The Bug Hunter: A Novel Read online

  “The one we talked about after searching Adnan’s lab?”

  “Yep.”

  Jensen gingerly handled the vial and looked at its contents. The mosquito had white stripes on its legs and white spots on its body. “Looks nasty.”

  “It’s nasty all right. It’s also been genetically altered to transmit Ebola.”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “Because I ran it through the sequencer in Landmark’s lab.”

  “We have to tell the FBI about it.”

  “First thing tomorrow I’m going to drop it off with Smythe and the CDC, and then we’ll go see the FBI. Right now I want to finish my beer, and then we need to go back to the hotel together and take another look at the parable.”

  “OK, I’ll go back to the hotel with you. But don’t get frisky, pal. I’m armed, you know.

  Gabriel lay propped up on one of the two double beds in the small motel on Hooker Creek Road. He had the Talmud passage in his lap and was rereading the notes he’d taken when he and Gaddis had visited Rabbi Rafaeli in New York.

  Lee Jensen was sitting at the foot of the other bed, his back against it, drinking a beer and flicking through channels on the wall-mounted flat-screen TV. “Damn, I love this flick!”

  Gabriel looked up and said, “What is it?”

  “It’s an oldie. It’s called Rudy.”

  “Shit, every kid in Michigan watched that movie for motivation during football season. We hate Notre Dame with a passion.”

  “Well, don’t ruin if for me. I’m a closet Golden Domer.”

  “Figures,” Gabriel muttered, and went back to his reading. “Do me a favor, and keep the volume down. I’m working here.”

  “Whatever,” Jensen said with a chuckle.

  Gabriel read and reread the passage that Rabbi Rafaeli had given them, the one about Hillel the Elder that appeared just before the part with Solomon and Luz. He then said, “Hey, mute that for a moment. I want to read you this.”

  Jensen sighed and hit the Mute button.

  “He moreover once saw a skull floating upon the face of the water,” Gabriel read. “‘Because,’ he said to it, ‘thou didst drown others, they have drowned thee, and they that drowned thee shall be drowned too.’”

  “Who is he?” Jensen asked.

  “‘He’ refers to Hillel the Elder, one of Judaism’s most influential teachers and scholars.”

  “Read it again,” said Jensen.

  Gabriel did so and paused in thought. “What does that mean to you?”

  “Coming from a grunt who barely got through college? It makes me think of an eye for an eye.”

  “What about the skull floating on the water?”

  “Signifies death by drowning maybe?”

  Suddenly a light went off in Gabriel’s head. “Death by water. That’s it.”

  Jensen could tell from Gabriel’s face that something had clicked. But he wasn’t following. “Come again?”

  “Fucking brilliant!” Gabriel said, reaching over to the nightstand and picking up the vial. “Water is the key to this whole thing! Like all mosquitoes, the black salt marsh breeds in water—in this case saltwater tidal pools, inlets, and marshes.”

  “You realize that doesn’t really help us much, right?”

  “It actually does help us some. It tells us that we are looking for something along the coasts.”

  “What’s the total coastline of the United States? Ten thousand miles? That’s really narrowing it down, partner.”

  Gabriel was silent for a long moment. “We need to find the girl.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Roseville, California

  If you didn’t know the FBI field office outside Sacramento was a government building, you’d swear you’d walked into the headquarters of a tech company. It was all steel and glass with an angled, bow-like entrance designed to evoke a feeling of modern precision. Since 9/11 the FBI saw itself increasingly as a data organization, with vast databases of information covering virtually every type of threat to the United States, both foreign and domestic.

  As Gabriel and Lee Jensen walked into the building, they were hit with a wave of welcome cold air from the building’s AC that flooded the modern, light-filled lobby. It was an impressive entrance. “Your taxpayer dollars at work,” Jensen said under his breath.

  “I wonder what J. Edgar would think of these digs,” Gabriel said.

  They walked over to the reception desk, where a uniformed officer greeted them. “May I help you gentlemen?”

  Jensen took out his badge and said, “We’re here to see Agent Sanderson.”

  “Can I see your IDs please?” the officer asked.

  Jensen handed over his DHS ID, and Gabriel took out his California driver’s license. The guard looked at Gabriel with suspicion, but wrote his name down on her sign-in sheet and handed the IDs back.

  “Is he expecting you?” she asked.

  “No,” Jensen said.

  “Can I tell him what this is in regards to?”

  “No,” Jensen said again.

  The guard stared at Jensen for a moment and then picked up her phone. She dialed a number and said, “I have two gentlemen here for Agent Sanderson. An Agent Jensen from DHS and a civilian.” She paused to listen. “No, they don’t have an appointment.”

  Jensen held his hand out and motioned for the guard to give him the phone, which she reluctantly did.

  “This is Lee Jensen from DHS. Please tell Agent Sanderson that Secretary Witt’s on the phone at this very moment with the director of the FBI, and he’s going to be mighty pissed to find out that someone’s cock blocking us from providing information that is critical to the case the FBI is working on.”

  Jensen listened to the answer and then said, “Thank you,” and handed the receiver back to the guard.

