Beyond Recall
by
Stephen Kyle


BEYOND RECALL

THE WORLD HELD HOSTAGE

Dr.  Rachel Lesage.  A brilliant and powerful scientist, she commands
total control over every aspect of her life.  But her genius has turned
deadly, love has corrupted into rage, and Rachel Lesage has become--the
threat known only as Artemis ... Tory Farr-Colwell.  Rachel's daughter,
DC's top lobbyist.  When her mother asks her to save the world, Tory
will do anything to help.

Carson Colwell.  Tory's husband, the new FBI chief of counterterrorism.
His first case will lead to unimaginable threats, unimaginable
revelations ... and inconceivable betrayals.

Dr.  Jack Hunt.  Renowned humanitarian with a troubled past, he has
vowed to stop the terrorists who killed his wife--until he is trapped
into helping Artemis, the woman he once loved.

Laurel Hunt.  Jack Hunt's granddaughter.  Her faith in Jack is absolute
... until it's tested.

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BEYOND

RECALL

STEPHEN KYLE

BOOKS

A Time Warner Company

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that
this book may have been stolen property and reported as "unsold and
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publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

WARMER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright 2000 by B.J. Kyle All rights reserved.  No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission
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in the United States of America First Paperback Printing: January
2000Thy god-like crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts
less The sum of human wretchedness.

--Lord Byron, from Prometheus

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My special thanks to the following:

Graeme McRae, Chairman and CEO of Bioniche, Inc., for a tour in the
biotechnology marketplace.

Eike Batiste, Chairman of TVX Gold, Inc."  in Rio de Janeiro, for
factual nuggets about gold mining in Brazil; and Jim Borland for the
contact.

Dr.  James Orbinski of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without
Borders), whose work with this remarkable organization is an
inspiration.

Dr.  Jay Keystone of the Tropical Disease Unit at the Toronto Hospital
and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, for invaluable
assistance with the medical background.

(Any enors in the book are mine alone.) Stephen Lewis, former Canadian
ambassador to the United Nations, for a helpful, wide-ranging
conversation during the planning of this book.

Readers of an early draft, whose comments were so useful:

Sara Best, Clan Morast, Linda Bound, Nika Rylski, Bill Hunt, Anne
Doncaster, David Doncaster, James MacMillan.

Barry Kent MacKay, for his ornithology expertise.

Peter and Maig-Anne Jones and family, for friendship and hospitality at
their enchanting, real-life Swallow Point.

Susan Sandier, my editor at Warner Books, for her thoughtful and
meticulous editorial fine-tuning and Jackie Joiner for shepherding the
final edit.

Al Zuckerman, my agent, whose advice, guidance, and judgment
throughout the planning and writing of this book I deeply appreciate.

Simon Lipskar, my editor, whose spirited collaboration unproved the
book immeasurably; thanks, maestro, for drawing forth the best music I
could make.

Stephen Best, whose clear-eyed view of the world inspired this story
and remains a dynamic standard.

1

the DEADLINE WAS UP.  she WOULD HAVE TO KILL.

Rachel Lesage stopped on the dirt path, furious, and found herself in a
no-man's-land between two worlds.  The path from the ravine had brought
her to the rear lawn of Lesage Laboratories, while behind her lay the
woods.  The peace there--the hush of the trees, dappled sunlight, shy
birds--had given sanctuary from the decision she had to make, but now
there was no more refuge.  The lawn stretched before her with
mono-green precision, purged of every non grass species.  No birdsong,
no shade, no shelter.

Nowhere for her soul to hide.

They had refused, ignored her warning.  It enraged her.  / never wanted
this.

From the front of the building where a casino tent had been set up, the
electric twang of a country band jarred her.

It was Employee Appreciation Day here at her Bar Harbor facility, and
families were picnicking on the front lawn.

More were inside, piling up their plates in the cafeteria, line
dancing in the conference room.  squealing over raffle prizes in the
lobby. Their clamor had driven her to the ravine, though as Lesage
Laboratories' founder and CEO she should be among them, playing host.
Tonight, at the lobster dinner, she must make a speech; tomorrow, in
Dallas, the keynote address at an industry conference.  As a Nobel
laureate she was a speaker much in demand.  But here, now, the deadline
was up... she must act.

She started along the concrete walkway, moving mechanically, feeling
cold despite the glaring sun.  Like an accident victim in shock, was
her detached thought.  She'd always been able to focus her mind
clinically, to analyze phenomena, even her own reactions.

Suddenly, she wasn't sure she could go through with it.

The casino tent rose before her, garish yellow, a fool's idea of gold.
Whoops from people playing blackjack drifted over the parking lot with
a fairground giddiness, and the country singer went on whining out his
heartbreak, his loss.

False emotion.  Rachel knew, because the anguish chilling her was so
profoundly real.

She heard a child's wail.  A little boy, all alone, was squatting in
the parking lot, crying wildly, face red, eyes big with fear.  Rachel
felt a wave of sympathy, surprised by the force of this maternal
response.  It was over thirty years, yet she vividly recalled how her
baby daughter's cry, even from another room, would tug milk beads to
her nipples.  She thought.  Our primitive nervous system is hardwired
for only two types of stimuli: biological needs demanding instant
gratification, or immediate dangers demanding "fight or flight" Nothing
else penetrates.

She crouched before the boy.

"Where's your mother?"

He gaped at her, instantly silent, though fear and confusion still swam
in his eyes, and his breath came in spasms.

He pointed to the tent.

"Daddy."

BEYOND RECALL 3

Gambling regulations barred children from the premises, so his father
had simply left him outside.  Rachel imagined the young man drawn to
the bright tent as instinctively as a moth, as mindlessly as an addict.
Instant gratification.  Hardwired.

An engine revved and a station wagon suddenly reversed toward them.
Rachel snatched the boy up and stepped clear with him as the car
lurched past.  Not noticing them, the driver shunted gears and drove
off, tires squealing.  The boy squirmed in Rachel's unfamiliar arms,
and the moment she set him down he tore away, crying again, running
blindly toward a patch of tall ornamental grass.

Her eyes locked on the high stalks.  The chill snaked out from deep in
her heart as she saw again the tall sorghum grass in the hills above
Kigali.  Saw a wounded boy crawling, bleeding.  Saw herself clawing
over the stony ground, trying to reach him ... her son ... Paul... "Dr.
Lesage!"

Her public relations manager was hurrying across the asphalt.

"Doctor, could we get pictures of you inside the casino?  Maybe playing
the--" "No."  She was staring at the boy.  He was sobbing hysterically,
hands on his head in a pathetic surrender to panic.  He seemed to stand
for all the earth's children abandoned in humanity's greed.  His
desolation galvanized her.  She was resolved.

The deadline had passed.

"Find that child's father," she told the PR man.

"He's in the tent."  She started toward the lab.

In her office she picked up the phone.  She was sickened by what she
was about to set in motion.  But if I falter, I'm worse than the rest.
Denying responsibility, bewailing that nothing can be done.

Something can.

She depressed the numbers: it was done.  The system was activated,
beyond recall.  The day after delivery, thousands would be dead.

An immediate danger.  A primitive stimulus.

The world will take notice now.

2

jack hunt THREW BACK HIS HEAD TO DRAIN a final glass of his wedding
champagne, but since he was laughing, a lot of it was dribbling down
his chin.  Guests crowding the marble foyer clapped rhythmically,
egging him on, and as he raised his empty glass with a flourish, they
cheered.  Grinning, he turned to Marisa.  Gone.  She'd been right
beside him a minute ago.

"Great start," he declared with a laugh.

"Married three hours and already I've lost my wife."

The guests laughed in delight, and Jack played along with the joke on
himself: the bridegroom stranded, though not exactly at the altar.
Marisa's uncle, the senator for Amazonas, was hosting this reception at
his elegant home in Manaus, the metropolis in the heart of the Amazon
jungle, and it seemed as if half of Manaus society had squeezed into
the foyer to see them off.  Still, Jack found himself at the door
alone.

It hit him, right there amid the party chatter, that he hated the idea.
Being alone.  He'd done that for too long.  Made work his whole life
for too long.  At fifty-three he'd never expected to fall in love
again.  Maybe he didn't even deserve to.  But when Marisa Almeida
joined his medical team in the jungle five weeks ago, it happened.
She'd stirred something in his heart he had trained himself, during his
long self-imposed sentence, to live without.  He still felt a quiet
astonishment that she had made a new beginning seem possible.

"I believe," the senator said above the noise, "she went upstairs to
make a call."

Jack couldn't believe it.

"She's on the phone!

More laughter from the guests.  Jack threw up his hands in defeat,
laughing again too.

Until he spotted Gerry Trowbridge's video camera focused on him.  Gerry
and his wife, Liz, documentary makers, had been following him for weeks
from one jungle clinic to another.  The three of them had been friends
ever since they'd chronicled his work for One World Medics in Sudanese
refugee camps eight years ago.  The film had garnered prizes and made
Jack a household name, and when Liz had recently suggested this
follow-up project he'd been glad to cooperate.  But that's work, he
thought now.  This is personal.  And getting embarrassing.  As the two
of them were jostled closer to him by more people crowding in, he
caught Gerry's wicked smile behind the lens, clearly enjoying recording
his discomfort.

"Give me a break, Liz," Jack said under his breath.

"The world doesn't need to see this."

"Oh, don't be such an arrogant son of a bitch," she said lightly.

"Your public will eat it up.  It's cute."

He winced.  Cute?

She laughed, but she took pity and nudged Gerry's beefy arm.  He
finally lowered the camera, grinning.

"You're shameless, you two," Jack said.

"You planning to follow us into the honeymoon suite, too?"

"Nah, boring," Gerry said.

"Won't be up to much, old geezer like you."

"Don't kid yourself, Ger," Uz said.

"Half the women here would kill for one night with this old geezer."

"You blue-eyed devil, you."  Gerry did a parody of a love-struck
matron.

"Oooh, Doctor, take me!"

Jack chuckled.

"Uz, what rock did you find mis guy under?"

"Here's Marisa!"  someone called.

Jack smiled at the sight of her.  Running down the staircase, with her
eyes sparking and her hand hovering over her corsage as protectively as
any girl at me prom, she looked a decade younger than her forty-two
years.

"Sorry!"  she said, breathless as she reached his side.

"Jack, I just talked to Gilberto's mother.  She's ecstatic.  The
antimony derivative worked and he's out of bed.  She says you're a
miracle worker."

He shook his head, marveling.  Who but Marisa would stall her own
honeymoon to check on an eight-year-old leishmaniasis patient in a
jungle squatters' camp?  He slipped his arm around her waist.

"You're the miracle worker," he said.  He'd been assisted by nurses
more highly trained, more efficient, but none as compassionate, as
purely empathetic, as Marisa.  It was her gift, and not just to pa
dents  She had stopped his workaholic life in its tracks with just her
gentleness.  That was me real miracle: he'd been changed.  Only once
before had he known such a feeling, of being changed.  Then, however,
it was a devastation--coming upon his daughter's corpse.  And her
terrified child, so starved with need.  In that moment he'd felt his
selfish, hedonistic existence consuming him like rot The only escape
from its rankness was to step out of his skin.  So he did.  He had
labored since to remake himself.  Maybe, finally, he'd succeeded. Must
have, he thought with a rush of happiness, or Marisa wouldn't be here
beside me.  He bent his head to kiss her.

The guests applauded.  Gerry had the camera going.

Jack made a mock show of sternly marching his bride to the door.

"There'll be no phones on the beach at Santarem."

The fifteen-seat Bandeirante was a rugged Brazilian-built government
plane the senator had made available for their honeymoon.  The pilot
and copilot had the starboard engine roaring as Jack and Marisa climbed
aboard, followed by Liz and Gerry and their Brazilian sound man all
lugging their equipment.  The Bandeirante raced down the runway, lifted
off, and bucked through the turbulence of the cloud cover, rain beading
the windows.  As they broke above the clouds into sunshine, Marisa
snuggled against Jack's shoulder.

"What a wonderful day."

"Damn near perfect."  He squeezed her hand.

"I only wish Laurel could have been there."  His granddaughter--that
terrified child he'd become guardian to--was dear to him.

Eighteen now, and anything but terrified.  Hard to believe she was in
her first year at Boston University.

"Hop a flight," he'd said when he called her from the senator's
house.

"I need you to give me away."

Laurel laughed, but he heard the surprise in her voice at the news.

"Getting married, wow.  That's so cool."

"And so sudden, I know.  Sweetheart, you're going to love Marisa."

But she couldn't get away from her summer job.

"I'll be thinking of you guys, though," she said.

"Bring me back a piece of wedding cake, okay?"

Marisa was looking at him with an amused twinkle.

"I

still can't believe you have a granddaughter in college."

"He was trying to set a record," Geny kidded from the seat ahead of
them, folding his arms to nap.

"World's homiest twelve-year-old."

Jack smiled, but he let the joshing end there.  He'd found marriage and
fatherhood at the age of twenty a disaster, and his daughter's
pregnancy when she was fifteen a horror.

Which had led to worse horrors.  The worst would be his secret to bear
forever.  The nightmare's one bright saving grace had been the outcome:
Laurel.

"Excuse me.  Dr.  Hunt?  Would you mind?"  The young pilot was holding
out a copy of Jack's autobiography.  One World Medic.

"You said you'd sign it."

"Sure thing."  Jack fished in his pocket for a pen.

"Who to?"

"Freddie, that's me.  For Frederico."  Turning to Marisa, he added in
his flawless English, "By the way, Mrs.  Hunt, thanks for the bottle of
champagne."

She said with a wink, "I hope you have someone to share it with this
evening in Santarem."

"No such luck.  After we drop you off we've got to go back for a
pickup."

"Back to Manaus?"  Jack asked, scribbling his signature.

"No, about halfway.  Place called Jazida, gold-mining settlement.

I just got the call.  Got to take someone there to the hospital in
Santarem."

"Why you, back and forth?  There must be other planes in the area.  If
it's an emergency, time's important" "No, they said it's just a bad
case of flu, but the guy's insisting on a hospital.  Anyway, senator's
orders."

"Ah, a patient with pull," Jack said, handing back the book.

Freddie shrugged stoically.

"The senator has a lot of friends."

The plan bothered Jack.  Bad medicine.  He'd seen too many deaths in
jungle towns--everything from ruptured appendixes to
pneumonia--because the victims had waited too long for treatment, often
after a self-diagnosis of "a bad case of flu."

"Look, there's no reason why this patient should have to wait hours for
you to come back.  We should pick him up on our way."  He looked at
Marisa.  After all, it was her wedding day too.

She nodded without hesitation.

"We have plenty of room."

He loved her for mat.

"This is a medical decision," he told me pilot "I'll take
responsibility.  We'll pick up the patient."

Freddie didn't need his arm twisted.

"Yes, sir."  He went back to die cockpit clutching his book.

Jack caught Marisa's sly smile.  He knew what she was thinking: that he
couldn't resist taking charge.  True enough, he had to admit.  For a
decade he'd been leading One World Medics teams into hellholes from
Tajikistan to Bosnia to me Congo.  He hated the misery the powerful
inflicted on the helpless.  Hated what they got away with, the warlords
and famine profiteers and despots.  The helpless bad taught him a
lesson or two about fortitude, though.  At one Angolan field hospital
he'd worked all night with a local nurse assisting him silently but
ably--then, in the morning, he was told that she'd seen two of her
children killed by a land mine just days before.  In country after
country, as Jack faced the warlords in negotiations, he took fierce
satisfaction in forcing concessions: a halt in the shelling, an
agreement to allow refugees access to clean water, me opening of a road
to let medicine in.  Each gain saved lives.  People like that Angolan
nurse and her family.

The great thing--the paradoxical thing--was that Marisa didn't want him
to change; he did.  For her.  Not stop, of course, but slow down, enjoy
life with her.  He was excited about me plans they were making to build
a chalet in Vermont, near Stowe.  Already he could picture them between
missions.  They'd ski, take walks, cook, relax.  Laurel could drive up
to visit.  He smiled to himself.  Who said you couldn't have it all?

He took Marisa's hand.  They'd still get to the Santarem resort around
sunset, and then it would be just the two of them.  These last weeks,
living with the team in tents, they'd only managed twice to find a
quiet spot to make love.  He was looking forward to the hotel, and told
her so.

"Mmm," she agreed.

"It'll be nice to have sheets."

"Nice to have a door."  He kissed her hand, feeling a surge of
contentment.  I am changed, and this is peace.

The engines altered pitch as the plane began its descent.

Jack looked down at the open mine operation, a deep bowl the size of a
couple of football fields hacked out of the jungle.

Hundreds of small, staked claims at varying levels made a
three-dimensional checkerboard, which men were laboring all over,
moving up and down an intricate system of ladders.

A sluggish, stream snaked by the site.  Probably contaminated.  Jack
thought.  Throughout the Amazon basin, mercury and cyanide used in the
mining process had poisoned the waters.  He'd treated a lot of
victims.

Beside the mine was a muddy shantytown, a huddled sprawl of black
plastic lean-tos and wooden shacks in a warren of boggy streets.  The
main street was cratered with potholes, which Jack could plainly see
because the street was lined up beneath the plane; Freddie the pilot
was going to land on it.  A moment later the Bandeirante banged down,
bumping over the potholes.

"Where the hell are we?"  Gerry asked, waking up.

Liz peered out.

"Not in Kansas anymore."

As Jack was explaining the stop, Freddie came out of the cockpit.

"Interesting landing," Jack commented.

Freddie grinned.

"This shouldn't take long.  You all might as well stay cool here in the
air-conditioning."

Jack wanted to stretch his legs.

"I'll come with you."

"Me too," Gerry said.

"Maybe grab a quick beer."

Marisa was already busy organizing space for me patient.

Unfastening her corsage, she pricked her finger on the pin.

"Ouch."

"Need a doctor?"  Jack asked with a mock leer.

She laughed, sucking her fingertip.

Jack, Gerry, and the pilot stepped out into the humid heat.

"I was told to go to the hotel," Freddie said, looking around.

"Wherever that is."

"There."  Gerry pointed to a dilapidated two-story building a block
away.  Jack could just make out its faded sign:

caste lo dos sonhos--the Castle of Dreams--hotel and bar.  Good old
Ger. Liz had once said of him that through seventeen years of filming
wars and disasters together he'd always been able to sniff out a bar.

They started down the street.  It was littered with auto parts and
rotting fruit and dog feces.  Stalls displayed cowboy shirts, soda
cans, comic books.  A shed, the town's movie theater, bore a poster of
Arnold Schwarzenegger nuzzling a revolver, and from a window across the
street came the tinny sound of Rod Stewart wailing "Rebel Heart."

Above it all was the pervasive third-world odor of urine.

Mud-covered men slogged by, going to and from the mine site.
Garimpeiros, pick and shovel miners.  Grim work.  Jack thought.  He
knew most of them would extract no more than a spoonful of gold a
month, just enough to subsist on and keep their dreams alive.

One thing seemed odd.  He didn't see any women.

In the dusty Castelo barroom a scatter of miners were playing cards and
drinking cachacn.  a barely refined cane liquor.  Gerry ordered a shot
at the bar.  Jack declined.  He'd experienced cachaca.  Once was
enough.

"You here for the whore?"  the barman asked in Portuguese.

He wore a Chicago Bulls T-shirt stretched over his beer belly, and
stood eating a plate of beans.  Freddie launched into an exchange with
him.  Jack's grasp of Portuguese was only rudimentary, but he noticed
when Freddie looked mildly startled.

"Problem?"  Jack asked.

"This guy--name's Mendes--says it's one of the hotel girls who's sick.
The owner's favorite.  He's away, but he told Mendes to be sure we get
her to the hospital."

Jack turned to the barman.

"You speak English, Mendes?"

"Some."

"Has a doctor seen the girl?"

Mendes made a wry face that said "A doctor in this dump?"

"Where's the girl?"  Jack asked.

The barman pointed down the hall with his fork.

"First room this side.  Name's Raimunda.  Sick like a dog."

Jack went to have a look.  Knocking on the door, he asked, "Raimunda?"
No answer.  He pushed it open.  The room was dark, the heavy curtains
closed.  A reek of vomit and excrement hung in the stuffy air.  In the
gloom a girl lay unmoving on the sheets, her eyes closed.  About
eighteen, she wore a sleeveless blouse and panties.  Jack came to the
bedside and felt her forehead.  Burning with fever.  She didn't move as
he felt along her throat.  The lymph nodes were enlarged.

He palpated her abdomen.  The spleen was inflamed, as hard as wood.
Classic symptoms of acute viremia.  His mind flashed through a
catalogue of likely viral infections:

Oropouche virus disease, dengue fever, Micambo virus, Guared virus.
Dengue seemed most probable--it was rampant throughout Latin
America--but the other possibilities were legion.  Over four hundred
known viruses occurred in the Amazon.

He needed more light.  He went to the window and opened the curtains.
When he turned back, the girl's eyelids fluttered open and Jack sucked
in a breath of surprise.  The whites of her eyes were crimson, bright
as rubies.  Clumps of her hair had fallen out, and a rash covered her
skin in florid, starlike speckles, even on her scalp.  A thread of
blood oozed from her closed lips, but she stared at the ceiling,
utterly passive.

Suddenly she cried out in a voice shrill with delirium.

Then, just as suddenly, she slumped back into her stupor.

Jack's heart beat faster.  Lassa fever, here?  Or Marburg virus?  Or...
Ebola?  Impossible.  Nobody's seen those filoviruses in humans outside
of Central Africa.  But the symptoms were alarmingly similar.  Memories
flashed of Yambuku, Zaire, in '76.  Dark huts, bloodied corpses,
wailing villagers.

He heard a faint moan from the room across the hall.  He went across
and found two women lying on the large bed, both presenting the same
symptoms as Raimunda, one moaning in delirium, the other comatose,
blood trickling from her nose.

Gerry poked his head in, making a face.

"Whew, what a stench."

"Don't come in!"  Jack pushed him out and shut the door behind them.

Startled, Gerry said, "What's up?"

Some kind of hemorrhagic fever.  Jack knew.  Almost certainly
infectious.  Potentially lethal.  Thank God Marisa and the others
hadn't got off the plane.

"Gerry," he said, "these women have something much worse than flu.  We
can't risk taking them to Santarem.  It could spread the infection.  In
fact, no one in the town should leave."  He added carefully, "Including
us."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was."  If it was an airborne virus, he and Gerry and the pilot
might already be infected.  He added, "Marisa and Liz and your sound
man and the copilot haven't come into contact with the town.  I'm going
to send them out right away."

"Jesus," Gerry muttered, absorbing the shock.  Then he nodded soberly,
accepting Jack's flat "How can I help?"

Jack slapped his shoulder, grateful for such a friend.

"Stick with me.  I'm going to need you."

Back in the bar Jack took Freddie aside and quietly asked if the
copilot could handle taking the plane out.

"Why would he do that?"  Freddie asked.

"Can he?"

"Not without me."

Shit Jack rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.

"Then everyone on board has to stay there, and the plane's got to be
sealed," he said.  He quickly gave Freddie the minimum facts of the
situation.

The pilot looked stunned.

"But... I'm supposed to transport the girl to the hospital.  The
senator said--" "The girl's not going anywhere," Jack said.

"Neither are we.  I'm going to try to quarantine the town."

Freddie stared at him.

"It'll probably just be for a few days," Jack added to soften the blow,
though he suspected there was little hope of such a short quarantine.
In Yambuku, with Ebola, it had lasted a month.

Freddie's eyes had darkened with a mutinous cast, and Jack saw that he
needed convincing.  He said sternly, "How secure would your job with
the senator be if you were responsible for spreading an epidemic after
I'd warned you?

Assuming, of course, you survived the trip with this victim."

That seemed to sink in.

"Now get back to the plane," he ordered.

"Let my wife and the others know what's happening.

Only don't open the door.  Yell, or show them a note through the
window, but don't get on the plane and don't let anyone off.  Go!"

As Freddie left.  Jack turned to Mendes.

"Do you know if anyone else in town is sick?"

"Sure, plenty.  Swamp chills.  Comes and goes."

"Not malaria, I mean sick like Raimunda."

An Indian listening at the bar said, "Most of the whores in the Quarter
have been bellyaching all day."

"The Quarter?"  Jack asked.

"Mendes's competition, far end of town."  He pushed away from me bar.

"I'm going that way.  Want a lift?"

The Quarter was the last building at the edge of the settlement, a
two-story brothel of rough wood whose pink paint was blistered and
flaking.  The Indian's truck dropped off Jack and Gerry, then rumbled
down a muddy side street.  No other cars were in sight, though Jack
noticed a teenager tinkering over a motorcycle.

"Gerry," he said, "check out that bike."

"You need it?"

"I might" He entered the Quarter alone.  A scabby-mouthed little girl
on the doorstep solemnly watched him pass.  The hallway was quiet.
Along it, small rooms were partitioned off by plywood walls that did
not quite reach the roof.  Curtains across the doorways, some of them
plastic shower curtains, offered the only privacy.  In one room Jack
noticed a pretty girl, maybe sixteen, sitting on the edge of her bed. 
She was wincing slightly, and looked confused.

"Headache?"  he asked from her doorway.

She looked up.

"Hell of a headache."

Ebola always starts with a headache.  Get a grip, he told himself. Lots
of things start with a headache.

"What's your name?"  he asked, glad that she spoke English.

She was barefoot and wore a long yellow tank top and a baseball cap
sporting the emblem of the Flamingos, the Rio soccer team.  A scatter
of cosmetics and glossy magazines lay around her on the bed, and she
was idly toying with a makeup trinket, two plastic tubes the size of
lipsticks, red and purple, connected by a piece of cheap chain.

"Pia," she answered wearily.

"But no fucking today."

Jack almost smiled.

"I'm a doctor.  Tell me, Pia, are many of the girls here sick?"

"Lots.  Teresinha's the worst.  And she's about to pop."

Dropping the trinket on the bed, she fingered a movie magazine and said
dreamily, "I'm going to be a film star."

"Could you take me to Teresinha?"

"Sure."  She slid off her bed and led him down the hall.

Her walk was unsteady.  She drew aside a curtain.

"That's her."

A woman of about thirty lay on a bed mumbling incoherently.

She was pregnant, and by the size of her abdomen Jack judged that Pia
was right; Teresinha was due.  On the floor, beside a bottle of
cachaca, was a brimming chamber pot, the smell foul.  A dirty little
boy sat in the corner eating a candy bar and looking scared.

Babbling, Teresinha looked up as Jack came to the bedside.

Her eyes were crimson.  Red tears dripped in a blood-and-mascara sludge
into her thinned hair.  Between her legs blood stained her skirt, and
there was a slime of red-brown excrement on the mattress.  Jack's brain
whispered a warning litany: Lassa, Marburg, Ebola... the deadliest
viruses on the planet... no known treatment.  Stop it, he ordered
himself, it's not possible.  It's something else.  He felt her fevered
forehead.  Maybe a hundred and four.

"God, she's got worse," Pia said from the doorway.

Teresinha began to twitch in spasm.  It became a convulsion so extreme
she lurched to the bed's edge.  Jack took hold of her shoulders.  She
vomited on his arm.  He held her steady to keep her from pitching off
the bed as bloody vomitus spewed over his sleeve.

"Sweet baby Jesus," Pia said in horror.

"Go back to your room."  Jack told her.

"And take this boy out" Teresinha gagged violently.  She was choking on
her vomit.  Jack needed to clear her mouth or she would suffocate.

Suddenly, beside him, a hand reached down, fingers whisked inside the
woman's mouth to clear it, and she gasped a breath.

Jack looked up.  Marisa!

At the sight of her filthy hand his heart jumped to his throat.  The
vomitus would be loaded with virus, maybe lethally hot.  He snatched
her wrist, grabbed the cachaca bottle, and sloshed liquor over her hand
to cleanse it.  A brute reflex only: alcohol wouldn't kill virus.
Furious, he heaved the bottle away.

"Damn that pilot!  Didn't he tell you?"

"I'd already got off.  I met him on the way.  I thought maybe I could
help you."

Teresinha moaned, and bright blood oozed between her legs.

"Vaginal hemorrhage," Marisa said.  Grabbing a dress from a pile of
laundry, she stuffed it between the woman's legs to stanch the flow.

"Marisa, don't," Jack said, grabbing her arm.

As the cloth quickly became saturated she looked up.

"Jack, what's happening here?"

"Some kind of hemorrhagic fever.  Several cases.  It's bad."

"How bad?"

He couldn't hide it from her.

"Maybe as bad as Ebola."

She gave a small gasp.  Then, silently, she took a towel from the
laundry pile, wiped her hand, and started to clean off Jack's sleeve.
He stared at her fingers streaked with bloody residue and remembered
that she'd pricked her finger on her corsage not half an hour ago.  A
microscopic portal of entry.  His mind blared statistics: Lassa fever,
fifty percent lethality in some non immune populations; Ebola, eighty
percent lethality, period.  It can't be Ebola.  It's something else.
Something he couldn't handle alone, though.  Get help.

"Go outside," he told her.

"I'm going to call the authorities, then see if there's any supplies.
Have the kids outside collect towels and sheets for you until I get
back.  Until then don't touch any--" "Jack," she said, looking behind
him.

He turned.  Liz Trowbridge stood focusing the video camera.

"Christ," he said, appalled.

"Did everybody get off?"

"Where you go, I go," Liz said.

"That was our deal."

"Mine too," Marisa murmured.

"Our sound man and the copilot stayed aboard," Liz added as she panned
the camera across the room, taking in Marisa.

"Outside, both of you!"  Jack ordered, motioning them away.

There was no point now in sending them back to the plane.  Gritting his
teeth, he had to accept that.  He herded them down the hall, Liz
walking backward and videotaping him as he quickly looked into several
rooms.  In almost every one, women lay on their beds in passive misery.
Two were shuffling around the communal kitchen in a stupor.  As Liz
passed Pia's room the girl called, "Hey, come back!"

Liz swung the camera to her.  Pia hopped on her bed and began posing,
thrusting out her breasts and hiking her top above her panties like a
Playboy centerfold.

"You'll make me a star!"  she said gleefully.  She flopped down on the
bed, suddenly dizzy.

Jack pushed Marisa and Liz outside as the motorcycle across the street
roared to life.  He strode over to it.

"Just a clogged fuel line," Gerry told him, wiping his hands on an oily
rag.

"Works fine now."  Suddenly noticing Liz and Marisa out front, he
looked at Jack in alarm.

"You told the pilot to--" "They'd already got off the plane."

Gerry scowled, shaken.

"Jesus."

The motorcycle's teenage owner was saying something in Portuguese, and
Jack pulled some Brazilian bills from his wallet and handed them
over.

"I need to borrow the bike, kid."  He'd learned to ride years ago;
motorbikes were ubiquitous in the developing world.

"Stay here, Gerry," he said, straddling the ripped leather seat, "and
don't let anyone into the Quarter."

He gunned the bike back to the Castelo, his mind racing.

He needed isolation equipment, bleach, dressings, masks, gloves--he'd
be lucky to find even half these things here-masks and gloves were the
bare minimum to protect against a level four virus.  It probably isn't
level four.  Just get a team in.

"Mendes," he said, rushing into the Castelo barroom, "is there an
infirmary?  First-aid supplies?"

"Upstairs.  But--" "You've got to make a phone call," Jack said,
starting for the stairs.

"Most of the women in this town are sick."

"You want me to ask the boss to fly in some more?"

Mendes asked helpfully.

"I want you to call the authorities in Belem.  Department of Public
Health.  Ask for the chief medical officer."  He was taking the stairs
two at a time.

"When you've got him on the line, call me."

"Who's paying for the call?"

"I am."

The infirmary was nothing but a corner cupboard in a storeroom.  A
dusty box of Band-Aids.  A sausage-size roll of gauze.  Some
antihistamine.  Aspirin.  Jack plowed his hands through his hair.
Shit.

Mendes yelled up, "Doctor!"

Jack ran downstairs and grabbed the phone.  They'd put him on hold.  He
waited, pacing within me confines of the cord's length, trying not to
think of Marisa's blood-smeared hand ... of the pinprick on her
finger... of how dangerously he'd exposed her... When the medical
officer came on the line Jack quickly gave his evaluation of a
hemorrhagic fever of unknown etiology, asked that an epidemiological
team be flown in immediately, and instructed the man to coordinate the
effort with the Chagas Institute, the Tropical Disease Research Center
in Belem, and the Pan American Health Organization, and to hurry.

Then, with Mendes translating, he made an announcement to the men in
the bar: some women had a sickness that might be infectious, and until
help came a quarantine was necessary.  There was a murmur of anxiety,
but Mendes said few of them ever left town anyway.  Small mercies. Jack
thought.

"Doctor!  The baby comes!"  Teresinha's little boy was calling from the
doorway.

Jack raced on the bike to the Quarter.  Gerry was standing guard
outside, eyeing the few nervous miners who'd drifted over.

"Don't let them in," Jack told him.

He found the pregnant Teresinha lying unconscious, bleeding from her
gums and eyes, and Marisa wiping the blood with a cloth in her bare
hands.  He grabbed her elbow.

"You've got to be more careful!"

"I know, but--" She looked at Teresinha.

"Oh, God."

Blood was gushing from Teresinha's nose.  Jack thought:

This is it, she's crashing.  Blood suddenly hemorhaged from every
mucous-membrane orifice--mouth, nose, eyes, vagina, anus.  Jack and
Marisa scrambled for cloths, but it was hopeless.  And Teresinha's baby
was coming.

Jack heard a noise and twisted around.  Liz was videotaping.

"Get out!"  he shouted.

"No, I want all I can get of you handling this."

"I can't handle it, he wanted to yell as he bent to deliver the baby.
It slipped into his hands, a boy, and Marisa cut the cord.  The child
wasn't breathing.  Jack gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and as he
caught breaths between giving breaths, Liz crouched nearer with the
camera.  The baby started to breathe on its own, and Jack spat out
blood and laughed in a surge of elation.  One small victory!

Marisa stared at Jack's bloody mouth, appalled.  She quickly wiped his
face, then took the baby.

There was a sound like a sheet being ripped as Teresinha's bowels
opened and vented blood, flooding the mattress.  Liz lowered the camera
in horror and backed away.  Teresinha was dead.

A scream of engines sounded down the street.  Jack whirled around.  The
plane!  He ran out.

"Fucking pilot," Gerry growled.

Jack watched, aghast, as the Bandeirante lifted off above the trees.

He worked nonstop, going from room to room in the Quarter, then on the
bike over to the girls in the Castelo, then back to the Quarter, trying
to do what he could for the victims, which was almost nothing.  A girl
in the Castelo crashed and died.  Raimunda fell into a coma.  Pia was
delirious.

More women fell sick every hour... forty-six, forty seven Jack finally
lost count.  Three little girls were stricken, too: it tore him apart
to watch their suffering.  The victims' condition deteriorated with a
speed he'd never seen before.  He'd witnessed many diseases in which a
virus had undergone extreme amplification, but over several days.

What in God's name is this thing?

