Encrypted (29 page)

Now it was Devlin’s turn to squirm.

“It was
on a
need
-
to
-
know
basis
. My superiors didn’t think you needed to know.”

Henderson rose from his desk, his fist slamming against the wood. “How about you assume that we do now
?
”

The CIA liaison’s eyes darted to the door
,
but Jennifer strategically blocked his exit. “Like you said, especially with those unexplained symbols, there were numerous ways to interpret the communiqué.”

Amanda wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily.

“Who wrote this?”

“I don’t know.”

“
Who
was it meant for?”

Devlin looked away. “I. Don’t. Know.”

“Then
,
why do you even have it?”

This time
,
the CIA liaison locked eyes with her. “Why do you think?” His eyes scanned over to Henderson. “I was sent to see if any of you might be involved
in the Hidden Hand
.” Devlin turned to her. “Especially you.”

“Me?” Amanda squeaked.

* * *

Quirk scooped
rose
petals into a small trash can
.
His burden never ceased
.
But before he could get truly riled, he cocked his head
.
Yep, the bathwater was still flowing
.
Ronnie could try to hide the sound of her crying, but Niag
a
ra Falls couldn’t drown out that sorrow.

Moving on
to the nightstand, Quirk almost threw out the motorized dildo,
and
then thought twice about it
.
It hadn’t been used
.
There was no point in wasting such a useful device
.
He tossed it into his suitcase
,
and
then Quirk came across the infamous iPod
.
Such a little toy that had caused so much damage
.
That definitely could go into the trash, but before he could toss it, the thing chimed
.

“Unauthorized contact time
.
Override code being input.”

Oh
,
no
.
Zach was definitely not going to get back into Ronnie’s life with a belated, lame excuse
.
Even before the bastard could load in the sequence, Quirk aborted the contact and typed in a little message for Mr.
Loverboy
.

“Go fuck yourself.”

* * *

Zach watched the words roll across the screen
.
He didn’t blame Ronnie
.
S
he must be confused and very, very livid.

Grant kept a wide berth from the iPod
.
“What does it say?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Zach replied.

Jorge
went to his go-to response.
A kidney punch.

Fingers flying, Grant brought up pictures of plague victims. “These aren’t from the fourteenth century, Zach. These are victims in Italy. Now.
Today
.”

The bodies were bloated and blotchy. Zach could only imagine how they smelled.

“The U
.
S
.
might be lucky and have
10
percent of the population survive
,
but Mexico?” Grant said
,
his eyes sliding over to
Jorge
. “His people may speak Spanish
,
but their blood is that of the indigenous people of the Americas.
A population that has never seen this bacteria before.
A population that has very limited medical resources.”

Jorge
spoke through a clenched jaw. “
A population
that will die out completely unless you make that fucking call.”

Zach looked
at
both men,
and then at
the screen. They
could
be playing him. But Zach did see that
f
ax just before head
ing
out to chase down Ronnie. And he knew that Europe had already seen hundreds of plague deaths. But were these two just leveraging that tragedy for their own endgame
?

“She is a hacker. What good is she against a bacterium?”

Jorge
’s hand went up to strike.

“And so help me,” Zach growled
.
“
If
you hit me one more time…”

The Mexican chuckled. “You will do what?”

“Let you kill me,” Zach held his voice steady.

Jorge
looked like he was ready to do just that when Grant stepped between them.

“This plague isn’t natural,” Grant explained.

Zach’s eyes narrowed. What game was Grant playing?

“Look, Langley can’t break this code, or at least not fast enough,” his ex-partner said. “We need the
Robin Hood hacker
to break the code so that we can determine how they are protecting themselves from this weaponized strain.”

“Who is
‘
they
’
?” Zach asked.

“The Hidden Hand.”

* * *

“Any organization like this
Hidden Hand that wanted to pull something of this caliber off,” Devlin continued, “would need some pretty heavy
-
duty backup. Scientists willing to do their bidding.”

“Wait,” Amanda said
,
as her brain finally caught up with her mouth. “Back to me. Why investigate
me
?”

Devlin frowned. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Amanda looked
at
Henderson
,
who shrugged. “Why don’t you enlighten us, Devlin?”

“Too smart for
her own
damn good,” the CIA liaison
began
after clearing his throat. “She’s got a soft spot for the plague
,
plus
,
no family. No husband. No boyfriend. Not even a
sexting
partner.
High student loan debt.
I could go on all day. Dr.
Rolph
is a prime target for foreign agency recruitment.”

