Jensen hated being sick. The only thing he hated more than being sick was being in the hospital and the only thing worse than being in the hospital was being in the hospital on Christmas, in isolation with the rest of his team and it being completely his fault.
The 'with the rest of his team' part wasn't that bad. At least he had company, but they hall had places they'd rather go, and more importantly people they'd rather see and then there was the 'all his fault' part of the equation.
Still, there were a lot of ways things could have been worse, and Jensen was all too aware of them. First, and foremost, in his mind was the fact that he could have been shot. Oddly second to that option was being dead, but the first thought that came to his mind was having been shot, and in the hospital on Christmas day, in isolation, like his teammate Carlos 'Cougar' Alvarez.
Cougar was cocooned within the isolation ward behind yet another set of isolation doors, this for his protection not the rest of the team's. No, having been shot and exposed to biological weapons meant that the pathogens had a much easier time making it into his blood stream and that meant keeping him as far away from the contamination as possible.
He couldn't bring himself to look at his friends, all too aware of the fact that he'd let them down. Now his files and the pathogen itself were in the hands of others and all he could do was wait.
#
Warrant Officer Mia Stephensen sat in the computer lab staring at the isolation equipment and the computer stored within. The bio team had been over the device and already retrieved the data for her, but the equipment intrigued her.
While her diagnostics ran she had too much time to think, and for Mia that was a bad thing. She didn't mind being in the lab Christmas Eve, well technically it was now Christmas Morning but for Mia it was another day without her husband.
Ian had been deployed on some 'balloon going up' mission and she knew there was nothing either one of them could do about it. Granted her deployments were more on the level of … " Mrs. Stephensen, I don't care how long this takes you, I need it ASAP," which could mean anything from a few hours to a few days in the lab, strung out on caffeine and junkfood, but they ended up pretty much the same way: not enough time together.
She knew the boys in bio were doing everything they could to identify the pathogens, and it was her duty to unencrypt the data and take it from that angle.
The only thing was, she was still working on getting to the actual encrypted files the team had retrieved. The first time she'd asked for the passwords, she'd been denied being told that the team was still in debrief. The second time she was told it was above her pay grade… the third time she handed the CO a Bluetooth keyboard. That had intrigued him enough to actually listen to her.
The conversation had been a bit brusque, but at least there had been a conversation. Once she was in touch with the right people, the ones who looked at her status instead of her rank, she had gotten somewhere.
"What is this, Cheif?"
"It's a Bluetooth keyboard sir."
"I know it's a keyboard, why are you handing it to me as part of your request?"
"Since I am not allowed into the computer that has the data, or in this case the forensic copy of the computer in question, unless I can break the encryption, and… since the person who's computer I'm trying to get into is here, on post… and I'm not allowed to ask him for the password… perhaps… you could have someone give him the keyboard, let him open the copy of his computer, send me the file I need to decrypt, thereby keeping his secrets, secret, and saving about twenty hours that may very well prove futile."
"Why would your work prove futile?"
"Sir, encryption isn't like setting a lock, and any locksmith can, with enough time and the correct tools pick the lock. Encryption is more like… "She paused trying to come up with a good analogy.
"It's like setting up an encampment's defenses. You have the perimeter with a sentry point, where the proper pass code will get you entry, but then you have to go through layers of defenses and check points to even get close to the data you want. "
"And you could try going around the sentry point but then you're got claymore's and a kill zone and even if you can get through all of that—that's just the first layer, and unless you know the type of person setting up the defenses you could trigger something that would destroy the whole camp rather than let you in, or trigger a magician's trick where the data simply falls through and you find out your target was an illusion all the while and the magician is sitting on the hill laughing at you."
"And you don't want to be laughed at?"
"Sir, it's Christmas. You've got some sort of 'situation' involving biological and I'm guessing by the fact that I'm here means that the information I'm trying to retrieve can provide the same answers, or clues that can speed things up.
I'm the only person in my lab working on this, and I've been told that the person whose machine this is, is being 'debriefed,' it means he is here, if not necessarily available. His computer is in an isolation chamber and the bio boys handled it and got me the forensic copy I'm working on. If his computer's contaminated, odds are 'debrief' means iso, and iso means anything he has inside will most likely be destroyed."