His worst fears were for Marisa.  She was assisting him continuously.
He couldn't stop her.  She changed makeshift dressings, cleaned up
messes of blood and vomit, did what she could to make the women
comfortable, forced Jack to pause to drink water, found him clean
shirts.  He cursed himself for bringing her to this place... for
exposing her.  Where's the fucking help from Belem?

Night fell.  Tree frogs sent up a frantic dirge from the black jungle.
Miners came with kerosene lamps and hung around outside the Quarter,
murmuring, fearful.

Inexplicably, none of the men had fallen sick.

Around midnight Marisa handed Jack a tin cup of cold beans at a woman's
bedside.

"Eat."

Wiping sweat from his forehead, he took the cup.

Marisa winced in pain.

Jack froze.

"What's wrong?"

"Stomach cramps," she said.  He saw her fear as she added, "A headache,
too."

His legs went weak in dread.  An incubation period of just eight hours?
It's not possible!  He grabbed her hand, panic crawling over him.

"Marisa--" "Maybe it's just exhaustion," she said quickly.

"I've been doing too much.  I'll rest."  She looked at him anxiously.

"How are you?  You've been up to your elbows in blood for--" "Sit down.
Here, you take this food.  Where's some water?

Liz, get her some water!  Marisa, you need--"

A shout came from outside, the men's voices yelling.

"Gerry can't control them," Liz said.  She ran down the hall.  Marisa
and Jack followed.

Outside, someone said, "It's Silva," as a wiry man jumped out of a
jeep, yelling, "Where's this bastard doctor?  He's got to help my
Raimunda!"  He barged toward the building, but Gerry blocked his way.
Silva lunged for him, and they wrestled on the muddy ground.  Men
gathered in a circle, shouting, their lanterns swaying.  Gerry
struggled to his feet and hauled Silva up with him.  Silva's fist
smashed his jaw, and Gerry staggered backward, spitting blood.  Then,
rallying, he lunged for Silva.  Silva pulled a gun.

"No!"  Liz cried.

Silva fired.  Gerry fell backward, clutching his thigh.

"Gerry!"  Liz ran to him.

Three miners overpowered Silva, and his gun thudded on the ground.  Liz
grabbed it and shoved it in her pocket.

Jack and Liz dragged Gerry inside to the kitchen, where Jack had only a
paring knife to gouge the bullet from Gerry's thigh.  Gerry's face
turned white at the pain, and he passed out.  Marisa found a needle and
thread to assist Jack with the sutures, but she mumbled that she felt
dizzy, and wandered away.  Shakily, Jack sutured the wound, then ran
after her.

Dawn.  Panic in the Quarter.  Women and children shrieking.

Twenty-seven women and two girls dead, the rest all sick.  The place
looked like an abattoir.  In a kitchen corner Gerry moaned from his
wound, weaving in and out of consciousness.

Obsessively, Liz kept videotaping, muttering she had a headache.  Jack
blocked it all out.  All except Marisa.

She lay on the kitchen table, mumbling.  He bent over her, smoothing
back her sweat-soaked hair.  His eyes burned, and his hands were
shaking--from despair, from exhaustion, from rage.  Where in God's name
was the help he'd called for?  He might still be able to save her--IV
replacement of electrolytes ... massive doses of human interferon ...
if only he had the supplies!

He lifted her head for a drink of water.  Fear swam in her crimson
eyes.  It reamed Jack's heart.

"Jack... don't go--" "I'm here," he said hoarsely.

"I won't leave you."

Her gums began to bleed.  She staggered to her feet, delirious.

"Jack!"

He threw his arms around her to stop her... to hold her to keep himself
from howling in despair.  Her burst of strength ebbed and she slid down
his body to the floor.  Jack thudded to his knees beside her.

She crashed.

"Marisa!"  He stripped off his shirt to try to stanch the hemorrhage
from her nose and eyes and vagina.  He worked over her wildly,
desperately, mopping her body, his chest and arms smeared with blood.

"Not for me," Liz said dully.  The camera slipped from her hands.  She
pulled the gun from her pocket, aimed it at her own face, and cocked
it.

Gerry shouted, "No!"

Uz stuck the barrel in her mouth and fired.

3

Tory farr-colwell shivered with pleasure as her husband slid his hand
over her knee and under her skirt.  The black silk shimmered under the
Washington streetlights gliding by outside her limousine's tinted
windows.  Carson squeezed her thigh and murmured in her ear, "Roasted
to perfection."

Tory laughed a throaty laugh, slightly drunk, and slid farther down in
the seat to let his hand ease higher between her legs.  If he was
dunking this was his reward for enduring the banquet with a crowd of
lobbyists and congressional insiders, she was more than willing to
bestow it.  God knew he deserved it They'd garnered to roast her:
Victoria Farr-Colwell, "Political Consultant of me Year"--at
thirty-three, one of the youngest ever to accept me award.  ME Senator
Frank Owen's quips about her and Carson working different sides of me
DC.  power streets had been a big hit, Tory being well known for her
liberal causes while Carson, an ex-marine, was an FBI man.  The
senator's jokes casting her as a communist Mata Hari wheedling pillow
secrets from her dull-witted leatherneck husband had drawn raucous
laughter, even coaxed a few grins from Carson as he nursed his single
beer.  His indulgence had softened Tory's guilt at her own delight in
the evening's fun, including some decidedly sophomoric whistling and
table-thumping from her associates in her firm.  Damn it, it had been a
good year.  She'd worked her ass off for it, though; she'd earned the
night of glory.  And she would have unreservedly enjoyed the whole
rambunctious affair if it hadn't been for that little voice inside
nagging: Earned it, but at what cost?  She had to think hard to
remember the last time she and Carson had spent a whole evening
together alone.

Her fault, she knew that.  Always so busy.  Right now she was juggling
three campaigns: one to reelect the aging governor of Ohio, another to
squeak a liberal candidate into a North Dakota Senate seat, a third to
head off a raid by Congress on the pension fund of the teachers' union,
her client.

The strategies involved complex tactics that she didn't have the time
or inclination to explain to her husband.

That, she knew too, was the root of the problem.  No one outside the
back rooms of politics really understood what went on there, including
Carson, despite his advanced degree in international relations.  At the
beginning of their marriage she'd tried to keep him abreast, but he
wasn't all that interested.  She knew he felt something like disdain
for lobbyists' work.  A common response, of course.  Ask just about any
person in the street these days and they'd give you an outraged earful
about lobbyists and politicians being crooks and liars, all.  Lately,
Tory had less and less patience with this adolescent brush-off.  It
reminded her of herself at thirteen smugly declaring the world would
run better without adults.  Nobody likes a lobbyist until their own
group's interests are threatened; then they can't beat down your door
fast enough.  Lobbying's just free speech in action, and politicians
are just using the system, and that's democracy, my friends.

Okay, enough soap-boxing.  Speeches ended at midnight.  Anyway, she
reminded herself, Carson was no knee jerk teenager.  He kept his
reservations about her work to himself, and she respected him too much
to hold his prejudice against him.  So the topic had become a
no-man's-land between them.  The trouble was, because his FBI
counterterrorism work was also a prohibited subject, it didn't leave
them much.  That barren terrain separating them seemed to keep growing,
forcing them to take ever more steps apart.

She remembered a phrase her celebrated scientist mother, who was
French-Canadian, once used to describe the divided French and English
worlds in Canada: "two solitudes."

Is that what Carson and I are becoming?  Tory wondered.  Sometimes
they'd go for days without even speaking, she slipping into bed after
working past midnight, Carson asleep; he slipping out most mornings
around five before she awoke.  And she wasn't sure which was more
ominous: that for days she hadn't even noticed the silence, or that
Carson didn't really seem to mind.  Sometimes, she thought that if it
weren't for Chris ... She put a brake on that train of thought.  Their
marriage had been through strained periods before and she'd always
heeded the warning whisper in time: Get home before you become
strangers.  She'd always found a way to make it right again.  It was
just like devising a schedule to be with Chris, their four-year-old;
she'd often nip home while her staff broke for lunch or dinner, spend
an hour reading to Chris or putting him to bed, then head back to work.
Their son was the one common subject she and Carson cared passionately
about.  Carson was marvelous with him, the best father in the world.
Whenever she had doubts about the marriage, she only had to think of
their child growing up in the love they both had for him.  That warning
whisper, sometimes so annoying, could also be very wise: Get home,
because of all the good that's there.

That was why, tonight, she was grateful that Carson had come to the
banquet and sat by her side.  Pleased that he'd taken the jokes with
good humor.  Most of all, she was glad--relieved--that now, alone, they
could come together on this familiar territory.  This, she thought with
a small gasp of pleasure as his hand moved higher between her thighs,
has always been sure ground.

"If I'm hot," she breathed, her lips brushing his ear, "it ain't from
being roasted."  She threw her arm around his neck and kissed him
hard.

He unfastened the two buttons of her silk cocktail jacket, slipped her
black bra strap off her shoulder, and fondled her breast.  She started
to yank his tux jacket off him.  He tugged the bra down and licked her
nipple.  She rumbled to undo his pants and he wrenched her skirt up to
her hips.  She pulled him down on top of her.

His pager beeped.

"Shit."  He struggled to sit up.

Tory groaned.  She pressed the intercom and told her driver, "Brent,
pull over at the next phone booth."

She watched him punch numbers inside the booth; he wouldn't use her car
phone, not secure enough.  Damn, he looked good in that tux.  Okay,
maybe the Bureau needed him to save the world, but couldn't they have
waited just fifteen minutes more?  She sighed, accepting her fate, and
did up her jacket, then lowered the car window and took a deep breath
of the night air, enjoying its sultry summer promise

with her eyes closed... until a whiff of an alley's garbage brought
her to her senses.

She checked her watch.  Two a.m. Already an hour later than they'd told
the baby-sitter they would be.  What a headache, losing the live-in
nanny.  She reminded herself that she had only herself to blame, since
she'd wangled a college scholarship for the Filipina girl.
Nanny-hunting was again top of the agenda.  Matching someone to the
little four-year-old whirlwind at home was going to be a challenge.

She smoothed her skirt, smiling as she remembered.  This year-old
cocktail suit hadn't been her first choice.  Horsing around with Chris
minutes before she had to leave the house, with her car waiting, she'd
been wearing the gown she'd bought for the occasion.  Cost a small
fortune, a slinky sleeveless number held up by spaghetti-thin straps
and a prayer.  It was a knockout.  She'd starved herself for two weeks
to look her best in it, and the effect in her minor was impressive,
even if she did say so.  Then she'd gone in to say goodnight to Chris.
He'd been wound up all evening, maybe to get a rise from the sour-faced
baby-sitter, or maybe he'd just caught Tory's gay mood, she wasn't sure
which, but when she came into his room he was flying, literally: on
tiptoes up on his dresser in his pajamas, about to take off onto his
bed.  Seeing her, he flashed an impish smile and launched himself at
her, sailing through the air with total trust that she'd catch him. She
did, lunging with a laugh, then fell back on the bed, holding him
tight.  It was an ongoing game with them that whichever one landed
underneath was fair game for tickling.  Chris, on top now, set to his
task with a giggling vengeance, his small fingers tickling her so
devilishly that Tory couldn't help laughing.  She flipped him on his
back and got even.  He squealed with helpless laughter, kicking and
squirming, and snatched the top of her gown and yanked.  One of the
narrow straps snapped, pop Tory gaped at the dangling worm of fabric.
Her lovely gown!  Damn it.  Chris froze, eyes wide.  Tory knew he
didn't really understand the problem--no time to fix the thing--he just
sensed the abrupt change in her, that she was on the brink of anger,
and it made him anxious.  She felt a sharp stitch in her heart. Nothing
was worth making him apprehensive like that.  Certainly not a dress. 
She said, "You're right, I hate these silly things," and she grabbed
the other strap and theatrically ripped it off too.

"That's better," she said with a grin.  Chris doubled up laughing.  And
Tory was chuckling too as she kissed him good night while clutching the
ruined gown to her chest, then hobbled out to change.

Carson walked back to the car, and Tory knew from the closed look on
his face that the call had been important.  The Marine Stoneface, she
called it She'd seen it on their first date seven years ago.  He was
then the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington
Metropolitan field office;

Tory was running a mayoralty campaign in nearby Baltimore.

Their conversation over dinner had been lively, until she'd asked a
question--a harmlessly neutral one, she'd thought--about a current
high-echelon spy scandal.  He'd clammed up as though she were a CNN
reporter ambushing him on live TV.  It took dessert and coffee before
she sensed he'd relaxed again, accepting she wasn't there to pump
him.

He bent beside the car window.  The tiny muscles at the sides of his
eyes had tightened in worry, though only Tory could have read that.

"Got to go," he said.  He dug into his pocket and pulled out one of the
cocktail napkins printed with her face in caricature from the roast.

"Give this to Chris," he said.

"You mean in the morning?"

He nodded.

"So, an allnighter huh?"  She imagined an airliner hijacked over the
Middle East, and Carson at the FBI command center for the next twelve
hours drinking coffee like sludge.

"Can I give you a lift at least?"  She gave him her best lewd smile.

"We could kiss goodbye."

He'd already straightened up, his mind elsewhere.

"It's just three blocks.  Go on home."

The Marine Stoneface, fully operational.  Tory wasn't surprised.

Now that he was the FBI's new chief of counterterrorism she expected
she would see The Face more often.

When it came to closed shops, her world couldn't touch the Bureau.

Then he did surprise her.  As she pushed the button to raise the window
he motioned her to stop, and asked with concern, "Is your mother still
in town?"

A biological device.

The words thudded like a battering ram at the barrier of Jack's
consciousness but could not break in.

He sat in the Wardroom, a windowless room near the White House mess,
watching a drop of condensation weep down the water pitcher on the
table ... struggling to take in what he'd just been told.

Terrorists.

Two FBI men stood in front of him.  The leader-sober-faced, fit,
fortyish--had tried to break it to him calmly, kindly: "Dr.  Hunt, my
name is Carson Colwell, chief of counterterrorism, FBI.  Please, take a
seat."  The restrained voice had not masked the tension Jack sensed
coiled inside the man.

"Doctor," Colwell had begun, "the tragic events you witnessed in Brazil
the day before yesterday have just occurred at two other sites.
Yesterday in a fishing village in Pakistan.

Tonight, right here at home.  Stoney Creek, Oregon.  It's an isolated
logging town in the Blue Mountains.  Population two thousand and
sixty.  As of eleven o'clock tonight, Pacific Standard Time--an hour
ago--virtually every female in Stoney Creek was dead.  Eight hundred
and seven women and girls.  It appears only a handful have survived,
apparently because of their isolation--shut-ins, a widow living on her
own, two teens camping on the outskirts.  The CDC's man on the ground
says the victims died of a hemorrhagic disease, probably caused by a
virus.  It affects only females, and it looks like it killed them
within twenty-four hours of exposure.  Evidently, it's the same
pathogen you witnessed in Brazil.  The public health people went onto
an emergency footing, figuring it was some new epidemic.  I know that's
why they called you here for their meeting.  However, a little over an
hour ago the White House received a communication claiming
responsibility."

Jack hadn't grasped the connection.

"Responsibility?"

"For a biological device.  Doctor, this is the work of terrorists."

Jack stared at the world of water in the pitcher.  Marisa ...
hemorrhaging ... writhing ... The battering ram finally broached his
consciousness and the truth stormed in: Marisa was murdered.

The pitcher lifted.  Colwell poured him a glass of water.

"Here, drink this."

Jack downed it.  So thirsty.

Colwell leaned straight-armed on the table, and said quietly, "Doctor,
I'm sorry to have to put you through this, but I need to hear exactly
what you witnessed in Jazida.  Your input might help us."

Jack blinked, grit grinding his eyes.

"Help... ?"

To find these people."

Find these people.  He hung on to the words, the only ones that made
real sense.  He heard himself say, "Do you know who they are?"

Colwell's face seemed to close.

"We have very little information at this point."

"Not even why they've done it?"

"I prefer not to speculate."

Meaning you don't know shit.  The crudeness of the thought tripped him.
The man's only human, he told himself; only doing his job.  He noticed
Colwell was wearing a tuxedo.  Called away from a party to do his job.
And Me?  Couldn't do my job ... couldn't save even one ... Marisa ...
Roughly, he rubbed his stinging eyes, forcing himself to push past the
miasma of exhaustion.  No sleep in two days, just a blur of planes and
airports as he'd rushed here at the CDC's request.  Then the media
vultures circling at National Airport, taking pictures, yelling
questions about his ordeal, his grief.  Now this.  Marisa, murdered.
And all those others.

In Pakistan, too... in Oregon.  Dear God.

"Dr.  Hunt, we need information," Colwell was saying.

"We've begun interviewing the male residents in Stoney Creek about any
suspicious recent activity there, strangers in town, unusual
occurrences.  Naturally, though, they're in shock and, well, somewhat
unreliable.  You're an expert virologist and a physician.  You're
trained to observe and to read people.  We need your statement about
what you saw in Jazida.  There may be clues, parallels between the
target sites.  I realize it's asking a lot of you after--"
"Statement... yes, of course."  Jack's heart was slamming in his chest
Colwell needed details, precise, unemotionally presented, but
remembering was ... difficult.  There were blank, black patches.  No
memory at all of leaving the place.  He hazily recalled two Brazilian
medics pulling him outside, away from the horrors of the Quarter.  He'd
seen Gerry, out of his head, hobbling to a miner's jeep and driving off
crazily into the jungle ... where had he gone?  Jack had stood
unsteadily as the two medics held him up in a miner's rough outdoor
shower stall, washing blood off his body ... pink water swirling over
his feet, over the concrete floor, pooling in the mud ... Marisa's
blood.

He gripped the pitcher handle to stop his hand from shaking.  Mass
murderers... no apparent purpose for their butchery.

When he tried to think of people deliberately unleashing such a
thing--and just on women--his reasoning faltered.

But rage didn't require reason, and rage was what he was beginning to
feel now.  A hot surge of fury.  He welcomed it, seized hold of it.
Because now, where there had been only impotent grief, no target, now
there was an enemy.  An enemy meant you could fight back.

He got to his feet.

"I'll tell you everything I can.  But I want to do more."

Colwell looked mildly startled.

"More?"

Find these people.

"Let me go to the Oregon town.  As you said, I'm an expert eyewitness
to an identical attack.  If I can detect any similarities, any
patterns, that would help you, wouldn't it?  More than you trying to
sift through my information here?"

It took Colwell only a split second to grab at the offer.

"Could you leave immediately?"

"I have to meet with the public health people here first.

They're waiting for my report.  As soon as that's done, I'm ready."

Colwell nodded.

"I'll arrange transport.  You'll leave from Andrews Air Force Base.
Agent Ramirez here will escort you."

"Fine."

Colwell extended his hand.

"Dr.  Hunt, thank you.  I know this can't be easy for you.  I
appreciate the assistance you're offering, and I promise you I'm going
to do everything in my power to bring to justice the people
responsible for your wife's death."

Jack fought down the painful lump in his throat He shook Colwell's
band.  He recognized, in the steady gaze that met his, a hunger for
action almost as consuming as his own.  Almost.

He thought: When you find her killers, death will not be punishment
enough.

"Agent Ramirez will take your preliminary statement on the way,"
Colwell said, then handed Jack a card.

"My private line.  If you think of anything, call me, anytime.  Now,
please excuse me.  I have a meeting with the president, and there's
someone else I must first call in."

Rachel Lesage lay awake in her hotel room.  Silence.

Emptiness.  Except inside her head.  There, multitudes were
screaming.

She flinched when the phone rang.  She answered, and at the familiar
voice her mind froze.  Carson.

He's discovered me.

But he wasn't saying that.  Dumb while he spoke, she listened.

Deaf to her own voice, she agreed to his request.  She hung up and sat
on the bed's edge, her fingers digging into her knees.

It's a trap.

It's over.

No, stop, think!  He hadn't given the slightest hint of suspicion, or
even said what the summons was about--only that a critical situation
had arisen that required her input.

"I've just cleared you with the president's chief of staff.  We need
you, Rachel.  Now."

Calm down ... step back... examine.  She had long observed that the
simplest explanations were usually correct.

People projected their own hopes and fears onto the words and actions
of others, but such fantasies were usually baseless.

So what did that mean with Carson?  The logical conclusion was that he
did simply want her help.  A face-value request.  No hidden agenda. She
doubted he was even capable of such a subtly deceptive ploy.  Not
incapable of formulating it; she had a high regard for her son-in-law's
intelligence and skill.  But incapable of masking it so completely to
her.

Hope shot through her, intense as pain.  If they know nothing, it isn't
over, it's just beginning.  The terrible triage can still yield
success.  This summons may be a bizarre stroke of luck: I might
influence their response from right there among them.

He'd said he was sending a car.  Must get dressed, she told herself,
organize my thoughts.  Carson hadn't been in the top counterterrorism
post when she'd begun this, so she'd have to prepare herself for-For
what?  What is there to fear?  Carson is simply doing his job.  So
will

I."

But as she sat in the backseat on the way to the White House, her mouth
was dry and her hands were cold.  The night streets and night people
glided past.  A teenager with dreadlocks, shuffling in a narcotic haze,
stepped in front of the car.  The driver swerved and Rachel was thrown
against the door.  The car beside her blasted its horn.  She stared out
the window, remembering Africa, the twisting road in me hills, the
guns, the knives.  Almost two years since it happened, yet her black
nightmares still flashed with those knives.

The car fishtails on the mountain road above Kigali, throwing her and
her son against the door.  She holds him tightly.  He is tall for nine,
but so slight he feels all bones.

Everyone who can is fleeing the capital.  Back in the hotel she grabbed
him and they ran through dark halls amid the servants of Tutsi people
being hacked to death.  The Hutu attackers ignored her because she is
white.  But her son... Paul.  He doesn't panic when bullets pepper the
car up in the hills, killing the driver, nor when he and Rachel stumble
out and run.  He doesn't cry when they spend the night shivering on the
dank ground of a banana plantation.  When they get a lift in a truck
carrying orphans he doesn't complain of hunger or fear, though Rachel
knows he feels both.

Then soldiers stop the truck.  Order the children out.  Paul looks back
at her with such trust.  She claws at the soldiers to get to him, but
their machetes flail at the children, hacking shoulders, ankles, backs.
Children scream and fall.

Some break through and run.  Paul!  He does not cry out.  He just
begins to run.

"Dr.  Lesage?"

She blinked.  The driver was looking around at her, puzzled by her
stillness.

"We're here, ma'am."

She looked out beyond the security booth.  The White House north
portico.  Floodlights.  Ficus trees flanking the door, their glossy
leaves gentled by the sultry breeze ... not the cold night wind that
would chill her soul forever... Nothing can be accomplished with
emotion.  Override it.

Focus.  The ghosts of Rwanda have no place where I am going.

Rwanda, one of the most densely populated places on earth.  Overcrowded
to madness.  Rwanda, where her life had ended.

But the agony had given birth to a vision of terrible beauty.  Now she
would make it real.

4

an AIDE USHERED rachel INTO A WAITING ROOM in the White House basement
She stared across the corridor at the closed doors of the Situation
Room where the president was meeting with his advisors, and tried to
compose herself.  Were they discussing her demand, her terms?  Would
they agree immediately?  Or would it take endless days?

The doors opened and people walked out talking in tense undertones,
Carson among them.  He strode toward her, his face implacable.  She
held her breath.  A trap after all?

"Rachel, thanks for coming," he said, guiding her toward the meeting
breaking up.

"The president wants to see you right away, so let me bring you up to
speed."

He doesn't suspect.  She breathed again.

Carson told her about the three biological attacks--me work of
terrorists, he said, the perpetrators unknown--then briefly outlined
the victims' symptoms and told her of me deployment of the National
Guard to quarantine Stoney Creek.  Rachel stifled a shiver of caution.
Perpetrators unknown?  Why hadn't he mentioned Artemis?  Or the
demand?

When he finished, she forced herself to display the reactions he would
expect: surprise and shock, then a studied professional calm.  She was
acutely aware that he had divulged no information beyond the facts
relating to her expertise.  She warned herself of the pitfall here,
subtle yet treacherous: she must not appear to know more than she'd
been told.

In the Situation Room about a dozen people were talking in small groups
or gathering papers from the conference table, preparing to leave.
Rachel knew some of them because of her position on presidential
councils advising on the biotech industry.  The health secretary and
his deputy.

The chief of staff.  Others, such as the attorney general and the FBI
director, she recognized only from TV.  On all the faces she read
fear.

Good.  Fear is the first objective.

Then she saw President Lowell.  He sat at the table's far end huddled
with a couple of advisors, his elbows on his knees.  He looked
disheveled--he'd thrown on a gray track suit and hadn't shaved--as
though overwhelmed by the crisis.

Rachel felt no sympathy, only anger.  If he'd submitted to my warning I
wouldn't have been forced to act!  However, the demonstration had
changed all the parameters, and he appeared aware of that.  He must
submit now.

"Rachel, one thing I need to know," Carson was saying as he led her
through the room.

"In your opinion, could the disease, the virus, have already spread
beyond Stoney Creek?"

"If the town is as isolated as you say, and every victim is dead, the
outbreak is likely contained."

"Really?  The epidemiologists on-site advise us the thing is highly
infectious."

"Exactly.  So virulent, it's too successful."  When he shot her a
questioning look, she explained, "It kills its host, and therefore
itself, before it can spread beyond the first leap."

Carson nodded gravely and said no more.

They reached President Lowell.  Frowning at something in his advisors'
conversation, he looked up and met her eyes.

"Dr.  Lesage, good to have you with us."

She forced calmness into her voice.

"I hope I can help, Mr.  President."

"So do I."  Getting up, he led her to a sideboard where the stewards
had left coffee thermoses, china cups, and cans of soda and juice.

"Coffee?"  he offered.

Face-to-face now, seeing the deep anxiety in his eyes, Rachel felt
buoyed with hope.  Was this going to be resolved even more quickly than
she'd dared believe?

"No, thank you," she answered.

He ripped the tab off a can of Coke, then gave her a rueful smile.

"Sorry, no smoked salmon."

She managed a smile in return.  The first time they'd met had been over
an informal White House lunch, just the two of them, soon after his
inauguration.  He'd invited her to brief him about a scientific mission
to Russia she'd undertaken for a previous administration to assess an
infraction of the Biochemical Weapons Convention.  He had not only
impressed her by proving to be a quick study, he had also disarmed her
by serving smoked salmon flown in from her hometown in Nova Scotia.
She'd found it hard not to like Andrew Lowell.

"Doctor," he said now, "can you give me any handle on the bug these
psychotic Artemis people are fooling with?

How in God's name could anyone unleash such a thing?"

She asked carefully, "Artemis?"

"Didn't your son-in-law brief you?"

She glanced at Carson who stood across the room talking with the FBI
director and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

"Barely," she replied.

"He's cautious about security."

The president scowled.

"Well, hell, I can't tap you if you're being kept in the dark."  He
grabbed a sheet of paper from the conference table.

"Here's their manifesto," he said, handing it to her.

"Top secret, of course.  Have a look."

She scanned die document, a photocopy, feeling trapped under Lowell's
scrutiny, aware that she must betray no recognition of me text she knew
by heart.

ARTEMIS DECLARATION

Concerning Human Overpopulation

ARTEMIS,

CONVINCED that, due to the growth of the human population, its
accelerating consumption of natural resources, and its increasing
discharge of pollutants into the world's ecosystems, the ecological
foundation for all life is threatened with imminent catastrophic
failure;

MINDFUL that human population levels, as with all mammalian
populations, are primarily determined by the number of fecund
females;

ENCOURAGED that a proven method of reducing population levels lies in
increasing the general education levels of girls and women;

DECLARES THAT

The developed world, beginning with the United Stales, shall establish
within thirty days a Survival Education Fund equaling one percent of
me

U.S.

gross national product, to be used exclusively to educate girls and
women in less developed countries and regions experiencing rapid
population growth;

AND FURTHER DECLARES THAT

In the event that the United States government fails to implement the
Survival Education Fund-as it failed to do after being forewarned of
the present demonstration of the biological device-extreme measures
will be taken employing the biological device to directly reduce female
population levels, beginning, in thirty days, in a major American city,
and subsequently including, as necessary, selected cities worldwide.

"In other words," the president said, "either I authorize this global
education fund or Artemis will release their weapon on one of our
cities.  In thirty days."

Rachel's anger surged.  / never wanted it to come to this!

"This document says you were forewarned," she said tightly.

"What happened?"

"Actually, I wasn't."  He shot a dark glance across the room at
Carson.

"Your son-in-law decided the threat was not--" He raised his voice, now
tinged with anger.

"How did you put it, Mr.  Colwell?  The Artemis threat wasn't
significantT A half-dozen people turned, including Carson.  He answered
evenly, "That was my evaluation at the time, sir."

"Well, Mr.  Colwell, your evaluation was a fuckup."

The room went silent.

Carson said steadily, "Yes, Mr.  President."

Rachel stared at Carson.  So he had been the stumbling block!  The
original notice had never even reached the president!

She had to look away to mask her fury.

"With all due respect, sir," the FBI director said to the president,
"Colwell took over as chief of CT only four weeks ago, and Artemis's
demonstration threat was almost the first thing that crossed his desk.
I know he moved on it right away.  I read his report.  Our people
found nothing.  I mean nothing.  Artemis has no history, no one's heard
of them--not one field office, not one foreign security agency--and
they didn't make contact again.  So Colwell's call was not out of
line."  He shrugged.

"Can't launch a multi-million-dollar investigation into every
threatening piece of paper that arrives at the White House.  Congress
would howl."

Lowell, clearly unmoved, took a swig of Coke.

"How do you rate the threat now, Mr.  Colwell?"

Carson looked the president in the eye.

"Critical, sir."

A grim smile escaped Lowell.

"At least you learn from your mistakes."

The president turned back to Rachel.

"He's right.  Artemis has proved they can convey their weapon into
diverse remote locales and contain it there, which requires a high
degree of organization and a sophisticated delivery system.

They probably hit Pakistan and Brazil just to make that point, though
they're only demanding action from us.  The very fact they carried out
their threatened demonstration proves a formidable strength of purpose,
and since they produced it exactly when they said they would, I'm
assuming the deadline in this second ultimatum is firm.  Although we've
been studying the possibility of a biological attack for some years, we
have no real defense.  Our vulnerability is maximum."

Rachel's anger evaporated.  Lowell had outlined the danger impeccably.
He knew he had no choice.

"Dr.  Lesage," he went on gravely, "I've got to be certain of what I'm
dealing with.  Have these people truly engineered a female-specific
virus, or are they just claiming ownership of some horrific natural
phenomenon?  Is biotech precision targeting like this really
possible?"

"Yesterday I'd have said such a capability was only theoretical.

Now it would seem the facts speak for themselves."

He heaved a troubled sigh.

"No question it's an effective weapon," he conceded.

"But I'm still mystified by their demand.

So bizarre.  Some of my people believe it's a front.

Saddam jerking us around, or Qaddafi maybe.  Could be they're right.  I
mean, a 'survival education fund'?  What the hell is that?"

She couldn't let him continue this way.

"Some experts would say it's a viable way to reduce global
overpopulation."

"That's what I don't get.  How?"

"It's not my field, but I understand that wherever women receive even a
rudimentary general education, birth rates drop.  In most developing
nations girls aren't sent to school at all, but when they are, and they
remain through primary school, their living standards eventually rise
and birth rates fall."  She added as noncommittally as she could, "It's
well documented."

"But Artemis wants a hefty chunk of our GNP to do it.

And what about their sadistic alternative, to kill women.

That's not only bizarre, it's schizophrenic."

"It's biology," Rachel said evenly.

"The fastest way to reduce any mammalian population is to reduce the
number of breeding females."

"Why?  It's men who get the women pregnant.  And every man can sow an
awful lot of wild oats."

"Males don't control the rate of reproduction."  Did he really not
grasp this fundamental principle?

"Mr.  President, imagine a village of a hundred men and one woman. They
can only increase their number every nine months by one.

Now imagine a village of a hundred women and one man.  In a year that
village can double to two hundred and one.  The number of females
determines the rate of reproduction."

He still looked skeptical, and now uneasy.  His obtuseness astonished
her.  To her analytical mind the paradigm was clear: problem and
solution.  The problem was a lethally overcrowded planet, resulting in
environmental devastation and vicious civil-war competition for
life-sustaining resources.

The solution was the general education of women;

failing that, a large-scale removal of women.  Did she really have to
spell this out for him?  She said carefully, "Mr.  President, you've
asked me here for a dispassionate scientific overview, correct?"

"Absolutely."

"Then, in my opinion--dispassionately--the point of this document seems
to be that the global education of women is a benign solution to the
crisis of overpopulation, and the preferred one, but, failing that, a
partial cull of females is an equally viable solution.  Limiting the
cull to females could logically be seen as humane, since it requires
the minimum reduction of overall population."

"Logical maybe.  Doctor, but humane it is not" Rachel felt herself
losing patience.  She struggled to maintain her mask of scientific
detachment.

"The planet itself may eventually kill off the surplus population
through famine, pestilence, and war.  Is that humane?"

"Surplus?  Culls?"  he muttered, uncomfortable with her terminology.

"Dr.  Lesage, I don't think you understand.

We're not debating alternatives.  This country has never yet given in
to terrorist extortion and we're certainly not going to do it now.  The
day we let terror rule is the day we abdicate to anarchy."

She stared at him.  Hadn't he comprehended one thing she'd said?

"But when the public hears of the threat--" "The public will hear what
I judge is appropriate in the interest of national security," he said
sternly.

"I assure you that does not include divulging Artemis's insane
ultimatum.  It would only create hysteria.  No, their threat does not
go beyond this room."

He made a gesture of irritation, clearly finished with this
discussion.

"We're focusing on two offensives.  The first, of course, is tracking
down the terrorists, and I've just signed a finding to give the FBI and
CIA unprecedented scope.  The second is equally essential, and that's
why you're here.  I want an all-out push to develop a medical treatment
in the event of another attack.  After all, a cure would entirely
defuse the weapon.  So I need results, and fast.  However, Health
Secretary Takesaki warns me the challenge is almost impossible in
thirty days, especially given the maze of bureaucratic jurisdiction,
what with the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the World Health
Organization..."  His voice trailed, attesting to the quagmire.

"Doctor, what I need is a Manhattan Project approach.  I want you to
spearhead it.

I'd like you to assemble an elite team in a top-priority research
undertaking.  It would parallel the CDC's effort, but would be an
independent project."

Rachel was stunned.

"You'd have my authority to second any scientists you want from any
government facility," he assured her.

"You'd have complete autonomy, and all the funding you require.

You'd answer to me alone."

She could only stare at him, dumbfounded.

He was waiting for a reply.

"Can you do that for me?"

"I... I could, but--" "Then begin immediately.  Discuss the details
with Secretary Takesaki.  And now, you'll have to excuse me."  He moved
to the conference table and gathered up his slim file of notes,
preparing to leave.

Rachel's heart thudded.  This can't be happening.  He didn't even
consider the terms!  Terms so rational, so beneficial, so minimal--no
environmental revolution, just the rock-bottom condition, because it's
achievable.  He'd rather risk the lives of millions.  The chart to a
sustainable future is right here!  I forced it under his nose!  But
he's tossed it aside as though-He was almost at the door.  People were
falling in behind him.  She had to stop him ... make him see ... "Mr.
President," she called, "you're making a terrible mistake."

