The Sweeper Series:

VIRUSES

by Lew Stowe

Another freshly dead pigeon. My dog, Snarl, sniffed the soft gray and white carcass and looked up at me.

I swept the pigeon into my metal receptacle and dumped it into my canvas shoulder bag. It was the third one I'd come across today, which was odd. Always lots of live pigeons around, but you hardly ever saw a dead one. I wandered down the street and turned right on Spiggot. When I passed a dumpster, I emptied my bag into it. Then I went on to the jungle. This was a couple of wooded vacant lots where some of the territory's homeless like to congregate.

A few of them were squatting around a fire in a rusty barrel. Killroy and Weasel were there. Snarl and I joined them.

“Gone,” Weasel said.

“What's gone?” I asked.

“Burt.”

“Where did he go?”

“Just gone, Sweep. Gone for good.”

“You mean . . . dead? Burt died?”

“Unh,” Killroy said. Killroy can't talk, only make sounds.

“When?” I asked.

“Yesterday,” Weasel said.

“You buried him yet?”

This was the territory, a rough, crumbling high-crime inner city area, and things didn't happen in the territory the same way they did in civilized society. When someone died--especially someone homeless--you just grabbed a shovel and put them in the ground. The jungle had its own cemetery, with ten or twelve graves, most marked with crude wooden crosses.

“Ground kinda hard,” Weasel said. “Waiting for warm weather.”

“Where is Burt now?”

“Tent. Over under the trees. He number four dead. ”

“Four?” I said. “Four people died?”

“Yeah, Sweep. Norwood , Doggett, Cappy. And Burt.”

I knew Norwood , Cappy, and Burt, but Doggett was a little vague. The territory had a lot of homeless people, and not all of them ever got to the jungle for long periods of time.

“Okay,” I said. “When did the first three die? Like over the past few months?”

“Arrgh,” Killroy said, shaking his head.

“A week,” Weasel said.

A week! That got my attention. Lots of people die in the territory, but four in a week out of a single identifiable group was unusual, especially if KOFRI wasn't involved. Violent forms of KOFRI (knife or firearm related injuries) cause more deaths here than anything else.

“Let's go over this slowly,” I said. “Do you know what killed these guys?”

“The food,” Weasel said. “Gotta be the food.”

“What food?”

“At the army place. You know, the one on Wiggin street .”

I knew the one. A month before, the army had taken over an empty building and did a lot of internal renovation. They moved people and equipment in and installed a helicopter pad on the flat roof. I had no idea what they did in there, but they acted pretty secretive about it, because there were armed guards at all entrances. And there wasn't a sign or name anywhere. None of it seemed to matter, as long as they didn't bother anyone. Maybe I'd been wrong about that.

“How did food get from there to here?” I asked.

“They picked us up. Fed us a meal. Brought us back.”

“ You went over there?”

“Yeah, Sweep. So did Killroy. And the other four.”

“How many times?”

“Once. Not all together.”

“What makes you think it was the food?”

“Got sick for a couple days. Killroy not real bad, but sick too. The others real sick ‘til they died.”

“Tell me what you mean by sick.”

“Had the runs. Barfed a lot. Got real hot. Lots of coughing. Chest so tight, could hardly breathe.”

Sounded like typical flu symptoms to me. One of them could have picked up a bug and passed it on to the others. Maybe some of the men were just too weak to handle it. After all, nutrition and sanitation weren't exactly top priorities among them, and most weren't exactly examples of outstanding health. The flu may have killed the weakest ones, while Killroy and Weasel, who somehow seemed to be natural exceptions, got over it. Those two were physical opposites: Killroy, six feet tall, thick and muscular, Weasel, about five eight, so skinny he always seemed to be drowning in his clothes.

“What kind of meal did they give you?” I asked.

“Chicken. Lots of chicken. Other stuff.”

When I left, I had what seemed to be as complete a story as I was likely to get. The men had been offered a meal, loaded into a transport truck, brought over to the army facility. The truck drove into the building and dropped them off by a room where someone seated them at tables. Blood samples were taken. Then they were given the food. After the meal, they were returned to the jungle. The truck came back the next day and blood samples were taken again.

Very strange.

I called Officer Hanley, our street cop for the territory, and got him to send a vehicle for Burt's body. I promised Weasel and Killroy that I'd get him back for burial. Then I made sure that Maurice Paulson at the morgue would handle the autopsy. I told him everything I had learned about the death. He promised extensive tests.

