Mission Critical
To this Hanley said, “I’ll tell you where to start. He can check them all out, but I want him leaning on Lucas Renfro, hard.”
Brewer looked up to her boss. “This is beginning to sound personal.”
Hanley shook his head. “He’s an asshole. Never heard it said that assholes can’t also be traitors. In fact, I’d say there’s likely a positive correlation.”
Brewer stood and headed back to her office.
CHAPTER 10
TWO YEARS EARLIER
Won Jang-Mi sat at a computer monitor in a windowless room, but through the walls she could hear the whipping snowstorm. Winters in this part of Russia could be harsh, more brutal than anything she’d ever seen in her native North Korea.
Every day she walked from her apartment in the dreary town of Shikhany, boarded a special bus, and then sat quietly for the fifteen-minute ride to Shikhany-2, the Russian Defense Force military base where she worked. She’d been here for four months already; she appreciated the good facilities and her intelligent colleagues, but she didn’t really know why she was in the middle of a snow-covered forest studying viruses with Russians.
She wanted to be an operative, not some glorified foreign exchange student.
A knock at the door of her tiny room surprised her. She usually was left alone here and did most of her talking with her Russian colleagues in the lab or conference room.
“Enter,” she said in her rapidly improving Russian.
A man in his thirties whom Won had never seen came in. She stood and shook his hand, giving off a hint of discomfort while doing so.
“My name is Alexi Filotov,” he said.
“Dr. Won Jang-Mi.”
Behind him, the colonel who managed the entire facility leaned into the doorway.
“Doctor,” he said. “This man is with the government. He would like to speak with you about your work. I thought you could take a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” she said, confused about what exact part of the Russian government the stranger in the suit worked for, and just what he wanted to know.
The director reached in and took the door latch, then closed Won and the man in the tiny dark room, which only increased Won’s misgivings. She suffered from severe social anxiety, and even shaking hands was a difficult task that she’d had to master to leave her nation and head to foreign lands, all of which were full of men and women who always seemed to want to touch one another.
When they touched her or even moved close to her she found it sickening, but she weathered the close contact with this man and asked, “How can I help you?”
“I have been hearing good things about your research here. I am not a doctor, so you will have to keep things simple with me. But I would appreciate an explanation of what you are doing.”
“I have a specific specialty, Mr. Filotov. I am willing to talk about this, as my government has told me to collaborate in any way I can.”
“And what is your specialty, Jang-Mi?”
The woman bristled. “Jang-Mi is my given name. Won is my surname. I would prefer you simply call me ‘Doctor,’ Mr. Filotov.”
“With apologies, Doctor.” The two sat in the only two chairs in the room.
She said, “I am an expert on category A organisms. Do you know what those are?”
Filotov nodded. “Go on.”
Won detected a certain perfunctory nature to the man’s tone.
“Is this something that interests you personally, professionally, or perhaps you are a government functionary merely ordered here to find information?”
Filotov did not deny his motivations. “Very much the latter, Doctor. I have been assigned to meet with several biological warfare experts around the nation. No disrespect, but frankly it is boring work. My country has focused its energies on chemical weapons for more than thirty years. The state of our biological research, as you are probably well aware, is in shambles.”
Won would not admit it, but the facilities here were far superior to anything she’d ever seen in North Korea.
Filotov added, “But then I heard about you. I am hoping you will have some technology, some insight, some knowledge that goes beyond what I’ve been hearing from my own countrymen for the past several weeks. North Korea, from what I’ve been told, has been pursuing bioweapons aggressively.”
Won said, “We have. All different types and strains. My specialty, however, is weaponized plague.”
The Russian reached into his jacket. “May I smoke?”
“It’s your country.”
He lit a cigarette; he still didn’t seem terribly interested in this encounter, and Won was already looking forward to getting back to work, hoping he wouldn’t shake her hand again on the way out.
Filotov said, “I know next to nothing about plague, I’m afraid.”
Won began a short primer. “In the history of mankind, plague has been the second-largest killer of all epidemic diseases, behind only smallpox.
“The Black Death of the fourteenth century that killed between seventy-five and two hundred million people in four years was bubonic plague, which targets the lymph nodes. Pneumonic plague, in contrast, targets the lungs.
“The bacteria that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, is relatively easy to acquire around the world. It is something an expert can grow in a laboratory, and is easily disseminated by aerosol delivery or other means. Further, there is a very high lethality rate when using pneumonic plague as opposed to the more easily treated bubonic plague, and secondary spread—infected hosts infecting others before they die—is not only possible; it’s all but assured.”
Filotov took another drag on his cigarette. “It’s a weapon.”
“A magnificent weapon, when carefully produced, maintained, and distributed by an expert. As opposed to toxins, most biological weapons, plague included, consist of living organisms, and this means they can reproduce once dispersed.” Won was in her element now; her social anxiety and general insecurity were forgotten, because she was speaking about the only subject she had really focused on since her early twenties.
Filotov said, “What are the effects?”
“Would you like me to show you?”
He thought she was kidding. When her deadpan expression revealed she was not, he asked, “What do you mean?”
She motioned to her computer. “I am in possession of a video of a test we ran four years ago in my country. Would you like to see it?”
“A test on . . . on what?”
“On human beings.”