He halted.  People turned in surprise.  Rachel felt herself trembling
and clamped control on her muscles.

"You don't understand," she said.

"Even if I could develop a therapy, it could be made ineffective in a
moment with a variant strain.

As for a cure, no cures for viruses exist.  The best we have is
vaccines, preventatives.  We cannot fight this thing.  The response
you've outlined could destroy us all."

People looked shocked.  The president's face clouded.

Rachel went on.

"When a virus as ferocious as this invades us, it overwhelms the immune
system, and when it spreads through a population, it overwhelms whole
societies.  In the Middle Ages bubonic plague killed half of Europe.
Here, native Americans died in the thousands when the Europeans brought
smallpox.  Their societies imploded.  That's what we're facing here,
only on a global scale.  If there's a large urban release, a global
plague is almost inevitable.  You must reconsider."

The room was silent.

When the president finally spoke his voice was cold steel.

"Thank you for your thoughts.  Dr.  Lesage, but let's get one thing
clear.  Delivering control of this nation into the hands of
mass-murdering terrorists is not an option.  Not now, not ever."

She walked stiffly down the corridor, fury immobilizing her thoughts,
nothing registering past Lowell's appalling intransigence, his
stupidity!

"Can I help you, ma'am?"  a Secret Service agent asked.

"Yes, I have a car waiting."

The agent pointed the way.  As Rachel walked on, she commanded her mind
to move, to shunt her thinking onto another track.  A way to coerce
him, that's what I must find.

But how?

Focus.  Think!

Goal and obstacle.  The goal has not changed.  Lowell has my demand and
I will settle for nothing less.  But the obstacle--not only the
president now, but their search for me as well.  Carson and his
security forces in the tens of thousands.

It didn't matter.  She was ready.  She had engineered a system whereby
her incapacitation by arrest or death would activate delivery of the
virus to a half-dozen cities worldwide.

Now, she held it all back through a simple computer command, initiated
by a phone call.  Unless she input the command at regular intervals,
however, the deliveries would go out automatically.  A dead man's
switch.  She'd considered a fail-safe measure in case she was
inadvertently detained from inputting the command, but had rejected
that.  It was prison or a bullet she was planning against, not sleeping
late.

Damn Lowell, she thought.  How could such horror mean so little to him?
His top priority wasn't to do the right thing but the political
thing.

"Standing firm"--me entrenched U.S. antiterrorist policy, meant to
outface fundamentalist fanatics and extortionist thugs.  Well, I am
neither, Mr.  President.

I'm trying to humanely save our world.  Female education is the easy
way, but if you reject that, I'll do it me hard way.  Your policy is as
obsolete against me as a suit of armor against radioactive fallout.

But damn me, too, for misjudging him.  Politically naive, Tory once
called me.  It's true.

Wait.  Tory.

She moves in that world every day.

* * Dawn was breaking as the two dozen public health authorities at
die table in the White House's Roosevelt Room went on talking around
Jack--and about him.  They'd been briefed by the health secretary with
the same scanty details Jack had beard from Colwell: anonymous
terrorists, no reason given for their attacks.  After their initial
shock, the group had carried on a heated discussion about how best to
coordinate a massive international research investigation.

Jack had listened silently with one thought crystallizing: he wanted
in.  The research blitz offered his best chance of bringing down the
people who'd done this.  He'd made a statement to that effect, and the
discussion had immediately zeroed in on him.

"He'll be coming to us."  Hank Vorhees, the bearlike director of the
CDC, said with belligerent possessiveness.

Vorhees was a beefy former college football star.  Jack, sitting next
to him, remembered how, when they were CDC colleagues, Vorhees had
always used his size to great effect, smothering people either in
bonhomie or aggression, depending on his objective.

"Hell, it's obvious," Voihees went on.

"He used to be head of our special pathogens branch, and our people
know him.  For years I've been asking him to come back."
Affectionately, be rested a slab of a hand on Jack's back.

"Best team chief I ever had.  Jack gets results."

"But Nill must have his input first for our viral data banks," a woman
from the National Institutes of Health said anxiously.

"As a virologist with firsthand clinical experience with this pathogen,
he has information we must access immediately."

Jack poured himself another glass of water.  He couldn't seem to get
enough.  He remembered, in Brazil, waiting in the Belem airport, unable
to eat but feeling desiccated.

Someone had brought him a beer.  It tasted so good, alive in his
throat.  The intense pleasure seemed a betrayal of Marisa.

He'd downed the beer, every swallow, all the while hating the
treachery of his body as it took gratification against his wilt.

"Look, people, this is our specialty," a bureaucrat from USAMRDD
objected--the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Disease.

"Dr.  Hunt, out at Fort Detrick we could offer you state-of the-art--"
"Oh, please," Vorhees cut in.

"You think that's going to set the public's mind at rest?  The grieving
Dr.  Hunt hustled away to toil inside the military's biological warfare
laboratory?

No, the natural spot for him in this crisis is with the CDC, the
public's health protector."

"Mon Dieu, he left the CDC a decade ago," Marcel Thierault, the World
Health Organization's representative, responded.

"He's known everywhere else for his work with One World Medics.  You
Americans seem to forget the rest of the world exists, but the
terrorists struck in Brazil and Pakistan too.  This is an international
crisis.  Dr.  Hunt can do the most good in Geneva, helping us."

Jack didn't miss the Frenchman's dig at his long inactivity in
research.  He also knew it was a tactic; each of them was eager to get
him to their facility because of his celebrity profile, a fund-raising
magnet.  None of this mattered.  He'd already made up his mind.  He
wanted to be on the front line.

As for helping the FBI, that was going to be a long shot;

tracking terrorists wasn't his expertise, it was ColwelTs.

77ns was his: the lab.

"Marcel," he said to the WHO man, "I may have been out of the loop for
a while but I haven't forgotten how to run a research team."

At the sudden command in his voice there was a rustle of fresh interest
around the table.

Jack turned to Vorhees.

"Hank, I'm with you.  I'm coming to Atlanta.  I have to go to Oregon
first, to help the FBI, but immediately after that I want to meet with
your senior scientists.  Epidemiology and molecular biology department
heads first.  I'll call you from Oregon when I have a better idea of a
timetable, and you can schedule your people for me.  All right?"  He
thought: Believe me, I'll be taking control.

Voihees sat back smiling, benevolent in triumph.

"I'll get right on it.  Jack."

An aide poked her head in.

"Message for Dr.  Hunt."  An Agent Ramirez, she said, was waiting in
the West Lobby and sent word that the helicopter to Andrews was
standing by.

"On my way," Jack said, chair legs gouging carpet as he pushed from the
table.  He stood and dizziness rocked him.

He grabbed the back of Vorhees's chair.

"You all right?"  Vorhees touched his elbow solicitously.

"Good Lord, Jack, I'm sorry.  This situation has made all of us a
little crazy, but none of us is forgetting about your... I mean, the
hell you've been through.  Your poor wife."

Jack was unnerved by a prick of tears.  Got to get out.  He blinked
hard.  The door... where's the fucking door?

"Jack?"  Vorhees said.

He was already striding into the hall.  Stoney Creek, he told himself.
Help Colwell, then get down to work.

Tory set down the Artemis declaration on her desk and stared across at
her mother in shock.  Who were these monsters?

The early morning bustle beyond her closed door--the ringing phones,
the intern calling for someone to hold the elevator, the sound track
from the editing suite--all of it sounded eerily normal.  Even Chris,
on his knees under the window playing with a plane he'd made from Lego
pieces, was oblivious to the crisis Rachel had brought into the room.

When the stand-in baby-sitter had canceled at the last moment, Tory had
brought Chris with her, and when her mother had walked in soon after,
he'd run to her, calling, "Nana, see my plane!"  as if Rachel dropping
by was the most natural thing in the world.  To Tory, nothing seemed
natural this morning.

"Marcia," she said, hitting the intercom, "hold my calls."

The composure in her voice was a lie.

She hit the mute button for the CNN broadcast on the TV in the
bookcase.  The seven a.m. news reports about Stoney Creek that she'd
heard in the car had been devastating enough.  Anonymous terrorists, a
biological attack, almost every female dead.  Unbelievable.  She
remembered the look on Carson's face in the phone booth last night. And
he hadn't come home.

When she and Chris reached the office her whole staff was buzzing about
it, CNN droning down every corridor.

The Washington Post on her desk had a harrowing story about Dr.  Jack
Hunt, whose Brazilian wife had been a victim in a similar epidemic. CNN
reported mat the attacks were now known to be connected.  Poor guy,
Tory had thought, arrested by Hunt's striking page-one photo.

But none of the breaking news reports had mentioned a demand from the
terrorists, so her staff's eventual response was relief that the virus
appeared to have been contained and the horror was over: a
thank-God-it-wasn't-me syndrome.

Tory had to admit she'd shared it, along with the general trust that
the FBI would soon be making arrests.

Carson was in charge.

Now her mother had shattered that fantasy.  She'd told Tory about the
ultimatum and the president's response.

"A White House cover-up," Tory said, still stunned.

"How can they think they'll get away with it?"

"They have no comprehension of what they're dealing with," Rachel
said.

"The release of this pathogen on a biologically defenseless urban
population would bang devastation on an unimaginable scale.  They
cannot grasp it."

Tory couldn't remember ever seeing her mother so shaken.  Except once,
when she'd come back from Rwanda after losing Paul.  She'd hoped that
she would never again see such anguish on her mother's face.  But her
confrontation at the White House had done it.  They hadn't listened to
her.

Tory was listening.  This was her mother's field.  If she said it was
so, it was so.  Terrifying.

And yet... the Artemis demand gripped her.  Female education to reduce
overpopulation and prevent ecological collapse.  An astonishingly
progressive concept.  These people, however, had gone far beyond
concepts.  They were willing to kill, and on a global scale.  They had
killed.  The thought made her faintly sick.  Who would actually execute
such a savage scheme?  She pulled herself together to ask, "When you
saw Carson, did he have any idea who Artemis might be?"

"It's irrelevant."

"Not if he finds them."

Rachel's eyes flashed.

"The crude apparatus of law enforcement is utterly unequal to this
situation."

"Crude apparatus, the FBI?  Not the last time I looked."

Tory, all it takes is one person uncorking a test tube!"

Maybe it was the wild look in her mother's eyes, or maybe the stark
image she'd just invoked: the deranged scientist unloosing Armageddon.
Tory suddenly glimpsed the full, horrifying ramifications and knew that
her mother was right.  Carson could not possibly track down these
people in thirty days.  They would strike again.  New York?  Los
Angeles?

Right here in Washington.  The question again overwhelmed her Who were
these monsters?

Her face must have changed, because her mother said, "You see it, don't
you?"

Tory nodded, unnerved.

"I told the president that no price is too high," Rachel said, "but he
is immovable."  She threw up her hands, incredulous.

"He's actually asked me to pull together a team to devise a therapy. Of
course, I'll do what I can, but in thirty days?  Produce a miracle in a
test tube like in some bad Hollywood movie?  It's madness."  She seemed
to regain self-control, men said earnestly, "Tory, it's your business
to know what politicians respond to.  Is there some way to force the
president?"

She said wryly, "Sure, tell the public the truth.  They'll force
him."

Rachel nodded as though assimilating me concept, but with difficulty.

"I see, yes.  All right."  Abruptly, she started to leave.

"Hey, hold on," Tory said.

"Where are you going?"

"To do what you suggest."

"What are you talking about?"

Rachel was opening the door.

"I'm not quite sure.  Call someone in the media, I suppose.  Give an
interview about--" "Good God, Mother, absolutely not!"  Tory hurried to
her, closed me door, and pulled her back into the room.  Chris had
looked up in surprise at her tone.  Tory bit back her exasperation.

She hadn't meant to speak so harshly, but her mother's political
ignorance appalled her.

"I know you mean well, but you can't just barge out there and declare
me truth."

"Why not?"

"For one thing you'd probably be arrested for leaking a top-secret
classified document At the very least, face charges.

Possibly jail.  Is that what you want?"

Rachel turned pale.

"No."

"pot another, it's plain wrong.  You'd be undermining your country's
stand against terrorism."

Rachel said evenly, "Is it wrong if it's the only way to do right?"

The bald truth of it startled Tory.  Did antiterrorist dogma apply if
yielding would bring universal good?  Besides, could dogma fend off the
horrific alternative?

She was suddenly aware of Chris at her side.

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

Tory gently took his face in her hands.

"Nothing, sweet pea.  Nana has a problem and we're trying to fix it."
She kissed the top of his head, and the scent of his hair filled her
with a warmth she found comforting beyond all proportion.

She pulled him to her.

He looked up at her anxiously.

"Do you have to go away?"

"Why would you think that?"

"You always have that sad look when you're going away."

As he gazed up at her for reassurance, it struck her.  Dear God, it
could happen.  I could be gone forever.  Artemis could kill me.

It hadn't hit home until this moment, the possibility of being a victim
herself.  Holding Chris, seeing his need, she suddenly knew in her
bones what was at stake.  Her life.  Her death.  The reality that she
might not be here for her child.

How far would she go to prevent that?  If she didn't believe Carson
could catch Artemis in time--and she knew he couldn't--was her mother's
idea the only way: blowing the whistle to force the government's
capitulation?  If so, was that sedition... or self-defense?

"I'm going, Tory," Rachel said.

"Thank you for your advice."

"No, come back.  Let's think this through."

"I have."

Tory saw her mother was going to do it.  Going to stumble out onto the
battlefield unarmed, trusting that "the truth" would smite the foe.
Tory knew all about the truth's elusive smiting power: it existed, but
only when a very large army backed it up.  Could she let her mother
walk out there alone and be crucified?

"Mother, wait."

Rachel turned.

Tory hesitated.  How far am I prepared to go?  Her eye was caught by
the plaque on the wall behind Rachel's shoulder.

"No permanent friends, no permanent enemies."  In the shifting sands of
politics that statement was axiomatic, but one permanent friend had
always been her mother.  Growing up, she knew what a gift she'd been
given as Rachel Lesage's daughter.  It went far beyond love and
support.  The priceless inheritance had been Rachel's example.  Her
active mind.

Her belief that every challenge was an opportunity.  Her sense of
limitless ness  Tory admired no one more.  Now, for the first time, her
mother had come to her for help.  Am I going to let her fight this
alone?  Fight to keep my world with Chris safe?  The question terrified
her--the answer even more, because when she came right down to it,
repulsive as it was to endorse a terrorist demand, what choice was
there?

She wouldn't sit still and wait for the plague.

"Mother," she said, "sit down."  She sent Chris back to his scatter of
Legos under the window.  Rachel stood waiting.

Tory took a steadying breath, aware that her whole life was about to
change.  Am I taking on something impossible?  A memory surfaced--a
South African anti-apartheid activist she'd done some lobbying for.  He
was a white middle-class journalist who, after a black friend was
tortured and killed, left his comfortable life to fight the government,
then spent years in prison for it.  Tory had once asked him what had
made him step over the line to activism.

"I didn't step," he'd told her.

"I woke up one morning and found the line had been drawn behind me."

She said to her mother, committed now, "Let me handle this."

Rachel looked aghast.

"No.  I only came for your advice.

I don't want you involved."

"I'm already involved," Tory said grimly.  An accomplice.

I may be looking at jail too.

Rachel was adamant.

"I have what I came for.  Just forget I was here."

"Listen to me," Tory said.

"You can't just go out and blurt the facts.  The White House would
demonize you, which would nullify the entire message and leave you
broken.  This requires strategy.  A precise, orchestrated campaign.  It
isn't just about getting a shocking message out to the American people,
letting them know the danger their government's putting them in.  It's
about making those people act.  It's about withstanding devastating
White House attacks for what we're going to advocate.  It's about
organizing a massive media blitz, plus intense national fund-raising to
maintain an army of staff and to pay for that blitz.  And the whole
thing's got to be up and running overnight.  I could go on, but you get
the point You can't run a full-scale campaign like this.  I can.  As
you said, it's my business."

"Not you."  Rachel spoke with a desperation Tory had never heard in her
before.

"This isn't what I want" "Not what I want either, but who else can do
it?  Of the few people who have the experience and resources, who else
would?"

Rachel kept shaking her head, but without conviction now, a painful
acknowledgment that there was no alternative.

"Forgive me... for dragging you into this."

The turmoil in Rachel's eyes tugged a string of tenderness in Tory.
She came closer and took her mother's hand.

"It's okay.  I'm glad you did."

It was true.  Perverse of her, maybe, given the dangers ahead, but now
that a plan of action was settled, she felt gratified that her mother's
first impulse had been to come to her.

"All my life," she said quietly, "I've taken the good stuff you've
given.  I'm glad to have a chance, finally, to give something back."

Rachel squeezed her daughter's hand.

Settled.  Tory thought.  Right.  Now I just have to mobilize the
country to get the president to cave in to a gang of murdering
terrorists.  Piece of cake.

Rachel collected herself.  She lifted her chin and said, "You mentioned
financing.  I can help with that."

"I'll need millions just for seed money, and that's--" "Would twenty
million be enough?"

Tory was taken aback.  Even for someone as wealthy as her mother it was
an extraordinary offer.  She seemed to be seeing this as some kind of
private crusade, and Tory found it unsettling.  Dangerous.

"Mother, we're talking war here," she warned.

"Against the government of the United States.

It's going to be brutal, and people are going to get hurt.

Probably you first, for leaking this information to me.  Unless, that
is, you do exactly what my lawyers tell you."

She was sorry to be so blunt.  God knew she was going to need the
funding, but her mother had to understand that what they were
conspiring was enormous, and there were no guarantees.  Tory had no
concept yet of how to run with it, no strategy.  To begin, she'd have
to find a hook, something to grab the public by the throat.  And find
it fast She went to the window where Chris was playing and gazed out at
the traffic on K Street, her thoughts skidding in all directions.  So
much to get moving on.  She'd have to subcontract out her other
campaigns immediately, and educate herself about overpopulation
issues, and find that hook.  Chris had to be taken care of as well. She
almost smiled.

Save the world by all means, ma'am, but find that new nanny first!

Picturing home brought a jolt of dread.  Carson.  I'll be facing off
against his world.  Against him.  No, Carson tracks terrorists, he
doesn't make policy.  This fight is with the president

But if the FBI knows I'm planning a protest, they'll investigate.

That would tip the White House.  I can't risk confronting them until
the campaign is solidly in place, so I'll have to keep all of (his
secret from Carson.

She felt a flush of shame.  We may have our problems, but I'd trust him
with my life.  How can I deceive him?

Only, this is about trusting him with millions of lives.

He'll never see it the way my mother and I do: victory through
surrender.  It goes against everything he stands for.

When he finds out, will he recognize what I'm standing for?

She shivered.  The line's been drawn behind me.

"Artemis," she said uneasily, watching a bird fly into the morning
sun.

"Wasn't that some Greek deity?"

No answer.  She turned.  Rachel looked so pale.

She's done all she can.  Now it's up to me.

"Don't worry, Mother," she said quietly.

"We're going to make this work."

Tory's eyes were drawn to the newspaper on the desk, to the page-one
photo.  An idea fell into her mind.  The hook.  It was so bold, she had
to pull herself back for a reality check.

Was she crazy to think she could persuade a victim to come on their
side?

Well, you never know until you try.

She hit the phone line to her assistant.

"Eric, find out where I can reach Dr.  Jack Hunt.  The One World Medics
hero.  Today's Washington Post says he's in town."

As she hung up she noticed her mother's look of dismay.

"Jack?"  Rachel asked.

Tory caught the familiarity.

"You know him?"

Rachel hesitated.

"Yes."

"Well enough to approach him?"

"Why?"

"I want him as our spokesman."

Rachel gaped.

"Spokesman?  Why Aim?"

"Because he's famous and attractive and Artemis killed his wife."  She
handed over the Post story with Hunt's photo.

Her mother gasped as though in pain, and for a moment Tory was afraid
she was ill.  It must be a blow, she realized, finding out this way
about a colleague's tragic loss.  Disturbing as it was, however, they
were both going to have to harden themselves if this campaign was going
to work.  No place for squeamishness.

"Mother," she warned, "we need this man.  Believe me, he's the key."

"Back to the Grand Hyatt, Doctor?"

Rachel sat unmoving in the government car idling outside Tory's
building.  She was still absorbing the shock.  At Jack's photograph,
her heart had seized.  The same lean look of strength, same jut of his
jaw, same direct gaze, with that enigmatic core of blue ice that made
her tremble as she remembered.

The morning sun broke into the car in a swell of radiance, and suddenly
the bright void surrounding her was the sunlit English hotel room where
she had stood naked in Jack's arms.  Twelve years ago.

She'd had no idea, no knowledge that he had married, that he was even
in South America.

A fist of sickness shot up inside her.  / killed Jack's wife.

"Doctor?"  the driver repeated.

"Back to the hotel?"

"What?  Yes ... no.  Just a moment."

She fought down the nausea and stared, unseeing, at the morning
traffic rushing by, the glass muting its din to a whisper like the sea.
Twelve years ago she'd thought she could not possibly have hurt him
more.  Now, I have.

That wasn't the only agony.  Tory.  Rachel's deepest fear, blocked from
her consciousness for months, now menaced her: in the event of a
pandemic Tory would be as much at risk as any female.  At me
outset--creating the virus, planning its delivery, sending me
ultimatum--Rachel had faced this.  But she had never truly believed
she'd have to default to a large-scale release, so she'd never truly
thought Tory was in danger.

She'd been so certain the president would agree to her demand, so
certain she could dismantle her threat.  That plan had failed--her own
miserable miscalculation.

Turning back was unthinkable.  Thousands had been sacrificed for a
grand vision.  Aborting the vision now would reduce those deaths to
plain murder.

But, sacrifice Tory?

An unbearable decision--and one Tory herself had just saved her from
confronting.  Her daughter was offering an extraordinary second chance.
A national campaign.  A popular revolution.

Could it work?  Tory thought it could.  Tory understood such things.
Her daughter's energy left Rachel overwhelmed.

Such trust in me!  Such instant commitment!  It moved her so deeply,
she couldn't sort the tumult of emotions.

Gratitude.  Fear.  Dismay at entangling Tory.  Hope.  She had never
suffered such regret--nor loved her daughter more.

Given Tory's high resolve, how could she let her own determination
waver for a moment, even over Jack?

"Not the hotel."  She was operating on automatic pilot, thinking and
speaking only on a level of brute necessity.  She knew, on that level,
what she had to do about Jack.  Tory had made it clear.

Tory's assistant had traced him.  Just missed him, an aide to the
health secretary had reported: Dr.  Hunt had just left a White House
meeting convened by the CDC and was on his way to Oregon to assist the
FBI.  After that, he was scheduled for Atlanta to rejoin the CDC.

Jack helping Carson?  It had thrown Rachel.  What was going on?

She clutched at his absence, though, like a reprieve.  I won't have to
face him.  Not yet.  Clutched, too, at the news of his CDC enlistment,
because that meant he was willing to work.  All of it meant she might
be able to arrange this privately with Hank Vorhees.

"Back to the White House," she told the driver.

She caught up with Vorhees outside the White House mess.  Wolfing a ham
sandwich as he walked, with two assistants at his right murmuring over
notes, he apologized to Rachel for not being able to stop but he was
hurrying to catch a flight back to Atlanta.  She fell into step with
him.

They'd known each other professionally for years.

"Unbelievable, this situation, huh?"  he said as they passed staffers
in the hall.

"Still, it's let me shake some serious funding out of these DC.  boys.
You here to advise Secretary Takesaki?"

"Hank, I need to talk to you alone."

"Oh, sure thing."  He motioned for his assistants to move ahead, and
she and Vorhees walked on together.  Rachel couldn't bring herself to
begin.  Couldn't drag her mind out of the smoking minefield of all that
had gone wrong.  The president's refusal.  His directive that she
create a team.

Tory's abrupt involvement.  Her insistence on recruiting Jack.  Jack's
dead wife.  Rachel couldn't get her bearings beyond a panicky sense
that things were spiraling out of her control.  Prom this miasma one
thought gripped like a hand at her throat: Don't hurt Jack again.

Yet that's exactly what she would have to do.  Use him, exploit him.
And lose him all over again.  Could she bear it?

What other course was there?

"Given this deadline," Tory had warned, "our only hope is to
immediately seize control of the issue.  We can only do that by
launching with an instantly recognizable spokesman.  Someone admired,
sympathetic, irreproachable.  In short.  Jack Hunt.  So this is the
plan.  Mother.  You explain the situation to Hunt just as you have to
me, so he sees there's no way out.  You convince him and get him onto
your research team.  Prom that position of rock-solid credibility we'll
have him denounce the government's stand, and tell me world why."

"Rachel, how do you stay in such great shape?"  Vorhees was saying,
eyeing her as he wiped mustard from his mouth with a paper napkin.

"You work out?  I tell you, you shame an old fart like me."

She said vaguely, still on autopilot, "Strange double standard.

No one would call a woman that, though I'm fifty-two, easily your
age."

He flashed a roguish smile.

"I know what I'd call you.  A damn fine-looking woman."

The idiocy of this banter snapped her back to reality.  She was here
for a mission.  She said, "I hear you've signed Jack Hunt."

He nodded with satisfaction.

"He's hot to join us.  Poor guy," he added with appropriate sadness.

Rachel stopped walking.

"Hank, I've been asked by the president to set up an independent
research effort.  Top priority.

I'm here to second some of your people."

His eyes narrowed, on guard.

"That so?  Who'd you have in mind?"

She handed him a list of sixteen names she had written in the car. Top
CDC epidemiologists, virologists, molecular biologists.

Scanning it, Vorhees reddened.

"Jesus, why don't you just shut the place down?"

"You can't operate without them?"

"Hell, no!"

"Then I'll make you a deal."  She indicated the list "I'll give you
back half those names in exchange for Jack Hunt" His stiffened at the
trap.

"No way, Rachel.  I'm gearing up around Jack.  He's mine."

"I have a directive.  Hank."

"And I have Jack.  He's dying to come to Atlanta."

"Don't make me pull rank," she said.

"I've been given carte blanche by the president."

"Well, what does the flicking president know about science?

Jesus Christ, I sweat year after year to stretch a budget over a
thousand boiler-plate programs, all the boring vaccination outreach,
the foot-slogging investigations and gagging paperwork, while you
hotshot corporate types rake in the patents, the cash, the glory ..."

Rachel wasn't listening.  In fighting to get Jack she was flooded with
memories of him.  Memories she'd tried for years to dam up.  The first
time they'd made love, in the dark garden.  The first time she'd taken
him in her mouth.  The first time he'd entered her from behind, and
she'd felt primitive fire shoot through her.  The only man who'd ever
excited her so much she had begged for it.

Twelve years since she'd walked out on him and broken all her promises.
Now, she was going to have to beg for his help.

Panic swamped her.  He'll never agree!

But Tory had been adamant.

"We need this man.  Believe me, he's the key."

Rachel saw, in a shudder of insight, what she would have to do if Jack
refused.  There was only one sure way to force him: tell him the truth.
Tell him that she was Artemis, that she'd rigged a dead man's switch,
that if he turned her in the switch would close, condemning millions to
death, so the only way to prevent that pandemic was to do what Tory
told him.  The jangling overload in her brain reached the pitch of a
screeching siren: extortion.

If she could believe in a god, she would have implored him now. Please,
don't let it come to that Telling Jack would kill me.

The shrill siren quieted.  A calmness settled over her.  An acceptance
of death.  Her death.  Her life had ended in that Rwandan village, in
the silence of the Church of Our Lady.

She'd known it for a long time.  The surge of feeling for Jack was just
an illusion.  I'm already dead.  All that's left is this final duty to
discharge.

She said firmly to Vorhees, "I'm only here as a courtesy.

My mandate from the president is clear, and I will exercise it."

"You do this, and I promise you I'll be putting my resignation on
Takesaki's desk."

"Put your resignation wherever you want.  Hank.  Just put your
signature on a directive transferring Jack Hunt to me first."

5

wind WAS TOSSING THE JACK PINES IN THE FOREST around Stoney Creek, and
Jack sensed the pilot's concentration as he prepared to land the Jet
Ranger helicopter in the gusts.

Jack scanned the scene below, his heart thudding.  His offer to Colwell
in Washington had been on impulse, an adrenaline rush to act Now, hours
later, here he was about to step into a place teat had been savaged
just like Jazida, and he wasn't sure he could take it The quarantined
town below looked like a prison camp.  Razor wire looped the perimeter,
barricades choked every exit army trucks crawled the streets, and in
the riverside campground outside me town platoons were struggling to
erect a burgeoning tent city.  For all the imposed order, sanitized by
this aerial view, Jack knew what horrors had gone on in these homes. He
saw again me blood-slick floors of the brothel, heard the women
screaming, smelled me stench of excrement and terror, saw Marisa's
blood-engorged eyes, her agony.  He had to rest his forehead against
the shuddering window, his mouth dry.

As the pilot landed on the campground, a dusty Chevy pickup pulled up.
Colwell got out and strode forward, stooping under the rotors.

"Dr.  Hunt," he called above the engine din, "thanks again for coming."
Jack followed him to the pickup, but, still shaky, had to brace himself
against the door, head down, to get his breath, his balance.

"Doctor?  You all right?"

Jack looked up.  Colwell was watching him in concern.

Got to pull myself together.  I'm here to help, damn it.

An army Humvee was racing toward them.  The grizzled officer at the
wheel braked beside them and called above the rotors' noise, "Colwell,
no way I can make your deadline to move all the residents to the
campground by midnight.  A lot of them are too freaked to budge.  I've
got to let some stay put until morning."

"Negative, Colonel," Colwell called back.

"I need the entire town cleared.  Now."

"It's not that simple.  I've evacuated disaster sites before, and I'm
telling you these people are traumatized."

"This is not a disaster.  Colonel.  This is a crime.  Criminals leave
evidence.  Any disturbance of the crime site compromises that evidence.
So you get the survivors out of their houses by midnight, even if you
have to truss them and drag them."

Jack winced.  Survivors.  He knew how they felt.

Colwell shot him a glance.

"Sorry, Doctor."

Jack couldn't let this go on.

"Listen," he said to Colwell as the colonel took off, "I don't want my
hand held, I want results.  Looks like you do too.  So let's get
started.  I'd like to talk to the state epidemiologists who were first
to arrive.

Then I want to see as much of the town as possible before dark.  I'm
due at the CDC in Atlanta as soon as we're done, so what can you show
me first?"

A quick reappraisal registered in ColwelTs eyes, a gleam of respect.

"The scientists are setting up at the church," he said as they climbed
into the pickup, then added, throwing an arm over the seat as he
reversed, "I've got to head back to Washington in a few hours, but my
CIRG commander will finish taking you around.  Until then, I'd like to
walk you through some of the houses myself.  Get your feedback."

"Fine."

Colwell shifted and gunned the engine, and they bumped over the
chewed-up campground turf.

"Our first priority is to discover how the virus was delivered," he
said.

Jack was thinking of epidemiology.

"We call it the vector."

Colwell was grim.

"I call it hard evidence."

They exchanged a glance.  Their work wasn't all that different.

"One request.  Doctor," Colwell said.

"I must ask that everything you see here remain confidential.  The
media will be hounding you once you leave, but I'm sure you appreciate
that this investigation cannot be carried on in the public eye."

"I agree," Jack said.  He had no desire to let the media vultures pick
at these people's misery.

And misery was what he saw.  Hundreds of blank-eyed men and boys stared
out from open tent flaps or sat on the ground watching the soldiers and
FBI agents work.  Jack had seen this dazed look on countless
third-world refugees, but this was America.  It shook him.  He could
feel their desolation.

It went beyond grief, shock, homelessness.  It was a bone-cold
certainty of aloneness.  He shared it Like them, he had seen something
so terrible he sensed that nowhere in the world would he ever feel at
home again.

He'd be glad to leave this place.  The quarantine had been imposed
immediately in the fear that men, although unaffected by the disease,
might be carriers.  Blood tests, however, had ruled that out, and the
quarantine was now being maintained for the purposes of the FBI's
investigation.  Jack could leave; for now, these people could not.

He glimpsed a dirty-faced little boy crying, and a bleary-eyed young
father, his endurance sapped, twist around and shake the boy.  Jack
ached to help.  He forced himself to look away, block it out, focus on
what he'd come for.  Evidence.

He turned to Colwell.

"Any news on the identity of the terrorists?"

"Sorry, Doctor, I'm not at liberty to discuss our investigation."

Jack studied the closed face.  Did Colwell really have nothing yet to
go on, or was he just very disciplined?  Probably both.  The hard-nosed
act seemed genuine, whatever its source.  Somehow it inspired
confidence.  Though Colwell appeared at least a decade younger than
Jack, Jack felt the man's authority.  If anyone could track these
killers, he decided, Colwell could.

They reached town, where Colwell had to maneuver through the traffic of
army vehicles.  Jack felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach as he
watched soldiers founding up the holdout residents and herding them
into open trucks.  He caught heartrending glimpses in driveways and
backyards.

What agony had there been for the kid who'd pedaled that overturned
pink tricycle?  Or the owner of the hungry cat scratching at that
kitchen door?  Or the family whose laundry was left out on that
clothesline?

"We're sorting the household garbage here," Colwell said, pulling up at
a stone church where a huge awning had been erected over the front
yard.  Scores of people were at work milling around industrial-sized
bins: FBI agents, army technicians, state and CDC epidemiologists,
pathologists, forensic scientists.  All men, Jack noted.  No women were
allowed into Stoney Creek.  He watched a group cataloguing bins of
soiled food containers, and felt awed by the sheer scale of the
operation: an entire town as a crime scene.

"The scientists are set up inside," Colwell said.

Jack spent a half hour talking to the epidemiologists.

Overwhelmed, they had completed only the most preliminary tests.

"Water supply checked out clean," a Dr.  Chaudhury, the weary team
leader, told him.

"None of the residents we've interviewed so far remember anything that
suggests an obvious airborne release."

Jack wasn't surprised.  In Jazida, too, nothing had seemed abnormal to
me miners.  Yet somehow, someone had brought in enough deadly virus to
kill almost every female here.

How?  In what?

Colwell drove him to a side street where working-class bungalows sat on
small but tidy lots.

"We've divided the town into sectors, A to J," Colwell explained.

"This block's in A. We'll start here."  This was what Jack had been
dreading, though it was why he'd come: going through homes where
victims had died.  In house after house he and Colwell sidestepped FBI
people who were videotaping and dusting for fingerprints and gathering
scraps: food, clothing, soiled carpet.  Jack couldn't avoid dry
bloodstains everywhere--on beds, chairs, floors, steps, from corpses
hastily dragged away.  As they looked through house after house, a
crewcut young agent accompanied him and Colwell, reading them stats
about the victims who'd died on the premises.  Jack tried to take it
all in while battling an overpowering sense of emptiness, of loss.
House after house, bleak with death.

