Hybrid (34 page)

“I’ve gone through these,” he said, motioning towards the tall stack of personnel files. “And I found six people who might fit the profile.” The last word gnawed at him.

“Muslims. You’ve been looking for anyone who is a Muslim.” She said it as an accusation. “The ethics of what you’re doing aside, it has no chance of finding the mole.” She straightened up. “Do you remember what happened nine years ago when the FBI tore this department apart after the Ebola isolates were stolen? Do you remember the suspicion? The atmosphere was poisoned and the environment of cooperation was lost forever. In six months, we turned over almost the entire staff. It’s taken more than five years to reestablish a coherent and dedicated group of individuals with enough skill and experience to make a difference. Those ninety-two files sitting on your desk are the start of something that will tear us all apart again.”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears,” Martin said. He wasn’t trying to bandy words with her; he simply had no other ideas. McDaniels had told him to quietly review his staff, and this seemed the least intrusive way of doing it.

“You could have asked me. Nothing happens in this department that I don’t know about.” She abruptly stood and went to her desk.

For a moment, Martin thought that he had offended her greatly, but then she returned with a pile of computer readouts. She closed the door behind her.

“This came through yesterday afternoon,” she said, and pushed a pile of read-outs towards him. Six lines were highlighted in yellow. “Someone tried to access your computer six times yesterday. On the sixth try, they got in.”

Martin stared at the page of seemingly random numbers and words. It may as well have been Martian for all he could make out. “I take it this is unusual?”

“You are supposed to have a secure connection. No one, anywhere, should have access to it.” She dropped another pile of read-outs on to his desk. “Back in February they did the same thing.” Three more highlighted lines.

“Martha, I’m sure this would all be very interesting, if only I had a clue as to what you’re showing me.” He pushed the two piles of read-outs back towards Martha.

“What it means is that we have found our spy, or at least the computer he’s using.” She gathered the read-outs and unceremoniously dropped them to the floor, then sat back down. “Yesterday, when you were on the phone with the director, I heard your computer beep. It does that when it’s being accessed remotely.”

“I don’t remember any beep.” Martin managed to look both dubious and confused at once.

“You were shouting at the time. Besides, it’s a very small beep—a beep that shouldn’t have happened with you in the room, so I tracked it down. That was the first set of files I showed you. I found the computer’s address and looked for anything else out of the ordinary, and up popped the February read-out; only that time they did more than just browse some files. I haven’t finished sorting out what they did exactly, but I’m willing to bet my paycheck against yours that someone tried to change the original Colorado Springs report. I think that they tried to wipe out the original file and replace it with one of their own.”

“Why wouldn’t they just delete the file, or at least the micrographs?”

“First, you can never delete a file. The programs won’t let you. You also can’t delete the micrographs, at least entirely. Every report will have links to the corresponding images. It’s that program we bought a few years ago that allows you to write a report, include a case number, and all the images are automatically retrieved from the main frame and included in the final draft.”

Martin vaguely remembered authorizing the purchase of something that sounded like that. “So why wouldn’t they change the case number—hide the whole file somewhere in the computer?”

“I don’t know. As I said, I’m still working on this. Don’t give me that face. I printed this stuff five minutes before you called me in here.”

“All right. Whose computer is it?” he asked reluctantly.

“Sabritas,” she said without emphasis or emotion. “But it’s probably not him. This spy is not the brightest bulb in the GE factory, these prove that.” She pointed at the scattered readouts on the floor. “On the other hand, he, or she, got through a fairly rigorous vetting process and has fooled us for a while. I can’t imagine them making such an amateurish mistake as using their own computer.”

“So we talk to Adam,” he said, letting her take the lead.

“We talk with Adam,” Martha said like an army colonel.

Amanda finally had a reasonable night’s sleep, almost five hours in the bed that her husband had used when he was a boy. His presence lingered in all the things a teenage Michael Flynn collected. It had been Lisa’s idea to have her sleep here.

“Do you remember the last time you slept here?” Greg asked her twenty minutes later. It was before five and all three Flynns were up and drinking strong coffee.

Amanda smiled at both of her in-laws. “You two have been talking.”

“It was just after Jacob had been born,” Lisa said, and it was clear to Amanda that they meant to double-team her. They wanted their old Amanda back, and to their thinking all it required was to “break through” to her.

“I remember,” she said simply, and a distant echo of emotion stirred within her. “Listen, both of you, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate the effort, but we all have to accept that I am not the same person I was the last time I slept here. Things have happened that can’t be ignored, and it’s not just that Michael and Jacob have died. You both know that I am different, physically. I have been changed into something different from what I was, different from you, different from everyone.”

“How much of this difference is related to what’s happened to you versus what’s been done to you?” Lisa asked.

