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Susan didn't know what to say. Her eyes returned to the relics on the shelves, to the ancient remnants of a long-lost civilization, to the clay vases, the carved rosewood, and the sculpted stone objects that she felt somehow held clues to the undecipherable binary code embedded in the virus. But how all of this tied together was beyond her current comprehension, as well as Slater's ideational descriptions of what kind of event might be triggered at the end of the millennium. “I'm having difficulty taking those abstract concepts and applying them to our current dilemma of this virus counting down to zero one, zero one, zero zero.”

“That's because you are thinking in the same way that you have been trained to think from the time you were a little girl, in the same way your parents think, and your grandparents before them. This theory proposes that a time of transformation is nearing, when we will transcend from a civilization that values the accumulation of personal wealth, to one that values the strength of the spirit, just like the Maya did. Anyway, I hope you don't take all of this stuff too seriously.”

She smiled. “Don't worry.”

“I also hope you don't discard it, either. I think there are some undeniable observations that match the theory. If you're interested, I may have a couple of small books that provide good insight into the mind of the Maya. Perhaps they can be of help?”

“Absolutely.”

“Come. Let's see what we can find.” He headed up the stairs next to the foyer, leading to a small open room, also filled with not only artifacts but also with a wooden bench resembling a two-headed jaguar. Susan was mesmerized by the shine on the wood and the level of detail.

“That's beautiful.”

“Isn't it?” Slater sat on it and patted the space to his left. “It's also quite comfortable.”

She sat, feeling as if the chair somehow pushed up on her upper body, maintaining it erect. “You're right,” she said.

“It's the angle. The bench is tilted just enough to align your spine with the angle of your hips when you sit, giving you great posture. The Maya were phenomenal architects.”

“That's amazing. What's its purpose?”

“It's a ceremonial bench, for marriages. The bride and groom have to sit here for hours while the shaman goes through a lengthy process to unite the couple forever. In fact, we're sitting in the correct position. The man on the right, the woman on the left.”

For reasons she could not explain, Susan blushed when looking at Cameron Slater. He cleared his throat and quickly stood.

“Anyway,” he said, gesturing her into the bedroom, “I think I have a couple of books about basic Mayan mythology and beliefs.”

She followed him inside, where more bookshelves flanked an unmade bed. Susan noticed a khaki vest with many pockets and zippers perched on a hook on the door that probably led to his bathroom, next to a long and narrow glass table displaying more relics. Beneath the table she spotted two pairs of hiking boots, also quite worn.

“Do you do much traveling?” she asked, also noticing an old backpack with several airline tags dangling from the top; most of the names rang South American.

“All the time. In fact, I've just returned from Peru. I spent a month in the jungles under a grant from the Museum of Natural History in New York, looking for evidence of a tribe of Ixmatzuls, a distant cousin of the Inca.”

“A month in the jungle? Alone?”

“With a couple of local guides, although I couldn't convince them to go past a certain point in the mountains. I was alone for two of the four weeks.”

Susan regarded him quizzically, not certain if she admired him or felt that he was totally crazy. “What did you live on for two weeks?”

“Some beef jerky, but mostly from the land. I'm used to it,” he said, too naturally for Susan to believe otherwise. “It paid off, though. I was able to collect enough artifacts to fill two crates. The museum's preparing a special exhibit for the spring.” He squatted next to a bottom shelf and pulled out two books.

“Are you heading out again soon?”

“To Brazil. This time courtesy of
National Geographic.
They want me to study the Mamelucos, a native tribe from the lower Amazon region. I'm leaving in two weeks … here we go.” He pulled out two small books and handed them to her, both on Mayan mythology.

Susan stared at the colorful covers.

“There's several illustrations of some of the concepts I described today, including a couple of maps of the cosmos showing the location of the Hunab Ku.”

“You have been most helpful, Cameron. Right now I need to head back to the office and try to sort this out.”

“I'm glad I was able to help out.” He walked her to the foyer, where she put on her jacket.

“Again,” she said, extending a hand, “many thanks. I'll make sure these books find their way back to you.”

“Don't rush. I won't be needing them for a while.”

“Would you be available if I come up with something else?”

“Absolutely.” Cameron Slater took her hand in his, firmly shaking it while locking eyes with her. “Call or come back anytime.”

Susan smiled before heading back to the sedan. The cold air tingled her cheeks. She had been gone for a total of one hour, but somehow it felt much longer than that. She got in the rear of the sedan and watched him standing in the doorway until they had pulled away. For a brief moment, Susan no longer felt alone.

She closed her eyes. Exhaustion, combined with the complexity of the Mayan connection, gave her a headache, which rapidly increased in intensity as she thought of the slain crew at the local Internet service provider, further complicating the scenario.

Who is after my data?

She yawned, her thoughts becoming cloudier, difficult to keep focused. Suddenly losing the desire to head back to the FBI, Susan asked her bodyguards to take her home. She could use a good night's sleep so that she could start fresh in the morning. Right now she was no good to Troy Reid.

Special Agent Gonzales turned around. “You sure you want us to take you home?”

“If I don't get some sleep you'll be taking me to the hospital next.”

3

Antonio Strokk removed his headphones and unplugged them from the laser surveillance device he had attached to the top of the brick fence enclosing the courtyard. The vibrations on the glass panels of the French doors had provided him with an excellent frequency response, enabling him to capture most of the conversation.

He returned to the sedan, parked across the street, where Celina waited behind the wheel.

“Let's go. Follow her.”

“What did you learn,
hermano?
” she asked, darkness hiding her Hispanic-Slavic features as she put the car in gear and sped to the end of the block, turning the corner and coming back around the other side, in time to catch the taillights of the FBI sedan as it came to a stop at the corner.

