To cut through the multiple aliases associated with each man, Agency analysts had come up with an easy solution. The skinny courier was given the code name FLACO, while his portly companion had been christened GORDO.
Noreen had just met FLACO.
“What?” FLACO said with all the welcome of a junkyard dog.
“Hello,” Noreen said, undeterred. “I’m here to vaccinate this household.”
“Go away.”
The steel gate began to swing shut.
Noreen wasn’t having it.
Throwing her shoulder into the mass of metal, Noreen set her feet and locked her legs. “I have been instructed to vaccinate everyone in this compound. Let me do my job or I’ll have to report your noncompliance to my superiors.”
Noreen stretched the lanyard hanging around her neck that identified her as a government health worker. For an instant she thought the man was going to slam his weight into the gate and knock her on her ass.
Then the resistance stopped.
“Why?” FLACO said, not bothering to hide his suspicion.
“Polio,” Noreen said, still holding the badge in front of her as if it were a shield. “Infections have doubled in Abbottabad. Everyone gets vaccinated. You can call this number if you have questions.”
FLACO’s gaze drifted from her face to her badge. His fingers moved toward his pocket and then froze, confirming a hunch Rapp had voiced. Even though the analysts manning the safehouse’s SIGINT tools hadn’t detected so much as a whiff of cellular energy since they’d set up shop, the courier might be carrying a mobile.
FLACO’s dark eyes narrowed. “Why did they send a…”
“Woman?” Noreen said, finishing the sentence. “Because there are more women and children in this part of town than men. Now, are you going to let me vaccinate your family or not?”
FLACO scowled for a long moment.
Then, he spoke.
“Be quick.”
She intended to.
CHAPTER 63
NOREEN had thought that getting into the compound would be the tough part.
She wasn’t a doctor and hadn’t taken any medical training beyond the Agency’s version of the tactical combat casualty care course, but what she needed to do wasn’t rocket science. In her backpack Noreen had a box full of syringes, alcohol swabs, a sharps container for used needles, and a dozen ten-dose vials of single-antigen inactivated polio vaccine. Her job was to jab everyone in the compound, place the syringes in a specifically marked bag, and walk to the next house on the dirt road and repeat the process.
Simple.
There was nothing simple about what was happening now.
Noreen had just taken a step into the compound’s courtyard when the steel gate slammed closed behind her. She turned to FLACO with a puzzled look.
“We have animals,” FLACO said.
There were in fact animals inside.
The compound formed an upside-down triangle with the base to the north and the point oriented due south. North–south running walls further segmented the structure into three main areas: western, center, and eastern. Noreen had entered via the western side, which had been turned into a makeshift barnyard for the cows, chickens, and other animals meandering across the hardpacked dirt. Several gardens were laid out in neat rows. Though she couldn’t see it over the twelve-foot-high wall to the east, Noreen knew from satellite imagery that the compound’s main living areas resided in the structure’s center segment. The eastern segment was bounded by walls like the other sections and was used primarily for agricultural purposes.
As Noreen watched, a pair of young children attacked weeds sprouting between the vegetables under the supervision of what appeared to be an older sibling. More children were doing chores in the stables while a trio of toddlers chased each other in the dirt. Two boys entered from a door leading to the structure’s center segment. The pair headed for the gate Noreen had just used at a dead sprint. FLACO yelled a string of orders that arrested their break for freedom. With slumped shoulders, the would-be escapees trudged back to the woman who had come through the door behind them. Grabbing each by their ear, she gave the pair a tongue-lashing that would have made Noreen’s own mother proud before directing them toward their laboring siblings.
Setting her knapsack on the ground, Noreen undid the top flap.
“How many people are here?” Noreen said.
“Why?”
FLACO’s suspicious tone might have warranted an angry response, but Noreen opted for a tired sigh. “So I know how many needles to prepare.”
Noreen began unpacking. Though her heart was thundering, her hands moved with quick efficiency. This, more than anything else, seemed to break through the courier’s suspicions.
“Okay,” FLACO said. “Let me get the others.”
He hadn’t answered her question, but Noreen was still encouraged.
This was actually going to work.
Then the eastern door banged open.
CHAPTER 64
“SHE’S in. Holy crap, she’s in.”
