69. Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter sixty-nine
It took Sam two tries to unlock the door.
She swiped her laminated ID card quickly and got a red LED along with an angry buzz the first time.
Most of these card readers needed to be serviced or replaced.
Sam took a beat, passed the card over the reader slower the second time, and the door unlocked with a bright chirp, accompanied by a green light.
Director Nguy?n hovered over the shoulder of the computer tech as he unpacked another data dump. Nguy?n had one granite hand resting on the back of the tech’s chair, fingers rapping impatiently. Deep wrinkles of concentration marched across his forehead. Nguy?n looked up at the sound of the door.
“Gunn, just the person I’ve been looking for.”
“I was in the…” Sam waved a hand in the direction of the restroom but Nguy?n was barely listening.
He took her by the elbow and pulled her toward the corner with the coffee machine and a set of hanging cabinets that doubled as a kitchenette.
A pink pastry box, empty save for crumbs and wadded napkins, sat open on the counter.
Copious coffee rings covered the cheap Formica.
The corner didn’t provide much privacy, but the rest of the team, not so casually, edged toward the other end of the room, giving them space to talk.
“I hear your freelancer has a sample of the antivirus,” Nguy?n said. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”
“I only just found out myself,” Sam said.
“Still, you should have told me right away.” Nguy?n put his back to the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “This changes things.”
“I don’t see how. A sample of the cure won’t do us any good at this late stage. The virus is on the market. We have to stop it before someone decides to use it. Even if we had the vaccine in the CDC labs right now, it might take weeks, months even, to mass produce.”
Nguy?n was shaking his head. “We need that antibody. Call your contractor and tell him the mission has changed. Tell him to get the cure to a safe location and wait for the retrieval team.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible. He’s in the middle of a field operation. His phone will be silenced.” Sam crossed her arms and eyed the deputy director. “There’s a retrieval team?”
“There is now,” Nguy?n told her.
“That was fast,” Sam said. “I thought we weren’t able to mount another fast reaction team on such short notice. What happened?”
“That was before we found out one of our contractors might have the cure in his pocket,” Nguy?n said.
“Then the carrier group did have another fast reaction team?”
“Of course,” Nguy?n stated. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, glanced once around the room and lowered his voice. “The National Security Advisor wasn’t about to risk more lives, not after losing an entire team.”
“So he sent a lone contractor into the meat grinder?”
“A calculated risk.” Nguy?n hooked a finger under his tie and tugged at the knot. “That’s all changed. We need that cure.”
“Then I’d suggest you send the fast reaction team to Ban Jela?i? Square in Zagreb.”
Nguy?n shook his head. “The middle of a crowded pedestrian center in a major European city. The President will never go for that.”
“That may be our only choice.” Sam pulled out her phone and started to dial.
While she punched numbers, she prayed Noble’s phone was on silent.
Surely he’d silence his phone. He was an experienced operative.
He wouldn’t risk his phone going off in the middle of a snatch and grab.
Lord, please let his phone be turned off.
Sam pressed send, put the phone on speaker and a moment latter the pleasant little voice informed her that the number she was trying to reach was currently unavailable.
Nguy?n cursed.
“I know this contractor,” Sam told him. “That phone is not going to power back on until he’s got the virus in hand and escaped the area. You want the cure? Route the QRF to Ban Jela?i?.”
Nguy?n scrubbed his face with both hands. “This is going to be a PR nightmare.”
“If we don’t stop that virus getting out,” Sam said, “We’re going to have a whole other kind of nightmare on our hands.”