Encrypted (22 page)

He knelt, pulled the sign from the ground
,
and chucked it in the
trash can
.
That phase of his life was over.

Zach settled in behind the wheel and went to start the engine when the passenger side door opened
.
His hand instinctively flew to his gun, which wasn’t there. Luckily
,
the intruder was just Grant
.

“What do you want, Fifer?”

The younger agent hopped into the car and had on his seat belt before answering
.
“Coming to your cousin’s party with you.”

“You’re not invited
.
Get out.”

“Is that a way to treat a trusted colleague, Hunt?”

“Get out.”

Grant looked him up and down
.
“You know, you actually look somewhat fashionable
,
for once
.
And to go to a bawdy bachelor party?”

Zach’s teeth ground against one another
.
“Get out.”

“Is that really
hair
product in your hair?”

“Get out.”

“And if I am not mistaken, and I seldom am, you got a manicure this morning.”

Unconsciously
,
Zach pulled his hands back from the wheel
.
How in the hell could Grant miss a shell casing lying in the middle of the street
,
but somehow know
that
Zach’s nails
were
buffed
?

“Get out.”

“Hey, all I’m saying is, you are looking to get laid tonight, my friend.”

“Get out.”

Grant put his head back on the SUV’s headrest
.
“Make me.”

Zach was certain that he was grinding
the
enamel off his teeth
.
He knew he doth protest too much
.
Grant pulled this kind of crap all the time
,
and Zach usually just let it slide
.
After all
,
to Fifer it was just a two-hour drive to a bachelor party where they would split up until the drive home
.
But wait
!
That was his out.

“I’m planning on staying the weekend.”

But Grant’s face just lit up as he pulled his bag into the car
.
“Me
,
too!”

Zach groaned as Grant flipped
the SUV’s music selection
.
“Hey, you got any Snoop
Dog
g
in here?”

This was going to be a really, really,
really
long drive.

CHAPTER 8

Plum Island

10:44
a
.
m
.,
EST

Amanda stared at the electron microscope picture of the bacterium,
Yersinia
pestis
,
extract
ed from a New York plague victim
. The pudgy bacteri
um
looked so innocent
.
L
ike any other of the millions of Gram-negative bacteria in the body.
But this one packed a punch.

Many of her colleagues in this room would argue with her anthropomorphizing a microscopic organ. Was
Yersinia
pestis
any more sinister by nature than Lactobacillus, the bacteri
um
that helped humans
to
digest milk? Did
Yersinia
pestis
take pleasure in the havoc it
w
re
a
ked?

To Amanda
,
the bacterium certainly seemed to. Was it
by
intelligent design or selection of the meanest that
Yersinia
pestis
found the nearly perfect host in the common flea? The bacteri
um
somehow figured out how to hitch a ride on the bloodsucking parasites. Jumping from infected host to new victim in the flea’s saliva. Okay, so
Yersinia
pestis
had to count on the fact that fleas regurgitated into their bites, but still it was a pretty slick operation.

Add in the fact that
because of
superstition
,
all
cats
—
not just black cats
—
were killed off by the droves in medieval Europe. Which led to an overpopulation of rats
,
which led to an overpopulation of fleas
,
and
one
could see how
Yersinia
pestis
could spread so rampantly through the known world.

And
Yersinia
pestis
wasn’t just clever
,
but ambitious as well. The reason the plague took such a heavy toll, becoming the
Black Death
,
was the fact
that
the bacteria attacked the body’s immune system, killing or incapacitating the host’s white cells. From there
,
they hit the bloodstream
—
spreading to every part of the body
,
destroying tissue as they went.

Forget about sharks.
Yersinia
pestis
was a nearly perfect killing machine.

Jennifer walked in and set another picture beside the current plague bacterium. Amanda scanned the new photo. This sample dated back to the fourteen hundreds.
Yersinia
pestis
pulled from the tooth pulp of long
-
dead Black Death victims. It is how scientists first established that the Gram-negative bacteria had been the
culprit
during the Middle Ages.