"Therefore?"
"Therefore we sent him a thirty five dollar piece of equipment, rather than several hundred dollars' worth of computer. We keep the computer outside the ward where he can access it via the keyboard, that gives me the data I need to decrypt, doesn't compromise his computer and… if he's up to it, allows him to work the problem from his end."
"But couldn't the wireless keyboard's transmission be intercepted?"
"Good point," she admitted then smiled. "But bluetooth has a range of 10 meters. Not enough to be intercepted outside the ward, and the connection in this case is encrypted. Only the paired computer can read his input."
"Will it interfere with the monitor equipment on the ward?"
"It shouldn't, but to be honest it's never been fully researched. We'd have to compare it to all the equipment in transmission range."
"And you?"
"Sir, I'm here for the duration. My husband is in on assignment in Los Estados de Yousneezistan and to be honest, working is the best form of therapy."
"Fair enough, I'll see that he gets the equipment."
"Thank you, Sir."
#
Jensen was tired of staring out the window, but it was the only place where he couldn't see the results of his failure; the only place where accusing eyes would not meet his.
He could hear the others talking behind him. He did his best to tune them out, but some words still managed to get through. "Stupid." "We could lose Cougar." "All because of some idiot."
Each one felt like a knife in his heart until he turned and faced the others.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I should have been more careful with the weapon…"
To his shock, the looks that greeted him weren't angry or accusing. If anything, they were relieved.
"Jensen," Clay said moving closer until they were standing face to face. "This. Was not your fault. This is because some idiot wanted to extort a small fortune by threatening to destroy the world. If you haven't found the device and brought it with us, there's no telling how many people would have died."
"You're not mad?"
"Jensen, believe me, I'm mad. I'm angry, but not at you."
Jensen felt his pulse flip flop as he finally allowed himself to ride the roller coasters of emotions that he'd suppressed over the last 72 hours.
"Some madman has hurt my team physically," he said nodding towards Cougar, and emotionally. He said nodding towards Jensen. "He's taken us away from our families, but our families will be safe because you, you Jensen, stopped him."
"But now…"
"Now we regroup, we do what we can and we wait."
#
There were many things that could be said about Jake Jensen, but 'he was a patient man' was not one of them. It always struck Clay as odd that someone was impatient as Jensen had ended up best friends with the team's most patient man, Cougar.
Of course, it would take someone with the patience of a sniper to deal with Jensen when he was at his worst, which he was quickly approaching. The relief at having Jensen back on board was quickly giving way to annoyance when the technician came in with a few things 'to make them more comfortable.'
Thankfully the first item in their 'care package' was a keyboard.
Clay watched as Jensen immediately perked up and focused, but as he tore through the rest of the package he grew more and more frantic. Finally Clay had stepped forward and placed a hand on Jensen's shoulder before he destroyed everything else.
"Jensen," he said with every ounce of command he held. "Breathe."
He waited until Jensen had calmed down and reason once again shone in the man's eyes. "What are you looking for?"
"The rest of the computer," Jensen answered, forcing himself to remain in one place.
The effort was not wasted on Clay as he turned towards the orderly who'd delivered the package. "Where is the rest of the computer?"
The man paused then nodded towards the window. Through the glass they could see a bespectacled woman was piecing together the equipment in question.
Clay turned and was forced to suppress a smile at the way Jensen lovingly held the keyboard and anxiously watched as the woman finished her connections and set the computer where he could see it.
#
Jensen could feel his breathing finally relax as he realized he was going to be able to do something about their situation. Even if it was a placebo effect it was something he could do. As the woman finished her work and turned, she smiled and nodded towards the phone that would allow them to communicate.
Jensen immediately picked up and began talking. "I'm assuming that's a forensic copy of my machine," he began. "Exact copy?"
"As exact as biologists can be with canned software," the woman answered. There was no exchange of pleasantries, no introductions. They merely accepted each other for what they were: specialists in their fields.
"What are you thinking?"
"Once you're on If you can release a copy of the files we need to work on, we can split the work, leapfrog our findings."
