The Hades Factor Part 10

"To the helicopter landing area, sir. There's a chopper from Irwin waiting for you there."

The driver heaved Smith's bag into the rear, climbed behind the wheel, and careened off across the tarmac. Smith hung on as the big combat vehicle bounced across ruts and potholes until it reached a waiting helicopter ambulance marked with the logo of the Eleventh Armored Cavalry Regiment--- a rearing black stallion on a diagonal red-and-white field. Its rotors were already pivoting for takeoff.

An older man wearing the gold leaf of a major and a medical caduceus stepped out from beneath the long blades. He held out his hand and shouted, "Dr. Max Behrens, Colonel. Weed Army Hospital."

An enlisted man took Smith's bag, and they climbed into the vibrating ambulance chopper. It lurched into the air and banked at a steep angle, low across the desert. Smith looked down as they pa.s.sed over two-lane highways and the buildings of small towns. Soon they were following the broad four lanes of Interstate 15.

Dr. Behrens leaned toward him to yell over the wind and noise "We've kept close watch on all units on the base, and no other cases of the virus have appeared."

Smith said loudly, "Mrs. Anderson and the others ready to talk with me?"

"Yessir. Family, friends, everyone you need. The colonel of OPFOR said you're to have anything you want, and he'd be glad to speak with you himself if that'd help."

"OPFOR?"

Behrens grinned. "Sorry, forgot you've been at Detrick awhile. That's our mission--- Opposing Force. What the Eleventh Cav does here is act the role of enemy to all the regiments and brigades that come through for field training. We give them one h.e.l.l of a hard time. It entertains us and makes them better soldiers."

The helicopter flew across a four-lane highway and plunged deeper into the rock-strewn desert until Smith saw a road below, a WELCOME sign, and at the top of a hill a jumble of piled rocks all painted with the brightly colored logos and patches of units that had been stationed there or pa.s.sed through Irwin over the years.

They swept on above lines of fast-moving vehicles trailing clouds of dust. It was startling how much the visually modified American vehicles looked like Russian mechanized infantry BMP-2s, BRDM-2s, and armored division T-80 tanks. The chopper swooped over the main post and settled to the desert floor in a cloud of sand. A reception committee was waiting, and Smith was jolted back to why he was here.

Phyllis Anderson was a tall woman and a little heavy, as if she had eaten too many transient meals on too many army bases. Her full face was drawn as they sat on packing boxes in the silent living room of the pleasant house. She had the frightened eyes Smith had seen on so many relatively young army widows. What was she going to do now? She had spent her entire married life living from camp to camp, fort to fort, in on-base or off-base housing that was never her own. She had nowhere to call home.

"The children?" she said in answer to Smith's question. "I sent them to my parents. They're too young to know anything." She glanced at the packed boxes. "I'll join them in a few days. We'll have to find a house. It's a small town. Near Erie, Pennsylvania. I'll have to get some work. Don't know what I can do..."

She trailed off, and Smith felt brutal bringing her back to what he needed to ask.

"Was the major ever sick before that day?"

She nodded. "Sometimes he'd run a sudden fever, maybe a few hours, and then it'd go away. Once it went on for twenty-four hours The doctors were concerned but couldn't find a cause, and he always got better without any problem. But a few weeks ago he came down with a heavy cold. I wanted him to take some sick days, at least stay out of the field, but that wasn't Keith. He said wars and hostile skirmishes didn't stop for a cold. The colonel always says Keith can outlast anyone in the field." She looked down at her lap where her hands twisted a ragged tissue. "Could."

"Anything you can tell me that might be connected to the virus that killed him?"

He saw her flinch at the word, but there was no other way to ask the question.

"No." She raised her eyes. They held the same pain he felt, and he had to fight to keep it from reflecting in his own eyes. She continued, "It was over so fast. His cold seemed better. He took a good afternoon nap. And then he woke up dying." She bit her lower lip to stop a sob.

He felt his eyes moisten. He reached out and put his hand on top of hers. "I'm so sorry. I know how difficult it is for you."

"Do you?" Her voice was forlorn, but there was a question in it, too. They both knew he could not bring back her husband, but might he have a magic remedy to wipe away the endless, bottomless pain that made her ache from every cell?

"I do know," he said softly. "The virus killed my fiancee, too."

She stared, shocked. Two tears slid down her cheeks. "Horrible, isn't it?"

He cleared his throat. His chest burned, and his stomach felt as if it had just been invaded by a cement mixer. "Horrible," he agreed. "Do you think you can go on? I want to find out about this virus and stop it from killing anyone else."

