| |
Grayson turned toward Donavan and smiled. “They have Sylvia in custody.”
“One down. Two to go,” he replied. “But the biggest problem is that you may have lost the opportunity to find Magnus and his mystery accomplice.”
“She’ll talk.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“You’re generally more optimistic than this.”
Donavan shrugged. “I offered you my advice.”
“So you’re mad that I didn’t take it?”
“Not mad, but . . . it seems like you don’t have much confidence in what I suggest.”
“I do, actually. Your idea for hacking into the street and casino cameras and using facial recognition was a great one. You found Sylvia. I can’t see how we’re going to find the man from Deimos.”
“I received an email a few minutes ago from Shelly in the computer tech office. She’s been reviewing the footage of when the man from Deimos arrived at Olympus Mons.”
Grayson placed his hands into his pockets. “Did she find something we’ve missed?”
Donavan nodded. “I think she’s found something of great significance.”
“What’s that?”
“Come here, and I can show you.”
Grayson walked to where Donavan was seated and looked over his shoulder.
“When he got off the shuttle, he was holding that briefcase. She’s sent multiple still-frames from various cameras throughout his routes while he was inside Olympus Mons. He never left that case out of his sight, apparently.”
“Wonder what he has inside it?” Grayson asked.
Donavan shook his head. “I don’t know, but it has to be worth quite a bit.”
“Gems!” Grayson said. “He must have stolen MarQuebes. I had suspected that for quite some time.”
“It seems the most likely thing,” Donavan said. He tapped his earphone. “Give me a second, Mr. Grayson.”
Donavan listened to the message and then looked up at Grayson. “Shelly’s on her way to your office.”
“Why?”
“She said that she will show us when she gets here. It’s quite urgent. She said.”
“It had better be,” Grayson said.
“She’s my equal in computer analysis and hacking, so if she says that she’s found something of great importance, she’s not exaggerating.”
A quick rapping came at the door.
“She must have run,” Grayson said.
“Up the stairs,” Donavan said, nodding. “She dislikes elevators.”
Grayson nodded at Henry. Henry turned and opened the door. A thin blonde stepped into the office with her laptop tucked under her arm. She was pale, almost a reflective white, wore no makeup, and looked like a ghost caught in human form. Her eyes were tinted a slight pink. An albino.
“What do you have?” Grayson asked.
She walked to his desk and set down her laptop. She opened it and typed for several seconds. Afterwards, she grabbed his remote control off the desk and aimed it at the large computer screen attached to the wall.
“When I found this footage, I knew you’d want to see it immediately,” Shelly said. “Really, there’s not any decent way to describe it in words.”
Grayson nodded. “Go ahead.”
She clicked the ‘Start’ button. She talked while the footage played. “I received this video transmission from Deimos Life Station a few minutes ago.”
“The Deimos Life Station?” Grayson asked. “We’ve not been able to make contact with them for months.”
Shelly smiled. “I think there’s a reason for that.”
“What?”
“Well,” she replied, “it seems Dr. Carter on Deimos somehow manipulated the computer feed of the cameras to prevent us from getting footage.”
“Dr. Carter?” Grayson said, crossing his arms. “He’s the medical doctor on Deimos. He’s not a computer tech.”
She shrugged. “He apparently has some knowledge because it is his identification number that logged the computers and altered the codes.”
“You managed to override his codes?” Donavan asked.
“No,” she replied. “He delayed our access to the cameras and apparently to our means for communications.”
“Why would he do that?” Grayson asked.
Shelly pointed to the screen. “Watch.”
On the screen, Dr. Carter is working with a dying patient. Behind him are sheet-draped bodies on gurneys.
“What the hell happened?” Donavan asked.
“An outbreak?” Grayson asked, walking closer to the large screen.
“That’s what it looks like. Lots of bodies on the beds behind him. But I can’t answer that,” she said. “Watch.”
Another clip showed Carter seated on the edge of a bed with a syringe in his hand. He placed the needle close to a swollen vein on the inside of his left elbow. His face was flushed. Beads of sweat covered his forehead. A shadow spilled over him, and the footage paused and pixelated. Static blurred the visual.
“What was that?” Grayson asked.
Shelly sighed. “I have no idea. But it’s like someone deliberately cut the footage of the person who entered the room.”
“What was he doing? Shooting up?” Grayson said.
“No. He looked like he was sick. He might have been preparing to overdose on something to kill himself. But watch where the next footage picks up.”
In the next scene, Carter stood at a laboratory table. Numerous vials, pipettes, a centrifuge, and microscope slides littered the table.
Donavan stood and walked to stand beside Grayson. “He’s not sick there.”
Grayson frowned and looked at Shelly. “Are you sure the date and time stamp of these clips are accurate?”
She nodded. “These are chronologically correct. I can’t explain the missing footage, or if these was the only things that Carter wanted us to view.”
“What’s he doing?” Donavan asked.
“Looks like he has isolated a virus or a disease-causing agent and is beginning to propagate it,” Grayson replied.
“He’s growing it?”
Grayson nodded.
“Why would he do that?” Donavan asked.
“Revenge.”
Dennis glanced toward Grayson. “Revenge? For what?”
“I think I know,” Shelly said.
She clicked the rewind button on the remote and backed through the footage to a scene before Carter started to inject himself. The scene was when Carter kissed Wanda’s dead lips only moments before shoving her corpse into the incinerator.
“Girlfriend?” Donavan asked.
Shelly shrugged. “That’d be my guess. This is before the film pixelated. Now, let me forward this to the last few minutes of the footage.”
Carter stood in the laboratory and held up two sealed glass vials. He smiled. Carefully, he tucked them into a cushion, which was inside a silver briefcase.
“Shit,” Grayson said.
“What?” Donavan asked.
“That briefcase,” Grayson said softly. “He carried that everywhere. Carter is the unidentified man that arrived at Olympus Mons.”
Shelly stopped the screen. “He brought the briefcase to Earth?”
Grayson shook his head. “Love-smitten fool must blame me for the woman’s death. That’s touching.”
Donavan said, “So Carter brought back whatever virus killed the people on Deimos?”
“We really don’t know what he packed, but we need to speculate that he did indeed bring a deadly virus to Earth,” she replied.
“You want me to call Homeland Security?” Donavan asked.
Grayson shook his head. “No. We handle this ourselves.”
“How?”
“We have something Carter might want,” Grayson said.
“Sylvia?” Shelly asked. “You think they’re a couple?”
“We’ll find out once we make contact with him,” Grayson said.
Donavan looked uneasy. “If they are, you’re proposing a deal to trade her for the virus?”
Grayson nodded.
“Why do you want the deadly virus?”
Grayson smiled. “The man who owns that virus rules the world.”