The power to break the law with impunity was intoxicating. Jenkins reveled in it.

Even now, select committees of the US Congress were being briefed and martial law would soon be declared, assuming they agreed. Even if they didn’t, that damn infected cruise ship was now under the guns of the Atlantic Fleet, and would stay quarantined offshore for as long as necessary. He wished he had been able to persuade the President to sink it immediately, but like all politicians, the man had wanted to keep his options open, and a massacre was always bad for poll numbers.

It was a stroke of luck, the anonymous tip that turned the Markis group in, that pinpointed this bunker.

When he’d been briefed on the facility later, by an ancient civil engineer they had dug up – who had worked on it shortly before it was sealed up in the fifties – he’d been appalled at how the Pentagon had lost track of it. He wondered how many other installations like this were scattered around. It could have been a nightmare.

“I wish we’d been able to bring Markis to see us capture his people and their hidey-hole,” he mused as he pushed buttons, checking feeds from the various personal cams attached to the helmets of selected operators. “Better to have him locked in the secure facility, though.”

His driver and the communications techs, contractors rather than regular military, chuckled approvingly at their boss’s comment. As well as they’re being paid, they’d better approve, he thought.

A buzz, then terse voices reported their positions and readiness. Most of the teams were just to cover the exits, to keep the rats from escaping. They had orders to shoot first, then capture wounded if it was absolutely safe.

These men were among the best elite hostage rescue and direct action specialists in the world. They had been briefed about the plot to spread a genetically engineered virus that would make Ebola look like the sniffles, and every one of them was cocked and locked, burning with eagerness to take down the enemies of their country, their families, and their way of life.

Jenkins loved this kind of control, and laughed inside. Fine upstanding stupid square-jawed suckers, so easily fooled by real leaders like me, using their own pure innocent patriotism against them. He looked at his watch, checked with his comm tech one more time, then said, “All right. Execute.”

In two different locations simultaneously, precisely calculated shaped charges blew hatches open, leaving smoking holes but not collapsing the tunnels behind. Then tactical stacks of operators, heavily armored for this short-range op, piled into the tunnels in lockstep, rushing down the corridors toward their selected targets.

Alpha Team got to the big cavern first, and designated men spread out to find vehicles that could be started. Within fifteen seconds, six men roared out the vehicle tunnel toward the inside of the bunker’s main entrance, to open it to more forces outside.

The rest fanned out, quartering, searching and clearing each room, finding no one until they met Bravo team coming from the other direction, in what looked like a cafeteria. It was obvious the terrorists had prepared food here in the kitchen and eaten in the dining room. One of the soldiers reached down to pick up a crayon drawing of a truck in a tunnel under a mountain, a yellow sun shining incongruously above, its rays like petals of a flower.

“Patricks, if it ain’t intel, put it down. We got the whole place to clear.”

“But sir…” He held it up. “They didn’t say there were kids here.”

“Shit.” The lieutenant changed frequencies to the general net, and transmitted, “Common push, this is Delta Alpha One, we have evidence of children here, over.”

A series of double-clicks and pops came in acknowledgment, but nothing else. Chatter was discouraged, communications discipline strict. Alpha Team spread out, with one more thing to think about. Nobody wanted to kill kids.

***

Daniel’s next awakening was brief. He heard the door open, saw the barrel of some kind of gun pointed his way, heard a hiss and felt the sting of a dart. It was a blessed relief from the twisting in his belly and the pain that ran through his starving body.

He came around in a different environment completely, an IV in his arm and a feeling of well-being coursing through his veins. He lifted his left hand. It looked thin, but not skeletal anymore. They must have fed me through the IV, or maybe stuck a feeding tube down my throat while I was sedated.

This place looked more like a hospital room, though he noticed locked restraints on his legs. He also felt heavy, tired and a bit euphoric. Probably valium or some other kind of drug to keep him under control. It didn’t matter. It was out of his hands now. He had to just hope and pray that others could execute his plan. It was hard to be optimistic right now. He wondered how Elise and the rest were doing.

***

Thirty-five minutes later, the major in charge of the Delta squadron reported the bunker was clear. “No one at all secured, though, sir,” he said to Jenkins, who slammed his console in frustration.

“Drive us in there, now. I want to see this place. And tell the intel people to get in there immediately and start figuring out where they went!”

The command truck lurched into motion, joining the convoy of military and government vehicles rolling into the complex. The cavern soon filled up with two dozen Humvees, trucks, vans, and Suburbans, parked haphazardly among the old five-ton trucks and ancient jeeps. Men in combat fatigues mingled with groups in biohazard suits. There were reports of a laboratory, and they were taking no chances.

As the last of the vehicles passed through the inner tunnel archway, they felt a shock go through the mountainside. A rolling wave of dust flowed out of the big tube, chasing the trucks, and the people inside moved en masse toward the personnel doors away from the cloud.

“Don’t worry, the virus won’t let them kill us,” Jenkins said with a confidence he didn’t really feel.

“Not on purpose,” muttered one of the techs.

The executive stepped onto the back bumper of the command vehicle, looking around at the confusion. It quickly sorted itself out without his intervention. These people were professionals, and as soon as it was clear that the roof wasn’t coming down, they kept on with their business.

Two minutes later, smoking a cigarette inside the nearest bunker office, Jenkins heard a series of smaller blasts. Immediately, the overhead sprinkler system burst forth with a fine rain of water.

“Oh, come on.” He looked at his soaked cigarette, then threw it down. “Somebody get that turned off! We can’t work in this!” He ran back to the command vehicle, taking off his suit coat and grabbing some paper towels, drying off. “At least it will settle the dust.”

He ran the sopping towels over his face, and then froze, staring at the soggy mess in his hand like it was a snake getting ready to bite. “No…” he whispered, as he smelled the slightly sweet cloying odor that he recognized from the laboratory of INS, Inc. The odor of the virus breeder gel, generated by the decomposing unicellular organisms the Eden Plague used to reproduce.

Jenkins slumped in the contoured seat. It was too late. There was no way he could get out – no way he could avoid the infection. There was only one thing he could do, and he had to do it right now, while his mind was still his own.

Before his resolve failed.

“Major, I need to see you in the command vehicle.”

The Delta commander trotted up, wiping liquid off his face. “Sorry, sir. I was looking at this.” He held up a box full of papers.

“Come in, Major. Shut the door. You guys, take a break. Go to the john or something.” The other three men left, giving them privacy. “What is that?”