There were always crises. That was why Op-Center had been chartered. They were the National Crisis Management Center. But the personality of these disasters had changed over the years. The speed, the scope, and the frequency of them were terrifying. And though more resources were being applied to combat them, those resources targeted existing patterns and likely perpetrators. A methodology had not yet been created to anticipate what Bob Herbert called “kamikaze genocide”—the piecemeal extermination of Westerners by suicide attacks.

Several years ago, when Op-Center was combating neo-Nazis, Herbert said something that had stayed with Hood.

“When the brain doesn’t have enough information, only your gut can tell you what to do,” the intelligence chief said. “Fortunately, since some depraved sons of bitches blew up my wife and my legs, my gut has been able to digest some pretty sick thoughts.”

Hood suddenly felt energized. He and his team would figure this out. They would figure out everything that came along. Every deviant variation, every monster. They had to. It was necessity but also something more.

It was stubborn, blessed American pride.

FOURTEEN - Darwin, Australia Friday, 12:47 P.M.

FOURTEEN

Darwin, Australia Friday, 12:47 P.M.

“Madam, we are not going to inject the patient with anything!”

The speaker was a man in a white tunic. Probably the attending physician. He was standing in a tight circle with Ellsworth, Loh, and Jelbart. Ellsworth was the one who had motioned Coffey over. The man’s strident voice was the first thing Lowell Coffey heard as he approached the closed door.

“Doctor,” said Loh, “we have a situation that needs to be resolved as swiftly as possible—”

“And I have a patient who needs rest,” he interrupted.

“You have one patient now,” she said. “How will you feel when this ward, including the hallways, is lined with beds?”

The doctor looked at Ellsworth. “Is she right about that? Is it possible?”

“Such a scenario does not appear imminent,” Ellsworth replied crossly. He was looking at Loh.

“There is radioactive material abroad,” Loh persisted. “We have to know whether this man was transporting it, receiving it, or merely stumbled upon it. We have to find out if there is radioactive material still at sea, poisoning the fish that may feed some of your patients. Or poisoning some of your future patients. Doctor, we need to know what happened.”

“If I do as you ask, you may kill him,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “Then you will never get your answer. And there is no guarantee that he will say much, or even anything, if we wake him.”

“That is a risk worth taking,” she replied.

“Easy for you to say,” the doctor said.