Germ

"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

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 . . .

"There's an odd assortment of the famous and the average," she said after a while. "Politicians, celebrities, business leaders, an auto mechanic, housewives—look at this . . ."

Hunter, Baby Boy

SSN: N/A B. 09/15/06

Occupation: N/A

Home Address:

4250 Michigan Avenue, Apt. 312

Chicago, IL 60611

PKU, 09/17/06

Memorial Hospital, Chicago

Control Code: 842074654-M

Stephen shook his head. "A baby. Didn't even have a name when this information was collected."

"PKU," Allen said. "That's a blood test all newborns get."

"Why is he here," Julia whispered, "on a list with the rich and famous, on a chip people are dying over?"

She went back to the names, let it scroll to the end. It took several minutes. She wasn't sure why, but watching those names zip past, knowing they were somehow linked to Donnelley's death, Vero's death, the gruesome murder of that man on the video, made her feel sick.