“And we built the software to make it happen.”
She nodded.
I told her what I knew about RFIDs and finished with getting detained at the airport. “I had mine removed, and they somehow knew it when I went through security. They almost didn’t let me fly even though I didn’t have to have proof of it until the next day. Here’s what’s creepy: my health card had all the right information, but somehow they were able to detect that the vaccination itself was no longer in my arm.”
Subconsciously, she rubbed her upper left arm, the vaccination arm. “It fits, doesn’t it?”
“So that brings me here. To your house.” I studied her eyes, but she didn’t cringe or look away. “That ability to track people is the core of what they’re doing. If we can change the software, maybe we can inch back from the precipice.”
Jola closed her eyes. “There’s also talk that the rumors are what ... what led to their deaths.”
It wasn’t a non sequitur.
She sighed heavily. “They weren’t supposed to say a word about what they were working on. Nothing. But people always talk. Some of us started asking questions, too, more so once the project finished.”
“So who do you think didn’t like it that they were talking? Who do you think we have to be afraid of?”
More pauses. More finger drumming. More eye shifting. “Talk at the office is that we don’t think Zaan would be behind it. What would be in it for them?” She looked me in the eye. “But you never know. We’ve both worked for the company long enough to know it’s highly dysfunctional. If they thought Wall Street analysts would prefer dead employees to laid-off employees, they’d oblige.” She snorted softly. “Anything for an extra penny of profit per share.”
“So you don’t think Zaan’s behind it.”
“Not directly. They might be cooperating by giving access to information, but until Wall Street dictates otherwise, I don’t think so.”
“Then who?” I wanted her to say it.
“Homeland Security. The Center for Disease Control. I don’t know. Somebody in the federal government. Who do you think it is?”
“I think you’re right.”
We let the silence take its time.
Finally, I said, “So the stakes are very high.”
“And their resources are infinite if they want to stop us.”
“Which they will.” Eddy’s story tumbled out, from website to disappearance to Mario Seneca’s visits. Jola unearthed another box of Kleenexes while I added in the awful details about Tina Bastante.
When I finished, I said once again, “So that brings me here. To your house. You’re the only hope we have for stopping this disaster.”
She ran her fingers through her short hair and whispered something Polish.
“Can you change the software?” I asked her again.
She rested her chin on her folded hands. Her answer wasn’t immediate, but when she gave it, it sounded firm and final. “No. I don’t know how I can do that. I helped, but it’s like building a shelf in a garage in a new house and then being asked to change the plumbing. Just because you help doesn’t mean you understand the framework, the architecture.”
I took another tissue and blew my nose. “So what are our options?”
“We don’t have any.”
CHAPTER
40
I LEFT WITH A HANDFUL OF KLEENEXES, directions to the local branch library, and plans for how to stay in touch. I worried that of the three, only the tissues had concrete value. The library was less than a mile away, easily walkable in most of Colorado Springs, less so on the hills of San Francisco on a cool, mist-shrouded day. Still, it gave me time to think and to walk off a little of my discouragement.
The library branch smelled like a library should, of dust and ideas. They’d tucked the computer room in the far back behind a glass wall, deftly separating the old—the sturdy oak desks with green-shaded lamps and rows of book stacks—from the new. I chose a computer toward the back that let me face the entrance to the room. I didn’t think anyone had followed me, but I also didn’t trust my ability to spot someone. Once again, I regretted not honing my paranoid side all those years I had Eddy to coach me. Even though I’d left Jola’s computer not more than thirty minutes earlier, I began with a quick look at my MZM Gmail account. There’d been no message from Eddy then, and there was none now.
I did a quick check to see if there was an obituary for Sanjeev Srivastava, a morbid activity that I tried to stay intellectual about. If I’d found one, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep from the guilt of having flagged him as a risk to the Homeland Security goons and drones. But when nothing surfaced, I still didn’t know anything. He could have been deported or worse, detained and exposed.