  After another few seconds, the guard hung up, handed Jensen and Gabriel visitor badges, and said, “Someone will be right down to get you.”

  “Well, thank you so much,” Jensen said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He then turned to Gabriel and smiled.

  “Let’s hope that works with Sanderson,” Gabriel said.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Jensen said.

  A young woman in a gray suit and purple blouse walked up. “You from DHS?”

  “Yep. I’m Lee Jensen, and this is Gabriel Marx.”

  The woman nodded and, without offering a hand or introducing herself, said, “Follow me please.”

  They took the elevator to the third floor and were escorted to a bare conference room with a view of the parking lot. “Agent Sanderson will be right in,” she said. And without another word she disappeared down the hallway.

  For the next ten minutes, Gabriel and Lee stood next to each other facing the window, watching cars roll in and out of the parking lot. Neither of them knew what to expect from Brian Sanderson.

  “Funny, I was just on the phone with the director,” Sanderson said, entering the conference room. “He says he hasn’t spoken to your boss in a few days.”

  “Huh. I must’ve gotten my signals crossed,” Jensen answered. “And anyhow, the only reason we’re here at all is because Secretary Witt insisted that we share what we have with you. If it were up to me—”

  “You’d be running your own investigation. I know. That’s what the director told me.”

  They squared off across the table for what Gabriel thought was an eternity. Finally, Sanderson broke the stalemate. “I’ve got ten minutes for you. My cock-blocking assistant tells me you have information on my case.”

  “We do,” Jensen said.

  Sanderson waited for more. “And?”

  Gabriel took that as his cue. He took out the material he’d compiled and started to explain the package he’d received the previous day. Before getting
to the meat of it, he was interrupted.

  “A mosquito?” Sanderson asked. “As in the bug?”

  “That’s right. Aedes taeniorhynchus to be exact,” Gabriel said.

  Sanderson laughed. “Is that a joke?”

  “It’s no fucking joke, Sanderson,” Jensen replied.

  “OK, take it easy,” Sanderson said. “And where’s this mosquito now?”

  “I gave it to the CDC this morning so they could run more tests,” Gabriel said.

  “That’s evidence in this case and should have been given to us.”

  “I’m sorry. Did I miss the sign downstairs for the genetic testing lab?” Jensen asked.

  Sanderson didn’t like being questioned and turned a shade of red. “Why would I need that?”

  “Because,” Gabriel answered, “the mosquito in that vial carries the Ebola virus, which could kill off most of the people in this building.”

  Sanderson stared at Gabriel and decided he was telling the truth. “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “Because I tested it myself in the lab where I work.”

  Sanderson was silent for a moment as he ran through the ramifications of this disclosure in his mind. “Where did the mosquito come from?”

  “We don’t know,” Jensen said, preempting Gabriel before he could answer.

  Sanderson looked straight at Gabriel. “Do you have a guess?”

  Gabriel paused. He felt he had no choice but to tell Sanderson what he thought. “My guess is that it came from Adnan Mishner. I think he was having second thoughts.”

  Sanderson shook his head. He didn’t buy it. “So what else do you have besides the bug?”

  “We have this,” Gabriel said, pulling out the Sukkah passage from his bag. He pushed it across the table.

  “More ancient Jewish crap? Seriously? I sent all this to our research folks already.”

  “Agent Sanderson, this isn’t crap. Let me explain to you why I think this, combined with the mosquito, is a critical clue to our case.”

  “You mean my case.”

  Gabriel ignored the last bit and took ten minutes to explain to Sanderson the three warnings, the significance of the water reference, and the possible link to the mosquito. When Gabriel was finished, the room was quiet.

  “That’s quite a hypothesis. Let’s say it’s true. What does that tell us? That we should be on the lookout of mosquitoes and water? That’s hardly actionable intel.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s a lead. What other leads do you have?” Jensen asked.

  “We have plenty. We’re interviewing every farmhand from Reedley to Redding, as well as running down every ISIS and al-Qaeda lead in our database.”

  “That’s searching for a needle in a haystack and you know it,” Jensen said.

  “Whatever we got is better than a fucking mosquito and some hunches based on thousand-year-old passages from the Torah.”

  “It’s the Talmud, not the Torah,” Gabriel said.

  “Whatever,” Sanderson said. “It’s a hunch built on conjecture surrounded by wishful thinking.”

  Jensen could see that the meeting was about over. “By the way, any news on the BOLO and the girl?”

  “Not yet,” Sanderson said. “You guys got anything else for me?”

  Gabriel shook his head. This was a dead end.

  “Great,” Sanderson said. “My staff will show you out.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Roseville, California

  “He’s right,” Gabriel said as they drove away from the FBI building. “It’s not much to go on.”

  “He’s a dinosaur whose time has passed. Sanderson’s investigating this like you would back in 1995. Gumshoe interviews aren’t going to crack this baby open. And he clearly isn’t taking our ‘ancient Jewish crap’ seriously.”

  “Would you if you were him? The hunches of a civilian?”

  “If that was all I had, then fuck yes I would. Do you know how many cases have been cracked because someone had a hunch?”

  “No, how many?”