What was he looking for anyway?  Superficially, nothing here was like
Jazida.  TV Guides and half-eaten pizzas.  Sideboards with wedding
china behind glass doors.  Cling-wrapped leftovers in fridges. Freezers
stocked with sides of beef.  Computer games, sneakers in the back hall,
backyard barbecues, toddlers' paddling pools.  Humble as this logging
community was, it was Beverly Hills compared to the poverty of the
Brazilian shantytown.

Laundry rooms, cellars, bathrooms, bedrooms.  Jack moved through them
slowly, eyeing a thousand familiar household objects, feeling a
disorienting sense of being surrounded by the dead who'd used them.
Colwell stuck by his side, watching him as if he were a dog trained to
sniff out narcotics.  Jack couldn't see anything that tripped any
memory.  What the hell am I looking or

"Reynolds, thirty-four, single mother, and her daughter, twelve," the
young agent read from his clipboard as they moved down a hall toward
two small bedrooms.

"Lived alone.  Died together on the living-room couch."  Jack stopped,
the sorrowful litany weighting him like heavy shackles.  They'd reached
a bedroom, walls plastered with magazine photos of horses--obviously
the twelve-year-old's room.  Even Colwell silently shook his head.  The
young agent fidgeted with his clipboard.

"Sir," an agent called, coming down the hall with a cell phone, "it's
the command center."

As Colwell took the phone.  Jack moved slowly into the bedroom.  The
bed had a rumpled yellow nylon coverlet, the frilly border frayed from
many washings.  He edged toward it, thinking: A child slept here until
last night.  His knee brushed the bedside table, faintly jostling the
objects on it: a lamp with ponies prancing on the shade, a ceramic
palomino pawing the air, an open diary with pink shooting stars on the
page borders, the pages crammed with a childish but determined
handwriting.  He couldn't help thinking of Laurel at that age, full of
secrets, gangly as a filly.  It had been torture phoning her early this
morning before he'd left Washington.

He'd woken her--it was before the news of Stoney Creek had broken on
TV--and she'd thought he was calling from Brazil.

"Jack?"  she'd asked in surprise.  Then, instantly cheerful, "Hey,
how's the honeymoon?  And when can I meet Marisa?

I can't wait."

His own voice had sounded hollow in his ears.

"Sweetheart, something's happened."

He sat down on the girl's yellow bedspread, overwhelmed with the
futility of this exercise.  What did I think I was going to find?"

His gaze drifted over the open diary entry, but a well-honed habit of
life with Laurel kicked in: not right to read a kid's private thoughts.
So, making a mental note to have Colwell get a specialist to check it
out--maybe they'd find a mention of some stranger?--he closed the pink
plastic cover.

That's when he saw it.  The trinket.  It had been beneath the diary
cover.  Two plastic tubes the size of lipsticks, one red, one purple,
joined by an inch-long length of chain like on a cheap key ring.

His pulse quickened.  He'd seen this thing in Jazida.

But where?  The images of the place were a blur.

The brothel?  Yes, that pretty teenager, what was her name?  Pia. She'd
been sitting on her bed in a nest of movie magazines and makeup. She'd
been fingering a trinket just like this.  Two joined vials, red and
purple.

He shook the pillow out of its case and, using the fabric to avoid
leaving prints, picked up the vials.  He saw that each one bore a thin,
glued-on strip of printed paper.

Jesus.

"Colwell!"

He bolted out.  Colwell, down the hall, was just handing back the
phone.  Jack pushed past agents and showed him the vials.

"I saw this in Jazida," he said, trying to hold his excitement in
check.

"And look."  He pointed to the narrow labels.

"Instructions."

Colwell inclined his head to make out the printing.  Jack had already
read it "Create an irresistibly personal perfume, as potent as you
dare," it said, then specified that the red vial contained "the base"
and the purple one "a concentrated essence," several drops of which,
mixed with the base, would produce "the scent of passion."

ColweU looked up.

"Perfume?"

"Perfect medium for a virus," Jack said.

"Ever seen a woman test scent?  They put it on the pulse point at their
wrist and sniff.  The stuff goes directly into the lungs and
bloodstream."

Colwell's eyes widened.  Now they were both excited.

Jack felt a surge of energy that was almost vicious.  Now we'll nail
the bastards!

A voice crackled over the portable VHP cupped to Colwell's belt:
"Situation at the morgue, sir.  A resident's inside one of the trucks
and won't come out.  He's got a shotgun.

Says he's looking for his wife."

"Christ" ColweU answered over the radio that he was on his way, then
handed the vials to a gloved agent.

"Get this to the CDC immediately.  Tell them top priority."  He turned
back to Jack.

"Doctor, you're with me.  On the way, give me your theory about this
stuff."

In the pickup they headed for the main street.  Jack giving ColweU a
rundown on the viral investigation the CDC would do, beginning with
electron microscopy.  Because of the hemorrhagic pathogenesis, they'd
be looking first for viruses that caused known lethal hemorrhagic
fevers such as Machupo, Hantavirus, Lassa fever, Marburg, Ebola.  The
last two.  Jack explained, were in a class called filoviruses, named
for the microbe's threadlike shape.  Under extreme magnification Ebola
showed distinctive loops, like shepherd's crooks, at the end of some
particles.  Marburg virus took two different forms.  One looked like a
caterpillar, a thin tubular shape coated with "fuzz."  In the more
dangerous form the viral tube was rolled into a tight coil,
impenetrable by the antibodies of a victim's immune system.  Besides
microscopy, investigators would simultaneously be testing victims'
blood against antibodies for known viruses, and using victims' tissue
to try to grow the virus in flasks of monkey cells.  They'd also
observe whether the perfume fluid killed monkey cells.

"Cells die, like the victims?"  Colwell asked.

"With Ebola, cells literally burst."  The wild card in all of this,
however.  Jack explained, was the disease's female-specific
manifestation.  No known virus exhibited that characteristic.

Colwell was turning sharply into the high school parking lot.

"Our command post's in the school," he explained.

"Morgue's here in the lot."

Jack saw a long line of parked refrigerator trucks, several with
lettering that read brydon's meat packers.  Despite all his years in
war zones and refugee camps, with death a constant presence, the sight
of this makeshift morgue lanced his heart.

The lot entrance was blocked with vehicles and people-military, FBI,
CDC, and surprising number of civilians.

Holdouts the army hadn't yet got to?  Colwell pulled over, and he and
Jack jumped out.  Jack saw that the crowd was focused on one truck, its
rear door rolled up, open.  He couldn't see anyone moving inside the
cavernous space.  Just shadowy tiers stacked with body bags.

"Any info on the guy inside?"  Colwell asked the agent who met them.

"Local sheriff, sir.  Name's Roy Hodge."

Colwell strode off to issue orders.

Jack looked around with growing uneasiness.  Along with the dozens of
milling FBI forensic personnel and CDC scientists interrupted in their
morgue work, more civilians were running in from all directions, and
soldiers were trying to restrain them.  Jack saw the grizzled army
colonel stop Colwell.  They seemed to be arguing, the colonel irritably
pointing.  A dispute about jurisdiction?  It looked like a standoff.

Nobody seemed to be approaching the man inside the truck.  The townsmen
out here looked tense, unruly.  Jack had a bad feeling.  No doubt
Colwell was an experienced hostage negotiator, but did he really know
how these men felt, with their loved ones stacked like cordwood inside
those trucks?

Wives, daughters, mothers, sisters.

He longed to help.  Maybe it was the bond he felt with the men, maybe
it was the gnawing anguish that he hadn't been able to do a single
thing to help in Jazida.  Whatever, he shouldered through.

"Colwell, let me try talking to the guy."

"No," Colwell said, preoccupied.

"We'll handle it" "Without loss of life?"  Jack gestured at the
weapon-bristling soldiers.  Many looked exhausted; they'd had the
grisly job of labeling and piling the corpses.  A few looked as strung
out as the townsmen.

Colwell considered his offer.

"Too dangerous.  He's armed."

"Look, I've negotiated with warlords toting Kalashnikovs," Jack said.
He added more quietly, "Besides, this sheriff and I have something in
common."

Colwell seemed affected by this.  He conferred for a moment with the
colonel, then nodded to Jack.

"All right, but just get him to come out if you can.  We'll take it
from there."

Jack pushed through the crowd.  When he was close enough to the truck's
rear he called into its darkness, "Sheriff Hodge, my name's Hunt.  Jack
Hunt I'd like to talk."

"You FBI?"  a deep voice inside answered.

"No, a civilian.  I'm a doctor.  I hear you have a problem.

Let's discuss it.  Can I come in?  I'm unarmed."

There was a pause.

"Deal."

When Jack stepped up on the truck's metal platform he had to look down
for his footing.  A strong hand clamped his elbow and yanked him
inside.  The door slammed down, cutting off the daylight.  Jack stood
still, blind in the dark.  His sinuses pricked at the reek of
disinfectant and death.

"Good idea, a hostage," the deep voice said.

"I shomd've took one right off."

A work bulb clicked on.  Jack saw a silver-haired man in jeans and a
windbreaker move backward down the aisle, apparently searching the
crowded tiers.  He was maybe in his late sixties, although his
lumberjack build still looked powerful.

Even as he searched he held his shotgun trained on Jack, like a pro.

"I mean no harm," he said gruffly.

"Just came to find my wife.  Those FBI boys turned me back.  So I got
my gun."

Hodge had zipped open some of the body bags, uncovering naked corpses.
Near Jack's knee a cadaver stared sightlessly up at him, the eyes black
clots of blood, the lips stretched in rictus over blood-caked teeth. He
saw Marisa's face.  Sickness boiled up to his throat.

He fought it and dragged his mind back.

"Let it go.  Sheriff," he said.

"Leave your wife in peace."

"That's the idea.  I'm going to bury her."

Jack's heart lurched.  He'd never got a chance to bury Marisa.

Still, Hodge's wish was impossible.  The FBI needed these corpses for
autopsies.  The CDC needed them for tissue samples.

He'd be relying on such samples himself once he got to Atlanta.

"Sheriff," he said, "you're a law enforcement officer, so you know
there could be vital evidence here.  I can't let you do this."

Hodge regarded him.

"You married.  Doc?"

Jack groped for an answer.

"I was, for a few hours.  My wife's dead.  Believe me, I know what
you're going through."

Hodge looked skeptical.

"That so?"

"She died the same way your wife did.  An attack in Brazil."

Surprise spread over Hodge's craggy features.  He gave a curt nod,
sympathetic.  Then he lifted the gun ominously.

"No offense.  Doc, but about spending a lifetime with a woman, you
don't know shit."  His eyes became hard.

"I'm taking her out And no goddamn FBI or army's gonna stop me."

Jack raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.  Just get him outside,
he told himself, then ColwelTs people can overpower him.

Hodge was moving down the truck, unzipping bag after bag.  Suddenly he
halted at the last one he'd uncovered and heaved a strangled moan.

"Aw, honey."

Jack saw a small woman, delicate, silver-haired like Hodge.  Passing
the shotgun from hand to hand, Hodge tugged off his windbreaker and
covered his wife's nakedness as tenderly as though he were tucking in a
child to sleep.  He looked at Jack, tears brimming.

"My Rita.  Forty-three years we been together.  She ain't evidence.
Doc, she's my wife."

Jack had no heart to argue.  It would only prolong the man's pain. Just
get him outside and get this over with.

Hodge roughly swiped away his tears, then tossed Jack a shovel.

"Join the work party."  He lifted his wife in his arms, but beneath her
he still pointed the shotgun at Jack.

"Let's go!"  Jack rolled up the door.  The lot was now swarming with
many more civilians, though soldiers had scrambled to form a line to
block them.  Jack stepped down with me shovel.

Hodge, carrying the body, was right behind him.

Colwell shouted over a megaphone, "Stop there, Mr.

Hodge!  Put down your weapon!"

"I mean to bury my wife," Hodge yelled.

"I'm heading yonder to the football field and I'm gonna dig her grave.
You want to stop me, you'll have to kill me."

"Stop now, or we'll fire!"

Hodge told Jack, "Keep going."

A warning shot cracked above Jack's head.  Hodge said, "Steady, now.
Straight on."

Another shot.  Hodge gasped.  Jack twisted around.  Hodge was hit in
the shoulder.  His shotgun clattered on the asphalt, but still he held
his wife.  Jack threw down the shovel, shouting, "Medic!"  and started
for Hodge.

Hodge staggered past him, blood soaking his sleeve, breaths wheezing
form his throat.  Jack said, "Sheriff, stop, let me see to your
wound."

"Fuck you," Hodge said through teeth clenched in pain.

He shuffled on.  Suddenly his legs buckled and he thudded to his knees.
Still, he held is wife.  The crowd watched in silence.

The soldiers lowered their weapons a fraction.

Hodge tried to stand but couldn't get a footing beneath his burden. His
strength was ebbing, his arms lowering inch by inch, his muscles
trembling, but he held his wife mat last foot above ground,
unyielding.

Jack watched in awe.  He understood, in the deepest part of
himself--the part that would always remain in Jazida-Hodge's need to
lay his wife to rest.

A man in coveralls broke through the soldiers' line, dashed forward,
and lifted the body, saying, "I got her, Roy."

Unburdened, Hodge sagged to the ground.  The man started toward the
field, carrying the sheriff's wife.  An FBI agent rushed him from
behind, restraining him, but the man held the body as fiercely as Hodge
had.  Then two young men ran out and together they lifted the woman and
started forward.

Someone shouted, "I want my daughter!"  and ran toward the truck.
Soldiers barred his way.  Two more men tried, and were stopped as well.
Then four broke through.  And three more.  The soldiers went after them
all, but for every one they stopped, more burst through.

Jack heard Colwell's raised voice: "Colonel, have your men stop these
people!"  The trickle became a flood.  The men charged the trucks. They
hauled open all the doors and poured inside.  They didn't search, just
picked up the first bodies they reached, carried them out, and started
across the lot More came running from town with shovels and pickaxes.

Old men, young men.  Teenagers.  Boys.  They swarmed past Colwell,
heading for the football field.  Nobody stopped them.  Nobody could.
They were going to bury their dead.

Colwell looked at Jack in disbelief, as if to ask: This chaos, this
breakdown of all authority, just to bury a corpse?

Jack couldn't explain.  He walked over to Chaudhmy, the CDC man.

"Have you got tissue samples?  I mean, enough?"

"Certainly, hundreds.  But--" It was all Jack needed to know.  He
walked back to where he'd dropped the shovel.  Though army medics were
helping Hodge now, he was obstinately trying to stand.  Jack picked up
the shovel, and with a silent nod of respect to the sheriff, headed for
the football field, to dig.

6

"No, mr.  trow bridge hasn't called in.  My God, Dr.

Hunt, it must be so terrible for you after--" "Just give him my message
if he does.  Thanks."

Jack hung up.  Since he'd got home to New York an hour ago he'd been
trying to track down Gerry.  The receptionist at his agent's office
didn't know where he was, and nobody Jack had called in Brazil knew
either.  A while ago he'd tried Gerry's SoHo number, a loft that was
both home and studio.

Gerry hadn't answered.  Jack tried again now, steeling himself for the
recording.

Liz's voice: "Hello, you've reached Trowbridge Productions, but at the
moment--" He hung up.

The Manhattan apartment was silent.  Eleven floors below, car horns
blared and tires were splashing through the afternoon rain, though only
a whisper of it penetrated up here.  Like some high-rise prison cell,
he thought, In solitary.

He rubbed the back of his stiff neck, his shoulders sore from the
digging last night.  He'd helped with the burials, believing the men's
zeal would soon be softened by the hard work.  It hadn't taken long.
Once thirty or so women were laid to rest, Colwell and the soldiers had
been able to impose order again.  Thirty graves.  Small price.  Jack
thought, for easing the troubled minds of those men.

His own mind had been restless all night and during the morning flight
here, chafing to know what the CDC had found in the perfume vials. He'd
put in several calls to Hank Vorhees from Oregon, and the moment he'd
walked through the door he'd checked his messages.  Vorhees hadn't
called.

It bothered Jack.  This runaround was no way to begin working
together.

He pulled Colwell's card from his wallet, called the Washington number,
and was put straight through.

"I was about to call you.  Doctor.  Yes, I got the CDC's report this
morning."

Jack didn't miss the coolness in Colwell's voice.  They hadn't seen eye
to eye on Sheriff Hodge.

"And?"  he asked.

"Not just one virus--several.  Apparently a real soup.  So far, none of
the hemorrhagic ones you mentioned, though.

I'm told it'll take some time for you scientists to disentangle them
all."

Jack was itching to get started.

"However," Colwell went on, "we've nailed the delivery system.  The
U.S. Postal Service--an unwitting accomplice.

Free, direct-mail samples of mix-your-own perfume, delivered door to
door.  Our videotapes confirm the vials in over thirty homes so far, in
bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen garbage.  Our computers didn't flag the
proliferation earlier because our sector people were cataloging the
vials under different descriptions--cosmetics, perfume, makeup,
samples.

A mess."

Besides, the trinket looked so ordinary.  Jack thought.

"What about in Jazida?"

"The Brazilian authorities are still sifting through the place but,
yes, now that we've alerted them they've begun to turn up some
vials."

Jack felt a wave of loathing at the sick irony of the terrorists'
weapon.  They'd murdered Marisa with perfume.

"Doctor, there's one thing I don't understand," Colwell said.

"I find it hard to believe that virtually every female in these towns
used this stuff.  Some were preschoolers, some were over eighty."

"Every one of them wouldn't have to," Jack said.

"Just a few dozen trying it would create the epidemic.  They'd sniff it
and become infected, and then, while the virus was in its most highly
contagious stage, each one who came into contact with another female
would breathe particles of virus at her.  Friends would kill friends.
Mothers would kill their own daughters."

Marisa's patients in the brothel killed her.

"Well, Doctor, I owe you," Colwell said.

"Thanks to you we now have a hard-evidence trail."

When Jack asked if it had led them to any suspects.  Colwell replied
there was nothing more he could discuss at this point, thanked him
again, and hung up.  The usual pattern with Colwell, Jack noted.
Nothing volunteered.  He doubted he'd ever get more than the rest of
the public would: TV statements from some wooden FBI spokesman.

He glanced at his bags outside the bedroom door.  When he'd arrived
stale-mouthed after the flight, he'd dropped them there.  He couldn't
go in.  Over the last four days he'd only napped fitfully in airplane
seats and hotel armchairs.

Hadn't been in a bed since Marisa died.

Just tonight to get through, he told himself.  He'd come home only to
get organized and pack.  In the morning, he'd be on his way.  In
Atlanta he'd get some answers from Vorhees.

The phone rang.  He held back, hoping it was Vorhees or Gerry, but
suspecting another reporter.  He'd already erased a slew of then" damn
messages.  He waited for the recording to kick in, ready to grab it if
it was Gerry or Vorhees.

Just another reporter.

He went to the kitchen, drank some water, walked back to the living
room.  Such a cold place.  Utilitarian.  It was like this when he'd
taken it ten years ago and he'd never bothered to change it.  Too busy.
Besides, it had been what he'd wanted then, the antithesis of the way
he'd once lived in Atlanta.

Hard even to remember all that now.  The plantation-style house, the
pool and tennis court.  The sleek, silver Porsche.  The sleek, smart
women.  Then Laurel had been thrust into his life, making it all seem
obscene.  He'd walked away from the fancy house and the choice CDC job,
joined One World Medics and hadn't looked back.  With Laurel either
away at school or staying with him in cities near his assignments, he'd
only needed this apartment as a base between missions, and he'd never
really noticed how sterile it was until now, remembering the Vermont
chalet he and Marisa had been planning.

He switched on CNN, hungry for an update.  They were covering some
conference in Japan.  He hit the mute button.

There'd be an update soon.

He flipped through the stack of mail the super had left on the
dining-room table.  There was a handwritten card from Rio de Janeiro:
Marisa's brother sending congratulations on the wedding and "hoping we
will meet soon."  Jack set down the card, shaken.  He hadn't known she
had a brother.  Knew her parents were dead, that she'd been a senior
nurse at a Rio hospital, but so little else.  He'd been looking forward
to learning.  He thought of Sheriff Hodge's words: "About spending a
lifetime with a woman, you don't know shit."

I never really knew her.

He listened to the room, the silence pressing in on him.

How was he going to get through the night?  His body craved rest, but
every time he'd tried to drift to sleep, he was back there--Marisa
writhing, hemonhaging, crashing.  / brought her to that place.

A key clicked and the door opened.  Jack turned in surprise.

Laurel.

She dropped her bags, ran to him, and threw her arms around his neck.
Her curly hair and denim jacket were damp from the rain.  His arms
tightened around her slight body.

When he'd called her in Boston yesterday he hadn't asked her to come,
but now he was filled with relief to have her near.

"What about your job?"  he said, gently drawing her away.  He'd pulled
strings to get her a data entry position for the summer at a municipal
lab.

"I quit.  They understood.  I didn't want you to be alone."

She searched his face.

"Are you all right?"

No.

"Yeah."

She frowned in concern.

"Have you eaten today?"

He tried to remember.

"That's what I figured," she said, "so I had the taxi stop at a
deli."

She made him sit on the sofa while she got plates and cutlery and set
everything on the coffee table, then kicked off her sandals and sat
beside him cross-legged in her skimpy skirt, unpacking croissants and
salad containers.  She didn't ask any questions.  He was grateful for
that.  He did tell her he was leaving in the morning for Atlanta.

"I'll come with you," she said simply.

"It'll just be a hotel," he warned.

"I'll be at the lab all day."

"Then you'll want to come home to someone who doesn't talk science.
Anyway, I like room service."

He was touched.  No tears, no sentimentality; that wasn't Laurel's way.
He watched her spooning chicken salad onto a plate for him, her
punk-orange hair and black bat earrings such a contrast to her bustling
solicitousness.  He'd often marveled at the hardy exterior she'd
developed to deflect life's blows.  Since becoming her guardian he'd
been in awe that her thin young shoulders could bear the weight they
had.  He worried about it sometimes.  Laurel had seen too much.  It was
why he'd never told her the truth about her mother's death.  And never
would.

She was picking up the remote with a glance at the mute

TV.

"You don't want to watch that," she said, about to click it off.

"No, turn it up," he said quickly.  It was Stoney Creek.  The CNN
reporter was standing beside soldiers at a high gate bristling with
razor wire at the campground's edge.

"The quarantine has made this town a virtual prison.

Nothing seems to be known yet about the anonymous terrorist group that
has claimed responsibility.  For now, the dazed men and boys behind
this fencing are simply struggling, like the rest of the nation, to
comprehend the unspeakable tragedy.  Mike Mclvar, Stoney Creek,
Oregon."

"Nothing known yet."  Was that true?  Jack wondered.  Or just the
official line?

CNN cut to a replay of a press statement from the attorney general. She
spoke in a calm monotone: "The investigation is proceeding in a
comprehensive and orderly fashion.

Every available resource has been dedicated to the FBI, and the
governments of foreign nations are fully cooperating with our efforts.
Make no mistake, the perpetrators of this crime against humanity will
be -hrpught to justice."  Reporters shouted questions as she started to
leave the podium.

One yelled, "Have the terrorists threatened another attack?"

She was already moving away.

Laurel looked at Jack.

"That's the same thing that killed Marisa?"

Killed.  Murdered.  He nodded.

"My God," she whispered, shaking her head.

CNN cut to an interview with a senator.  Laurel clicked off the TV.
They sat in silence.

"I'm going to call for a ticket to Atlanta," she said briskly, starting
for the kitchen.  She came back with the portable phone and the yellow
pages, and sat beside him again, flipping pages.

"What are you booked on?"

"American.  Seven-fifteen.  Plight--" His throat caught with a sudden
tightness, a choke of tenderness.  This little punk girl, this
once-bewildered street kid, wary as a wild cub, had become the rock of
his life.  The world would say he'd taken her in and looked after her,
but he knew better.

For ten years they'd looked after each other.  At this moment, it was
she who was keeping him sane.

"Sweetheart," he managed, "I'm so glad you're here."

Her businesslike face seemed to crumple.

"Oh, Jack," she said, her voice catching too.  She sank back against
him and pressed her head on his shoulder, as though to infuse her young
strength into him.  He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

She sniffed, men sat up, suddenly brisk again.

"You," she said with mock strictness, "need to sleep."  She nodded
toward his bedroom.

"Go on, lie down.  I'll hold down the fort."

He didn't move.

She seemed to understand.  She brought out a blanket and pillow, tucked
the blanket around him, and slid the pillow under his head on the sofa
back.

Jack finally allowed his eyes to close.  A siren was wailing down on
Riverside Drive.  He listened as it faded like a dying scream.

She would have rocked him in her arms if he'd let her.

But, being Jack, no way would he let on how broken up he was.  She'd
seen it, though.  In his eyes.  in the way he was just standing there
in the middle of the room when she'd arrived, as if he were lost. She'd
do anything to make him feel better, anything.  People always said
that, in movies, in books, "I'd do anything.  I'd die for you." It
sounded so dumb, but she knew it was true.  She really would give up
her life for Jack.

Hey, dying isn't exactly the job description here, she reminded herself
before she got carried away.  More like: fix a hot meal, answer the
phone, see his laundry's done.  Guess I can handle that.

As he slept she quietly cleaned up the deli garbage and put the
leftovers in the fridge.  He'd eaten almost nothing.

She'd nip out to the market later, she decided, and get stuff to make a
nice mushroom ri sotto  He liked that.  Maybe with some fresh green
peas.  She hefted his bags into his bedroom and unzipped them on the
bed, wondering, for the hundredth time, what Marisa had been like. From
Jack's description before the wedding she sounded pretty cool. Well,
she'd have to be if he'd fallen in love with her.  God, she thought
with a shiver, it must have been so disgusting, the way she died.  I
couldn't have handled seeing it.  Then it struck her:

being female too, I wouldn't have lasted long enough for wimpiness to
matter.  Just as well.  Sometimes it seemed as though she couldn't
handle anything.  She'd fooled Jack there.  He had some idea that she
actually knew what she was doing with her life.  He didn't know what
went on inside her head.  He didn't know about the nightmare.

It was always the same.  She was too late getting home, she couldn't
get inside because the door was locked, and by the time she did they
were all dead.  When she was conscious, awake, she realized there was
probably no way she could have stopped it.  She was only eight What
could she have done?  Still, it haunted her--there might have been
something.

What actually happened had been nightmare enough.  It had been a Friday
in February, the ugliest month in Detroit, and she was supposed to come
home from school to look after her little sister and brother, because
on most Friday mornings her mother's boyfriend brought over more junk,
either crack cocaine or heroin, and they smoked or shot up, and by the
afternoon her mother didn't much notice what the two little kids were
up to.  So Laurel knew she should get home.  That day she didn't.  She
goofed off with a friend, fooling around outside the corner 7-Eleven,
throwing snowballs and working up a plan to swipe a couple of Cokes,
which they did.  They ran down the block and drank the Cokes as they
horsed around on a snowbank.  It was getting dark when she tossed her
can in the slush and headed home.

She got out her key to the basement apartment but found the door
unlocked.  Nothing weird there, her mother sometimes forgot even to
close it.  The stairwell was dark--her mother never thought to turn on
the light for her--and she felt her way down in the gloom.  The air was
cold and stank of cat piss.  The smell was always worst in winter.  At
the bottom she switched on the light.  She found them sprawled on the
ratty sofa and the floor.  Each one shot.  All dead.  Her mother,
mother's boyfriend, little sister, baby brother.  She sat stiffly on a
kitchen chair, refusing to look at the blood, wondering what to do.

Later--she didn't know if it was minutes or hours--a man she'd never
seen before came down the stairs.  He said he was her grandfather.
Jack.  He called the police, and when they arrived they asked him
questions.  She felt sorry for him because his face was the color of
the slush outside as he told how he'd found them, how it looked like an
addict had broken in and done it.  The police asked her questions, too.
Jack told them to let her alone, for God's sake, she was only a child,
and she wasn't even home when it happened.  The cops finished their
questions anyway.  Then, Jack took her away.  Jack made her safe.  Jack
gave her a wonderful new life.  She loved him so much, she couldn't
bear to think he might find out what she was really like: useless.  So
she'd never told him she was supposed to come home early that day,
never told him that if she'd been there she might have stopped the man
with me gun.  She knew the truth in her nightmares, and she knew it in
her heart.  She should have come home, and kept the killer out A
ringing startled her.  The fax line.  She left Jack's bedroom and
headed for the small office across the hall where she lifted off the
one-page fax.  From the CDC.  She was reading it when Jack came to the
doorway.  He leaned against the frame, still groggily waking up.

"What is it?"  he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What does 'seconded' mean?"

"Transferred.  Like being traded."

"Well," she said, "you've been traded."  She scanned the last
paragraph.

"To a Dr.  Rachel Lesage."

His face looked like she'd thrown ice water at him.

"Rachel?"  He came and grabbed the fax.

Laurel couldn't tell if it was good news or bad, but she'd never seen
anybody wake up so fast.

7

"you WON'T BE NEEDED AT THE LAB TODAY, Dr.  Hunt," the young chauffeur
said with a glance back at Jack and Laurel.

Pulling out of the Bar Harbor airport, he merged Rachel's blue Mercedes
with the summer traffic.

"Dr.  Lesage's team won't have all arrived until tomorrow."

This was news.  Jack didn't like it.  On the phone Rachel's executive
assistant had assured him that all arrangements had been made.
Apparently not too well, he thought with some irritation.  It had been
enough of a shock yesterday just to know he'd be seeing Rachel, though
he'd gotten his mind around that now, he hoped.  Anyway, being pulled
from the CDC to her facility wasn't what bothered him--far from it He
knew all about her cutting-edge work with biotech therapies in the
state-of-the-art labs she owned, not only here in Maine but also in
Virginia and Puerto Rico as well as a couple in Europe.  The
president's request that she pull together an elite team was an
inspired move--she'd have no bureaucracy to slow her down--and if
Lesage Laboratories instead of the CDC was going to be the front line
of the research attack, this was where Jack wanted to be.  When her
Learjet had met him and Laurel in New York this morning he'd assumed he
was going to brief her team immediately about Jazida and get rolling.
Instead, it now seemed he'd be hanging around a hotel for a day and
night waiting.  He didn't like the idea and said so to the chauffeur.

"Oh, not a hotel, sir," he replied.

"You'd never get decent rooms at the height of the season, especially
with the other scientists and their staffs arriving too, plus all the
media.  No, Dr.  Lesage wants you to stay at her home."

Jack liked this even less.  Still, it was true that at a private home
he could avoid the damn media.  Anyway, it would only be temporary.
He'd soon arrange a hotel.

"You'll like it out there," the chauffeur added, smiling in the
rearview mirror.

"It's on the ocean."

Laurel murmured, "I think this lady's used to getting her way."

Always could.  Jack thought.  Get her way, and make you glad you were
part of it.  He couldn't deny that's what really disturbed him.
Yesterday, just knowing he was going to see her, he'd felt it again. An
instant sexual charge.  How could she still do that to him after all
these years?  And after these last days of horror.  It shamed him.

Yet it had been the same the very first evening they'd met.

It happened in England, twelve years ago.  East Sussex, in spring.  He
was head of the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch in Atlanta then, and was
finishing a series of guest lectures at England's Porton Down virology
lab when he heard that Rachel Lesage was in the country.  She had just
accepted her Nobel prize in Stockholm and was visiting English friends
on her way home.  He'd never met her, but one of her early
bacteriophage experiments had been in collaboration with him, and
others, long distance.  It had been years before, his input had been
slight, and they hadn't corresponded since.

Nevertheless, in her Nobel acceptance speech she had acknowledged his
contribution.  That was a class act, he thought, and he wanted to thank
her.  He heard that her hosts were planning a party in her honor at
their Sussex country home, so he finessed an invitation.

That was the first time he'd felt the pull of Rachel's gaze.

During the party he noticed that she did not gladly suffer fools.  If
she found a person's conversation dull she barely acknowledged them,
but anyone who interested her drew that almost brazen stare, intense
yet nearly expressionless.

He'd been struck by how unfeminine it seemed.  Most women were
animated, advertising charm, especially women who were attractive.  And
Rachel Lesage was very attractive.  It seemed she found him
interesting, and the cool beam of her eyes fixed him with frank
appraisal, womanly in a primal way.  Just meeting her gaze, he got an
erection.

She left the crowded drawing room first.  He watched her go out the
French doors to the back garden and into the darkness.

He followed her, more excited than he could ever remember being.  He
moved among shadowy fruit trees faintly lit by fairy lights, trying to
find her.  There was only silence and shadows.  He turned, and there
she was, standing by a potting shed, watching him.  He went to her. and
for a moment, unsure, they searched each other's eyes.  Then she
touched his mouth.  He kicked open the shed door and pulled her inside
and pressed her against the wall.  Her mouth was already open when he
kissed her.  He went to his knees and shoved up her skirt, the smell of
her as pungent as the spring earth.  She climaxed in his mouth, and he
almost came himself before he stood and had her against the wall.

That was the first time.  For the next five days, he couldn't get
enough of her.

Then she'd disappeared from his life.  Until today.

"Here we are."  The chauffeur pulled into a private road canopied with
the boughs of maples and beeches.  At a gatehouse he opened the barrier
by remote control and they continued deeper into me woods.  Jack
reflected that such cocooned privacy was available only to the very
rich.  He knew Rachel had earned her success.  She had won the Nobel
prize in medicine for her early work with bacteriophages to alter
cellular DNA: twenty years ago she'd used monkey virus SV40 to carry
genes inside E. coli bacteria, demonstrating how viruses that infect
bacteria might be used to treat genetic deficiency diseases.  A
stunning piece of work.  On the strength of mat achievement she had
built Lesage Laboratories, starting with this lab in Bar Harbor, which
remained her flagship operation, and subsequently expanding; he
believed her Puerto Rico lab was the latest addition.  Her company now
carried on a worldwide trade in genetic diagnostic systems for clinical
microbiology and was involved in very creative biomedical research,
using recombinant DNA techniques with genetically altered retro-viruses
to treat inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis.  Rachel had become a
biotechnology magnate.

They emerged from the woods and skirted a lawn that led up an incline
to a three-storied white house.  It wasn't what Jack had expected--a
rambling, old-fashioned place, maybe turn-of-the-century, with gables
and dormers and wooden shutters.  Imposing, yes, but obviously a
lived-in family home.  Broad green verandahs were footed by a white
froth of hydrangea bushes.  Birdhouses nestled in the trees, and wind
chimes glinted from the verandah eaves.  He caught glimpses of a
kitchen garden, a raspberry patch, a stone sundial, an ivy-covered
woodshed.  Prom a third-story window a white cotton curtain billowed
out in the breeze.  Rachel could have centered her business in any of
the country's busy biomedical communities, so Jack wondered if she
maintained this pastoral retreat to guard her privacy.  He knew almost
nothing about her private life.

"I don't think Dr.  Lesage is back yet," the chauffeur said, stopping
the car, "but I'll leave you with Doris, the housekeeper.

She'll show you your rooms."

Jack stepped out and immediately smelled the sea.  He turned.  The lawn
sloped down to an ocean bay.  A sheltering line of pines masked part of
it, but he could make out a stony beach and a dock, and a gleaming
white sailboat bobbing at the mooring.

