Chapter Twenty-Eight

Thorn

Paris, France

Sunday, Eleven Hundred Hours.

"Zo e, hey, sweet heart," Gage said.

The team huddled uncomfortably around the monitor, which rested on the narrow desk top in Juliette's room. There was nowhere for them to sit, even on the floor. Crammed into the tight space, they had tried to angle the monitor so that they could see Zoe, Gage's fiancée, very soon to be wife, talk them through the results of the blood tests she'd conducted. They whispered into their communications systems so as not to disturb Juliette or have her overhear what they were saying.

"Hi, Gage." Zoe offered up her gentle smile. "Hi, Thorn. Hey Honey." She wiggled her fingers at them. She was sitting at Nutsbe's desk in the Panther Force war room, talking over the encrypted computer connection.

"We really appreciate you doing this for us," Honey said. "I hope it didn't put you in a complicated position with security issues."

"It's fine," she said. Her long black hair was pulled back in a bun, and she wore black rimmed nerd-girl glasses on a delicately featured face. "I was able to get a quick turn around on my request to let you see what information I pulled up."

"Did you share that with the CIA as well?" Gage asked.

As she turned around to look at Nutsbe, Thorn saw confusion on her face.

Nutsbe leaned down. "I'm sure that our reports will be shared with the CIA."

Nutsbe had probably come to the same conclusion as their field team, the access to support here in Paris and in Brussels was provided by CIA. It was very likely that they were also the signatory clients. It was really the only group that made any sense.

"So anyway." Zoe turned and picked up some papers and shuffled them into her lap. "I have the results. As you know, I can't compare two different people's blood samples in my apparatus. But I can send the two separate samples into the BIOMIST system. Once I did that, I tasked the computer to find any individuals that were affiliated with David Dubois, and I got a subset of zero. There was no one else in my system, including Juliette DuBois, that had a familial blood marker match."

"Juliette isn't his biological daughter," Gage said.

"No. Nor are they closely related, genetically speaking."

"Okay then. That gives us a little more information." Thorn couldn't say why that brought him so much relief. But he had to point out the other obvious explanation. "Of course, he could have adopted her."

Zoe frowned.

The energy in the room sparked.

"You found something, didn't you?" Gage asked.

"The zero subset was for David DuBois. When I ran it the other way around," Zoe said, "Juliette Dubois had a subset of three. Juliette, and two women, Habiba Khouri and Polla Khouri."

"Sisters?" Thorn asked.

"Perhaps," Zoe said. "Or, perhaps, aunts…cousins. Neither is her mother. Habiba is thirty years old, and Polla is thirty-two."

"What else does the file say? What's included in the intake?" Honey asked.

"Oh, well this was the hearts and minds cover story for the sample collection," Zoe said. "Where the data collectors pretended that medical help was the reason that they were in the region. The techs performed a cursory medical exam on each. The exam results were included. Both women were healthy, if underweight. Their vitals were fine. They didn't need any medical attention."

"Does it list where the women went through the check?"

"Yes, let me see." Zoe looked down at her lap. "Polla was in Aleppo at the time, and Habiba in Damascus. Their file recorded that they were part of an early wave of asylum seekers, crossing at separate times."

"Syrians?" Gage asked.

"Juliette's Syrian?" Thorn asked at almost the same time.

"Syrian, well, that's not part of the blood marker test. All we can say is that's what Polla and Habiba each listed as their nationality."

Honey turned his head toward Juliette. "She looks like she could be Syrian. The light olive skin, the honey colored hair, and her blue-green eyes."

"She doesn't look anything like David DuBois, that's for sure," Gage said.

Before they chased this rabbit down a hole, Thorn needed to make sure. "The BIOMIST system has never given a false positive? Could this be a mistake?"

"Good question," Zoe said, and Thorn was relieved that he hadn't insulted her work. "The answer depends on the use. My system was developed to use in the field to tell the officer if a blood sample on site had the same blood biomarkers as the person they wanted to arrest, thereby letting those who didn't conform to the sample go free. This isn't as accurate as DNA, I can't tell you definitively if this is a certain person or not, all it can do is tell if the person is not a possibility. For example, if the blood sample came from a woman and the agent was trying to compare that to a man's, it would come up as a zero subset. If, however, it met all the criteria and the machine gave a green light showing a positive subset, you'd need to get a DNA test, because that blood sample could be his brother, cousin, or father's. You could be holding one brother responsible for the actions of another."

"But for identifying familial connections…" Nutsbe said.

"Close genetic familial connections, it's extremely accurate. Connections of the heart, like Thorn was saying, adoption or marriage." She paused and smiled at Gage. "Well, those don't show up in a blood sample."

"Syrian." Thorn exhaled. Was that where she was tortured?

"We have locations on both women in the data base for those seeking asylum in Europe. Both women were assimilated into their new countries based on language skills and educational background. They both hold PhDs," Nutsbe was saying.

That would mean that they might be able to get some answers.

