Robert Ludlum's the Lazarus Vendetta Read online

  Unfortunately, it was the potential dark side of nanotechnology that fed the terrified imaginations of the activists and Lazarus Movement zealots gathering outside the chain-link fence. They were horrified by the idea of machines so small they could freely penetrate human cells and so powerful that they could reshape atomic structures. Radical civil libertarians warned about the dangers of “spy molecules” hovering unseen in every public and private space. Crazed conspiracy theorists filled Internet chat rooms with rumors of secret miniaturized killing machines. Others were afraid that runaway nanomachines would endlessly replicate themselves, dancing across the world like an endless parade of Sorceror’s Apprentice enchanted brooms—finally devouring the Earth and everything on it.

  Jon Smith shrugged his shoulders. You could not match wild hyperbole with anything but tangible results. Once most people got a good close look at the honest-to-God benefits of nanotechnology, their irrational fears should begin to subside. Or so he hoped. He spun sharply on his heel and strode toward the Institute’s main entrance, eager to see what new wonders the men and women inside had cooked up overnight.

  Two hundred meters outside the chain-link fence, Malachi MacNamara sat cross-legged on a colorful Indian blanket laid out in the shade of a juniper tree. His pale blue eyes were open, but he sat calmly, without moving. The Lazarus Movement followers camped close by were convinced that the lean, weather-beaten Canadian was meditating—restoring his mental and physical energies for the crucial struggle ahead. The retired Forest Service biologist from British Columbia had already won their admiration by forcefully demanding “immediate action” to achieve the Movement’s goals.

  “The Earth is dying,” he told them grimly. “She is drowning, crushed beneath a deluge of toxic pesticides and pollution. Science will not save her. Technology will not save her. They are her enemies, the true source of horror and contagion. And we must act against them. Now. Not later. Now! While there is still time …”

  MacNamara hid a small smile, remembering the sight of the glowing faces fired by his rhetoric. He had more talent as an orator or an evangelist than he ever would have imagined.

  He observed the activity around him. He had carefully chosen this vantage point. It overlooked the large green canvas tent set up as a command center by the Lazarus Movement. A dozen of its top national and international activists were busy inside that tent—manning computers linked to its worldwide Web sites, registering new arrivals, making banners and signs, and coordinating plans for the upcoming rally. Other groups in the TechStock coalition, the Sierra Club, Earth First!, and the like, had their own headquarters scattered throughout the sprawling camp, but MacNamara knew he was in precisely the right place at precisely the right time.

  The Movement was the real force behind this protest. The other environmental and anti-technology organizations were only along for the ride, trying desperately to stem a steady decline in their numbers and influence. More and more of their most committed members were abandoning them to join Lazarus, drawn by the clarity of the Movement’s vision and by its courage in confronting the world’s most powerful corporations and governments. Even the recent slaughter of its followers in Zimbabwe was acting as a rallying cry for Lazarus. Pictures of the massacre at Kusasa were being offered as proof of just how much the “global corporate rulers” and their puppet governments feared the Movement and its message.

  The craggy-faced Canadian sat up just a bit straighter.

  Several tough-looking young men were heading toward the drab green tent, making their way purposefully through the milling crowds. Each carried a long duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Each moved with the wary grace of a predator.

  One by one, they arrived at the tent and ducked inside.

  “Well, well, well,” Malachi MacNamara murmured to himself. His pale eyes gleamed. “How very interesting.”

  Chapter

  Two

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  The elegant eighteenth-century clock along one curved wall of the Oval Office softly chimed twelve o’clock noon. Outside, ice-cold rain fell in sheets from a dark gray sky, spattering against the tall windows overlooking the South Lawn. Whatever the calendar said, the first portents of winter were closing in on the nation’s capital.