"Have you found anything yet?"
"That it's above my pay-grade and this is the funniest looking debrief I've ever seen," she answered glumly. After a few moments she smiled and nodded. "You know your thing when it comes to creating security. Hopefully they weren't as good."
As they spoke, Jensen had turned on the keyboard and released the files as requested. "Sending a copy to the flash drive now," he said as they continued to discuss their tactics. "If you can start the full diagnostics, I'll see what I can do going head to head with it. I saw their physical security and I think I have a feel for the way they've done things."
She nodded. "I'll let you know if and when I find anything, check back then or in an hour?"
"Sounds good."
Jensen knew this wasn't going to be easy, but at least now there was something he could do, something he could work on. If they could figure out what they had been exposed to, they had a chance of manufacturing a cure, or better yet, finding out what the cure was.
He hoped the man had planned ahead, but someone willing to create such a monstrosity wasn't always the most stable of individuals. Even as he began to work he could feel the warning signs of coming down with something.
He tried to tell himself it was just his imagination, but when Roque sneezed, he knew it was a lot worse then he'd imagined.
He concentrated on the task at hand. There had to be something, it couldn't end like this.
#
An hour later the woman was back, tablet in hand.
"It wasn't any of the standard algorithms," she confirmed, pausing long enough to study Jensen. "But you already knew that didn't you?"
"I suspected it," Jensen answered. "It's good… to…"
His sentence was interrupted by a powerful sneeze. He nodded in appreciation as Clay draped a blanket over his shoulders. Things were getting worse.
"So… what's next?"
He could see the concern in her expression, but also recognized the fact that she would work the problem as long as it took. He nodded.
"When you rule out all the possibilities, whatever's left, no matter how implausible…"
He watched as she stared off into the distance looking at the back of his computer rather than at him, and a few minutes later he realized he'd been doing the same.
"Compound encryption," she said still staring at his monitor.
"Double Key, public and private," he suggested and then shook his head. "We need to figure out the base of the encryption or the information that was encrypted so we can check our results."
He paused as he thought about it then tilted his head. "Chemical formula?"
She almost whistled appreciatively then nodded in agreement. "The tools are looking for language not formula. We'll have to retool."
"Can you…"
She nodded. "I've got access to the data. I'll get sample equasions for comparison. You work on the formula."
"Hour?"
"Hour."
#
Mia stood and shook her hands out. Stretching her neck she looked at the database she'd been working on. She'd tabulated sets of chemical formulae, DNA encoding… anything she could think of that could be involved in the case.
She looked at the clock and realized she had five minutes left. She quickly tossed in two more chemical formulas and headed back to the isolation ward.
By the time the woman returned Jensen was feeling woozy and his nose was running like a faucet, but he had the routine updated to use her data samples. He gave her as encouraging a smile as he could, all things considered.
"Why don't you take a break," he said nodding towards the computer. "It's going to take a while to run and it might be good to…"
"Focus on something else so we don't become short sighted?"
He nodded.
"Do you like cupcakes?"
Jensen smiled as his stomach let out a plaintive growl, which made the woman laugh. "I'll take that as a yes."
"See you in an hour?"
"Sounds like a plan."
#
Jensen watched as the utility scanned the possible encryption methods against the new profiles. Instead of looking for, and checking, for words and numerical sequences, the utility was using chemical and mathematical formulas, scientific notation and, to his surprise and approval, DNA sequences.
By the time the analysis run finished he was feeling woozy and more than a little nauseous. He looked around and found that Rouqe was looking like he felt and that meant that something was catching. On the bright side, Clay and Pooch weren't looking half bad.
He gave a sympathetic smile to Roque who merely nodded towards the keyboard. "Just find us a cure."
It was all the encouragement he needed. That and cupcakes.
He could smell them as soon as the airlock door opened and the scent was enough to make him feel better. It even made Roque perk up.
He could read the question in his teammate's eyes long before the orderly started handing them out. Cupcakes were not your typical 'isolation' treatment.
Jensen smiled and nodded towards the window where the woman stood with her tablet.
"Any luck?" She asked.
