They moved quickly to one of the rooms in that immense corridor. Nick entered a code in the keypad next to the door and it slid open as lights turned on. He put his hand to her back and walked her in.
Kay blinked. It was a command center, and it looked like the White House war room in Doctor Strangelove, only from the 22nd century instead of the 20th. Huge monitors covered the walls and there were keyboards, wireless headsets, and speakers everywhere.
“Here.” Nick was holding out an expensive mesh office chair, the kind that supported your back and was easy on the thighs and made coffee for you. She sat down and it was like sitting on a cloud. Whatever make it was, she wanted one for her office.
Then, like cold water dashed in her face, she realized she would probably never work in her office again.
“Okay. I’ve got Felicity on the line.” Nick thumbed his cell phone screen and Felicity’s pretty face popped up on a huge wall screen.
“Hey,” Felicity said, and it was like her being in the room. She smiled at Kay, whose face was onscreen in a small box in the lower right-hand side, just like before. Behind Felicity stood her boyfriend, Metal, as large as a bridge support. He had a big hand on her shoulder.
Nick appeared behind her on the small screen. She saw him and then felt his hand on her shoulder, as well.
“Hey.” Kay smiled at Felicity. “Did you—”
“Decrypt the flash drive? I did. Hell of a job, too. Gave even me some trouble. And it’s a lot of stuff. Part of what was encrypted was a link to more files in the cloud.”
Oh God, it was so good to see Felicity. She wasn’t an operator like Nick, or Metal, or any of the guys at ASI but she was whip-smart and Kay felt better just seeing her.
“Yeah, part of the encrypting was done by Priyanka’s brother. Sorry to have to ask for your help.”
Felicity waved a long, slender hand. “Don’t even mention it, are you kidding? I had fun. Lately all I’ve done is boring stuff for ASI. What?” She turned around to look at Metal when he made a noise. “Not that much fun in devising data algorithms, don’t try to tell me otherwise. Kay’s stuff was a real challenge.”
Behind her, Metal looked amused and resigned in equal measure. He bent down and whispered something in her ear and her fair skin turned pink. Kay sympathized. She had the exact same kind of skin. It showed all your emotions, good and bad. Judging from the sexy sideways glance she shot Metal, it was good.
“What was in it?” Kay leaned forward. “Did you go over it?”
“Oh God, honey.” Felicity cocked her head, straightened it, as if listening to a secret internal voice. “I have no idea what’s in it. There was almost a terabyte of info and it’s all biochemistry and virology and genetics. Most of it anyway. I did isolate a video made by Priyanka, and some emails between her and Mike Hammer. Also, she did some research on him, so there’s about ten of his environmental articles and a couple of documentaries he made for his webzine. He doesn’t appear, only as a slightly modified voiceover. He’s good. He manipulated the recordings and there would be no way to obtain a voice match without sacrificing too much quality on the recording itself. I didn’t have time to watch all the docs—meatspace time is different from digital time—but I gathered they were all hot topics where big companies are polluting. One was about a flu vaccine scam.”
Kay nodded. She knew what that was about. A pharmaceutical company that invested ten million dollars in drumming up a flu scare and then delivered thirty million doses on the market of a vaccine that didn’t work. There had been 150 deaths and the company had made seven billion dollars, which it promptly deposited in Panama.
Scam was too mild a word. It had been criminal.
“Can you please send over the information?” Kay asked.
Felicity looked blank for an instant. “Uh, Kay…”
“She sent it immediately,” Metal pitched in. “And it was sent securely, you don’t need to worry about that. We have an internal system. Check the log. It’s along the top of the image.”
Kay looked and found it. She clicked on the log and immediately Felicity and Metal were reduced to a small box next to the image of herself and Nick. Data started scrolling down the screen.
“Whoa,” Nick said behind her. “Looks like the Matrix. What a mess.”
Kay was studying the screen intently. “No, not a mess. There’s a lot of data from Bill’s drive, and it’s standard research, going back years. But here,” she tapped the screen with a stylus, “and here, and here and here,” she looked up reassuringly at Nick, “those are the formerly encrypted files, where we’ll find what he was secretly working on. It shouldn’t be too hard to sort them out. And Priyanka will have already arranged the files in an easy-to-follow order. It’s just a question of time, now. We have the yellow bricks and they’re laid out on a road. I just have to walk it.”
“Hm. If you say so.” Nick’s voice was full of doubt. “Hell of a lot of info there.”
“It’s what I do—what we do at the CDC.” Did at the CDC, Kay thought with a pang of pain. What they did at the CDC. Studied all of nature, in its unfathomably huge details, to find what could harm humans, and fix it.
Until someone inside the CDC—and that never failed to astonish her—used data to harm humans.
“Okay. This is your thing, Kay.” Felicity was scowling on the screen. “If anyone can figure this out, it’s you. You go, girl.”
“Oh, I will,” Kay promised softly. Priyanka and Mike Hammer, good people, had died for what was in those files. She’d find out what it was and ASI would go after them. Of that she had no doubt. Maybe call in the FBI, too. Nick trusted the FBI. At this point, Kay herself didn’t trust any institution.
“Good. I think that—” She frowned.
“Felicity?”
Felicity had turned sheet white. Like flipping a switch. From its usual pale rose, her complexion had turned to dirty ice, dead white with a gray undertone. Felicity slapped her hand over her mouth and disappeared from the screen. She could be seen in the background, running.
“Good God!” Kay leaned forward. “Metal! Is Felicity okay? Is something wrong? Is she sick?”
“Is it official?” Nick asked behind her.
She swiveled. “What?”
“Yeah.” Metal’s super-broad chest lifted on a sigh. “We told everyone.”
“So…you know what it is?” Nick asked.
What what is? What were they talking about?
“Twins.” Metal flashed a quick grin, then it disappeared from his face. “Boys, we think. The next sonogram should be definitive. But she’s been sicker than a dog. I hate it.”
Kay, who had a master’s degree in biology, finally got it. Her jaw dropped. “She’s pregnant? Felicity’s pregnant?”