Wow, Jennifer was quick. The World Health Organization had just asked Plum Island to verify that the current
Yersinia
pestis
was the same strain as the 1347 pandemic. Jennifer hadn’t just looked up the files online, but
had
gone down into the basement and pulled the original reports.

Amanda scanned the documents quickly. Everything seemed to be lining up perfectly. Both the current bacteria and the 1347 plague carried all the same genetic markers.
The same bipolar staining.
The same negative uptake of indole.
In every way
,
they seemed
to be
the same strain
—
except with on
e
vital difference. This new strain was showing significant antibiotic resistance. Even to third
-
generation aminoglycoside?

Trying not to jump to conclusions that would get her laughed at, Amanda reread the results. It wasn’t uncommon in this age of “give a pill for every sniffle
”
that bacteria had become more and more resistant to common
-
use antibiotics. Just look at
the distant cousin of
Yersinia
pestis
:
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
. That ancient bacteri
um
could become resistant to an antibiotic over just the course of a two
-
month treatment window.

But how
had
Yersinia
pestis
develop
ed
resistance to an antibiotic it hadn’t even seen before?

If this didn’t support her theory regarding weaponization, what would?

“Thanks, Jennifer.”

Her assistant gave her that look
,
though. Like
, “I
s that all you’ve got?”

Amanda studied the reports again. Except for the antibiotic resistance, they seemed the same. Jennifer pointed to the current strain’s electron microscope picture. Then to the 1347’s photo. They appeared
to be
identical, except
…
Wait.

The protein markers on the current
Yersinia
pestis
seemed more prominent. Like way more prominent.
Like three times as many markers as the 1347 photo.

Amanda sat up abruptly.

Whoever had done this was absolutely evil
,
yet outstandingly brilliant.

“Get Dr. Henderson,” Amanda
directed
Jennifer. “He’s got to see this.”

* * *

Ronnie couldn’t believe
that
she had let Quirk talk her into this
.
Banging another elbow on the
airplane’s
bathroom stall, she cursed under her breath
.
Another bruise, and for what
?
She looked in the mirror
.
It was hopeless
.
Yet another low-cut, spaghetti
-
strapped nightmare
.
Her body shape wasn’t meant for silk and satin
.
The fabric fell awkwardly off her not-quite-so-feminine broad shoulders
.
Usually
,
she liked being tall for a woman, but these dresses were cut for some petite little debutante without any cleavage.

The super-
W
onder
B
ra wasn’t helping
,
either
.
Her breasts were a good two inches north of where they normally hung out
.
She tried to adjust the straps again, but the apparatus was determined to give her perky nipples
.

“Well?” Quirk asked from outside the stall.

“I am
not
coming out in this
Britney
Spears reject.”

Her assistant jiggled the door
.
He was intent to continue this little in-flight fashion show
.
“Let the audience decide.”

Tentatively
,
Ronnie opened the lock and stepped out
.
Well
,
the men gave a thumbs
-
up, or more accurately
,
other anatomical appendage
s
, to the dress
.
The women however, scowled
.
Ronnie stepped back into the cramped bathroom and threw the bolt.

“Okay, okay
.
That one was a little bold,” Quirk admitted
through
the door as she ripped the dress off
.
“I’m telling you, try the black one.”

Ronnie looked down at the forest of bags at her feet
.
“There are
fifteen
black ones in here.”

“The one with the piping and long sleeves.”

Even though she didn’t know why she did it, Ronnie dug through the inventory
.
Luckily
,
only one dress fit that description
.
There was something different about this dress
.
It felt soft on her skin, not all slippery
.
And the sleeves gave the garment a classier look
,
rather than the cocktail
-
whore look the rest had going for them
.

“Well?” Quirk prompted.

Shimm
y
ing into the sleek
,
black dress, Ronnie was surprised
at
how well it fit
.
The thing might have sleeves
,
but they made up for that material by not really giving it a back
.
She could feel cool air all the way down to
the
rise of her buttocks
.
The front didn’t waste much fabric
,
either
.
The neckline plunged down and ended just a hair’s brea
d
th from her bra’s scalloped edge
.