Encrypted (39 page)

“
That
is what gave us away?”

“Yep,” Ronnie replied, putting the thing in a lead-lined tube. Quirk would have a field day with the material once he got it back to his mad-scientist laboratory. She had every confidence that he would not only be able replicate the device,
but also
find a way to deactivate it without having to go all ape on someone.

Once the cap was screwed on nice and tight, blocking
any
transmission that might give away their location, Ronnie sat back on her heel
s
.

“Now, you were saying something regarding the salvation of our world from a weaponized strain of the Black Death?”

A smile played at the edge of his lips. Good. He was starting to get her dark humor.

“Yes, we were,” he replied
, and
then caught her gaze again. How she wanted to get lost in those brilliant blues, but unfortunately
,
there really was a weaponized strain of the Black Death on the loose. “I recognized something while I was being interrogated.”

By the look of the bruises Zach had
before
her efficiency-challenged rescue, he hadn’t been interrogated
—
he had been
tortured
.

“I realized that I had seen the symbols they needed decode
d
before,” Zach said.

“Where?”

Zach grabbed a stick from the ground and began drawing. “Back in El Paso
,
a crazed old man had carved them into his skin.”

Ronnie frowned. “Carved?”

“Yeah
.
I mean
,
I just thought he was clinically insane. He’d just tried to torch a painting
—
”

“The Picasso?” Ronnie interjected.

“Yes,” Zach said
,
stopping his artistic rendering in the dirt. “How did you know?”

Um, besides tracking everything that happened in the El Paso FBI office? Ronnie felt maybe that was something best held back until the second date. She shrugged
,
trying to look as casual as she could. “Must have caught it on the news.”

Luckily
,
Zach went back to his drawing. “Anyway
,
I am pretty damn sure that at least one of those symbols was in the Hidden Hand documents
that
Grant showed me.”

Zach leaned back
,
revealing the symbol.

Crap
. Of all the symbols in the world
,
it had to be that one. The one that had been burned into their monitors back in the cold room.

She turned to Quirk. “Grab my laptop.”

“What? Do I look like your bitch?” Quirk said, hand on hip. “Do I?”

Ronnie cut him some slack. After all
,
his hair was mussed and he was working in distinctly non-clean room conditions. As
he returned
to fixing their communications equipment, Ronnie dug through the various cases and found her laptop. She flipped it open, finding the screenshot
that
she was looking for.

The angelic script glittered gold.

“You mean like this one?” she asked Zach.

“Exactly.”

Ronnie sat down hard. “Guess it wasn’t spam.”

* * *

“How…how did you get this?” Zach asked. He should have known
,
though
,
that Ronnie would not
be
just a step
,
but a full block ahead of everyone else. Yet
,
it still seemed shocking to see the same symbol glow on her screen that had been etched in the old man’s flesh
,
and again in the Hidden Hand’s papers.

“Long story,” Ronnie said with a sigh. “Just know that angelic script has been considered unbreakable for millennia.”

Zach nodded. “Yeah, that’s the impression I got. Grant said
that
the entire team at Langley couldn’t crack it.”

“Well, why didn’t they just say so?” Ronnie
said,
chuckl
ing
. “We could have avoided several helicopter crashes if they’d just appealed to my competitive nature.”

“So
,
what are you going to do?” he asked
,
although he pretty much knew the answer.

Ronnie settled back into a cross-legged stance, stretching her neck from one side to the other. “Um, crack it?”

He was pretty sure
that
she meant the code and not her neck
.
B
ut with Ronnie
,
you couldn’t ever be
100
percent sure.

“Just like that?”

“Well, not exactly,” she responded
,
lacing her fingers together
and
then extending them. “Let Quirk know that I will be back in three hours.”

“Be back?” Zach asked as Ronnie began typing. “Where are you going?”

Ronnie didn’t answer. Instead
,
her eyes tracked back and forth across the screen as her fingers flew along the keyboard.

“Ronnie?” he asked
,
but again
,
he
got no answer. He put his hand up, waving it.
But still nothing.

“Quirk
!
” he yelled.

The young man straightened from his task
.
“Oh
,
my
G
od. You two are
so
needy! A match made in heaven.”

“There’s something wrong with Ronnie.”

“Seriously, what?” Quirk asked
,
although Zach noticed that the man did hurry over. “I
am
trying to save our lives here. Along with keeping up to date on everything plague.”

Quirk
stepped
in front of Ronnie. “Okay, what seems to be the problem?”

