I.D. MINUS 29 HOURS
The DOP received his regular morning briefing from Foster, the night watch officer, at six a.m. on the dot in his quarters.
“There have been no additional problems with the situation in Buenos Aires. We’ve hired some local freelancers to keep an eye on Patricia Mendes in case she tries to stir up anything.”
The DOP waved a dismissive hand in the air. “We’re too close for anything she might say to matter at this point. You can let her be.”
“Very well, sir.” Foster provided updates for several other minor incidents, including the small outbreak in Mumbai, India. “It appears to be contained with no further infections.”
The DOP sensed hesitation. “What is it?”
“It seems, sir, that the two nurses watching the patients have…left.”
“What do you mean, left?”
“When the next shift came on, they weren’t there. It’s believed they fled.”
“Are they Project members?”
“Yes, sir. Um, some of their cache of vaccine is missing.”
The DOP stared at him. “They stole vaccine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has there been any information leak on the outbreak?”
“None.”
“Good.” An outbreak associated with the people working on the “malaria problem” could have caused some serious questions to be raised, and jeopardized their operations not only in Mumbai but other places where they were using the method.
“What’s next?”
“Have not heard back yet from the team at Grise Fiord,” Foster said.
The men at Grise Fiord had reported the arrival of a science group the previous evening, and were going to check them out, but it wasn’t unusual for them to take up to twenty-four hours to learn anything useful.
“All right,” the DOP said, glad that these types of issues were not something he’d have to think about for much longer.
“Our lookout in Savissivik reports that the Danish cultural committee is leaving as scheduled this morning for the south,” Foster said.
Savissivik on the northwestern coast of Greenland and Grise Fiord in Canada were the two closest manned locations to Yanok Island, so it had always been a priority to keep an eye on them.
“Anything else?”
“Yes. There’s a storm heading our way.”
“When?”
Foster smiled. “Just in time for Implementation Day.”
The DOP chuckled. He liked the idea of that.
The briefing finished, Foster headed off to bed while the DOP got dressed. He then went to the cafeteria for a leisurely breakfast before joining Major Ross in the Cradle.
They were approaching twenty-four hours from activation, the moment he’d been working toward for so many years. The anticipation was intoxicating. He wanted to make sure he savored every last second of it.
29
Billy arrived in Cleveland just after seven a.m. via a chartered jet. He’d brought only one other person with him, a woman named Karen Pruitt. She had a degree in electrical engineering, and was one of the people who kept the Ranch’s equipment running.
After obtaining a rental car, it took them only a few minutes to get to the container’s location, just as the early winter sun was coming up. Live and in person, the lot looked even more abandoned than it had from above. There was a rusty chain-link fence, topped by three strands of barbed wire, surrounding the entire lot, and another, slightly newer fence partially cutting the lot in half. The row of neglected vehicles was a mix of cars and a couple of old tow trucks. None looked like it’d been on the road for years.
Billy pulled the rental into one of the spaces at the west end of the lot, and got out. Though he could hear a low rumble coming from the freeway several blocks away, the area itself was quiet. At this early hour of the morning, he and Karen were probably the only ones around.
After exiting the car, Karen went to the trunk and removed the case containing the specialized tools and equipment they thought they might need. That was one of benefits of chartering a plane from a company the Ranch had worked with before-they didn’t have to worry about a security check. She joined Billy at the misaligned gate in the fence, only about twenty feet from where they’d parked.
Though the gate looked like it had been there for decades, the chain and lock holding the two halves together were new. Karen selected a couple tools from the case, set to work on the lock, and opened it in seconds.
From the sidewalk, the brown shipping container was out of view, blocked by one of the aging trailers, but as soon as they walked on the lot, they could see it. Billy’s first impression was that it was a normal container, just like the countless others he’d seen over the years in ports or on the backs of trucks and trains. Then he noticed the top edge. At the point where the side panel met the roof, there seemed to be a hinge.
He pointed it out to Karen. “Goes all the way along the edge.”
She frowned, and disappeared on the other side. “Same over here, too,” she called out, then came back around to where he was. “I think the roof splits in the middle.”
Billy located the number at the top back corner of the box, and checked it against the one Jordan had seen on the container in the security footage. “Numbers match,” he said. “It’s definitely the same one.”
When they stepped around the far end, they found another surprise. While the doors for loading and unloading the container were right where they should be, the locking mechanism keeping them closed was decidedly not standard, and seemed to be attached to something within the box itself.
Karen set the case on the ground and moved in for a closer look. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Can you open it?”
“Maybe if I had time and the right software. But I don’t think I’d even want to try.”
“Why not?”
“If I got it wrong even once, what do you think the chances are something inside would be triggered? I mean,
“Then how are we going to see what’s inside?”
“Give me a few minutes.”
While she conducted a closer examination of the box, Billy pulled their communication gear from his jacket pocket, and put his wireless earpiece on. Matt’s one caveat for letting Billy come to Cleveland was that once he and Karen were on site, they had to be in constant communication with the Ranch.
“This is Billy. Anyone there?”
“This is Echo Four. I got you, Billy,” a voice said on the other end. He recognized it as belonging to Leon Owens, one of the communications operators.
“We’re on site, doing a visual check of the container.”
“All right. I’ll let Matt know.”
“Billy!” Karen called out. “Bring me the scanner, would you?”
Billy knelt down next to the tool case, and removed the scanner from inside. The device looked like a tablet computer, but was really a down and dirty imager that could see through solid objects for about half a foot. He
