a load of laundry, took a shower, checked his e-mail, and stretched out on the couch. He found the remote and turned on the TV. The channel was set to CNN.
“. . . what few initial eyewitness reports we’ve come across talk of dozens of people collapsing where they were standing or slumping over at the dining table. . . .”
Fisher sat bolt upright. He turned up the volume.
“The spokesperson for the governor’s office issued a statement stating that investigators were en route to the small town of Slipstone and that the governor himself would be holding a press conference later this morning. Meanwhile, speculation abounds as to what may be behind the sudden and mysterious deaths in the remote town of Slipstone, New Mexico.”
Fisher felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His cell phone started ringing.
HE was back at Situation Room forty minutes later. Lambert stood at the conference table watching an MSNBC report. Grimsdottir and Redding were seated at workstations on either side of him. In the background Fisher heard the static hiss of radio punctuated by a female voice:
“Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold . . . Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold . . . Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold. . . .”
Lambert looked over his shoulder at Fisher. “Two hundred emergency calls and counting. As far as we can decipher, there are hundreds dead. They’re laying in the streets, in homes, dead at their steering wheels. . . .”
“Good God,” Fisher murmured.
Grimsdottir called, “I’ve got it, Colonel.”
“Put it up.”
The main monitor resolved into a thermal satellite image of what Fisher assumed was Slipstone.
“Give me the overlay, Anna.”
Grimsdottir tapped the keyboard and the image changed to a maze of yellow and orange lines punctuated by circular blooms of red. To Fisher the colors looked eerily familiar. Already guessing the answer, he asked, “What are we seeing, Colonel?”
“Slipstone’s water system.”
“There’re only a few ways that many people can die that quickly: waterborne or airborne.”
His eyes still fixed on the monitor, Lambert nodded grimly. “How long, Anna?”
“Almost there, Colonel.” A few moments later: “Confirmed: it’s the same signature as the Trego .”
Fisher felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. He turned away from the screen and took a deep breath. The Trego had just been the opening salvo. This was the real event.
Someone had just poisoned an entire American town.
6
NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD, HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA
FISHER angled downward until his depth gauge read thirty feet, then leveled off and checked his OPSAT. He was on track, almost dead center in the middle of the Elizabeth River. A quarter mile to go. His rebreather unit hissed softly in his ears. As it always did, the sound reminded Fisher of a mellower version of Darth Vader.
Displayed across his facemask was a HUD, or Heads-Up Display. Like the display projected onto the windscreen of a modern jet fighter, the faint green overlay on his face mask told him virtually everything he needed to know about his environment, including a map of the river and the shipyard, his current position, the river’s depth and temperature, and distance and bearing to his next waypoint, which showed as a yellow arrow near the upper edge of his mask that changed position and length according to his position. Follow the yellow brick arrow .
Deciding best how to penetrate the shipyard’s Southgate Annex, one of the most secure yards on the Eastern Seaboard, had been the easiest part of his mission. Given the high level of base security, an approach by land was a nonstarter, which had left only one other option: water. This suited Fisher’s preference. His SEAL days had taught him to trust the water. Water was safety; water was camouflage; water was anonymity.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard is one of the busiest in the country, servicing on any given day as much as fifteen percent of
“. . . what few initial eyewitness reports we’ve come across talk of dozens of people collapsing where they were standing or slumping over at the dining table. . . .”
Fisher sat bolt upright. He turned up the volume.
“The spokesperson for the governor’s office issued a statement stating that investigators were en route to the small town of Slipstone and that the governor himself would be holding a press conference later this morning. Meanwhile, speculation abounds as to what may be behind the sudden and mysterious deaths in the remote town of Slipstone, New Mexico.”
Fisher felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His cell phone started ringing.
HE was back at Situation Room forty minutes later. Lambert stood at the conference table watching an MSNBC report. Grimsdottir and Redding were seated at workstations on either side of him. In the background Fisher heard the static hiss of radio punctuated by a female voice:
“Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold . . . Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold . . . Slipstone Nine-one-one, please hold. . . .”
Lambert looked over his shoulder at Fisher. “Two hundred emergency calls and counting. As far as we can decipher, there are hundreds dead. They’re laying in the streets, in homes, dead at their steering wheels. . . .”
“Good God,” Fisher murmured.
Grimsdottir called, “I’ve got it, Colonel.”
“Put it up.”
The main monitor resolved into a thermal satellite image of what Fisher assumed was Slipstone.
“Give me the overlay, Anna.”
Grimsdottir tapped the keyboard and the image changed to a maze of yellow and orange lines punctuated by circular blooms of red. To Fisher the colors looked eerily familiar. Already guessing the answer, he asked, “What are we seeing, Colonel?”
“Slipstone’s water system.”
“There’re only a few ways that many people can die that quickly: waterborne or airborne.”
His eyes still fixed on the monitor, Lambert nodded grimly. “How long, Anna?”
“Almost there, Colonel.” A few moments later: “Confirmed: it’s the same signature as the Trego .”
Fisher felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. He turned away from the screen and took a deep breath. The Trego had just been the opening salvo. This was the real event.
Someone had just poisoned an entire American town.
6
NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD, HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA
FISHER angled downward until his depth gauge read thirty feet, then leveled off and checked his OPSAT. He was on track, almost dead center in the middle of the Elizabeth River. A quarter mile to go. His rebreather unit hissed softly in his ears. As it always did, the sound reminded Fisher of a mellower version of Darth Vader.
Displayed across his facemask was a HUD, or Heads-Up Display. Like the display projected onto the windscreen of a modern jet fighter, the faint green overlay on his face mask told him virtually everything he needed to know about his environment, including a map of the river and the shipyard, his current position, the river’s depth and temperature, and distance and bearing to his next waypoint, which showed as a yellow arrow near the upper edge of his mask that changed position and length according to his position. Follow the yellow brick arrow .
Deciding best how to penetrate the shipyard’s Southgate Annex, one of the most secure yards on the Eastern Seaboard, had been the easiest part of his mission. Given the high level of base security, an approach by land was a nonstarter, which had left only one other option: water. This suited Fisher’s preference. His SEAL days had taught him to trust the water. Water was safety; water was camouflage; water was anonymity.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard is one of the busiest in the country, servicing on any given day as much as fifteen percent of
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