David Golemon - Legend

As they watched, the camera footage went dark and then cleared and the two people became larger. The quality was now much better.

"Again, Pete, tighter, concentrate on the girl, the right image," Niles ordered as he stepped closer to the large monitor.

The picture on the screen fragmented again and then came together line by line until the smiling face of a young woman covered most of the screen.

Without turning to the others sitting at the conference table, Niles said, "You're all excused with the exception of Major Collins."

Questions were mumbled, but they all left their lunch and gathered their notes and walked out of the conference room. Even Alice left, though she knew the director well enough to know that Niles had spotted something that had caught him off guard and stunned him.

Jack stood up and walked to where Niles was standing.

"Major, we have a whole new priority here."

"What is it?"

"The girl, her name wasn't on the manifest, at least not her real name," he said as he stepped up to the monitor for a closer look. "If that's who I think it is, this Event has taken on a whole new, nightmarish perspective."

Carl immediately recognized Danielle Serrate. Her red hair was up but her features, despite her having a little more makeup on, had the same model beauty as before. She saw Carl and for some reason he felt gratified that she had recognized him. He was dressed simply in slacks and a short-sleeved blue shirt. He stepped up to her and took her suitcase from her hand.

"Ms. Serrate, you're looking…a bit cleaner."

"You have a singular wit about you, Commander," she said as she gave him the once-over.

"I'm like that, singular and witty," he said as he started for the door. "If you don't mind, ma'am, we have a busy day ahead of us."

"May I ask our destination?" she asked, catching up with the much taller officer.

"You may ask," he said as he flagged down marine corporal Sanchez, who would be accompanying them to Stanford. Carl lifted the trunk lid and laid her case inside, then paused. "Is there anything you would like to retrieve from your luggage?" he asked with his hand still on the trunk.

She smiled and opened the rear door of the rented Chevrolet. "No, I have everything I could possibly need," she said significantly as she entered the car.

Carl slammed the trunk and walked to the other side of the car and climbed in. Her answer meant that she wasn't armed. He wouldn't push the point of the illegality of her having a weapon even if it were still hidden in her suitcase; after all, he wouldn't like it if someone took his toys away if he visited France.

"Again, I'll ask you our destination." She looked at Carl over her sunglasses.

He tapped Corporal Sanchez on the back of his shoulder, signaling him to drive.

"Stanford University," he said curtly. "And I want you to know, I was 'volunteered' for this assignment."

"I look forward to spending time with you also, Commander."

Carl could see her mocking smile in the reflection of the window.

Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III was deep in thought. He had been staring at the same CT scan for the last twenty minutes. He had compared the latest shots to that of the sample of material in the electron microscope. He couldn't figure it out. The film was cloudy around the third finger of the fossil, as if the film had a flaw in it. But it was the same on the first set of scans they had done. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought someone was playing a joke on him.

"Heidi, would you look at this please?" he asked, handing over the film.

Heidi Rodriguez took the X-ray and reviewed it. "Looks like bad film; is this a shot of the claw's third digit?"

"Yes, it is, but the same thing happened on the first CT scan, look," he said as he held out the second set of film. "And if you would take a look at this also," he said, pointing to a monitor that was connected to the electron microscope.

Heidi looked from the film to the monitor. "All I see is bone, Professor. Are you seeing something different?" she asked, looking closer.

"Right here, that spec, that isn't bone," he said, using a pencil to point out a black object that couldn't be seen with the naked eye.

"Dirt, or sand perhaps," she said.

"It's right in the area where the CT scan didn't take. It's as if the entire area was wiped clean."

"Interference?" she asked.

"I don't know, probably just coincidence. It does look like an outside contaminant, sand probably. It must have been placed there postmortem. But let's get some more film on it. If the blur continues to be in the same area, it may indicate a malfunction in the scanner itself, either that or our ancient friend here has been playing around with a radioactive isotope."

He glanced up but saw Heidi wasn't smiling at his small joke. Instead she was looking at the monitor with renewed interest.

"This is no flaw in the film or the machine," Heidi said as she looked closer at the image. "And you're right, Professor, the only thing that could cause this effect is…" she paused, "radioactivity."

An hour and a half after he picked his burden up in San Jose, Carl waited while a janitor let him and Danielle into the classroom that had been left vacant for the summer by the departure of Helen Zachary and almost a quarter of her students. The university's security department, after examining Carl's falsified identification, hadn't hesitated to cooperate. Oh, the FBI ID card was real enough, but the bureau had no idea that the Event Group had been authorized to issue them to nonbureau personnel by the president of the United States.

"Nothing more eerie than a classroom with no students in it," Danielle said as she looked around at the empty lab tables and displays.

"Especially one with a bunch of animal skeletons," Carl said, half smiling. "Here's the professor's private office." He tried the knob and found it locked.

Danielle stepped forward and eased Carl out of the way. She produced a small device; spreading its thin, wirelike probes, she easily slid it into the door's lock and jiggled. There was a click. Danielle turned the knob and the door opened.

"Standard issue?" he asked.

"Every woman should have one," she said as she stepped into the office and turned on the light.

Carl felt as though control of their small investigation had suddenly changed leadership.

Several filing cabinets had been left standing open. Danielle looked closely at one of the locks and called Carl over.

"What do you think of this?" she asked.

He could see small gouges in the chromed steel of the lock around the mechanism's opening. "It's been picked," he said. "Someone has cleaned this place out."

"I agree. Whatever your professor had here is now in the possession of another," she stated as she perused the maps on the wall. "Her interests in South America are clear nonetheless," she said as she traced a finger along the Amazon.

Carl opened his cell phone to call Niles but its indicator showed the signal strength was very low. He closed the phone, picked up the receiver of the office's desk phone, and listened for the dial tone. On a hunch, he punched the number nine and a new tone told him he had an outside line. Then he placed a cup-size instrument over the earpiece of the phone. Danielle recognized it as a programmed descrambler.

"Can't get a signal in here, so I have to be careful what I say. This won't be a secure line, at least on our end." It had taken Everett a few seconds to close his cell phone, enough time to allow a bad guy to track his usage number if the signal was bugged.