“Are we going out?” she said surprised. “Is this it?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Only an internal test. But it means it works.”
“So we can do it?”
“Yeah. Whenever you want.”
“Now,” she said. “Let’s do it now.”
Grinning, Bobby turned back to the computer. “I’ll point at you when you’re live, but give it a couple of seconds before you start. You know, for everyone to realize that jerk isn’t on the air anymore.”
He input the string of commands he’d worked out earlier. In theory, they would override the Project Eden signal and replace it with their broadcast, but since this was the first time he was trying them out, he couldn’t help but feel he should be crossing his fingers. As he typed in the last few characters, he muttered, “Please work,” and punched the ENTER key.
His gaze shifted to the four small monitors he’d hooked up on the neighboring desk. Each had a piece of white tape stuck in the bottom corner, with letters written on them — NA for the North American feed, SA for the South American, E for the European, and A for the Asian. Until that moment, all four monitors had been playing the message from the faux secretary general of the UN.
Now, one by one, Tamara’s image began replacing Di Sarsina’s. When she appeared in the last monitor — the one for North America — Bobby pointed at her.
She waited a few beats, and then began.
“My name is Tamara Costello. Some of you might remember me as a reporter at PCN. This is not a PCN broadcast. They do not exist anymore. None of the networks do. My purpose for speaking to you is to expose a lie you have all been told. Gustavo Di Sarsina is not the secretary general of the United Nations. I am not sure Gustavo Di Sarsina is even his real name. I do know that the United Nations no longer exists, and therefore it could have not initiated a worldwide effort to save those of us who are still alive.” She paused. “The survival stations Mr. Di Sarsina talked about have nothing to do with survival. Mr. Di Sarsina and the people who are running these stations are the very same people who are responsible for releasing the Sage Flu on the world. The only purpose of these stations is to finish the job. To be clear, what I mean is that if you go to one of these ‘survival stations,’ you will die. Do not trust these people. Do not go anywhere near them. Do not let them know where you are. If you are someplace where English is not spoken but you understand what I’m saying, please, I beg you, translate my words so others will know, too. We need to stay alive. We need to survive.” She paused again. “My name is Tamara Costello. You might remember me as a reporter at PCN. This isn’t a…”
“We expect things will pick up in the next few days,” the regional director for southern Asia said.
“You’re lagging, and that’s a problem,” Perez said. “A few days is a few days too many. It should be happening—”
The door to his office opened and Claudia hurried in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but we need to end this call right now.”
“What’s going on?” Perez asked.
“You need to see this.”
The center screen went momentarily blank before another image appeared, of a woman standing in some kind of control room.
“This just started broadcasting,” Claudia said.
“What do you mean, broadcasting? Where?”
“North America for sure, haven’t heard about anywhere else yet. It’s knocked our message off the air.”
He stared at her. “What? How is that possible?”
“We don’t know, sir.” Claudia looked at the screen. “You should listen.”
She touched a key and the woman’s voice boomed from the speakers.
“…is his real name or not. But what I do know is that the United Nations doesn’t exist anymore, so there’s no way it could undertake a worldwide mission to save everyone. The survival stations you’ve heard about? Those are being run by the same people who set off the outbreak in the first place…”
“How long has this been playing?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but I can tell it’s not a loop. She’s saying some of the things I first heard, but not quite in the same way. I think it must be live.”
“Has the cyber division been notified?”
“They’re the ones who told me.”
“And they can’t take her down?” he asked in disbelief.
“They’re trying, but they’re not sure if they can.”
“What about her location? Where is she broadcasting from?”
“Unknown at this point, but we’re working on that, too.”
“Is she also on radio?”
“Last check, no. Only TV.”
Perez looked at the woman on the screen again, his eyes narrowing. How much damage could she actually do? Would anyone listen to her? Was anyone even watching television anymore?
“Find out how widespread this is,” he ordered Claudia. “And the moment we figure out where this is coming from, get someone there to shut her down.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “What should we tell everyone? If they haven’t seen it already, they soon will.”
Many of the monitors throughout the facility had been tuned to the Di Sarsina message, so they would now be displaying the woman’s broadcast. Claudia was right. It would have to be addressed.
“Patch me into the general comm.”
“Hey, Cliff. Look at this,” McCabe said to his colleague.
Cliff Eames swiveled his chair so he could look at the other security officer’s screen. On it was a camera feed from level three, specifically the area in front of the main elevator doors. Both sets of doors were currently shut. The display on the digital panel next to McCabe’s screen indicated both cars were up at the warehouse level, where McCabe and Eames were stationed. Standing to the left of the elevators, facing away from the screen, was a man in a gray security jumpsuit.
“Who is that?” McCabe asked.
Eames studied the man, but it was hard to tell much from the guy’s back. “I’m not sure. Jones?”
“That’s not Jones. Jones’s thinner.”
“What’s he doing?”
Both men watched the screen. From the movements of the man’s back and shoulders, and the occasional elbow sticking out to the side, they could tell he was busy at something.
“Got me,” McCabe said.
Eames knew there was probably a mundane answer to his question, but it was a quiet night — it was always a quiet night — and they didn’t have much else to do. “Back it up,” he said. “Let’s at least get a look at his face.”
McCabe pulled his keyboard out from under the monitor, accessed the menu, and reversed the feed to where the man walked into the picture. He pressed PLAY.
“I don’t know who the hell that is,” McCabe said.
“Me, either.”
Eames pointed at the screen. “Is he opening that?”
The man was carrying a duffel bag. As he reached the spot where they had originally seen him, he turned his back to the camera and began to unzip the bag, which was now blocked from view by the guy’s body.
“Go live,” Eames said.
McCabe switched back to a live shoot. “Dammit.”
The man was gone.
McCabe quickly reversed the video until they saw him leave.
“His bag looks lighter, doesn’t it?” McCabe said.
It did look lighter, but nothing obvious was left behind.
Eames rolled back to his own desk. “Find out where he went,” he said. He adjusted the microphone connected to his computer, and tapped into the security radio system. “Aldridge, this is Eames in monitoring. Proceed to level three, main elevators. Make it quick.”