“My goodness, Lisa, you’re being way too deep this early in the morning.” Amanda smiled but the Flynns remained serious. “We all have to accept that I’m not capable of experiencing things in the same way I used to. If you want to know the truth, I’ve tried; it’s just not there anymore. Parts of me have been erased or lost—important parts.

“I know that you both believe that if I could be put into just the right frame of mind or situation, I could reconnect with myself and my past, and I would be better. But the reality is that the past belongs to someone else.”

The three of them exchanged looks of resignation, and it was obvious that the topic was now off-limits.

“What are you going to do about Reisch?” Greg asked.

“Find him,” she said simply, leaving the rest unsaid. “The problem is that I think we are too late. I’m guessing that a large number of people have already been exposed to the virus and that this is now more of a medical issue.”

“What will you do about that?” It was Lisa’s turn. “Will you help?”

“Not if it means going back to Martin or the CDC; they may be best equipped to deal with this, but I doubt that I could control myself. I probably would make things worse. What about the medical examiner you mentioned, Greg?”

“Phillip Rucker—smart guy but very strange. I think he’s probably the next best choice after Martin.”

“You two should think about staying inside until this has been resolved. The virus is transmitted through human contact, and neither of you are immune.” Amanda got up and rinsed her cup. “I’m going to take a long hot bath before I do anything.”

An hour later, Amanda walked back into the kitchen wrapped in a thick warm robe and her hair wrapped in a towel. She could tell without reading anyone’s mind that something had happened. “What’s going on?”

“Reisch attacked a platoon of soldiers in Manitou Springs. He killed sixteen of them.” Pain was written all over Greg’s face. “Phil Rucker is in the hospital, and the federal government has imposed a curfew on travel, and quarantined the state.”

“Maybe I should have just taken a shower,” Amanda said.

“Can you find him?” Greg asked.

Amanda opened her mind and felt for the German, but like yesterday, all she could sense was a presence. “He’s close, that’s all I can say.” Greg’s face registered his disappointment. “You have to remember, he can do pretty much whatever I can, and it is fairly simple to fade into the background noise of a hundred thousand people. I can tell you that he’s injured and mad as hell.”

“They think that he may have been shot,” Greg added. “Can he be killed?”

Amanda reviewed her own situation. She had been shot at very close range years ago and it barely registered with her. She was an order of magnitude stronger now, and she had every reason to believe that Reisch was also very nearly bulletproof. “Probably not like that.”

“So how do we stop him?” Greg stared at his daughter-in-law.

“You don’t. I do.” Amanda could feel the fear in Greg and Lisa’s minds. ”Why is Dr. Rucker in the hospital?” She had decided to put herself in his hands in hopes of identifying her immunity and then duplicating it. She accepted that in all probability Martin would be involved at some point, but at least it would be on her terms. Now, without Rucker, it would be more difficult.

“He had a seizure or something,” Greg said.

An image of Phillip Rucker suddenly invaded Amanda’s consciousness. “For some reason, I think we should go see him.” She was filled with a compulsion to talk with the pathologist. Greg stared at her, questioning her strange statement. “I’m not sure why,” she answered his look. “But I think it’s important.”

Reisch was breathing hard, but at least the bleeding had stopped. That was twice in less than a day that he had been shot, and the drive back to the outskirts of Colorado Springs had been the most painful moments in memory. He sat on the commode awkwardly and peeled off his blood-soaked shirt. A line of bullet wounds stitched across his abdomen and into his chest—seven shots, not counting the one in his arm from the baby-cop yesterday. This was definitely pushing the envelope, but most of the wounds, both inside and out, had started to seal themselves off. The blood loss, however, was a different issue. He had lost far more than the lethal limit, and although he could will himself to heal, he could not create the needed blood out of thin air.

He slowly changed into the surgical scrubs that he had stolen from the laundry, and gingerly left the staff bathroom. A white lab coat completed the disguise, and now he could conserve his energy and allow the tired and disinterested staff to glance up at him. He found the blood bank and was pleased that the door was unlocked. Less than five minutes later, he had four units of type AB negative blood tucked in the pockets of his gown and scrubs. Now, he just needed a nurse.

He scanned the immediate area and located the on-call physician just up the hall, but to his surprise, he also found the sedated mind of Phillip Rucker. Intrigued almost to the point of distraction, he tried to search the mind of his favorite hobby, but could only see the images of a dying woman. He needed to know more, but it would have to wait.

Two hours later, he had almost a gallon of new blood and fluid running through his veins. All his wounds had healed, and he was starting to feel normal again; a tingling sensation, almost like low-voltage electricity dancing across his skin, but otherwise, he was a hundred percent. A close call, but the tragedy had been averted and lessons had been learned, and now he was off to see the surprising Dr. Rucker.