"Sciences? Which sciences? Anything to do with neuroweapons or sound technologies?" Thorn asked.

"Uhm…" Zoe flipped through her notes. "Habiba is a geneticist at a university in Geneva, and Polla is a physicist in Munich."

"Honey, you pulled the Geneva straw," Nutsbe said, "and that means Gage you're heading to Germany. If neither woman can speak English, both list Arabic as their main language, so you won't have trouble. I've uploaded more photographs of Juliette in your files. I would be careful about using the name Juliette DuBois or even Juliette. Juliette is not a typical Syrian girl's name, so it's very likely not the name that these women would know her by."

"Roger," Honey and Gage said together.

Zoe looked around at Nutsbe. "If you're done with me, I need to get back to my lab."

"Thank you very much, Zoe," Nutsbe said. "Your input has been invaluable."

Zoe smiled her cupid bow smile at him then turned to the computer and waved. "Have fun in Germany, Gage. I'll see you when you get home."

"Thank you," the team all chimed in.

"Hey, Zoe," Thorn said. "Before you go, can I ask you something else?"

She gave him a tip of her head by way of response.

"Just generally, is there anything you can say about David DuBois's work? He has his DARPA lab up at Montrim, doesn't he?"

Zoe was quiet for a long moment, and then she offered up, "I'm sorry, I can't say anything about his work for DARPA. But I can tell you, since it's in the news, that I was at the meeting here at Montrim where the problem with the diplomats from Cuba was addressed. It was all of the scientists on the campus who went to the lecture, not just DARPA scientists."

"This was when?" Thorn asked.

"Oh." Zoe stalled. "Yeah, it was back when the diplomats were first calling in to report physical issues. Montrim asked us if we had any recommendations for avenues of research, and who we might know with expertise. There was a guy, George Matthews ? a Montrim scientist who worked on a Pentagon contract, who suggested we bring in David DuBois from AU in Beirut. That was the first time I'd heard David's name. And very quickly after that, maybe a couple of months? David was on campus."

"Nutsbe, George Matthews is in the wind, isn't he?" Honey asked. "Did anyone ever track him down?"

"Nope," Nutsbe said from somewhere over Zoe's shoulder. "As far as I know he still has a nice little bounty on his head. The CIA and FBI would be happy to pay up, too. Matthews is either swimming with the fishes, or he's the fish that got away."

"To China?" Honey asked.

"That would be a good guess." Nutsbe posted his hands on the back of Zoe's chair, leaning down to get his face in the camera frame. "But I wouldn't think so. Something about the China thing seems off. But that's personal opinion."

"The diplomats were having issues there." Thorn pointed out. "What would a sound scientist and a PTSD Traumatic Brain Injury specialist have in common?"

"Explosions," Zoe said. "Well, they'd affect the ear."

"Concussions," Honey added.

"Flashbang." Thorn was thinking back to the team that tried to pull DuBois out of their hands at the safehouse, about the ringing, disorienting tinnitus. "We've all been through it."

"But you know you've been flash banged because of the light, sound, and the smoke," Zoe pointed out. "If they could isolate – well, create – if they could create the air concussion without the explosion."

"That would be an invisible assault." Thorn reached out and adjusted the screen as the light shifted outside, reflecting off the monitor. "A neuroweapon. Hey, Gage, I meant to ask you. Montrim and Senator Billings's name came up along the way. Last year when…" Thorn paused, he didn't want to bring up anything that would cause Zoe harm.

"When Rex Deus was trying to kidnap me?" Zoe asked.

"Yes, sorry," Thorn said. "But as I remember it, you overheard Senator Billings begging for help bringing down Montrim. They had a doomsday device they were developing?"

"Yeah, something about killing everything in an area that was warm blooded," Gage said. "Whatever it was wouldn't take out infrastructure. Just kill anything mammal."

"Did you hear the name George Matthews? Anything about sound?" Thorn asked.

"Negative. Nothing like that."

"Why would this guy, Matthews, who is suspected of Chinese espionage?" Gage started.

"I'd say from the evidence it wasn't just suspected," Nutsbe cut in.

"Fine." Gage scratched his forehead. "Split hairs, unindicted conspirator, then."

"Better, thank you," Nutsbe said with a grin.

"Why would he know and suggest Dr. DuBois?"

"I'm going. You guys keep talking," Zoe said as she got up from her chair and walked out. A thoroughly Zoe thing to do.

Thorn smiled. He liked that she was quirky. And he liked that she was a freaking genius and was able to point them to two women who might be able to give them background on Juliette.

"If George Matthews was a good guy, he might want to look like a team player," Honey was saying. "A bad guy might want to bring in someone who would fudge data."

Juliette, though… Thorn pulled up his memory of the bathroom mirror, and his soaped message from Brigitte. The Mossad thought she was the danger. Thorn looked over at her sleeping form. How in the world could Juliette, in her condition and with her disabilities, be dangerous?