Public Enemy Read online

  This much she’d expected; these measures, among others, were the idea behind pulling the fire alarm in the first place. She had even expected to hear, at some point, that there were “other cells” doing what she and her team had been doing, parallel to them.

  The part she found strange, though also not unexpected, was the warning Ebbers mentioned next.

  “Just a quick reminder, Miss Laramie,” he’d said to her over the spider-phone. “You haven’t been doing what you’ve been doing. None of the intelligence you or your cell has generated, in doing the things you haven’t been doing, is to be revealed to anyone.”

  When it seemed he was waiting for an acknowledgment of his order, Laramie went ahead and gave him one.

  “I’ve always understood that to be the case,” she said.

  “I mention this not because of what you will now see in the media coverage of the ‘credible threat’ to the nation’s security-but because of what you won’t see.”

  Laramie had a pretty good idea what was coming.

  “In the media, as well as in the government circles that have now been exposed to your findings,” he said, “you will find no mention of Guatemala. You will hear nothing about a research lab there, or a hemorrhagic fever outbreak that occurred in the same region as documented in a journal found by the CDC. You will hear nothing about Cuba, Fidel Castro, or an underground theme-park-for-rent under a hill in San Cristóbal. And finally, Miss Laramie, you will hear nothing about Raul Márquez, nor any operations related to his assassination.”

  From the moment she’d logged her request, through Lou Ebbers, to see the Pentagon memo referencing the “Project ICRS” research lab, Laramie had assumed these pieces of the puzzle would be left out of any official government inquiry into the suicide-sleeper situation. It didn’t mean she liked it, but she knew she wasn’t going to be given any say about whether the omissions should remain omitted, or not. She also knew this piece of the puzzle didn’t need to be addressed immediately.

  “Thank you for keeping me in the loop on that,” she’d said, and Ebbers told her she was welcome and broke the connection.

  In the twenty hours since she’d taken the call, her guide had instructed Laramie to keep the Three Wise Men doing their work; also in the meantime, the shit had hit the fan.

  The Krups brewer in her room made its exasperated sounds announcing the end of its percolation and Laramie rose to refill her Flamingo Inn-issue Styrofoam cup. The television blared as she walked past it for the refill, and kept on blaring on her way back.

  Laramie had left the war room to brew a fresh cup of coffee, but now that she was here, she realized she hadn’t sat through a full coverage cycle from any of the news bureaus, and that she should probably take the chance to watch one now.

  She sat at the table and watched the news.

  The Fox News Channel had its usual BREAKING NEWS banner at the bottom of the screen, punctuated by the words TERROR ALERT: RED, both of which circulated with the freshly devised label for the crisis ruling the day: BIOTERROR BOMBS: AMERICA UNDER FIRE.

  Various updates rotated through their cycle beneath the banners at the base of the screen, most of the headlines related to a pair of suicide bombings that had taken place in the past six hours. The first had been set off around five P.M. in an Illinois suburb near Lake Michigan; the second, in Yakima, Washington, along the Columbia River, two hours later. News on such matters as the quarantine measures officials had enacted following the blasts were also being covered by the headline prose.

  The first pair of suicide blasts had come from sleepers they hadn’t known about.

  On-screen, Brit Hume was busy discussing with a terrorism expert Laramie didn’t recognize the likelihood that “additional bombings may be planned,” something the Homeland Security secretary had stated in a press conference thirty minutes following the Illinois blast. Concluding his grilling of this first expert, the news anchor turned in his chair and moved on to the next authority, an official from the Centers for Disease Control to whom he was connected live via satellite. As they dove into a discussion on the topic of the potential filovirus outbreaks-along with such statistics as the quantity of Tamiflu and other antivirals the CDC kept on hand, and various measures individual citizens could take to avoid infection-Laramie swallowed a few sips of the sour coffee.

  The quarantining efforts, she knew, would remain productive only if a sufficiently low number of filo bombs were set off. If more than a handful of the suicide sleepers were able to succeed in launching localized animal-and-human breakouts, the quarantine barriers would be breached and the casualties would mount horrifically.