Blinking back tears, Amanda tried to hold her reaction in. To think that because she had lost her parents early, sucked at dating, and decided to take a low
-
paying government job instead of a six
-
figure pharmaceutical deal, she somehow was suspect. She looked
at
Jennifer
,
who oozed sympathy. The grad student was
in
about the same boat as Amanda.

“Well, Dr.
Rolph
, did you help
to
create this weaponized form of the plague?” Dr. Henderson asked.

“No,” Amanda said through clenched teeth.

“All right
,
then,” the director said
,
turning back to Devlin. “I take it
that
you don’t have any proof
of
anyone here
being
involved
,
or I can only assume the DHS guards would have swooped down on them.”

The CIA liaison look
ed
at the floor. “Not yet.”

“So, isn’t the more important question,” Amanda stated, “
‘
what
is the CIA doing to find this source of ‘protection?’
”

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Henderson glared at Devlin. “We are in the thick of it, son
.
I
f you know anything, just tell us.”

Amanda watched as the CIA liaison popped another throat lozenge in while he shook his head from side to side. Finally he cleared his throat.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “How they were going to decode the full message was a ‘need to know’ that clearly
I
didn’t need to know.”

As much as she wanted to believe that Devlin was holding
out
on them, his hunched
,
puppy
-
dog posture indicated that he wasn’t. He looked more embarrassed
that
he wasn’t high enough up
on
the food chain to know the details.

Perhaps they couldn’t control things out in the world, but they certainly could control things within the facility.

“We’ve got to start acting like there is a viable vaccine out there,” Amanda said.

Henderson shook his head. “I don’t want to start a riot of speculation. We need everyone to stay focused
on their tasks
.”

“Fine then, just the four of us,” Amanda countered. “But we’ve got to trust that the CIA is going to find the vaccine and bring it to us for mass production.”

The director sat at his desk.

Jennifer nudged her from behind. Ugh. She’d already gone out so far out on a limb
that
she feared it
would
crack under her.

“This is why they accelerated the bacterium’s virulence,” Amanda explained. “They needed to infect as many people as possible before we could develop any of our own ‘protection.’ Our only hope is to take a successful vaccine and multiply it.”

She took a step closer to the desk. Why
she
had to b
e
all
assertive
,
Amanda didn’t know, but she did know this bacterium. She did know what was going to happen to the world’s population if they didn’t act decisively.

“We’ve got to be prepared.”

Henderson finally nodded. “Quietly
,
though. Get the techs down in the wet lab prepping for a
modified live vaccine. Let everyone think
that
we’
re just gearing up for a run of our own.”

Amanda took a deep breath
—t
he first she had really taken since the first confirmed case of bubonic plague came from Europe. At least they had a name for who created the plague
—
The Hidden Hand. They also knew why and how the Hidden Hand hoped to accomplish the most egregious use of biowarfare that man had ever seen.

Now they only
had to
somehow
stop it
—
the most virulent, antibiotic
-resistant
menace to mankind
.

Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have taken that deep breath just yet.

Especially not as Jennifer and Devlin coughed at the same time.
She turned to her grad student
,
who tried to wave her off, but Amanda persisted. Reaching out
,
she put the back of her hand to Jennifer’s forehead. The skin burned.

Amanda snatched her hand back. “How long?”

Jennifer wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“What’s wrong
?
” Henderson asked.

She turned to Devlin. “And you?”

“And me
,
what?” the CIA liaison shot back.

Ignoring his rudeness, she felt his cheek. It was on fire. “How long have you had a fever?”

“I feel kind of crummy,” Devlin said
, his
eyes darting from person to person
.
“But I’m fine.”

“Check your lymph nodes,” Amanda instructed. Now that she looked at Jennifer, really
looked
at her, she could see the flushing to her arms, the rosy cheeks that did not indicate health.

Devlin barely touched his neck. “No. No. They
can’t
be swollen.”

“But they are.”

Henderson step
ped
back. “They have the plague?”

Amanda didn’t bother answering. What else could they have, the swine flu?

“We’ve been under lockdown since the first case landed in New York,” Henderson rushed on
,
seeming to want to reassure himself this wasn’t happening. “There’s no way we could have been infected by…”