As an afterthought, I went back to the dumpster, fished out the pigeon carcass, and took it over to Maurice. He looked at me like I was crazy and said they only did humans, not birds.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “I need the same tests you're going to run on Burt. Could be important. Send the pigeon out if you have to. But I really need those tests.”

He finally agreed. I decided to look up Willis Dugan, a contractor I knew had done part of the work on the army facility.

“Some kind of laboratory,” he said. “At least, that's my impression. They kept the contractors separate from each other, and we had to sign confidentiality agreements, and there were all kinds of restrictions about when you could work. I just do walls and ceilings, but it sure looked like a lab setup to me.”

A laboratory? I walked away thinking hard about that one.

* * *

I set up my surveillance post inside the air conditioning tower on a roof two buildings away. I had binoculars and a good view of three sides of the army facility, plus the helicopter pad on the roof. I also had a camera.

The building was of ordinary red brick construction, with five stories. They may have renovated the inside, but the exterior, dirty and crumbling, hadn't been touched. I watched it for two days. Personnel were trucked in daily, the vehicles driving into a large door on the ground floor, then back out in late afternoon. The two top men arrived in a dark military helicopter around 7:30 A.M. and left around 6:00 P.M. To avoid power lines and buildings, the copter always swung past the wooded hills that hung over the city to the northeast. Sometimes there was a pilot, but the general--his stars stood out on the collar of his fatigues--usually piloted the copter himself. Obviously a hands-on type who liked to do things for himself. The other man was a colonel.

I got several good photos of both. I called Jason Northwaite, who put me in touch with one of the shadowy organizations he supplies. The man I spoke to said they maintained an extensive military database and could identify the two officers, so I sent him the photos.

* * *

“Holy crap, Sweeper!” Maurice said. His voice was a couple of octaves higher than usual. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“Only a few suspicions,” I said.

“It's avian influenza. That's what killed Burt. Overpowered his immune system. The body is full of the virus.” He paused. “There's one thing.”

“What's that?”

“It isn't exactly the same virus causing problems in Asia . That's H5N1, which can jump between birds and humans. Well, this one does that, too--but it's different. Heat normally kills viruses, which means that infected food is rendered harmless by cooking. Not this one. This one's heat-resistant. And it doesn't seem to spread by contact. You have to ingest it.”

“Could it be an engineered virus?”

“Huh? Well . . . maybe. It's sure different enough. I haven't been able to positively identify it. Do you know something you're not telling me?”

“Just suspicions, Mo. ”

“Well, what do we do with this? Should I notify somebody? This is serious. I don't have results on the pigeon yet, but if this thing is spreading through the pigeon population--”

“Let's not jump to conclusions,” I said. “Burt didn't get it from eating pigeons. If the pigeon's got the virus, it's from a different source.”

“Yeah, but--”

“Lock the body up. Securely. I'll be in touch. And let me know as soon as you get anything definite on the pigeon.”

“Okay, Sweep. But this is a ticking bomb. You know that, don't you?”

“I sure do,” I said.

* * *

I received the information on the two army officers the next day.

The general was Paul Harkins, the colonel Shelby Millin. The general had had a long and varied career, but the thing that really stood out in his bio was that he was head of the

CBTU: Counter Biological Terrorism Unit, part of Homeland Security, dedicated to combating weapons of mass destruction of a biological nature. Millin had been his assistant for years.

Harkins was an important man. Which meant diddly-squat to me. Nobody was important enough to come into the territory and deliberately take the lives of four innocent men. No way could I overlook that.

* * *

“Call me Nick,” the man said. He was slim and gray-haired, with piercing blue eyes that never seemed to blink. “I guess you're Sweeper.”

I nodded.

“Jason spoke well of you, which is good enough for me. But I'm not sure we want to get involved in this. Something with the U.S. Army? That's a formidable opponent.”

We were seated at a small table in a dim corner of an ancient warehouse on Gargon Street . I made eye contact with Nick and held it.

“My opponent is General Paul Harkins,” I said. “He has established a CBTU operation in our area. He's doing some kind of biological experimentation with avian flu and using residents as guinea pigs. Four have died so far. I want to stop it. I want to shut down the operation and get it the hell out of here. Seems like a worthy objective to me.”