  “Plenty,” Jensen said with a laugh. Gabriel couldn’t help but smile. He knew that Jensen was trying to make him feel better, and he appreciated it.

  Gabriel was quiet the rest of the way back to the DHS offices. As they were pulling into the parking lot, he said, “I’m going to head up to Red Bluff and meet with Smythe’s team. I can’t just sit around here and wait for the other shoe to drop.”

  “OK. I’ll keep a lookout for anything on the girl. If I hear anything, I’ll call you.”

  In Gabriel’s mind there was little else to do but keep himself busy and hope the BOLO would produce results. On the drive up to Red Bluff, he listened to Nina Simone, her smoky voice filling the cab of his truck. Gabriel loved blues, and Simone was one of his favorites. In college he’d taken a music appreciation class and written a paper on Simone’s life as a black woman in America during the civil rights era; her music was infused with themes of racial tension and protest, and since she had been more a devotee of Malcolm X than she had been of Martin Luther King, her lyrics were tinged with anger. It was that tension in her voice, a frustration and passion for change, that Gabriel was most attracted to.

  And frustration perfectly fit his mood.

  Pulling off Interstate 5 into Red Bluff, Gabriel entered the small town from the east and drove through the downtown district just after midday. The town, named for the rouge-colored bluffs nearby along the Sacramento River, was an historic throwback to the California gold rush. Like so many Central Valley towns in a state known primarily for technology and tourism, it seemed like a place that time had forgotten.

  The CDC had set up its operation in the parking lot of the post office. It included three ultramodern trailers built for mobile interventions just like this one that housed everything from a command center with the most sophisticated communication technology to a mobile kitchen capable of feeding up to a hundred people three square meals a day. These trailers were a reflection of how the combination of climate change and an increasingly interconnected global population were changing the nature of world health. Viruses and bacteria, particularly from Africa and Asia, were hitching rides on jet airplanes and taking root in the West at breathtaking speed. A century ago it might have taken a hundred years for a deadly new virus to make the leap from Africa to North America, now it was happening in a matter of days.

  Gabriel walked into the command trailer and found Ken Smythe sitting at a small conference room table. He had been shuttling back and forth between Atlanta and California for the past several days and was visibly worn.

  “Anything new?” Gabriel asked as he pulled up a chair.

  Smythe looked up from the printout he was reading. His normally pleasant face with the quick smile was drawn and serious. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “We confirmed your findings from that mosquito you gave me. An Ebola sequence has been inserted into its cells. That mosquito was bred to spread the virus.”

  Gabriel’s face showed that he wasn’t surprised. He said, “We’ve got a huge problem on our hands.”

  “Are you restating the obvious, or is there something else I should know?”

  “Yes, there’s something else. The black salt marsh is a pretty rugged mosquito. It’s normally found in brackish water, salt marshes, tidal flats, and lots of other places inhospitable to other mosquito species. Its range until the last decade has been along the East and Gulf Coasts. But with global warming, its range has greatly expanded. And because it’s not known for transmitting disease, it won’t raise much suspicion when it shows up and starts infecting people. Basically they’ve created a very effective weapon of mass destruction.”

  “Great,” Smythe said. He then remembered something. “By the way, did you happen to notice the newspaper that vial was wrapped in when you gave it to me?”

  “
Not really, no.”

  “Huh. Well, I did. Take a look,” Smythe said, handing the wrinkled paper to Gabriel. He smoothed it out and found an ad for solar-powered drones on one side. Flipping it over, he noticed a large color picture of an Asian man in a white coat standing in front of GenomeX’s headquarters. The caption said, “Dr. Ed Nomura is leading GenomeX’s cutting-edge research into genetic-based therapies.”

  “I’ll be damned. I actually met Nomura as a part of the investigation. Lebedev, who was the source of the type I botulinum toxin, worked there, and he’s connected to Rahman, Adnan, and GMU in a multitude of ways. I wonder if there’s more to the story than we know.”

  Smythe laughed. “There’s always more to every story than we know.”

  “Look, if the black salt marsh was a message, maybe so was this newspaper clipping.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “Well, GenomeX is in Redwood City, just on the border of Silicon Valley. That’s a pretty fat target.”

  “Jesus. I’ve got to call the president.”

  Gabriel began to get up. “I’ll be outside—”

  “No, please stay. I’m going to need your help.”

  Gabriel sat down as Smythe swiveled his chair around and picked up the phone on the desk. He punched in a few numbers and said, “Dr. Smythe calling for the president.” He listened for a few moments and said, “OK,” and then hung up.

  “She’s in a meeting with the national-security team. They’re going to video conference us in.”

  “You sure I should stay for this? I’m not really—”

  “I’m sure. How often do you get to talk to the president of the United States?”

  “Under the circumstances I wish I wasn’t.”

  “You and me both.”

  The large screen on the wall suddenly came to life, and an image of President Jennifer Cooperman flanked by the secretary of defense, the national security advisor, FBI Director Mark Timmons, and Jason Witt appeared. In the corner Gabriel could see a smaller image of himself and Smythe. He was suddenly very self-conscious of his appearance and tried to smooth the front of his shirt.