She was still a soldier's wife in her mind, and action was always the best comfort. "What else do you want to know?"

"Was Major Anderson in Atlanta or Boston recently?"

"I don't think he was ever in Boston, and we haven't been in Atlanta since we left Bragg years ago."

"Where else besides Fort Bragg did the major serve?"

"Well..." She reeled off a list of bases that covered the country from Kentucky to California. "Germany, too, of course, when Keith was with the Third Armored."

"When was that?" Marburg hemorrhagic fever, a close cousin of Ebola, had first been discovered in Germany.

"Oh, 1989 through '91."

"With the Third Armored? Then he went to Desert Storm?"

"Yes."

"Anywhere else overseas?"

"Somalia."

That was where Smith had his fatal encounter with La.s.sa fever. It had been a small operation, but had he known everything that happened there? An unknown virus was always possible deep in the jungles and deserts and mountains of that unfortunate continent.

Smith pressed on. "Did he ever talk about Somalia? Was he sick there? Even briefly? One of those sudden fevers that went away? Headaches?"

She shook her head. "Not that I remember."

"Was he ever sick in Desert Storm?", "No."

"Exposed to any chemical or biological agents?"

"I don't think so. But I remember he did say the medics sent him to a MASH for a minor shrapnel wound and some doctors said the MASH could've been exposed to germ warfare. They inoculated everyone who went through."

Smith's gut did a flip, but he kept the excitement from his voice. "Including the major?"

She almost smiled. "He said it was the worst inoculation he ever got. Really hurt."

"You don't happen to recall the MASH number?"

"No, I'm sorry."

Soon after that he ended the interview. They stood in the shade of her front porch, talking about nothing. There was solace in the normal interactions of everyday life.

But as he stepped off the porch, she said in a tired voice, "Are you the last one, Colonel? I think I've told everything I know."

Smith turned. "Someone else questioned you about the major?"

"Major Behrens over at Weed, the colonel, a pathologist from Los Angeles, and those awful government doctors who called here on Sat.u.r.day asking terrible things like poor Keith's symptoms, how long he lived, how he looked at the---" She shuddered.

"Last Sat.u.r.day?" Smith puzzled. What government doctor could have called on Sat.u.r.day? Both Detrick and the CDC had barely started their investigations of the virus. "Did they say who they worked for?"

"No. Just government doctors."

He thanked her again and left. In the glaring sun and hard wind of the high desert, he walked to his next interview thinking about what he had learned. Could the virus have been contracted by Major Anderson in Iraq--- or given to him there--- and then lain dormant over the next ten years, except for unexplained mild fevers, finally erupting into what seemed like a simple heavy cold... and death?

He knew no virus that acted that way. But then no virus they had known had acted like HIV-AIDS until it exploded from the heart of Africa onto the world.

And who were the "government doctors" who had called Phyllis Anderson before anyone outside the CDC and Fort Detrick was even aware that there was a new virus?

8:22 P.M.

Lake Magua, New York Congressman Benjamin Sloat mopped his balding head and took another gulp of Victor Tremont's single malt. He and Tremont were sitting in the dark sunroom that looked out over the nighttime deck and gra.s.sy lawn. While they had been talking, a large-eyed doe had strolled across the deck as if she owned it, and Victor Tremont had merely smiled. Congressman Sloat had decided long ago he would never understand Tremont, but then he did not need to. Tremont meant contacts and campaign contributions and a big chunk of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals stock, an unbeatable combination in this high-priced political age.

The congressman grumbled, "Dammit, Victor, why didn't you clue me in earlier? I could've headed this Smith off. Got him and the woman s.h.i.+pped overseas. We wouldn't have a murder to cover up and a d.a.m.ned snooper nosing in the closet."

From his armchair, Tremont gestured with his cigar. "Her call was such a shock all I could think of was getting rid of her. It's only now that we know how close she and Smith were."

Sloat drank moodily. "Can we just ignore him? h.e.l.l, the woman'll be buried and forgotten soon, and it sure looks like Smith doesn't know much yet. Maybe it'll blow over."

"You want to take that chance?" Tremont studied the sweating chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "All h.e.l.l's going to break loose around the world soon, and we'll be the white knights to the rescue. Unless someone stumbles onto something incriminating and blows the whistle on us."

