“This red spot shows the village where the original outbreak occurred. These other three dots show that the epidemic has broken the quarantine and is spreading beyond the original source. We think the virus may be moving through the water table. The bug is leaping from village to village. Eventually, it will hit the big cities. Once it gets into the populations of Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, there will be no stopping it from spreading to the rest of the world. It will be in North America within weeks.”

There was silence around the table for a moment, then Casey said, “How long before it strikes an urban area?”

“The computers say seventy-two hours from midnight.”

“That still gives us time to stop it with the vaccine,” Casey said. “Presumably, we’ll be able to reestablish contact with the lab. Once we have the cultures, we hope to produce the vaccine in quantity.”

“We’re whistling in the dark,” Coombs said. “We won’t know what happened to the lab until the Navy does its job.” Coombs leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers. “Let’s back up. Who would benefit from scuttling the work of the lab?”

“I’ll pass on that one until we know more,” Kane said, and the others at the table nodded their heads in agreement.

“Okay, then,” Coombs said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe somebody can answer the question about how the attackers knew about the existence and location of a top secret facility.”

“Leaks may have been inevitable,” Kane said. “When this committee first approached the government with our findings and Uncle Sam set up Bonefish Key as a front, we were pretty inexperienced at this whole spook thing. The instinct of a scientist is to make information public, not withhold it.”

“Which is why the research was removed from Bonefish Key to the Locker,” Coombs said, “so we could keep a tight lid on it and be closer to the resource.”

“There were safety reasons as well,” Kane said. “We were working with a waterborne pathogen and tinkering with altered life-forms. The Bonefish Key lab is near populated areas that could have been impacted in the advanced stages of research.”

Coombs frowned.

“The Locker’s existence was under tighter security than the Manhattan Project,” he said. “What about that woman at your lab? The scientist the Chinese sent over as a liaison?”

“Dr. Song Lee? I’ll vouch for her. She was a whistle-blower during the SARS epidemic. She risked prison by speaking out. Her contributions to the project have been vital.”

“So were Oppenheimer’s during the original Manhattan Project,” Coombs said. “That didn’t keep his loyalty from being compromised.”

“Before you indict Dr. Lee, I’d like to point out that I was the only one at Bonefish Key who knew the exact location of the lab. That information could have come from an outside source. What about the security company?”