“Oh yeah. Super pregnant. Double pregnant.” A corner of Metal’s mouth lifted. “We’ve been trying and trying and finally it caught.”
“Tough job,” Nick said. “But someone’s got to do it.”
“Well.” Kay smiled at the thought of Felicity expecting kids. She’d had a very lonely existence, much lonelier than Kay’s own, though she’d had both parents until she was in her late teens. Her parents had been Russians, undercover, and they had lived in the Witness Protection Program all her life. Kay had Gramps to love her. Felicity had had no one who loved her, truly loved her.
But now she had a future husband—Kay heard from everyone that Metal asked Felicity to marry him daily, and she’d accepted without setting a date—and she was expecting twins. A full, happy household. “At least you know your kids will be gorgeous and have IQs off the charts.”
Felicity’s father had been a Nobel Prize winner in physics and she herself had been tested at genius level.
“Yeah.” Metal tried to smile, but his big plain face was creased with worry.
“She’s got morning sickness,” Nick said.
“Morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night sickness,” Metal answered. “It’s awful.”
“Oh my God.” Kay was horrified. “I asked her to decrypt those files while she was sick? I didn’t know! I had no idea, I would never have asked her if I’d known—”
“Nah.” Metal held up a huge hand. “There was no way to stop her. As a matter of fact, she was so engrossed in your files that she wasn’t sick for hours. A first. So thanks for that. And Felicity would have kicked me in the balls if I’d tried to stop her. You did her, and me, a big favor.”
He was half turned toward the back of the vast room, his hand clutching the back of the chair so tightly his knuckles were white. He was champing at the bit to get to Felicity.
“Go see how she’s doing, Metal,” Kay said gently. “It’s up to me now. As soon as I know anything, I’ll let you know.” He blew out a breath of relief and was already on his way to Felicity when she called him back. “Metal!”
He stopped himself with difficulty—he was practically vibrating with impatience.
“Send me John, if you can.”
He nodded and nearly ran across the room.
A minute later, John Huntington popped up on the screen. He was in his private office, which was amazingly elegant and as silent as a church.
He was…intimidating. That was the only word for it. Sharply handsome, he always looked grim and cold. The people who worked for him worshipped him, but Kay was just a little—a teensy bit—frightened of him.
He was one of the good guys. He’d founded one of the best security companies in the world. He’d managed to make a beautiful, gentle, highly creative woman fall in love with him and he had two little girls he hadn’t eaten like the big bad wolf. Yet.
But still she was a little scared.
“Dr. Hudson.” That cold, handsome face looked, as usual, as if he’d just received news that World War III had broken out.
“Mr. Huntington.”
He dipped his head, lifted it. She swore his eyes could see inside her head though he was in the heart of Portland and she was on the slopes of Mount Hood. “Good to see you alive and well, Dr. Hudson.” His dark eyes shifted to the man behind her. “I am counting on you to keep her that way, Nick.”
“Yeah. You can count on me.” Nick respected John Huntington a lot, but he wasn’t intimidated like she was.
“This feels like bad business, Nick.” Huntington scowled.
“It is bad business, sir.”
Kay lifted her hand and Nick grabbed it, held it. He might have thought it was her way of showing John Huntington that they were together, but that wasn’t it. John unnerved her.
“Mike Hammer’s body was recovered and autopsied. The ME said that if he hadn’t been ordered to carry out the autopsy, he wouldn’t have bothered. He said it looked like a natural death.” Huntington’s eyes narrowed.
“Except that he drowned in a back alley.”
Huntington dipped his head again. “Exactly. His lungs were full of fluid.”
“Not water.” Kay shook her head. “Transudates.”
He briefly consulted a sheet in front of him. “Exactly.”
This was safer ground; this was her field. “I understand Captain Morrison asked for the blood panel to be tested for cytokines.”
He dipped his head again. “As you asked. And again, he said he wouldn’t have tested for cytokines if there hadn’t been a special request.
“And the count was high.”
“Off the charts. I assume that is significant.”
Time to share what she knew. The time for secrecy was gone. “Very significant. I need to study Dr. Anand’s files, but I suspect that someone—probably a biochemist called Bill Morrell—perfected a bio-weaponized form of the Spanish flu.”
Huntington winced. “Didn’t that kill off more people in 1918 than World War I?”
“It did. This one will be worse.” She nodded, while keeping eye contact. “This version is highly aggressive, fast-acting and airborne. From what I observed, the weaponized virus is in aerosol form, in this case delivered by drone.”
His mouth tightened. “Insane. We could have a pandemic on our hands.”
“We could, yes. But I think something else is happening, something less devastating to society but highly dangerous all the same.”
He leaned forward a little. “Something else?”
She put it in words for the first time. “I suspect that the virus has been encoded with specific DNA.”
He just stared, looking blank.
“In other words, the weaponized virus is being tailored to specific people. That virus was encoded to Mike Hammer’s DNA and not mine, which is why he died and I walked away. They didn’t know I was going to be there, so they only prepared the virus for him. They could have gotten his DNA from anywhere. Hair from a hairbrush, a glass he’d drunk out of, a plate, a tiny bit of blood from a cut.”
He looked stunned. “How is that possible? Something that is lethal for one person and not another? Wouldn’t it take a vast scientific apparatus?”
“Well, the CDC is a vast scientific apparatus in itself. It can be done using a machine called a CRISPR-Cas9. CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. It’s a machine for editing genes.”
“But that’s—”
“A perfect murder weapon. A virus tailored to someone’s DNA, delivered by drone. Essentially a natural death, put down to a sudden allergic attack, a stroke or a heart attack. The murderer can be far away, guiding the drone by a tablet, waiting for the right moment. Who knows how many people have been killed so far.”
