"The problem is," Redding said, "we don't know how far the PuH-19 had spread through him when he wrote this. All this could be nonsense. It might have made sense to him at the time, but we have to at least consider it's meaningless." Redding caught Fisher's eye and grimaced. "Sorry, Sam, no offense."

"None taken. You're right; it's possible."

"Maybe," Grimsdottir said, tapping a pencil on the table, "but maybe not." She turned around, walked to a computer workstation, and started tapping keys. They watched her in silence for a couple minutes, and then Lambert said, "Grim . . ."

"Hang on . . . Okay, thought so." She curled an index finger at them, and they walked over and clustered around the monitor. On-screen was a Discovery Channel website article entitled "The Lost Sunstar."

. . . a mystery that has remained unsolved for almost sixty years. TheSunstar , a civilian version of the World War II Curtiss C-46 Commando transport plane owned by millionaire geologist-adventurer Niles Wondrash, took off from Mwanza, Tanzania, on the evening of November 17, 1949, with his manservant Oziri. TheSunstar , flown by Wondrash himself, never reached its destination, Addis Ababa, nine hundred miles to the north in Ethiopia. Extensive search and rescue efforts failed to find any trace of Wondrash and theSunstar . They had simply vanished from existence . . .

Lambert straightened up and whistled softly. "I'll be damned."

Grimsdottir said, "I knew those words sounded familiar."

"Those numbers," Fisher said. "The first two before the dash match the year Wondrash disappeared. The others--two sets of seven numbers divided by a slash--latitude and longitude?"

"Could be," Redding said. "What about the other words--'Red . . . tri . . . my . . . cota'?"

"No idea," Grimsdottir said. "I'll have to do some digging. But here's the real shocker, boys," she added, hands flying over the keyboard as she brought up Google, typed a word, and hit ENTER. She pointed triumphantly to the screen, which displayed a genealogy website's database. "Wondrash's manservant . . . Oziri? That's a traditional Kyrgyz name."

" WHATwe have to decide," Lambert said as they retook their seats around the conference table, "is whether any of this is worth pursuing. Grim, where do we stand on putting the puzzle together?"

Grimsdottir sighed and spread her hands. "Stewart's gone, sunk in six thousand feet of freezing water, along with any evidence we might have found on Site 17; right now, we have zero leads on Carmen Hayes; Chin-Hwa Pak and his cohorts have disappeared. I'm still working on both Legard's and Bakiyev's financials and data dumps Sam got, as well as the intercepts I got from Ingonish, but . . . In a word, we're dead in the water."

"On the other hand," Redding said, "we've got Peter's doodle letter, which turns out to be not as disjointed as we thought--"

Grimsdottir interrupted. "And those numbers could be lat and long coordinates. They do match up with real sites--one in Tanzania and one in Kenya--"

"And we've got Oziri, which isa connection to Kyrgyzstan, albeit a tenuous one. Or it could be a dumb coincidence and mean nothing."

There was a long ten seconds of silence around the table, and then Lambert turned to Fisher. "Sam?"

"It all comes down to what we know and what we're left with. We know Bolot Omurbai and the North Koreans are working together. What that is, we don't know, but you can be sure it's not pretty, and it's not going to stop on its own. We also know every lead we've uncovered so far came from Peter's investigation. And what's in this letter"--Fisher nodded toward the cellophane sleeve in the center of the table--"was important enough that it was probably one of the last things Peter did before he died. With nothing else to go on, I say we see where it takes us."

Lambert considered this, then nodded. "I agree. How's your Swahili?"

"Niliumwa na papasi. Kichwa kinauma,"Fisher replied.

"Wow, I'm impressed," Grimsdottir said. "What's it mean?"

"I have been bitten by a centipede. I need to see the doctor."

Lambert sighed heavily, trying to hide a smile, and shook his head. "Okay, let's find you a cover." He reached for the phone.

28

NAIROBI, KENYA

FISHERtapped the driver on the shoulder, who turned and looked back over the seat. Bob Marley's "Trenchtown Rock" blasted from the front seat's speakers, vibrating the taxi's doors. On the upside, the Peugeot's air conditioner worked like an industrial freezer, chilling the interior to sixty-five degrees. Fisher, in a short-sleeve shirt and cargo shorts, had been wearing goose bumps on his forearms and thighs since leaving the airport.

"Pull over here."

"Eh?"

Fisher pointed toward the curb. "Here!"

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

The driver pulled over. Fisher counted out four hundred Kenyan shillings--about six dollars--and handed it to the driver, then grabbed his backpack and climbed out onto the sidewalk--what passed for a sidewalk here--a shelf of dirt about four inches higher than the dirt street. Fisher felt the heat enshroud him like a quilt straight from a dryer. With a wave of his arm, the driver pulled away in a geyser of oily blue smoke, Bob Marley shaking the windows.

Fisher looked around to get his bearings. If he was reading the map correctly--which was hand-drawn and blurred by a static-filled fax line--he was standing on Bukumbi Road. Despite a population of nearly two million and a cosmopolitan reputation, Nairobi off the main thoroughfares felt much smaller, with few buildings over five stories and little of the glitz and glitter that usually accompanies modern architecture. As Kenya's capital, Nairobi was the country's cultural, economic, and political hub.

A trio of giggling black children--two girls and a boy--ran down the sidewalk toward him, dodging and weaving as they tried to catch a chicken, then stopped suddenly. They stared up at him, wide-eyed, mouths agape.

Fisher smiled. "Jambo,"he said.

For a few seconds the children continued to ogle him, then one of the little girls offered a tentative smile; her teeth were perfect and white. " Jambo. Good day, sir."

"Your English is very good," Fisher said.

"Thank you, sir."

"I'm looking for someone. Can you help me?" The little girl nodded, and Fisher said, "Her name is Alysyn Wallace--"

"Miss Aly?"

Fisher nodded.

Behind him Fisher heard a woman say, "You've found me, I'd say."

Fisher turned around. The woman the kids had called Miss Aly wore khaki Capri pants and a blue T-shirt bearing the U.S. Air Force logo and the words, ALL AIR FORCE BILLIARDS CHAMPION. Her mouth seemed perpetually on the edge of a wry smile.

Fisher nodded. "Sam."

She extended her hand, and Fisher shook it. "Aly," she said. "Run along children, your chicken is getting away." With waves and giggles, the children scampered away.

"Ahsante,"Fisher called.

"You are welcome, sir," the little girl answered over her shoulder.