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suddenly fully focused on what Heather had to say. "The government? Don't you mean the police closed the highway?"
"No, I mean the government. The news reporters were going nuts about it. A nine-one-one call was made to the Espanola police just before one a.m. last night. The caller claimed to be the terrorist Abdul Aziz."
"The one that killed the scientist and his family in Los Alamos last fall?" Jennifer gasped.
"Yep. Anyway, he claimed that a terrorist attack was about to happen and gave the location. The Espanola Police sent several squad cars toward the spot before calling the state police and sheriff’s department. Although the report said a member of the Santa Clara Tribal Police ended up getting there first."
"So what happened?" Mark asked.
"A truck had been ambushed on the highway and two people killed. It was a big mess."
"Why was the government interested?"
"They said the truck contained sensitive US government equipment. The military kicked the local cops off the site and took control of the entire area."
"They kicked the local cops off the crime scene?" Jennifer asked.
"Yes."
"I bet they were mad as hell," Mark laughed.
"They didn't say so, but the policeman being interviewed didn't look happy about it. The FBI agent wasn't looking too pleased either."
Mark looked puzzled. "You mean they even had the FBI blocked? I didn't think that was possible."
Heather shrugged. "It sure had the press spun up. The only thing they could get out of the military spokesman was the same line about the classified cargo on the truck requiring special security measures. But there was something else."
Heather paused, rewarded almost immediately with a look of annoyance on Mark's face.
"Which was? Christ, Heather, if I'm going to have to pull the story out of you piece by piece, this is going to take all day."
"Someone in the Espanola Police Department leaked the nine-one-one tape to the media. They played it on the air. Talk about creepy. On the tape, Abdul Aziz mentioned that he was going to steal something from the Rho Project."
A gasp from Jennifer reminded Heather of the other twin's presence.
"And," Heather continued, "he said that the police should collect blood samples from the dead men. Aziz warned them not to share the samples with the government."
Mark, whose mouth had fallen open, closed it with a snap. "Holy crap. Aziz must know about the nanites. Did they say any more about the blood or what was on the truck?"
"The government spokesman just said that this was typical terrorist propaganda, lies designed to fool the Muslim faithful into believing wild conspiracy theories."
Mark had begun pacing back and forth beside the cold fusion tank. "But how could Aziz know that the Rho Project is working with alien nanotechnology? His people couldn't have intercepted one of our messages. We put those directly onto the NSA SIPRNet using the subspace transmitter."
"They must have an agent inside the NSA," said Heather.
"Oh, that is just great," said Jennifer. "The NSA director and his top computer scientist are dead, and now you think there may be a double agent on the team?"
Heather was surprised to see that her own hands were shaking. She clasped them together, hoping that Mark had not observed her nervous reaction to this line of thought.
"I don't know." The probabilities that cascaded through her mind for each of the possibilities were small. "Something doesn't add up. I just can't put my finger on what’s wrong."
Mark stopped pacing, turning to stare directly into Heather's eyes. "What about the quantum twin bug I put into Janet's laptop? Those two are bound to know something. I think it’s time we checked it out."
Jennifer rose to her feet so rapidly that she almost knocked over her chair. "Are you insane? Jack and Janet won't be able to detect a transmission, but that doesn't mean they can't detect the fact that files on the computer have been accessed."
"That's exactly why we have a computer whiz