"Nice work if you can get it," Laurel said, taking it all in.

As she dragged her knapsack from the seat Jack helped the chauffeur get
their bags, then followed him up the verandah steps.  Pausing to wait
for Laurel, he noticed a man in a chair inside a screened porch at the
far end of the verandah, the screen obscuring his features.  He was
talking quietly, though he seemed to be alone; Jack realized he was
dictating into a microphone.  Rachel's husband?  He'd never met the
man, but he'd always pictured a hard-driving tycoon, an integral part
of her biotech empire.  A man she would not leave.

He suddenly wished he hadn't agreed to stay here.

A gangly Irish setter bounded across the verandah to meet them.

"Hello there, you," Laurel said, bending to stroke the dog's head.

"His name is Liam," a voice informed them.

Jack turned.  The screened door at the far end had opened, revealing
the speaker as the man in the chair.  A wheelchair, Jack now saw.  The
man, about seventy, looked very frail.

"And this must be Dr.  Hunt."  His words were slurred.  The wheelchair
motor hummed as he glided forward.

"Welcome to Swallow Point.  I am Dr.  Lesage's husband."

"Professor Delbert Farr," the chauffeur informed Jack.

"Del," he insisted, and held out his left hand in greeting.

His right lay useless in his lap, and Jack realized--the impaired
speech, the unilateral paralysis: a stroke.  Blankly, he shook the bony
hand.  The firmness of the grip surprised him.

"I am a great admirer of yours, Doctor," Del said.

"It is an honor to meet you."  He spoke carefully to counteract me
slurring.

"Though I deeply regret the circumstances that bring you here. Please,"
he added warmly, "accept my condolences on the death of your wife.  A
tragedy that is difficult to comprehend."

Jack mumbled his thanks and introduced Laurel.  Del asked the chauffeur
to take their bags to their rooms.

"I am sorry to report that Rachel has been delayed at the lab.  Perhaps
she'll make it home in time to join us for luncheon.  In the meantime.
Laurel, may I offer you a soda?  And for you, Doctor," he added, the
left side of his mouth curling in a smile, "my guess is scotch,
correct?"

Jack roused himself to stop staring at this age-spotted man, so ill, so
gray, so totally unlike the husband his mind had created for Rachel.

"Scotch is fine.  And, please, it's Jack."

They had drinks inside the screened porch where Jack had heard Del
dictating.  Dredging for conversation, he noticed the tape recorder
beside a stack of pages like a manuscript.

"Are you working on a book?"

"Yes, for several years now.  Essays on demographics shaping the
environment.  Shocking how long these things take to complete."

As Laurel lifted a pair of binoculars from the table, Del said, "Ah,
you've discovered how I really spend my time.

Watching the birds."

Laurel smiled.

"Hobby?"  she asked, training the binoculars on the beach.

"All my life.  For several days I have been following a gyrfalcon over
at the rocks on the point," he said, indicating the direction for
her.

"Did you know the gyrfalcon is the world's largest falcon?  It is an
arctic species that breeds no farther south than Labrador, so it's very
rare to see one here.

Oh, some winters a few have ventured this far south, but never in
summer, so I fear this vagrant out at our point has stayed behind
because it is sick.  Sadly, they often suffer from environmental ills.
The gyrfalcon is a raptor, you see.

Its prey is smaller birds, ducks for example.  Such birds often have
ingested heavy metal these days, and the contamination can pass
directly into the raptor.  I have concluded mat civilization is not
good for them."  He added quietly, "Perhaps not good for any of us."

He rearranged his useless right hand on his lap, and went on, "The
female gyrfalcon is bigger and stronger than the male.  Arab countries
have trouble captive breeding the species because the Arabs resist
accepting that the male is the smaller of the pair.  Interesting, isn't
it?  How human biases mar our ability to see clearly."  He looked up at
Jack.

"Naturally, for the male gyrfalcon, the fact that his mate is more
powerful presents no problem at all."

Jack felt a shiver.  Did Del know about him and Rachel?

Jesus, he thought as Del and Laurel kept talking, how could she have
brought me here?

"Three weeks," she had promised that last morning in England, in their
country hotel.  She'd said she must go home first, must tell her
husband face-to-face.  She owed him that much, she said, but then she
would meet Jack in New York and they would start a new life together.
She stood naked in his arms in the morning sunlight and promised. Heady
with the wonder of her, he said he'd leave the CDC and move wherever
was best for her.  Maybe they could come back to England, he said. 
Maybe she could build a lab there and they could work together.

"Three weeks," she said again, smiling, her eyes shining with tears.

"Jack, how can I wait that long?"  He'd never known anyone like her,
electric with contrasts.

Fearless, but so impressionable.  Voracious in her passion, but so
generous.  They'd only known each other for six days, but he felt he
could not live, could not breathe, without her.

Within one week, back in Atlanta, he got her note.  Two lines.  Three
if you counted the Dear Dr.  Hunt.

"Regarding our meeting, my plans have changed.  I am canceling my New
York trip."  No explanation.  A Dear John if ever there was one.
Reading it, he'd felt a pain like a scalpel in his breastbone.

Days went by.  He left messages with her assistant and her housekeeper,
but Rachel returned none of his calls.  He kept expecting he'd hear
from her somehow, a letter, a card, saying work had delayed her, and
suggesting a fresh plan.  Or maybe she would just show up on his
doorstep.  He heard nothing.  He felt confused, angry, cheated.  After
a few weeks the painful wound scarred over and subsided to a dull ache,
a bruise.  He saw that Rachel hadn't felt what he had.  Not a new
story, he told himself.  Happened all the time.  Two people meet, share
a passionate week, then say good-bye.  For him, however, Rachel had
meant far more.

Months passed, filled with long days of work at the CDC.

The scar hardened.  He got on with his life.  One morning, driving to
work in a gray drizzle, he recalled the Greek myth about Icarus, who
had crashed to earth after flying too close to the sun.  Rachel was
like the sun.  He had entered her aura for six shining days.  In public
he'd discreetly waited for her during the London parties and receptions
where the international science community wooed her and the press
fawned over her, the new Nobel laureate.  In private they made love
every night and every morning at the Pear Tree Inn, where me daffodils
and the spring sunshine and the thrill of her dazzled him and blinded
him.  Then, suddenly, she was gone.

And he had tumbled to earth.

Lunch was a trial.  Del had waited as long as he could for Rachel, but
by two o'clock, conceding she was not coming, he asked the housekeeper
to serve them on the verandah.

Over the cold salmon and asparagus Del soldiered on, commenting on the
history of the house, the flora and fauna of the area.  Jack managed a
few remarks.  Laurel cheerily kept the conversation going.  Thank God
for her.  Jack thought.

"Nice sailboat," she said, nodding toward the water.

"Yes, a J-35.  She's Rachel's.  Do you sail.  Laurel?"

"Never."

"Would you like to?"

"I'd love to."

"Then you timed your visit well," Del said.

"Rachel had the boat out for repairs until yesterday.  What with
mounting a new propeller shaft and sacrificial anode, then fairing the
rudder, it took weeks."

"Sacrificial what?"  Laurel asked.

"Anode.  A zinc bulb on the propeller shaft."  Del explained, in his
patient professorial style, about corrosion in underwater metals.

"But if a zinc anode is mounted near the metal you want to preserve,
like the bronze propeller, me zinc corrodes first, protecting the
bronze.  It's sacrificed."

Laurel said, "Sounds like part science and part black magic."

"Sailing is, you know.  Even in my dinghy.  Sandpiper, I try to apply
scientific principles, but I sometimes wish I could cast a spell to
tame the wind and waves."

"You sail?"  Laurel asked in amazement, then blushed, aware of her faux
pas.

Del smiled.

"My dinghy is rigged for challenged sailors.

Of course, I don't go far."  He added with a twinkle, "The sandpiper
is a shore bird."  He laughed softly as he spoke about his nurse, Ron.
He and his wife, Doris, the housekeeper, lived upstairs.

"Each time Ron lowers me into the cockpit he asks with a frown, "You
sure you want to go out today.  Professor Fair?"  If you'll fetch the
binoculars from the porch.  Laurel, you can see my boat at the dock."

Jack was nearest.

"I'll go," he said.

He'd taken only a few steps when he heard behind him, from the far end
of the verandah, "Hello, Jack."

He turned.  Rachel stood on the top step, looking just as he
remembered.  The wide mouth, the thick dark hair, the brilliant brown
eyes, the penetrating gaze.  The sun behind her silhouetted her body,
slim in white linen slacks and silk shirt.  He could see that it was
still an athlete's body, radiating focused energy.

"Hello, Rachel," he said.

Neither moved.  In the silence, Del and Laurel, between them, waited.

Rachel finally came forward.  Jack was acutely conscious that her eyes
hadn't left him.

"I hope the flight was all right?"

A blade of anger entered him.

"I could have caught a commercial flight tomorrow, since that's when
the first meeting is."

"Forgive me.  I just thought some quiet out here first might do you
good."

"No, it's okay," Laurel said with a mollifying glance at him.

"He's just really tired."

Jack sensed the pall he'd cast.  As Del introduced Laurel, he groaned
inside, knowing he should have done that.  Why was he standing here so
stiffly, like some fool teenager?

Del broke the silence by telling Rachel they'd been discussing her
boat.

"Care to go for a sail?"  she asked.

"Now?"  Laurel said eagerly.

"Cool."

Rachel's eyes snapped to her in annoyance, and Jack realized she'd
meant the invitation for him alone.  She said, again to him, "There's a
lovely breeze, and it may be the last chance, with all the work ahead.
What do you say.  Jack?"

It wouldn't have been his first choice.  That would be getting to the
lab.  But he saw Laurel's enthusiasm, and after bearing his heavy moods
she deserved a break.  So did he, for that matter--any activity was
better than straining at polite conversation here.

"Why not."

"Then I shall see you after your adventures on the water," Del said
pleasantly, and backed his wheelchair from the table.

"I'll just get changed," Rachel said.

Jack watched as she went with Del through the open French doors to the
living room and as far as the hall staircase, where a corridor led to a
modern addition.  Stopping at this crossroads, she bent and kissed Del
gently on the mouth.  His hand cupped the back of her head, and his
gray fingers disappeared into her thick dark hair.  Forehead to
forehead, they spoke quietly for a few moments.  Then Rachel
straightened, Del turned his wheelchair and glided down the corridor,
and Rachel started up the stairs.

"You okay?"  Laurel asked Jack.

He quickly turned back.

"Of course."

Closing her bedroom door, she had to lean against it for strength.  Her
knees had gone weak at the sight of him.

Twelve years since she'd been with him, but it might as well be twelve
hours.

The way he'd looked at her--such wariness.  He'd never forgiven her. It
was so clear, etched in his eyes, in me tightness of every muscle.
Panic rocked her.  How can I broach the campaign to him if I can't even
break through his mistrust?

And the girl, she thought desperately as she pulled off her clothes,
grabbing shorts, a sweatshirt.  She'd never anticipated him bringing
his granddaughter.  She'd hoped to get him alone on the boat, gain his
confidence, bring him around, somehow.  She had to do it today.  Tory
would be arriving in the morning, expecting to have it arranged.
There's so little time.

She forced a mask of calmness as she reached them downstairs.  At the
dock they took the inflatable tender and motored to the boat at its
mooring.

"Curious."  Laurel said, reading the red lettering on the hull as they
came alongside.

"Good name for a scientist's boat."

They climbed aboard.  As Rachel hoisted the mainsail, Laurel asked,
"You usually handle this big boat all alone?"

"It's rigged for solo sailing.  All lines lead to the cockpit."

As she took the helm she asked Jack, "Ever sailed?"

"One summer, long ago," he said, glancing around at the rigging.

"You'll have to remind me what to do."

"Like riding a bicycle, it'll all come back."  She asked him to cast
off from the bow.  She hardened the mainsheet, unfurled the head sail,
and they were under way.

Laurel perched on the hatch and gazed out while Jack came back to the
cockpit and sat across from Rachel.  She sensed him avoiding her eyes,
and she felt the space between them was a chasm.  The silence of those
dozen years.

How can I reach him?

With some of the truth in my heart?

She said haltingly, "Jack, I'm so sorry for your loss.  More sorry than
I can say."

In his haggard eyes she saw a shield go up.  Armor against condolences,
or just against her?  He looked away, and she gritted her teeth.  What
a clumsy way to begin!

But she'd forbidden herself more remorse about his wife.

She had a mission: get him to do the campaign.  Nothing else mattered.
She wanted his willing agreement.  If he refused, her only option was
to force him by telling him the truth, and that would be a torture for
them both.  But to get his willing agreement, she first had to get his
trust Nothing can happen until I have that.

They were making a smooth six knots in placid seas.  She asked Laurel
to go to the foredeck to keep a lookout for a flagged rock, awash now
at high tide.  She'd navigated around it a hundred times, but it was a
good pretext to send the girl out of earshot.  She watched Laurel go
forward and sit cross-legged on the bow, her back to them.

Rachel and Jack were alone.  She felt his eyes slide to her as she
manipulated the sheets and tiller.  He finally asked with grudging
interest, "How long have you been doing this?"

"Since I was about seven, growing up in a little French port in Nova
Scotia.  My father taught me.  He was a navigator in the Canadian
navy."

"Oh?"

She understood his surprise.  Few people knew of her French-Canadian
background.  She'd purged her accent years ago.

Rocky little Lone Pine Island was dead ahead.  Preparing to tack,
Rachel told Laurel to move to the mast and asked Jack to handle the jib
sheets.  As she brought the bow through the wind, he stood grinding the
winch.  He cleared off the sheet, then straightened, keenly watching
their progress, the wind rippling his shirt.  Rachel saw, with a
glimmer of hope, that he'd enjoyed the bit of exercise.  One step
forward, she thought.

Close-hauled now, they were heeled more, and Jack settled near her on
the high side.  He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.  She read
intense relief on his face, as though that breath had been the first
clean one he'd drawn in days, and this was the first moment of peace.
Opening his eyes, he turned to her and said quietly.

"This is nice."

It was his apology.  Her hope surged.  Not too fast, she warned
herself.  She said, "My father used to say that when he was in church
he thought about sailing, and when he was sailing he thought about
God."

Jack smiled.

Two steps forward.  Her heart crammed up in her throat.

Now's the time.

"Jack, about the situation.  There's been a development."

His smile evaporated and he asked, suddenly keen, "What is it?"

In watching him her concentration on the gusts had wavered, and one hit
them now, heeling them violently.  Rachel stood and eased the
mainsheet, instantly leveling the boat.

Jack twisted around to check on Laurel, who'd tumbled onto her side.

"You okay?"  he called to her.

"Sure."  She laughed, holding on to the lifeline she'd grabbed for
support.

"What a rush!"

"Come on back here where it's safe," he told her.

"I can see the rock now.  Over there."  He pointed to show Rachel.

"Good, thanks," Rachel said.  She could only watch in frustration as
Laurel joined them in the cockpit.

Standing to make room.  Jack said to Rachel, "We can't talk here. Let's
head back."  At that moment another gust hit, and he grabbed her elbow
to steady her.  Her breath caught at the sensation of his grip. He
quickly drew his hand away, but she saw he'd felt the shock of it too. 
She tried to compose herself.  He'd been so close she'd smelled his
skin, that trace of male sweat, and it instantly ignited the old ache,
as sharp as that first night with him at the inn.

He strode into her room and they laughed at how they'd given roe London
reporters the slip.

It had been her idea.  At the evening's Barbican media reception she
was quietly telling him that she'd moved to a country inn, and was
about to tell him its name when she noticed a reporter trying to
overhear.  Boldly, loudly, she recited the inn's phone number instead.
As she brushed past Jack, she whispered, "Deduct one numeral."  He'll
get it, she thought, confident that the reporter, on the other hand,
would give up after the original number proved wrong.  He'd get no
story.

She didn't know what she'd do if Jack gave up.  She wanted him so much
after last night in the garden shed.  It was all she could think of
during the day's string of press conferences.  She'd answered questions
about Stockholm and the Nobel committee, bacteriophages and DNA, all
the while remembering Jack's hands shoving up her skirt in the
darkness, his tongue between her legs, his cock driving into her
against the wall.

She'd never done anything like this before.  She'd been a faithful wife
to a husband who was gentle, companionable, an undemanding lover.

But Jack was demanding, and he hadn't given up.  He'd got the right
number, and now he was here.

They pulled off their clothes and fell together on the bed.

He rolled her on her back and spread her legs.  He teased her, with his
fingers, his tongue, until she gasped.  Then he waited.  She groaned,
frantic for him to go on.  She groped at his shoulders where his
muscles bunched as he held himself above her.  She begged, "Oh, please
... fuck me!  Please!"

Twelve years.  Nothing had changed.

Except, everything had changed.  And she was running out of time. Would
she have to tell him the truth after all?  There's a dead man's switch.
Jack.  If you turn me in--if I'm arrested--it will close, unleashing a
pandemic.  Only you can prevent that.  Only you can save us all, by
leading Tory's campaign.  How could she get him on her side without
resorting to that?  She didn't think she could bear to exploit him so
brutally.

Suddenly, the memories that had ambushed her spawned an idea.  Is that
the way to bring him to me?

The thought made her tremble.  Seduce him?  If she could, maybe she
wouldn't have to use the truth to extort his compliance, maybe he'd do
me campaign of his own free will, to be with her again.  Could it work?
Was it wise... or just what she wanted?

Whatever, she thought, homing in on the decision, tonight is all I
have.

The sun was setting by the time they got back to the dock, and Jack was
restless to ask what she'd meant by a "development."

He didn't want to alarm Laurel with talk of autopsies and pathogens, so
he sent her on ahead to the house, saying he and Rachel had business to
discuss.  He watched her start up the slope, the dog bounding down to
greet her, then he turned to Rachel and asked, "So, what's happened?"

She hesitated.

"Let's walk.  Come, I'll show you the beach."  They started across the
stony patch beside the dock.

"I just wasn't sure if you'd heard, about Oregon.  The FBI found virus
in vials of perfume."

He stifled a groan of disappointment Was that all?

"I know.  I was there."

"Oh, of course.  Well, that's what we'll be working on.

The CDC is couriering me samples tonight."

As they walked he questioned her about the team--who was on it, how she
intended to direct the effort, what further liaison she planned with
the CDC--but her answers were brief, indefinite.  She seemed
preoccupied, or reluctant to go into detail, or both.  Anyway, he told
himself, there wasn't a whole lot to discuss until they could get a
good look at the stuff in the vials.

An osprey whistled shrilly overhead.  Jack watched it glide toward the
pines at the point.  The light was fading quickly.  Across the bay to
the east the woods were already dark against the purple sky, and the
far-off cries of birds sounded as they flew to safety for the night.
The air held a faint chill.  Jack thought.  The first threat of fall.

Or maybe it was just him.  That moment on the boat had thrown him.
Touching Rachel.  All the old sensations.

Abruptly, he stopped walking.

"Think I'll head in, get cleaned up."

"Oh, not yet," she urged.

"I do want to talk.  Jack.  About the work, I mean.  Let's enjoy the
sunset first.  Come on, a bit of a walk will help you sleep."  She
added quietly, "You look like you need it."

True enough, he thought.  He hadn't slept properly since Jazida.
Anyway, it was time he got over this unease at being with her; they
were going to be working together.  Deal with it, he told himself.

"Maybe you're right."

They walked on.  Rachel was gazing out at the sunset-reddened sea.

"I've always loved the beach," she said, her voice vibrant, serious.

"It's like a frontier--between what we know and what we can only
imagine."

He looked at her.  What an original she was.  Her intellect, her drive.
Handling that boat, running her empire.  She didn't need anyone.  Did
that really still bother him?

As they picked their way over the stones and broken driftwood, she
slipped her arm through his.  She'd done it casually, easily, as though
they were old friends who walked on the beach every evening, but his
blood leaped at the touch of her, again.  He glanced at her bent head.
Even in the fading light he saw that the back of her neck was tanned.
He thought he could smell the tang of sea salt on her skin, almost
like tasting it.  He concentrated again on making his way over the
stones.

A few minutes later she stopped.

"I usually go for a swim at this hour.  Join me if you like."  She left
his side.

He saw that they'd stopped in front of a small beach house faced with
weathered gray shingles.  On the open deck, clothes were draped over
the railing: a woman's white bathing suit, track pants, a sweater. Tall
grasses grew in clumps from the sand at the deck's edge, the stalks
nodding in the breeze.

Rachel opened the door and Jack followed her in.  It was basically one
room.  Crammed bookshelves lined the walls.

A desk at the window was messy with books, papers, a computer.

A nit on was strewn with newspapers and more books:

he glimpsed a volume of French poems and a book of Escher drawings.  In
front of the fireplace a rocking chair sat on a rough-woven rug.

"This is where I come to think," she said.  She hadn't closed the door,
and the blue, liquid like twilight from the doorway and window filled
the room.

"The French call this time of day entre chi en et loup.  Between dog
and wolf."

The blue glow caught a photograph on the desk, a picture of a black
child about seven or eight years old.  He wore a Superman bathing suit
and an orange life jacket as he sat at the helm of a sailing dinghy.
His shoulders were hunched as he giggled, making a mock salute to the
camera.

"Who's this?"  Jack asked.

Rachel's face went blank.

"My son."

He looked at her, astonished.

"Adopted."  She turned abruptly from the photograph.

"He's dead."

She went to a deep wicker basket and rummaged inside.

"There are some guests' things here."  She pulled out a pair of men's
bathing trunks and handed them to him.

"My suit's on the railing," she said, and went back out.

He stared after her.  An adopted son, dead.  He hadn't known.  But
then, he knew nothing about her life since they'd parted.

He changed into the trunks.  When he got outside, she was walking into
the water, already knee-deep.  He reached her and they stood together
looking out at the sea and sky.  A heavy cloud bank was turning the
twilight to darkness, and the strengthening wind was pushing up waves
out on the deep water.  Far to the west, dry lightning flashed.

"I married Del when I was a freshman at Yale on scholarship," Rachel
said.  She was watching the cloud bank as water lapped at her legs.

"He was thirty-four, my sociology professor.  I was eighteen, a bundle
of raw ambition, out to demystify the universe."  A slight smile crept
into her voice as she added, "Del civilized me."  then, very seriously,
"He's always been my best friend."

The wind fanned her hair along the side of her face.  Jack couldn't see
her eyes.

"I left you in England on a Monday morning," she went on.

"When I got home that evening Del had just suffered a massive stroke."
She picked up a floating stick of driftwood and turned it in her hands
as though studying it.

"I didn't tell him about us.  He was so sick.  He needed so much care."
Her hands stilled.

"I've only loved two men in my life.  When it came to a choice, I knew
you could live without me.  Del couldn't."

She added quietly, "But I've never stopped loving you, Jack."

It was a jolt straight to his heart.

She looked up at him.

"I sent you that terrible letter because I believed that if I didn't
turn you against me you'd come after me.  I was afraid that if you did
come, if I even heard your voice on the phone, I wouldn't have the
strength to stay with Del."  She gave a slight shrug.

"I suppose no one uses the word duty anymore ... but there are some
people one simply cannot desert."

Jack couldn't speak.  All those years ago he'd never thought past the
coldness of her rejection, her cruelty to him.  Never had he imagined
she'd been acting out of love for someone else.  Acting in honor.

She said softly, "I'm glad to be able to explain, now."

Why?  Did she think he was feeling so little?  Not so.

Every nerve end felt exposed.  He could touch her, smell her, taste her
in the air between them.

He knew she felt the same, not calm as she'd tried to look when she
started this.  He knew because he heard the unsteadiness in her voice
as she went on.

"I suppose I should tell you I'm sorry for the way I hurt you all those
years ago," she said, "but you don't need my apologies.  You
recovered.

I'm the one who paid.  Every day since England, I've wished I could be
with you."

She dropped the driftwood and it floated away.  She walked forward and
dove in.  Jack stood looking after her as she swam out doing a brisk
crawl.  He could see her arms flash above the water.  The wind was
chilly with the threat of rain, but he was inflamed by what she'd said.
And ashamed at how much it pleased him.

He dove in, the cold water a shock.  He welcomed it He swam hard for
about ten minutes, then checked Rachel again.  She had swum out so far
it was difficult to follow her shape in the dark waves, but she
appeared to be turning back.  He swam to shore and walked up to the
deck, where he found an overhead spigot and washed off the salt.  When
he turned me tap off the evening was quiet, except for the tall grasses
rustling beside him in the dusk.  Rachel's clothes fluttered on the
railing.

He went inside and turned on the brass desk lamp.  He found a towel
and dried off, and put on his pants.  As he picked up his shirt he
checked out the window again.  Rachel was walking out of the water.

He was buttoning his shirt when he heard a soft thud under the deck,
and a minute later she came in carrying a canvas bag with some logs.

"It's cold," she said, moving to the fireplace, "and I'm staying here
tonight."  Water from her suit dripped down her bare legs.  Water from
her slicked-back hair dripped down her back.

"I'll do that," he said, taking the logs.

"Go get dry."  She went outside.

He squatted at the fireplace and started to build up the logs.  He'd
make the fire for her, he told himself, then go back up to the house.
They could talk in the morning.  When he'd cooled off.

He looked around for kindling.  A basket held some twigs and old
newspapers.  He was gathering some of this together when he looked out
the window.  Rachel stood naked under the spigot.  She was facing him,
head tilted back, eyes closed to let the water rinse her face.  Her
arms were bent as she ran her fingers through her wet hair.  The spill
of light from the lamp glowed on her taut body as water sluiced over
her shoulders, around her breasts, the nipples hard, over the slight
mound of her belly, into the dark triangle thicket, down her thighs.
She opened her eyes and saw him.  Arms still raised, she didn't move.

Jack stepped back.  He dumped the kindling at the fireplace and looked
for his shoes.  He couldn't remember where he'd put them.

She came in toweling her hair, wearing only a man-sized white pullover
that came halfway down her thighs.

"There's brandy there in the bookcase, and glasses.  Help yourself."

She added quietly, "I know I could use some."  She tossed the towel
onto the futon and knelt at the fireplace to finish building up the
logs.

Jack poured the brandy.  He took a big swallow and its heat shot
through him.  He set Rachel's glass on the hearthstone beside her, then
stood behind her, watching.  She struck a long match and bent to light
the fire, her buttocks rising.  He couldn't turn away.  He was hard for
her, his body remembering hers, his heart pumping, his mind stalled.

He forced himself to move, put down the brandy.  When he turned back
she was standing, leaning back against the desk, watching him.  She
held her glass between her breasts, and with the other hand nervously
fingered the bottom of the sweater, making the hem lift a little up her
thigh.  As she looked into her brandy Jack tried not to watch the
sweater's twitching hem.  Tried to ignore the fire in his blood.

Her breathing was uneven now, like his.  She said, "I've been faithful
to Del, but I sleep alone."  Her lips curved in a half smile, "m a way,
it was like being faithful to you."  The smile vanished.

"But twelve years is a long time without a man in my bed."

She looked at him, eye to eye.  There was no artifice, no pretending. A
tremor shivered over her body.

"God, Jack, all these years alone.  Every time my hand lingers between
my legs, my fantasy is you."

She put down her glass and moved so close he could feel her heat She
touched his mouth with her fingertip, then whispered, "Please."  It was
more than he could bear.

He caught her wrist to stop her.

"Rachel, this is--" He'd been about to say all wrong, but he craved it
to be right, craved her, craved to drag her back with him into the past
He pulled her hard against him, and he would have tried to enter that
past again, force himself in, if she hadn't breathed, "Jack, stay with
me--" and he hadn't heard an echo of Marisa pleading, "Jack, don't
go!"

Marisa.  Dear God.  The gentlest, the kindest... What am I doing?

He had to get air.  He pulled open the door and stopped on the deck,
unsteady from the brandy, and took deep breaths.

Rachel's clothes had blown off the railing.  Rain was spattering the
stones of the beach.  It spattered him too.

He heard her come up behind him.  Felt her hand on his shoulder, her
touch like a spark in the rain.  He twisted around, stepped back, sat
down heavily on the railing.  Rain was pounding them now.  He found it
hard to breathe.

"This was supposed to be my honeymoon."  He couldn't stop the sting of
tears, nor the sob that ripped through his chest.  He gripped the
railing on either side as he sat there.

"Don't," she whispered.  She stroked his wet face.  She softly kissed
his cheek.

"You need to forget."

But he knew he would never forget.  Knew, as he fought to master the
sobs, that he must not forget.

She squeezed between his legs.  Her hands were hot on his thighs.  Her
wet sweater clung to her breasts.  Her wet mouth pressed on his.

He gripped her arms--to stop this, to steady himself.  He stood up,
holding her away from him.

"Rachel," he managed.

"No."

"I know you want it.  Just as I do.  Jack, please, we can be together
again, if you'd just--" "Listen to me," he said, dragging himself back
down to reality.

"Twelve years ago you made a choice.  The right choice.  You belong
here with Del.  And I--" He looked into her eyes.  I have a murder to
avenge.

He strode up toward the house, his thoughts in turmoil.

How had he allowed it to go so far?  His fault, he knew.

Rachel was in such a volatile state, faithful to Del all these years,
but celibate.  He had nothing but admiration for her;

but there was no excuse for him.  He'd so hungrily listened to her,
encouraged the temptation.  Remorse alone had finally stopped him.

The rain was over; the squall had passed as suddenly as it had come.
The wind had died and the clouds had moved on, bringing an unexpected
reprise of rosy evening light, like the day's final benediction.  But
Jack felt no solace.  Besides the bite of guilt, something else was
nagging, something he'd seen in Rachel, indefinable but almost more
disturbing.

Some fierce struggle seemed to be going on inside her.  He couldn't
believe he was the source of all that.  What was?

She'd said she wanted to talk about the work, yet her reluctance had
been clear.  Did she have some suspicion about the terrorists' viral
creation, something that alarmed her?

Should he go back, press her about it?  Halfway up to the house he
stopped.  Going back was the last thing he wanted.

He noticed someone on the verandah.  Two people actually--a woman
holding a little boy of about four who straddled her hip.  Apparently,
she hadn't seen Jack.  She and the boy were both still, their heads
lifted as if to better take in the view: together they looked like some
fine sculpture.  Jack felt oddly stirred by the purity of the image:
mother and child caught in this last radiant glow of sunset Such a
contrast to the murkiness in his own soul.  The sculpture sprang to
life as the woman set the boy down and he skipped into the house.
Jack's eyes stayed on the woman.  She was striking.

Early thirties, he guessed; trim jeans and blazer, sleek dark hair,
fine-boned beauty.  But it wasn't her good looks that made him watch as
she stood smoothing back her hair with both hands and looking around as
if she owned the place.  Something in that gesture was familiar.  And
in her air.

It hit him.  This could only be Rachel's daughter.

Tory reached up to touch the wind chime.  It was a new one, of white
shells tinkling against slim nickel cylinders: a chime of some kind had
been hanging here for as long as she could remember.  As a kid it was
her ritual every time she passed to jump up and touch it Soon after her
twelfth birthday she'd managed without even jumping.

I love this place, she thought, watching droplets dribble from the
verandah eaves.  I don't get back here often enough.

The departing airport limousine was crunching down me gravel drive.
She'd come early--her mother wasn't expecting her until tomorrow
morning--but her mother had bad all day with Hunt, and there'd been no
phone call from her to say he'd refused.  Anyway, Tory couldn't afford
to waste another night, even another hour.  It was time to meet the
famous doctor and get things rolling.

She could faintly hear Chris chattering to Doris in me kitchen.  He'd
run in hoping for a cookie.  Thank God Doris had agreed to keep an eye
on him until me new nanny arrived.

Tory didn't want him hurt by the tension at home, which she knew was
going to be extreme the moment Carson learned what she was organizing.
He'd been camping at the FBI command center--hadn't come home in three
days--so at least she hadn't had to lie to his face, but she'd found
deceiving him with silence, even at a distance, almost as painful.  She
and Carson had drifted apart, it was true, but in seven years of
marriage she'd never lied to him.

Am I doing the right thing?  Is my mother?

Academic.  What's me alternative?  Global plague.

She took a deep breath of the clean air, rich with the elementary
smells of earth and sea after the sudden downpour, and willed back
memories of more carefree days.

Her seventh birthday.  She'd been longing for a Barbie doll, and she'd
started her campaign for it weeks before.  Her mother had looked
horrified, as if she'd asked for a machine gun.  Tory still coveted
the doll, though, so she methodically petitioned every other potential
gift source.  On the day, her aunt in California came through: a
stunning Skating Barbie arrived, complete with flimsy pink micro-skirt,
fur-trimmed cuffs, and her own removable skates.  Tory was ecstatic.
Her mother didn't say a word.

About a week later, as she was combing her heroine's plastic hair, her
mother asked if she'd join her on the beach, saying she'd like her help
with an experiment.  Her mother's undivided attention being a rare
treat, Tory eagerly went with her, the Barbie clutched lovingly in her
hand.

The experiment was a study of starfish changing colors in a tidal pool.
Her mother explained the investigation's parameters, gave her colored
pencils and a notebook, and left her to observe and make notes, while
she sat on a nearby rock and began reading a stack of lab paperwork.
Tory set to work, enthralled.  For hours she filled pages with notes
and drawings, enchanted by the living creatures and, even more, loving
the afternoon-long intimacy with her mother, who quietly answered her
questions.  Years later, of course, she understood that Rachel's papers
that day had been completely unconnected to starfish, but she didn't
know that at die time, or care.  Her mother had asked for her help and
they were working together.  That was all that mattered.

When they were called in for dinner they started hand in hand up to the
house, Tory chattering about starfish, an expert now.

"Oh, my Barbie," she said suddenly.  She'd forgotten it She found it
lying soggy and bedraggled on the beach--inert, lifeless, boring.
Grabbing it carelessly by its hair, she ran back to her mother, and as
they came in the kitchen door she dropped the doll in a corner box of
old hats.

Her mother didn't say a word, but her smile was one of satisfaction.

Tory never played with the doll again.

Remembering, Tory smiled too.  Somehow the memory gave her courage.
Together, they just might pull this off.

So get your ass in gear, she told herself.  Let's meet the good Dr.
Hunt.

Suddenly, she saw him.  He was coming straight toward her from the
beach, wet from me rain.  He was even more impressive than in his
photos.  Stronger, both in build and in aura, but with a shadow of
suffering deep in his eyes.  Her first thought was: Poor man, what he's
lived through.  Her second was: He's perfect

Rachel, hurrying after Jack, was appalled to see Tory move across the
verandah toward him.  She's come too soon.

"Jack," she said, reaching him first at the foot of the stairs.  He
turned to her with a wariness that cut her heart, the pain of his
rebuff still fresh.  No time for such feelings.

"I

must talk to you, alone.  There's--" "Nana!"  Chris came flying out of
the house and down the steps and threw his arms around her waist.

She looked distractedly at her grandson as he clung to her.

"Hello, darling," she said.  She gave him a quick hug, then gently
freed herself.  He offered up his stuffed rabbit for her blessing.

"Yes, hello Bunny, too," she said.

