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“This is very cool,” Jack said, circling the table of a 3-D hologram of the National Museum in Tehran. “Nice going, kid.”
“We’ll need at least two men on the inside,” Grace said. “Two more on point, and then Wonderboy here can set up as home base.”
“Three on the inside would be better,” Ethan said. He changed screens so the interior of the museum glowed with blue lights. Splotches of red lit up where cameras were located, and green lines crisscrossed in the main showroom where infrared beams rotated on a timer.
“That’s too many bodies,” Grace argued. “Three gives the opportunity for someone to get left behind if things go to hell.”
“Agreed,” Jack said. “Two can do it. Where’s the entry point?”
Ethan narrowed the hologram to a small section. “The roof. They’ve got skylights, but I’ve got something to get through the security there.”
“What about guards?” Grace asked.
“That’s where things get tricky. The guards are hired guns, no more than a couple dozen, and only a handful of those are official employees on record. The government is still pretty shaky with the new transition, and money is scarce, so they’ve hired out without asking a lot of questions to fill holes. There have been threats against some of their national treasures, so that’s why security at the museum has been upped.
“There are a lot of factions who still oppose the Iranian government, and from the background checks I’ve done on some of the guards, they definitely fall into that camp. We could always try to pay the guards off. Several of them are barely scraping by.”
“No. Too big of a chance that one of them will cave under pressure if questioned.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “Let me make some calls. I have a few men I trust who are still in the area. We need to know exactly how many we might be facing in and outside the building. We’ve got a good start here.”
Grace’s laptop beeped from the living area, and she went to see what it had come up with. Ethan’s apartment was set up much like hers. An open living space where there were no walls between the kitchen and dining room, and a private bed and bath off the kitchen. The only difference in their spaces was that Ethan had a large workroom filled with electronics and his 3-D hologram machine, which he for some reason felt the need to christen Wanda. The furniture in Ethan’s apartment was more masculine and modern than hers—sleek black leather and glass tables—and he definitely had more clutter. There was a basket of clean clothes on the floor, computer parts and gadgets on every available surface, and a video game console and wires scattered every direction.
She stepped around the mess and sat on the edge of the sofa, pulling the laptop closer to the edge of the coffee table. She’d been running probable scientists and doing research on them since she’d left Gabe in the gym the night before. There was no way she’d have been able to go back to sleep after their encounter. So work had been her only option. Ethan and Gabe weren’t the only two who knew how to use a computer, though she wasn’t afraid to admit that her skills came nowhere close to theirs.
“What’s up, Red?” Jack called from the other room. “Anything exciting?”
“I think I’ve got a hit on a scientist who’s a viable candidate for re-creating the Passover Project. I did some research last night and ran some probabilities, and less than half a percent of all scientists at various universities and institutes around the world have the genius to even guess at a formula as complex as this. And the percentage shrinks even more when you narrow the scientific field. We’re looking at four, maybe five men who can pull this off.”
“So who’s your top pick?” Jack asked.
“The deeper level background checks just finished, and it looks like a Dr. Allen Standridge quietly resigned from MIT three years ago after a couple of graduate students complained they saw him experimenting on human test subjects without the people’s knowledge. It was never proven since it was their word against his, and Dr. Standridge insisted the students were just holding a grudge because he’d rejected their theses. But it made the MIT board nervous enough to ask for his early retirement and resignation.”
“And what’s Dr. Standridge been up to for the past couple of years?” Jack asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question. He’s disappeared, or at least he’s hidden himself well enough that my limited tracking abilities can’t find him. I couldn’t find a death certificate or an obituary. And his name’s not attached to any new research project. Nothing recently published in scientific journals. I figured I’d turn this over to Ethan. He’ll be able to dig deeper.”
Ethan followed Jack into the room, his glasses skewed on his face and his hair mussed. “Rad. I like spying on other people. You find out the craziest things. People are strange.”
Jack snorted out a laugh, and Grace buried her face in the computer so Ethan wouldn’t see her smile. God, everything about this mission felt odd to her. She’d cut herself off so completely for the last two years that being around anyone was a culture shock. Guilt ate at her. She shouldn’t be smiling and enjoying the excitement of starting a new team mission while her daughter was buried in the ground back in Virginia. Not while her murder was still unavenged and the monster who had killed her was roaming free.
Her smile disappeared, and she watched Ethan pull a can of soda from the fridge and pop the top, oblivious to their amusement or anything else. She and Jack had been rotating the room, checking their positions in the windows and watching for anyone outside who happened to pass by the building more than once or seem too interested. They’d been doing the things they’d been trained to do to stay alive. But Ethan just existed in his own world. He’d make a terrible field agent, and she hoped to God they didn’t get him killed. She had enough blood on her hands.
“What are you guys staring at?” Ethan asked, his drink to his lips. Grace looked at Jack and she could tell he’d just had the same thought. Ethan was either going to be a great help or a huge hindrance. Only time would tell.
A hard knock on the apartment door kept them from having to answer Ethan’s question. Gabe came into the room, his iPad cradled under his arm and his phone in the other hand.
“We’ve got another infection site. It’s the same MO,” he said, placing his things on the coffee table before looking at Grace.
The tension in the room skyrocketed, and she broke his gaze, returning her attention to the computer screen. She heard Jack mumble something profane under his breath, and Ethan, as unworldly as he was, asked, “What’s going on?”
Gabe headed into the kitchen and came back with a cup of coffee. He took a sip and grimaced, and Grace felt a small satisfaction at his pained look.
“Gah, Grace, do you always have to boil it to death?” Gabe went back into the kitchen and poured milk into the mug.
Jack broke the tension by picking up Gabe’s iPad and scrolling through the pictures of the new infection site he had stored on it. “This site isn’t wiped clean like the others. They didn’t finish the job.”
“No,” Gabe said. “I’ve been monitoring the World Health Organization’s communications since Bennett sent me that package a couple of weeks ago. I got a hit about 5 a.m. from a panicked caller in Central Mexico that a small native tribe was showing signs of an unknown virus. There are more than a hundred dead, but they’re at the seventy-two-hour mark, and there are still survivors.”
“Maybe it really is an isolated epidemic,” Grace said.
