Biowar

23

Rubens glanced at his watch, waiting as Lia made her way down into the castle. On the floors above him, two dozen intelligence analysts were combing through databases of intercepts, using the castle and location as nexus points in a comprehensive search to turn up information about who had contacted Dean. The problem wasn’t so much getting information as sorting through it. They knew UKD must be involved — and yet they had no direct link. As for Dlugsko, the NSA had decent information that he was in Krakow.

Taking a sauna with two young assistants of the nubile persuasion, actually.

“They researched Kegan pretty well,” said John Gides, one of the NSA scientists tasked to act as Dean’s advisors. “The work he did on flu viruses is pretty obscure.”

“Actually, they did a very superficial job,” said Rubens. “They knew nothing about Mr. Dean. They never tested his cover story.”

Rubens considered what this meant. The operation had money and resources, and presumably they had done some checking on Dean, found him listed in the databases. They hadn’t gone beyond that for one of two reasons — either there wasn’t time or they had dealt with Kegan enough in the past to trust him, at least at a minimal level.

More likely the latter than the former. If so, then Kegan would have money from them somewhere that had not yet been discovered.

His people would have to work harder to find it.

“Did the way the questions were asked suggest anything to you?” Rubens asked the scientist.

“What do you mean?”

“Were they read, or memorized, or something a man such as yourself might ask at a chance encounter?” Rubens realized the scientist hadn’t considered that. “Replay the conversation and consider that. There would be a limited number of people who would be able to ask such a question and understand an answer, correct?”

“Dean didn’t really answer.”

“Yes, but that suggests that the person listening was looking for more than the simple information, which to me suggests that he does know the scientific information very well, and he asked the question more to see how his subject responded — as you would if you were asked to judge whether a person was authentic or not. On the other hand, someone working with a checklist, as it were, would make sure the blanks were filled precisely.”

Gides nodded, though Rubens could see he wasn’t completely following.

“The interrogator already believed Dean was authentic. He had checked his background while he was being transported,” explained Rubens. “But he knows the subject matter. Or rather, he’s familiar with the subject matter, but perhaps not the real details. So once he senses familiarity, he has no need to go further — he’s looking for results. This suggests a scientist, but perhaps one whose specialty is in a slightly different area. A problem.”

“Why?” asked Gides.

“A problem for us in that it widens the pool of possible candidates. A problem for them in that they might not know precisely…”

Ruben’s thoughts trailed off as his words did. Of course they weren’t the experts Kegan was; that would be the whole point of dealing with him. He had a small piece, tantalizing but not a real fit.

Rubens turned and saw Telach, raising her hand at the front of the room.

“Keep thinking, Doctor,” he told the scientist. “Something will occur to you. Perhaps the subscriber lists of the journals where the articles were published.”

“Can we get those?”

Rubens smiled indulgently; scientists could be such children. “We can get anything. Talk to Johnny Bib.”

Telach paced uncomfortably at the front of the room.

“Is it UKD or someone else?” Rubens asked her.

“Oh. We’re not sure,” she said, slightly distracted. “The helicopter was leased. We’re trying to figure out by whom. That should give us an answer.”

“You can’t trace the connection through the castle?”

“As far as we can tell, no one asked permission to use the castle. It’s owned by a state museum and they seem to use it solely for functions and whatnot.”

“See if it’s been rented in the past,” suggested Rubens. “Maybe there would be a connection. A mention in a local newspaper. Scan for stories, then have someone chat up the editors or reporters. They might know. A society page. Or business,” said Rubens. “Give it to Johnny Bib’s people if your staff is too busy. It’s more strategic information anyway.”

Rubens checked his watch. He was due upstairs to talk to the Director.

“Tommy wants a word,” said Telach. “He’s found the lab assistant who was working with Kegan.”

“Excellent,” said Rubens. “Finally, something useful.”

“Not really. He’s missing a good part of his head.”

Rubens sighed, then punched himself into the circuit. Karr’s relentlessly cheerful voice greeted him.

“Bodies falling all over the place,” said the op. “Hey, you know, Thailand’s kind of an interesting place. Little on the warm side, though.”