If they found Eddy first, there’d be no option of deportation.
If.
Something let go inside me and my fingers trembled on the keyboard.
Eddy’s website had some new links about the White House press release regarding the vaccination requirements for anyone entering the US, but they were mostly to foreign media. The global outrage warmed my heart and confirmed that common sense still survived, somewhere. Eddy had included links to the The New York Times and the The Wall Street Journal, but those articles focused on the short notification time and only gave a quick nod to the international ire that had surfaced.
“Ire” was an interesting word choice, particularly since that’s how both papers referred to it. “Horrific epidemic” showed up in both articles, too. The script was expanding.
In a new twist, Eddy had made his site counter visible. He’d always been cynical about webmasters who did that, his argument being that they were just cocky showoffs. Of course, he’d never built a site that hit a million visitors in a year. Except for smallpoxscare.com. The site had reached thirty million hits. No doubt Eddy was feeling a little cocky himself.
Jola had given me the names of the developers, which gave me something more to explore between checking my MZM Gmail account every five minutes. I didn’t understand why Eddy would post new items to his website but not respond to my email, so the entire afternoon I floated through waves of emotion: fear that something had happened to him, anger at him for not contacting me, anxiety that this was only the beginning.
Without any other clues to chase, I Googled the names of the three Zaan developers who had died. An eclectic assortment of trivia surfaced. The obituaries were exceptionally vague. Only one tidbit helped: in addition to grieving family members, Daniel Pogodov left a fiancé, Anna Denisov, another Russian. I followed the Ixquick trail on her and came up with an address, phone number, and—thank you Lord Jesus—the name of the restaurant she owned in Palo Alto. With that sweet success, I dug deeper and Googled the names of everyone listed in the obituaries, sorting and cross-referencing addresses and phone numbers that seemed likely. I weighed the value of what I might learn against the risk of using my credit card to do a more detailed search and finally came down on the side of starting with what I had already. Better to stay under the radar until I’d exhausted every lead. As a finale, I sent another email to Eddy at [email protected]. In it, I included links to the three obituaries and a brief note that they were the three Zaan software developers for the CDC project. I closed with my usual xoxo, which seemed inane given how desperate I was to see him again. And then, hard as it was to do, I erased it. No point in leaving even more breadcrumbs.
I cleared my Internet cache, fruitlessly checked my Gmail account one last time, and then headed to the closest BART station, a mile or so away. I zipped my leather jacket and wished for some gloves since the mist had turned into a chilly drizzle. It also had cleared the sidewalks of pedestrians, which made it easier for me to check periodically behind me for anyone on foot. Never mind that, logically, no one should have been able to find me at the library in the first place. But after discovering Mario Seneca’s trespass, I didn’t dare trust logic anymore.
As I got closer to the BAR
T station, fingers of fog reached up the street, pulling in the space around me and creating soft echoes of my own footsteps. At first, I thought surely someone was behind me, but I couldn’t see more than half a block in any direction. The second time I heard the echoes, I slipped into a doorway and waited for at least ten minutes. Nothing passed in front of me. My heart beat faster. I tried to shake off the sense that someone was out there, someone who was waiting for me. My strides grew longer and faster until I saw the sign for the BART station. A worn-looking man in jeans and a Giants sweatshirt leaned against the brick wall just beyond the door. It didn’t make sense for someone to be standing in the rain when they could be dry on the other side of the door. I debated whether to keep on walking and see what he would do, but I had no idea where I would go next. Just then, I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and realized he was there because he couldn’t smoke inside the building.
I needed more faith and less imagination.
He looked at me and gave a nod of acknowledgement as I passed him. I didn’t think strangers did that to strangers in a city, so then I had to start my worrying all over again. He didn’t follow me down the steps to the tracks, though. The platform was empty except for a young family and an elderly couple, hardly the sort to feed suspicions. We were the only ones to get on the subway when it arrived.
What if going forward, every day was like today?
