Encrypted (59 page)

“Dr.
Rolph
, what have you done?”

He rushed her. Amanda grabbed the only thing nearby
—
a phone
—
and defended herself, knocking Devlin across the head. Her antigen-antibody inflamed joints flared as he slumped to the floor.

Of course
,
that was the moment
when
Dr. Henderson decided to walk through the door.

“Amanda, what have you done?”

* * *

Ronnie watched as the data scrolled in from the CDC. Most of it she didn’t understand. Something about the plague’s fomite vectors and intracellular disruption. No, what she needed was deeper. Ronnie opened the file labeled “Vaccine Loci.”

She skimmed through the documentation. Clearly
,
Dr.
Rolph
had been tracking at first hospital intake data,
and
then when the hospitals closed, home identifiers who were having antibiotics delivered to their door
s
,
and
then finally
,
the death count.

The numbers were staggering. So staggering
that
Ronnie didn’t even log them in her brain. She just kept skimming until she got to the conclusion
,
where Dr.
Rolph
identified small areas around the world that defied a pattern of increased resistance to the plague. Areas where there was a not
-
exactly
-
conspicuous lack of plague victims, but a statistical dip in cases. Most would probably chalk those differences up to an anomaly, within the margin of error. As a matter of fact, Dr.
Rolph
was splitting some pretty fine hairs. Finer than even Ronnie would.

Could these impossibly crunched numbers help identify the Hidden Hand’s stronghold? Did they really indicate vaccinated populations
,
or were they just figments of Dr.
Rolph’s
imagination?

Ronnie hit the icon to bring up the world map. Tiny pockets of statistically lower plague victims sprang up across the globe. While small, these areas numbered in the hundreds.

Gulping, Ronnie leaned back. Long ago
,
she had accepted the fact that the Hidden Hand had bioengineered the plague
,
and being evil geniuses had manufactured both an antiserum to treat acute cases and a vaccine to protect their own and those that swore allegiance to them.

“What’s wrong?” Zach asked. “Is the information bogus?”

No. That was the problem. The information seemed eerily correct. If Ronnie had any doubt about the Hidden Hand’s fortitude or ability to carry out a mass extinction, this data shattered it. Each of the tiny dots represented a Hidden Hand presence. Each was either within or near a major population center. They had established their presence exactly where it would be needed once those ci
ties fell to the plague. Nation
capitals. State capitals. Seats of power. Places
where
survivors would look for guidance. The Hidden Hand would be there to pick up the pieces and rebuild the world in their image.

“Ronnie?”

She still couldn’t answer him. Not with the ruin of the world staring back at her. To see the scope and breadth of the Hidden Hand’s campaign sucked the words right out of her mouth. If their enemy was this well organized, its network sprawled across the world, how well fortified would one of their vaccine repositories be? If the Hidden Hand had this kind of unlimited resources
,
how could they overcome them with just a few hours preparation?

Look at how well the Met had gone. And the museum only wanted to deter robberies. They were not prepared to shoot on
sight
. She wanted to voice this all to Zach, but
she
simply couldn’t.

Quirk was at her shoulder though, seldom at a loss for words. “What are those?”

Her assistant point
ed
to the scattered dots located in outlying
locations. While far fewer in number, they still added up to dozens. These were barely blips. When she didn’t immediately answer him, he reached over and keyed in a few commands.

Dr.
Rolph’s
map overlapped the map that Ronnie had been working on. Her heart sank even further when the vast majority of the locales did not match. How could that be? Ronnie supposedly had a list of Hidden Hand safe houses
,
and Dr.
Rolph
had a list of vaccinated populations. Wouldn’t they be the same?

Something
was off.
It was l
ike looking at a constellation sideways. They were at the edge of a pattern. So close
that
Ronnie could taste it in the back of her mouth. She turned the maps upside down, inverted them,
and
even stretched them, but she could
not
get them to line up.

“How did the musical symbols from Elvis factor in?” Quirk asked.

The musical symbols? Ronnie had chalked them up to a homage. What if they weren’t?

“Francois, are the members of the Hand within the Hand only painters?” she asked.

The old man opened his eyes. “Of course not.”

Ronnie smiled as she scrolled to the Graceland burning. She incorporated the
musical
notes, translated
them
into Hebrew
,
and
then modified
it all
into angelic script. She plugged the numbers in. The map warped and dilated
, and
then came to rest.

“Dang
,” Quirk said
,
pointing to Europe. “
Venice is like a red
-
light district.”

The neighborhood of Santa Croce in Venice, Italy did flare brightly. It took a moment for it to sink in. Santa Croce was a junction of lower plague victims and an area designated by angelic script. Others appear
ed
as well. One in Siberia
,
and a
nother at the horn in Africa.