“How do you know this? Is this speculation or--”

“Here's the lab report,” I said, opening the folder I had brought along. “We had a body autopsied and thoroughly tested. No speculation whatsoever.”

He glanced over the report, then back up at me. “Four dead? Who were they?”

“Homeless men. Helpless, brain-addled, alcoholic homeless men, who thought they were getting a good meal. Instead, they got chicken infected with what seems to be an engineered variant of the avian flu virus. It killed them quickly and nastily.”

Nick looked hard at me. “What happened to your face?”

“Burned. Long time ago.”

“Not Waco .”

“Don't know. I can't remember.”

"So you sweep the streets around here? Anything else?"

"You could say I'm a rubbish specialist. When the rubbish reaches a critical level, I like to get rid of some of it."

“What, exactly, do you need from us?”

“Starting at 1:00 P.M. , I want all communications jammed to or from the building. Radio, all phones, computers, whatever. I don't want the general to be able to request reinforcements or receive any information. I want to shut him down completely. Can you do it?”

“Do elephants shit on the Serengeti plains? Okay . . . when?”

“Day after tomorrow. Five hours will cover it.”

“We'll need a parking spot on street level, diagonal from the building with a clear shot to the front. Then another location on the other side, preferably on a roof, sheltered so we can't be spotted from above.”

“No problem,” I said.

“Here's my number,” Nick said. “That's all you get. Not that we don't trust you. But in case you get apprehended, we don't want you to know enough to pass anything on, no matter what they do to you. I'm your contact--nobody else. Everything goes through me. Two hours following the action, this number will no longer be operational. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

* * *

I got another call from Maurice Paulson.

“The pigeon?” he said. “Turned out okay. It was a virus all right, but not the same one. This was adenovirus, limited mainly to young birds. Common ailment. Comes and goes quickly.”

“Good news,” I said.

“I did more testing on the big V. You know what kills it? Common, household bleach, in about a ten to one mixture. Completely destroys it. Doesn't have to make direct contact--the fumes alone are deadly.”

“Thanks, Mo,” I said. “I can use that information.”

* * *

Two days later, at 1:00 , the jamming started. I had to take that on faith, since there were no outward signs of panic or confusion. It continued until 3:00 P.M. , when it paused for five seconds, long enough for me to send an email message to the general, with a copy to Colonel Millin:

General Harkins, your experiments with the avian flu virus have killed four men. We have autopsy results and lab reports documenting cause of death. We need to discuss this. Unless you meet with us, the story will be given to the media tomorrow. We will expect you on Parson's Leap, the highest of the hills on the northeast edge of the city, at 5:00 P.M. today. There is a large clearing on the summit where you can land a helicopter. Be there.

Within minutes, a truck crammed with men roared out and headed for the hills. As I expected, the general wanted to secure the area before he showed up there, and to do that he had to deploy most of his men. I estimated there couldn't be more than a couple military people, plus Harkins and Millin, left in the building.

The jamming continued. The general's men were tramping all through the hills in a fruitless search for whoever was supposed to be waiting for Harkins.

At 4:45 P.M. , Harkins and Millin stepped out on the roof and headed for the helicopter.

“Yo,” I said.

They wheeled quickly. Millin kept looking around nervously for the man assigned to guard the helicopter.

“Who are you?” Harkins asked. He was a gaunt, tight-faced man in his mid-fifties.

“My name is Sweeper. I sweep the streets.”

“How nice. Where's my guard?”

“He's safe. Just neutralized.”

“What do you want?”

“Just want to talk to you,” I said. “And make you an offer. You've murdered four local residents. Justice must be served. We need to discuss how that's going to happen.”

Harkins made an impatient grimace. “Look, I don't have time for this crap. I need to be someplace. I--”

“Right here is where you need to be right now,” I said. “I sent you the email. Just wanted to get your men out of the building. Right now they must be getting a lot of great exercise in those hills. Only problem, they won't find anybody.”

“What the hell do you want ?” he said.

“Already told you. You are a murderer. How do you propose to pay your debt to justice?”

“Look, you grotesque freak,” the general said. His face was now a contorted mask of anger. “If you're talking about those smelly winos, they were half dead already. I'm not apologizing for anything. They were of no value to anyone, not even themselves, until we got hold of them. We gave them a status they never had before. They donated their lives for their country , just like people are doing all over the world, every day.”

