"Not again," Julia lamented. The date display had jumped ahead two months.
But the crop duster did not return. In fact, nothing dramatic occurred in the two minutes the camera lingered there, zooming in on individual faces in calm order. Each went about his duties, seeming to have forgotten the death of his friend. The scene played out like an epilogue, as if to say, Life goes on. If Kafka or Tolstoy had directed the video, this was the way he would have ended it.
Another slow fade. All that was missing, Julia thought, was the word Fini in scripted letters.
After several flashes of static, another video sequence started— this one far different in quality. The image, grainy from low light levels, filled the monitor. Gone was the column of numbers that had recorded the time, date, and other bits of cryptic information. Where the first video had all the markings of a professional recording, made for evidence or analysis, this one more closely resembled a home movie. As covert as the preceding footage obviously was, this current stock seemed more so: most of the time something like a flap of cloth blocked a portion of the lens; the angle was from about knee-high, as if the operator had held the camera like a briefcase—or in a briefcase, thought Julia—and nothing was framed quite right. Most disturbing, visually and viscerally, was the image's constant vibration.
"Why is it doing that, that shaking?" Stephen asked.
"Bad tape in the camera, maybe?" offered Allen.
"Fear," Julia said. "Over the past decade, the Bureau has taken to wiring informants and undercover agents not only for sound but also for visuals with miniature cameras. We see that shaking a lot. The guy's scared stiff."
Under a slate sky, the camera panned over a collection of rusty Quonset huts. They rose like the humps of a sea monster from a field cleared of all foliage except for wisps of dry prairie grass. Here and there, the camera caught men with guns standing or strolling, paying no particular attention to the camera operator. In the distance was a tall chain-link fence, double coils of gleaming concertina wire balancing on top. Beyond that a dense jungle grew. Directly in front of the hangars was a long patch of ground, level and clear of foliage.
"That's a landing strip," Allen said.
"So it's an air base?" Julia asked.
"Except for the armed men, it looks abandoned."
Stephen stroked his beard in thought. "Don't drug cartels operate out of abandoned airstrips?"
"Yeah, and look how green and lush that jungle looks," Allen said. "More Amazonian or Asian than African."
Julia said, "I don't think this is about drugs."
The scene changed, and the camera was moving through a dim corridor. It approached a door, then went through it into a brightly lit, refurbished corridor. Windows were set in the walls on each side, lighted from within. The camera approached a window. Reflected in it was a ghostly image that quickly sharpened.
Julia froze the frame. Caught in the glass, a man held a briefcase under his arm.
"Look," Julia said, pointing to a black circle in the side of the briefcase, facing the glass. "Wanna bet that's an opening for the camera lens?"
The man recording his own reflection appeared Hispanic, with tight curly hair and heavy features.
"He matches the description of Vero from the bartender at the place where he and Goody were killed," she said. She studied the face a moment, then restarted the playback.
The reflection faded off the glass as the camera focused on what lay beyond—a room lined with beds. On every one lay a man or woman, some tossing in anguish, others still. Machines monitored their vital signs. IVs snaked into most of the arms.
"Some sort of sick ward," Stephen said.
Turning from the window, the image blurred. When it refocused, a man was walking toward it. At first Julia thought he wore a mask of a skull. His eyes were big black holes, his skin bone-white and gaunt. As he approached, she saw it was no mask. Sunglasses covered his eyes, but the rest of the visible head was disturbing: wispy white hair clung in patches to the scalp, and the face was more than gaunt; it was as though someone had stretched cheesecloth over a skull. A lipless mouth stretched into a wide grin, showing canted and missing teeth.
Julia's heart leaped, and the camera flicked off.
fifty-eight
When the screen had been black for a good fifteen seconds, Allen exhaled loudly and said, "I didn't see anything that proves Ebola is man-made, or that these guys did it. At best, it showed that there's an airborne strain of Ebola."
"And that someone's intentionally infecting people," Stephen said.
"There were two video clips," Julia said, thinking. "One appeared to be of a man in Africa being infected with Ebola. I'm making lots of assumptions, I know. The second was not action-oriented and was in a different setting. There's nothing that obviously connects the two, but they must be related somehow."
"Somehow," Allen repeated. He leaned back in the passenger's seat, fishing a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. He examined the package, saw it was empty, and tossed it over his shoulder onto the dash.
Julia's eyebrows furled together. If Vero had intended to expose the true, malicious origin of Ebola, why wasn't the evidence on the memory chip? What had he set out to prove?
She had been staring at the computer, without really seeing it, when two white-lettered words appeared on the dark screen:
ERSTE ANGRIFF
"Who's that?" Stephen asked.
Allen said, "I don't think it's a who. Erste is German for 'first.'" He scrunched up his face. "I'm not sure about angriff. Something like 'battle' or 'fight.'"
"First battle," Stephen whispered.
They waited for more . . .
Then it dawned on her. The self-starting video sequences had fooled her into regarding Vero's memory chip as a DVD, which would naturally unravel linearly to the end. But it wasn't. It was a computer data chip with files that had to be opened. The video clips were nothing more than digital multimedia files, like word processing documents and spreadsheets. Whatever this was, it wasn't self-opening.
Julia moved the cursor over the words, and the little arrow turned into a pointing hand. "It's hypertext," she said. "It's linked to some other file."
She clicked on the words. Instantly a list of names began scrolling past, lightning fast. She tapped a key, and the list froze.
"Anthony Petucci," she said, pointing. "The actor?"
Stephen bent near to read aloud. "Howard Melton. Isn't he a senator? Janet Plenum, governor of Oregon."
"Lew Darabont," Allen said. "I love his movies."
Julia said, "Hasn't he directed something like four or five of the top ten films of all time?"
She moved the cursor over one of the names. Again it turned into a pointing hand. "They're linked too." She tapped the cursor button.
New words filled the screen:
Richard Kennedy
SSN: 987-65-4320 b. 04/21/55
Occupation: CEO, Nanotech Software, Inc.
Home Address:
1910 Whitehorn Drive
San Francisco, CA 94120
<HIDDEN FIELDS FOLLOW—DO NOT MERGE>
Appendectomy, 11/02/92
Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles
Control Code: 469878884-L
"He's one of the richest men in America," Allen said.
"Appendectomy?" Stephen said. "What kind of database is this?"
"A big one," Julia said, bringing the screen back to the list of names. She scrolled down a few screens. Tapped on a name, closed it . . . then another . . . and another . . .