Chapter Twenty-Two

Thorn

Toulouse, France.

Saturday, Twenty-two Hundred Hours

T horn climbed into the cab that had patiently waited for his return from interviewing the eye witness. "The airport, s'il vous plait. "

Without a word, the driver put the taxi in gear and started them down the road.

Opening his duffle, Thorn pulled out a brown paper envelope used for evidence collection. He slid the toddler's shirt in, careful to keep his fingers away from the blood stain. He sealed it, labeled it, and tucked it away.

His comms in his ears, his microphone around his throat under the turtleneck of his compression shirt, Thorn dug a set of earbuds from his pocket and stuck them into his phone. He would use them as a cover. While he spoke with his team, it might look to the driver like he was mouthing along to a song. He then dialed through to Panther Force war room.

"Sitrep?" Nutsbe asked for Thorn's situation report as they spoke over an encrypted system, allowing them to speak freely.

Thorn ran through the information about the boy being unharmed and merely a bystander in the event, and the fact that he'd been able to collect the shirt with the blood stain.

"What are your thoughts concerning the blood?" Nutsbe asked. "We can get it tested for DNA – see if there's anything in the FBI CODIS system that would be a match. But that'll take time, brother, and I think our leash is too short for that."

"Granted, but I had another thought. When Zoe Kealoha was targeted for kidnapping, we learned that she had developed a means to check bio-markers in the blood. That system is almost instantaneous. But the device she described uses strips that uptake fresh blood. I'm not sure if it could work on dried blood."

Nutsbe paused. "It would have to. Remember she said that one of the ways her system had made her feel proud was its use to help resolve the Paris terrorist attacks. The French authorities had blood samples from the terrorist at the scene of his suicide bombing. They put it through the BIOMIST collection, hoping to find his family. It brought up Salah and that lead to them naming Brahim Abdeslam. The CIA stayed off the radar, but it was dried blood they collected and put into BIOMIST that did the job. The problem I see is that Juliette is ostensibly French, and the database is made up almost uniquely of those from the Middle East and some asylum seekers from Africa."

"All right, but what if she was testing Juliette's blood with DuBois's? Couldn't Zoe's machine tell us if they were actually genetically related?"

"As long as it was a close family relationship, yes."

"DuBois claims this is his daughter for green card purposes. With a father as an American citizen, she should have naturalization rights." Thorn was angled away from the driver, looking out the window as they drove along the Garonne River. "But she may not want to become a US citizen. At any rate, she's travelling on French vital records that don't exist. If nothing else, this will tell us if they're father and daughter. Whether that's helpful in the end or not, I don't know."

"There's also the possibility that your sample was compromised if anyone touched the blood. But I think it's worth a try. We can do a blood draw on DuBois en route."

Thorn was watching the driver's body language, to see if he was paying any attention to his passenger in the back seat. He seemed too busy tapping at his computer screen looking for ways to dodge traffic to care what Thorn was talking about. "Where is DuBois now?

"The team's still in Brussels. I'm going to contact our client, since they're providing the plane for transport. I'll make a plan. Are you heading toward the airport?"

"Affirmative."

"So you'll be in place if we decide to fly you to them. It seems the quickest way of getting the blood to one place, unless we could fly one of Zoe's machines to you instead. The reason I don't think that will work is that your sample is dry, and she may need to manipulate it in the lab."

"Copy," Thorn said. "Is Lynx there?"

"Yeah – hang on. I'm going to let you talk to her while I call Zoe and double check that this is even doable."

Lynx came over his comms. "Hey, there. How can I help?"

"I'm not sure." Thorn scratched a hand over his head. He wished that France had some drive through restaurants. A cup of coffee would be appreciated right about now. He was looking forward to finding some grub. He'd eaten an MRE earlier, and frankly, he could use something that required less Tabasco to make it palatable. "About a year ago, when you were coming back to work at Iniquus, there was a case. I'm not sure about the specifics. I wasn't read into the program, but there was a hum about it."

"Okay…"

"We had planted an operative at Montrim. Montrim was our contractor, I believe. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I think so. Command asked me to take a look at video they'd shot where they were trying to light a fire and see where the guy ran. The concern was that they were tracking the wrong mark. I confirmed they had the right guy in their scope. Striker was there in case that wasn't true, so that we could come up with a different strategy to find the right guy. What makes you think of that now?"

