He got on his knees and started moving toward the near end. At one point, he reached up, touching the ceiling so he’d know where it was and not bump his head. Only instead of continuing on, he stopped and looked up.
“What now?” she asked.
“The roof’s made of metal.”
“Well, yes. You can see that from outside. So what? Lots of places have metal roofs.”
“Maybe.” He continued to examine the roof, then crawled quickly toward the other side of the container. “It just seems…hold on.”
Several seconds passed.
“Rodrigo?”
“I said, hold on.”
Patricia backed up as far as she could to get a better view. Her brother had raised himself up so that his head was only a few inches below the ceiling. He was examining the point where the roof met the far wall.
“What are you looking at?”
He waved her question off without turning around. After a moment, he dropped to his hands and crawled several feet to his right. There, he looked at the roof and wall again. He repeated this two more times, ending up above the end where the side doors with the funny locks were. With his finger, he seemed to be tracing a line in the air that first moved across, then down the wall to the floor. He scrabbled to the near edge and lowered himself to the floor. As soon as he was down, he ran out of sight around the end.
Patricia stared after him. What was he doing? She was the one who brought him here. If he found something, he should tell her.
With an exasperated grunt, she headed after him, finding him around back kneeling next to the wall of the old building. He was gripping the sides of an old, narrow, wooden cabinet. If Patricia had to guess, she’d say it had probably been attached when the place was constructed. The screws holding it in place would surely put up little resistance. But as Rodrigo pulled, the cabinet didn’t move.
“I thought so,” he said.
“You thought what?”
“This is new.”
“Are you kidding? Dad’s younger than that.”
“I think it’s only supposed to look old, but I have a feeling it was put in here the same time the container was moved in. Think back to when we used to explore this place. Do you remember this being here? I don’t.”
She frowned, her mind searching through her memories, sure that the old cabinet must have been there, but her brother was right. She didn’t remember it. In fact, she was positive now it hadn’t been there.
“What’s it doing here, then?” she asked.
“Hiding what’s underneath.”
Could he not just give her a full answer? “And what would that be?”
He shrugged. “Power, for sure. Probably some sort of controller unit.”
“For what?”
“That,” he said, looking at the container. He moved his gaze to the roof. “And that.”
“Rodrigo, what are you talking about?”
He smiled at her. “There are motorized clamps along the high end of the roof.” He pointed to where he’d been looking earlier. “And along the side walls I think there are rollers. You want my guess?”
She looked to the heavens. “
He tapped the not-so-old cabinet beside him. “I think when this gets a signal, the clamps release, the roof rolls off, and the top of the container opens.”
It took a second to process what he was saying. It was so far off from anything she expected. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Drugs?” she suggested.
Rodrigo suddenly grew wary. It was obvious he hadn’t considered that possibility. “I’m not sure why they would set things up like this, but I guess, maybe.”
She frowned. “We should tell Uncle Hector.”
Uncle Hector was a member of the Buenos Aires police, and if this
Rodrigo looked back at the container. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”
15
The Director of Preparation-the DOP-was now in full charge of Project Eden. Until it came time for the Director of Recovery to take over, no one, not even the Principal Director, could overrule any order given by the DOP. This change of command had been worked out long ago, and had been written into the procedures of the Project. Each part was critical, and the appropriate Director for that segment of the plan would take charge for the duration of that particular phase.
The vote on moving forward had taken place two months earlier. Per protocol, all the Directors and the Principal Director had to vote in the affirmative if implementation was to occur.
Going in, the DOP had not been one hundred percent sure they had the votes. There were a couple of Directors he was just unable to get a read on. Turned out he needn’t have worried. Everyone, without hesitation, voted yes, and from that moment until one month after Implementation Day, he was in charge.
The command center at Bluebird-known unofficially as the Cradle-was two levels below ground. Befitting its importance, the Cradle was large and impressive. It had five semicircular rows of desks, each home to over a dozen manned computer stations. They all faced the curved wall at the front of the room that was covered by over fifty monitors of varying sizes. The center monitor was, naturally, the largest, its high-definition screen providing a level of resolution few other monitors on the planet could match.
Any time the DOP was needed in the Cradle, he used a station in the center of the back row, raised slightly above the others. Ostensibly, this was so he could see everyone, but also, he knew, it reminded the others who was in charge.
He was sitting at the desk, his gaze on the main monitor, which currently was displaying a satellite shot of Australia. Overlaying this was a graphic containing over two hundred Xs representating locations where Implementation Delivery Modules had already been placed. If need be, he could push in on the image until he was looking at an overhead view of one of the IDMs.
Every region of the world had to be looked at on an individual basis. What would work one place might not work somewhere else. But they had known that from the beginning. That’s why it had taken decades from when the plan was conceived to the point where they were only nine days away from actually making it happen. No, Project Eden was definitely no rush job. In the intervening years, extensive research had been done, hundreds of methods had been considered and tested, and best chosen for each need. All so that they could avoid any mistakes when the time to act came.
What they knew from the beginning was that covering every square inch of the planet was out of the question. Whatever virus they developed would have to be potent enough that they need only focus on dense population centers and a few outlining areas, and humanity itself could do the rest of the work, carrying the disease to other areas. If areas where the virus was unable to reach popped up, those could be targeted. KV-27a had turned out to be just that and more. There was no question in anyone’s mind of its potential for success.
The same careful, detailed work had also gone into all other aspects of the Project-the selecting of candidates for survival, the long-range targeting and control of influential officials worldwide to ensure the Project would remain hidden and unhindered, the planning and preparation for after, and the development of the virus itself and its vaccine for those chosen.
With the start of the implementation phase, they had reached a point where everything was just logistics and coordination.
“What’s the problem?” the DOP asked, his voice traveling straight from the microphone in front of him into
