Chapter 41. Investigation
Roger Tsung was concerned when he received Dr. Jendel’s e-mail. If Dr. Strong had been murdered, then he and everyone else on the ground here was in danger. Tsung needed to look at the dead bodies to verify what Jendel was saying. Donning several pairs of white gloves and slipping on one of the orange RACAL suits, Roger Tsung then used several layers of duct tape to seal together the spaces at his wrists and ankles. He wasn’t taking any chances. Hooking up his helmet and airline, he took a deep breath and went into the quarantine tent. Moving over to the bodies of the three scientists, he looked at each cadaver from head to toe. Tsung was surprised to see that the skull of one of the scientists was cut off at the neck. What could that mean? He started with that body because it was the most suspicious. The feet were largely intact, with charred black flesh clinging to the bone. He made his way up the tibia bone until he got to the tibial plateau, the top part of the tibia just underneath the kneecap. Using a scalpel, Tsung carefully cut away some of the charred flesh until he saw two small metal plates, and a series of six metal screws implanted into the tibial bone. This man who had once owned this body had previously been wounded in the leg, and the leg had been surgically repaired with an ORIF—open reduction-internal fixation. Tsung took photos of the plates and screws with an overhead camera.
Tsung then moved onto the second scientist’s body. He started again, moving from head to toe, looking for anything out of place, like maybe a pacemaker or an implant of some kind. He saw nothing. He repeated the procedure for the last body. This body had a silver chain around the neck. He took out a pair of clippers and cut the metal chain. Then he took out a measuring tape, and measured the height of each of the bodies, taking photographs of the tape from the overhead camera. Finally, he took a drop or two of blood from each cadaver, being careful not to get any blood on himself. The blood was placed in separate plastic vials.
He slowly and methodically left the quarantine tent, being careful not to cut his suit. When he got in the dressing tent next to the quarantine tent, he removed his suit, taking in big gulps of fresh air. It was stiflingly hot in there. He removed the suit and doused his entire body in antiseptic soap gel, being careful to scrub the edges of his fingers and fingernails. After a hot shower, he exited the dressing room, proceeding to a small lab tent, which had medical supplies and laboratory equipment. He took the religious medal from the third body and examined it under a microscope. It was a medal of St. Anthony, and on the back it read, “Happy Anniversary Tony 10/21/1979.” Tony. As in Antonio Paciello. He put in a flash drive from the quarantine room’s camera into his laptop and uploaded the photographs he had taken of the bodies. Calling back to his contact in Fort Detrick, he advised them that he needed a contact at the Instituto Nationale right away. After about a half hour, someone from Fort Detrick called Tsung, and gave him an e-mail contact.
Tsung sent an e-mail to the contact at the Instituto Nationale. His e-mail read:
Need to know:
1. Were any of the three Italian scientists sent to Kigoma married on 10/21/1979?
2. How tall were each of the three Italian scientists?
3. What were their blood types and RH Factors?
4. Did any of the three Italian scientists previously have an open reduction-oral fixation surgery to their tibial plateau?
While he waited for a response, Tsung took out the sealed plastic blood vials, and performed tests to determine the blood type and RH factor for each.
An hour later, Tsung received the following e-mail response:
1. Yes, Antonio Paciello.
2.3. Antonio Paciello—6’ 2”Blood Type: AB-
Guido Macchione—6’1”Blood Type: A+
Matteo Graciano—5’10”Blood Type: A-
4. No, not to our knowledge.
Tsung looked at the photograph documenting the third cadaver’s height. The cadaver was just under 6’ 2.” That matched Antonio Paciello. And Paciello’s anniversary matched the date on the medal on his neck. And the blood type of the third cadaver was AB-, the same as Paciello’s blood. That was a positive match. The middle cadaver measured just under 6’ 1.” That matched Guido Macchione. And the blood type was A+. Another match. But the first cadaver—the one with the skull mysteriously sawed off, that was a different story. First, no height could be determined from the cadaver because the skull was missing. But the blood type did not match. And there was no record that Matteo Graciano had ever had a tibial injury or surgery. And Bjorn Jendel had said in his text message that one of the cadavers was a black man. It did not look like Matteo Graciano was the third cadaver in the RACAL suit. And if that was the case, why was someone else in the space suit, and where was Graciano?
Tsung walked down to Jimmy Pond’s tent and filled him in on what he had learned. Pond was connecting the same dots. When Tsung mentioned the tibial injury, Pond got out his notes from his canvass with Murielle Winston.
“Dr. Haane. Wife is Fatuma Haane. She says the doctor was in the military and he received a medal after he got shot in the leg. And, as you probably guessed, Dr. Haane is black.”
“Let’s go talk to her right now,” said Tsung.
The two agents drove a Jeep down the main road of town until they came upon Mrs. Haane’s small, brown house. Jimmy Pond took the lead.
“Mrs. Haane, sorry to bother you again.”
“Yes, young man, what is it?”
“Your husband, you said that in the war he received an injury to his leg. Where on his leg was he hurt?”
“I think it was right near his knee.”
“And was that leg ever operated on?”
“Oh yes, in fact one of his friends, an orthopedic doctor, operated on him. He told me he had plates and screws in his leg. He was always grateful for his friend. Said if it weren’t for him, he wouldn’t be able to walk.”
“And how tall was your husband, ma’am?”
“He was 5 foot 6 inches tall.”
“Do you by any chance have any of your husband’s health records. We need to be able to determine his blood type.”
“No need for that,” said Mrs. Haane.
“And why is that?”
“Because I know what it is. He was B+, just like me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“OK, thank you so much,” said Pond.
“What’s this all about?” asked the widow.
“We are just trying to identify which body is which. It is just standard procedure. Thank you, ma’am. Sorry to have bothered you.”
As the two agents left the widow’s house, they paused when they got to the street.
“What blood type was the cadaver with the missing skull?”
“B+,” said Tsung. “And the cadaver looked shorter than the others. Too hard to say without a skull, but 5’6” looks about right.”
“So,” said Pond, “We have a hospital of people loaded with a Level 4 virus. The hospital is intentionally torched by someone, who knows full well that this will mean murdering dozens of people. The door is locked with a tire iron so they cannot get out. One of the three scientists who is supposed to be in a RACAL suit treating the patients, Matteo Graciano, is not in his suit, and one of the doctors from Kigoma, Dr. Haane, has taken his suit. The other two scientists are burned to death in the explosion but Matteo Graciano, Level 4 Biohazard scientist, is missing and not among the dead. And the bat which started the whole epidemic is missing from the hospital. That about cover it?”
“Yeah,” said Tsung. “So our Italian scientist, Matteo Graciano, who is secretly a bioterrorist, takes the blood samples from the sick patients, convinces a patsy to wear his RACAL suit so everyone will think he is dead, he murders everyone in the hospital so he has the only copy of the virus, and he even takes the bat to possibly develop an antidote for the thing. Maybe he plans to blackmail the United States and use the antidote as the hostage. Either Graciano or one of his associates here in Kigoma learns that Dr. Strong is on his trail, so he saws off the skull so no identification can be made, poisons Dr. Strong, and takes off.”
“And you forgot one thing,” said Pond.
“What’s that?” asked Tsung.
“Assuming he is working with an associate in Kigoma, and he is not still here, he has a head start on us of at least a couple weeks, maybe over a month. He could be anywhere right now.”
“I’m calling this in,” said Tsung. “Let’s get a secure uplink and we can get a conference call with Washington.”