"It just pinged when I was reading the files from DuBois," Thorn said. "Is that classified? Can we talk about it?"

"I don't have much on it. But it pinged for me, too. The mark was a researcher for Montrim industries, Dr. George Matthews. He wasn't a DARPA scientist. But he had contracted with the Pentagon to develop a weapon that used energy waves to take out anything warm-blooded in an urban environment, while leaving structure in place."

"Was this considered a neuroweapon? Was it approaching completion?"

"When I was helping to pinpoint Dr. Matthews as having a relationship with China, the research hadn't gotten very far. It was still in the conceptual stage. Paper and pencil. The concern was about ongoing connections as the technology was developed. Absolutely, this was a concept for a neuroweapon. Montrim and the Pentagon decided not to fire or arrest Dr. Matthews, they wanted to catch everyone that might belong in that net."

"Okay. Second question. I was thinking about when Zoe was being chased down ? I don't know if you had any of this information. As I remember it, you stuck your toe in to help out, but you were on your way out of town to Miami ? Senator Billings…"

"I did an interview with Senator Billings. My goal was to discover the name of the private investigator that he had hired to follow his mistress, to see if she was some kind of spy or "swallow" as he described the concern. Is that what you have a question about?"

"So you don't know the story where Gage was at Colonel Guthrie's house when Senator Billings showed up drunk, begging Colonel Guthrie to help him stop Montrim and their apocalyptic weapon of war?"

"No." Lynx paused. "No, I don't know about this. What kind of apocalyptic weapon is this?"

"I'm not sure. If you don't know, I'd ask Gage. It wasn't fully on my screen at the time. But your articles are about sound and ensuing health issues. They mention China and Billings. There seems to be a pattern here. And then there's Israel."

"Thorn, Nutsbe here, I'm back on the line. As to Israel, that's an iffy connection. I mean, the Rex Deus were Israeli citizens, but I really think they dissociated from the government. They're a rogue group. But in this case, Margot identified Brigitte as Mossad."

"I can see that you might want to put that all together," Lynx said. "I wouldn't get lost in the pattern. I'd focus on clues that you come across as we're looking for our pink rabbit."

"Just putting a pin on the cork board," Thorn said.

"I hear you," she said. "You holding up okay? It's been a long day."

"Interesting day to say the least. We're coming up on the airport now."

"Nutsbe here. Zoe says she can use a dry blood sample, it just needs a couple of extra steps in processing. She can't compare the two blood samples for familial blood markers, but what she can do is enter both samples into the BIOMIST catalogue. Then she can tag them. The computer system will do a comparison of information against all samples in its database and will list out those that match up. If David DuBois and Juliette DuBois are related, then that will come out in the report."

"How long will that take?" Lynx asked.

"Zoe said that she'll prioritize this for us," Nutsbe said. "From the point of getting the samples into her lab until we have a print out, less than thirty minutes. Knowing if David is Juliette's biological dad could be an important piece of information. Too bad you're in Toulouse and DuBois is in Brussels. Right now, our client is rerouting to Paris. And I'm trying to get you booked on the next flight. We're working with the airline to boot someone off the plane and get you on."

"They do that?" Thorn asked.

"We grease their palms pretty well. It's a win-win. They give a couple hundred bucks to the person willing to wait for the next flight, they get our support when they have something weird going down, and we get where we want to be when we want to be there."

"Roger. I'll grab some grub and wait for your directions. I have one more question. There's information in the DuBois files that mentions his ethics breaches. I'm wondering if there's any connection there that might give us a clue as to who Juliette DuBois might be and what's going on with this case."

"Yes," Lynx said. "I've been culling through that information. So far, I've found something filed with the U.S. Navy per Dr. DuBois and his use of treatments that aren't FDA approved, basically experimenting on the sailors after they survived the Al-Qaeda attack October 2000."

"Can you put that info in the file? I'll read up while I'm in flight."

"Yeah, you'll have to wait to get to a secure place for that," Nutsbe said. "If I can't wiggle you into a seat on this next flight out, you might end up in the holding area with the dog crates."

Lynx chuckled, but Thorn didn't think Nutsbe was joking.

"I'll get that file up for you," she said. "So, the newest information, are you ready for this?"

"We just pulled up to the curb. Let me pay the guy and move away from the crowd. I'll call you back. Okay?"