I rode BART all the way out to the airport and caught the shuttle back to the hotel. Tonight I would eat Russian food in Palo Alto.
The way I saw it, I had three options. One, I could take a cab everywhere and either drain my cash or risk using a charge card. Two, I could rent a second car, one without a GPS system but with another credit card flag. Or three, I could keep on using the car I had but not use the Neverlost system.
I had no idea how visible I was with the Neverlost system turned off, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed a safe bet (except, of course, for the inevitable hours I’d spend being lost). After all, if you have your computer disconnected from the Internet, can hackers still get into your computer? Coming up with that analogy gave me pause since I knew highly sophisticated hackers could still hack into a computer that was turned off but had a WAN line connected.
Still, the reality was that nobody needed a GPS system to follow me. I was in a car and a total novice about where I was going.
I voted to stick with my current car sans the Neverlost and with downloaded directions from the computer in the business center.
Fortunately, I actually had a clue how to get around Palo Alto without Neverlost since the Silicon Valley apex was also the headquarters for Zaan. I loved the sedate, lush town. If I’d had the chance—and an extra two or three million dollars—I would have moved there in a heartbeat.
As I drove, I tried to figure out why I was even going to see Daniel Pogodov’s fiancé. It wasn’t like he would have whispered sweet programming nothings into her ear just before he died. Maybe, though, he told her something, anything that would be another breadcrumb in this lost cause. Even the likelihood that Anna would be working so soon after Daniel’s gruesome death was a long shot. It was hopeless. If I quit kidding myself, I’d admit the real reason I went was because I couldn’t face the helplessness of sitting in a hotel room by myself on a Saturday night. As long as I moved my feet, I could give myself a little hope.
I cruised down California Avenue, where Anna’s restaurant was, but decided it was safer to park at the Zaan campus and walk the few blocks. Even though it was early Saturday evening, at least a hundred other cars scattered the Zaan parking lot. I couldn’t believe they were all using the parking lot as a decoy for sleuthing, so it gave me one more reason to mutter under my breath at my employer.
I recognized the location of Anya’s Place, Anna’s restaurant, because it was a reincarnation of an American bistro where I’d eaten a couple of times with a co-worker who rated ambiance higher than palatability. The bistro had deserved a premature death.
It was early for dinner, but already the place, which had retained its predecessor’s charm, was half full. While I waited for a hostess to spot me, I watched ruby-cheeked waitresses in black skirts, white dress shirts, and black bow ties bustle through the maze of tables, artfully balancing trays piled with plates of appetizers, shot glasses and a disproportionate number of vodka bottles. It was, for sure, a Russian restaurant.
“One for dinner?” The hostess, who was decidedly new to the language, picked up a single menu. Her puffy red eyes detracted from an otherwise striking profile.
I smiled as friendly as I could. “Actually, I was hoping to see Anna. I know it’s a terrible time because of Daniel’s death, but I was hoping I could catch her and give her my condolences in person.” Everything was a stretch, but I banked on a little advantage because of her simple comprehension level and my familiarity with the situation.
“Is so terrible,” she whispered. I was afraid tears would follow, but maybe she was cried out. “We all luffed him. A good man. He was good.”
“It must be so difficult for Anna.”
“She cry all the time.” And it looked for the moment that the hostess was going to follow suit.
I nodded and fumbled in my purse for my own stash of tissues. Daniel, Eddy, true love—it all wrapped up into the same depressing package. My tears—genuine ones—started up again. “Is Anna here by any chance?” The most I could hope for was a willingness to divulge a home address, but the hostess turned and motioned me to follow her. We wound through the kitchen, where I unfortunately remembered I hadn’t eaten since the bread at Jola’s, and up a narrow staircase. The hostess knocked on the door. Russian spilled out on both sides of the door and then it opened.
Anna, at least I assumed that’s who it was, opened the door to a cozy office filled with lots of ferns and geraniums and two cats. She gave me a puzzled look. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” Although not nearly as pronounced, her accent still clearly marked her for a new arrival.