“Told you the King was the key,” Quirk announced. Perhaps he was right.

She scrolled the
new
map over. There were several
locales
scattered in Latin America. Quickly
,
she scrolled up
, pulling the
United States
into view.

Sure enough
,
several other junctions glowed red.
One in San Simeon
, another in South Dakota, with another in New Orleans.

But one? One shone right out at her.

Cutler, Maine.

One of the most northern points along Maine’s rugged, rocky, isolated coast, Cutler was exactly the kind of place Ronnie would have chosen if she needed to hide the cure for the Black Death.

CHAPTER 28

Undisclosed Location

12:37
p
.
m
.,
EST

Zach stood in the center of a perfectly white room. It was almost hard to look at the walls
.
T
hey shimmered so brightly. Was this what heaven would feel like? Probably for Ronnie and Quirk, since the only thing
s
that punctuated those pristine walls were plasma screens, computer bays, and tech equipment he’d never seen before.

“So this is what your cold room looks like,” Zach commented, knowing that Warp would give his left nut to even have a picture of it, let alone stand amongst the
Robin Hood hacker
’s infinite greatness.

“Oh
,
please,” Quirk said
,
rolling his eyes. “This is only a minor backup station.”

Ronnie grinned as she loaded up equipment bags. “You should see the one in Tokyo.”

Yes, Zach would have to see the one in Japan
,
because he could not imagine how anything could outdo this one located in the rolling countryside of upstate New York. On the far wall were two magnetic discs very similar to the one Ronnie used in El Paso, only these were about five times the size. A bank of computer drives, three deep, rose up to the ceiling. And the feeds they were monitoring? Zach couldn’t identify half of them.

“This truly is…” Zach didn’t have the words to complete the thought.

Ronnie’s lips bloomed into a full
-
on smile. “Well
,
t
hen
,
maybe I shouldn’t show you the armory.”

“
Armory
?”

The
Robin Hood hacker
was known for her ability to run her operations miles
—
if not continents
—
away from her target. Besides stealing well over
a
hundred billion dollars, she had yet to be charged with even breaking and entering. And she had an armory?

“Duh,” she said
,
as she hit a few commands and the wall with the computer banks slid open to reveal a room not nearly as neat and tidy
.
W
eapons lay at odd angles. Pistols, assault rifles,
and
even RPG launchers. “A girl has got to be prepared.”

There was prepared
,
and then there was
this
. Not that Zach was complaining
,
mind you.

“Ever since the Zetas cartel targeted the hacker group, Anonymous, brutally kidnapped one of them,” Ronnie said
,
her voice not quite
as
chipper. “We’ve had to stock up.”

Quirk chimed in as he joined them. “I tell her to put her toys away
,
but does she?” H
e waved h
is hand dismissively. “And the pilot is getting antsy. We promised to be in and out in three minutes. You know how Francois likes to touch equipment he shouldn’t.”

“Take your pick,” Ronnie said to Zach
,
indicating the stockpile of weapons.

Um. Did Zach mention how much he loved her?

* * *

Amanda’s hand shook, finding it hard to grip the syringe as she pulled a vial of Devlin’s blood out of his arm. The CIA liaison was tied to a chair in her office, his mouth bound by a gag. While shocked, Dr. Henderson had heard her out and decided that they needed proof that Devlin was faking his condition before condemning her.

Someone
had contaminated the facility with the plague. Was that person sitting in front of her?

As she pulled the needle from his arm, D
evlin roused. He glanced down at
the needle poke. Eyes dilating, his head snapped up
as Dr. Henderson used the last of the phone cord to bind Devlin’s feet to the chair. They’d had to use what they had available. Completely jury-rigging the entire hostage-taking system.

Devlin tried to shout something, but the gag muffled his attempt. But it probably went something like
:
“Dr.
Rolph
just sent highly classified information to the enemy.” Luckily
,
Dr. Henderson had agreed with the wisdom of gagging the CIA liaison to keep from bothering Jennifer.

Even though
Devlin was bound and gagged
,
he gave
escape a run for its money. He banged the chair back and forth, to and fro.

“Are you sure the agglutination test will be definitive?” Dr. Henderson asked.

“Definitive?” Amanda queried. “No. But highly suspect? Yes.”

Trying to ignore the spectacle
that
Devlin was putting on, Amanda moved to her makeshift laboratory. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to perform this basic field test.

Amanda mixed a drop of Devlin’s blood with a drop of serum filled with fragments of the bacteria’s cell wall onto a microscope slide. If Devlin had antibodies preexisting in his system, they would clump together
,
forming ringlets. If he didn’t
,
the two fluids would simply mix together, a smooth combination of the two.

“
Umph
.
Trllmk
,” Devlin tried to say
,
fighting against the gag.