The Ares Decision Read online

  “Did you talk to them? Did they have contact with anyone infected?”

  Farrokh nodded. “One fell down a set of stairs and another was wounded by a bullet. But the others were attacked.”

  “And all five of them have open wounds,” Sarie added. “I’m not sure how the higher parasitic loads are going to affect things, but I think we have to be ready for a faster than normal reaction.”

  “How long?”

  “A guess would be seven hours before full symptoms. Eight if we’re lucky.”

  “Is there any way we can separate them from the group?”

  “An American, a Brit, and a South African trying to get families to abandon their injured?” Farrokh said. “I think not.”

  “What about you? You’re Iranian and people know you.”

  “My position is even weaker, Jon. This is a very conservative, poorly educated part of the country. If these people knew who I was, they would probably kill me. And even if we keep my identity from them, they will still see me as a liberal, urban outsider.”

  Smith slowed and finally stopped, watching the haggard refugees flow past. Scared and unsure what was happening, they would do the same thing they had for a thousand years—disappear into terrain that no foreigner had any hope of navigating.

  “What is it?” Howell said, making a subtle move for the pistol in his waistband. “What’s wrong?”

  What was wrong was that Smith had no idea what they were doing or where they were going. Groups like this, some probably with even more victims, were undoubtedly spreading out in every direction, surrounded by friends and family who had no way of understanding or dealing with what was going to happen. He’d completely lost control of the situation, and the idea that the Iranian military could regain that control might just turn out to be the most deadly delusion in history.

  “Farrokh,” Smith said. “Give me your phone.”

  The Iranian took a hesitant step back. “To do what? Order your military to destroy my country? To insert another dictator?”

  “You want me to be honest?” Smith said, the anger obvious enough in his voice that people passing by began giving them a wider berth. “I don’t know what Castilla will do. But this is going to spread—first through Iran, then through the region. At this point, a new dictator might be your best-case scenario.”

  “No!” Farrokh said, but his voice quickly lost its force. “We can…”

  “You can do what? Because as near as I can tell, we’re just wandering around in the desert. You want to walk into that line of paratroopers? You want to go into those canyons with a bunch of infected people and wait for it to get dark?”

  “No. I—”

  “Then what’s our next move, boss?”

  A woman wearing a coat soaked with blood collapsed twenty feet away, unable to go any farther. The people around her rushed to her aid, and Sarie immediately began shoving her way toward them. “Stop! Don’t touch her!”

  No one spoke English and all she managed was to garner a few startled looks before being completely ignored.

  Farrokh watched in silence for a moment, and then entered the PIN into his phone and held it out.

  Smith dialed quickly, moving to the edge of the crowd with Howell scanning the faces around them for any hint of threat.

  “Hello?”

  There was definitely a sense of relief at the sound of Fred Klein’s voice, but not as much as he’d hoped.

  “We have a few problems here.”

  “Jon? Jesus! Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “About a mile outside a town called Avass.”

  “Then it was you who attacked the underground facility south of there.”

  “You know about that?”

  “We have a few satellite photos but that’s about all. We’ve been trying to get U-2s overhead but there’s a lot of Iranian air force activity in the area already and more on the way. What’s your situation?”

  “It’s bad, Fred. The parasite was loose in that facility and I’m not sure what the status is there. What I do know is that there are infected people in Avass and people injured by them running for the canyons.”

  “This isn’t a perfect connection, Jon, and there can’t be any miscommunications between us. Are you telling me that there are infected, symptomatic people loose in Avass and that it’s spreading into the countryside?”

  “That’s correct. Can I assume you’ve planned for this?”

  “We’ve spent the last week moving biowarfare equipment and teams to Iran’s borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Your friends at USAMRIID and the CDC aren’t confident it’s going to be enough, though.”

  A well-justified lack of confidence, as far as Smith was concerned. Containment plans generally assumed that victims got sick, lost mobility, and sought help. Contagion vectors were well understood, and some level of treatment was available even for pathogens as devastating as smallpox. None of those things were true in this case.

  “We’ve been working more or less blind,” Klein continued. “And I don’t mind telling you that it’s causing some panic. Right now the president is in with the Joint Chiefs and representatives from Europe, China, and Russia. We have a submarine armed with nuclear warheads off the coast and the idea of using it hasn’t been taken off the table. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Smith didn’t respond, instead watching Sarie and Farrokh trying to physically pull people away from the injured woman. He thought of the town and of the residents caring for victims of similar attacks. He thought of the recently infected people who were already losing themselves in the canyons and of the ones who had made it to vehicles that were now carrying them to friends and relatives in surrounding villages.

  “Jon? Are you still there?”

  “Do it, Fred. Nuke everything. The entire area.”

  There was a long silence over the phone. “Again, I want to make sure that I’m not misunderstanding you. As an infectious disease specialist familiar with this particular illness, you are recommending the use of tactical nuclear weapons centered on your position.”

  “That’s my recommendation.”

  “Is there anyone else there with you? Van Keuren? Peter?”

