Dennis appeared. "Sir?"

"What do we know of the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida?"

"Never heard of it, sir."

"Good. I was afraid that I was suffering another senior moment. Right after we see what this is, find out who they are and why they sent me whatever this is."

"You want me to open it, Colonel?"

"I want you to cut the tape, thank you. I'll open it."

Dennis took a tactical folding knife from his pocket, fluidly flipped open the stainless-steel serrated blade, and expertly cut the plastic tape from the container.

Hamilton raised the lid.

Inside he found a second container. There was a large manila envelope taped to it, and addressed simply "Colonel Hamilton."

Hamilton picked up the envelope and took from it two eight-by-ten-inch color photographs of six barrel-like objects. They were of a heavy plastic, dark blue in color, and also looked somewhat like beer kegs. On the kegs was a copy of The Miami Herald The Miami Herald. The date could not be read in the first shot, but in the second photograph, a close-up, it was clearly visible: February 3, 2007.

"My G.o.d!" Colonel Hamilton said softly.

"Jesus Christ, Colonel," Sergeant Dennis said, pointing. "Did you see that?"

Hamilton looked.

The envelope had covered a simple sign, and now it was visible: DANGER!!! BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4!!!

Of the four levels of biological hazards, one through four, the latter posed the greatest threat to human life from viruses and bacteria and had no vaccines or other treatments available.

Hamilton closed the lid on the container.

"Go to the closet and get two Level A hazmat suits."

"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" Dennis asked.

"After we're in our suits," Hamilton said calmly.

Two minutes later, they had helped each other into the Level A hazmat suits. These offered the highest degree of protection against both direct and airborne chemical contact by providing the wearer with total encapsulation, including a self-contained breathing apparatus.

The suits donned by Colonel Hamilton and Master Sergeant Dennis also contained communications equipment that connected them "hands off" with each other, as well as to the post telephone system and to Hamilton's cellular telephone.

"Call the duty officer and tell him that I am declaring a potential Level Four Disaster," Hamilton said. "Have them prepare Level Four BioLab Two for immediate use. Have them send a Level Four truck here to move this container, personnel to wear Level A hazmat gear."

A Level Four BioLab-there were three at Fort Detrick-was, in a manner of speaking, a larger version of the Level A hazmat protective suit. It was completely self-contained, protected by multiple airlocks. It had a system of highpressure showers to decontaminate personnel entering or leaving, a vacuum room, and an ultraviolet-light room. All air and water entering or leaving was decontaminated.

And of course "within the bubble" there was a laboratory designed to do everything and anything anyone could think of to any kind of a biologically hazardous material.

Colonel Hamilton then pressed a key that caused his cellular telephone to speed-dial a number.

The number was answered on the second ring, and Hamilton formally announced, "This is Colonel J. Porter Hamilton."

"Encryption Level One active," a metallic voice said three seconds later.

Hamilton then went on: "There was delivered to my laboratory about five minutes ago a container containing material described as BioHazard Level Four. There was also a photograph of some six plastic containers identical to those I brought out of the Congo. On them was lying a photo of yesterday's Miami newspaper. All of which leads me to strongly suspect that the attack on the laboratory-slash-factory did not-repeat not not-destroy everything.

"I am having this container moved to a laboratory where I will be able to compare whatever is in the container with what I brought out of the Congo. This process will take me at least several hours.

"In the meantime, I suggest we proceed on the a.s.sumption that there are six containers of the most dangerous Congo material in the hands of only G.o.d knows whom.

"When I have completed my tests, I will inform the director of the CIA of my findings."

He broke the connection and then walked to the door and unlocked it for the hazmat transport people. He could hear the siren of the Level Four van coming toward Building 103.

[ONE].

Laboratory Four The AFC Corporation-McCarran Facility Las Vegas, Nevada 0835 4 February 2007

Laboratory Four was not visible to anyone looking across McCarran International Airport toward what had become the center of AFC's worldwide production and research-and-development activity.

This was because Laboratory Four was deep underground, beneath Hangar III, one of a row of enormous hangars each bearing the AFC logotype. It was also below Laboratories One, Two, and Three, which were closer to ground level as their numbers suggested, One being immediately beneath the hangar.

When Aloysius Francis Casey, AFC's chairman, had been a student at MIT, he had become friendly with a Korean-American student of architecture, who was something of an outcast because of his odd notion that with some exceptions-aircraft hangars being one-all industrial buildings, which would include laboratories, should be underground.

This had gotten J. Charles Who in as much trouble with the architectural faculty as had Casey's odd notions of data transmission and encryption had done the opposite of endearing him to the electrical engineering and mathematics faculties.

Years later, when Casey decided that he had had quite enough, thank you, of the politicians and weather of his native Ma.s.sachusetts to last a lifetime, and wanted to move at least the laboratories and some of the manufacturing facilities elsewhere, he got in touch with his old school chum and sought his expertise.

Site selection was Problem One. Las Vegas had quickly risen to the head of the list of possibilities for a number of reasons including location, tax concessions to be granted by the state and local governments for bringing a laboratory/ production facility with several thousand extremely well-paid and well-educated workers to Sin City, and the attractions of Sin City itself.

