Part 31 (2/2)

Was.h.i.+ngton, DC.

Rebecca sat next to Hiram in the limousine. Traveling with the director-designate to headquarters would have once made her heart go pitty-pat, but now she was bone-tired and worried sick.

It's going to happen, and this time it's going to be worse.

Something new, some invention or variation n.o.body could antic.i.p.ate. Jesus Christ, high schools and junior colleges have gene a.s.semblers now-they can make make viruses from scratch. viruses from scratch.

Her mind raced, trying to go through all the possibilities.

Two young, prime hunks of FBI beef, sitting on the drop seats, gave her their best critical stares. Rebecca had been working the phones and all her connections throughout the day and most of the night before. Her slate chimed.

The call was from Frank Chao at Quantico.

'What's up, Frank?' she said, shoving herself into a seat corner.

'You tell me. Trying to be of service, pulling in a few favors...but what I've got is weird. No hits on any criminal database, and I've been through them all. However, I've run some outlandish DNA searches, and your Arizona blood not only proves paternity to the Patriarch's wife's unborn baby...but it could be a match to someone who died in 9-11.'

'You're joking.'

'Not. I scored a hit from a theoretical DNA match list constructed to help people find relatives in the World Trade Center. Fortuitously, that database isn't closed, and obviously it points toward the Memorial Park database from 9-11, but I don't want to go there without solid backup.'

'What do you mean, theoretical?'

'Statistical ranges of DNA markers that could represent victims. Relatives of missing persons gave DNA samples to the Medical Examiner's teams working on DM tissue samples held in refrigerated trailers at Memorial Park. Those databases are closed to us, of course.'

'I know.'

'In those instances where they couldn't retrieve DNA from hairbrushes, tooth brushes, biopsies or whatever to match to victims, a researcher in a contract corporation planned to generate statistical marker links to match living relatives and severely reduced samples. Heat, water, decay-pretty nasty conditions. Some of the bits were recovered from the tummies of racc.o.o.ns and rats scavenging the Fresh Kills site where they dumped the rubble. They'd trap them and-'

'I didn't need to know that, Frank.'

'Sorry.'

'You have a hit with a theoretical theoretical victim of 9-11.' victim of 9-11.'

'Right.'

'So it could lead us to a relative,' Rebecca said, 'or to a statistical n.o.body-a bogus projection.'

'Both are possible.'

'All right. Let's get Memorial Park.'

'Let's us, you mean, or let's me? That's sacred ground, Rebecca. I'd rather continue with every other database, military, hospital workers, whatever, before I tackle Memorial Park.'

Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut. Their footing was not good. If they tried something that audacious...'How long will it take?' she asked.

'A few days. A week, if I don't get priority time on the computers. And I won't, you know that. I'm just squeezing my searches in between the cracks.'

The Arizona trooper's body had been moved away from the rig. The glove was a Hatch Friskmaster.

'Law enforcement, Frank. Narrow it down to recruits and graduates from the last twenty years.'

'Any particular reason?'

'More than a hunch, less than a certainty.'

'Will do.'

She pocketed her slate, then removed it, turned it off, and showed it to the agents flanking Hiram.

'Thanks,' said the agent on the left, his jaw muscles clenching. 'Is your Lynx active?'

'No,' Hiram said testily. 'We are off the grid.'

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.

Silesia, Ohio.

William walked beside the young doctor through the high school gymnasium. Beds and portable curtains had been erected around the hundreds of patients who had spilled over from the main hospital. The doctor was bleary-eyed from hours of admitting and running tests. William had told him nothing about what he had learned in the last three hours; he was in listening mode, fully aware that everything he thought he knew was wrong.

'It's got to be the biggest outbreak I've ever heard of,' the doctor said. 'We're getting back diagnosis after diagnosis, and all of them are coming up with the same indicators-CT scans show early spongiform lesions in the brain, we can isolate prions, the prions appear to be able to transform lab tissue cultures-all of which confirms the clinical symptoms, the mental and in some cases physical deterioration. But hundreds of cases in one town? And growing by twenty or thirty every day? Not to mention throughout the county...and now, the state.'

The doctor pulled back a curtain and let William look in on a middle-aged woman. She was sitting up on her cot, reading an old, tattered Smithsonian, Smithsonian, and looked up with a puzzled smile and s.h.i.+fting gaze. and looked up with a puzzled smile and s.h.i.+fting gaze.

'Good evening, Mrs. Miller,' the doctor said.

'Good evening.'

It was three in the afternoon.

'We met yesterday,' the doctor said.

'Yes, I remember.'

'This is William, from the government, Mrs. Miller.'

'Can he help me find my husband?'

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