“My God.” His jaw tightened. “Shouldn’t we—”
“Shouldn’t we what, Mr. Huntington? Look for sudden deaths with high cytokine counts? Most of the bodies won’t have been autopsied. The cytokines dissipate quickly. And it would be the job of the CDC to note this kind of pattern. I think—”
Her throat seized up. Just saying the words hurt, like knives slicing her inside. She swallowed and when she spoke, her voice was a raw whisper. “I think the CDC is involved. We can’t go to them. Do you think your police captain friend can inquire discreetly about any sudden unexplained deaths nationwide?”
His eyes narrowed and he looked more dangerous than ever. “Count on it.”
“A deadly virus tailored to a specific person’s DNA is incredibly dangerous. You can widen the scope. You could target an individual, a family, a tribe. Without endangering anyone who might be physically close who doesn’t share DNA with the victim. It’s the perfect weapon, surgically precise. We have to stop this. Imagine being able to target a people in the Middle East, a family in Washington, one specific person in a crowd.”
“Someone’s going to pay for this,” he said in a deep, low voice.
Kay repressed a shudder. Huntington was scary in a way Nick, Metal, Joe and Jacko weren’t. His partner, too, was frightening. Former SEAL Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski, who was not only terrifying but spectacularly ugly.
Both of them were worshipped by the men under them.
And loved fiercely by two gentle, elegant, artistic women.
Go figure.
Whatever her personal feelings, though, this man and his partner had made the entire resources of their company—and they were considerable—available to her. They were making a real effort to keep her safe and to help her unravel the mystery. She was nothing to him. A friend of one of his employees. However important to the company Felicity was, Kay wasn’t a sister or a cousin. Was he doing this for Nick? Nick had made it clear that his first priority was Kay, and they seemed to be okay with that.
She owed them. She owed them her best efforts to finish this quickly and well.
They’d done their share. More than their share. Now it was up to her. Well, this was what she did. She wasn’t a warrior, she wasn’t a computer genius. But this?
“Okay, Mr. Huntington—”
“John,” he said. His lips moved in what for normal people would be a smile.
“What?”
“You must call me John.”
Her own smile froze. “Of—of course.” God. It would be like calling the Pope “Frank”. There was only one thing to say. “And you must call me Kay. Remember, John. This is pure conjecture. I think I’m right, but I’ll know for sure only after studying the data on the flash drive.”
“You guys stay out of sight for the moment. I’m liaising with Captain Morrison and I’ll let you know what emerges from the investigation.”
She leaned closer to the screen. “Hammer was killed by a drone.”
“Yeah. We got that. Felicity traced the frequency back to a spot on the road. It was being piloted by someone in a vehicle who then left. We’re working on that. Soon we’ll know who was piloting it. One way or another, we’re hoping to wrap this thing up soon.”
Soon. They were in a hurry. Kay nodded. “I imagine you need Nick back in the office.”
A veil of coldness dropped across his face. Just amazing. She realized that he had been warm and fuzzy before in contrast to now. Now he looked like he was about to kill someone. “No. That’s not it. Yeah, we’d like Nick to come back when he can, but he’s doing good work right where he is. This company doesn’t stand for murder, for threats to good people. And I’ve heard enough to understand that there’s the possibility of a dangerous bio-weapon in play that could go wide. We were born to fight things like this. And we will. We’ll talk soon.”
The monitor winked off.
It was like a powerful source of energy had just been switched off and Kay slumped in her chair.
“He’s something, isn’t he?” Nick asked, amused.
It was very cool in what she thought of as the command module. All those electronics. The chill in the air was the only thing that stopped her from sweating like a pig. John Huntington was a force of nature.
“I’ll say.” She switched gears, turning to face Nick. “So—Felicity’s pregnant. How long have you known?”
“Couple of days now.”
“Do you think she’s freaked?” During Kay’s visits and when they Skyped, she and Felicity had talked about this. Metal was eager, really impatient to start a family. Felicity wanted to start one too but, unlike Metal, she’d never really been part of a happy family. She doubted herself, not Metal.
Kay didn’t doubt for a second that Metal would make a great father. Metal’s father had been an incredible role model and his uncles were all really good family men. Felicity’s parents had been cold and secretive, shutting her out. She said she wasn’t too sure she was cut out to be a good mom.
“Yeah. Metal’s more freaked, though.”
“He is? Felicity said he was really ready, raring to go.”
“Mm.” Nick smiled grimly. “He didn’t calculate that in order to have kids, Felicity would have to be pregnant. Apparently, she’s having problems and it’s making his head explode. He wants kids with Felicity but he doesn’t want her to have to be pregnant.”
“Little cognitive dissonance there. Hard to have the one without the other.”
“Well, they’ll work it out. Eventually, Felicity will give birth. To two kids at once. That’s really super-efficient, just like her. Now.” Nick leaned forward, grasping the arms of her chair. His face was sober and serious. “There’s not much I can do to help you go through the files, but I can fetch and carry and make sure you’re comfortable.” His hand lifted, moved over her hair in a caress. “I suggest you stay here, it’s the place where there’s the most computing power. You can have music if you want. Any kind except heavy metal. Drives me crazy.”
Okay, so cool dude Nick Mancino didn’t do heavy metal. Interesting. Kay usually worked to new age music or Mozart. But when she had heavy-duty focusing to do, she needed silence.
“No, no heavy metal, promise. As a matter of fact, I think I’d prefer silence.”
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You got it. Anything else?”
“I understand that the room needs to remain cool because of all the electronics but it’s too cold if I’m going to be sitting in a chair. I’ll need a sweater and socks. And while you’re at it, some water, fruit and hot tea at hand. A Thermos would be great. Any kind of herbal tea. If Isabel stocked up, there’s bound to be plenty of herbal tea.”
“Dunno, I’m a coffee guy myself, but I’ll look around. Be back in a second.”
Okay, she thought, as she brought the contents of the flash drive up on the monitor in front of her. She also threw the data up on one of the big screens.
She scrolled, tapped on the screen, scrolled some more. The material was organized into several subsets. One was Bill’s normal work files, going back two years. That data had had normal CDC encryption, the same encryption all of them followed. His files were similar to her own, except of course he’d been working on different projects. But the structure was similar, and familiar.
She selected that data out, and threw it up on a second wall screen.