At Who's suggestion, just about everything would go to Vegas.

Charley Who, Ph.D. (MIT), AIA, had pointed out to Aloysius Casey, Ph.D. (MIT), that all work and no play would tend to make his extremely well-paid workers dull. It was hard to become bored in Las Vegas, whether one's interests lay in the cultural or the carnal, or a combination of both.

Construction had begun immediately and in earnest, starting with the laboratories that would be under Hangar III. They were something like the BioLabs at Fort Detrick in that they were as "pure" as they could be made. The air and water was filtered as it entered and was discharged. The humidity and temperature in the labs was whatever the particular labs required, and being below ground cut the cost of doing this to a tiny fraction of what it would have cost in a surface building. They were essentially soundproof. And, finally, the deeper underground that they were, the less they were affected by vibration, say a heavy truck driving by or the landing of a heavy airplane. Almost all of Aloysius's gadgets in development were very tiny and quite delicate. Much of the work on them was done using microscopes or their electronic equivalent. Vibration was the enemy.

What Casey was working on now in Laboratory Four, his personal lab-"My latest gadget," as he put it-was yet another improvement on a system he had developed for the gambling cops, or as they liked to portray themselves, "The security element of the gaming industry."

Many people try to cheat the casinos. Most are incredibly stupid. But a small number are the exact opposite: incredibly smart, imaginative, and resourceful. Both stupid and near-genius would-be thieves alike have to deal with the same problem: One has to be physically in a casino if one is to steal anything.

Surveillance cameras scan every inch of a casino floor, often from several angles, and the angles can be changed. The people watching these monitors know what to look for. If some dummy is seen stealing quarters from Grandma's bucket on a slot machine row, or some near-genius is engaged with three or more equally intelligent co-conspirators in a complex scheme to cheat the casino at a twenty-one table, they are seen. Security officers are sent to the slot machine or the twenty-one table. The would-be thieves and cheats are taken to an area where they are photographed, fingerprinted, counseled regarding the punishments involved for cheating a casino, and then shown the door.

The problem then becomes that stupid and near-genius alike tend to believe that if at first you don't succeed, one should try, try again. They come back, now disguised with a phony mustache or a wig and a change of clothing.

Specially trained security officers, who regularly review the photographs of caught crooks, stand at casino doors and roam the floors looking for familiar, if unwelcome, faces.

When Casey had first moved to Las Vegas, he had been very discreetly approached-the day he was welcomed into the Las Vegas Chamber of Gaming, Hospitality and Other Commerce-by a man who then owned three-and now owned five-of the more glitzy hotel/casinos in Sin City.

The man approached Casey at the urinal in the men's room of the Via Veneto Restaurant in Caligula's Palace Resort and Casino and said he wanted to thank him for what he was doing for the "boys in the stockade in Bragg."

"I don't know who or what the h.e.l.l you're talking about," Casey had replied immediately.

But Casey of course knew full well who the boys in the stockade in Fort Bragg were-Delta Force; their base had once been the post stockade-and what he was doing for them-providing them with whatever they asked for, absolutely free of charge, or didn't ask for but got anyway because Casey thought it might be useful.

"Sure you do," the man had said. "The commo gear. It was very useful last week in Tunisia."

"How the h.e.l.l did you find out about that?" Casey had blurted.

"We have sources all over."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Like you, people who happen to be in positions where we can help the good guys, and try quietly-very quietly-to do so. I'd like to talk to you about our group some time."

"These people have names?"

They were furnished.

"Give me a day or two to check these people out," Casey said, "then come to see me."

The first person Casey had tried to call was then-Major General Bruce J. McNab, who at the time commanded the Special Forces Center at Fort Bragg. He got instead then-Major Charley Castillo on the phone. Castillo did odd jobs for McNab-both had told Casey that-and he'd become one of Casey's favorite people since they'd first met.

And when Casey had asked, Castillo had flatly-almost indignantly-denied telling anyone about the Tunisian radios mentioned in the casino p.i.s.ser and of ever even hearing of the man who claimed to own the glitzy Las Vegas hotels.

General McNab, however, when he came on the line, was so obfuscatory about both questions-even aware that the line was encrypted-that Casey promptly decided (a) McNab knew the guy who owned the three glitzy casinos; (b) had told the guy where the radios used in Tunisia had come from; (c) had more than likely suggested he could probably wheedle some out of Casey, which meant he knew and approved of what the guy was up to; and, thus, (d) didn't want Castillo to know about (a) through (c).

That had been surprising. For years, from the time during the First Desert War, when then-Second Lieutenant Castillo had gone to work for then-Colonel McNab, Casey had thought-In fact I was told-that Castillo was always privy to all of McNab's secrets.

Casey prided himself on his few friends, and on having no secrets from them. He had quickly solved the problem here by concluding that having no secrets did not mean you had to tell your friends everything you knew, but rather, if asked, to be wholly forthcoming.

