Frozen Solid A Novel

31




THE NSF BUILDING’S ENTRANCE LOBBY WAS EQUIPPED WITH BIG revolving doors of the kind more commonly found in New York City. Barnard disliked them. He had once seen a darting child’s leg broken by such a door, whose infrared stop sensor was four inches higher than the top of the child’s head. Nevertheless, he had to admit that being trapped and spinning like a gerbil in a treadmill was probably a more fitting end to the meeting just concluded.

Outside, gray drizzle was freezing into stinging sleet, forming a dangerous sheen on pavements and sidewalk. Barnard turned right and walked west on Wilson Boulevard, then turned right again onto North Stuart Street. He had not gone twenty steps when a gray Toyota Camry double-parked in the street abreast of him. The car had surprised him the first time he’d ridden with Bowman, whom he’d half-expected to show up in an armored, machine gun–toting Aston Martin. Barnard had said something about it, and Bowman had laughed. “Invisibility is the best armor of all,” he’d said.

Barnard got in. “Back to BARDA.”

Earlier that morning, at about ten, Barnard had been surprised to see Bowman in his office so soon after their four A.M. meeting. He had been more surprised by what Bowman brought.

“Thirty-two scientists at the South Pole now,” Bowman reported.

“More than I would have thought.”

“Not a problem. I had some people create and analyze a deep-source data mass. Information from birth to present day for every one of the scientists. Tons of terabytes.” He grinned—looking, Barnard thought, like a wolf.

“They did that for you so quickly?”

“When they call, I’m there for them. Works both ways. Every human life is a collection of data. Ninety-nine percent mediocre—in the statistical sense of remaining within certain parameters. Think of a seismograph readout—an endless line of one-inch oscillations. Then something extraordinary—Krakatoa, say—makes the needle jump. A life graphs like that. Long stretches of small squiggles, then a spike.

“Anomalies move the needle. An A student fails. Good credit tanks. Doctor visits increase suddenly. Thirty-year marriage ends in divorce. Cadillacs after Hondas. On and on. Algorithms digest a year in nanoseconds. It’s like panning for gold. You keep washing out the dross and—maybe—end up with something that glitters.”

“And?”

Bowman bared his teeth again. “And we found some things. Whether fool’s gold or real remains to be seen.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“After the initial screening, three scientists were left in the bottom of the pan. Dr. Alston Sinclair, an astrophysicist. For some years, a man with whom he had had a homosexual affair had blackmailed him. Then the payments had suddenly stopped.”

“Do we know why?”

“The blackmailer died.”

“Murdered?”

Bowman shrugged. “The death occurred while Sinclair was at the Pole. Police ruled it an accident.”

“Doesn’t sound like the kind of wrinkle we’re looking for.”

“Next is Dr. Elaine Graydon. Biochemist and a rising star in her field. Until she left the Harvard faculty in mid-semester and later went to the South Pole.”

“People don’t usually jump that ship,” Barnard said. “Do we know why?”

“Got caught having an affair with a dean’s wife. Very messy.”

“Ugly, but not really sinister.”

“Number three is a genetic virologist named Maynard Blaine. Works for a biotech startup called Advanced Viral Sciences.”

“What stuck out about him?”

“He left a teaching job at Rutgers several years ago to go with AVS. Doubled his salary. Blip. Then his travel changed. Blip. He’s a bachelor. Before leaving Rutgers, he took one vacation every year, and it was always some Club Bed–type cruise. After changing jobs, no more Love Boats. Instead, he went to Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, twice; New Delhi twice; Lagos, Nigeria, once. Blip, blip, blip.”

“Not vacation spots.”

“Filthy, overcrowded, disease-ridden, and dangerous.”

“Sounds like you’ve been.”

Bowman only smiled. He said, “Where did he stay? Who did he meet? Credit card use? And a lot more.”

“And?”

“He met three men on each trip. One is a retired geneticist from England named Ian Kendall. Another is a French medical doctor, Jean-Claude Belleveau, who practices in New Delhi, of all places. And the third is an epidemiologist.”

“Name?”

“David Gerrin.”

Barnard gaped. “Director of Antarctic Programs.”

“None other. You’ll want to keep that appointment,” Bowman said.