He had an extensive database of ongoing research throughout the world on Spanish flu and flu viruses. She recognized most of the papers. These were selected and put up on another monitor.
Basic research on viruses and gene manipulation. Selected and thrown up on a fourth monitor.
His work emails—up on a fifth.
Hello. There was a section that had been subjected only to his own heavy-duty encryption, not the CDC’s. Which meant it had never been on the CDC servers. This was his private email.
She opened the files, scrolling through the headings. Bingo. Goose pimples rose on her arms and neck.
Nick appeared by her side holding a tray. He placed a pitcher of water, a Thermos, a glass and a cup on the desk. A platter with grapes and peeled orange sections. A pile of sandwiches on whole wheat bread.
He placed a heavy sweater on her shoulders. Kay bent her nose toward her shoulder and smelled clean wool and fabric softener.
Nick smiled at her and dropped a knee to the ground.
She blinked at him. What on earth… Oh.
He slid her slippers off her feet and put on soft, thick socks, then put the slippers back on. She’d been so engrossed in separating out Bill’s files, she’d forgotten she was cold.
“Better?” he smiled up at her, still kneeling.
It should have been a ridiculous position, on one knee at her feet, but he made it super macho and super sexy. There was absolutely nothing submissive about him. With Nick kneeling at her feet, she could see how incredibly broad his shoulders were, how thickly muscled his thighs. He could have been a knight awaiting orders, but a knight who could slay dragons.
His mouth was tipped in a half smile, dark eyes gleaming behind half-closed eyelids.
A flash of heat that had nothing whatsoever to do with the sweater and socks shot through her and damn, he could tell. Like Felicity’s, her skin was like a sensor for her emotions. She might as well have had a sign flashing on her forehead. Hormonal female in heat.
“Down boy,” she said.
“Ah, but darling, I am down,” Nick answered, and grinned. “Down for the count. Completely at your mercy and at your feet.”
Yeah, right.
Kay spread her hand over his jaw, feeling the scruff of his five o’clock shadow even though in these antiseptic surroundings, she had no idea if it was five o’clock or not. None of the monitors showed the time, either. They would show time if she pressed the right button. They would show the time of any time zone on earth, since ASI operated around the globe.
His skin felt warm beneath her palm. Their eyes locked. He still had her foot on his knee, big hand loosely holding her ankle. His hand tightened, his eyes tightened. If she dropped her gaze, she would undoubtedly see something else tighten and grow.
She didn’t even dare give a sigh because they were both on hair triggers. Nick’s hand around her ankle loosened a little and he began sliding it up.
She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. His calloused skin against the tender flesh of her calf felt so exciting. He’d done the exact same thing in the hotel room, only his hand had continued the journey up her shaking thigh until he’d reached the apex. She’d been warm and wet and aching.
Like now.
Only they weren’t in a hotel room. They were on the run.
“Nick…” She barely had the breath to get the word out.
His hand froze. His dark, glittering eyes never wavered from her face.
“Not now?” His voice was low, rough.
She couldn’t talk, could barely breathe. Her heart drummed in her chest. She shook her head.
Slowly, as if it hurt, Nick lifted his hand from her leg. Shockingly, her skin felt chilled at the loss of his touch.
“Okay, okay.” Nick winced as he rose to his feet. It was easy to see why he was wincing. Under the jeans his erection was visible.
“Ouch?” She sketched a smile.
“Ouch,” he confirmed. He leaned forward, kissed her on the forehead. “I’m going to hobble away now and nurse my dashed hopes. You drink that tea and eat those sandwiches. You’re not going to starve on my watch.”
She smiled. “No, sir, I guess I’m not.”
Nick put a slick rectangle of dark Gorilla Glass on the desk. “If you need anything, yell. If I don’t come right away…” He swiped at the dark glass, which lit up at his touch. The screen had a big red button on it. “Press this.”
Kay picked it up, turned it. “Is this a cell phone?”
“Nope.” Nick grinned. “Its only function is to summon your humble servant. And now, I’ll leave you to your work.” His grin disappeared. “I don’t know how long you’ll need to go through those files, but I expect a long time. It’s a hell of a lot of data. But you’re not going to kill yourself doing it. You need to eat and rest. I’ll make sure you do that. You’re no good to anyone dead on your feet, Kay.”
It was her weak point—working until she dropped. And no, it wouldn’t help anyone.
“Okay, Nick. I’ll try to be smart about it.”
He stood and stared into her eyes, all playfulness gone. “Yeah. You will. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll check in with you from time to time. In the meantime, I’m going to monitor our perimeter and contact ASI. Find out if there’s any more intel.”
“Find out about Felicity, if you can.”
“Will do.” He leveled his index finger at her as if pointing a gun. “I’ll be checking in on you.” And he walked quietly out the door.
He did check in on her from time to time. She’d sit up to stretch her aching back muscles to find that the water pitcher had been refilled, fresh fruit on the plate, new sandwiches. Kay barely noticed. She sank into the job like you sink into quicksand, pulled ever deeper.
It was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. Didn’t matter, she was digging deep into the files and trying to figure out what was going on that had cost Priyanka and Mike Hammer and Bill their lives—and figure out who was behind it.
She dove into Bill’s work files, opening each and reading enough to discard it. There were thousands of files, each one interesting. She had to tug herself away from most of them because however fascinating they were, they didn’t pertain to the issue at hand.
It was an overwhelming job. Not all the files were his—some were research papers from around the world. The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory and the Epidemic Diseases Research Group in Oxford. The French Institute of Health and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Nagasaki School of Global Health, various agencies within the World Health Organization…the list was endless.
His root directory wasn’t organized according to author or source, but according to material. He was a well-known expert on influenza, which was one of the most-studied viruses on earth. The printed information on the influenza virus could fill an entire university library—and in some universities, did.
She sighed and resigned herself to manually examining all the files. It was intense, eye-straining labor, and after a while, the words began to blur on the screen.
She stopped, rubbed her eyes.