  The conclusion she drew from all this was that she and her “counter-cell cell” had failed.

  Miserably.

  They’d failed to stop the sleepers. They’d failed to find the Illinois and Yakima bombers, and who knew how many others-regardless of the presence of other “cells.” Her team had managed to identify public enemy number one in Raul Márquez-or at least engage in educated speculation to that end-but they’d obviously made their determination, and launched their assassination operation, too late to stop the activation order from being issued.

  Plus, in gauging his identity as late as we did, we managed to send our “operative” on a fruitless mission-what good did it do to assassinate the opposing army’s leader if he’s already sent his troops into battle?

  Meaning that for all she knew, she had personally ordered Cooper to his death.

  Brit Hume continued his presentation of BIOTERROR BOMBS: AMERICA UNDER FIRE, confirming what Ebbers had told her about the news coverage on his call: there was not a single angle in the coverage that featured Márquez, Cuba, Guatemala, Castro, the source of the engineered filo used in the “bioterror bombs,” or any ramifications thereof.

  Laramie poured herself another cup of coffee, clicked off the television with the remote, and opened her door-fully intending to return to the room that was now completely overtaken by Wally Knowles’s computer system.

  55

  Cooper found the first-aid kit in his jumpsuit and located an Ace bandage.

  He tackled Márquez and pinned him to the mucky floor of the cavern-thinking, as he did it, of his episode with Jesus Madrid in the velociraptor’s Manchester United-inspired workout room. He held Márquez down so he couldn’t squirm away, wrapping the Ace bandage around the leader’s mouth, winding it tightly behind his head and securing it with a few strips of the adhesive tape that came along with the bandage in the kit. He used the tape to “cuff” Márquez’s hands behind his back.

  Then he pulled Márquez to his feet. He swung his assault rifle around to the front-figuring the MP5 would put on a better show than a handgun-and pocketed the Browning where he could quickly snatch it with his off hand.

  “After you, Señor Presidente.”

  He offered Márquez a hard kick in the ass to emphasize his point.

  “Take us back in the way you came out. And don’t worry,” he said, “you’ve made your point that you don’t give two shits about dying. Rest assured I’m skilled at causing great pain with my choice of where to plug you full of holes. One at a time.”

  He knew it was a mostly idle threat.

  Márquez led him around enough corners to get Cooper feeling dizzy. He worked at keeping the ideal distance between them, close enough to grab Márquez the minute a guard came into view, but far enough away to prevent the guy from elbowing him in the chin. He learned the best way of using his flashlight was to pin it between his left arm and rib cage, the way he had while copying the names from the marble slab. He kept the beam trained past Márquez so he could see-and use the beam to blind, if necessary-the first security man to make an appearance.

  A set of musty stairs appeared, and Cooper could see a bud of hesitation in Márquez’s step. The president hadn’t meant to reveal it and Cooper would take and use the error to his advantage. Another door, recently constructed like the one guarding the entrance to the crypt,
stood at the top of the stairs.

  Cooper poked Márquez in the shoulder with the end of his assault rifle.

  “Open the fucking door,” he said in a caustic whisper.

  He felt the temperature and humidity conditions shift the instant Márquez opened the door-this door led into the house.

  Cooper closed the gap as the door swung over its jamb, shoving himself quickly against Márquez and propelling them both into and through the doorway faster than his quarry expected. This kept Márquez from doing any yelling or screaming-

  And before the two guards, positioned on opposing sides of the wine cellar door, were even able to figure out what the hell the president was doing with an Ace bandage around his head, Cooper processed the scene-

  Guard to the left. Guard to the right-slightly behind the opening door. You’re in the wine cellar-walls full of racks. Door opposite him-closed. Nobody else in the room-

  The first bullet down the silenced barrel of his MP5 caught the edge of the first guard’s eyebrow and sent a chunk of his skull, and some of the brain behind it, into a row of Syrah. As he pivoted, Cooper delivered a savage kick with his combat boot into Márquez’s shin to keep him at bay. The second guard couldn’t decide between radioing in this disturbance and defending himself, walkie-talkie wrist rising from waist to mouth, gun arm reaching to take aim-neither act making sufficient headway before Cooper’s second bullet tore through the bridge of his nose and plastered an airborne mist of red, white, and gray across a pane of glass protecting a cooled section of Sauvignon Blanc.

