CHAPTER 8 – A PUZZLE

"The Grey Death defeated!"

"After the final tests, the cure for the Grey Death finally entered the stage of mass production. Thanks to the new, revolutionary technology, the enormous demand for the cure can be finally satisfied.

"We estimate that in two weeks we will be able to produce enough of the cure to get rid of the epidemics in Europe," said Andreas Holz, the manager of the BioTech Centre in Munich. "This terrible disease will finally be defeated," he added.

According to our correspondents, on the other continents the situation is heading in the right direction as well. The production is running at full capacity. As Gary Savage, the head of the X-51 facility, responsible for producing the cure for North America, says:

"The problem is not in producing the needed quantity of the cure, but in its distribution. Still, the fact that this disease is no longer a death sentence is a huge step forward."

We would say that the word "huge" is an understatement."

Inspector Daniel Collard finished reading the article and put the newspaper aside. Smoking his cigarette, he stared blankly at the wall of his office, enjoying one of the rare moments, when he could afford himself a small break.

But, as he thought sourly, the break couldn't last forever. The work on case of Paul Duval had to be resumed.

The case, while boring at first sight, peaked Collard's interest for two main reasons: first of them was the deceased: Paul Duval. This name was already known to Daniel, since just four days earlier his friend, Anne Dupont was asking for him. What a strange coincidence. After all, how could he possibly know that next day after their talk he will be assigned to investigate this case?

Anne… Daniel smiled at the mere thought of his friend. This acquaintance started during one of very few student parties, in which he participated and it turned out to be surprisingly lasting. Three years younger than he, she was the best – and actually the only person from that party whose worldview was very close to his. The only thing that really disturbed him in Anne was her strong interest in computers, which was, in his opinion, way stronger than average, being on the verge of addiction.

For what he had known, Duval was Anne's close friend – she mentioned him several times before.

Apparently, he was also interested in computers, Daniel thought with amusement. The records were clear in that subject – the deceased was a computer scientist, working for a rather well known company called Atlantis, the one producing all kinds of security and surveillance devices. He wasn't connected in any way with MJ-12 and his criminal records were clean… well, almost. A quite recent update immediately caught Collard's attention and it was the second reason of his interest.

The entry mentioned a major hack into the network. Apart from the fact, that it was classified as a Level 1 – i.e. the highest – threat and the time of the attack, the entry didn't give any more specific information. But a Level 1 threat…

"Is it that easy to hack a supercomputer? Maybe I should try as well?" the inspector concluded dryly.

The time… If his data was accurate, it happened just two hours before Duval got killed. Could his unauthorized presence outside his place of residence be connected with the hack?

Daniel could bet it was. But he had to prove this. He concluded that he will have to do two things: question Anne and search Duval's flat.

Exactly in that order.

Robert was nervous. He tried to contact Anne, but to no avail. Last time he saw her four days ago – it was the last Sunday, when she told him about Paul's death.

On Monday he sent her an e-mail which, even for someone with strongest censor leanings, couldn't be by any means regarded as subversive. He was just asking her, whether she could lend him a certain book. Although in these times reading traditional books might be seen as an eccentricity it still wasn't a reason to regard the message as dangerous.

His concern was even greater given the fact that he called her, but she answered neither her home phone nor cellular phone.

Streets have become much safer these days, but there was still a possibility that something bad might have happened to her. And the likelihood of this possibility was pretty high, Robert realized with fright, as he recalled their conversation in the club. He remembered there was someone, who was very interested in their conversation.

"Damn!"

His head hurt from the amount of speculations. He felt that the longer he was friends with Paul and Anne the more paranoid he was becoming. It took some time, before Robert started to share their views. Initially, he didn't want to have anything in common with any conspiracies. He didn't care who was running the world. He just wanted to do his job and be left alone, happy enough with the fact that he has a job and clean records.

But one day something happened that changed his attitude. Not only he started to care, but he also started to actively rebel against the order, by hacking to the detriment of MJ12.

Two years earlier Paul managed to hack into one of Versa-Life mainframes and learn that the Grey Death virus was engineered by those who produced the cure. Robert was shown the data and it left no room for doubts. The impact was even greater by the fact that at that time this disease took his elder sister.

No… even now he couldn't think about it calmly. Besides, the feeling of helplessness infuriated him. He took a mug lying nearby and flung it vehemently against the opposite wall.

Paul was dead and now Anne was missing. Now it was Robert's task to find out what happened.

After the fury, anxiousness and sorrow flew through him, his mind finally switched to an analytical mode. Now, taking advantage of this newfound state of clarity, he started to form a plan – a risky plan.

He just hoped his instincts won't fail him this time.