The op had determined that Pound had been killed elsewhere and moved quite a while ago, “judging by the stench.” He wanted Rubens’ okay to alert the Thai authorities.

“Let us do it from here, anonymously,” said Rubens. “How did he die?”

“Bullets all through his body. Something’s been eating him, though, so it’s hard to tell exactly what. Getting kind of dark over here, too. You want me to grab a bullet or something?”

He might have used the same tone to ask if Rubens wanted a cheerful souvenir of the visit. The interesting thing about Tommy Karr, thought his boss, was his relentless good humor, a trait that did not seem to come from artificial stimulation of any kind. Perhaps they should conduct some tests to understand it.

“That won’t be necessary,” Rubens told the field op. “Return to Bangkok and get some rest.”

“On my way.”

As the line snapped off, Rubens realized the advice might apply to him as well; it had been well over twenty-four hours since his head had touched a pillow.

The need to sleep was an absolute annoyance. The NSA official had reduced his quota to four hours per twenty-four and could shift them around within a forty-eight-hour block without impairing his performance. But without using drugs — a remedy he studiously avoided — there was no effective way to reduce this quota. Short power naps, caffeinated drinks, dogged determination — all were ultimately useless.

If he was willing to accept subpar performance, of course, he could go nearly four days without sleep. The question was whether it was worth it — a question made pertinent by the reminder on his calendar that he was supposed to go to the gala at the Kennedy Center this evening.

Where he would see the lovely and highly connected Ms. Marshall, who had somehow managed to convince George Hadash to support a ridiculous and useless proposal.

Why?

As yet an unanswerable question, which meant it was doubly in his interests to go.

Assuming he could stay awake during it.

“Segio Nakami has an update on the people who were following Tommy,” said Telach, interrupting his train of thought. Nakami was an expert cryptologic mathematician who ran the team in Johnny Bib’s place; he was considerably less eccentric than Johnny Bib, though in fairness he was also much younger.

“Segio? Where’s Johnny Bib?” asked Rubens.

“He went to New York.”

“What?”

“He wanted to check the books in Kegan’s library. Something just doesn’t fit, and since it was too much trouble to get the books here, he decided to go himself.”

“What? When did he leave? What plane is he on?”

“Johnny wouldn’t fly. He took Amtrak, I’m sure.”

Rubens remembered his yoga, forcing his gaze to remain calm and purposeful.

“Should I speak to Segio?” he asked Telach.

She shrugged. “They have a connection between the silk exporters and an Islamic guerrilla group known as the Crescent Tigers. The Tigers have a long history, stretching back thirty years, most of it in Myanmar. At one time they were pretty potent, but they’ve been losing ground to newer fanatics. They may even have dispersed. In any event, there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the hotel and this group. They may have staked out the hotel looking for Kegan.”

“What about with UKD or the people who took Dean?”

“Nothing yet.”

“All right,” said Rubens. “I’m going upstairs. Update me if you get anything new.”

“We will.”

When he reached his office Rubens was still debating whether he might be best off going home and sleeping. He had just lifted the blanket from his desk when his external phone buzzed.

“Rubens.”

“This is Dr. Lester over at CDC.”

“Doctor, good morning,” said Rubens. “I’m afraid we don’t really have anything new yet. If you care to check back in a few hours—”

“I have something new, something important,” said Lester. “We have two people sick in an upstate New York hospital with an undiagnosed disease. It has some flu symptoms, but it’s accompanied by what look like bruises or welts to the body. One of the internists thought it was E. coli food poisoning and then Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but so far the tests have proved negative and we’re still working on figuring it out.”

“E. coli?”

“I don’t think that’s a good bet myself. They’ve looked at Coxsackie B virus as well, but the tests haven’t come back. Many times these sorts of reports turn out to be overblown. Personally I’d think it was just random food poisoning except for this: one of them is Achilles Gorman, the BCI investigator who was handling the Kegan case. And the other is one of the crime-scene people who went over Dr. Kegan’s house. Both men have run fevers over one hundred and five. It doesn’t look good for either of them.”