  He repeated the cycle of gunshots, ensuring that neither man, as he fell, would find enough remaining consciousness to sound an alarm. Then he reached out and picked up Márquez by the collar and set him back on his feet. He jammed the hot barrel of the assault rifle into Márquez’s spine and listened.

  He wondered how much racket he’d made. He saw that the Maglite had fallen from beneath his underarm, that the armor-piercing shrapnel, or skull fragments, or whatever, had broken a few bottles of the Syrah. Plus, Márquez had crumpled from the kick to the shin and the guards had fallen like redwoods.

  He stood, waiting-listening for another pealing two-tone shrill, or the crackle of radio static, or the shuffle of hustling footsteps. There came no sound but the whirring of some climate-control device doing its thing in the cellar.

  I need a fucking fax machine.

  Time was running out-it wouldn’t be long before his usual half-ass sort of plan caved in on itself.

  “Let’s go, King,” he said, and shoved him toward the door that would take them into the house.

  The phone on Laramie’s bedside table jangled noisily.

  She came over to the table, fumbled the phone in her first attempt to answer, then finally managed to lift the receiver to her ear-at which point Julie Laramie encountered the second strange call to greet her in the same twelve-hour span.

  “Yeah-”

  The screeching blare of a fax tone assaulted her ear before stopping abruptly. A rattle-and-bang sound was followed by a harsh, almost unrecognizable whisper, spoken so closely into the microphone on the other end of the line it was difficult to tell it was a human being doing the talking.

  But Laramie could still tell who it was.

  “Goddammit, I didn’t even think-I need a fax machine, what the fuck is the fax number at your hotel?”

  The words from Cooper’s noisy whisper were bundled together like a ball of yarn. A rocket science degree was not necessary for Laramie to understand that she would need to hustle.

  “Um, Christ, fax, ah, room Fourteen,” she said, “dial the same number and hit fourteen instead of-”

  The line was already dead.

  Laramie ran from her room, down the sidewalk outside the row of rooms, and banged on her guide’s door. The numeral 14 was affixed in cheap plastic to its exterior.

  She barged in when he opened the door, heading for the fax machine she knew him to keep on his side of the two-room suite setup.

  “It ring yet?” she asked her guide, to no reply-but then the fax machine answered her question, bleating out a gurgling ring, then going silent.

  Then it rang again.

  “Christ,” she said, “how many rings do we have this set for-”

  The machine picked up and she could hear the screeching data-feed noise again, followed by silence, and then the machine’s status screen told her it was RECEIVING.

  “Our operative,” she said, “has surfaced,” and she and her guide stood over the machine as it began printing page one, announced it was receiving the second page, and repeated the cycle for a third time before declaring with a bleep that the data feed had been halted, at which point Laramie heard Cooper’s whisper on the machine’s speaker.

  “Goddamn this thing, how does it work-”

  She snatched the machine’s receiver from its cradle. She could see the long list of names on the fax printouts, all seemingly Central American native in their spelling, hastily scribbled on a smaller sheet of paper highlighted by darker shading outside its rim on the pages-

  “You’re alive,” Laramie said.

  “Not for long. I sent three pages, you get ’em all?”

  “Got ’em. Wait a minute, are you telling me-”

  “Those are your sleepers. All one hundred and seventeen of them.”

  “What? How could you-”

  “These are their original names, obviously. So you’ll need to track ’em backward-or whatever way you analyst types and the Three Stooges you have working for you track those sorts of things.”

