Martin shuffled through a dozen black and white eighty-twelves, most of which showed only sand and dirty boots.
“Nothing much to get excited about with those, but these are a good deal more interesting.”
He handed Martin six more photos, and Martin stared at each one closely. The quality was much better, and it was clear that they had been taken inside. Incubators, autoclaves, and isolation stations were readily identifiable. The last photograph clearly showed the arm and paw of a small ape.
“It’s too much to hope for that they were just doing some cosmetic testing,” he said, returning the pictures to Simpson.
“No, they weren’t,” the colonel said and passed over a final photograph to Martin. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture?”
Two men stood side by side, almost as if they were posing for the picture. A tall, thin, dark man dressed in desert fatigues was listening to a much smaller man with a riot of black hair, bushy eyebrows, and a cleft lip. “The tall figure I’ve never seen, but the other man is Dr. Jaime Avanti. I’ve met him many times, but I don’t think I’ve seen him for a few years. A Russian, if I remember correctly. A microbiologist who grew up in the Soviet system, but defected to West Germany years before the collapse of the USSR.”
“Actually, he was Ukrainian, and it’s probably a good thing you haven’t seen him in years, because back in the nineties he began working for Al-Qaeda, long before they were fashionable. In 1998, he tried to buy some anthrax using his old university credentials. Security wasn’t what it should have been, and he came very close to taking delivery of seven vials of weapons-grade anthrax. The FBI managed to intercept the shipment and apprehend several of the individuals involved. Unfortunately, Avanti wasn’t one of them. He was convicted in absentia, and for a number of years, he stayed underground; I’m guessing in this very secret lab that he and a few other disenfranchised researchers developed.
“The other gentleman is an intelligence officer, formerly with the Russians. We think that he was brought in for security purposes. When we entered the camp, neither this fellow nor Avanti could be found. Everyone else was already dead. The interesting thing is that we didn’t kill them, and neither did the Libyans. Apparently, they did it to themselves. We think that they had a rupture in one of their isolation rooms and something ran through the entire camp over a two-day period. Probably some form of Ebola.”
“What do you mean, some form of Ebola? Either it was Ebola or it wasn’t.” Martin was sitting high in his seat, anxiety beginning to grow in his chest.
“It was definitely Ebola, Doctor. We recovered samples from the bodies and the lab. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do any nucleotide sequencing back then. We can now, and a month ago, we traced the source of the Ebola. It came from your lab.” Simpson waited for a response.
Nine years ago, someone had breached the security of the CDC. They had gone straight to Martin’s lab and vandalized it. Nothing had been taken, at least at a macroscopic level, but anyone with the expertise to reach his lab undetected could very easily have taken enough samples to stock a number of bioterrorism labs. There hadn’t been any public comment about it, but Martin and his staff had come under intense scrutiny. Everyone, including Martin, assumed it had been an inside job, and over the next few months, his research team was pulled apart by external pressures and internal suspicions. “So, this is what it sounds like when the other shoe drops.”
“That’s not why you’re here,” Simpson continued. “We know how the Ebola got from Atlanta to Libya. It’s what happened after the virus was stolen that’s interesting.” Simpson produced another photograph and passed it to Martin. It was a very good electron micrograph of a hexagon with six appendages at each corner. “This is why you are here. You recognize it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. You got this from Libya?” Martin’s voice was artificially controlled, but inside he was shaking badly. He was finally getting answers to questions that had been haunting him for years, and they were only confirming his worstcase scenarios.
“Yes, and you got yours from Honduras. Any idea how it went from the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Central America?”
“Carrion birds,” Martin said after a moment’s thought. “You said that you didn’t kill the terrorists or the researchers. They were dead before you got there. I’m guessing that the vultures got to the bodies before you did. Hurricanes form off the African coast, and I’m betting that some infected birds probably got a free ride to the New World — which means that birds can carry the virus and disseminate it.”
“You see our problem then,” Simpson said.
Martin looked at the colonel. “No, I don’t. These pictures are seven years old. What does this have to do with anything now?” It was a transparent bluff, and Simpson looked disappointed.
“Don’t try and play me, Dr. Martin. You contacted the FBI this morning after Amanda Flynn contacted you. We have the file from Colorado Springs and pictures of the new mutation. We have the report from your department wrongly identifying this new pathogen as a benign arbovirus. I have been honest with you, and I request the same in return.”
“All right, so you know everything that I know. What’s the reason for the plane ride?” Martin asked defensively.
“Look at the picture again, Doctor.”
“I don’t have to look at it again, Colonel. I’ve got it burned into my memory.” Martin tossed the pile of photographs back at the marine officer. “I see it in my sleep. What I want to know is if you people knew what this was seven years ago, why didn’t you share it with us? Why did you let us release Subject Zero back into the population?”
“Look at the picture again, Doctor,” Simpson ordered, tossing the micrograph of the virus back at Martin. “Now ask yourself: is this an Ebola virus?”
The disconnect in his thinking finally became apparent, and Martin looked again at both of the photos. “No, it’s not,” he said, looking up at Simpson, recognition painted across his face. “You found Ebola in this? That’s not possible. Ebola doesn’t have DNA; it has RNA, the next step in the formation of proteins. This is a DNA virus, there’s no question about it. What else did you find with the sequencing?”
“The original virus contains both DNA and RNA. The RNA is the Ebola stolen from your lab. The DNA is from the common herpes simplex virus. This is an entirely new form of life. It is not viral or bacterial. We are in the process of collecting some of the mutation for sequencing, but our best guess is that it has reverted back to a classic viral form. We think that somehow it has managed to drop the Ebola RNA along the way, which would explain why people aren’t dying by the thousands.”
Martin’s head was swimming with questions. How did they get DNA and RNA to coexist in the same virus? Did it have replicate proteins, stabilizing proteins, ribosomes? How did they splice herpes DNA with RNA back then? Dozens of other scientific questions swirled in his mind, but the most important question remained unanswered by Simpson. “If you knew about this virus, why did you let us release Amanda Flynn? She is the only carrier of this virus. Not only that, but she is also the only survivor of the infection. She is both the problem and the solution.”
“Amanda Flynn is not the originator of the Colorado Springs Virus. She is also not the only survivor of the original EDH1 virus.”
“Then who is?” Martin asked, wide-eyed, not knowing if he should feel relief or fear.