Alison checked her watch and smiled at the girl, who smiled back. It was just past six. She was just about to stand up when someone spoke from behind her.
“Good morning.”
She turned to see Neely approaching from behind a row of chairs.
“Were you up all night?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Neely replied. “Besides, it feels good to get back into work.”
“I can understand that. Did you find anything?”
“I did,” a tired Neely nodded. “And I have good news and bad news.”
Alison frowned. “Bad first.”
“I don’t see the base order we found in the plants in Sally’s DNA. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there. It’s possible they mutated somewhere else in the dolphin’s genetic code. But finding them will take time.”
“Or… it’s not there at all.”
“Well, that was my first thought.”
Alison sighed and slumped back down in her chair. “I guess I got ahead of myself on this one.”
“Under the circumstances, I’d probably feel the same way.” Neely eased herself into a chair across from Alison. “But… I don’t think you have.”
Alison did a double-take back at Neely, who was now grinning. “What?”
“We haven’t talked about the good news yet.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I may not have found the DNA order we discovered on the Bowditch… but I did find some other cells acting very differently. And it wasn’t in the blood. Very small amounts of collagen cells appear to be replicating much faster than even the RBCs.”
“Collagen cells are one of the primary components in blubber!”
“Exactly.”
“I thought you said the DNA wasn’t there.”
“Well, I was speaking of the blood cells. That was the majority of the sample. But the same is true for the collagen cells. No base markers.”
“But if their DNA hasn’t changed, how are they replicating faster?”
“I have no idea. But normally, cell behavior is influenced by one of two triggers, either an internal or external influence. The internal stimulus would be its core DNA or something else contained within its nucleus. External stimulus, on the other hand, would be some kind of catalyst acting upon the cell’s existing biologic or genetic code, perhaps something in its membrane. In other words, another compound that causes a reaction.”
“So then there’s something in the cells?”
“That’s my guess. Perhaps something they have absorbed.”
Alison almost jumped out of her seat. “I knew it!”
Even as tired as she was, Neely laughed. It was exactly the reaction she was expecting. “Now, the big question is,” she said, “what is that compound?”
“And why is it in their blubber?”
“I have a theory on that, actually. Both blubber and human fat share two very similar functions. Storage and absorption.”
“Absorption!” Alison’s eyes shot open. “That’s it! They absorbed it! They absorbed whatever is in that water near Trinidad!”
This time Neely looked surprised. “That fits, Alison.”
Alison gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
Alison stared at her in silence with a look of shock. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “It was right in front of me the whole time. All these years, and I had no idea.”
“What are you talking about?”
She leaned forward with her hands outstretched. “It’s the blubber, Neely. The blubber!” Excitedly, Alison jumped out of her chair. “Listen, a few years ago, a researcher at Georgetown University submitted a paper on some studies he’d done on dolphin blubber. His name was Mike Zasloff. I exchanged emails with him afterward. In his paper he showed there was something unique in the healing properties of dolphin blubber, allowing them to recover from injury much faster than other mammals. At the time, he didn’t know why. The last time I talked to him, he was searching for unseen compounds in the blubber. But what if he’d already discovered the same thing we just did, without realizing it?”
“It could explain a great deal.”
“Think about it, Neely. What if the dolphins are absorbing whatever it is in the water, and the plants are actually incorporating it?”
“It’s entirely possible. The plants wouldn’t just absorb it; their roots would take it in where the compound becomes part of the organism.”
“Wow!” Alison covered her mouth. She was thunderstruck as a major piece of the puzzle connected itself. It wasn’t the plants underwater. They were just the byproduct. She had seen it before, at the top of the Acarai Mountains. That’s the origin of the plants that Neely had been studying. But if the plants on the bottom of the ocean near Trinidad were the same, how in the world did they get that far? How did they show up beneath the surface in an entirely different environment? And how did the plants get moved so far, without impacting anything else along the way?
What it was… was even simpler, and it hit Alison like a ton of bricks. There was no migration of the plants. In fact, just as with the mountain, it wasn’t the plants at all. It was the same compound they found up there, also in the water. The plants didn’t migrate, the compound did.
Across from her, Neely’s expression grew curious as she witnessed a strange look in Alison’s eyes.
What Neely couldn’t tell was that even in Alison’s stunned state, she was already processing this new realization. Trying to connect the two locations, but failing. There was still something missing. How did the compound get there?
She turned absently to one of the tall windows and peered outside past the hospital’s large round entrance. The excitement was nearly overwhelming, and there was one person with whom she desperately wanted to share this discovery.
One person who might be smart enough to figure out the last missing piece: John Clay.
29
At that moment, John Clay was 25,000 feet over the Balintang Channel and less than one hour from Taiwan. Staring into the blackness beyond his small window, he tried to focus despite the early stages of exhaustion which were setting in. He still couldn’t turn his mind off and it was beginning to take its toll.
He had an uneasy feeling of what lay ahead in China. Neither he nor Borger had a firm grasp yet on exactly where he was headed, other than a target of roughly a thousand square miles. The more they learned, the more they became convinced that General Wei hid the case that he received from Guyana. And not just from them, but from everyone. But why?
Clay shook his head and leaned back onto the headrest. He tried again to clear his mind, coming back to an image that always relaxed him: Alison.
He’d managed to talk to her briefly after his plane left the west coast, but now he was too far. Any outside communications were a liability this close to China. And if their own NSA spying program had learned anything, it was how any conversation could eventually be recorded, especially those via commercial cell towers.
Given his location and the implications of what he was after, only Clay’s Navy Inmarsat satellite phone with the strongest possible encryption could be trusted.
That same satellite phone rang ninety-three minutes later just moments after Clay had exited customs in Hong Kong International Airport.
Reaching the expansive concourse of Terminal One, Clay searched for a quiet corner among hundreds of other travelers. He ducked in next to one of the terminal’s giant support pillars and unfolded the phone’s external antennae.
“Hey, Wil.”
“Hi, Clay. How you holding up?”