Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(55)
Even more unusual was how easily it spread. Under normal conditions, the pathogen could survive on surfaces for as much as seventy-two hours. And, according to Bertrand’s extensive calculations, even relatively trivial contact with the virus produced an infection rate of over fifty percent.
It was incredible how clumsy and ineffective the armies of the West now seemed. In comparison to the weapons created by God, they were nothing. Even the nuclear arsenals that so terrified the world were pitiful by comparison. Used against a major population center, they could achieve little more than a sudden blast, a few hundred thousand casualties, and a lingering radiation zone that could be easily contained or avoided.
The careful and purposeful release of YARS would spread through the highly mobile and densely populated West like a wildfire. Casualties would be tens—perhaps hundreds—of millions. The highly integrated and interdependent modern world would collapse as the specialized people who kept it running fell ill.
The medical system would be the first to be overwhelmed as workers abandoned it out of fear of being infected. Then law enforcement, who were critical to holding back the violence and avarice simmering just beneath the veneer of Western civilization.
Power grids would falter, as would the elaborate transportation systems that brought food and other critical products. Militaries would be called back from their imperialist missions in the Middle East and Asia to try to control the upheaval, but their close living conditions and contact with the public would make them even more susceptible than the general population.
Even after the contagion had run its course, the long-term effects would be immeasurable. The West’s entire economic system, based on the slow growth of populations, would collapse. Homes, businesses, and entire cities would be abandoned. Open democracies, utterly incapable of returning their countries to order, would be replaced by insular dictatorships.
Of course, the death toll in the Middle East would be significant as well, but the effects would be less far-reaching. Larger cities like Cairo and Riyadh would be wiped out, but they had become godless cesspools and deserved their fate. Disconnected rural areas would take fewer casualties and were far less reliant on the complex web of technologies that kept the modern world functioning. Once free of the oppressors and colonists, the Muslim people would unite in the service of Allah. They would wage jihad on a mortally wounded West and extend the new caliphate across the globe.
The law of God, and not that of man, would once again reign supreme.
CHAPTER 27
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
USA
THE GPS on Rapp’s phone called out the next turn and he veered left onto a dirt track that wound through Joshua trees and flowering ocotillo. There was still about an hour of sunlight, which would be just about what he needed.
It was a little more than a mile to a stucco building whose ochre color and organic shape allowed it to blend into the desert landscape. Probably a little bigger than he needed and in terrain that was a little more open than he would have liked, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
He stepped out of the SUV and glanced at the sky, struck by the irony that it was his turn to worry about overhead drones. Nothing. The cartel’s model plane had followed him from the DEA outpost to the pavement but had been behind when he’d accelerated to highway speeds.
Rapp retrieved a remote from a lockbox near the front door and used it to access the garage. Mixed in among the beach chairs, mountain bikes, and coolers were a number of brand-new shovels and picks, as well as a locker filled with enough military-grade weaponry to take over a small African nation.
He pulled the SUV in and entered the house to see if Claudia’s thoroughness extended to the fridge. As expected, it did. One of the benefits of having a French logistics coordinator was that you always got the good stuff. High-end cheese, homemade pasta sauces, fresh bread . . .
And alcohol-free beer.
He swore under his breath and explored the house while dialing his phone.
“Are you there?” Claudia said, by way of greeting.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
“Could be worse. The walls are thick and the windows are either glass block or barred. Power’s off-grid and batteries are topped off. Kind of a complicated interior layout, which would work for me if I was planning on staying inside, but I’m not. It’d be too easy to get trapped in here and a few Molotov cocktails would be enough to set the place on fire.”
“It was the best I could do at the last minute. You said you wanted remote and it doesn’t get much more remote than that.”
“Since I can’t stay in here, where do I go?”
“Scott’s men have you set up on the perimeter. There are diagrams on the tablet on the counter. The usual password.”
“What about the DEA guys?”
“I called in an anonymous tip to the police. They’re on-site now and have called ambulances for three injured men. So at least we know they’re all alive.”
He’d been careful with the placement of his shots and had chosen frangible ammunition that would hit like a ton of bricks but not penetrate their vests. Of course, the science of shooting people in the torso and not killing them was a fairly inexact one. In fact, he might have just invented it.
Rapp grabbed one of the nonalcoholic beers and sat down at the kitchen table. “Any luck setting up a drug deal?”