She’d scrolled though about a thousand files and had barely scratched the surface. She couldn’t even outsource it because you needed to be an expert to understand what to look for. Mere keywords wouldn’t do it. All the files were about the influenza virus and would contain those hundred or so keywords pertaining to it. It would take her days to train someone even as bright as Felicity to search the files, and even then she could easily miss something significant.
It was as if someone had opened up a firehose of knowledge of the influenza virus and was flooding her with it.
In fact, it was almost as if…as if Bill was blinding her with science. From beyond the grave.
Damn! She straightened, widened her eyes to knock the sleep out of them. So far she hadn’t found out anything, not after hours and hours of work.
Were all these files essentially smoke?
Because…because he had been working on something illegal, something that transgressed the Biological Weapons Convention, the convention that prohibited research into bio-weaponry. So he’d have done it in secret, wouldn’t he?
Could there be a hidden section with the information she was seeking?
Kay went right back to the root directory and searched harder for something that would indicate secret files within secret files behind firewalls and fire-breathing dragons. She went over the lists carefully but as much as she tried to find a secret or separate section of files, she couldn’t.
And yet, he’d encrypted his entire computer with another layer of encryption. No one did that if there wasn’t something to hide. CDC encryption was very good. But you weren’t supposed to be working on non-CDC research.
Maybe…maybe that was it. Maybe he carried out his secret research after hours, when the day staff left and a skeleton staff remained for the evening and overnight.
She’d done that sometimes, with a time-sensitive research project. Her office had an armchair that became a very uncomfortable cot. More nights than she cared to think about, she’d worked until morning, stretching out on the cot for short breaks.
The building grew quiet after six p.m. and there were no interruptions. Just silence and almost unfettered access to the computing power of the institution and all its high-tech equipment.
If Bill had been working on something illegal, surely he’d have done it after hours? And maybe—maybe he’d finessed access to the BSL-4 lab? Mostly only governments ran bio-safety level 4 labs and there were only 9 government labs in the country, including the CDC. And a few private ones.
Though obtaining unauthorized after-hours access to the BSL-4 labs would be incredibly difficult, it was feasible that Bill had done the basic research at work and then tested the virus in one of the handful of privately owned BSL-4 labs with no cumbersome reporting protocols.
Or he could have done the theoretical work and then handed off the testing to a private lab. This kind of project, in the wrong hands, would have almost unlimited funding, unlike the CDC’s funding, which was squeezed harder and harder each year.
But then, Kay and her colleagues were trying to save lives, not a top priority these days. If you were trying to take as many lives as possible, create the most suffering possible, well then…money would flow to you. A weaponized Spanish flu virus would, really, be worth billions. Using bio-weapons was crazy reckless, but if you knew what you were doing, and if you could design a flu that degraded quickly and you were far from the borders of the country being attacked, you could depopulate a country in a few weeks and take over the infrastructure.
You’d have to be as mad as Hitler, but theoretically, it could be done.
No!
Her entire body rebelled at the thought.
Kay went back to the root directory and selected files from no more than a year ago and files time-stamped past 1800 hours.
Priyanka said she’d started observing odd behavior eight months ago. A year would probably cover it all.
The files appeared on her screen, but there were 20 files per screen and—she peered at the numbers at the bottom of the screen—50 pages each. A thousand files. Doable, certainly. And better than the hundreds of thousands of files that had at first appeared.
By the fourth file, Kay knew she had hit gold.
Bill had put together all the latest research on the Spanish flu, including Russian research on a patient buried in the Russian permafrost for a hundred years. It took her several hours, but she read it all and saw that he was interested in a fast-acting, fast-degrading flu.
Made sense. The virus was like tossing nuclear bombs around. No one wanted a worldwide pandemic, not in these days of mass air travel, of mass movements of people. At any given moment, there were 40 million refugees awash in the system, more than at any other time in the history of the world. A locus of infection in a group of refugees who were not monitored and the spark could turn into a conflagration that would burn the world down.
This original weaponized influenza virus had been genetically engineered to kill select individuals or groups with shared DNA.
Kay stopped for a moment, rubbing her eyes.
All of this was so freaking hard. It felt like she was twisting her brain so much it hurt. This was the opposite way of thinking of a medical researcher, who was trained—and trained intensely—to look for ways to mute the effects of disease. If possible, to eradicate it. The brass ring for every researcher was to do to all infectious diseases what had been done to smallpox—eliminate it from the earth.
Humankind’s most ancient and relentless enemy made powerless.
And now she had to follow the thought processes of someone who wanted to make our mortal enemy stronger. More virulent, more dangerous, more lethal.
It went against absolutely everything she believed in. It went against everything she’d ever done with her life. It went against everything science stood for.
Kay had grown up with an FBI Special Agent and she knew the men of ASI. They trained hard to serve and protect. It was their instinct. Her grandfather, as a young special agent, had run into a burning building to save two children who had been held hostage. The hostage taker had set fire to the building, preferring death to capture. The two children survived, thanks to her grandfather.
She’d asked him how he’d had the courage to run into a fire and he’d looked at her blankly.
Because that was what he did.
What Nick did. What Metal and Joe and Jacko and the other men at ASI did.
What she was doing was the equivalent of asking them to cower and hide if terrorists attacked. They couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do this.
But she had to.
She leaned forward again, holding another sandwich that had magically appeared at her elbow.
Hour after hour went by as she began to pick up on what Bill had been doing.
The first thing he’d done was increase the morbidity of the virus. She deleted out for the moment everything but the effect of the virus. In one file, she found a 3-D rendering of the virus, the elements in yellow where the virus attacked the human system. That was on one half of the screen. On the other half was the original virus, the yellow smaller, more scattered.
The new gene had been designed to attack the immune system immediately, like an RPG. The effect was immediate and devastating. The incubation period was reduced to almost zero.
He—and whoever was working with him—had created a virus that blew the immune system up and flooded the lungs with fluid.
God, the image flashed in her mind of Mike Hammer clutching his throat, drowning before her very eyes in a back alley. How he’d clutched his throat, chest heaving to bring in air that couldn’t fill the lungs, which were already filling with fluid. His face going from shock to fear to death in a minute and a half.