“She isn’t responding,” Zach pointed out, although that should have been pretty damn clear when she didn’t even look up
as
Quirk approached. He snapped his fingers in front of Ronnie. Nothing.

“Really? I mean it doesn’t exactly seem to be a great use of time management, but you called me over for
this
?”

“
Yes
.” Zach wasn’t sure if he could really fulfill the promise of his “don’t mess with me
”
stare, but he brought it to bear anyway.

Quirk cocked his head. “You really don’t know?”

“
No
.”

“She’s looping. Cycling?
OCD
’
ing
to the max?” Quirk must have sensed Zach’s confusion
,
because he followed up with actual compassion in his voice. “Ronnie’s got obsessive
-
compulsive disorder. She didn’t mention this little mental condition? It’s her secret behind the sauce.”

Zach watched as Ronnie’s eyes flickered, watching the data that flowed so quickly across the screen that it was a blur. How could she be reading that
,
let alone taking it all in? But her fingers raced nearly as fast as the data, moving symbols from one side of the screen to another, turning them over, flipping them vertically. It was like watching a
Rubik’s
C
ube on crack.

“Did she say anything before she went into the zone?” Quirk asked.

He had to peel his eyes away from the screen. The colors and movement
were
hypnotizing even him. However
,
he
had no idea whatsoever what it all meant.

“Yeah
.
Ronnie said she’d be back in three hours.”

Quirk rose, dusting off his hands. “Well, then. There you have it.”

“Have what?” Zach really did not like the sensation of being behind the curve.
And with these two?
He had a feeling
that
he
had
better get used to it.

“She estimated
that it would
take her three hours to break the cipher.”

“What?” Zach challenged. “I thought it was an unbreakable code that has stood up for thousands of years.”

Quirk shrugged. “Only because Ronnie ha
s
n’t put her mind to it.”

The assistant went back to his task. Zach studied Ronnie. She didn’t look at peace
. N
or did she seem stressed. She just seemed intent. Zach knew
that
she was smart. Obviously. And cunning.
No one got
on the FBI
’
s
T
en
M
ost
W
anted list by accident.
But to see that intellect in action?

It truly was a sight to behold.

CHAPTER 17

Plum Island

1:05
p
.
m
.,
E
ST

Amanda turned away from the conference room’s television screen.
As if
she needed to hear Anderson give more bad news.
Such as,
now
every large urban city across America had to shut down their hospitals and go to the “Antibiotic Home Delivery” system.

Antibiotics weren’t going to cut it
,
though. Not with Jennifer sitting next to her hacking away. None of the treatments seemed to slow the course of the plague at all. If anything
, they
just seemed to piss off
Yersinia
pestis
.

No, they needed to concentrate on finding the vaccinated populations.

At this point in the conference room
,
it was pretty
much
just Jennifer and Amanda. The last of the scientists had gone
down
for treatment. It was eerie how still the upper floor was after the hustle, bustle
,
and coughing from the infirmary.

“Anything yet?” Dr. Henderson asked as he walked in. Guess he followed their lead to get the hell out of the infirmary. The director rolled his sleeve
down
to cover not only the bandage where the IV catheter
was
,
but
several boils
were
about to rupture.

Amanda shook her head. “No.
it
could take days to compile all the information.”

The director didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. They all knew
that
they didn’t have several days. If they didn’t
f
ind a vaccine within the next twenty-four hours…

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Devlin said bursting into the room.

Trying to play it cool, Amanda shrugged.

The CIA liaison turned to Dr. Henderson. “I
’
m sorry
,
but I have to speak to you regarding Dr.
Rolph’s
conduct.”

Henderson slouched into the nearest chair. “It is a free country, Mr.
Devlin
.”

Devlin glared at Amanda. “I would like to know why my broadband width has been hijacked
by
Dr.
Rolph
.”

“I am not sure if you are aware
,
Mr.
Devlin,
but we do have a plague going on.”

“Yes,”
Devlin
stated, flinging his hand as if he could just brush that minor inconvenience away. “I mean
,
why is she tapped into the CIA database?”

Henderson swung his head toward her. “That seems to be a fair question, Dr.
Rolph
.”

Amanda’s eyes darted to Jennifer. She’d asked her assistant to get her more bandwidth. Guess she should have asked Jennifer where she planned on getting it.

“I’m drilling down into the data to pick up subtle variations in the spread of the disease to extrapolate the predictive model for vaccinated populations.”