Triple Threat - James Patterson Page 0,36

almost five hours now, and I haven’t heard one single presenter offer any useful new information or viable solutions.

If this really is a confab of the finest minds in their fields…we’re screwed.

A team from Senegal, for example, discussed the inconclusive results of some recent biopsies of the brain tissue of rabid elephants. A Brazilian electrical engineer spoke of her lab’s failed attempt to use gamma radiation waves to block the effects of cellphone signals on animal pheromone reception.

A group of officers from Moscow’s Valerian Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy outlined a Kremlin-backed plan to carpet-bomb any and all major underground animal breeding areas. When I angrily interrupted to explain that the American government had tried an almost identical bombing campaign just a few months ago and that it had failed spectacularly, the committee chairman cut the feed to my microphone.

Thank goodness it was time for a fifteen-minute break.

Right now I’m standing in the hallway outside the main meeting room, mainlining some desperately needed caffeine and sugar: a muddy cup of coffee and a rich, gooey Cadbury chocolate-caramel bar.

Sarah is reviewing her notes for a presentation she’s giving later about what she’s dubbed HMC—Human Microbial Conflict—which she believes, based on her research, will be the next, even more terrifying stage in all this madness.

Freitas, meanwhile, is sitting on the floor, talking animatedly on his smartphone and tapping wildly on his iPad. I don’t have the foggiest idea to whom or what about—but by the look of it, it’s important.

“Feeling nervous?” I ask Sarah when I see she’s reached the end of her pages.

“Of course,” she replies. “Exceedingly nervous.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll do great. Just try to imagine that every chubby, balding, pasty scientist in the audience is wearing nothing but his underwear. Actually…no, don’t do that. That’s a pretty disturbing picture.”

Sarah smiles and shakes her head.

“Thanks, Oz. But I’m not nervous about giving the presentation. I’m terrified…about what my data show. If you think wild animals attacking humans is bad, just wait another few months or so, when I predict wild bacteria will join in. There’s no way to bomb something microscopic.”

“Good God,” I mumble, rubbing my temples. The prospect of that sounds beyond horrific. “One crisis at a time, please.”

Suddenly Freitas leaps up from the ground and hurries over to us, waving his iPad in the air. Given the glint in his eye, I can tell he’s overjoyed about something.

“They’re in! The latest worldwide AAPC numbers!”

“Isn’t that just a bunch of old fogeys?” I ask.

Freitas doesn’t like my joke. The acronym, he says, stands for animal attacks per capita. It’s a metric he invented to measure the rate of animal-related incidents and deaths in different countries around the world.

“Over the past few weeks,” he explains, “rumors have been flying that all nations are not created equal. At least not when it comes to HAC. Allegedly, some have begun seeing a marked decline in attacks, while others have experienced a skyrocketing.

“So,” he continues, “I ordered a team of DOE statisticians to crunch all the millions of data points we had and turn them into an easy-to-digest format.”

He hands me his iPad. On it is a map of the world shaded every color of the rainbow.

“Uh, okay,” I reply skeptically, skimming it. “So it looks like…Finland, Japan, South Korea, and Egypt are seeing fewer attacks. But Brazil, Indonesia, and Canada are seeing more. Big deal. Where does this get us? It doesn’t tell us why—or what any of these countries have in common.”

“No, it sure doesn’t,” Freitas responds. “Which is exactly what I want us to find out. Now come on!”

He turns and starts jogging down the hallway—away from the conference room.

“Dr. Freitas!” Sarah calls out, confused. “Where are you going? Our break’s almost over. I have a paper to present!”

But Freitas doesn’t slow. Instead he glances back and calls out, “Forget your stupid presentation, this is way bigger! We’ve got a plane waiting to take us to Bali!”

Bali? Is he serious? According to his own data, Indonesia has seen a massive spike in animal attacks recently—and that’s where he wants to take us?

But when I glance down back at the map on the iPad still in my hands, I see that in the past month, the island of Bali has actually had almost zero reported attacks.

That has to be some kind of mistake. Doesn’t it?

Or could the key to solving HAC really be right under our nose?

I grab Sarah’s arm and practically drag her down the hallway after Freitas.

The day just