“Much more,” he replied, watching the Bureau car head out of Georgetown, spending a few minutes summarizing the amazing conversation he had heard.

“So,” she said. “It appears that Bloodaxe's Scent-Sniffer program may have led the FBI to the right place?”

“Looks that way. It also looks like this Hans Bloodaxe is the only one skilled enough to get to the bottom of this problem.”

“If that is the case—”

“We need to get to Bloodaxe without delay.” Strokk peered at the snow-covered sidewalks. “Our employer wants a solution to this virus right away.”

“But he is in prison,” Celina said.

Strokk remembered the information extracted from the diskettes. Bloodaxe was serving a life sentence for a previous crime. But that didn't mean that he was unreachable. Antonio Strokk operated in a circle of international contractors, all of whom relied on an infrastructure of informants and subcontractors, many of them with contacts in various government agencies, including the Justice Department, which ran the federal prison system in the United States. “There is
always
a way,” he said, grabbing his cellular phone. “Keep following them. I'll make the request, along with a handsome compensation. There will be many takers.”

Chapter Nine

001001

1

December 14, 1999
Washington, D.C.

Susan Garnett drove under blue skies through downtown Washington. She could smell her husband's aftershave, could sense his presence next to her in the minivan, could hear Rebecca singing in the rear seat. She saw the exit sign over the highway and put on her blinker, just as she had done countless mornings, slowing down as she approached the exit ramp, which curved as it descended to the street level. Her eyes saw the speedometer, stuck on forty, her usual speed. Then her windshield filled with the rear bumper of a car. The initial impact was sudden, powerful, mixed with Rebecca's screaming. Time seemed to slow down as an explosion of air preceded the airbag deploying, as her forward momentum shoved her face forward despite the safety belt, as she immersed her face in the cushion of white, before jerking backward, crashing the back of her head against the headrest. Then came the incessant spinning, the world turning in an uncontrollable blur, steam hissing from the busted radiator, Rebecca's screams turning to cries, Tom shouting to hold on. Although it only lasted a second or two, time seemed to stretch indefinitely, her mind absorbing every sight, every sound, every smell with uncanny detail. Then a second jolt stopped the spinning, turning it into a tilt, as the side of the minivan slammed against the guardrail, going over the edge, plummeting while turning upside down. The screams and cries intensified. Tom's hand reached out to touch her, one final time, one last brush of his skin against hers, before the impact came, before the roof collapsed on his head, crushing it as the unyielding concrete stopped the falling object in one brief moment, turning its energy into a deadly, compacting force.

A period of darkness was followed by pain, agonizing, unbearable pain, which vanished at times, relieving her at first, but then terrifying her, making her wonder if she had died. Pain meant she was alive, and she fought vehemently to reestablish it, to force it back into her system, somehow, from somewhere, for it meant hope, the possibility of seeing her loved ones again. And the pain returned, stronger than before, consuming, intolerable. But Susan welcomed it, embraced it, no longer wishing for it to end. Then she awakened, and through the physical pain clutching her broken body, she learned of her family's death, of the funeral she had missed, of the farewells that destiny had denied her. She cried that afternoon, and the following week, and the week after that, until her swollen eyes dried up, until her sorrow turned to anger, and the anger into an overwhelming desire to achieve retribution, to avenge them, to honor their memories, to give some sense of significance to the mortal remains buried beneath the frozen soil of northern Virginia.

Susan found herself in a snowy graveyard, sitting in a wheelchair, her body riveted together by enough titanium to set off metal detectors a mile away. She had insisted in doing this alone, her nurse remaining behind, by the tree line overlooking endless rows of tombstones. Hands trembling, snow falling on the two roses on her lap, she steered herself through the upright slabs of granite and stone marking the final resting places of so many different names, so many strangers, all sharing a common bond with her loved ones. Then she reached a pair of new marble stones, one gray, one white, side by side, the names etched into their surfaces stabbing her eyes, tunneling her vision, making everything spin around her. A demon came alive deep within her, rapidly gaining strength, spiraling upward from the darkest corner of her gut, reaching her gorge, like a lump of hot coals, burning her throat, scourging her. Susan wrenched out a heart-crushing howl, an angered scream, the desperate cry of a desperate woman.

Soaked in perspiration, Susan sat up in bed screaming, suddenly realizing that it was a dream, taking a deep breath, staring at the murky interior of her bedroom, her heart pounding behind her ears.

She glanced at the clock on the nightstand.

Almost six in the morning.

She had been sleeping for nearly seven straight hours, a luxury compared to the last few days.

She blinked the graveyard memories away, breathing deeply again, forcing the nightmare out of her mind. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, Susan got up, walked to the kitchen, and drank from a cold bottle of Evian, staring at the star-filled sky beyond the windowpanes of her fifth-floor apartment, calming down, her heartbeat returning to normal. Kicking off her nightgown, she walked into the bathroom, abruptly stopping in front of the mirror to study her figure, still quite slim in spite of her thirty-five years. Her breasts remained firm, as well as her stomach and legs, thanks to the few hours each week that she'd spent at the FBI gym, something she had done not because she cared about her appearance, but just because it was one of the few things that actually made her feel good, pumping her with enough energy to face her otherwise taxing days.

She stepped into the tub, suddenly realizing the unfamiliar lack of a desire to end her life. Quite the opposite, she looked forward to getting the refined Scent-Sniffer programs that Hans Bloodaxe should have generated by now.

What is happening to me? Why the change? Am I really getting over their deaths? What about the recurring nightmare?

After towel-drying her hair and putting on a fresh pair of jeans and a sweater, she powered up her notebook and logged into work, launching her E-mail software, and browsing through the day's mail messages, instantly recognizing one from Bloodaxe.

Just as she was about to open it, she received a notification that
[email protected]
wanted to start an Internet chat.