near where we had one of the early human cases of Kongoli. About twenty of the remaining cranes were fitted with satellite transmitters to track their migration patterns. We know they carried the disease. Anyway, I was able to determine that five of those tagged birds perished during the course of migration. I don’t know if that’s unusual, you’ll have to ask an ornithologist. But that got me thinking about other endangered animal populations, because so many of them are actually tracked by the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations.
“So, it turns out that in 2019 there was an invasion of polar bears in this little archipelago in the Russian Arctic. There’s a settlement called Novaya Zemlya. Apparently the bears drifted in on ice floes and discovered the city dump. They wandered through the streets and into apartment buildings—a huge nuisance. Anyway, the bears were sedated and collared and shipped off to this atoll called October Revolution Island. It’s just north of Siberia in the Arctic Circle. The thing is, they all died. Their GPS collars showed that they stopped moving, one by one, about a week after they were transported.”
“Maybe they were traumatized by the relocation,” Marco suggested.
“Could be. Or the tranquilizer that was used to capture them was contaminated. All I’m saying is we’ve got a mass die-off of polar bears and no clear reason for it.”
“Did the transmitter send any information, heart rate, respiration, anything that might give us a clue about their symptoms?” Henry asked.
“Sorry, guys, it’s just what I said. They used GPS trackers. It only shows you where they move around—or stop moving.”
Marco looked at Henry. “What is it?” he asked. “I can tell you’re thinking of something.”
“Something from the old days,” Henry said. “October Revolution Island was an outpost of the Soviet biochemical warfare program. I’m thinking that if they did engineer this virus, that would have been a logical spot for it—remote, a place where biological experiments can take place in relative safety. It was totally uninhabited, until the bears came along.”
* * *
—
IN THE MORNING, Henry drove to the house of one of Teddy’s playmates, Jerry Barnwell. If Teddy wanted to go someplace safe, he might have found a way to get to the Barnwells’. They lived in Decatur, just east of Atlanta. It would have been quite a hike for the kids, which is why Henry hadn’t gone already.
As he drove, he tried to remember the parents’ names. He had dropped off Jerry several times after practices, and had chatted with the parents more than once, but the names eluded him. He recalled that Jerry had two older sisters, one maybe a year older than Helen. The Barnwells lived in a blue Victorian bungalow with white trim. One look and Henry decided it was deserted. The Barnwells had been so fastidious, but now the yard was overgrown and the kudzu was advancing, even here in the suburbs. There was mail in the box from months before. Thomas and Jeannette, those were the names on the bills. Henry knocked just because he was there.
In a moment he heard footsteps, and the door opened. It was Jerry.
“Hello, Doctor Parsons,” Jerry said. A little blond boy with neat manners and a precise manner of speech, smaller than Henry remembered. He didn’t seem surprised.
“Jerry, are you here alone?”
Jerry nodded. “I am alone now, but my sister Marcia is here sometimes,” he said.
Henry didn’t ask about his parents.
“Is Teddy okay?” Jerry asked.
“I don’t know where he is,” Henry said. “I was hoping you might have seen him.”
Jerry shook his head. “Nobody ever comes to see me now,” he said.
“Who’s taking care of you?”
“Marcia makes some money.” He paused. “Sometimes men come to get her and then bring her back the next day. I thought you might be one of them.”
“No, I’m just looking for my own children.”
“I sure miss Teddy.”
“I do, too.”
* * *
—
WHEN CATHERINE LORD HEARD ABOUT October Revolution Island, she immediately called Homeland Security, and despite Henry’s protests he was shunted into a government car and driven at high speed back to Dobbins Air Reserve Base. Henry understood that this was an emergency and he was badly needed, but he was frantic about his children and resented being pulled away.
He was flown to Washington in an Air Force Gulfstream, the only passenger in an era when air traffic was at a standstill. By four in the afternoon, he was in a small, windowless conference room inside CIA headquarters at Langley meeting with Matilda