Someone had created that. Someone had wanted that.
She rested her forehead on her palm, exhausted and demoralized. Such horrors, things she and her colleagues had fought against all their adult life, being planned. The thought of the virus rotating in front of her on the screen being let loose to choke hundreds of thousands—millions!—of men, women and children…it hurt her to even think of it.
This virus for the moment was being used selectively, but it was there, engine idling, waiting to escape and become a worldwide pandemic, threatening humanity itself.
How could people do this?
Heavy hands on her shoulders. “Okay, princess. Time for a rest.”
Nick turned her office chair around until she sat facing him, inside the vee of his legs. Nick frowned, framed her face with his hands. “What’s wrong, honey?”
She must look as stricken as she felt.
Kay curled her hands around his wrists, trying to anchor herself. Tears were welling in her eyes, but it was mostly rage that she felt.
“Let me tell you what we’re up against, Nick. Like I said, in 1918, the Spanish flu killed more people than World War I. The most deadly war in history couldn’t compete with the Spanish flu. This particular flu attacked the immune system, making it go haywire. So, the stronger the immune system, the higher the death rate. Most flus kill children and the elderly, but this one affected strong young adults most of all. People couldn’t shop or meet up or even attend funerals. For a while, there was speculation that it would kill most of humanity. Even now, we don’t fully understand it. And someone, someone in the institution where I work, has taken that and made it worse. Made it faster-acting, even more deadly. I’ve studied these files and I keep backing away from that, because it’s too insane for words, but I can’t. Someone has taken this knowledge—which is the upshot of the work of thousands and thousands of the best minds humanity has—and turned it against us. I…I can’t wrap my head around it.”
There was still rage, but a tear fell down her cheek.
Nick wiped it away with his thumb, and sighed. “I know, honey.”
“I am just so…so angry.”
He nodded. “I know exactly how you feel, believe me.”
Kay blinked. “You do?”
“Oh yeah.” He hooked another rolling chair with a foot, pulled it toward him, sat down. He took her hands in his. The warm fleece sweater and socks had helped in the chilly room, but her hands had been cold. She’d been so focused on the files she’d barely noticed. But his big, calloused hands chased the chill away, filled her with heat. Those hands infused her with warmth and strength.
She cocked her head. “There’s a story there.”
“Damn straight. A terrible one, too.” He leaned forward, kissed her cheek. “So. You and I are alone here, but in a week, we wouldn’t have been. A new ASI recruit will be starting work soon. Matt Walker. Former Lieutenant Matt Walker. A very good man whose path crossed a very bad man’s.”
Kay was listening with every sense she had, not just her ears. Nick’s expression was serious, almost grim, his voice flat, as if intent on not betraying emotion. He didn’t realize it, but he was holding on to her hands so tightly it almost hurt. He’d gone continuously out of his way not to hurt her. If he was holding her hands too tightly, it was because of the emotions he was trying so hard to repress.
This was important to him, and therefore to her, too.
Discovering what Bill had been trying to do had been like an abyss opening up at her feet, the earth breaking itself apart. What had before been solid terrain was now dangerously cracked. But this was the world Nick operated in, where bad people did bad things.
She needed some insight into this world to remain sane, this new insane world of black hearts and sick minds, where bastards work really hard to kill as many people as possible.
It made no sense to her, but it made sense to Nick.
“A SEAL like you?”
“Yeah.” His jaw flexed, and his hands tightened even more. “Lieutenant Matt Walker was a legend. Three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Spoke decent Arabic and Pashto. He led from the front, always, the bravest of the brave.”
The way he was speaking… “Is he—is he dead?”
“No. No thanks to the US Navy, though.”
“What happened?”
“He and his men were stationed at an FOB in Helmand. An FOB is a—”
“Forward operating base,” she said. At his look, she shrugged. “I listen when people talk. You’d be surprised what I’ve picked up from the guys.”
“I hope just military slang.”
“Mm. And some other stuff. Jacko’s very inventive. I’ve got a PhD and I’ve never heard that stuff before.” Jacko, who was a very gifted mechanic, had once had a piece of engine bite him and she’d learned a lot of interesting expressions before he discovered she was there, listening to him with a grin. He’d shut up immediately.
Nick winced.
“Never mind that.” Kay leaned forward. “What happened at the FOB?”
It was as if she’d waved a wand. It wiped the slightly amused wince from his face and replaced it with an expression she couldn’t quite pin down.
“Matt and his team were on endless patrols. We’re not even at war anymore in Afghanistan but goddamn if fine men aren’t still being killed. So anyway, in prances this CIA prick. Not gonna say his name because it’s still classified, but his middle name was mother—” His eyes glanced to the side, then back. His jaw clenched as he bit back the word motherfucker. “He briefed Matt on the new mission. Turns out the new mission was sort of the old one, except for one thing. They were supposed to keep the local warlord happy at all costs. Give him the total white-glove treatment.”
Now it was her turn to wince. “I’ve heard that some warlords were—are—nasty people.”
“Scumbags, most of them,” Nick nodded. “This particular scumbag was the worst of the lot. Ignorant and brutal. Matt said he took an extra-long shower whenever he had to visit the warlord, keep him pacified. Then one day he arrived unexpectedly, had some patrol schedules to share with the fuckhead.” Another sideways glance away. “Sorry.”
Kay nodded. “I’m a scientist. I know how to recognize correct technical terminology. Fuckhead sounds about right. So, your friend Matt arrives unexpectedly…”
“Yeah.” Nick drew in a deep breath. “He entered the compound, went to what passed for the warlord’s office, which was crumbling stucco walls and a beaten earth floor with some flea-laden rugs over it. Matt heard screaming and broke into the warlord’s room. The warlord, he had,” Nick swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up then down, “he had a little boy bent over a table and was raping him brutally. The boy was screaming and crying. Warlord looks up, frowning, says the Pashto equivalent of ‘the fuck you want?’ Totally ignoring the little kid who’s screaming under him. There’s a charming practice in that part of the world called ‘Bacha Bazi’—boy toys. They use underage boys for sex. It was supposed to have been wiped out, but that’s wishful thinking.”
