The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [46]
Flaherty said nothing, because on that point, he’d have to concur. It had him wondering who else besides Jason could possibly have known about Brooke’s involvement in Iraq and could also be capable of coordinating a kill order so quickly. Why now - right now - had she suddenly become a threat?
‘I remember reading the small print in my confidentiality agreement. I don’t recall any mention of assassination as a means of recourse—’
‘We need to find this Frank guy you were talking about. I need that e-mail address. I can run its profile, the host server … find his IP address and trace him.’ Flaherty dipped into his pocket, pulled out his BlackBerry. He keyed in his security code, tapped on the web browser and held it out for her. ‘You said his address was on your computer, right?’
Staring at the device with narrow, incredulous eyes, she asked, ‘Why didn’t you just give this to me earlier if you needed his email address?’
‘Basic psychology. I ask you for information, and your future response, your compliance or lack thereof, indicates your propensity to cooperate.’
‘Or maybe you just wanted to give me your card so I’d call you. I have a bullshit detector too.’ She took the BlackBerry and began finger-pecking the URL for Yahoo!.
He smiled. ‘You always so shy?’ But he saw that she’d suddenly become preoccupied with the BlackBerry.
‘Huh. That’s weird.’
‘What?’
She tried logging into her e-mail account again. ‘Says my username and password are invalid. Like my account is gone. That’s impossible.’
Flaherty sighed. ‘No, actually it’s not.’
‘What do you mean?’
He nodded. ‘NSA. That’s my guess.’ He knew that telling her this wasn’t smart, but he’d done it anyway.
‘But they can’t do that! I mean, who can do that?’ she protested. She felt violated.
‘Thirty thousand computer scientists and cryptographers under one roof in Fort Meade, dedicated to cracking data and voice communications can do just about anything when they have your number. Remember those geeks in high school, the computer hackers, videogame junkies, Dungeons and Dragons types? Imagine a building - a city - full of ‘em.’
‘God,’ she groaned. ‘I like videogames too,’ she confessed. ‘But I’m not snooping around people’s private information.’
‘You’ve got to have something else from this guy, right? A business card, a paycheque …?’
She shook her head. ‘No card. And the money was wire-transferred to my account.’ Then she thought back to eavesdropping on the archaeologist who’d performed the carbon studies. ‘Wait. There was this archaeologist who was at the cave when I was there. He was outside the cave, making a cell phone call. Something about test results on samples he’d sent out. I overheard him mention an AMS lab where he’d sent samples for testing.’
‘AMS lab?’
‘Accelerator Mass Spectrometer. The machine used for carbon-dating studies.’
‘Remember the name of the place?’
She tried to recall, but couldn’t. ‘No. Damn.’ Then she remembered something else. ‘But there were other tests results he’d mentioned. Biological cultures or something. He was reading from a report that had an official seal on its cover. Some kind of insignia, I think. But it was weird, because I remember it had a symbol representing a DNA helix, or chromosomes. And it had a long acronym that began with USA …’
Flaherty tightened up, fearing he knew what she meant. ‘Did the insignia have a five-pointed star to the right of the helix and a circular symbol beneath it?’ He tried tracing the layout in the air with his index finger to help her picture it.
She fished her memory. ‘Not sure.’
He checked the mirror to ensure no one was shadowing him then pointed with his chin at the BlackBerry and said, ‘Type in this web address.’ He had to repeat the tricky URL three times before she got it right.
Once Brooke brought up the home page, she immediately recognized the insignia. ‘Yeah, that’s it! That’s the insignia!’ She held the BlackBerry out for him and pointed to it on the mini LCD screen.
For