"Now run along and see Grampa.  I have to talk to--" "But I want to go
on your ship.  Mommy said--" "I said maybe tomorrow.  It's almost
bedtime," Tory told him, reaching them.  She smiled.

"Hello, Dr.  Hunt" Rachel gripped Chris's shoulders, steeling herself.
She couldn't prevent what was coming.

"Jack, this is my daughter, Victoria FarrColwell."

His eyes snapped to her.

"Colwell?"

"Tory," she said blithely, extending her hand.

Something in her daughter's buoyant confidence as she and Jack shook
hands made Rachel dare to hope.  Could Tory persuade him?  She felt
desperate.  Her seduction gamble had failed, humiliatingly, miserably.
Still, she recoiled from the only sure way to force him to act--with
the truth.  Tory offered a last chance.  If she can persuade him, I
won't have to tell him.

Laurel came out with the dog at her heels.

"Liam!"  Chris cried in delight, and threw his arms around the dog's
neck.

"Chris, go get ready for bed.  I'll be up soon," Tory said.

"Nana, will you come and read to me?"

When Rachel looked at him blankly.  Laurel offered, "Want me to?"

Tory said, "And you are... T "Laurel Hunt."

"Oh, the granddaughter.  All right.  Thanks."

"No problem."  Laurel took Chris's hand.

"Got a favorite story?"

"Hamilton Duck," he answered as the two of them went in.

Tory turned to Jack.

"Well, that's about it for the social niceties.  Doctor," she said
dryly.

"It goes without saying that you have my sincerest sympathy, but,
sadly, time is not on our side here, as I'm sure you'll agree.  Now,
I've outlined a preliminary strategy that I'd like to run by you, so
how about you get changed, you look soaked--you too, Mother.

I'll ask Doris to bring sandwiches and coffee into the living room, and
we'll pull up some chairs and get started."

Jack looked puzzled.

"Get started?"

They were climbing the stairs.  Rachel followed, holding her breath.

"Details about your time in third-world countries are what I need
immediately," Tory answered as they crossed the verandah.

"Personal stuff, not stats.  Like the Newsweek interview last year
where you described how you handled the Somali warlord.  Your team
wanted access to his camp to treat wounded prisoners, and he wanted
diesel fuel, which you had.  So you made him a deal.  A gallon of
diesel every time he let one of your doctors in.  Stories like that are
exactly what I need."

They had come through the French doors into the living room, and Jack
stopped, throwing Tory a suspicious look.

"Are you a reporter?"

Taken aback, Tory shot Rachel a frown.

"Haven't you told him?"

"Told me what?"  Jack demanded.

"Rachel, what the hell is going on?"  He turned on Tory.

"Is this something to do with the terrorists?"

Rachel felt dread prickle beneath her clammy clothes.  No turning back
now.

"Tory's right.  Get changed first.  Jack.

There's news."

When they met in the living room fifteen minutes later, Rachel had the
worst of her nerves under control.  She would just listen, and leave
the opening to Tory.

"The terrorists have a name.  Doctor," Tory began briskly.

"Artemis.  They've presented an ultimatum.  My mother was told about it
at the president's emergency meeting three days ago.  If the government
doesn't meet Artemis's demand, they've threatened to release (he virus
again, this time in a major American city, in twenty-seven days."

Jack stiffened.

"Demand?"

"One percent of GNP to go into a global fund for general female
education through primary school, as a strategy to lower population
levels.  Otherwise, Artemis will tower those levels directly, with the
virus."

Rachel flinched as Jack twisted to her.  It wasn't suspicion on his
face, but amazed revelation.

"That's why it's female specific," he said.

"Overpopulation."

She managed to answer, "Yes."

"Hank Vorhees told me none of this."

"Only those of us at the president's meeting were informed."

Fury leaped into his eyes.

"Who are these people?"

Rachel gripped a chair-back, willing steadiness into her voice.

"The authorities don't know.  In any case, the president has
categorically refused the demand.  That's--" "My God, this virus let
loose on a city?  It's unthinkable."

"I know that.  You know that.  It's obvious the president must agree to
the demand."  She heard her own desperation, and stifled it.

"Jack, there may be a solution.  That's why Tory's here.  She's a
political strategist, and she believes an aggressive campaign to
mobilize public opinion might force the president to yield.  She's
agreed to undertake the campaign.

Given the deadline, however, she says success will depend on launching
it with an instantly recognizable spokesman, and that"--she made
herself plow on--"that spokesman must be you."

He looked at her as though she were mad.

"Jack, hear me out It's a question of credibility.  People admire you.
They trust you.  And they sympathize with you after--" She didn't
finish.

"The point is, they might accept me hard facts about what has to be
done if they hear them from Jack Hunt."

His face hardened.

"Is this the reason you dragged me out here?  To talk me into this
crazy scheme?  Jesus, Rachel, why weren't you just straight with me?"
His anger showed her that he saw the full betrayal.

"That... conversation, out there."  He nodded toward the beach house.

"Was that just to bring me around, in whatever way you could?"
Revulsion crept into his voice.

"That was beneath you."

A knot cramped Rachel's stomach.  She had to look away.

"Dr.  Hunt," Tory intervened sharply, "my mother has taken a
courageous personal risk here, so please, leave her out of your
judgments."

He turned on Tory.

"I gather this was your idea.  Recruiting me.  Well the answer's no.
Get someone else."

"There is no one else," Tory said.

"Or if there is I don't have time to find him.  Twenty-seven days is
all we have.

You're it."  She stopped, as though to cool down, then went on more
reasonably, "Look, Doctor, this campaign requires two elements: a clear
message and an exceptional spokesman.  The first is my job, but people
are going to find it a hard message to swallow, and that's why you're
essential.

The great humanitarian, leading the way.  The grieving widower
soldiering on, his bereavement tugging at the nation's heartstrings,
yet a man tough enough to make a Somali warlord blink first.  Unless we
run with a spokesman as beloved and respected as you, we start with one
hand tied behind our back."

He glared at her.

"You make it sound like some kind of movie.  God damn it, it's my
life."

"You're ideal because it's your life.  You saw the horror.

People will listen if you say the survival education fund is our only
hope."

"Now you listen to me.  The last thing in this world I'd do is plead
the cause of my wife's murderers.  I don't want Artemis appeased.  I
want them caught.  I want them dead."

Rachel shuddered.

"What if that doesn't happen in time?

Twenty-seven days.  Jack.  Devastation on a scale never seen before, a
possible global pandemic.  Are you prepared to take that risk?  To let
others take that risk?  Maybe a third of the world's women will--" "For
God's sake, it's not up to me.  This thing is beyond the capacity of
just one person to change it.  Only the government has the resources to
stop this now.  The intelligence agencies, the FBI, the--"

"There isn't time!"  Rachel cried.

"Good Lord, is the demand so unreasonable?  Is improving the lot of the
world's women such a terrible thing?"

"Mass murder is!"

They stared at each other.  Panic flooded her.  This was a disaster.

"Well," Tory said flatly.

"I guess that's that Looks like I've come a long way for nothing."  She
turned to Rachel.

"I'll head back and start looking for another spokesman."

"No!"  A switch clicked in Rachel's brain.  No more time for
persuasion.  No more time at all.  Only she could make Jack act And
there was only one way to do it: tell him.  That I am Artemis.  That
virus shipments--not perfume this time--are waiting to be triggered by
a dead man's switch.

That he can help me or turn me in, but his decision is the one by which
we all will live or die.

She said to Tory, "Leave us alone."

"I don't see the point of--" "Go," Rachel said.

Tory shook her head in exasperation, but she left the room.

Rachel closed the living-room door.  She gripped the handle, unable for
a moment to face Jack.

When she did, he was watching her through eyes narrowed in anger.  She
heard the weary disgust in his voice as he said, "I should never have
agreed to come here."

She fought the impulse to plead.  Only one way was open, and it
required cruelty.

"You were right," she said.

"The only reason I brought you out was to persuade you to do the
campaign, however I could.  This goes far beyond you and me.

The world has to face facts.  Overpopulation has brought us to the
brink of catastrophe, and soon it will be too late to reverse it So I
acted--" No, these weren't the right words.  She was lying to herself
if she thought she could ever be cruel to Jack.  She must choose
well--the last intimate words she would ever speak to this man she
loved, before losing him forever.

"Jack, one thing you must believe.  I never meant to harm your family.
Your wife.  For that I am more sorry than you will ever know."

He stiffened.

"What are you talking about?"

She looked into his eyes and saw the terrible way ahead.

For one last desperate moment she fought it.

Then she remembered.  / am already dead.  She said, steady now, "I'm
talking about Artemis."

His gaze bored into her.

"What about them?"

"Not them.  Jack.  Me.  I am Artemis."

"it's YOUR DECISION NOW.  " Rachel's words echoed over and over in his
head.

He sat in Tory's crowded limousine in Washington's afternoon traffic,
watching raindrops splatter the window.  The words had battered him for
so many hours--throughout the endless night--that his mind now seemed
anesthetized.  He felt his body brutishly carrying on--stomach
churning, skin squeezing out a clammy sweat, pulse drubbing against his
skull--but his brain seemed shut off, dead.  The last dynamic thought
he could recall was at the sight of Rachel's face when he was leaving
Swallow Point this morning.  No, more primal than a thought, more
primitive.  An up swelling of hatred so intense, so consuming, it
overpowered all the other motions of his mind: I will stop you,
somehow, and I will make you pay.

The world outside passed by the car, eerily normal.  A man leaving a
restaurant picked his teeth.  A woman scurried through the rain with
her arm crooked over her head, as if that would protect her.  A parked
cabbie flicked his cigarette butt into a puddle.  They seemed part of
some other reality.

Jack could feel no connection to them.

To the faces in the car, even less.  Four of Tory's people had met them
at the airport, the introductions still a blur in his mind.  They were
all crammed together now: him, Tory, her two associates, her assistant,
and a girl--an underling?--with a platinum brush-cut, her nostril
pierced with a ruby stud.  As Jack stared at the red stone it became a
bead of blood, Marisa's blood.

He was gripped by a dread that if he could not hang on to reality, the
horror would pull him under.  He fought to see, hear, smell what was
real in the car, root himself in normalcy.

Tory, across from him, was dictating to her young assistant--what had
she called him?  Eric?  Her two associates, flanking Jack, were busily
at work.  He struggled to remember their names too.  Vince Delvecchio
was the one jabbering on the phone.  The other, tapping at a laptop
keyboard, was Noah Shapiro.  The faces of these people--their workaday
expressions--seemed unreadable.  Their words didn't penetrate his ears
in patterns that made sense.  He was sealed off, alone with his
terrible knowledge.

She murdered Marisa.  She's planning to murder millions more.  And no
one knows but me.

He stared at Tory, so busily concentrating on her notes.

Her face was the most disorienting of all.  Unaware of her own mother's
crimes.

He flinched as a hand pressed two loose neckties to his chest.  The
girl with the ruby stud.  She studied the ties as though judging them,
and Jack vaguely recalled this was her job, to "dress" him for CNN. His
fingers dug into his knees.

How was he going to get through this nightmare?

"Striped or paisley?"  the girl asked Tory.

The assistant, Eric, objected.

"I thought we decided no tie."

"Absolutely a tie," the girl insisted.

"Tory says he's got to look successful."

"I thought the idea was, like, the Noble Jungle Healer.

What happened to the safari suit concept?"

"Striped tie," Tory cut in brusquely, settling it.

The limo pulled up at a glass and steel tower and they all hurried in
through the downpour, then up to the ninth floor.

The receptionist said to Tory as they passed, "The CNN crew can be here
in twenty minutes, they're just waiting for your call.  Mr.  Mclvar
will come separately."

"Call them in," Tory said, "and get Mclvar on the line."

"Twenty minutes?"  Shapiro protested.

"No way, Tory.

These speech revisions--" "I don't need a speech," Jack blurted.  The
others shot him anxious looks, which he ignored.  Whatever he decided
to say on CNN, he'd be out there on his own.

They reached Tory's office suite.  Maplewood and chrome and a huge
half-moon window.  The desk phone was ringing.

Tory answered it, standing, as the others spread out, dumping jackets,
umbrellas, briefcases.  Shapiro set up his laptop on the coffee table.
Delvecchio was still on his cell phone.

More staff people filed in, talking.  As Jack stood still in the middle
of it all, his eyes fell on a plaque behind Tory's desk:

"No permanent friends, no permanent enemies."

Wrong.  Rachel is my enemy forever.

The intercom: "Mr.  Mclvar, line two."

Tory punched the line.

"Mike, hi.  Dr.  Hunt's here and your crew's on the way, so we're ready
when you are... Hey, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would
it?  It's big, Mike, very big, so get on over."  She hung up and again
hit the line, buzzing the receptionist.

"Marcia, when the crew arrives send them right in."

"Send in the clowns," Shapiro muttered as he typed.

The girl with the nose stud was pawing through a heap of newly
purchased wardrobe choices for Jack, rejecting jackets and shirts one
after another.

"No, no.  God no."

Delvecchio closed his cell phone.

"Okay, Tory, things are wired pretty well, quote sluts standing by."

Jack winced.

"Sluts?"

Tory, sorting message slips, explained.

"We try to anticipate what experts the media will call for comment,
then we reach them first to give our side, prime them."  She called
across the room, "Eric, where's the One World Medics video clip?"

"Rhonda's still doing the sound mix."

"Well, tell her I need it for Mclvar.  An hour, tops."

Jack watched Tory, his dread crawling back.  A tone in her
voice--sureness, focus--sounded so much like Rachel.

"I've created a dead man's switch," she had warned him.

"Containers of virus are waiting in storage locations around the
country, and other countries, with a standing order with commercial
couriers for their pickup.  I routinely send the couriers a computer
instruction to delay that order.  If I'm arrested, or dead, the
shipments will be picked up automatically and delivered.  Their form is
unlike the containers sent to Stoney Creek, and they are addressed to
outlets in public places--airports, malls--in major cities.  Believe
me, this is a course I would rather avoid, but humanity's over breeding
must be stopped.  I'm offering solutions.  One easy, one hard.

Education or plague.  Which will it be.  Jack?  It's your decision
now."

His first thought--once he could think at all--had been:

Call Colwell.  The FBI has multimillion-dollar surveillance technology,
and experts to crack computer codes.  They'll find out how she's rigged
her system, disarm it, and seize her.

But what if they couldn't figure it out in time?  It took them twenty
years to track the Unibomber.  Or what if they panicked and rushed in
on her?  He thought of their botched shoot-out at Ruby Ridge.  The
fiery catastrophe at Waco.  The FBI was a bureaucracy crawling with
jumpy people who made mistakes.  Rachel was a calm, formidable foe.  To
release the virus, she didn't even have to make a move that would alert
them; just wait for her "switch" to close.  Could he trust the FBI to
discover her system and disarm it before she suspected they knew?

His vision pulsed red with rage.  Had he actually once loved this
woman?  Once thought he knew her?  Her extortion of him was barbaric
... but flawless.  She was holding half of humanity hostage.  And she
knew him.

"Charcoal suit, blue shirt, striped de," the wardrobe girl declared,
holding up the ensemble for Tory's approval.

"Yes?"

"Fine.  Ten minutes.  Holly," Tory said, pointing to her en suite
bathroom.

"I want him ready when Mclvar arrives."

Jack changed clothes, the girl fussing over him like a mother,
buttoning and brushing, as he stared, his disorientation deepening, at
the bloodred jewel in her nose.  When he came out, the CNN crew were
setting up lights, hauling cables, moving furniture.  The girl flipped
open a box of TV makeup.

"Showtime," she said with a smile, and stuffed a tissue into Jack's
collar like a bib.

"No," he said shakily, yanking it out.

"But you need--" "Forget that," Tory said, coming between them.

"He's a handsome man, Holly.  No makeup."

"But he's got dark circles under his eyes."

"Well he's not here to spin the Miss America pageant!"

The intercom: "Mr.  Mclvar's here.  I'm sending him in."

Jack's panic surged.

Shapiro handed him a page of speech revisions.  Jack crumpled it and
tossed it away.

"Hey!"  Shapiro protested, "we've got to review the main points on--"
"We've been through it," Jack said hoarsely.

Shapiro shot Tory a look of alarm and whispered, too loudly, "Fuck,
Tory, can he handle this?"

"He's used to giving speeches."

"But not like--" "Back off!"  Jack snarled.

Shapiro and Tory exchanged glances.

"Leave me alone with him, Noah," she said.

Jack was afraid he was going to be sick.  He thudded into a chair and
leaned over, elbows on his knees, and cupped his face in his hands.  He
remembered a patient he'd once treated in Sarajevo, a man whose
forehead had been partially blown away by a grenade, though he remained
conscious, even lucid.  That was the image he had of himself now.  A
man walking and talking, but with part of his head blown off.  How will
I get through this?

"Have I made a mistake?"  Tory asked him.  Her voice had an anxious
edge, but it was controlled.

"Have I got the wrong man?  If so, you'd better tell me now."

"Then what?"

"I'll cancel.  Pick the next name.  Reschedule."

"Reshuffle your quote sluts and spin doctors?"

"Look, I don't know what world you're living in but I'm living in this
one."

He looked up at her.  Anger flashed in her eyes.

"You think the rest of us are enjoying this?"  she said.

"That we're looking forward to calling the president a liar?  You think
my mother likes risking her reputation, her entire career?  You think
we're not all as scared shitless as you are?"

He stared at her, the unreality of it knocking him back again.  She had
no idea.  Rachel was using her own daughter, just as she was using
him.  But, Jesus, this was Colwell's wife.  How long before such a web
of family relationships netted Rachel, exposing her--forcing her to do
the unthinkable?

Tory said, "The difference is that you can turn this thing around."

He swallowed.

"Can I?"

"Yes.  I'm building a top team around you.  Jack.  The best analysts,
pollsters, ad people, film people.  But you're our point man.  Nothing
will work unless you lead the way.  Only you can turn terror into hope.
Don't you see?  You alone have the power."

There was a flutter of activity at the door.  Delvecchio was leading
the well-known CNN anchorman across the room.

"Mike Mclvar," he announced, "meet Dr.  Hunt."

Tory said quietly, steadily, in Jack's ear, "What's it going to be? The
choice is yours."

Carson Colwell stood staring at the TV screen, a foam coffee cup halted
halfway to his lips.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing--Jack Hunt
giving an interview.  After he gave me his pledge he wouldn't speak to
the media.

He couldn't make out what Hunt was saying.  OPS1 in the FBI command
center was buzzing with people, phones, electronics, all drowning out
the overhead bank of TVs tuned to CNN.  Whatever the gist of the
interview, Carson felt bitterly betrayed.  He'd never pegged Hunt as a
man to go against his word.  And for what?  More of the nation's pity?
How much celebrity did this guy need7 Just goes to show, he thought
uneasily, you never can tell about people.

Unease sharpened into alarm as he realized Hunt was now making some
kind of direct pitch to the camera.  Carson strained to hear above the
din of voices around him.

"Quiet!"  he called.

OPS I fell silent "... facts are these," Hunt was saying somberly.

"The terrorist organization behind the attacks is called Artemis.

They have made a demand, and a threat, but your government has kept all
of this secret from you, the American people."

In shock, Carson's hand crushed his foam cup, bursting it Black dregs
dribbled over his fingers.

"The ultimatum is simple," Hunt went on.

"Either this country agrees to fund a female primary education program
globally, or Artemis will release the deadly virus in a major American
city.  The deadline is in twenty-six days."

Carson's mind lunged at questions.  How did Hunt know?

Where did he get the information?  Why is he doing this?

"There is no treatment for the virus," Hunt went on, "and we've seen
the devastation it causes.  All of you in Stoney Creek have lost loved
ones.  So have I."  When he paused, apparently to get control of his
voice, Carson flashed back to their first meeting, at the White House.
It was only two days after Hunt's wife had died, yet how instantly Hunt
had offered to join the FBI's search in Stoney Creek, how quickly he'd
mastered his grief.

His mind clamped down on one answer like a sprung trap.

Maybe Hunt didn't "get" the information at all.  Maybe he's always
known.

"Personal sorrow pales when the danger we face threatens humanity's
very survival," Hunt went on firmly.

"Yes, survival.

Because I believe that if our government continues to refuse the
education alternative Artemis demands, we are courting an unimaginable
disaster.  I want to make that very clear.  An Artemis plague would be
more devastating than a thousand Hiroshimas.  At the next strike,
millions of American women and girls would die."

"My God," a female agent whispered near Carson.

"Is this true?"

He looked around in dismay.  All over the command center people had
left workstations and were watching the TV monitors.  He thought,
stunned: Hunt's done it.  he's got the ultimatum out to the whole
country, the whole world.  He quickly pulled himself together.  Move on
this.  He dropped his mangled cup in a trash basket and reached for the
nearest phone.

He froze, eyes locked again on the screen, not at Hunt now, but at a
photograph on the wall behind him--a photo Carson had glanced past many
times while standing right in front of it: the vice president shaking
hands with Tory.  This interview was coming from Tory's office.

Tory ... backing Hunt Something collapsed the air in his lungs and
sucked off the air around him.  Tory backing Artemis?

He got control of himself enough to punch his deputy's line.

"Stan."  he said, "bring in Jack Hunt."

Tory had never seen anything like it.

Mclvar was staring at Jack in shock on live TV.  The CNN crew on the
sidelines with her were staring too, as were all her staff, who had not
known the facts.  Everyone was staring at Jack in shock.  No one
moved.

Tory's eyes met Jack's.  She felt something pass between them.  Two
leaders aware of the war to which they had just pledged their people,
and themselves.  She was full of misgivings, yet exhilarated.

She was more terrified than she'd ever been in her life.

From this moment on, there was no return.

* * * Rachel was sitting with Del on the verandah.  They'd come to
watch the sun go down.  Earlier, they'd both seen Jack on TV, she at
the lab, Del here in his study.  When she'd come home Del had said, his
face white and drawn, "What kind of people ... ?"

Now, she gazed distractedly at the shoreline where the familiar rocks
and trees were shape-shifting in the bloodred sunset.  She gazed,
feeling the danger encroach, and remembered what had brought her to
this terrible moment.

She is holding him tightly in the Volvo's ratty backseat on the
twisting, mountainous road above Kigali.  He is tall for nine but so
slim he feels all bones.  His eyes widen as a white Mercedes races
past, automatic weapons jutting from every window.  Its wealthy Tutsi
owners are fleeing me capital, like Rachel and Paul and the Belgian
shoe salesman she flagged down this morning in his Volvo.  She dragged
Paul from their Kigali hotel amid the screams of people being hacked
with machetes in the dark halls.  No electricity, no phones.  In the
streets, she saw Hutu gangs killing with machetes, knives, bats,
screwdrivers.  They ignore her because she is white, but she is
terrified for her son.  She must get him out of this country.

A whistle shrills.  On the road ahead a stocky Hutu soldier stands at a
checkpoint barrier, one hand raised, the other gripping a rifle. Rachel
pushes Paul to the car floor and throws her raincoat over him, hissing,
"Don't make a sound!"

The salesman stops the car.  The soldier peers inside.  He is wearing a
Harris tweed jacket, even in the heat--booty from people he has
murdered.  Under Rachel's raincoat Paul's warm hand is clutching her
ankle and she has to hold herself back from reaching for him.

The soldier studies her passport, frowning.  She can hear, far off,
the dull popping of machine-gun fire.  Oddly, it reminds her of the
dull flapping sound of sails in fluky winds.

Last week, in Maine, Paul won a sailing race, tops in his dinghy class.
In a different universe.

The soldier is looking at her with vague suspicion.

"Lesage.  C'est un nom franqais."  He seems unable to reconcile the
French name with her American citizenship.

Dry-mouthed, she is about to explain, when another soldier approaches
with a half-full bottle of Cutty Sark.  The first one, eyeing the
scotch, loses interest in her and waves the car on.

She waits until they are far from the checkpoint before she lets Paul
get up on the seat.  She checks the map, her alarm rising.  Still so
far to the Tanzanian border!

They drive through a silent roadside huddle of thatched-roof huts.  She
can smell the death.  A man lies facedown in a vegetable garden.  By a
latrine, a dog is snuffling at the corpse of a girl in a yellow blouse.
Rachel gives Paul her scarf to block out the stench, and curses herself
again for.

bringing him back to this country.  It had seemed the right thing to
do, a trip to let him meet his natural mother.  Who could have known
such savagery was about to erupt?

Gunfire explodes over the car.  The salesman gasps, shot in the
shoulder.  As he stomps on the brakes me car spins and stalls.  He
opens his door and staggers out.  A half-dozen men swarm from the trees
with machetes and converge on nun.

He falls, and they hack at him with the long knives.

She pushes Paul out.  Wildly, they run.  She is holding his hand so
tightly he gasps in pain.  She sees a banana plantation and runs toward
it, dragging Paul into the trees.  They flail their way deep into the
green cover.  She stops and clamps her hand over his mouth, and they
crouch, panting, sweating, listening to the whooping and laughter from
the road as the attackers pile into the salesman's car and drive off.
The road becomes quiet That night, Paul's sleep is fretful on the cold,
dank earth.

He asks her softly, "Mommy, can I have some water?"

She fishes in her bag for the plastic Evian bottle.  In me moonlight
she sees there are only a few swallows left.  She gives it to him, and
he falls into a fitful sleep.  She holds him close, to give him her
body warmth, to feel his warmth.  Her tongue is thick from thirst.  How
will she get him to the border, to safety?

The rumble of a truck awakens her at dawn.  She tells Paul to wait, and
runs to the edge of the trees to look.  A Red Cross transport truck is
approaching like a floating mirage, its wheels invisible in the dust.
She runs out and frantically waves.  The truck squeals to a stop.

"Oil allez-vous?"  she asks the driver.  In his ebony face, his eyes
are bloodshot.

"Lafrontiere de la Tcmzanie," he answers.

Hope surges.  Tanzania!

"Venez," he says.  Hop in.

She runs back for Paul, and they clamber into the huge truck's open
rear.  She is trembling, so filled with relief to get him aboard.  As
the truck takes off she sees, in the gloom, scores of children's eyes,
staring.  There are maybe thirty children, raggedly clothed, silent.

A nurse sits among them.

"Orphelins," she explains to Rachel.  Orphans.  She is a statuesque
Tutsi woman, businesslike, talkative.  She offers the newcomers cold
rice in a pot and a canteen of water.  Paul is shy as he uses me French
that Rachel has taught him: "Merci, madame.  J'ai faim."  Rachel is
proud of him, for trying, for being so brave.  He giggles nervously as
he eats rice in handfuls, such gross manners forbidden at home.  It
almost makes her laugh.

She is listening to the nurse's harrowing stories when the truck
stops.  The nurse groans about the checkpoints--every few miles, she
says, "Neuf de puis nous--" Her words are cut off by a bullet in the
throat.  She falls over, dead.  A Hutu soldier with a rifle stands at
the back of the truck.  Rachel yanks Paul to her.  More shots from the
front.  The soldier yells at the children to get out.

Rachel grips Paul's hand as they all climb out.  The dead driver lies
bleeding in the dust, his hands hacked off.  There are five soldiers
with rifles and bloody machetes.  They herd her and Paul and the other
children into the road, and push the children into two groups,
separating them by height.  Rachel feels sick with dread, knowing why:
Tutsis are generally taller than Hutus.  Paul is wrenched from her and
shoved in with the tall children.  She fights to get back to him.  A
rifle butt cracks her temple and she staggers in pain, bleeding, and
falls on her hands and knees, gasping dust.

Two soldiers lift their machetes above the tall children.

"No!"  Rachel shouts.  They start to hack.  Shoulders, elbows, ankles.
The children scream.  All the children, both groups, panic and run. The
soldiers laugh and start shooting.  Some children are hit and fall. The
rest are running in all dire cons

She sees Paul racing away.  A soldier aims his rifle at him.

She screams in French, "No!  He's not one of you!"  but the soldier
hardens his aim.  She sees Paul look for her over his shoulder, and she
screams at him, "Run!"

Paul and three other fast children veer into a sorghum field and
disappear in the five-foot grass.  The soldiers shoot at the slower
ones on the road.  Most of them topple.  The soldiers advance on them,
machetes flashing.

She staggers to her feet and runs after Paul into the tall grass. Blood
from her temple trickles into her eye and she trips.  The children's
screams behind her are terrible.  She crawls through the sorghum,
blindly searching.  She dares not call his name or the soldiers will
come.  On her knees she claws aside the stalks, inching through the
stony dirt, reaching out for him ... reaching.

9

it was dark when tory' sumo dropped Jack at the Hay-Adams Hotel on
Sixteenth Street, a block from the White House.

"The room's in my name, otherwise half the reporters in the country
would be breaking down your door," she said as they pulled up.

"Get some rest In the morning you fly back to Bar Harbor.  That's where
we'll finally let the press get at you, highlighting you working at me
lab."  As he got out she handed him a stack of background papers--U.N.
reports on overpopulation, female poverty, the environment "Study
these.  You don't have to sound like an expert but you should know the
basics.

Your first press conference is tomorrow at two.  Wear a lab coat" hi
his room Jack didn't turn on a light, just dumped me papers on the bed,
then thudded into an armchair.  First moment he'd had alone.  He'd been
with Tory and her people nonstop, first making his CNN statement, then
off to a video studio to tape an appeal, Tory managing the production
while simultaneously conferring with her analysts and pollsters and
schedulers.

In the end, of course, he'd had no choice.  Rachel's dead man's switch
had forced him to perform.  Just as she knew it would.

Sitting in the darkness, looking across Lafayette Square at the lit-up
White House, he willed back memories of the horror.

Marisa drooling blood, brain-damaged, her organs disintegrating, the
hemorrhage a flood.  He wanted the agony of remembering, to fuel his
hatred.  He existed now only for the hatred.

To stop Rachel.  And more.  His goal was to destroy her.  And to see in
her eyes, when I do it, that she knows it's me.

To get there meant going one step at a time.  First, the campaign.

He had to do everything in his power to make it succeed.

For that he had to put himself in Tory's hands.  Could he trust her?
After the CNN broadcast, while he'd imagined shock waves rolling across
me country, and agonized whether he'd done enough--made the danger
clear enough--she'd sat coolly assessing his performance.  Her showbiz
approach unnerved him.  She unnerved him, running mis thing without any
suspicion of the truth.  Rachel's own daughter--Colwell's wife.  But
she was good, he saw that, and took what hope he could from it He would
need all her skill to make this work.

He tugged loose his tie and rested his throbbing head on the
chair-back.  Tory.  The last ten minutes alone with her in her limo had
been a trial.

"Any past indiscretions I should know about?"  she'd asked.

"Fraudulent dealings?  Drug habit?  Homosexual affairs?"

He'd groaned and looked away.

"Don't brush me off.  Jack.  I have to be prepared.  So tell me me
truth."

She was right.  She knew her job.

"A nasty divorce eighteen years ago, does that count?"

"Nasty?  Why, were you unfaithful?"

To what?  he wondered grimly.  It had been a travesty of a marriage.
He shook his head and said only, "The usual.  Incompatibility."

"After it, I understand you took up a lifestyle that was more...
hedonistic?"

"Look, it was a long time ago."

She let it pass.

"What about money?  How can you afford to do full-time volunteer work
for One World Medics?"

"Investments.  And my publisher paid a generous advance for my
autobiography."

She jotted a note.

"What about Laurel?"

"What about her?"

"Why has she spent the last ten years with you?  What happened to your
daughter?"

A warning flashed.  He said carefully, "Your research staff must have
those facts."

"Only that you've been Laurel's guardian since she lost her family.
Fill me in.  What happened?"

It was the last thing he'd talk to Tory about "They were killed."  The
words were a simple statement, but his tone held an order: Drop it
"How?  Car accident?"  She wasn't going to let this go.

It didn't matter He'd had ten years to create a fable so durable it had
become almost real to him.  Like a pearl, the polished story hid the
grain of grit that had begun it--his terrible failure with his
daughter.  That guilt would always scrape at his core, but it was a
pain he wouldn't disclose to anyone.

Besides, he had Laurel to think about And now, his credibility to this
campaign too.  He shuddered to think what would happen to its chances
if the facts came out "They were murdered," he answered.

"Senseless, random act An addict looking for money, the police figured.
They never caught the guy."  How smoothly the old lie slid out.  He was
relieved to move on to the truth.

"Laurel came home from school and discovered the bodies.  I found her
in shock."  He added quietly, "I think some part of her still is."

"You too?"

He looked at her.  She didn't miss much.

"The too."

"So mat's when you gave up me playboy life and me big CDC job?  Threw
yourself into humanitarian work?"

He nodded grimly.  More of the truth.

"It put things in perspective.

Laurel needed me.  And with One World Medics I found I could do some
real good."

She cocked her head at him.

"You really are a hero."

It had thrown him, that look of hers.  Cynical but curious, as though
she somehow saw through him, yet didn't turn away.

He got up from the armchair.  He needed a shower.

He turned on the water and was unbuttoning his shirt when there was a
knock at the door.  When he opened it two FBI agents flashed
credentials.

"Dr.  Hunt, we'd like you to come to headquarters to answer some
questions."

Adrenaline shot through him with a chill.  Tory had briefed him on
this, but Tory didn't know what he knew.

They took him downstairs by way of me service elevator-to avoid
reporters?--then through the kitchens and out a rear door to a waiting
car.  In the back, he sat between the agents, his heart pounding.  Yet
the procedure was familiar enough.

He'd once sat in the back of a jeep in south Sudan with a soldier's
Kalashnikov pointed at his head.  The Sudanese had been bombing refugee
camps, scattering thousands of people into the bush, and he'd led a One
World Medics team into the area.

Nuer refugees were trapped in a school, surrounded by their enemies,
the Dinka, and every night Dinka soldiers would kill some of the Nuer
in a drawn-out show of tenor.  Jack asked for a meeting with the Dinka
warlord.  Soldiers picked him up and drove him to the thatch-roofed
guerrilla command post.  A barefoot attendant was shining the warlord's
combat boots.

Before this meeting.  Jack had already been through variations of
it--in Afghanistan, Peru, Somalia.  He knew that, despite the
intimidation, the Dinka warlord wanted things he had: surgeons,
medicine, a Western voice to carry his story to me world.  Jack showed
him a list of the trapped refugees and told him a copy had been sent to
Western media outlets, letting him know that if he wanted Western aid,
it cut both ways: the eyes of the world were on him.

The FBI agents weren't some warlord's henchmen, of course.  Still, he
knew this drill.

The car slowed over a pdtholed street of the ghetto that ran down to
Buzzard Point They passed an electrical substation, and spindly trees
where windblown garbage hung in the branches, then bumped over railroad
tracks where a trio of black teenagers sat passing a bottle.  Buzzard
Point was deserted except for a twelve-story government building
overlooking the muddy Anacostia River.  Bargain basement real estate,
but the building was imposing enough.

They took him through a security check, then up to the tenth floor.
Passing offices, he glimpsed men hunched over computer monitors, others
talking in knots.  A woman in me hallway stared at him nervously.  She
saw me on CNN, he thought They brought him into a windowless room
brightly lit with fluorescent panels.  It held a long table, a scatter
of metal folding chairs, a wall clock beside a map of the country, a
video camera suspended from the ceiling.  A tape recorder sat on the
table.  Three men were waiting, two sitting, one standing.