“What did Matt do?” Kay could almost see the scene, feel a good man’s pain at watching a little boy being brutalized.
“Broke the sick fuck’s jaw is what he did. He freed the little boy, helped him clean up, then the little boy led him to a basement where,” Nick swallowed heavily again, “there were twenty-two little boys, ages six to ten, more or less, chained. They were too cowed even to cry. Some had scars from being beaten with sticks. Matt freed them, loaded them onto the Humvees, then went back into the warlord’s office and kicked him in the balls.”
Kay was theoretically against violence, had heard the slogan violence is never the answer a thousand times, but she was fast coming to understand that sometimes violence was indeed the answer.
“Good for him,” she said.
“It doesn’t end there and it doesn’t end well.” Nick’s mouth pursed into a thin line. “Back at the FOB, he was busy arranging for placing the little boys in the care of an international aid agency when the CIA prick came storming in with Matt’s commanding officer, screaming at Matt that he’d fucked with our son of a bitch and that Matt had to hand back the warlord’s property.”
Shock chased the air from her lungs. “Property?”
“Yeah.” Nick nodded grimly. “Property. Little boys as property. At which point, Matt pointed out that this country fought a fucking war a hundred and fifty years ago so that the US government never again thought of human beings as property.”
“I hate that CIA guy already.”
“According to the CIA fucker—who had the audacity to introduce himself as John Smith—there was a deep game being played and Matt had stuck himself right in the middle and messed it up. So not only was Matt supposed to deliver those poor terrified and abused boys back to the monster who was torturing them, he was expected to apologize to the warlord, too.”
Oh God. “Was that a direct order? From his commanding officer?” Kay knew enough about the military to know that disobeying a direct order was the worst crime a soldier could commit, besides treason.
“Gets a little tricky, because the direct order was verbally given by CIA Fuckface. Who then told Matt’s XO to confirm. The officer nodded, but didn’t give the verbal order. By which point Matt was getting back into his Humvee to head for Kabul. CIA Fuckface said if he left the FOB, he’d pay for it with his career, but at that point Matt was so pissed, he left anyway. By the time he got to Kabul, the shit had hit the fan.”
“They blamed Matt?” Kay asked, appalled.
“No, all the SEALs were on his side, but the CIA guy, John Smith, had accused him of ‘causing bodily harm to a crucial ally’, making it sound like Matt had lost control. No mention of the kids, of the Bacha Bazi. A lot of US military personnel are tempted to break a lot of warlord jaws, so they decided to turn Matt into an object lesson. Smith was foaming at the mouth for a court martial but Matt is a hero. Has medals coming out his ass. No one would dare court martial him. And there was resistance to giving him a dishonorable discharge. So, he got an OTH discharge. Effective immediately.”
“OTH?”
“Other Than Honorable.”
“Oh my God, that is terrible!” A loyal Navy officer, a SEAL, a man who risked his life daily for his country, being discharged under a cloud…Kay could barely believe it.
Nick lifted Kay by her shoulders, kissed her gently on the mouth.
“Yes, it’s terrible, honey. But ASI and anyone who knows Matt is standing by his side. And we’re working to get the OTH discharge overruled. We’re fighting back. Just like you’re fighting back. Either you stand for something or you don’t. You and I and our friends—my teammates, Priyanka, Mike Hammer—will live or die by what we stand for. We will never give up and we will never back down. But right now, to continue the fight, you need to rest, otherwise you’ll collapse. Am I right?”
He was looking deep into her eyes, so deeply she couldn’t lie. Kay wanted to continue tracking down the criminals who had infested her world of science. Not rest until she found the bastards. But she was exhausted. Her knees were trembling; she could barely stand. She needed to rest or she’d collapse, just as Nick said.
“You’re right.” No use in lying. Another half hour of work and she’d fall asleep with her face on the keyboard. She’d worked this hard before and there came a point when her body simply shut down. She was at that point now. “What time is it?”
“Four.”
“Four what?”
He looked at her curiously. “Four in the afternoon. You’ve been working nonstop for almost 24 hours. Time to rest.”
She nodded.
“Good girl. How long do you need?”
She looked up at him, strong and steady, waiting for her answer. He was clearly willing to roll with whatever she said. She knew enough of Nick to know he was protective, maybe even overprotective, like her grandfather. He’d want her to sleep around the clock, but he wasn’t pushing for that. He trusted her to know herself, know how much rest she’d need to be functional. He wasn’t pushing in any direction, just waiting for her to tell him.
They crossed the room, walked into the big corridor. She was a little turned around and wouldn’t have been able to find their room without his help.
“I think if I could rest for about four hours, I’ll be okay.”
His glance was piercing, but he didn’t say anything. “Four hours it is. I’ll have coffee and some dinner waiting.”
“A sex god and he cooks dinner.”
“Let’s not go overboard. A sex god, yes. Dinner, no. That would be thanks to Isabel and her minions.”
They were in the huge bedroom. Kay turned around, linked her arms around his neck and lifted to kiss him, breaking away when the kiss got interesting. Sex would be wonderful, but it would wipe her out.
He held up the covers. “Get in, honey.”
All the fatigue, all the horror and terror of the past day came down on her like an anvil. With barely the energy to move, she crawled into bed and felt him get in behind her, curling around her like a strong, warm wall.
Nick reached up, did something, and the light dimmed almost completely. He held her, one thick arm around her stomach, knees tucked in behind hers, a living blanket. He had a huge erection against the small of her back.
“Nick, I—” An enormous yawn overtook her.
“Shh.” His lips moved against her ear, his deep voice sounding like it came from the pit of his stomach, vibrating against her back. “You’re too tired. I just want you to sleep in my arms. I almost lost you yesterday, Kay. I need to hold you.”
