lazarus vendetta | Page 3

Koch PSG-1 sniper rifles designed for covert operations use. "Now kill them."

He focused his night-vision binoculars on the two Lazarus Movement activists. The bearded Frenchman and the slender American woman were staring down at their satellite hookup in disbelief.

"Target acquired," one of the snipers murmured. He squeezed the trig-ger. The 7.62mm round hit Ferrand in the forehead. The Frenchman toppled backward and slid to the ground, smearing blood and brains down the side of the Toyota.

"Target down."

The second sniper fired an instant later. His bullet caught Susan Kendall high in the back. She fell in a heap next to her colleague.

The tall green-eyed leader rose to his feet. More of his men, these wearing hazardous materials suits, were already moving down the slope carrying an array of scientific equipment. He keyed his throat mike, reporting through an encrypted satellite link,

"This is Prime. Field One is complete. Evaluation, collection, and analysis proceeding as planned." He eyed the two dead Lazarus activists. "SPARK has also been initiated

... as ordered."

Chapter One

Tuesday, October 12

Teller Institute for Advanced Technology, Santa Fe, New Mexico Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan ("Jon") Smith, M.D., turned off Old Agua Fria Road and drove up to the Institute's main gate. He narrowed his eyes against the early-morning glare. Off on his left, sunlight was just spilling over the dazzling snowcapped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range. It lit steep slopes carpeted with gold-leafed aspens, towering firs, ponderosa pines, and oaks. Farther down, at the foot of the mountains, the shorter pinon pines, junipers, and clumps of sagebrush surrounding the Institute's thick sand-colored adobe walls were still cloaked in shadow.

Some of the protesters camped out along the road crawled out of their sleeping bags to watch his car go by. A handful waved handmade signs demanding STOP KILLER

SCIENCE, NO TO NANOTECH, or LET LAZARUS LEAD. Most stayed put,

unwilling to face the chilly October dawn. Santa Fe was at seven thousand feet and the nights were growing cold.

Smith felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for them. Even with the heater in his rental car going, he could feel the cold through his brown leather bomber jacket and sharply creased khakis.

At the gate, a gray-uniformed security guard waved him to a stop. Jon rolled down his window and handed over his U.S. Army ID for inspection. The photo on his identity card showed a fit man in his early forties — a man whose high cheekbones and smooth, dark hair gave him the look of a haughty Spanish cavalier. In person, the twinkle in Smith's dark blue eyes shattered the illusion of arrogance.

"Good morning, Colonel," said the guard, an ex-Army Ranger staff sergeant named Frank Diaz. After scrutinizing the ID, he leaned forward, peering through the car windows to make sure that Smith was alone. His right hand hovered warily near the 9mm Beretta pistol holstered at his side. The flap on the holster was unsnapped—

freeing the Beretta for a quick draw if necessary.

Smith raised an eyebrow at that. Security at the Teller Institute was usually more relaxed, certainly not up to the level of the top-secret nuclear labs at nearby Los Alamos. But the president of the United States, Samuel Adams Castilla, was scheduled to visit the Institute in three days. And now a huge anti-technology protest rally had been organized to coincide with his speech. The demonstrators outside the gate this morning were just the first wave of thousands more who were expected to pour in from all over the world. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Are you catching flak from those people, Frank?"

"Not much so far," Diaz admitted. He shrugged. "But we're keeping a close eye on them anyway. This rally has the folks in Admin spooked. The FBI says there are some real hard-core troublemakers heading this way—the kind who get their kicks tossing Molotov cocktails and breaking windows."

Smith frowned. Mass protests were a lure for anarchists with a taste for violence and property destruction. Genoa, Seattle, Cancun, and half a dozen other cities around the world had already seen their streets turned into battlegrounds between masked rioters and the police.

Chewing that over, he sketched a rough salute to Diaz and drove toward the parking lot. The prospect of being caught in a riot was not especially appealing. Not when he was in New Mexico on what was supposed to be a vacation.

Strike that, Smith told himself with a lopsided grin. Make that a working vacation. As a military medical doctor and expert in molecular biology, he spent most of his time assigned to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. His affiliation with the Teller Institute was only temporary.

The Pentagon's Office of Science and Technology had sent him to Santa Fe to observe and report on the work being done