  Overhead lights glinted off President Samuel Adams Castilla’s titanium-frame reading glasses as he paged through the top-secret Joint Intelligence Threat Assessment he had just been handed. His face darkened. He looked across the big ranch-style pine table that served him as a desk. His voice was dangerously calm. “Let me make sure I understand you gentlemen correctly. Are you seriously proposing that I cancel my speech at the Teller Institute? Just three days before I’m scheduled to deliver it?”

  “That is correct, Mr. President. To put it bluntly, the risks involved in your Santa Fe trip are unacceptably high,” David Hanson, the newly confirmed Director of Central Intelligence, said coolly. He was echoed a moment later by Robert Zeller, the acting director of the FBI.

  Castilla eyed both men briefly, but he kept his attention focused on Hanson. The head of the CIA was the tougher and more formidable of the pair—despite the fact that he looked more like a bantam-weight mild-mannered college professor from the 1950s, complete with the obligatory bow tie, than he did a fire-breathing advocate of clandestine action and special operations.

  Although his counterpart, the FBI’s Bob Zeller, was a decent man, he was way out of his depth in Washington’s sea of swirling political intrigue. Tall and broad-shouldered, Zeller looked good on television, but he should never have been moved up from his post as the senior U.S. attorney in Atlanta. Not even on a temporary basis while the White House staff looked for a permanent replacement. At least the ex-Navy linebacker and longtime federal prosecutor knew his own weaknesses. He mostly kept his mouth shut in meetings and usually wound up backing whoever he thought carried the most clout.

  Hanson was a completely different case. If anything, the Agency veteran was too adept at playing power politics. During his long tenure as chief of the CIA’s Operations Directorate, he had built a firm base of support among the members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. A great many influential congressmen and senators believed that David Hanson walked on water. That gave him a lot of maneuvering room, even room to buck the president who had just promoted him to run the whole CIA.

  Castilla tapped the Threat Assessment with one blunt forefinger. “I see a whole lot of speculation in this document. What I do not see are hard facts.” He read one sentence aloud. “ ‘Communications intercepts of a nonspecific but significant nature indicate that radical elements among the demonstrators at Santa Fe may be planning violent action—either against the Teller Institute or against the president himself.’ ”

  He took off his reading glasses and looked up. “Care to put that in plain English, David?”

  “We’re picking up increased chatter, both over the Internet and in monitored phone conversations. A number of troubling phrases crop up again and again, all in reference to the planned rally. There’s constant talk about ‘the big event’ or ‘the action at Teller,’ ” the CIA chief said. “My people have heard it overseas. So has the NSA. And the FBI is picking up the same undercurrents here at home. Correct, Bob?”

  Zeller nodded gravely.

  “That’s what has your analysts in such a lather?” Castilla shook his head, plainly unimpressed. “People e-mailing each other about a political protest?” He snorted. “Good God, any rally that might draw thirty or forty thousand people all the way out to Santa Fe is a pretty damned big event! New Mexico is my home turf and I doubt half that many ever showed up for any speech I ever made.”

  “When members of the Sierra Club or the Wilderness Federation talk that way, I don’t worry,” Hanson told him softly. “But even the simplest words can have very different meanings when they are used by certain dangerous groups and individuals. Deadly meanings.”

  “You’re talking about these so
-called ‘radical elements’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And just who are these dangerous folks?”

  “Most are allied in one way or another with the Lazarus Movement, Mr. President,” Hanson said carefully.

  Castilla frowned. “This is an old, old song of yours, David.”

  The other man shrugged. “I’m aware of that, sir. But the truth doesn’t become any less true just because it’s unpalatable. When viewed as a whole, our recent intelligence on the Lazarus Movement is extremely alarming. The Movement is metastasizing and what was once a relatively peaceful political and environmental alliance is rapidly altering itself into something far more secretive, dangerous, and deadly.” He looked across the table at the president. “I know you’ve seen the relevant surveillance and communications intercept reports. And our analysis of them.”

  Castilla nodded slowly. The FBI, CIA, and other federal intelligence agencies kept tabs on a host of groups and individuals. With the rise of global terrorism and the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons technology, no one in Washington wanted to take any more chances on being blindsided by a previously unrecognized enemy.