Which would be his interrogator?  The agents who'd brought him leaned
against the wall to watch.  Jack thought of the Sudanese warlord's
soldiers.

The door opened and Colwell walked in.  Jack felt a warning shiver.  He
hadn't expected the top man.

Colwell's expression was as implacable as ever, but in the guarded eyes
Jack read raw emotion: the bitterness of a man who felt betrayed.
Still, his manner remained coolly professional.

"Dr.  Hunt, I have a few questions," he began.

"We'll be taping the interview, with your permission, both on audio and
video."  He indicated the tape recorder and camera.

"Of course, you have the right to call in an attorney at any time, or
to remain silent, but I hope you won't feel either is necessary.

Hopefully, this interview will simply help us eliminate you from our
inquiries."

Jack said carefully, "Til be glad to help you do mat."

Colwell gave him a wintry smile.

"Good, then we'll be helping each other."  He gestured to a chair.

"Have a seat?"

"Tmfine."

Colwell sat on the corner of the table and nodded to the man at the
tape recorder, who started it, but Colwell's eyes hadn't left Jack's
face.  Jack, too, didn't break eye contact, but sweat prickled under
his shirt.  Tory's husband.  Rachel's son-in-law.

A minefield.

Colwell stated his own name and the date for the record, then asked
Jack to identify himself also.  The preliminaries finished, he said,
"Dr.  Hunt, you gave a CNN television interview today divulging the
contents of a classified document issued by the organization known as
Artemis.  Where did you get that information?"

If only he could tell everything, have them drag Rachel in, force her
to her knees!  But that was impossible.  He must not implicate her
beyond the unavoidable minimum.  He must make no mistakes.

"Where did you get it?"  Colwell repeated.

"Dr.  Rachel Lesage brought it to me."  A startled look flickered over
Colwell's face.  Fleeting, but Jack hadn't missed me shock.  He added
with emphasis, "She did nothing more man show me me document The
decision to act was mine alone.  I thought the country had a right to
know."

"I see."  Colwell made an almost imperceptible nod to one of me other
agents, who immediately left the room.  He went on, "Before Dr. Lesage
approached you, had you ever been in contact with anyone representing
the organization known as Artemis?"

"No."

"Or since?"

Jack said carefully, "The first and only time I heard of Artemis was
when Dr.  Lesage told me about the ultimatum."

Colwell regarded him, then stood.

"Would you excuse me for a moment?"  He walked out Jack looked at the
other agents, but their faces told him nothing.  Was Colwell checking
on Rachel?  He'd had to tell that much of the truth; Tory had made it
clear it would be foolish to try to hide it, and he'd agreed.  But what
would Rachel do when they reached her?  She was in meetings tonight
with the health secretary in the BOB just a few blocks away, Tory had
said.  Would Colwell call her out of the meeting?  Surely Rachel was
prepared for mis.  She could confirm what he'd said without drawing
suspicion on herself.  She wouldn't buckle under such slight pressure,
would she?

An agent offered to get him a glass of water.  Or would he prefer
coffee?  He declined both, though his mouth was dry as canvas.  He sat
watching the clock's second hand creep through the next ten minutes.

Colwell came back.  His face was hard, but he sat again on the edge of
the table and went on as if there'd been no interruption.

"I'd like to talk about Jazida."

Jack was relieved to have the focus back on him, off Rachel.

Colwell said, "I have a problem with it.  Doctor.  Last week you were
passing through this remote mining town in the heart of the Brazilian
jungle when the Artemis virus was released, killing every female there.
Now, seven days later, you appear on national television to urge that
the United States government agree to Artemis's extortion demand. Would
I be wrong in calling the timing a remarkable coincidence?"

Jack tensed.

"Call it what you want."

"What were you doing in Jazida?"

"I told your people all that four days ago."

"Please tell me."

"My wife and I were beginning our honeymoon.  Our pilot got a message
to stop at Jazida to pick up a patient The woman was sick when I got
there.  Others, too."

"Sick with flu, the miners said.  Yet women began dying soon after you
arrived."

A bitter taste erupted in Jack's mouth.

"Are you accusing me of having some part in--" "I'm only trying to
understand what happened.  Doctor."

"Well, this is what happened.  I tried to help, but there was nothing I
could do."

"How long did you know Marisa Almeida before you married her?"

The sudden shift was disconcerting.

"What?"

"How long had you known her?"

"We met about two months ago."

"Forty-seven days ago, in Rio de Janeiro.  Is that correct?"

Jack wondered what he was getting at "Doctor, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And how long were you actually married before she contracted the
virus?  A few hours?"

He swallowed.

"Yes."

"Yet, even en route to your honeymoon you insisted on stopping in
Jazida.  The pilot says he'd arranged to drop you and your wife off in
Santarem and then go back to Jazida for the patient, but that you
insisted on stopping there.  Is that, in fact, what happened?  That you
went out of your way to bring your wife to that spot?"

Jack stared at him, incredulous.

"You think I married Marisa to get her killed?"

Colwell ignored the question and picked up a folder.

"A

video production company based in New York taped your wedding in Manaus
and your subsequent stop in Jazida."  He glanced at a document
inside.

"Trowbridge Productions.  Were they, too, along at your personal
request?"

"Liz Trowbridge suggested the documentary several months ago.  I
agreed.  I hoped it would raise money for One World Medics.  In Jazida,
Liz died too."

"What other organizations do you belong to?"

Again, the shift threw him momentarily.

"The American Medical Association.  The National Academy of Sciences.

Other professional societies."

"International Planned Parenthood?  Friends of the Earth?

Zero Population Growth?"

"None of those."

"You're on their mailing lists."

"So are thousands of people."

"You like to keep abreast of issues, is that it?  Keep informed?"

"I get on lists because of the work I do."

"Yes, volunteering.  You like to help, don't you?  You offered to come
out to Oregon, to Stoney Creek, and help my investigation.

You helped the residents dig graves.  You also brought the perfume
vials there to my attention.  Why?"

The vials.  Jesus.  I led him right to the trail that could lead him to
Rachel.

"Why?"  he repeated shakily.

"You said it yourself, it's evidence."

"Is it?  The CDC has assessed seventeen viruses so far in one vial
alone.  How much time do you estimate they'll take to analyze this mess
of viral material?  Weeks?  Months?"

"That depends on a variety of factors."

"Would you say you're an authority in the field of virology?"

"Years ago, when I was with the CDC."

"Not now?"

"I follow the research.  At actual benchwoik I'd be a little rusty."

"Yet you got Dr.  Lesage to take you onto her elite team."

Caution pricked his scalp.

"She requested my help."

"Oh?  On Tuesday your name was not on the list of scientists Dr. Lesage
submitted to the State Department.  On Tuesday afternoon you made a
phone call from New York to her office, and the following day,
yesterday, you visited her home in Bar Harbor and stayed the night This
morning, at a news conference there, she announced you were part of her
team.  If you're not an expert, why did she include you?"

So they'd already checked his phone calls.  The one to Rachel's office
had only been to confirm arrangements with her assistant about Rachel's
jet picking him up, but it was clear they were watching his every move.
What else would they do?

What else would (hey find?

"Doctor," Colwell repeated, "why would she include you?"

He was forming an answer when a voice came from the doorway: "Where to,
sir?"

Jack turned.  Two agents stood at me door.  With Rachel.  His heart
kicked.

"Interrogation room two," Colwell said, and they led her away.

Jack twisted back to Colwell.  Had they arrested her?  Panic swamped
him.  Her dead man's switch.  Got to tell him, warn him!

"Colwell," he blurted, "you don't know--" No, wait... Jesus, what can I
say?

"Let her go or the virus will be released, because she's Artemis'"I
Just shut up.  He can't possibly suspect her or he wouldn't be wasting
time on me.  In fact, he probably brought her past me just to watch my
reaction.

It's me he's after.  He'll just question her, then release her.

She can handle it "Don't know what?"  Colwell asked, alert to the
change in him.

Only, the shock on her face when she saw me--my God, what if she thinks
I've turned her in?  Will that make her crack?

If I could just warn her-"Doctor," Colwell repeated, "what don't I
know?"

Jack dragged his mind back.  She's on her own, and so am I. Colwell's
voice became stern.

"Dr.  Hunt, let me remind you that you have made public a highly
sensitive classified document.

A thorough investigation could require detaining you indefinitely."

Jack saw again the Sudanese warlord and his men with their
Kalashnikovs.  Enraged by his interference, the warlord had threatened
to blow his brains out.  But Jack had been almost certain he wouldn't.
He had things the warlord needed.  Survival lay in bargaining.

I have what Colwell needs.  Artemis's identity.  Can't bargain with
that, though, and I can only hope Rachel trusts I won't.

So, he thought nervously, what else do I have?

Tory had briefed him: he had the eyes of the world.

He said firmly, "I'd like to make a call."

Rachel sat across from the two agents about to interrogate her. Beneath
the table her hands involuntarily balled into fists, her nails digging
into her palms.  Tory had warned her they'd question her as soon as
Jack told them how he'd got the declaration, and Rachel had felt
prepared, but the glimpse she'd just had of Jack had shaken her. His
face told her the worst: it was over.

I was insane to think he'd do what I want!  He's told Carson
everything.  Now these two agents will try to pry out the details, to
stop the switch from closing.  Well, they won't succeed.

Her eyes flicked to a wall clock above a mirror.  Nine-forty.  I must
endure just an hour and twenty minutes.  At eleven, if I haven't made
the call, the switch will close and the virus, not in perfume this
time, will be delivered.

The thought rocked her.

Step back!  Is there something I've missed?  Seeing me.  Jack didn't
look just distraught--he looked shocked.  Why?  If he's told them
everything he would expect them to bring me in.

Does his shock mean he hasn 't told?

If so, I could still prevent delivery.  I could ask to phone my
attorney and instead make the call to keep the system open.

Then finish this interrogation with Carson still in ignorance.  Is it
possible?

No, she thought in agony, I was right the first time.  I saw beyond
Jack's surprise.  He despises me.  He played along, went on CNN, all
just to buy time, and now he's come and told Carson everything.  It's
over.  Jack's compliance was too much to expect.  Wisdom from the
president was too much to expect.

Rationality from humanity... too much to expect.  I've failed.

No more options.  Just let the time play out.  Let the switch close.

The voice of the interrogator.  Agent Baker, broke her thoughts.

"Before we begin.  Dr.  Lesage, would you like to make a phone call?"

Yes--but only under one condition: that I find Jack hasn't told you.
Please, let me find out before eleven!

When she caught Baker's partner glancing at the mirror, she realized it
must be a one-way window.  Was Carson watching?

"Thank you," she replied steadily, "but I have no need at the moment."
She fixed her eyes on the mirror.  One hour and twenty minutes, Carson.
Let's see how much you've been told.

And so they began.

"Your full name please."

"Rachel Helen Lesage."

Baker asked slowly, distinctly, "Did you pass along the Artemis
declaration to Dr.  Jack Hunt?"

She answered with mild disdain, "You could have asked me that on the
phone.  Agent Baker, and not pulled me out of the secretary's meeting.
Yes, I gave him the document."

"Why?"

"It was the right thing to do."

"Who for?"

"I made my thoughts on this quite clear to the president at the
emergency meeting four days ago.  Surely you were briefed."

"Everyone at that meeting pledged their silence."

"No, I pledged my assistance.  I never agreed to a coverup."

Baker frowned slightly.

"If you'd decided the declaration had to be made public, why not do it
yourself?  Why pass it on to Dr.  Hunt?"

Odd questions--odd waste of time--if you suspect I'm Artemis.  The
thought gave her a jolt of hope.  Her fists relaxed.

No, not so fast!  Don't assume they don't know.  Be sure.

"First," she answered, "because I intend to carry out the task
President Lowell entrusted to me, if he'll still allow me.  It will
require my total commitment and objectivity, both of which would be
compromised by the media attention if I spoke out."

She was watching Baker's face closely, and his partner's.  Be sure.

"More important, it required someone with a high public profile--a
popular profile, which I lack.  Dr.  Hunt is not only well known and
respected, he also has the public's affection.

So I approached him hoping he'd be as appalled as I was about the
government's stand.  Enough to speak out.  I found that he was."

Carson stared at her through the glass.  He was so shaken he couldn't
even look at Ed Uota beside him.

"Intellectuals," Liota muttered, slurping coffee as he watched Rachel.
Head of the Bureau's national security division, he was Carson's
immediate superior.

"Think they're above the law."

Carson hadn't taken his eyes off her.  What did she think she was
playing at?  And how had Tory got involved?  Questioning Hunt had taken
all his concentration as the voice in his head had kept needling: How
is Tory mixed up with this man?

"Dr.  Hunt's representative."  That was how the CNN anchorman, Mclvar,
had described her in the statement he'd given.

"She offered me an exclusive live interview," Mclvar had said
anxiously.

"I jumped at it, sure.  I mean.  Hunt's a legend, and Artemis killed
his wife.  I swear I had no idea about the bombshell he was going to
drop."

The fact tearing at Carson was: Tory had known.  She'd set up the
Mclvar interview.  Why?  In the terse statement she'd given his agents
at her office she'd said only that any concerns the FBI had should be
put to her with her attorney present Now Rachel!  How could she do such
a thing?  Damaging the president, creating public hysteria, and
jeopardizing my whole investigation, because I brought her in right at
the start, I'm responsible, I'm... Too close, he realized with a shock.
Family.

Shakily, he said to Liota, "Look, if you need my resignation--"

Liota regarded him dispassionately.

"I already checked with the director.  He said no."

Liota's brusque candor brought Carson back, anchored him.

Outranking all personal considerations was the objective: find Artemis.
Appalled as he was by Rachel's act--and Tory's--all of that was
eclipsed now by a hard, clear suspicion about Hunt The man is not what
he seems.

"Okay, Lesage's story matches Hunt's," Liota said, turning away from
the window.

"What does that tell us?  Are they working together?"

Carson said, "She made an error in judgment But she only passed on the
document.  Hunt's the one who went public."

Liota nodded.

"Let's hold him.  Get some answers."

"I doubt we will," Carson said.

"He's too prepared.  Since he's making his call now, he'll have a
lawyer on the way.  I'll question him further, but I'm not expecting
much.  In fact, I'd like to let him go."

"What?"

"I want to watch him.  See where he takes us.  We can pick him up
anytime."

Liota considered this.

"And Lesage?"

Carson hesitated.  For years he'd known of her liberal opinions.

Yes, she'd taken them much too far now, leaking the document to Hunt,
but that wasn't a hanging offense.  He'd heard all he needed.

"I see no reason to keep her."

Liota gave a nervous snort.

"White House might feel different" He went to the phone, muttering, "I
better check."

Carson stiffened.  Bureau collusion with the White House?

That was breaking the law, a thing he'd never done.

Liota must have caught his expression.

"You have a problem with that?"

Carson pulled himself together.

"No, sir."  War sometimes required bending the law, and this was
definitely war.

He glanced at his watch as Liota lifted the phone.  Nine-fifty.

Baker was still questioning Rachel.  Grimly, Carson folded his arms to
wait.  He doubted the president had planned an early night 10

randall quincy, chief of staff, punched the hold button on the Oval
Office phone.  Past nul ling advisors and aides, he could only see the
president's back as Lowell stood stroking out phrases in the speech
draft he'd just been given.

Quincy raised his voice to him.

"They've got Dr.  Lesage at Buzzard Point.  They're asking what we want
to do about her."

Quincy had never felt so unstrung.  He'd been through many tough times
with Andrew Lowell, ever since they were both managers at Bromax Oil
back in the early eighties when a stock fraud had shaken the
company--and catapulted Andy to the CEO's chair.  But this disaster
with Hunt had caught them completely off guard.  Quincy had been
scrambling into full-scale damage control.  He'd scheduled a live
televised address by the president in fifteen minutes, but no one was
ready, and Andy was spitting fire.  And now, Christ, this.  He repeated
tensely, "What do we want to do, sir?"

"Shoot the bitch," Lowell said.

No one moved.

Quincy couldn't let (his slide.  Andy had to be made to see the
downside of playing the heavy with Lesage.  He wasn't sure he could
push it, though, not with Andy in this mood;

he'd felt the brunt of the president's vicious streak before.

He hit the line reconnecting him to Blizzard Point and quietly told
Liota, "Stand by."  He hung up just as the FBI director hurried in.

The president glanced up.

"You're late."  He and ian McAuliffe were old friends.

"Sorry."  Out of breath and wan, McAuliffe explained that he'd just
come from home.

"Adele saw Hunt on CNN.  She's upset."

"Who isn't?"  the attorney general muttered as she took a fax from an
aide.

"I mean she's... I had to give her a sedative to calm her down."
McAuliffe looked haggard.

"She's talking about leaving the country."

Holy shit, Quincy thought, that's all we need.

The president threw down his pen in anger.

"Could we stick to the crisis at hand?"  He wrenched off his reading
glasses.  "ian, what the fuck are you doing about Hunt?"

McAuliffe pulled himself together.

"Colwell wants to release him and initiate surveillance.  I've agreed.
If Hunt's an Artemis operative we have a better chance of him leading
us to his handlers if he's at liberty."

Lowell's face clouded, then he nodded.

"All right."

"Lesage is another matter," McAuliffe said.

"She's claiming she gave Hunt the document as a matter of conscience,
and there's no evidence to indicate that she--" "Bullshit.  Lock her
up."

Quincy flinched.

"Mr.  President, that may not be a good idea."

"After what she's pulled?  Jesus, she's blown this thing up right in
my face.  How the fuck am I going--" He stopped, aware that everyone
was watching him.  Under his breath he growled, "Cunt."  He caught his
wife's frown.

"What is it?"

Susan Lowell said, "I'm thinking Adele McAuliffe isn't alone.  In her
fears, I mean."

"Adele's paranoid.  Always has been.  No offense, ian."

"Maybe we're all paranoid," Susan replied coolly.

"All of us who weren't told about the danger."

The room went silent.  The president met his wife's gaze.

He said flatly, "National security policy cannot be made in public."

"Of course," she said.

"But the whole country knows everything now.  Women are frightened.  I
think it would be wise to make a public show that we're not panicking,
not..."  She glanced at McAuliffe.

"Not leaving."  She looked back at her husband.

"I mean me."

Bless her, Quincy thought.  A trooper.  He could see Andy had got the
message, too, because he asked her, "Would you come and stand beside me
for this address?"

An aide rushed in.

"Please, Mr.  President, the speech has got to go to the teleprompter
now."

Lowell was waiting for his wife's reply.

She nodded.

"Yes."

Quincy let out a breath of relief, then steeled himself.

"Mr.  President--" "What?"  Lowell snapped.  Jutting his jaw, he
tightened his tie in preparation for the camera.

"Please reconsider about Dr.  Lesage.  Susan's right.  This is now a
battle for hearts and minds.  We've got to prevent public panic at all
costs, and if we punish Lesage we're inviting panic.  We've told the
country that she has your trust, that she's on top of the biotech
know-how to beat the virus, that she'll be able to prevent a plague.
We've made a huge deal of her and her team, and we've practically
guaranteed that she'll find a cure.  Now we're going to throw her in
jail?  A Nobel laureate who says she was only doing her civic duty and
still wants to carry out your orders?  We'd be crucified.  We must not
appear spooked by this, sir.  We've just got to move on."

Her skin still damp, Tory strode naked to answer her bedside phone.
She'd taken a moment amid the stream of calls from the office to grab a
shower.

"Yes?"

It was Jack, saying he'd been brought in by the FBI.

"And the man asking the questions is your husband."

Tory groped for the edge of the bed and sat The moment had finally
come: she and Carson pitted against each other.

It scared her.

"Don't say anything more until my lawyer gets there."

She called Pete Gowan, interrupting a party at his Georgetown house,
and asked him to get down to Buzzard Point to handle it, and to call
her the moment Jack's interrogation ended.  She hung up.

All right, calm down.  She'd known the FBI would question Jack, and
she'd prepared him as best she could.  She was betting they'd go
easy.

"Grieving Hero Arrested for Warning Country of Cover-up."  The White
House couldn't risk such headlines.

Still, it was a gamble.  Political priorities might not wash with
Carson.  He could detain Jack, and she couldn't afford that.  If Jack
was sidelined even for a few days the campaign would be crippled. There
was no latitude for change or error.

As for her mother, they'd discussed the ramifications of her leak, and
Rachel seemed prepared for the fallout.  Anyway, her mother didn't
matter to the campaign.  Jack did.

As Tory made a note of the time of his call, the pen bumped on
something beneath: Carson's sports watch, the one he used to time his
morning run.  Except he hadn't been home in four days.  She slid it in
the drawer and finished writing, but a chill tightened her skin.  No,
she didn't relish having to strategize against him.

It galled her.  Grieved her.  The injustice of it.  The enemy wasn't
Carson, it was Artemis.  She cursed them for making her husband her
adversary.

But she had chosen sides, eyes open, and had known she'd have to face
him sometime.  Would he bring her in tonight, too?  Would she have to
fight him for her own freedom?

Without her there was no campaign.  Shivering, she pulled on a track
suit and went downstairs to wait for Gowan's call--or the FBI's knock
on the door.

The living-room phone rang as she walked in.  It was Vince.

"You watching?  The president's on, live."

She grabbed the remote.

"... regrettable actions of a few individuals.  I come before you
tonight to assure you that our cities, towns, and communities remain
safe and secure.  The cowardice of a few will not shake our firm
resolve.  Make no mistake--we will not yield, now or ever, to terrorist
extortion.  On that steadfast principle our nation remains unified and
unshakable.

I promise you, just as surely as I pledge my commitment to your safety:
justice shall prevail.  Good night.  God bless America."

Succinct, powerful, presidential.  Not bad, Tory thought, except they
were scrambling, Lowell on the defensive.  Despite his calm defiance,
she'd noticed his eyes flicker with rage at his impotence.  However,
this was just the first of their return fire.  She knew it would get
far worse.

Vince was still on the line.

"What did I miss?"  Tory asked.

"Quincy made a statement first.  Looked like he'd swallowed battery
acid, but he basically admitted everything Jack said was true.  Shit,
it was beautiful."

She asked him to send the tape over, then told him Jack was being
questioned by the FBI.

"Oh?"  He added quietly, "Sure hope you've called this right, Tory."

When she hung up, CNN was doing the postmortem on the president's
address.  They were scrambling, too: commentators wired across the
country, with experts opining on the terrorist evil, warning against
panic, dissecting the threat.  On NBC me same, and CBS.

"We'll bring you more details as they become available," the CBS
anchorman intoned.

There was a frantic edge to their voices.  They were scared.  Everybody
was.

Good, Tory thought I can work with fear.

She turned off the TV.  The house was silent.  She needed to keep busy.
She read Noah's speech for Jack's press conference and cut some of it,
then opened her laptop and worked on instructions to the ad people,
then on memos about the grassroots organization she was creating around
Jack.  Vince's tape of the president's address arrived by cab and she
watched it carefully, rewound it, watched it again.

She glanced across the hallway at the antique grandfather clock, an
heirloom from her mother's family in Nova Scotia.  Almost eleven, and
still no word from Gowan.

Had she called this right?  Her strategy was built on two
straight-to-the-heart principles: terror and hope.  The twin emotional
prods that propagandists had used from time immemorial.

But it needed a leader, a man who could inspire a frightened mob.  Tory
had been certain, from the moment she'd met him, that man was Jack. She
could stun people with the message of terror, but only he could excite
them to action, through hope.

She couldn't let Carson kill that hope.

Kill hope?  she thought with a shudder.  Had her faith in their
marriage eroded to such mistrust?  For days she'd held a menacing
thought chained at the back of her mind: Why didn't he tell me about
the danger?  If her mother hadn't leaked the Artemis ultimatum to her
she wouldn't have known; Carson would have kept her in ignorance, along
with the rest of the country.  What kind of faith is that in me?

Stop it, she ordered herself; it's his job.  Artemis has forced
everybody to extreme positions, even me.  Especially me.  Anger surged
again; Artemis was making her risk breaking up her family.

She suddenly longed to call Chris at Swallow Point, talk to him. Silly,
of course; he'd be asleep, and she'd spoken to him just this morning.

"Mommy, are you coming swimming?"

"Not today, sweet pea, I've got work to do at my office.

Are you having fun?"

"I can go in Grandpa's little boat with Orel!"

She'd had to smile at his difficulty with Laurel's name, but his voice
told her he was happy with the arrangement:

since Laurel was staying on at Swallow Point to be with Jack until her
fall classes started, she had offered to baby-sit Chris until the new
nanny arrived.

"How did the tattoos work out?"  she'd asked.

"They didn't stick."

"Oh, too bad.  We'll buy better ones next time."

"Are you and Daddy coming here?"  he asked eagerly.

She'd felt a pang then, and a sharper one now.  He was going to be out
there for so many weeks, and he'd never been separated from them both
for that long.  Would anyone read to him, as she did?  How would he
manage without Carson's good-night kiss?  It was always the last thing
he asked for.  Dread snaked into her heart.  If Carson and I can't
resolve this, what will happen to our son?

Don't think negatives.  If the campaign succeeds, I'll make everything
normal again.

So get back to work.

But when she found herself reading the same paragraph the third time
she had to admit she couldn't concentrate, couldn't get her mind off
Chris.  She'd packed him off so quickly, without even his storybooks.
She decided to send them out right now, with a note asking Laurel to
read to him.

It was better than doing nothing.  She shoved the portable phone in her
pocket, found a box, and carried it upstairs.

His bedroom was dark.  It smelled faintly of Play-Doh.  She switched on
the Spiderman lamp on his bookcase, and its cartoon-covered shade
created a small pool of circus-colored light In me gloom beyond it, the
Winnie-the-Pooh mobile over his bed stirred in the faint draft of
air-conditioning, making Piglet and Pooh and Kanga sway in a dreamy
dance.

She knelt by the bookcase, moving aside the scatter of toy boats and
planes on the rug, and started pulling out his favorite stories.  The
Vegetable Men.  My Dog Rosie.  Alligator Pie--her favorite.  However
busy her days, she always loved reading to him at night He was learning
to read himself now, and picking it up so fast.  Opening his alphabet
book, she traced an oversize letter G with her fingertip, the way he
did.  What a joy to see discovery glow in his eyes as he connected a
word.  She hated to miss even a few weeks of watching and helping.
Until this thing was over she might not see him again for... Not see
him again.  She felt a stab of fear, just like on that morning her
mother had brought her the news of Artemis.

Fear that she herself could become a victim, leaving Chris forever.

She hugged his book against her stomach, trying to hold on to what was
precious, aware that beyond the cone of lamplight darkness surrounded
her.  But her mother had instilled a lesson early, teaching her to
sail in a squall: fear can draw out strength.  Tory willed it forth
now--strength to make the choice.  Continuing this fight threatened to
split her family apart, but abandoning the fight could leave Chris
motherless.  She realized the choice had already been made, in her
blood.  Every instinct compelled her, right or wrong, to survive for
the sake of her son.

Headlights suddenly blazed through the window.  She stiffened in the
glare.  Carson's agents?  No, they wouldn't drive to the back of the
house.  As the lights struck Chris's mobile, throwing jagged shadows on
the walls, she realized:

Carson.  His car stopped, and the headlights released her.

The car door slammed, and a moment later the kitchen door squealed
faintly.  She went on packing books, her hands moving mechanically, the
tides barely registering.  She heard his footsteps on the stairs.  She
knew what was coming.

She'd known since the beginning.

Whatever the cost, I must not fail.

Two priorities now.  Reveal nothing about the campaign, and get Jack
free.

"Tory," he said darkly.

"What's going on?"

He'd stopped in the doorway.  She was still kneeling by the bookcase,
her back to him, but she felt his concentrated anger like a laser.  She
smoothed her hand over the storybook in her lap, unable, for a moment,
to face him.

"Why did you arrange that interview with Hunt?"  he asked.

"You saw it?"

"The whole world has by now."

She finally turned to him.

"That was the idea."

Disgust tightened his face.  He walked in.

"We're not talking about one of your harmless pols here," he said,
throwing his briefcase on Chris's bed.

"Jack Hunt has made himself the spokesman for the most ruthless
terrorists we've ever faced.  Now what the hell is going on?"

She put down the book and stood.

"Is this an interrogation?

Should I be calling my lawyer?"

"Don't do this," he warned.

"Don't shut me out."

"I need ground rules first.  Who am I talking to?  The FBI, or my
husband?"

"Would your answers be different?"

"Of course.  I can trust my husband."

A breath of surprise escaped him.  Tory was glad she'd put him off
balance.  She was prepared to talk to him--but only him.

"All right," he conceded, "this is between us.  Unofficial.

It won't go beyond this room."

"Thank you," she said quietly, and kissed him.  Not a come-on, just
gratitude for this acknowledgment of trust.  It moved her in spite of
herself.  There was still enough between them to build on.

Carson suddenly grasped her hand.

"If Hunt has got you into something, let me help you get out of it.
Now, before it's too late."

It was Tory's turn to feel off balance.  She knew--as he surely
did--that this offer could cost him his career.

"It's not like that," she said.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

Disdain crept into his eyes.

"Do you?  How did you get involved?

When did Hunt contact you?  Tell me, Tory, and I mean everything."

She smiled faintly.

"I learned long ago there's only one safe tactic with you--the
truth."

He waited, watching her.

"It was my mother," Tory began.

"She told me after your White House meeting that Artemis had presented
their ultimatum but the president had refused and was keeping it
secret.  She said it was a disastrous decision and asked my advice
about how to pressure him to consent.  I suggested we break the story,
but I warned her that a credible, sympathetic voice to carry the
message was essential.  Bingo, there was Jack Hunt and his tragedy
already on the front pages."

Skepticism clouded his face.

"Handy."

"Carson, you should have heard the plague scenario she painted.  It's
terrifying.  And she knows what she's talking about, you know she does.
Look, I wish you could catch Artemis.  It would solve everything.  But
you can't, not in twenty-six days.  It's impossible.  That's why I--"
"Was Hunt at this meeting?"

"What?  No."

"But he could have persuaded Rachel beforehand."

"No, it was my idea to recruit Jack.  And it was a hard sell, believe
me.  It finally took my mother, privately, to convince him."  She shook
her head in irritation.  Don't get sidetracked.

"Anyway, that's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

She took a deep breath to steady herself.  Don't give away any more
than necessary.

"You've got to release Jack."

He stiffened.

"How did you know we'd brought him in?"

"He called me."

"Jesus," he said in dismay.

"One call, and he made it to you?"

"Carson, people need to hear Jack to understand the danger.

I know you could hold him, but I'm asking you not to.

Let him go.  Please."

"You can't have it both ways," he said harshly.

"You're talking to your husband, remember?  Not the FBI.  Your
rules."

Moving too fast.

"Sorry."

"How long have you known Hunt?"  he asked.

"I met him yesterday, at Swallow Point"

"Then you don't really know him at all."

"Everybody knows Jack Hunt.  He's a legend."

"Or a terrorist."

"Good God, you can't believe that.  Look at what he's just been
through.  A week ago he watched his wife die."

"He hardly knew her either."

Tory was shocked.

"She was his wife."

"Barely."  Before she could protest he said, "Tory, he's hiding
something.  I can't put my finger on what's wrong with his answers, but
I've done enough interrogations to know when a subject is lying."

"That's absurd.  Why would he lie?"

"I just look an acts he said, exasperated.

"Hunt's a medical man with a specialized knowledge of viruses.  A man
whose fame lets him travel the world with a medical carte blanche of
access.  He goes out of his way to stop at the Brazil epidemic site,
bringing the woman he'd married just hours before, and she dies there
from the Artemis disease.

He becomes a figure of national sympathy, then goes public with the
Artemis Declaration."

She stared at him.  The facts did look bad.  Anyone who didn't know
Jack might find them damning.  A needle of doubt pricked her.  Jack was
uncomfortably front-and-center in all of this.  Do I really know him?
She caught herself.

What am I doing?  Selected facts can be lined up to make anybody look
bad.  She wielded the technique all the time against opponents in
election campaigns.  Anyway, Jack has explained, and that's good enough
for me.  I know the truth here.  She jumped on Carson's hypothesis with
scorn.

"So you suspect him of what?  Killing his own wife?  That's crazy."

"What's crazy is for you to be involved with him.  You're helping a man
who may be an operative for the most brutal terrorists the world has
ever seen.  What if they decide you're too close to the FBI?  Or that
you're just no longer useful.  You think they'd hesitate to remove you?
You're in danger, Tory, and I want you out."

She shook her head.

"You've got this all wrong.  Jack has absolutely no connection with
Artemis."

"You don't know that!"

"Carson, he's in pain!  He watched his wife die in his arms.  In going
public he's doing a brave and generous thing.

All he wants is to prevent another Artemis attack."

"Bullshit!"  He grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Don't you understand?  He's our prime suspect!"

She gaped at him.

He looked as shocked as she was, and she realized he'd revealed more
than he'd intended.

Unnerved, she shrugged out of his grip.

"Let's get something clear.  I believe there's only one way we can
survive Artemis.  Compliance.  I intend to go on helping Jack Hunt get
that message out.  I swear I'll have a gang of lawyers tie the Bureau
in knots before I let you muzzle him.  Or me."

She added shakily, "Well, now we've both broken the rules.

I think this conversation is over."  She made a move to go.

He stopped her, forcing her to step back, and her legs hit Chris's bed.
Off balance, she thudded down on it.

He moved in, blocking her.

"What does it take to make you see?  If you won't think of yourself,
think about what Artemis is doing, what you're fronting for.  Their
weapon could annihilate a quarter of the world."

"Exactly.  The enemy is a microbe, not some bad guy you can blow away.
You have to face the fact that there's nothing you can do!"

"And surrendering the country will save us?"

"Surrendering?  A simple education plan!  All it costs is money.  My
God, we're the richest nation on earth.  We can afford this."

"What if that doesn't satisfy them?"

She threw up her hands.

"We could play 'what if forever."

"I'm not playing!  This demand is probably just iheu first.  What if
they want a say in every government decision?

What if they want to be the government?  Then who's running the world,
Tory?"

"Who's running it now?  People who believe the death of millions of
women is an acceptable gamble?  Well, millions more are going to tell
you they don't like those odds.  Women are going to tell you, Carson.
Because that's who's at risk.

mat risk

"You think I don't know?  I was in that pitiful town, for God's sake! I
saw'" He wrenched open his briefcase and pulled out autopsy photographs
and held them in front of her, forcing her to look.

"This is what Artemis does!"

She gasped at the pictures.  Black blood crusted a woman's mouth,
matted a girl's hair.

The phone rang, startling them both.  Tory pulled it from her pocket,
but she had to turn from the pictures before she could speak.

"Yes?"

It was Pete Gowan.  Tory listened in disbelief, then asked, to clarify,
"You mean no detention, no charges at all?  I see No... Thanks, Pete,
we'll talk tomorrow."  She closed the phone and looked at Carson, not
sure which she felt more--relief or revulsion.  She said to him, aware
that her voice was far from steady, "You released Jack before you even
came home.  All this time, while I've been begging you not to hold him,
while you've been pumping me for answers, Jack's been free."

