Except that viruses had nothing to do with the delicate work he was watching through the microscope this dawn. USAMRIID was the army’s foremost military medical research facility, while the CDC was its highly touted civilian counterpart. Usually they were vigorous rivals. But not here, not now, and the work being done in this laboratory had only a peripheral connection to medicine.
Smith was part of a little-known CDC-USAMRIID research team in a worldwide race to create the world’s first molecularor DNAcomputer, therefore forging an unprecedented bond between life science and computational science. The concept intrigued the scientist in Smith and challenged his expertise in the field of microbiology. In fact, what had brought him into his lab at this ungodly early hour was what he hoped would turn out to be a breakthrough in the molecular circuits based on special organic polymers that he and the other researchers had been working night and day to create.
If successful, their brand-new DNA circuits could be reconfigured many times, taking the joint team one step closer to rendering silicon, the key ingredient in the wiring of current computer circuit boards, obsolete. Which was just as well. The computer industry was near the limits of silicon technology anyway, while biological compounds offered a logicalalthough difficultnext step. When DNA computers could be made workable, they would be vastly more powerful than the general public could conceive, which was where the army’s, and USAMRIID’s, interests came in.
Smith was fascinated by the research, and as soon as he had heard rumors of the secret joint CDC-USAMRIID project, he had arranged to be invited aboard, eagerly throwing himself into this technological competition where the future might be only an atom away.
“Hey, Jon.” Larry Schulenberg, another of the project’s top cell biologists, rolled into the empty laboratory in his wheelchair. “Did you hear about the Pasteur?”
Smith looked up from his microscope. “Hell, I didn’t even hear you open the door.” Then he noticed Larry’s somber face. “The Pasteur,” he repeated. “Why? What’s happened?” Like USAMRIID and the CDC, the Pasteur Institute was a world-class research complex.
In his fifties, Schulenberg was a tan, energetic man with a shaved head, one small diamond earring, and shoulders that were thickly muscled from years of using crutches. His voice was grim. “Some kind of explosion. It’s bad. People were killed.” He peeled a sheet from the stack of printouts on his lap.
Jon grabbed the paper. “My God. How did it happen? A lab accident?”
“The French police don’t think so. Maybe a bomb. They’re checking out former employees.” Larry wheeled his chair around and headed back to the door. “Figured you’d want to know. Jim Thrane at Porton Down e-mailed me, so I downloaded the story. I’ve got to go see who else is here. Everyone will want to know.”
“Thanks.” As the door closed, Smith read quickly. Then, his stomach sinking, he reread . . .
Labs at Pasteur Institute Destroyed
ParisA massive explosion killed at least 12 people and shattered a three-story building housing offices and laboratories at the venerable Pasteur Institute at 10:52 p.m. here last night. Four survivors in critical condition were found. The search continues in the rubble for other victims.
Fire investigators say they have found evidence of explosives. No person or group has claimed responsibility. The probe is continuing, including checking into recently released employees.
The identified survivors include Martin Zellerbach, Ph.D., a computer scientist from the United States, who suffered head injurieshellip;.
Smith’s heart seemed to stop. Martin Zellerbach, Ph.D., a computer scientist from the United States, who suffered head injuries. Marty? His old friend’s face flashed into Jon’s mind as he gripped the printout. The crooked smile, the intense green eyes that could twinkle one moment and skitter off, lost in thought or perhaps outer space, the next. A small, rotund man who walked awkwardly, as if he had never really learned how to move his legs, Marty had Asperger’s Syndrome, a rare disorder at the less severe end of the autism spectrum. His symptoms included consuming obsessions, high intelligence, crippling lack of social and communications skills, and an outstanding talent in one particular areamathematics and electronics. He was, in fact, a computer genius.
A worried ache settled in Smith’s throat. Head injuries. How badly was Marty hurt? The news story did not say. Smith pulled out his cell phone, which had special scrambler capabilities, and dialed Washington.
