Susan stood. “Everyone, before we begin, I want to introduce you to Agent Luke Stone, formerly of the FBI Special Response Team. He saved my life a few days ago, and he was instrumental in saving the Republic as we know it. That is not an exaggeration. I’m not sure I’ve ever before met an operative as skilled, as knowledgeable, and as fearless in the face of adversity. It’s a credit to our nation, our Armed Forces, and our intelligence community that we identify and train men and women like Agent Stone.”
Now everyone stood and applauded. To Luke’s ears, the applause sounded stilted and formal. These people had to applaud. The President wanted them to. He raised a hand, trying to make it stop. The situation was absurd.
“Hi,” he said when the clapping ended. “Sorry I’m late.”
Luke sat in an empty chair. The man standing in the front stared directly at him. Now Luke couldn’t tell what was in the man’s eyes. Hope? Maybe. He looked like a desperate quarterback about to launch a Hail Mary pass in Luke’s direction.
“Luke,” Susan said. “This is Dr. Wesley Drinan, Director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He is briefing us on a possible security breach at the Biosafety Level 4 lab there.”
“Ah,” Luke said. “All right.”
“Agent Stone, are you familiar with Biosafety Level 4 laboratories?”
“Uh, Luke is fine. I’m familiar with the term. Maybe you can bring me all the way up to speed, however.”
Drinan nodded. “Of course. I’ll give you the thirty-second elevator pitch. BSL-4 labs are the highest level of security when dealing with biological agents. BSL-4 is the level required for work with dangerous and exotic viruses and bacteria that pose a high risk of laboratory infections, as well as those which cause severe to fatal disease in humans. These are diseases for which vaccines or other treatments aren’t currently available. In general, I’m talking about Ebola, Marburg, and some of the emerging hemorrhagic viruses that we’re just discovering in deep jungle regions of Africa and South America. Sometimes we also handle newly mutated influenza viruses until we understand their transmission mechanisms, infection rates, mortality rates, and so on.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “I get it. And something was stolen?”
“We don’t know. Something is missing. But we don’t know what happened to it.”
Luke didn’t speak. He simply nodded at the man to keep him talking.
“We had a power failure two nights ago. That in itself is rare. Rarer still is that our backup generators didn’t immediately kick on. The design of the facility is that in the event of an outage, there should be a seamless shift from main power to backup power. It didn’t happen. Instead, the facility went to emergency reserves, which is a low-power state that only keeps essential systems running.”
“What sort of non-essential systems went down?” Luke said.
Drinan shrugged. “The things you can imagine. Lights. Computers. Camera systems.”
“Security cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Inside the facility?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anyone inside?”
The man nodded. “There were two people inside at the time. One was a security guard named Thomas Eder. He’s worked at the facility for fifteen years. He was at the guard station and not inside the containment facility. We’ve interviewed him, as have the police and the Texas Bureau of Investigation. He’s being cooperative.”
“Who else?”
“Uh, there was a scientist inside the containment facility. Her name is Aabha Rushdie. She’s from India. She is a beautiful person and a very good scientist. She studied in London, has gone through multiple BSL-4 trainings, and has all the required security clearances. She’s been with us for three years and I’ve worked directly with her on many occasions.”
“Okay…” Luke said.
“When the power went down, she temporarily lost flow in her air hose. This is a potentially dangerous situation. She was also cast into total darkness. She became afraid, and it seems that Thomas Eder may have allowed her to exit the facility without following all the required safety protocols.”
Luke smiled. This seemed like an easy one. “And then something was missing?”
Drinan hesitated. “The following day, an inventory discovered that a vial of a very specific Ebola virus had gone missing.”
“Has anyone spoken with the Rushdie woman?”
Drinan shook his head. “She’s also gone missing. Yesterday, her car was found by a rancher on an isolated property in the hill country fifty miles west of Austin. The state police suggest that cars abandoned like that are often a sign of foul play. She’s not at her apartment. We’ve tried to contact her family in London, with no luck.”
“Would she have any reason to steal the Ebola virus?”
“No. It’s impossible to believe. I’ve wrestled with this for two days. The Aabha I know is not someone who… I can’t even say it. She just isn’t that way. I don’t understand what’s going on. I’m afraid she might have been kidnapped or fallen into the hands of criminals. I’m at a loss for words.”
“We haven’t even reached the worst part,” Susan Hopkins said abruptly. “Dr. Drinan, can you tell Agent Stone about the virus itself, please?”
The good doctor nodded. He looked at Stone.
“The Ebola is weaponized. It’s similar to Ebola found in nature, like the Ebola that killed ten thousand people during the West African outbreak, only worse. It’s more virulent, more fast acting, can be transmitted more easily, and has a higher fatality rate. It is a very dangerous substance. We need to either get it back, destroy it, or determine to our satisfaction that it was already destroyed.”
Luke turned to Susan.
“We want you to go down there,” she said. “See what you can find out.”
Those were the exact words Luke didn’t want to hear. Over the phone, she had invited him to a meeting. But she had brought him here to give him a mission.
“I wonder,” he said, “if we can talk about this in private?”
“Can we get you anything?” Richard Monk said. “Coffee?”
“Sure, I’ll have a cup of coffee,” Luke said.
He wouldn’t mind drinking some coffee right now, but mostly he accepted the offer because he thought that would make Monk leave the room. Wrong. Monk simply picked up a phone and ordered some from the kitchen downstairs.
Luke, Monk, and Susan were in an upstairs sitting room near the family living quarters. Luke knew that Susan’s family didn’t live here. When she was Vice President, he hadn’t paid much attention to her, but he had somehow gotten the idea that she and her husband were estranged.
Luke sat back in a comfortable easy chair. “Susan, before we start, I want to tell you something. I’ve decided to retire, effective immediately. I’m telling you before I tell anyone else, so you can find someone else to head the SRT.”
Susan didn’t speak.
“Stone,” Monk said, “you might as well know now. The Special Response Team is on the chopping block. It’s finished. Don Morris was involved in the coup, right from the beginning. He is at least partially responsible for one of the worst atrocities to ever take place on American soil. And he created the Special Response Team. I’m sure you can understand that security, and especially the President’s security, is the most important thing on our radar right now. It’s not just SRT. We are investigating suspect sub-agencies within CIA, NSA, and the Pentagon, among others. We need to