“You took their lives. Without permission. They didn't know what was happening. They didn't donate anything. Their lives were sacrificed for some sick, twisted idea of yours.”

“Actually, it was my idea,” Millin said. “We needed human subjects to advance our research. They were available. They were of inestimable value. I'm proud of them.”

“Murder,” I said.

Millin turned to Harkins. “Paul, we're in a hurry. We really don't have to hang around here and listen to this guy.” He was sneaking his hand toward his sidearm.

“I wouldn't do that,” I said. “You're standing in the crosshairs at this very moment. You'd be dead before your gun cleared the holster.”

“All right, get this over with,” Harkins said. “Are you here to give us a lecture? A verbal spanking? What's the offer you mentioned?”

“I can get the media up here right now. All you have to do is confess to your crimes: the murder of four men. Then let justice take its course. You'll both go to prison, of course, but people are doing that all over the world, every day. Going to prison for crimes committed, I mean.”

They both thought that was amusing.

“You just don't understand,” Harkins said. “Do you?”

I pulled out a couple of my Angel of Justice cards and gave one to each. These show an angel holding the scales of justice. The caption reads: “JUSTICE FOR ALL .”

Harkins and Millin looked at the cards. They both smiled.

“That's what I understand,” I said. “Those poor old guys you killed have as many rights as anyone else. You don't get to trample on them just because you think you can.”

Harkins sighed. “I'm a military man,” he said. “What's the military for? To fight wars, to protect the country. That's what I'm doing. We're at war against the most cunning and vicious enemy we've ever had. An enemy that is perfectly willing to kill all of us any day of the week, to use whatever weapon it has at hand: nuclear, biological, fire, water, you name it. The more horrible, the better the publicity. My expertise is biological weapons. We have to stay a step ahead of the enemy. You don't think that if Al Qaida could come up with an avian flu to wipe out half the world's population, they wouldn't unleash it tomorrow? If a few pathetic winos can help save billions of lives, why shouldn't we use them? Why not make heroes of them? At my level, that's what command is all about--especially in war. We send people to their deaths so others can live. Not a pleasant task, but someone has to do it. Be thankful people like us are willing to take it on.”

He made a sound deep in his throat and spat. A glob of yellowish spittle landed a foot in front of me.

“That's my answer,” he said. “I reject your offer. Tell the media whatever you like. We'll just deny everything and go on operating. The U.S. Army isn't about to roll over and play dead for scum like you. Now are we free to go? My men are waiting.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

As they climbed into the helicopter, Harkins looked back and said: “What was the alternative to your offer? Or was there an alternative?”

I shrugged.

"Just be gone when we get back," the general said. "I see you again, I'm going to have to get ugly. Believe me, you don't want to find out what that means."

The two men looked at each other and chuckled.

I watched the helicopter elevate and swing toward the hills. I reached inside my canvas shoulder bag and switched off the recorder. When the copter was close to Parson's Leap, I pulled out a little green box. There were two buttons on it. One said ABORT. I pressed the other one. That activated the remote-controlled explosive device I had placed on the helicopter's undercarriage, and the craft disintegrated in a roar of yellow-orange flame.

Truly spectacular in the gathering dusk. Norwood , Doggett, Cappy and Burt would have agreed.

* * *

With six people dead, I can't rate this one more than a five out of a possible ten. We did get the army out of the territory, though. At about 5:15 P.M. , someone phoned the downtown police headquarters about a bomb in the army facility, creating a furor and quickly clearing the building. That allowed Killroy, Weasel and me to slip inside and spray bleach in every room. We saturated the place, ruining a lot of elaborate equipment and likely causing a fair amount of puzzlement when the bomb squad finally entered.

I made sure the story got full play in the media, although I had the recording altered to protect my identity. The army never said a word, not even about General Harkins and Colonel Millin. No involvement was ever acknowledged, and there wasn't, according to my sources, any investigation. I don't know what happened to the soldiers in the hills. Maybe they're still there.

We buried Burt with his friends in the cemetery at the jungle.

One of my personal rules is to never second-guess my actions. Couldn't remain functional if I did. Still, the helicopter explosion keeps replaying in my mind. I'm afraid I'm going to be watching it for a long, long time.

I hope Norwood , Doggett, Cappy and Burt were worth it.