He and Marty had grown up together in Iowa, where he had protected Marty from the taunts of fellow students and even a few teachers who had a hard time believing anyone so smart was not being intentionally rude and a troublemaker. Marty’s Asperger’s was diagnosed when he was older and at last he was given the medication that helped him function with both feet firmly attached to the planet. Still, Marty hated taking meds and had designed his life so he could avoid them as often as possible. He did not leave his cozy Washington, D.C., bungalow for years at a time. There he was safe with the cutting-edge computers and the software he was always designing, and his mind and creativity could soar, unfettered. Businessmen, academicians, and scientists from around the globe went there to consult him, but never in person, only electronically.
So what was the shy computer wizard doing in Paris?
The last time Marty consented to leave was eighteen months ago, and it was far from gentle persuasion that convinced him. It was a hail of bullets and the beginning of the near catastrophe of the Hades virus that had caused the death of Smith’s fianceacute;e, Sophia Russell.
The phone at Smith’s ear began to ring in distant Washington, D.C., and at the same time he heard what sounded like a cell phone ringing just outside his laboratory door. He had an eerie sense . . .
“Hello?” It was the voice of Nathaniel Frederick (“Fred”) Klein.
Smith turned abruptly and stared at his door. “Come in, Fred.”
The chief of the extremely secret Covert-One intelligence and counterintelligence troubleshooting organization stepped into the laboratory, quiet as a ghost, still holding his cell phone. “I should’ve guessed you would’ve heard and called me.” He turned off his phone.
“About Mart? Yes, I just read about the Pasteur. What do you know, and what are you doing here?”
Without answering, Klein marched past the gleaming test tubes and equipment that crowded the line of lab benches, which soon would be occupied by other CDC-USAMRIID researchers and assistants. He stopped at Smith’s bench, lifted his left hip, and sat on the edge of the stone top, arms crossed, face grim. Around six feet tall, he was dressed as usual in one of his rumpled suits, this one brown. His skin was pale; it rarely saw the sun for any length of time. The great outdoors was not where Fred Klein operated. With his receding hairline, wire-rimmed glasses, and high, intelligent forehead, he could be anything from book publisher to counterfeiter.
He contemplated Smith, and his voice was compassionate as he said, “Your friend’s alive, but he’s in a coma. I won’t lie to you, Colonel. The doctors are worried.”
For Smith, the dark pain of Sophia’s death could still weigh heavily on him, and Marty’s injury was bringing it all back. But Sophia was gone, and what mattered now was Marty.
“What the hell was he doing at the Pasteur?”
Klein took his pipe from his pocket and brought out his tobacco pouch. “Yes, we wondered about that, too.”
Smith started to speak againhellip;then hesitated. Invisible to the public and to any part of the government except the White House, Covert-One worked totally outside the official military-intelligence bureaucracy and far from the scrutiny of Congress. Its shadowy chief never appeared unless something earthshaking had happened or might happen. Covert-One had no formal organization or bureaucracy, no real headquarters, and no official operatives. Instead, it was loosely composed of professional experts in many fields, all with clandestine experience, most with military backgrounds, and all essentially unencumberedwithout family, home ties, or obligations, either temporary or permanent.
When called upon, Smith was one of those elite operatives.
“You’re not here because of Marty,” Smith decided. “It’s the Pasteur. Something’s going on. What?”
“Let’s take a walk outside.” Klein pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and tamped tobacco into his pipe.
“You can’t light that here,” Smith told him. “DNA can be contaminated by airborne particles.”
Klein sighed. “Just one more reason to go outdoors.”
Fred Kleinand Covert-Onetrusted no one and nothing, took nothing for granted. Even a laboratory that officially did not exist could be bugged, which, Smith knew, was the real reason Klein wanted to leave. He followed the intelligence master out into the hall and locked his door. Side by side, they made their way downstairs, past dark labs and offices that showed only occasional light. The building was silent except for the breathy hum of the giant ventilation system.