TV while communicating with them.
“What do you think?” Powell asked.
“It is definitely evocative of the work we did on Crucible,” Winfield said into his radio-intercom.
“You mean the work Gretchen did,” Kenyon added.
After some three hours, the scientists exited the lab, moving carefully through the various chambers. They each stayed in their suits and took another decontamination shower before moving along to the locker room where they were helped out of their suits.
Powell was waiting for the four men again in the same room where he had originally briefed them.
“Your assessment?”
Winfield looked at his colleagues.
“We would not have believed it had we not seen it,” he said. “Theoretically, it should be impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s definitely a manufactured agent,” Winfield said. “It’s totally new and has characteristics of Ebola, Marburg and anthrax. We can’t really identify it. But there’s more.”
“More?”
“Its foundation is in File 91 and some of the other agents developed by some enemy states. But we cannot fully understand the delivery system, the control system and how it seems to be manipulated.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“It’s extremely sophisticated. I don’t think we can defend against it.”
“What about an antidote or vaccine?”
“Well, while it encompasses a manufactured lethal agent, it’s less characteristic of a virus, more like a controllable agent. Its engineering is very advanced.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“It’s like a weapon with no off switch. I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop it.”
61
Paradise Island, Bahamas
As their cab from the airport climbed the bridge over the crystal water of Nassau Harbor, Emma looked at the hotels rising from the island.
“It’s funny,” she told Gannon. “I was a travel writer before I became a teacher, and I have been to a lot of places but never here. Joe and I were planning a trip to the Bahamas. We were going to bring Tyler but now, to come here as a widow, wondering if my baby’s alive…” Emma reached under her sunglasses and touched the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Gannon said. “We need to know the truth.”
Gannon paid the driver after they arrived at the massive main building of the Grand Blue Tortoise Resort. Tourists, guests and staff crowded the lobby, which was as chaotic as an airport terminal. Live parrots cawed in a four-story aviary and calypso music filled the air. The reservation for two rooms next to each other was under Gannon’s name. He used the WPA’s credit card.
“Are there any messages?” Gannon asked as he collected their keys.
The clerk consulted the computer.
“No, sir.”
“I’m looking for my friend Robert Lancer—he should be registered here.”
The clerk checked.
“Yes, room 2322 Blue Reef Tower D. That’s the next building west from you, sir. Do you wish to send Mr. Lancer a message?”
“Yes, tell him I’ve arrived and to please call my room.”
When Gannon got to his room there was still no message from Lancer. He set up his laptop and sent Lancer an e-mail telling him that he’d arrived at the hotel and was standing by. Then he sent a text message.
No response.
Gannon called the WPA’s Nassau Bureau. Prior to his Bahamas assignment, the Nassau chief had run the Amsterdam Bureau.
“WPA, Peter DeGroote.”
“Jack Gannon. I just arrived.”
“Ah, yes, Jack. New York advised us to expect your call. We’ll support you in every way possible. I trust you had a good flight?”
“Yes, thanks. Are you hearing anything at all related to a police action on a day-care center anywhere?”
“No, but we are monitoring police emergency radio chatter on our scanners and we’ll alert you on your mobile phone.”
“Do you have a photographer ready?”
“We have two. One is a freelancer. Both are in Nassau waiting to be dispatched.”
After the call, Gannon went to the next building to find Lancer.
Alone in her room, Emma studied her color photograph of Tyler and Joe, taken a week before the crash. She’d downloaded it to her cell phone. She traced her finger over their faces, smiling back at them before starting to unpack. That’s when she noticed the resort’s leather-bound directory of services on the desk. Paging through it she saw that the resort offered child-care service at the Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway.
Gannon’s source had said police were going to get warrants for a child-care center and had advised Gannon to come to this specific hotel. She hurried to Gannon’s room and knocked hard on his door.
No answer.
She’d go alone.
At her desk in the offices of the Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway, Lucy Walsh quickly read over the letter she was leaving