Half-hidden in the flickering shadows of the farthest corner of the sunroom, Nadal al-Ha.s.san warned, "Dr. Smith is at Fort Irwin at this moment. He may hear of our 'government doctors.' "

Tremont contemplated the thick ash of his cigar. "Smith's come a long way already. Not far enough to hurt us, but enough to get our attention. If he gets too close, Nadal will eliminate him without drawing attention to us or the death of Sophia Russell. Something very different. A tragic accident. Isn't that right, Nadal?"

"Suicide," the Arab offered from the shadows. "He is obviously distraught over Dr. Russell's death."

"That could be good, if you can make it airtight," Tremont agreed. "Meanwhile, Congressman, block his investigation. Keep hiin in the lab. Get him rea.s.signed. Anything."

"I'll call General Salonen. He'll know the right man," Sloat decided. "We'll need to keep the virus under wraps. Extreme sensitivity. Smith's only a doctor, an amateur, and this is a job for the pros."

"That sounds about right."

Sloat finished his single malt, smacked his lips, nodded in appreciation, and stood. "I'll call Salonen right away. But not from here. Better to use a pay phone in the village."

After the congressman left, Tremont continued to smoke. He spoke without looking at Nadal al-Ha.s.san. "We should've eliminated Smith. You were right. Griffin was wrong."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps, in his view, he was quite right."

Tremont turned. "How so?"

"I have wondered how Dr. Smith appeared to be so alert for our initial attacks. Why was he in that park so late, so far from his home in Thurmont? Why was he so ready to suspect murder?"

Tremont studied the Arab. "You think Griffin warned him. Why? Griffin stands to lose as much as the rest of us if we're exposed." He paused thoughtfully. "Unless he's still working for the FBI?", "No, I checked that. Griffin is independent, I am sure. But perhaps he and Dr. Smith had some a.s.sociation in the past. My people are investigating."

Victor Tremont had been frowning. Now he suddenly smiled. He told. al-Ha.s.san, "There's a solution. An elegant solution. Keep checking the pasts of the two men, but at the same time tell your a.s.sociate, Mr. Griffin, that I have changed my mind. I want him to personally find Smith... and eliminate him. Yes, kill him quickly." He nodded coldly and smiled again. "This way we'll discover where Mr. Griffin's loyalties actually lie."

CHAPTER.

THIRTEEN

9:14 A.M., Thursday, October 16 Fort Detrick, Maryland The rest of his interviews at Fort Irwin yesterday had added nothing more to what he had learned from Phyllis Anderson. After the last interview, Smith had flown all night from Victorville, sleeping fitfully most of the way. From Andrews, he drove straight to Fort Detrick, seeing no suspicious vehicles either following him or waiting at Detrick. The reports from the other family and a.s.sociates interviews were in. They told him the homeless victim in Boston and the late father of the dead girl in Atlanta had also been in the army during the Gulf War. He searched the service records of all three soldiers.

Sgt. Harold Pickett had been in 1-502 Infantry Battalion, Second Brigade, 101st Air a.s.sault Division in Desert Storm. He had been wounded and treated at 167th MASH. Specialist Four Mario Dublin had been an orderly at the 167th MASH. There was no record of the then-lieutenant Keith Anderson having been treated at the 167th, but units of the Third Armored had been at the Iraq-Kuwait border near the 167th.

The results made Smith reach once more for the telephone. He dialed Atlanta.

"Mrs. Pickett? Sorry to call you so early. I'm Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith from the U.S. Army Medical Research Inst.i.tute for Infectious Diseases. May I ask, you a few questions?"

The woman at the other end was close to hysterics. "No more. Please, Colonel. Haven't you people---"

Smith pressed on. "I know it's terribly difficult for you, Mrs. Pickett, but we're trying to prevent more girls like your daughter from dying the way she did."

"Please---"

"Two questions."

As the silence stretched, he thought she might have just walked away from the phone. Then her voice sounded again, low and dull. "Go ahead."

"Was your daughter ever injured badly enough to need a blood transfusion, and did your husband donate the blood?"

Now the silence radiated fear. "How... how did you know?"

"It had to be something like that. One last question: Did government doctors call you on Sat.u.r.day to ask questions about her death?"

He could almost hear her nod. "They certainly did. I was shocked They were like ghouls. I hung up on them."

"No identification beyond just 'government doctors'?"

"No, and I hope you fire them all."

The line went dead, but he had what he needed.

All three soldiers had almost certainly been inoculated against "possible bacteriological warfare agent contamination" at the same MASH unit in Iraq-Kuwait ten years ago.

Smith dialed Brigadier General Kielburger's extension to tell him about the interviews.

"Desert Storm?" Kielburger almost squeaked in alarm. "Are you sure, Smith? Really sure?"