The helicopter passed over.
“Now.” Smith pushed through the crowd first, creating a path for Marty. In a dozen feet, they were on a narrow side street that resembled an alley. Marty led him to a three-story, yellow-brick building marked by a wide garage door. There was an attendant’s kiosk, but no cars were going in or out. Smith did not like the flat roof. The chopper could land up there.
Marty presented his identification to a stunned attendant who had clearly never laid eyes on the owner of the vehicle in question. “How long you taking it out for, Mr. Zellerbach?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Smith told the man, saving Marty from having to talk to the stranger.
The attendant scoured the ownership papers once more and led them up to the second floor, where a row of stored cars waited under protective canvas covers.
When he whipped the cover off the next-to-the-last one, Smith stared. “A Rolls-Royce?”
“My father’s.” Marty grinned shyly.
It was a thirty-year-old Silver Cloud, as gleaming as the day it had cruised out from under the hands of the long-forgotten craftsmen who built it. When the attendant started it up and rolled it carefully out from the row, its original Rolls-Royce engine purred so softly Smith was not sure it was actually running. There was not a squeak, squeal, knock, or rattle.
“There you are, Mr. Zellerbach,” the attendant said proudly. “She’s our belle. Best car in the house. I’m glad to see she’s going somewhere at last.”
Smith took the keys and told Marty to sit in the backseat. He left his uniform blouse off but put on his cap so he would look more like a chauffeur. Behind the wheel, he studied the dashboard instruments and gauges on the whorled wood and examined the controls. With a sense of awe, he slid the clutch into gear and drove the elegant machine out of storage and onto the side street. Almost anywhere in the nation the Rolls would stand out as glaringly as his Triumph. But not in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington. Here it was just one more expensive car carrying an ambassador, a foreign dignitary, an important official, or a CEO of some kind.
“Do you like it, Jon?” Marty asked from the backseat.
“It’s like riding a magic carpet,” Smith said. “Beautiful.”
“That’s why I kept it.” Marty gave a satisfied smile and leaned back like an overweight cat against the seat, comforted by the close walls of the car. He set his papers and his black medicine case beside him and gave a little chortle. “You know, Jon, that guy in the bathroom’s going to tell the others about my escape route, but they’re never going to figure out how to make it work.” He held up the remote control with a flourish. “Zounds! They’re screwed!”
Smith laughed and glanced at the rearview mirror. The chopper circled helplessly a block away. He turned the grand machine onto Massachusetts Avenue. Inside the Silver Cloud, there was hardly a sound despite the heavy traffic.
He asked, “Are those papers printouts of what you were able to download?”
“Yes. I have good news, and I have bad news.”
Marty described his cybersearch as they passed Dupont Circle and glided north, through the city to I-95 and onto the Beltway. As Marty talked, Smith remained tense and alert for anyone following. He had the constant sense they could be attacked again from any point at any time.
Then he looked into the rearview mirror at Marty with amazement. “You really were able to find the report from the Prince Leopold?”
Marty nodded. “And virus reports from Iraq.”
“Amazing. Thank you. What about Bill Griffin and Sophia’s phone records?”
“No. Sorry, Jon. I really tried.”
“I know you did. I’d better read what you’ve got.”
They were approaching the Connecticut Avenue exit at the extension of Rock Creek park in Maryland. Smith took the exit, drove into the park, and stopped the Rolls at a secluded meadow surrounded by a stand of thick trees. As Marty handed him the two printouts, he said, “They’d been deleted by the director of NIH’s Federal Resource Medical Clearing House.”
“The government!” Smith swore. “Damn. Either someone in the government or army’s behind what’s happening, or the people who are have even more power than I’d thought.”
“That scares me, Jon,” Marty said.
“It scares me, and we better find out which it is soon.”
Muttering, he read the Prince Leopold report first.
Dr. Renée Giscours described a field report he had seen while doing a stint at a jungle hospital far upriver in Bolivian Amazonia years ago. He had been battling what appeared to be a new outbreak of Machupo fever and had no time to think about an unconfirmed rumor from far-off Peru. But the new virus jogged his memory, so he checked his papers and found his original note— but not the actual report. His jottings to himself back then emphasized an unusual combination of hantavirus and hemorrhagic fever symptoms and some connection to monkeys.
Smith thought about it. What had caught Sophia’s interest in this? There were few facts, nothing but the vague memory of an anecdote from the field. Was it the mention of Machupo? But Giscours made no special connection, did not suggest any link, and Machupo antibodies had shown no effect on the unknown virus. It did suggest the new unknown virus actually existed in nature, but researchers would assume that. Perhaps it was the mention of Bolivia. Maybe Peru. But why?
“Is it important?” Marty wanted to know, eager to help.
“I don’t know yet. Let me read the rest.”
There were three more reports— all from the Iraqi Minister of Health’s office. The first two concerned three ARDS deaths a year ago in the Baghdad area that were unexplained but finally attributed to a hantavirus carried by desert mice drawn into the city by lack of food in the fields. The third reported three more ARDS cases in Basra who had survived. All three in Basra. Smith felt a chill. The exact same numbers had died and survived. Like a controlled experiment. Was that what the three American victims were, too, part of some experiment?
Plus there was the connection of the first three American victims to Desert Storm.
He felt a settling in his chest, as if now at last he had a clearer sense of direction. He had to go to Iraq. He needed to find out who had died and who had survived… and why.
“Marty, we’re going to California. There’s a man there who’ll help us.”
“I don’t fly.”
“You do now.”
“But, Jon—” Marty protested.
“Forget it, Marty. You’re stuck with me. Besides, you know deep down you like doing crazy things. Consider this one of your craziest.”
“I don’t believe thinking positively is enough in this case. I might freak out. Not that I’d want to, you understand. But even Alexander the Great had fits.”
“He had epilepsy. You have Asperger’s, and you’ve got medication to control it.”
Marty froze. “Little problem there. I don’t have my meds.”
“Didn’t you bring your case?”
“Yes, of course I brought it. But I have only one dose left.”
“We’ll have to get you more in California.” As Marty grimaced, Smith restarted the Rolls and pulled onto the Interstate. “We’ll need money. The army, the FBI, probably the police, and the people with the virus will be monitoring my bank accounts, credits cards, the works. They won’t be monitoring yours yet.”
“You’re right. Since I value my life, I suppose I have to go along. At least for a while. Okay. Consider it a donation. Do you think fifty thousand dollars would be enough?”
Smith was stunned at the large sum. But when he thought about it, he realized money was meaningless to Marty. “Fifty thousand should do fine.”
__________
Over the roar of the rotors and the slipstream wind, Nadal al-Hassan shouted into the phone, “We have lost them.” He wore dark sunglasses over his hatchet face. They seemed to absorb the sunlight like black holes.
In his office near the Adirondack lake, Victor Tremont swore. “Damn. Who is this Martin Zellerbach? Why did Smith go to him?”
Al-Hassan covered his open ear to hear better. “I will find out. What about the army and the FBI?”
“Smith’s officially AWOL and connected to the deaths of Kielburger and the woman because he was the last to see them alive. Both the police and the army are looking for him.” The distant roar of the helicopter in his ear made him want to shout as if he were there with al-Hassan. “Jack McGraw’s staying on top of the situation through his source in the Bureau.”
“That is good. Zellerbach’s residence has much computer equipment. Very advanced. It is possible that is why Smith went there. Perhaps we could learn what he is looking for by analyzing what this Zellerbach was doing when we arrived.”