If Castillo asked about these people in Las Vegas, he would tell him. If he didn't ask, he would not.

And, as quickly, he had decided if these people were okay in General McNab's book, they were okay-period.

Unless of course something happened that changed that.

Casey had called the man who owned the three glitzy hotels-and was in business discussions leading to the construction of the largest hotel in the world (7,550 rooms)-and told him he was in.

"What do these people need?" Casey asked.

He was told: secure telephones to connect them all.

While AFC had such devices sitting in his warehouse, these were not what he delivered to the people in Las Vegas. The secure telephones they used thereafter had encryption circuitry that could not be decrypted by even the legendary National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. Casey knew this because the NSA's equipment had come from AFC Corporation.

And after that, and after writing several very substantial checks to pay his share of what it had cost those people to do something that had to be done-but for one reason or another couldn't be done by the various intelligence agencies-Casey realized that he had become one of the group.

No one said anything to him. He didn't get a membership card.

He just knew.

He became friendly with the man who owned the glitzy hotels, and not only because one of his hotels had a restaurant to which lobsters and clams were flown in daily from Maine. The man who owned the hotels was from New Jersey. Politicians and high taxes, not the cuisine, had driven him from the Garden State. They took to taking together what they thought of as One of G.o.d's Better Meals-a dozen steamed clams and a pair of three-pound lobsters washed down with a couple of pitchers of beer-once or twice a week.

One day, en route to the restaurant, Casey had witnessed one of the gambling cops intently studying the face of the man who happened to be walking ahead of Casey.

"What's that all about?" Casey had asked his new friend the casino owner between their first pitcher of beer and the clams, and their lobsters and the second pitcher.

The problem of controlling undesirable incoming gamblers was explained.

"There has to be a better way to do that than having your gambling cops in everybody's face," Casey said. "Let me think about it."

The AFC prototype was delivered in three weeks, and operational a week after that. All the photographs of miscreants in the files were digitalized. Additional digital cameras were discreetly installed at the entrances in such positions that the only way to avoid having one's face captured by the system would be to arrive by parachute on the roof.

The computer software quickly and constantly attempted to cross-match images of casino patrons with the database of miscreants on the security servers. When a "hit" was made, the gambling cops could immediately take corrective action to protect the casino.

The owner was delighted, and ordered installation of the system in all his properties as quickly as this could be accomplished.

But Casey was just getting started. The first major improvement was to provide the gambling cops with a small communications device that looked like a telephone. When a "hit" was made, every security officer in the establishment was immediately furnished with both the digital image of Mr. Unwelcome-or Grandma Unwelcome; there were a surprising number of the latter-and the last known location of said miscreant.

It hadn't been hard for Casey to improve on that. Soon the miscreant's name, aliases, and other personal data, including why he or she was unwelcome, was flashed to the gambling cops as soon as there was a hit.

The next large-and expensive-step had required the replacement of the system computers with ones of much greater capacity and speed. The owner complained not a word when he got the bill. He thought of himself, after all, as a leader in the hospitality and gaming industry, and there was a price that had to be paid for that.

The system now made a hit when a good good customer returned to the premises, presumably bringing more funds to pa.s.s into the casino's coffers through the croupier's slots. He was greeted as quickly and as warmly as possible, and depending on how bad his luck had been the last time, provided with complimentary accommodations, victuals, and spirits. Often, the gambling cops a.s.signed to keep them happy were attractive members of the opposite gender. customer returned to the premises, presumably bringing more funds to pa.s.s into the casino's coffers through the croupier's slots. He was greeted as quickly and as warmly as possible, and depending on how bad his luck had been the last time, provided with complimentary accommodations, victuals, and spirits. Often, the gambling cops a.s.signed to keep them happy were attractive members of the opposite gender.

Good Grandmother customers, interestingly enough, seemed to appreciate this courtesy more than most of the men.

The new system soon covered all of the hotels owned by the proprietor. And the database grew as guests' pertinent details-bank balances, credit reports, domestic problems, known a.s.sociates, carnal preferences, that sort of thing-were added.

For a while, as he had been working on the system, Casey had thought it would have a sure market in other areas where management wanted to keep a close eye on people within its walls. Prisons, for example.

AFC's legal counsel had quickly disabused him of this pleasant notion. The ACLU would go ballistic, his lawyers warned, at what they would perceive as an outrageous violation of a felon's right to privacy while incarcerated. He would be the accused in a cla.s.s action lawsuit that would probably cost him millions.

What Casey was doing when his cellular buzzed in the lab deep beneath Hangar III was conducting a sort of graduation ceremony for a pair of students who had just completed How This Works 101. He had just presented the graduates with what looked like fairly ordinary BlackBerrys or similar so-called smart-phones.

Actually, by comparison, the capabilities of the CaseyBerry devices that Casey had given the two students made the BlackBerry look as state-of-the-art as the wood fire from which an Apache brave informs his squaw that he'll be a little late for supper by allowing puffs of smoke to rise.

The students were First Lieutenant Edmund "Peg-Leg" Lorimer, MI, USA (Retired), and former Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC.