Salazar kept looking at him. He motioned toward the Walther.
“Your tricked-up piece doesn’t impress me,” he said. “I’m not concerned with anything but results.”
“I understand that. This isn’t about flash. We just like people to know some of what’s behind our asking price.”
Salazar was quiet. Then he released a long sigh.
“Okay,” he said. “We have a deal.”
The little man nodded.
“We’d better go over tonight’s timetable,” he said.
The first application Ricci accessed on Palardy’s computer was his E-mail reader, thinking it would be the logical place to search for contacts. Before checking his address book, Ricci scanned the unopened messages on his queue. Most were from subscriber lists related to countersurveillance issues. A few were obvious junk mails. One was an order confirmation from an E-bookseller.
Only the third description caught Ricci’s interest. It said:
FROM SUBJECT RECEIVED
[email protected] NONE 11/14/2000 4:36 AM
Ricci turned to Nimec in the chair beside him, pointing toward the mailer’s address.
“Look at that,” he said. “Palardy sent it to himself.”
“Early Tuesday morning,” Nimec said.
Nimec leaned forward. “Well, open it already. What are we waiting for?”
Ricci highlighted the description on the screen, double-clicked his mouse, and read the contents of the email:
RHJAJA00BHJM00WHRH!JM00WHBHJA00
TJAJ00?!CAJBJTRH
GWRHMVGCRHUGBHAJ00RHJBAJ00.
RHBHCAJBJTRHGCBHGWJA00TJ: CARHJA00
CATJJAOOUG?!BHJBJAMVGCRHJA00
RHJBJA00RHGW!!
RHJA“”ALRHMFTJJAUGRHBH
:MVGCRHJA00TJJGWH!
AJ00JPGCTJTJJA00UGRH!?
JA00RHUGBHMVBHJARHJTRH
JA00GWRHJB.JAMVJGTJJA
00”“MVGCBHAJMV,TJGCJBJMJMRHJA
JGTJJA00! CA!BHJTRHGWRH.
He looked at Nimec again.
“What the hell’s this?” he said.
In their full-faceplate biohazard ensembles they might have been astronauts exploring another world. But this was no alien landscape. This was the Gordians’s home and hillside, and the team of state and CDC virus hunters called in by Eric Oh had to comb every inch of their property for the dried rodent excreta known to transmit hantavirus to humans.
The white space suits with their protective apparatus were burdensome and tiring to wear. Communication between team members was enabled only through two-way radio. Their air packs weighed forty pounds. Their thick, multilayered gloves made it difficult to get hold of things. Their heavy, steel-toed boots made walking itself a rigor.
The suits could be hard on their surroundings as well. Preservation of Ashley’s lovingly maintained gardens was impossible in the scrupulous probe for contaminants. It was imperative to inspect any area that might be visited or inhabited by field mice and similar creatures. Her herb patch was dug up, delicate rosebushes were sheared, the mulch around her shrubs was shoveled and bagged. Climbing plants that had flourished on her arbors for a decade were lopped off near the ground, where the little mammals might forage among the root beds. In some instances, the bowers and trellises themselves had to be taken down for the biologists to get at likely sites for established nests or burrows. Dozens of traps were set for live specimens that would be tested for the presence of virus.
Nor was the interior of the house spared these disruptive but necessary intrusions. Mice and voles common to the region used the smallest openings to enter and exit from the outdoors, and these were often found in places normally screened from sight. Furniture was moved, rugs lifted, carpets unstapled. Library shelves were cleared of books, wainscoting panels detached from the wall. Gordian’s cluttered basement workshop was virtually taken apart piece by piece. In the kitchen, cooking cupboards were emptied, and utensils and appliances were swept from their shelves. The built-in stainless steel refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, ice maker, and wine captain had to be removed from their cabinets, their outer insulation pulled away. As outside the residence, many traps were laid.
Miles to the south at Julia Gordian Ellis’s new home in Pescadero, a second group of investigators in moon suits conducted a procedurally identical hunt for the source of contagion. Forced to abandon the premises, Julia went to stay with a friend, bringing only her dogs and a suitcase full of clothing. Intense focus was put on the section of backyard where her father had been building his greyhound corral, the theory being he might have disturbed an underground rodent den while excavating soil for its posts. The standing section of fence was disassembled, its laboriously installed posts extracted from the ground.
These painstaking efforts of course proved fruitless, for in the end, not a trace of virus was uncovered.
“Hello. Eric Oh, please.”
“Speaking…”
“Eric, it’s Steve Karonis over at Sobel Genetics. I know you asked me to call on your direct office line, but I must’ve misplaced the number. Had to go through the switchboard…”
“No problem. What’ve you got on Gordian’s virus specimens?”
“Everything is strictly unofficial, okay? Even with our whole staff on this, we need twenty-four hours minimum to make a reliable determination, and it hasn’t even been—”
“It’s unofficial.”
“All right, hold on to your seat. The PCR screening shows your isolate doesn’t match any known strain of hantavirus. Which from what you’ve already told me, shouldn’t come as a surprise—”
“Then why am I still supposed to be worried about falling down?”
“Because… and again, this is only based on initial results… but there appear to be RNA sequences that don’t occur naturally in the species. Or in the family. They’re at the regulation sites on the genome, right where you’d expect to find them if, well, components had been inserted—”
“Are you telling me the virus was artificially
“I’m telling you there are signs of genetic modification, yes.”
The phone cradled between his neck and shoulder, Eric looked down at his hand.
He was indeed holding on to his seat, literally holding on, his knuckles white as bleached bone.
“You want to say the words, or have I got to be the one who jumps first?” Ricci said from behind Palardy’s computer.
Nimec’s eyes were still on the E-mail they had opened.
