What Lies Behind Read online

  “Why not park the car at the house?”

  “Guess that’s part of the lease agreement. Renters get the garage space.”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Just one. An American Express she pays off automatically every month. We’re going through the most recent charges now, but she must work on a cash basis, because it’s barely being used. There’s nothing exciting here. Bank statements show ATM withdrawals, some with foreign activity fees, so we can build an idea of where she’s been. But that’s all we’ve got. There’s nothing in her financials that screams, Here’s why someone wanted to off me. We’ve got requests in for her phone and text records, but I gotta say, I’m getting the sense this chick is a bit careful. Contained. Or we’re missing something huge. Now, when you gonna get here and start helping?”

  “Not soon. I’m trying to find out what got Souleyret killed. She brought something else into the country—not the vaccines—which is why I need Mouse.”

  “Oh. I see.” His tone changed, from annoyance to interest. “And you think there may be some answers she can find?”

  “I do. What about the sister? Have you found her yet?”

  “Not yet. I was hoping Sam could dig into the official FBI files, see if she can’t find her.”

  “I’ll ask. Stay in touch. Text me the address on the Hill. When I finish here, I might as well go talk to the people who rented from her, find out if they know anything.”

  “You do that, boss. I’ll just keep plugging away on nothing good.”

  * * *

  Sam sat back in the chair. Fletcher was just hanging up his cell phone. “Anything?” she asked him.

  “No. Hart’s hitting a dead end with Souleyret. Nothing hinky in her financials, nothing unusual anywhere around her.” He pointed at the computer. “My decryption program worked, but the files are all in code. I have a call in to a kid who might be able to crack it for me.”

  Sam’s phone rang. “It’s Baldwin. Finally. He might have a shortcut for us.” She put the phone to her ear. “Where have you been?”

  His deep voice always made her calm, but she heard a buzz of excitement in it. “Confirming we definitely have another victim of the Hometown Killer.”

  “Why do you sound happy about this?”

  “Because there’s DNA at this crime scene. We have something to match him to now. He’s starting to speed up, and he’s starting to get sloppy. We’re going to catch him, and soon. I hope.”

  “That is good news. I need to talk about our girl. Are you secure?”

  “No. I won’t be for an hour at least.”

  “All right. Let me say this, then. Are you aware of her code?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I was worried about that. Check the back pocket of the file. You’ll find your help there. Listen, I’m sorry for being so cagey. I’ll explain everything when I can get on a secure sat phone, or home.”

  “Okay. Be careful, Baldwin.”

  “You, too, Sam. See you.”

  She hung up and flipped to the back of the file Shultz had sent. Taped to the back of the last page was a small thumb drive.

  She peeled it off and handed it to Fletcher, just as Daniels came back with a platter piled high with sandwiches.

  “What’s this?” Fletcher asked.

  “I think it’s a code breaker. Daniels, did Agent Shultz tell you this was in here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Fletcher shrugged and slid it into the USB drive on the laptop. Nothing happened.

  He disengaged the drive and handed it back to Sam. “Looks like it’s a dud. Let’s eat, I’m starved.” Fletcher went to the kitchen and brought back some sodas, and they dug into the sandwiches.

  Fletcher closed his eyes in bliss. “You weren’t kidding, Marcos. Can I call you Marcos?”

  “Yes, sir. Or Marc. Or Daniels. I get Agent a lot. I even answer to Hey, you!”

  “Funny guy. I’m Fletcher. Or Fletch. Stick around, be my full-time chef? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Not sure how Quantico could function without me, sir, but I’ll ask.”

  Sam finished the first half of the sandwich, musing as she chewed. “We’re missing something.”

  Fletcher tapped the top edge of the laptop, which had gone to sleep while they were eating. “Yeah, someone who can crack codes. Wish Lonnie would get back to me with Mouse already.”

  Daniels stopped eating. “I’m not bad at it, Fletcher. Code-breaking, I mean.”

  Sam eyed him, and he flushed a bit under her gaze, tucked his chin down and took a big bite of grilled cheese.

  “Daniels, does Agent Shultz know that, too?”

  He nodded. “I did a semester of cryptography at Yale.”

  Sam smiled. “I think I know why she asked you to stick around. Finish your sandwich, then you can have a go at the laptop.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Daniels said, “I’m in. This program is a little hard to get started—it doesn’t launch by itself. You need to look at the codex and give it parameters before it can begin the process of identifying the initial code and rearranging the numbers into the codex.” He turned the screen to face Sam.

  Fletcher came to read over her shoulder.

  At first, the words made no sense. Then Sam realized what she was seeing.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What is it?” Fletcher asked. “This is all gibberish to me.”

  She pointed to the screen. “These are vaccination schedules, dated from last week all the way back to 2005. Throughout the pan-Africa region, but concentrating in Sierra Leone and Guinea. But that’s not what’s so interesting.” She scrolled down. “Look at the findings. Wow. This isn’t good.”

