Looks like those of you who said that CANYON EAGLE was chosen as an anagram for Angela Noyce were right. I didn’t know what else to do, so I’ve been trying random rearrangements of the letters in the names of the other scientists on the Wildfire team, and just came across another working access code for the Wildfire:

LEBANON CHARTER

This time it’s for Dr. Barton. She looks about the same as she did in the article announcing her departure from the CDC a few years ago, but it also says that she still has a husband and two children residing in San Francisco.

For their sake and ours, I hope she knows what she’s doing.

Still no progress on gaining access to the Wildfire intranet, but I do have a little bit more background establishing a connection between two of the scientists on Stone’s team. One of you sent me a PDF of this abstract from an article that Noyce and Barton apparently co-authored last year:

(view as PDF)

I can’t access the rest of the article, and I doubt I’d understand it if I did, but from what it says here, they’ve worked together to contain diseases before. Makes sense that Stone would want them on his top-secret “Wildfire” team: they’re used to working under pressure.

Also, I haven’t mentioned it lately, but I want you all to know that I appreciate your support. And while Kristen is definitely supportive, I think this whole thing — especially the blog — is starting to make her uncomfortable. Since then, I’ve been trying not to talk to her about this as much… which makes me grateful that I’ve got all of you.

No major leads yet on the three scientists Stone named for his top-secret team. Everything I’ve been able to find seems to point in the same direction: all three went missing around the same time Stone did. As well as I can figure, that must mean that his plan for addressing major bio-threats was put into effect within 24 hours of whatever happened in Piedmont.

There are the only tangible things I’ve found so far… First this, in 1998:

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And then this, four years later, in 2002:

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Not sure if that really tells me anything. She’s apparently a famous pathologist, though I don’t know what makes a pathologist different from an immunologist, or an epidemiologist, or any other specialized scientist for that matter. Whatever she does, it looks like she’s pretty good at it: major positions at both the CDC and in San Francisco.

If I can find more, I’ll post it.

In the meantime, does anyone have anything else on Noyce or Chou, or theories on why Stone might have requested these particular scientists for his team?

Also, a few readers have made some progress in deciphering the hidden message from Wheezer’s audio file… with luck, I’ll know exactly what he said soon.