  “Then let me speak bluntly, sir,” Hanson went on. “Our judgment is that the Lazarus Movement has now decided to attain its objectives through violence and terrorism. Its rhetoric is increasingly vicious, paranoid, and full of hatred aimed at those whom it considers enemies.” The CIA chief slid another piece of paper across the pine table. “This is just one example.”

  Castilla put his glasses back on and read it in silence. His mouth curved down in disgust. The sheet was a glossy printout of a page from a Movement Web site, complete with grotesque thumbnail photos of mangled and mutilated corpses. The banner headline across the top screamed: INNOCENTS BUTCHERED AT KUSASA. The text between the pictures blamed the massacre of an entire village in Zimbabwe on either corporate-funded “death squads” or “mercenaries armed by the U.S. government.” It claimed the killings were part of a secret plan to destroy the Lazarus Movement’s efforts to revitalize organic African farming—lest they threaten the American monopoly on genetically modified crops and pesticides. The page ended by calling for the destruction of those who would “destroy the Earth and all who love her.”

  The president dropped it back on the table. “What a load of horseshit.”

  “True.” Hanson retrieved the printout and slid it back into his briefcase. “It is, however, highly effective horseshit—at least for its target audience.”

  “Have you sent a team into Zimbabwe to find out what really happened at this Kusasa place?” Castilla asked.

  The director of the CIA shook his head. “That would be extremely difficult, Mr. President. Without permission from the government there, which is hostile to us, we’ll have to go in covertly. Even then, I doubt we’ll find much. Zimbabwe is a total basket case. Those villagers could have been murdered by anyone—all the way from government troops on down to rampaging bandits.”

  “Hell,” Castilla muttered. “And if our people get caught snooping there without permission, everyone will assume we were involved in this massacre and that we’re only trying to cover our tracks.”

  “That is the problem, sir,” Hanson agreed quietly. “But whatever really took place at Kusasa, one thing is quite clear: The leadership of the Lazarus Movement is using this incident to radicalize its followers, to prepare them for more direct and violent action against our allies and us.”

  “Damn, I hate to see this happening,” Castilla growled. He leaned forward in his chair. “Don’t forget, I knew many of the men and women who founded Lazarus. They were respected environmental activists, scientists, writers … even a couple of politicians. They wanted to save the Earth, to bring it back to life. I disagreed with most of their agenda, but they were good people. Honorable people.”

  “And where are they now, sir?” the head of the CIA asked quietly. “There were nine original founders of the Lazarus Movement. Six of them are dead, either from natural causes or in suspiciously convenient accidents. The other three have vanished without a trace.” He looked carefully at Castilla. “Including Jinjiro Nomura.”

  “Yes,” the president said flatly.

  He glanced at one of the photographs clustered on a corner of his desk. Taken during his first term as governor of New Mexico, it showed him exchanging bows with a shorter and older Japanese man, Jinjiro Nomura. Nomura had been a prominent member of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. Their friendship, founded on a shared taste for single-malt Scotch and straight talk, had survived Nomura’s retirement from politics and his turn toward more strident environmental advocacy.

  Twelve months ago, Jinjiro Nomura had disappeared while traveling to a Lazarus-sponsored rally in Thailand. His son, Hideo, the chairman and chief executive officer of Nomura PharmaTech, had begged for American help in finding his father. And Castilla had reacted quickly. For weeks a special task force of CIA field officers had combed the streets and back alleys of Bangkok. The president had even pressed the NSA’s ultra-secret spy satellites into service in the hunt for his old friend. But nothing had ever turned up. No ransom demand. No dead body. Nothing. The last of the original founders of the Lazarus Movement had vanished without a trace.

  The photo stayed on Castilla’s desk as a reminder of the limits of his power.

  Castilla sighed and turned his gaze back to the two somber men seated in front of him. “Okay, you’ve made your point. The leaders I knew and trusted either are dead or have dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “Precisely, Mr. President.”