  “Are the vaccines killing people?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” She pointed at the screen. “See these two columns? These are inoculation dates and death dates. The death dates increase dramatically starting last March.” She looked at Fletcher, troubled. “This wasn’t a one-time test run. They’ve been at it for a year, injecting people with this new bug. God, Fletcher. Amanda’s instincts were right. They’ve been perfecting it.”

  Chapter 29

  FLETCHER WAS TRYING, and failing, to make sense of the information from the SD card. He stared at the screen, watched Sam scroll through the data. He had to take her word he was looking at vaccination schedules.

  “Why would they do that?” he asked. “Why would they take the chance? This can’t be quiet over there, people talk. Look at the massive Ebola outbreak last year—that was on every television station and in every paper around the world. How are they keeping this quiet?”

  Sam was more pragmatic about things. She had a strange way of being able to separate herself from the case, to see it objectively. It was a skill that was turning her into an investigator, one he used to think he had, until his world blew up this morning.

  “I think they’re using the Ebola outbreak from last year as cover. The symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever and this new bug are very similar. And as a result of the outbreak last year, the CDC and WHO fast-tracked human trials for an Ebola vaccine, too. They got desperate, and were given permission for compassionate use on the drugs they had that weren’t fully tested. ZMapp, for example. It worked in several severe cases, boosting the immune systems, effectively curing them of the disease. So they sped things up, trying to find a way out of the epidemic.”

  “Could someone be trying to create their own vaccine? Using human trials?”

  Sam shook her head. “There are always people who will offer up a cure. And there are always people who will be desperate enough to take them at their word. No, Fletcher, this is purposeful. I think Girabaldi is correct—this is the testing ground for a biological attack.”

  “Are
you sure?”

  She turned to face him and shrugged. “Until we find all of Amanda’s notes, I don’t think we’ll know anything for sure. But we have to prepare as if an attack is coming.”

  Daniels was messing with the computer, scrolling through the pages. “There’s something else that could be going on.”

  “What’s that?” Sam asked.

  “It could be one hell of a money-making scheme. If they have tainted vaccines, and they had engineered a cure, they could be slipping the illness into other inoculations or medicine, then selling their lifesaving medicine.”

  “True, it would be a boon to the bottom line of a company who was first to market with an all-encompassing vaccine. But this? All these deaths? It’s catastrophic. If I were approaching this as a scientist, to me it looks like there is a completely new bug being given in the standard vaccines. I think Amanda was probably onto something. A mysterious man in the African bush, hundreds dead and the lead investigator and her pet doctor murdered? I think we’re dealing with someone who’s trying to cover their tracks.”

  They let that sink in.

  “Fletcher, should we call Girabaldi? Tell her what we’ve found?” Sam said.

  Fletcher shook his head. “Hell, no. This is the information she’s after, I’m sure of it. This is why she sent us off to investigate the case, hoping we’d uncover something, then she’ll swoop in and wrap it into her little cover-up.”

  Sam sat back in her chair and regarded him thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Fletch. If what Amanda brought in does contain live viruses, we could have a major problem. Some infected with hemorrhagic fevers take up to twenty, twenty-five days to become symptomatic. People could be exposed and moving around the country, the world, and not know it. That could be the attack plan.”

  Daniels looked completely terrified. “You mean they could be bringing this new hemorrhagic fever into the country, and we wouldn’t know?”

  “Sure. It happens more than you’d think, sick people coming in from infected areas around the world, but we have such superior medical facilities and health standards that a full-blown outbreak here is extremely unlikely. But if someone’s passing around a new disease without knowing it? That’s a potential problem, sure.” She turned to Fletcher. “Do you think Girabaldi’s in on this? That she knows what’s happening and condones it? And is trying to make sure the information doesn’t leak?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. She had the Africa desk at the meeting this morning—clearly he’s in on it. What’s the guy’s name...Kronen?”

  “Kruger,” Sam said absently. “The on-site HAZMAT folks said the vials of viruses we found at Cattafi’s place were simple vaccines, and so did State. What if... Let me see the computer again, Daniels.”

  He handed it over, and she looked through the pages of material, reading slowly this time, trying to make sense of the numbers and letters she was seeing. There was a medical shorthand here that she was thankfully familiar with. She looked for the pages that would have the behavioral risk factors, which could indicate how the disease might be spreading after the vaccine inoculations. She didn’t see anything strange or out of place there. She went on to the reporting schedules. The files were far from perfect; self-reporting of this infection was practically nonexistent outside of the major population centers due to the ultraquick mortality, so the numbers were skewed to a representative sample of subjects vaccinated at a specific station in Uganda. But from what she could tell, ninety percent of those inoculated died within the first week. These entries were all labeled HR—high risk.

  She scrolled faster, and at the very end of the file was rewarded with a small statement that made the blood leave her head.