  Smith held the phone out to Howell. He looked a bit confused but accepted it. “Hello? Yes, Brigadier. I recognize your voice.”

  Smith bent at the waist and concentrated on not throwing up. In all likelihood, he’d just doomed himself, his friends, and thousands of innocent people to death.

  “A grazing shot to the head,” he heard Howell say. “But he seems fine to me. Yes, unfortunately, I think that seems reasonable given the situation on the ground.”

  Smith felt a tap on his shoulder and Howell handed back the phone.

  “Jon?” Klein said.

  “I’m here.”

  “Can you give us your current position? I can call our people. There’s a possibility that we could get a helicopter through and—”

  “We both know that’s not going to happen, Fred. Just do it, okay?”

  Another long pause. “I’m going to pass along your recommendation to the president with my support. Thank you for everything you’ve done, Jon. And good luck to you.”

  The line went dead and he slid the phone weakly into his pocket.

  “You all right, mate?” Howell said, putting a hand under his arm and helping him upright.

  “Not my best day, Peter.”

  “I suppose things could have turned out better,” he said, extending his hand. “But even so, I want you to know that it’s been a privilege.”

  91

  Frederick County, Maryland, USA

  December 5—0722 Hours GMT–5

  HELLO?”

  Lawrence Drake took a hesitant step forward, the sound of frozen leaves beneath his feet shockingly loud in the silence of the clearing. “Is someone out there?”

  “Larry, who are—,” Dave Collen said from inside the helicopter, but Drake cut him off.

  “Shut
up and secure those papers!”

  The dense clouds to the east glowed dully with dawn, transforming the vague shapes into the outline of an SUV and a large panel van. Four human figures—three men and a woman—stood motionless in front of the vehicles.

  The cold morning air caught in Drake’s chest and he stopped, looking around him at the black wall of trees surrounding the clearing.

  It was obvious now that the helicopter’s mechanical failure had been staged—that the pilot had been paid to put down there. But by whom? Terrorists? Foreign agents? Were they here to kill him?

  A few years ago, this would have been impossible. But the Muslims didn’t play by the rules that had been set out during the cold war. No one was off-limits. Death was something to be courted, not avoided.

  “What do you want?” he said through a bone-dry mouth.

  Dawn’s glow continued to intensify, adding detail to the scene in front of him. The woman was tall and athletic, with blond hair that gleamed in the semidarkness. Despite the fact that her face was still in shadow, there was something familiar about her, about the strength and grace that projected even when she was motionless.

  He began to back away but then stopped short at the sound of her voice.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Larry?”

  “Russell?” he responded. “Randi Russell? What the hell is this? What are you doing here?”

  “I found the team you sent after Jon and Peter.”

  He tried to keep the shock and fear from his face but in the end could only hope that the gloom hid it. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was all fake,” she said. “Everything you saw about them crossing into Iran came directly from me and Chuck Mayfield: their plane’s flight path from Diego Garcia, the satellite photos of the car taking them into the mountains. Everything. They were a hundred miles away the whole time.”

  For a moment, Drake found it hard to draw air into his lungs, but then he forced himself to relax. There was a way out of this. He just had to think.

  If what she said was true and he had been working with disinformation, Smith was almost certainly still alive and involved with what was happening in Avass. That meant the call from Sepehr Mouradipour had been a setup and undoubtedly recorded.

  He didn’t dare a look back at Collen, but the papers he was collecting consumed his mind. It was all there—everything they’d done, everything they’d kept from Castilla.

  Calm down!

  If Russell got her hands on those documents, it would be extremely complicated, but perhaps not the ruinous disaster it seemed on the surface. Politics could be a very messy business.

  “I want to talk to the president.”

  Russell shook her head slowly. “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”

  Drake grunted in pain as a blow to the back of his legs drove him to the ground. His arms were wrenched behind his back and he heard the metallic clack of handcuffs over the shouts of Dave Collen being dragged from the damaged helicopter.

  When Drake was pulled to his feet again, Russell was walking across the clearing toward him.

  “What are you going to do, Randi? Prosecute me? Do you know how much of this country’s dirty laundry I have locked up in my head? The black ops, the renditions, the backroom deals? And what about you and Smith? Who exactly is it you work for? Could it be that the president has put together a group that exists outside the law? Because that could turn out to be very uncomfortable for him if it goes public.”

  She stopped a few feet away, her head tilted slightly as she examined him. “The docs told me that if the shooter you sent to my house had aimed an inch more to the left, the body armor wouldn’t have saved me. At best I’d be paralyzed.”

  “You’re a hell of an operator, Randi. I’ll give you that. But you’re out of your depth now.”

  “And you’re a man who swore to protect this country and the people who live in it!” she shouted. “You owe them your loyalty, and you sure as hell owe your loyalty to the operatives out there risking their lives for you every day.”

  “Do you have any idea how naïve you sound, Randi? Now, get these damn handcuffs off me. And tell Castilla I’ll be willing to offer my resignation for personal reasons. But that offer isn’t going to last forever.”

