aTaaaaGc aTTaaaaG aTTaGccG aaTaaacc aTaaGccc aTTTcGcG
Marc hastily grabbed a napkin and scribbled out the code. “Short and sweet.” He started the conversion on the napkin, writing the binary under the letters.
“So you say,” Victoria muttered.
Marc continued to scribble without acknowledging his partner. “So the DNA translates to binary code. And the binary code translates to letters. I got that far. But this is what it says—”
aTaaaaGc aTTaaaaG aTTaGccG aaTaaacc aTaaGccc aTTTcGcG
01000010 01100001 01101001 00100000 01001000 01110101
Bai Hu
“Why? That’s how I translated it too, but I thought there had to be some change to the code.” There was something tickling the edge of Maylin’s mind. “Bai Hu isn’t even a monster or character in the game.”
“What is it?” Lizzy asked.
“It’s a white tiger.” Maylin stared into her ho fun. Thinking. An-mei sent her the answer. “It’s one of four celestial gods. Creatures. It depends on how you translate it. They’re also a part of the Chinese constellations.”
Gabe had his laptop out again and Marc was scribbling notes as she spoke.
“Keep talking. Something will catch,” Marc encouraged her.
“None of the locations had a white tiger or even a stylized animal as a logo.” Victoria tapped her spoon against the side of her bowl.
“There’s Xuan Wu, the black turtle in the north.” Maylin scraped at her memory for the mythology. It’d been a favorite back when they were children. There’d even been a Japanese anime based on the mythology, which An-mei had watched over and over. “Then there’s Qing Long in the east. He’s the azure dragon. Zhu Que is the vermillion bird in the south and Bai Hu is the white tiger in the west.”
“Vermillion, red?” Victoria asked. “Like a Phoenix?”
“Yes, Zhu Que represents the fire element.”
“And it’s in the south.”
“Basically.”
Marc jumped up off his stool and leaned over Gabe’s shoulder. “Bring up a map of the United States.”
While Gabe complied, Maylin rushed around the counter to look too. She had to crane her neck and get up on her tip toes to see over Gabe’s shoulder.
“If Phoenix Biotech in California is the south—” Marc pointed “—we assign the other celestial god animal things to the other states: Oregon, Montana, North Dakota. Your turtle could be either Montana or North Dakota depending on whether north refers to the state or the actual facility location. But what we care about is your tiger in the west. Seems pretty simple to me.”
Victoria piped up. “Each of these facilities are leftovers from the cold war, believe it or not. A satellite check showed the Oregon site is underground. Couldn’t get close because there’s high-level security restricting access to detailed imagery.”
“More and more likely,” Gabe commented.
“Oregon.” Maylin whispered, because stating the obvious seemed unnecessary, but she needed to say it for herself. “All this time and An-mei might be so close.”
“Might be. We need to get a closer look at the facility and get more intel on it.” Lizzy reached around Marc to pat Maylin on the shoulder.
“I’m betting it is.” Marc slapped his notepad on the counter. “If we’re right, it’ll save us days of recon. It’ll make a huge difference now that Edict knows we’re looking.”
Maylin froze. “Are we running out of time?”
Gabe turned on his stool as she settled back hard on her heels. He took her hands in his. “You’ve just won us back more time than anyone is expecting. Even if they try to move her, we’ll be watching in the right place now. We’ll see.”
“What do we do next?” Maylin meant the question for all of them, but she was looking at Gabe.
“We confirm with preliminary reconnaissance that the location is active, receiving the sorts of supplies to indicate the research we’re looking for, and bulked up enough on security to indicate our target is there. Then we start planning. This is going to move fast and we might have random questions for you.” Gabe gave her hands a squeeze. “It’s a lot of hurry up and wait.”
“Anything I can do.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Oh, Maylin.”
She paused at the front door as Marc popped his head out of the surveillance room.
“Thought you might want your smartphone back.” Marc strode toward her, hand outstretched. “I only used it once or twice while you were gone to make it look like you were checking your email. Didn’t check it at all once you two ran into Jewel in DC. Not much point since she and her team knew you weren’t here.”
Jewel wasn’t someone she wanted to think about right about now. But Maylin took the phone with a smile anyway. “Thanks.”