  Her voice was pitched higher than normal; she could hear the lingering fear in the question. “Fletcher, where are the vaccination vials we found at Cattafi’s place?”

  Fletcher raised an eyebrow at Sam. “What is it? What did you find?”

  “Are you familiar with the concept of grafting?”

  “Skin grafting?” Fletcher asked.

  Daniels spoke up. “No, you mean the grafting done with wine, or roses. Creating new species by mixing two distinctly separate breeds.” Sam and Fletcher both looked at him. He shrugged. “My mom is a gardener. She specializes in hybrids.”

  “Well, that’s helpful knowledge, because that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Diseases can act in the same way. You have a host disease, and you can graft a secondary disease onto it. It’s a bit more complicated than wine or roses, but the disease can be made weaker, or create a hysteric response that allows it to be conquered. Or it could grow stronger, and become a superbug. Usually it happens by accident, but it looks to me like that’s what they were doing. Trying to perfect a superbug that can be spread by casual contact, even making it airborne. It’s one hell of a sophisticated weapon.”

  “And it could already be here on our shores,” Fletcher said.

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Sam, tell me there’s a list of names and companies so we can start shutting them down.”

  “There isn’t,” Sam said, closing the laptop. “Amanda may have found out what they’re up to, but she hadn’t identified where the drugs are coming from. Fletch, we need those vaccines secured. If she’s brought in samples of the actual superbug, we could all be in danger.”

  Agent Daniels pushed his plate away, appetite lost. “Sir, ma’am, there’s no way we can keep this information quiet. There are too many lives at stake.”

  Sam nodded. “I agree with you, Agent Daniels. Amanda Souleyret was killed for this information, but I’m not inclined to hand it over to the very person who’s asking for it. Not until we know she can be trusted. We need to keep this close hold for the time being, until we know who we can share it with. Are you okay with that?”

  “If you say so, ma’am.” He didn’t look convinced.

  Fletcher gave her a speculative look, then grabbed his phone and dialed. He put it on speaker.

  “Hart here.”

  “Lonnie, where is the material taken from Cattafi’s apartment?”

  “Off the top of my head? I don’t know, but I assume it’s been taken into evidence by the crime scene unit.”

  “Get on the phone to Mel Robertson, have the bags pulled and waiting.” He glanced at Sam. “We’re going to, uh, get an outside, independent review of the material. Okay?”

  “Okay. But what prompted this?”

  “Too much to explain right now,” Fletcher said darkly. “Just go do it, and I’ll fill you in shortly.”

  “Will do,” Hart said, and rang off. He called back within a minute.

  Fletcher answered with a brusque, “You got ’em?”

  “Fletcher, we have a problem. I’ve got Mel on the line.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  Robertson had a deep voice, and he sounded seriously pissed off. “HAZMAT took them. Claimed we were incapable of proper storage.”

  Sam felt her heart race. “Do you know who at HAZMAT took them?”

  “I do, and I called them, but they’ve already handed them over to the CDC. Those vaccines are halfway to a field lab, or Atlanta.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Fletcher slammed his hand on the table.

  “Lieutenant, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “Those vials just became the most important piece of evidence we have. Mel, I don’t want you to panic, but they may not have been safe, after all. I need you to find out exactly where they are, who has them and have them call me immediately. But no one outside, and I mean no one, can know about this. You read me?”

  “Loud and clear. But when you say they aren’t safe, what the hell do you mean?”

  “Those vials might be carrying a live disease, Mel. One that could be used against us.
”

  There was a sharp intake of breath from both men on the other side of the line. Robertson spoke first. “Jesus. Are we in danger? We were all exposed, even with the precautions we took. Everyone at the crime scene, you and Dr. Owens, too. And anyone who might come into contact with the courier. If this is airborne, we—”

  Fletcher interrupted him. “I know. Find them, Mel. I don’t care what you have to do. Just make sure this stays internal. We can’t have the media up our asses about it. Not until we know for sure what we’re dealing with.” He hung up. “Great. That’s just great.”

  Sam ran a hand along his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Fletch. From what I’m seeing, they haven’t managed to make this airborne. I’m pretty sure we’d need to be injected, or come into contact with the blood or vomit or other bodily fluids of an infected body. Can they be engineered if they fall into the wrong hands? Yes. But these hemorrhagic fevers aren’t airborne. I do think we’re safe. If I didn’t, I’d be jumping up and down right now, insisting you pull out all the stops on a public health alert.”

  He was still white. “I hope you’re right, Sam. We need to go double-time into this investigation. We need to find Bromley and talk to him. Find out exactly what he and Cattafi had stirred up.”

  “I’ll call his office.”

  Sam used her phone to find the GW website and looked up the number. A young woman’s voice came through the line. “The Office of International Medicine Programs, how may I direct your call?”

  “My name is Dr. Samantha Owens with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to speak with David Bromley immediately.”