She sighed. It felt so good to be held. Desire was there but it was far away, beyond the fatigue. It could wait. She was falling, falling into sleep, but she knew if she fell too far he would catch her.
“Sleep, darling,” he said in that dark dark voice, and she plunged straight down.
“Help, Kay. You’ve got to help.”
“Priyanka!”
Kay looked greedily at her friend. She was back! So beautiful, so smart. Priyanka. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Priyanka smiled for an instant. “Yes, I know. I know everything.”
“If you know everything, then help me, Priyanka. Help me stop this craziness. I watched Mike Hammer die.”
“I died, too, Kay.”
“God, I know. Killed. No way were you drunk behind the wheel.”
Her face was sad, her skin ashen instead of that beautiful bronze color. “No, I wasn’t drunk. Is that what they’re saying? But I am dead.”
Grief shot through Kay all over again, as piercing as the first time she’d heard Priyanka was dead. “But you’re here now. Stay. Stay with me,” she begged. “Let’s work this out together. I need you, Priyanka. I can’t do this alone.”
Priyanka looked down then back up. Kay gasped. There were holes where Priyanka’s eyes had been. No longer that warm chocolate brown, full of amusement and life and intelligence. Now there was nothing. Emptiness.
“Can’t help you, Kay.” Her voice was low, barely a whisper. Priyanka turned and started walking away. A freezing cold wind blew up out of nowhere and her long dark hair whirled around her head.
No! Kay couldn’t let her go! She missed her, needed her. Priyanka knew how to tease out the mystery from the thousands and thousands of files. Ahead of Priyanka were endless doorways, fading into infinity. Door after door after door…
Priyanka was walking through them, one after the other, becoming smaller and smaller.
Kay ran after her, but her feet weren’t working. She couldn’t move, her body simply wouldn’t work. She struggled but it was useless, it was as if she were tied down, encased in something hard and unyielding.
Priyanka was barely a dot on the horizon, walking through the doors stretching into infinity.
Kay leaned forward, trying to move her feet. She put everything into her scream, but it came out soundless. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak!
Priyanka was at the edge of infinity. She turned and spoke softly, her voice directly in Kay’s ear, though she was so far away.
“So many dead, Kay. Such a horrible death, though you were spared. You know why. The dead will tell you why. The dead will become crisper.”
“What?”
“Crisper, they will become crisper.” And the voice disappeared and the faint dot on the horizon that was Priyanka winked out.
The wind was freezing, the cold bitterness of a world where Priyanka was gone.
“Crisper!” Suddenly Priyanka was screaming, right in her ear, anger and fear in the voice. She gave a howl that Kay felt down to her toes.
Kay bolted up in bed, heart pounding, the sound of a scream echoing in the room. Nick held her tightly with one arm, the other holding a heavy black gun, which he pointed where his eyes looked.
She was sweating, heart pounding. Nick’s muscles were rigid, tight.
He relented first, relaxing, putting the gun down on the night table. She hadn’t even known it was there.
“Sorry,” she whispered through a tight voice. “Nightmare.”
“That’s okay, honey,” Nick said, kissing the top of her head. “You scared the shit out of me, though. Must have been a hell of a nightmare.”
She eased up against the headboard. A bottle of water and a glass had been placed on her side of the bed, which she thought was better than a gun. She poured herself a glass with shaking hands. Nick’s steady hand cupped hers as she brought the glass to her lips and drank deeply.
“It was.” She leaned into him, into that strong body, steady as a rock. The nightmare had chilled her but his body heat was starting to warm her back up. “Not so much a nightmare, just sad and cold. Priyanka leaving.”
That was it. Priyanka’s spirit had left the world. It was as if she’d been hanging around, maybe trying to help Kay, but now her time was up. Priyanka had walked through that endless corridor of endless doors and had departed this earth. Kay shivered, feeling bereft all over again. With hindsight, she realized she’d still somehow felt Priyanka, guiding her, helping her, but now—now there was only emptiness.
She was gone. Forever.
“She’s gone.” Nick echoed her thoughts. His voice was so low, she perceived the words through the vibration in his chest rather than from his lips.
“Yeah,” she whispered, throat tight. “I know.” The words hurt.
Words. She remembered the fun times with Priyanka, who had been a chatterbox when she relaxed. All business at work, such a complex and fascinating woman outside of work. How odd that her last word to Kay had been crisper.
Priyanka was so embedded in Kay’s heart that she thought she could still hear her voice. Crisper.
Kay stiffened.
“Honey?” Nick pulled away a little, frowning down at her.
“Crisper,” she whispered.
“What?”
Kay looked at him but she didn’t see him. She saw through him, to a point a million miles away.
“Kay?”
“Crisper.” The word bounced around inside her head. Bless her, Priyanka had given her the key from beyond the grave.
CRISPR.
Because Bill Morrell hadn’t been a geneticist. He wouldn’t necessarily have known how to edit genes using a CRISPR. But she knew someone who was a geneticist and would have known how to splice DNA into a gene.
Oh God.
Kay gave Nick a little push and rolled out of bed, pulling on the soft yoga outfit. She ran toward the room where she’d worked, but only got as far as the huge plaza. She was almost jumping with anxiety.
Nick was right behind her, frowning. “Kay, what’s crisper?”
“Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. I told John that. Where’s the office, Nick? Priyanka just gave me the key!”
“Come with me.” He led her back, without once mentioning that a dead woman had talked to her. If Kay’s head weren’t whirling, she’d have kissed him for that. Down one hall and then another and he opened a door and there it was—her workspace, just as she’d left it.
Kay made a beeline, sitting down, opening the root directory.
“CRISPR is the gene engineering and editing system. It can target specific areas of genetic code and can edit DNA at specific locations. If the H1N1 was engineered with specific DNA, they had to use a CRISPR. It wasn’t Bill Morrell. He wouldn’t know how to splice and edit DNA at that level. Someone else did it, did the genetic engineering. I need to check usage of the CDC CRISPR-Cas9 machines. Someone used those machines, and I think I know who—”
The rest was lost in the explosion that rocked the Grange.