  “Then off to a lucrative private-sector job, huh, Larry? No need to get bogged down in all this nonsense about you covering up a bioweapon that could kill millions of Americans. And what about all those innocent people in Uganda? Or the ones dying right now in Iran? What about Jon and Peter, who won’t ever be coming home? We’ll just forget all that too, right?”

  Her reputation, combined with the very real fury in her voice, was admittedly enough to make him sweat. But it was all bluster. Randi Russell was just another soldier—an expendable cog in a machine that she didn’t even have the capacity to fully understand.

  “You can rant all you want, Randi, but Castilla isn’t going to put me on the stand with what I know. And after the Lazarus fiasco, the CIA can’t afford another black eye.”

  She laughed and started back toward the vehicles parked at the edge of the clearing. “Who sounds naïve now, Larry?”

  Drake felt a gun against the back of his head and he was forced to follow. Collen came alongside, similarly motivated by a man carrying the briefcase containing their papers.

  Ahead, the back of the panel van was open and Russell’s men were pulling out three large sacks. Confused, Drake watched as they began dragging them toward the helicopter. It was only when they passed that he was able to identify what was inside the black plastic.

  Corpses.

  “Wait!” he said, stopping short. “What—”

  The man behind Drake pushed him forward hard enough that he barely managed to keep from pitching onto the icy ground. Randi grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling him upright, and shoved him into the back of the van. “Like you said, Larry, the CIA can’t afford another black eye.”

  “No!” he shouted as Collen was thrown in after him.

  The door slid down, leaving them in blackness as the engine came to life and the vehicle began lurching forward. A moment later, he heard a sound that he’d been dreading—the explosion that would incinerate the helicopter and the three bodies inside.

  The entire world would believe he died in the crash.

  There would be a state funeral, a eulogy praising his selflessness and service to the country. His wife would accept the flag from a coffin containing the body of a stranger, never knowing that her husband was lying in an unmarked grave carved from the country he’d betrayed.

  92

  Near Avass, Iran

  December 5—1839 Hours GMT+3:30

  ARFA! DO YOU COPY? Respond!”

  General Asadi Daei watched angrily as his men brought an armored SUV down the C-130’s ramp with almost comic slowness. The biomedical team was already suited up and had been standing by the side of the dark road for almost five minutes.

  The condition of their primary landing site had been far worse than the deskbound academics at Omidi’s intelligence ministry reported, forcing them to fly over the road to Avass and search for a place wide and smooth enough to set down. It was an unforgivable error that had put them twenty minutes behind schedule and farther from the village than planned.

  “Arfa! Respond!”

  The radio sputtered to life and the barely intelligible voice of the man in charge of the containment troops became audible through the static. Daei stalked up the road, putting distance between him and the nervous scientists double- and triple-checking their equipment.

  “General? Do you read me?”

  “Barely. What’s your situation? Have you secured the town center?”

  A burst of gunfire came over the radio followed by indecipherable shouts from Arfa.

  “Major! Are you there?”

  “I’m here, sir. No, we haven’t been able to fully secure the area. It’s difficult to tell the police from resista
nce, particularly now that we’ve lost the light. And there are civilians—”

  “I don’t care who’s who!” Daei shouted. “You’re to eliminate anyone who isn’t actively helping you. Was that not clear?”

  “It was, sir, but—”

  “There are no excuses, Major! Follow your orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His commander’s reticence was understandable under the circumstances. What he didn’t know, though, was that heavy bombers were on their way and that, upon Daei’s orders, Avass would be obliterated with Arfa and his forces still in it. The remaining paratroopers would create a wide perimeter, cutting off any fleeing residents, and, in the end, forfeiting their lives, too. The area would be completely sterilized.

  “Have you captured a parasite victim yet, Major?”

  “We’ve made two attempts, but they’re much faster and stronger than we anticipated. One was killed in a fall and we were forced to shoot the other.”

  Daei slammed a fist angrily against the C-130’s fuselage as he continued up the road. The sound of approaching air cover became audible behind him, but he didn’t bother to look back.

  “I want to be perfectly clear, Major. If I arrive in Avass and you haven’t secured a specimen, not only you but your family will pay the price. Am I being clear?”

  Arfa responded, but between the static and the approaching jets, his words were impossible to understand. Daei spun angrily, looking into the sky at a tight formation of fighters barely visible in the moonlight. What in the name of Allah were they doing?

  “Repeat your last transmission, Major. I—”

  He fell silent when one of the fighters broke formation and began to climb, displaying an unmistakable profile against the black sky.

  Daei dropped his radio and ran for the open desert. “Get away from the plane!” he shouted at the startled scientists watching him sprint across the loose sand. “Find cover!”

  * * *

  THE BLOW SEEMED to come out of nowhere, lifting Smith off his feet and knocking the gun he’d been so carefully aiming from his hand. He tried to twist himself out from beneath the man who had jumped him but realized there wasn’t time and instead braced for the impact with the rocky ground.