William nodded. “We need to hurry. We’re looking for shipping manifests.” William motioned back to the warehouse. “They transported the tape, boxes, and water to their distribution centers. I’m willing to bet they shipped the cure there as well—whether it was manufactured here or somewhere else. We figure out where those facilities are, we find the cure. Let’s move.”

Back inside, the three of them split up and began racing through the four-story building. Desmond’s boots pounded the white tiles. He found a surgical wing with bloody gurneys, scrubs left in piles, and ransacked medicine cabinets. These people had left in a hurry. On the second floor, he found a set of double doors that were locked. He activated his mic. “This is Desmond. I’m going to shoot a lock on level two. Have encountered no resistance.”

Avery and William responded quickly, with the same word: “Copy.”

Desmond shot the lock and pushed the steel doors open. The stench of rotting flesh overwhelmed him. He gagged, stepped back, bent over, and waited, fighting not to retch. The odor drifted past the doors, sweeping into the outer room like a ghost set free from its frigid tomb.

By degrees, Desmond adjusted to the repulsive smell. He took a step into the vast room. It was a near copy of the Kentaro Maru’s cargo hold, with sheet plastic dividing cells that ran the length and width of the space. In the green glow of night vision, the scene was even more eerie.

At the first cell, Desmond drew back the milky-white plastic. An Asian male lay dead. Dried blood ran from his eyes and mouth. Had they just left these people here to die when they evacuated, locking them in here like animals in a slaughter pen? What kind of people could do this?

Fury erupted within Desmond, and the thought that he had once been part of this project repulsed him.

He activated his comm. “I’ve found bodies. They were testing something here.”

“Copy,” William said. “I’ve located the target.”

He’s found the shipping manifests. Desmond breathed a sigh of relief.

“Level three, front left corner,” William said.

Avery and Desmond acknowledged and said they were inbound to his location.

William ducked in and out of the offices, searching quickly. In an office on the corner, with a couch and a bar-height long table, he found what he was looking for: the same picture he had seen in the home—his three children, holding hands on a street in London. It had been taken around 1982, William thought. This was the right office.

He moved to the filing cabinet, yanked it open, and began reading the folder names.

He paused at one that read, Viral Candidates. He pulled it out, scanned it. They had evaluated several pathogens for modification. He froze when he saw the notes in the margins. Yes, he was on the right track.