Jensen turned back, cupcake in hand and nodded as he reviewed his results. "We aren't quite there, but we're close," he told her nodding towards the screen. "
As the woman looked at the screen he took his first bite of the cupcake. His eyes widened in appreciation.
"My god… I want to marry this cupcake," he muttered to himself as he took another bite then gave the woman a longing look. "Marry me?"
She gave him a startled look at then realized he was talking about the cupcakes. "Sorry, not possible, but you can hire me as your baker."
"Deal."
When she turned back to the screen he tilted his head. "What are you thinking?"
"We're talking biological right?"
"Y-es," he answered drawing it out as he again scanned the results. "You're thinking Biochem?"
She nodded. "And bio is usually bacterial or…"
"Or viral," He finished with a nod. "And viral isn't DNA…"
"It's RNA," she said in agreement. "Good thinking. I'll set up the new parameters, you tweak the code?"
"Code's already tweaked," he answered with a smile. "I figured we might be doing this for a while and recoding each time is a pain. How long for the sample?"
"I can have RNA set up in about 20 minutes, get that to you then start on the biochem?"
Jensen nodded. "And…"
"Yes?"
"Cookies would be nice?"
She rewarded Jensen with a laugh. "We get you boys out of there, I will go through my entire pastry repertoire. "
#
True to her word, the woman was back in twenty minutes with the first file for Jensen. He knew she could have just sent it to him, but he also understood the need to stretch your legs and not lose sight of why you were doing something.
She also managed to keep his spirits up as he prepared for another run through the data profile she'd provided.
He could tell from her expression that he was looking worse, hell, he was feeling worse and all it took was one look at Roque and he knew it was bad. The LT was sitting up in bed, bundled up in his covers staring daggers at anyone who came too close not that that was too much different than any time he was in the hospital, but the orderlies didn't know that.
With the promise of more data and cookies, the woman had left him alone with his computer. It was going to be a long afternoon.
The orderlies were back for yet another period of blood collection and throat cultures when the woman returned. By then Jensen was feeling miserable and it was all he could do to remain upright.
The fever chills had gotten worse and he was alternating freezing and being too hot. Through it all Clay and Pooch remained completely unaffected by whatever it was that had downed their teammates and Jensen knew the lab boys were having a field day with that.
As he set things up to process the woman gave him a stern look and nodded towards the table next to him. "Have you been drinking?"
"What?" he asked then shook his head. They hadn't allowed alcohol in there. Then he looked up at her and gave her a sheepish look. "Probably not enough."
She nodded to the cup and ordered him to drink, sounding more and more like his sister as she spoke. As he reached for the cup his attention was drawn back to his computer as it lit up and let out the strains of the 1812 Overture.
The sound was everything he'd hoped for and he let out a war whoop as the encryption routine identified the encryption method and translated the file. He quickly transferred the file to the USB drive and gave the woman a satisfied smile.
She returned the smile then, when he dismounted the drive she took it and ran it to the lab.
As she disappeared around the corner he let out a small prayer hoping they'd figured it out in time.
#
Clay watched as his men were treated, trying to follow the doctor's explanation but none of it really mattered to him. What mattered were the first words out of the doctor's mouth, "Your men will be all right."
There was something about a virus and the fact that Roque and Jensen had had their tonsils removed as children, and that had left them susceptible.
"But they're not… contagious anymore."
"No, there is no sign of the virus, and as near as we can tell, it had a self-destruct sequence built in."
Clay nodded, thanking the doctor for his time, but his attention had already been drawn to the Warrant Officer heading their way with a very large basket of baked goods and a netbook.
"Mrs. Stephensen," he said waving off a salute. "I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for my men."
"Me, Sir? I didn't do anything, just supplied the tech backup. It was your man all the way."
"I think you under-estimate your part in that, Chief. If nothing else, you kept my man sane."
"Just doing my job, Sir."
He looked at the basket and cocked his head to the side. "And the baking? I don't believe that is part of your 'work'."
"Just a hobby, Sir, and I did promise your man."
Clay smiled. "That you did. Merry Christmas, Chief."
"Merry Christmas, Sir."