to convince them to enter Iranian airspace. We have bunker busters that—”

  “Out of the question. I will not use the American military against my country.”

  “I am the American military.”

  “A bit different, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Millions of lives are at stake, Farrokh. This isn’t a—”

  “What if you had known for a fact that the Iraqis didn’t have weapons of mass destruction? Would you have helped the Iraqi air force cross your border and destroy your military bases in order to stop an invasion that has spread death and misery throughout the region? We have fifty men willing to die at my order, Colonel. Nothing more.”

  Smith rolled onto his stomach again, fantasizing about slamming a rock into the back of the Iranian’s head and taking his phone. Unfortunately, he’d noticed him entering a PIN to unlock it with every use and he hadn’t been able to determine what that PIN was.

  “You’re the boss, Farrokh. Call Howell and your man back. I want to be well clear of here before the sun comes up.”

  The Iranian punched in another text and a few moments later the phone vibrated with a response.

  nt yt. got idea. gnteed fun 4 all.

  76

  Central Iran

  December 5—0654 Hours GMT+3:30

  THE HORRIBLE SCREECHES AND metallic rattle of cages were nearly unbearable as Sarie entered the room containing the test monkeys. She fought the urge to strip off her stifling hazmat suit and run out, instead calmly setting down her clipboard and slipping a thumb through the ring at the back of an oversized syringe.