  “Which brings us again to the issue of just who is running the Lazarus Movement now,” Castilla said grimly. “Let’s cut to the chase here, David. After Jinjiro disappeared, I approved your special interagency task force on the Movement—despite my own misgivings. Are your people any closer to identifying the current leadership?”

  “Not much closer,” Hanson admitted reluctantly. “Not even after months of intense work.” He spread his hands. “We’re fairly certain that ultimate power is vested in one man, a man who calls himself Lazarus—but we don’t know his real name or what he looks like or where he operates from.”

  “That’s not exactly satisfying,” Castilla commented drily. “Maybe you should stop telling me what you don’t know and stick to what you do know.” He looked the shorter man in the eye. “It might take less time.”

  Hanson smiled dutifully. The smile stopped well short of his eyes. “We’ve devoted a huge amount of resources, both human and satellite, to the effort. So have MI6, the French DGSE, and several other Western intelligence agencies, but over the past year the Lazarus Movement has deliberately reconfigured itself to defeat our surveillance.”

  “Go on,” Castilla said.

  “The Movement has organized itself as a set of ever-tighter and more secure concentric circles,” Hanson told him. “Most of its supporters fall into the outer ring. They operate out in the open—attending meetings, organizing demonstrations, publishing newsletters, and working for various Movement-sponsored projects around the world. They staff the various Movement offices around the world. But each level above that is smaller and more secretive. Few members of the upper echelons know one another’s real names, or meet in person. Leadership communications are handled almost exclusively through the Internet, either by encrypted instant messaging … or by communiqués posted on any one of the several Lazarus Web sites.”

  “In other words, a classic cell structure,” Castilla said. “Orders move freely down the chain, but no one outside the group can easily penetrate to the inner core.”

  Hanson nodded. “Correct. It’s also the same structure adopted by any number of very nasty terrorist groups over the years. Al-Qaeda. Islamic Jihad. Italy’s Red Brigades. Japan’s Red Army. Just to name a few.”

  “And you haven’t had any luck in gaining access to the top echelons?” Castilla asked.

  The CIA chief shook his head. “No, sir.
Nor have the Brits or the French or anyone else. We’ve all tried, without success. And one by one, we’ve lost our best existing sources inside Lazarus. Some have resigned. Others have been expelled. A few have simply vanished and are presumed dead.”

  Castilla frowned. “People seem to have a habit of disappearing around this bunch.”

  “Yes, sir. A great many.” The CIA director left that uncomfortable truth hanging in the air.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Director of Central Intelligence strode briskly out of the White House and down the steps of the South Portico to a waiting black limousine. He slid into the rear seat, waited while a uniformed Secret Service officer closed the car door behind him, and then punched the intercom. “Take me back to Langley,” he told his driver.

  Hanson leaned back against the plush leather as the limousine accelerated smoothly down the drive and turned left onto Seventeenth Street. He looked at the stocky, square-jawed man sitting in the rear-facing jump seat across from him. “You’re very quiet this afternoon, Hal.”

  “You pay me to catch or kill terrorists,” Hal Burke said. “Not to play courtier.”

  Amusement flickered briefly in the CIA chief’s eyes. Burke was a senior officer on the Agency’s counterterrorism staff. Right now he was assigned to lead the special task force on the Lazarus Movement. Twenty years of clandestine fieldwork had left him with a bullet scar down the right side of his neck and a permanently cynical view of human nature. It was a view Hanson shared.

  “Any luck?” Burke asked finally.

  “None.”

  “Shit.” Burke stared moodily out the limousine’s rain-streaked windows. “Kit Pierson’s going to throw a fit.”

  Hanson nodded. Katherine Pierson was Burke’s FBI counterpart. The pair had worked closely together to prepare the intelligence assessment he and Zeller had just shown the president. “Castilla wants us to push our investigation of the Movement as hard as possible, but he will not cancel his trip to the Teller Institute. Not without clearer evidence of a serious threat.”