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“Eighteen seconds,” she said the moment the system returned to normal. She had her fingers ready and tapped the commands required to release tens of thousands of Sniffers to go after the queen viruses. “Let's hope Bloodaxe was right.”

The Sniffers expanded radially into every ISP in the area, resembling an army of hound dogs following the prey's scent, searching, smelling, tracking. The packets of C++ code spread across New England in the first few seconds, reaching the southern states and the Midwest five seconds later. California and Washington were last, roughly ten seconds after Susan had released them.

“Got one tracking in southern Colorado,” she said moments later, when one of the Sniffers E-mailed a small file, or “Bark,” back to her, announcing a hot trail, a direct match between the code in Scent and the code in Sniffer. The Bark included the coordinates of its current ISP in longitude and latitude. A surge of confidence suddenly swept through her. The hunt was on.

In the next thirty seconds her electronic hounds were barking from hundreds of ISPs all over the United States, following the scent left behind by the queen viruses returning to the source. She could track their progress visually on an electronic world atlas, which read the incoming coordinates and automatically mapped them on the screen, also recording the event in digital video in memory for future review.

Susan had selected a map of North America as a starting point, ready to pan around depending on where the Sniffers went. Black dots representing Sniffers tracking prey moved about on the light blue map in seemingly random fashion, hopping from ISP to ISP, many of them crossing paths, separating, and doubling back, before slowly heading south. The dots began to cluster on a Hughes Spaceway satellite in geostationary orbit over southern Mexico and Guatemala. Susan scrolled down to position the icon representing the Hughes satellite in the middle of the screen. The map in view now covered all of Mexico, the Gulf, and portions of Central America. The dots moved from the satellite down to a location in the middle of the Yucatán Peninsula.

And then they disappeared, marking the original location of the virus.

“Where is that?” asked Reid.

“According to the last recorded Bark, the virus originated at…” She zoomed in on the location where the dots had converged before vanishing. “Looks like longitude ninety degrees and thirty minutes west. Latitude seventeen degrees and four minutes north.”

She zoomed in some more, clicking an option to add names of regions, cities, rivers, and mountain ranges.

“But that's in the middle of nowhere. There shouldn't be any ISPs down there.”

“Middle of the jungle,” Susan added, disappointed. “The lowlands of the Petén, to be exact.” She pointed to the name on the screen. “In Guatemala, around sixty miles from the border with Mexico.”

“Where is the closest large city?”

“That would be either Belmopan to the east, in Belize; Guatemala City, two hundred and fifty miles to the south; or Campeche, to the north in the Yucatán Peninsula. The closest towns are El Subín, to the east, or Tenosique, to the west, by the Río San Pedro, both around fifty miles from the coordinates.”

“Something went wrong,” Reid said, getting up. “This doesn't make sense. How can the world's most sophisticated virus emerge from such a remote location?”

Susan remained sitting, dragging the mouse to an icon on the top left corner and double-clicking it. A window opened up that resembled a VCR remote control. She clicked on the
PLAY
button and watched the digital video of the short event. The Barks originated from hundreds of ISPs within seconds, moving in a random pattern before heading south, hopping from one ISP to the next, then beaming up to the Hughes satellite, and back down toward the Petén jungle. “I don't know what to say. The Sniffers all converged on only one location.”

“I'm not buying it,” Reid said, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. “You might want to make a call to Haynesville for more help. Looks like something may have fooled the Sniffers, sending them astray.”

Susan remained silent, staring at the screen as she replayed the event a second and third time. “Do you think that the queen virus has a scent of her own? Perhaps something that overpowered our own scent?”

“Possibly. But how can we tell?”

Just then a notification appeared on her screen.
[email protected]
wanted to start an Internet chat with her.

“That's strange timing,” said Reid, leaning down.

“Not really. He said he would check in right after the event.” She clicked on it.

Susan launched her E-mail software and sent Bloodaxe the video clip.

Susan played the video on her screen once again, pointing at the images while saying, “He's right, you know. If the Scent had been altered or overpowered, then the Sniffers would have remained roaming the continental United States, like now.” She tapped her finger on the plasma screen. The black dots were spread all over the map without a pattern, like a shotgun blast. “But now they are converging, see? They have found their match and are going after it, all the way to the origin … right here.” She zoomed even more, selecting an option on the top menu to add all labels to the map, including sites of historical significance.

“Interesting,” she mumbled.

“What is?”

“This.” She placed the cursor on the exact coordinates transmitted by the Sniffers before they vanished. “The coordinates are right in the middle of the Tikal ruins.”

“Tikal? That's the Aztecs?”

She shook her head. “No. The Maya.”

“How do you know?”

“From my Georgetown University days. In addition to my teaching responsibilities, I managed the university's Web page, with the assistance of several grad students. We set up Web pages for many departments, including the department of natural science. In order to do justice to each department, we would do some research first. Two of my kids spent a couple of weeks researching pre-Columbian history, including the history of the Maya and the Aztecs. Although we did this about five years ago, I do recall that the Maya populated the Yucatán Peninsula, including portions of southern Mexico and most of Guatemala. The Aztecs were primarily located in central and northern Mexico, not in the south.”

Before Reid could reply Hans Bloodaxe sent a new message.

Susan broke off the connection.

“Sounds like he's cooperating,” commented Reid, still standing next to her.

The combination of tension and exhaustion pressed down on her like a ton of bricks. Keeping her arms to her sides, Susan raised her shoulder as much as she could and rolled her neck, eyes closed, trying to relieve some of the stress. “Seems that way. So far he appears to be keeping his end of this deal. This whole thing is still very difficult for me. I can't believe we let him use a computer again.”

“I know it is difficult, and I commend you for putting your personal feelings aside and keeping it professional. Do you still think he could be behind this virus?”

“I don't know what to think anymore, Troy. On the one hand he appears to be putting in an honest effort to help us out. On the other hand … how can you trust a person who was responsible for the death of your family?”

Reid didn't respond. He simply patted her back, his tone of voice fatherly as he said, “Hang in there, kid. You're doing just fine. We'll be out of the woods in no time.”

Susan nodded. “What about contacting the NPIC to get some satellite shots of the region? Plus it would be a great idea to scan that area for any signs of electronic equipment,” she said, referring to the national photographic interpretation center.

“I'll give them a call. With some luck I should have some prints in the morning.”

“Let's give our new virus a quick check,” she said, pulling up the passive version and loading it into her petri dish to check the mutation sequence.