  “My God,” Laramie said, looking at her guide, who offered her a shrug. She handed him the list and he went immediately over to the seat in front of his laptop and jumped on his telephone.

  Laramie thought through what this meant as quickly as she could. It would be a challenge working backward against the clock, with only the original names and no places of original residence, let alone photographs to work from-but Cooper had just put them ninety-nine names closer than where they’d been a minute ago-one-seventeen minus Achar, the fifteen captured sleepers identified by them and the “other cell,” and the Illinois and Yakima bombers. Local records with photographs would be the first, and hardest step, depending on whether Márquez had recruited from multiple Central and South American nations-

  “He sent the activation by television ad,” Cooper said, “and that’s all I’ve got, except for the fact that I’ve got our pal Raul here in a headlock. One question-just in case, against every probability imaginable, I make it out.”

  “A headlock-what? What is it?”

  “Yes or no answer. No maybes.”

  “Fine. What is it?”

  “You agree?”

  “Fine!”

  “Mr. Grand Poobah,” Cooper’s whisper said.

  “What?”

  “You let half of it slip-only once, but I need to know. For my own reasons, and don’t ask. Is Lou Ebbers your boss?”

  Despite the evident circumstances in motion on the other end of the line, Laramie hesitated. What in the hell is he going to do with-

  “No fucking maybes, Laramie. And have some goddamn faith.”

  One-Mississippi-

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  She flicked her eyes in the direction of her guide, who was busy at his workstation.

  Then she said, “I’m glad you’ve made it-so far, I mean.”

  “‘So far’ being the key phrase,” he said. “I wouldn’t be throwing me any parties anytime soon.”

  A few snaps of static came.

  “See you around,” he said.

  Then the fax machine announced with another bleep that the line had gone dead.

  56

  Cooper released the headlock, grasped both his guns, and rewrapped himself around Márquez like an Ace bandage in his own right. With his left arm, he got Márquez into a half nelson-elbow jammed against the man’s underarm, forearm mashed against his neck. Taking the Browning, he
held it backward and jammed the barrel against Márquez’s temple. His thumb served as the trigger finger: any slight, unexpected jostle, and Cooper knew his beefy thumb would engage the weapon-some-thing he hoped the security people would immediately grasp. He pressed the front of his body against Márquez’s back and wrapped his right arm snugly around the front of him, MP5 in hand. He’d need to walk sideways to his left-like a crab-but he’d be protected by his quarry in the front, and could pivot and shoot with the MP5 by turning them both in a circle.

  He crab-walked his hostage up a stairwell to a door-a door leading, Cooper was sure, to the main body of the house.

  “Open the door, King,” he said.

  When Márquez did, Cooper whacked his forehead against the softer backside of the president’s skull-a head-butt he hoped would stun the man but not drop him. He heard an umph from behind the Ace bandage and felt Márquez go slightly limp.

  Then he crab-dashed through the door.

  He immediately clocked three security men in the room as he and Márquez, joined at the hip, flew into the library.

  Then he went nuts.

  “¡Lo tengo! Tranquilizate, no haga nada! Lo mato, lo juro que lo mato! Back the fuck off!”

  He kept moving, picking out the archway at the other end of the room and heading there, Cooper and Márquez a four-hundred-pound exit-seeking bundle waddling its way outta town. As he crab-shuffled along, he tried to keep all three men in sight. Their weapons were drawn; two of them were soldiers, Cooper seeing AK-47s, while the other wore a suit and came armed with a pistol. The man in the suit started talking, trying to get his words in over Cooper’s screams-

  “¡Tranquilo, tranquilo!”

  Cooper hearing muffled grunts from behind the Ace bandage, knowing his precious few seconds of advantage were wasting away. Keep moving, you useless old hack-another twenty feet and you’ll be through that fucking archway…

  Cooper ready to guarantee he’d find windows, and maybe even a door, when he reached the room beyond the arch. He saw a fountain there, heard the clack of approaching shoes on tile.