Black Storm by David Poyer Page A

at last what he was asking her to do, had to sit down on the sofa. Her hand trembled as she stirred the coffee. Then she’d looked up, and said to the heavyset marine, “Did you know I went to school with Fayzah Al-Syori?”
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    SHE’D MET Fayzah, a rather mousy-looking brunette, at Ohio State. They’d worked under Dr. Richard Andrews isolating pyrogenic protein toxins derived from Staphylococcus aureus . The Iraqi spoke English with a British accent; said she’d done her undergraduate work at East Anglia. They’d gone to lunch together, to the library, done lab work together.
    Maureen had gone to Fayzah’s apartment once, which she shared with another Iraqi woman whose name she couldn’t recall—Sela, something like that. Her brother, Fayzah said, had died in the Iran-Iraq war. “He was a hero. We are proud of him. He died for Saddam Hussein and the Arab people,” she had remarked, hugging the girl. Something Maureen hadn’t thought about twice at the time.
    She hadn’t thought much about it at all, really. Al-Syori seemed nice; gentle and self-effacing. She worked hard, but the projects she proposed were copies of previously done research. She seemed ordinary, a bit of a plodder, except when the results did not match the graphs. Then she’d cry and curse. Once she’d asked Maureen if she thought she was good enough to be in research. She’d replied reassuringly—thinking that not everyone could be a genius—till a shy smile had dawned through the tears, and Fayzah had kissed her. When they got a good mark on their project, Fayzah had given her a box gift-wrapped in gold foil.
    She could still taste the sticky sweetness of those Iraqi dates.
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    HAVE YOU seen her since?”
    â€œTwo or three years ago…at the ICAAC; that’s the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy meeting in Atlanta. That’s a huge convention, college profs, CDC people. We said hi, that was all. She said she had a job in Iraq. I never thought it would be anything like…like what the magazines say.”
    â€œWhat do they say? We don’t get to read many magazines where I work.”
    â€œWell, that she’s the brains behind Saddam’s biological warfare program. That she weaponized botulinum toxin and anthrax. Tested them on Iranian prisoners of war. Organized mass production…it’s hard to believe.”
    â€œYou don’t think she could do something like that?”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant. I think…what I mean is, it’s hard to think someone you used to share pizzas with could…She’s not a brilliant researcher, but none of this is original work. It’s engineering, taking the lab processes and scaling them up. She admired Saddam Hussein. She and her roommate had a big poster of him in their apartment.” Maureen sighed. “I have to say…maybe she could.”
    Paulik cleared his throat. “Let me say one thing up front, Doctor. I’m not a fan of women in the military. But they told me you were the best in the theater.”
    â€œI’ll try not to take that personally. I know I’m not a combat-arms type. But if you think there’s a possibility of…then of course I’ll advise your men. Just tell me where to go and what you want me to do.”
    And Paulik had said, “We’re taking you to ‘Ar‘ar.”
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    SHE’D MET Curtis at an art show one of the microbiologists at Fort Detrick had dragged her to. He was an exhibitor, a glassworker. Not cute animals, but the most ethereal, exquisite collector glassware she’d ever seen. He used exotic metals to give his pieces a shimmering play of color, like cast rainbows. He was divorced, but not recently; he seemed to have the flower-to-flower syndrome out of his system. His day job was business development manager for the city of Frederick. They’d dated for a year,