“I work at Zaan. I’m a good friend of Jola Pavelkavich.” I wasn’t even sure if Anna had ever heard of Jola, but it sounded better than just making the Zaan connection.
Whether she was weakened by grief or I’d said the right combination, I didn’t know, but she let me in and sweetly dismissed the hostess. The two exchanged cheek kisses and then the hostess clattered down the stairs, sniffling as she went. I tried not to think about the agonizingly good smells wafting up from the kitchen.
“I’m so very sorry about Daniel.”
Anna nodded and blew her nose into a honest-to-goodness handkerchief. I hadn’t seen one of those since my grandmother died in 1988. She gently lifted a calico cat off an overstuffed chair and invited me to sit. She sat in a second overstuffed chair, feet tucked under her, and absently stroked the cat.
“I spent the morning with Jola. I didn’t know Daniel myself—” I thought I’d better be straight with her, “—but I wanted to tell you what I know about his death.”
Her eyes, which already seemed to fill half her face, widened.
I took my risk. “I believe he was murdered.”
“Murdered?” She shook her head and watched me very carefully. “I thought you knew.” She dabbed at her eyes, which had never stopped overflowing, and whispered, “He died of smallpox.”
“I know he died of smallpox. What I have come to believe is that Homeland Security exposed him to the virus.” I watched her. She didn’t seem startled by my comment. “They didn’t want him to be able to talk about his work on the Center for Disease Control project.”
She kept on petting the cat. A second one, a thinner, younger version of the first, lightly jumped into her lap and nestled under her other hand. Finally, she said, “Why you think this? Why you think they expose him?”
“There are so many reasons, not the least of which is that he was the final lead software developer to die on that project in a month’s time. That’s not coincidence.”
She shook her head, bu
t I wasn’t sure if it was in agreement or in resignation.
“Anna. We’re sisters. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the man I love, too.” I dug out another Kleenex from my purse and blew my nose. “My husband has put together a website that questions whether this is a real epidemic or whether it’s been created to scare people into getting vaccinated.” I watched her eyes. They didn’t blink. “Homeland Security is looking for him. They’ve threatened me that he could be infected with smallpox if he doesn’t shut down his website. They would do this to protect what they’ve put in place. I believe it.”
She looked out the sole window into the colorless evening. A minute passed. The cats purred in her arms. She finally looked back at me. “I believe you.”
“Has anyone from Homeland Security come to visit you? Or from the Center for Disease Control?”
Her tears had slowed. She blew her nose. “Yes. But they only say dangerous things. They didn’t sound sorry at all that he died. They say—but not say ...” she fumbled for the word.
“They implied?” I offered.
She nodded. “Yes. They don’t say it, but I know what they mean. If anyone ask about his work, I have to tell them, or I get myself sick with smallpox too.”
“Will you tell them?” I already knew the answer.
She snorted softly. “I am Russian. You think I help the people who kill the man I love? What is fear when you have lost love?”
It was true. I understood exactly what she meant.
“I remember when the wall fell. I am only seven, but it is fearful and joyful time. Both. We did not know what happens, but we think the best will come.” She tilted her mouth up into a half smile. “But it doesn’t. Instead, the worst comes. We have chaos. My mother is very sad. She keep telling me about this ‘freedom’ thing. She say before the wall fell, Soviets had freedom and Americans had freedom. But here is difference. Americans have individual freedom. They work or live wherever they want. They say whatever they want. But they can’t walk their streets at night. Is dangerous. They worry about crime, about rapes and murders. The Soviets, though, has corporate freedom. We have to be careful about what we say or do. We cannot live just anywhere or go to just any school or get just any job. But we have no fear of crime. We can walk anywhere in Moscow at one in the morning and not worry about getting mugged.” She paused and stroked the cats. “Here is the ... I think irony. At the end of the day, we do not get either kind of freedom. We lose our corporate freedom and do not gain individual freedom.”
The Virus Page 20