She felt sick.  He'd hidden Jack's release from her just as he'd hidden
Artemis's ultimatum.  She felt as if something inside her had died.
The faith between them.  The trust.

Carson had finally killed it.

She was still hiding the campaign, though.  So the unbearable question
was.  Did he break faith, or did I?

At dawn Rachel's Learjet took off from Washington National in a
thunderstorm.  Jack stared out the window as the plane made its ascent,
bucking through the turbulence.

Rachel sat an arm's length from him across the narrow aisle, tapping
numbers on a calculator.  The plane broke through the cloud cover, and
the rising sun blazed in his face, but he didn't turn away.  To turn
would be to look at her, and he couldn't, remembering all that they'd
once done together.

How he'd tasted her body, sweated with her, entered her-Marisa's
murderer.  Images collided: Marisa hemorrhaging, calling his name;
Rachel climaxing, calling his name.

He closed his eyes, sick with shame.

And opened them, cold with rage.

"Do no harm."  The Hippocratic oath.  But harm was what he craved to do
to her.  She had sucked the humanity from him.  He hated her most
savagely for this, for what she'd made of him.  Reduced his existence
to a single, primitive drive: vengeance.

So be it.

He'd decided what he had to do first, to stop her discover how she had
programmed her dead man's switch, or gain some clue about the structure
of the virus.  For any hope of either, he had to approach her calmly,
rationally.  No threats, just do whatever was necessary to draw her
out, even gain her confidence, if he could.

So here, in the calm at fifty thousand feet, alone with her in the
hushed cabin, he severed himself from the shame and the rage.  He
blanked out Marisa's face, and looked at Rachel.

There was only one way to begin.

"Why?"

The single word brought her head up.  His question hung in the air.

"What do you want to hear.  Jack?  All about the hole in the ozone as
big as Europe?  The dying oceans, vacuumed of life?  Do you want the
catalogue of razed forests, poisoned rivers, species we've slaughtered
to extinction?  All because there are too many of us.  It's been said
over and over, and no one's listening.  The mine canary died years ago.
Nobody cares."

"I care.  I need to know.  Explain to me why you're doing this."

She looked at him as if to size up the likelihood of him
understanding.

"I'm a very rich woman," she said.

"I've reached a point our culture calls the summit.  Wealth, status,
power on a scale most people can only dream of.  So what would you have
me do with it?  Collect baubles from the jewelry store?  Wallow at the
spa?  Buy young men?  Or should I actually use my power?  I'm one of
the few people on earth with both the intellectual and financial
capacity to make a change in the world.  That's what I'm doing. Jack.

Changing the world."

Rage threatened again, burning like vomit in his throat.

"You sound as though you think you're some kind of god."

She shrugged.

"Depends how you define a god.  Superhuman powers?  I have them at my
lab.  An absence of emotional beliefs?  I learned long ago to free
myself from dogma.

Immunity to human laws?  I'm counting on that" A slight frown creased
her forehead.

"For a while, at least."

Immune to laws?  Jack thought.  It almost seemed she was.

The FBI had let them both go.  He understood the political and
public-relations imperatives that had won them their liberty, but he
was still amazed that she was actually going to continue heading up
the president's scientific team.  As soon as they reached Bar Harbor,
they'd begin.  What a sick farce.

As for him, while answering Colwell's questions he'd seen the glint of
the hunter in the FBI man's eyes.  They'd let him go, yes, but he
sensed he was still held in Colwell's crosshairs.

He saw that Rachel had turned back to her calculator.  Keep her
talking.  That's the goal.

"Gods can be merciful," he said.

"Surely there's a way to change the world that's more"--he chose the
word carefully--"benevolent."

"You don't consider women's education a benevolent solution to
overpopulation?"

"Yes, of course.  But you're also threatening mass murder."

"It's no more than every nation in history has done, including ours, to
fight an enemy.  Hiroshima.  The firebombing of Dresden--over a hundred
thousand German civilians burned to death in that single raid.  Were
those attacks mass murder, or bold steps to end the war and prevent
more death?  Jack, the enemy now is ourselves, the human race.

There've been more people born since World War Two than in the four
million years since humans first walked upright We've over bred to the
brink of disaster.  We've got to be made to stop."

"But this way?  You're a brilliant scientist, you could be using your
status and power to bring about change by persuasion."

She smiled bitterly.

"You think I haven't tried?  Scientists' statements don't get airplay;
that's reserved for celebrities.

I've tried other ways, too--for years I've donated to population
control programs, ecological programs.  A drop in the ocean.  Anyway,
people have become bored with pleas about the environment.  The Union
of Concerned Scientists recently issued an open petition, called a
Warning to Humanity.  Signed by over a hundred Nobel prize winners. It
warned we may have no more than a decade left to avoid global
ecological catastrophe.  Didn't even make the evening news."

Jack was suddenly anxious about a new concern.

"Won't your activity with those causes raise red flags for the FBI?

They'll find your name on lists."

"My donations were anonymous.  And I didn't sign the Union petition,
only because it reached my office too late.

Anyway," she added wryly, "it appears the president's faith in me is
boundless.  I seem to be above suspicion."

Jack prayed that was true.

Rachel rested her head on the back of me seat.

"Homo sapiens," she murmured pensively.

"Sapiens, 'wise."  Strange word for a species that never learns.  We
actually believe we can 'manage' the planet, as if it were some kind of
department store.  The truth is, we can't even comprehend the
ecosystems in a single drop of seawater."

She indicated her calculator with a smile of disdain.

"Oh, we're clever at pushing buttons and pulling levers, just miserable
when it comes to real thinking, especially thinking ahead.  It's not
our fault We've evolved biologically to respond only to short-term
dangers: the charging lion, the enemy with a knife, fire.  We tune out
long-term dangers because we have no personal control over them.  So we
blithely go on denuding the forests, poisoning the rivers, fouling me
air, making dust of fertile land.  We're consuming the earth, and we
won't stop until there's nothing left."

"But, my God, killing can't solve mis."

She shot him a look of scorn.

"Platitudes don't suit you, Jack.  Of course killing can solve it.
Fewer humans cause less damage."

He was too stunned to speak.

She sighed.

"Jack, I don't expect ordinary people to understand what I'm doing. It
doesn't matter if they do.  But surely you can.  I'm trying to give our
species one last chance.  Since we aren't programmed to see the danger,
I'm forcing us to see it.  We've got to change."

She gave an impatient shrug.

"If we don't, the earth will balance itself by wiping out the surplus
humans.  It's already begun.  Collapse of fisheries, dwindling grain
harvests, parched aquifers.  It all leads to starvation, mass
migrations of refugees, massive die-offs.  And that leads to civil wars
engulfing whole regions.  Tribalism at its most vicious.  Too many
people fighting over two few resources.  Look at Yugoslavia.

Look at Zaire.  Exactly like Rwanda, where--" She stopped abruptly.

Jack was startled by the change in her.  A marked stiffening, a pulling
back.

She recovered and said evenly, "So that's your answer, Jack.  I'm
giving humanity what it is capable of grasping.  An immediate danger,
and a rational way out."

He thought: such an elaborate intellectual response to the simple
question of Why?  She hadn't really answered, not with her heart.  Some
essential piece of this was missing.

"I

don't believe you," he challenged.

"There's more."

A shadow darkened her face.  Something like despair.  Jack thought. She
looked away, murmuring, "Believe what you want."

He leaned closer instinctively to keep his voice low, though there was
no one to overhear.

"This is what I believe.

Whatever drove you to this, you were sure your ultimatum would force
the government's hand.  When it didn't, you were taken by surprise. Now
the security forces are trying to track you down, led by your own
son-in-law.  And you feel trapped, because he just might get you."

He grasped the arm of her seat.

"I'm going to try to win this for you, Rachel.  I'm going to do
everything in my power to help Tory.  Who knows, we just might pull it
off.  As for the FBI, you know you can trust me, I've just proved that.
But face it--at any moment Colwell could bring you in.  Whatever your
private demons, I can't believe you really want to release a global
plague, especially if the campaign looks as if it might succeed.  So
I'm asking you.  Stand down with your dead man's switch.  Please.
You've got to give me and Tory more time."

She was looking straight ahead, not at him.

"It's true that Carson's involvement is worrying."  She added quietly,
"I may have to force this to a conclusion sooner than I'd hoped."

A barb of dread snagged inside him.

"You can't mean that.  You've given a deadline, given your word."

Her gaze slid to him in scorn.

"Gentlemen's club rules?"

"My God, Rachel, give me at least the time you promised.

Let me try to make the campaign work."

She looked into his eyes.

"Do, Jack, for everyone's sake.

Make it work."

11

rachel STOOD AT HER DINING-ROOM TABLE, a Steaming mug of black coffee
between her hands as she looked over spreadsheets from her team's
serology reports.  No real danger here, she thought; she'd maneuvered
the team's efforts well off-track.  As for the FBI, her interrogation
five days ago, unnerving as it was, seemed far behind her now.  Not a
word from Carson since.  She didn't deceive herself that the lull was
anything more than that, but at least it gave her a breather.  For more
waiting, she thought uneasily.

She heard the shower burst on in the bathroom above.

Jack, getting ready to come to the lab with her.  Five days of enduring
him under her roof and at work.  The tension was painful.  His hatred.
But she wouldn't let that pain obscure her focus; this arrangement
allowed her to keep an eye on him.  Jack was her biggest worry now,
that he would see how she was manipulating the lab team.  His hostile
involvement was a development that, months ago, she could never have
anticipated.

Chris ran down the stairs in the hall and launched himself off the
last step like an airplane, arms stuck out like wings, cheeks puffed as
he mimicked a jet engine's roar.  He made his landing, skidding on
pajama-smooth knees across the floor, and halted at the dining-room
doorway.

"Hi, Nana!"

Despite her worries, she had to smile.

"Hello, darling."

Jays began bickering raucously at Del's feeder outside.  Poor Del.
Usually she had coffee with him in his room before going to the lab,
but this morning he'd woken up with a cold and she'd told him to stay
in bed.

This comfortable domestic world, she thought: not my world anymore.  It
brought a pang, which she quickly mastered.

She was beyond remorse.  She turned her attention back to the
spreadsheets.

Laurel came in, trudging after Chris.  Stifling a yawn, she said, "Get
the cereal box yourself, will you, kiddo?  The milk's in here."  When
Chris padded off to the kitchen.  Laurel flopped into a chair,
muttering, "The trouble with morning is it starts so damn early."

Rachel pulled her eyes from the data.

"What?"

Laurel slumped lower.

"Nothing."

The waiting, Rachel thought.  It was becoming unbearable.

Tory was about to finally unleash the full-blown campaign--prime time
this evening.  Rachel had invested all her hopes in it.  It would take
days to have any effect, however, maybe even weeks, right up to the
deadline, and meanwhile Carson's manhunt would inevitably close in on
her.  Months ago, preparing the demonstration, she had done everything
possible to cover her tracks, beginning with producing the virus at her
Puerto Rico facility.  Yet Carson had discovered the perfume vials in
Stoney Creek within hours!  How long before that trail brought him to
her Puerto Rico lab, and from there, straight to her?

And, again, there was Jack.  Tory said he'd been brilliant--forceful,
charismatic--in the filmed appeals scheduled for broadcast tonight as
she opened the campaign floodgates, yet his position as spokesman was
the very crux of Rachel's dilemma, hi creating the virus, she had
engineered a maze to confound any research investigation; and the
stroke of fate that had put her in charge of that investigation had
given her even further means to prevent discovery.

What she hadn't thought of when she'd forced Jack to become the
spokesman--and have him remain a credible member of her team--was that
her superior position would be jeopardized once he knew the truth.  To
find the right path through the maze he had only to look to her.  And
she knew he was bent on finding it.  She could sense him watching,
assessing, hungering for clues.  Following every move I make.

Well, she thought, her anger stirred, I'm watching, too.  Don't get too
close.  Jack, or you' II get burned.

The small flurry of bravado did little to calm her.  Jack was one of
the most rigorous scientists she'd ever known.

How could she continue, under his scrutiny, to keep the rest of the
team scurrying along the path where she wanted them, toward a dead end,
without it signaling the right path to him?

Upstairs, his shower stopped.

"Can I eat on the porch?"  Chris asked Laurel.  He'd returned with a
bowl of cereal.  Using both hands to lift the pitcher from the table,
he sloshed on milk.

Laurel was sleepily pouring orange juice.

"Why not?"

Chris left, and Ron, Del's nurse, came in from the hall.

"Dr.  Lesage, you got a minute?"  He was carrying a shopping bag.

"You're going now?"  she asked, distracted.  He and Doris had planned
to go to town to pick up a prescription for Del and do the shopping,
but no stores would be open so early.

"No, Doris is getting raspberries from the garden for breakfast, so
I--" He lowered his voice.

"I want to ask you something."  He was pulling some kind of plastic
headgear out of the bag.  Rachel was startled to see it was a gas
mask.

"For Tina," he said.  Their daughter in New York.

"See, she can't leave her job at the diner, so it's in case ... well,
you know."

Rachel stared at the mask.

"Where did you get this?"

"Doris bought it in Bangor, at the mall.  I've seen them in lots of
stores.  There's people lined up."  He gave a nervous laugh.

"It's nuts, I know.  I told her the damn thing won't do any good, but
she won't believe me.  Said to ask you.  She's pretty upset."  He
turned the mask in his hands, his face creased with worry.

"I know it wouldn't help."  He looked at her hopefully.

"Would it?"

She said quietly, "No."

Ron stuffed the mask back in the bag.

"Course not.  I told her, but you know Doris.  She'll make me send it
to Tina anyway."  He offered an unconvincing laugh.

"Well, sorry to bother you.  Doctor."

Rachel felt a tightness around her heart.  Ron had touched that deepest
fear: the risk to her own daughter.  In the event of a pandemic, a
certain percentage of females would survive, probably quite large, but
there was no way to predict how many, or where, or who.  She'd told Ron
the truth: there was no guaranteed protection, not even distance.  The
American cities she had targeted were far from Washington.  Far from
Tory.  Still, the outcome was unknowable.

No question of turning back.  The blood of thousands had been shed, a
sacrifice on the way to a better world.  To stop now would reduce those
deaths to plain murder.  She must see this through, even if it required
further sacrifice.  But, could she bear to sacrifice Tory?  Facing that
dread at the very start, she had overcome it, certain that the
president would agree to her demand.  Except that hadn't happened.

Then, even as she'd accepted Tory's help, the dread had clawed its way
back, with an altered equation whose irony was not lost on Rachel: her
worst fear, and her final hope, were both focused on her daughter.
Tory's campaign must succeed.

"Everybody's so scared," Laurel said gloomily after Ron had left.

"Artemis is all anyone's talking about.  As if there's anything we can
do.  My God, gas masks?  Like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."
She shivered.

"If the plague's coming, it's coming."

Rachel felt a flash of anger.

"It doesn't have to be that way.  People can act."

"People like you and Jack maybe.  But ordinary folks?  I can't imagine
doing half the stuff you do."

"Why not?"

Laurel made a knowing, wry face.

"Don't you watch Oprahl Low self-esteem."

"Self-esteem comes with accomplishment.  You might try that."

Laurel stiffened at the reprimand and looked away.

Rachel snapped open her briefcase and slid in the spreadsheets.

The girl's indolence and lazy fatalism annoyed her.

"Can you swim?"

"What?  Sure."

"Chris can't.  Instead of spending your days watching TV and playing in
the dinghy, you might teach him to swim.

That would be an accomplishment."

Before Laurel could reply, Rachel noticed Chris standing in the
doorway.  His eyes were wide and frightened.  He pointed behind him and
said hesitantly, "Liam."

They found the dog lying at the foot of the verandah steps, drooling,
eyes glazed, muzzle matted with blood, his foreleg just above the paw
angled sickeningly as though someone had hacked it with a saw.  Jagged
white bone, shredded muscle, red pulp--a shell exploded in Rachel's
brain.  Paul.

She quelled the memory.

"Laurel, get water and towels," she ordered, grabbing a beach towel
from the railing.  She ran down the steps and spread it over the
trembling dog for warmth as he looked up at her with helpless trust.
Laurel had frozen.

"Laurel!  Water!"

The girl didn't move.  Her eyes were locked on the mangled leg.

"Useless!"  Rachel said furiously between clenched teeth.

She lifted Liam in her arms and struggled up the steps, grunting under
his weight.

Chris ran after her.

"Open the door, darling," she said.  In the kitchen she settled the dog
on the table.  Catching her breath, she told Chris, "Pat Liam's head
and tell him he's a good dog.  Yes, you must, darling, he's frightened
and he needs you to make him feel better.  That's good.  Now don't
leave him."  She hurried to the sink and filled a bowl with water.

"The leg's broken, it needs a splint," Jack said, suddenly walking in.
He grabbed a long wooden spoon.

"Call the vet.

How did it happen?"  He was pulling tea towels off a rack and began
tying the spoon against Liam's foreleg as a makeshift splint.

Rachel was already punching numbers on the wall phone.

"Probably a leg-hold trap," she said with fury.

"Trappers set them in the woods."  Laurel stood in the doorway,
white-faced, then gagged and ran out.

"Sweetheart, you all right?"  Jack asked, knocking on her door.  Oh,
God, she thought, mortified.  She'd been sobbing on

her bed.  She quickly sat up and swiped away tears.

"How's LiamT she asked as Jack came in.

"Not great, but I've set the break and cleaned the wound and he's
stabilized.  The vet isn't in yet but Rachel's left a message."  He
asked again, "You okay?"

"Of course.  It just freaked me for a minute."

He sat on the edge of the bed and touched her cheek.

"The worst is over.  He'll be in good hands with the vet" "Sure, I
know.  I'll be fine."

"You don't look it," he said, feeling her forehead.

"I just watched TV too late last night" She shrugged away from his
scrutiny and added bitterly, "You know me, that's all I do."

"Are you worded about an outbreak?  I've been wondering if you should
go away.  England, maybe.  Stay with the Gardiners."

"No, I don't want to leave you."

"I don't want you to either.  Actually, the safest place for you is
right here with Ra--" He seemed to catch himself, then checked his
watch.

"Sorry," he said, getting up, "but I've got to go."

She longed for him to stay.  to just be with her, but she could see he
was itching to get to the lab.

"Important work to do, you and Rachel," she said, poking listlessly at
me blanket.

"You're lucky."  The horrible wrongness of the words hit her and she
added hastily, "Oh, God, that's not true, after Marisa... Oh, I'm
sorry."

He nodded sadly.

"I know."

"It's just I wish I could help you.  But there's nothing I can do.  And
Rachel can't stand me, and--" Tears welling, she looked away.
Useless.

"I haven't got a clue what to do with my pathetic life."

"Laurel, you've got so much to offer.  You'll find your way.  It just
takes time."

She thought her heart would burst.  Jack was the only one who cared.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry," he said, "but I've got to go.  You know how it
is."

In a moment he was at the door.  She hated to see him leave.  She
blurted, "Can I come to the lab later?  Could we have dinner
together?"

He hesitated.

"Don't see how I can take the time, with--" "Please?"  she begged.

"Doris can stay with Chris, and there's another car I can use. Besides,
you're working way too hard.  You need a break."

He looked at her, then relented with a tender smile.

"If you say so.  Come by around seven?"

She knew he was only doing it for her.  She smiled, tears clouding her
vision.

"I love you."

Jack found Rachel waiting as he came downstairs.

"The gatehouse called," she told him curtly.

"More reporters today man usual.  I'd rather avoid running that
gauntlet today.  We'll sail to the lab."

They cast off in a strong breeze, and in fifteen minutes reached the
middle of the bay, halfway to the lab.  As Jack winched in the jib
sheet he said carefully, "Maybe you could be a little less rough on
Laurel."

"She acts like a child."

"She's got a few problems."

"The whole world has problems."

"Well, since you've got your hands full with the whole world, maybe you
could back off with Laurel!"

Stupid to let his temper flare, he told himself.  It was being near
her, day after day, and appearing to do her bidding-like staying on at
Swallow Point instead of a hotel.  He'd done it hoping that if he stuck
close she might let some vital information slip.  She hadn't yet.

He had to be careful, too, about where and how he spoke to her.  He
knew the FBI was watching him: Colwell's suspicion had been palpable.
They'd almost certainly tapped the Swallow Point phones.  Probably
bugged every room.

Glancing back at Rachel's dock, he wondered if they had a surveillance
van nearby.  In her woods, maybe?  With a longdistance parabolic mike?
He felt better at her lab.  There, she'd assured him, her security
systems to prevent corporate espionage were impenetrable.  Jack just
hoped it was true, because Colwell had to be kept at bay.

While I stop her myself in the lab.

It had become clear to him days ago that she wasn't going to let down
her guard in private.  No, the place to trap her was in the public
forum of her own lab, at the helm of mis farcically grand research
project she was directing.  Misdirecting ... that was the reality mat
Jack alone knew.  It gave him his one advantage over Rachel.  Her
instructions to the team, her approval or dismissal of their various
research initiatives, her subtle deceptions to undermine their
efforts--that's what he was focusing on now, trying to see through her
feints.  Every word out of her mouth, every nuance of body language,
were ciphers that might help him unscramble the mystery of her
creation, if only he could decode them.

The trouble was, the bare facts of that creation were enigmatic enough.
The fluid in the red vials had proven to be a true viral soup; analysis
was still going on.  Tests of the purple vials' contents, on the other
hand, revealed only perfume.

Jack figured that Rachel had originally tried adding virus right to the
perfume, but found that the aromatic oils destabilized her
bioengineered pathogen, so she'd separated the elements and devised the
mix-your-own gimmick.

As the team spent precious days analyzing the soup.  Jack had watched
in frustration, more certain every day mat Rachel had dumped these
detectable viral agents in as a cover.  Nothing here could cause the
hemorrhagic devastation he had witnessed, nor explain the extraordinary
female-specific pathogenesis.  Rachel, naturally, encouraged the
broadest investigation, slowing the work.  It even occurred to Jack in
exasperation that the perfume vials themselves might be a ruse, and the
real agent was still out there, unfound.

Then, some blood samples from the victims were found to contain
antibodies that cross-reacted with swine flu.  The team was surprised.
No one had suspected mere influenza.  Jack was skeptical; they'd found
it too easily.  Yet flu, he had to admit, did open a daunting Pandora's
box of possibilities.

Every pandemic flu strain consisted of eight genes, and if two strains
invaded a single cell, they could mix and match genes to create any of
two hundred and fifty-six possible combinations.  Could Rachel have
accomplished some extraordinary sleight of hand with a common flu bug,
which the team had stumbled on by sheer luck?  The answers seemed to be
yes when, three days ago, the microbiology unit declared a
breakthrough.  They had identified, within the red vial's soup, a new
virus, never seen before.  They immediately tried to grow it from
victims' tissue, but the agent proved stubborn, tricky to work with,
until yesterday.  At a crowded, noisy full-team meeting, rumors of
success rocketed through the room.  Jack stood by the wall, watching.

Could this really be a breakthrough despite Rachel's subtle sabotage?

When she stepped forward, everyone hushed.  Jack studied her closely.
She appeared as always: alert, detached, in control.  If she was
worried they were getting closer, she was hiding it well.

"We have an isolate," she declared.  Her control seemed too perfect.
Jack thought; she was forcing it.  Was she nervous about the discovery
after all?  He felt a stab of hope, sharp with vengeance.

She brought forward the unit leader.  Bill Rensler, on leave from the
Yale Microbiology Lab.  He announced that polymerase chain reaction
analysis had indeed confirmed an influenza virus but had revealed
quirks in its genetic sequence different from all others: definitely a
new strain.  Yes, he added proudly, his people had finally grown it:
'"We have worms!"

Rachel shook Rensler's hand in congratulation, but again with such an
enforced calm that Jack's hope surged.  That twitch of tension by her
mouth was betraying her.  That flicker in her eyes.  She is nervous!

Rachel offered Rensler the honor of naming the discovery.

"Well, Artemis created it," Rensler replied, flush with his success,
"and it's top of the list for gruesomeness.  So let's caUitA1."

Rachel hesitated a moment, then declared, "A-l it is."

Jack suddenly realized that the faint lift at the corners of her lips,
the guarded light in her eyes--not nervousness, satisfaction.

Hope drained from him.  Disappointment soured his mouth.  She'd allowed
them to find this.  She'd thrown them a goddamn bone.

Applause had broken out for Rensler.  He made a theatrical bow, and the
people who worked under him congratulated each other exuberantly.
Chatter filled the room as everyone joined in the thrill of discovery.
Jack's eyes hadn't left Rachel: calm and collected as ever.
Misdirection, he reminded himself soberly.  Wherever she points, look
the other way.

They docked the boat at the village jetty where Rachel's chauffeur was
waiting with the car--probably FBI bugged, Jack had decided days ago.
They drove the mile to the lab in silence.  As always, reporters stood
nul ling outside.

"Dr.  Lesage," one shouted, running to her as she and Jack marched
toward the doors, "do you have a problem working with Dr.  Hunt after
his statements that the president should give in to the terrorists?"

She answered, "Jack Hunt is one of the most innovative virologists this
country has ever produced.  He has my complete confidence and trust."

Liar, he thought.  You trust me about as much as I trust you.  The
difference is, I'm going to bring you down.

Reporters swarmed him.  A microphone jabbed his jaw, mashing his cheek
against his teeth, and he tasted blood.  As he shoved the microphone
aside, another reporter yelled, "Dr.  Hunt, how can you call for
appeasing the terrorists when you're also trying to find a cure for
their weapon?"

He said hotly, "My sole interest is to prevent more deaths, whether
through an agreement to the education plan or a treatment developed by
this research team."

Rachel's security guards kept the mob back as she and Jack squeezed
into the lobby.  About to go their separate ways they exchanged a
glance, wordless but bristling with challenge.  Jack thought bitterly.
Let the games begin.  He headed for his office.

The halls were crowded with scientists.  Many were department chairs or
senior researchers seconded from large labs of their own, and they'd
all brought extensive support staffs: graduate students, postdoctoral
fellows, associate researchers.

A dour Brandeis professor of biochemistry brushed by without a
greeting.  Jack wasn't surprised; he'd encountered some hostility
here.

"Science and politics don't mix," he'd once overheard one of them
grumble.  Mostly, though, he'd received sympathy--which rankled him
more.

The sympathy of pity.  He needed the country to focus on his message,
not his loss.

The whole team, whatever their feelings about his public statements,
seemed baffled about his actual role here.  No wonder.  Rachel had
assigned him only two graduate students as assistants, had restricted
his access to lab technicians, and hadn't given him any clear duties.
Her presidential-gilded prestige assured the team's compliance, but
Jack knew they found the situation odd.  Makes sense to me, he thought
grimly.  She knows I'm gunning for her.

Well, let her sweat.

Making his way along the glassed walkway that skirted a ravine, he
could see Rachel's jutting corner office, where a glass wall gave her a
view of the woods, and an outdoor staircase gave her access to it.  It
struck him that she seemed to crave closeness to nature.  The ravine
here, her oceanfront house, the sailing.  Even the Pear Tree Inn,
twelve years ago.

Her idea.  Evading the London reporters, he'd driven to the country
hotel and found her in a coach house suite where she could walk out
into a copse of wilderness carpeted with daffodils.

The recollection of their lovemaking brought a fresh wave of loathing.
He endured the memory, because the whole point now was to not look
away, but to study her, observe her, get inside her mind.  Her mind had
created Al.

Why?  Just another ingredient in the soup to confuse them?

Or was he getting carried away trying to second-guess her?

Could there be more to it?  Careful... don't miss anything.

He took the stairs to his second-floor office, two small cramped rooms.
In the outer one, the pair of grad students assigned to him glanced
up.

"I'm condensing the PCR analysis for you," Mandy Chang told him,
tapping intently at her computer.  With her ponytail neatly tied with a
red ribbon, and her crisp white blouse and pleated navy skirt, she
seemed to Jack more like a guileless schoolgirl than the ambitious
Yale doctoral candidate in molecular genetics that she was.

"Lovely morning.  Doc," Youssef al-Saadawi said.  He lifted his
moccasined feet off his desk and lowered the Playboy he'd been
perusing, tossing it among the Mars bar wrappers around his keyboard. A
slight, swarthy young man, he wore a frayed T-shirt and mustard-stained
jeans.  His black wavy hair always looked as though it hadn't been
washed for a week; Jack wryly wondered how he maintained the look every
day.  Youssef was a biochemist pursuing a doctorate at Johns Hopkins
University, top in his class, but as far as Jack could tell his chief
aim here, apart from attempting to consume a world record in candy
bars, was to proposition every available female.  He doubted the kid
was having much luck.  Mandy, with a drop-dead look, had declined on
the first day.

"Don't tax yourself," Jack said.  Inside his own cubicle he logged onto
the microbiology unit's data.  Unsure how to access the newest files,
he called in Mandy.  Bred in Silicon valley--her American mother was an
engineer, her Chinese father a computer programmer--she'd practically
been raised in cyberspace.

"How do I bring up Rensler's stats?"  he asked her.

Impatiently, she came to his side and tapped at the keyboard.

Statistics bloomed on the screen.

He looked up at her.

"That's the latest?"

Her almond eyes regarded him frostily.

"That's me latest"

He knew she resented being assigned to him.  She'd come with Rensler's
people from the Yale Microbiology Lab but had been pulled from that
elite group to assist Jack.  In her estimation it was a dead-end duty
and it pissed her off.

He turned back to the screen.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

A truce, he thought, watching her go.

He heard Youssef murmur to her as she came back to her desk, "Fancy a
bite from the caf?  I might spring for some Rosie Lee and Holy
Ghost."

Cockney rhyme for tea and toast.  The Cockney accent had surprised Jack
the first day.  If there was Bedouin blood in Youssef, it was way back;
he was a scrapper from the mean streets of London.  Cambridge on
scholarship, then a visa to the States to work with the Johns Hopkins
select unit of biochemists, whose chief had brought him here.  Like
Mandy, he'd then been assigned to Jack.  As resentful about it as she
was, he seemed to accept his lot fatalistically, although at
yesterday's meeting to announce A-l Jack had overheard him grumble
enviously, "Nice work.  Lucky bastards."

That meeting--what a travesty.  The group had settled into their usual
cliques after the announcement, and soon the rivalry was thick enough
to choke on, because Rachel had immediately invited a discussion about
developing a therapy for A-l.  Jack wanted to yell.  Don't listen to
her!  He could only watch in exasperation as they'd enthusiastically
obliged her, some people advancing ideas, others shooting them down,
everyone vociferously defending their pet theories.

It was human nature, and the gene jockeys here were far from immune to
its workings.  Of course, the quarreling was exactly what Rachel
wanted.  She'd handpicked this bunch of edgy top guns.  So easy to fan
the rivalry until they fought to deadlock.  Then she could step in and
lead them where she wanted.

First she'd asked for ideas about the disease's female-specific
manifestation, and Larry Silverstem of Yale gave an impassioned plea
for focusing on chromosomes, a search for an X-linked susceptibility or
a Y-liaked resistance.  Dwayne Morantz of Duke Medical Center
acerbically pointed out, "Males have the X too."  To which Silverstein
snapped, "They don't express the same genes from it."

Rachel said, "It's a good idea, Larry.  Have your unit start looking at
chromosome activity."

Bingo, Jack had thought, suddenly alert.  She wants a focus on
chromosomes, so that has to be a dead end.  Look the other way.

Reality quickly cooled him.  Which other way?  There were so many other
possible female-specific factors: ova production, hormones,
immunodeficiency disease susceptibility, to name just a few.  One down,
fifty to go, he thought grimly.

"Excuse me," Sandra Whitelaw, a Stanford molecular geneticist, had
interjected, "the gentlemen's theories would be great if we had years
to putter around, but we don't.  We need something quick and dirty to
abrogate the infection.  Now, I've done some preliminary work on
designing a ribozyme that would chop up the virus's nucleic acid to
prevent it generating its own replication, and I--" "You're all running
off in too many directions," Morantz interrupted.

"I suggest a classic approach--tests on animal subjects.  Rhesus
monkeys would be suitable."

"That would only tell us about A-l and rhesus monkeys," Whitelaw said
disdainfully.

"We won't know about A-l and humans unless it's tested on a human
female.  That's impossible, so your suggestion is pointless."

"I've heard the scientific method called many things," Morantz sniffed,
"but never pointless."

Oh, please.  Jack thought, disgusted at the sparring.

"There's no time!"  Whitelaw shot back.

"But perhaps you don't care if a few million victims die.  Dr. Morantz.
 After all, they're only women."

"It seems impossible to me that we can come up with anything in the
allotted time," Morantz replied, keeping his cool with difficulty.

"So I suggest we proceed like responsible professionals and do our job
properly, even if that takes us past the deadline.  We'll get nowhere
acting like hysterical amateurs searching for some magic antiserum."

At which Whitelaw really let him have it.  Others joined in.  It was a
free-for-all.

Goddamned prima donnas!  Rachel didn't even have to steer them, they
steered themselves--babbling and bickering all the way down her
primrose path.

"Dwayne," Rachel intervened calmly, "I agree that the logical next step
would be tests, but unfortunately Sandra's right.  The president needs
results.  So some processes will have to be cut short.  Now, what I
suggest--" Her gaze, for one brief moment, intersected with Jack's, and
he caught a flicker, an almost imperceptible loss of composure.

Why?  he thought, snatching at it.  What's bothering her?  She quickly
turned to give some directive to Silverstein about the chromosome
project, and Jack was left wondering if he'd misread the signs again.
No, this time her nervousness had been unmistakable.  / know her.

But she knows me too, he reminded himself.  So maybe the nervous glance
was a trick to misdirect me.

Jesus, am I just getting paranoid?  Going in circles.

Only one thing's for sure, he told himself, hanging on to the thought
to keep his bearings.  Nothing she approves will lead to a treatment.

What will?  he asked himself now, staring at the data on his office
screen.  Okay, so she's misdirecting the team with A-l, but
misdirecting away from whafl He spent the day in his cubicle studying
lab reports and poring over electron microscope photos.  In the outer
office, Mandy threw herself into PCR analysis with a martyr's zeal, her
color-coordinated stack of reports growing a few inches higher by the
afternoon.  Youssef set up a dartboard by the window, took a long
lunch in the cafeteria, and napped at his desk.

Late in the day Jack heard them whispering.  Then, after a knock on his
open door, the two of them walked in purposefully, like a delegation.
He turned to them.

"What is it?"

Youssef beamed a patronizing smile.

"Doc, let's face it, you can't really use us.  What say we clear out
and stop bothering you?  Let you get on with your reading.  Say, for
the next month?"

Jack was dismayed.

"You're quitting?"

Mandy said, "Just the opposite.  We'd like you to release us to join
Rensler and Silverstein working with A-1."

"Where the action is," Youssef added.

You poor fools.  Jack thought, there's nothing there.

"Request denied," he said.  No way he could make any progress alone.

Youssefs smirk vanished.

"Denied?"

"I need you.  Both of you."

"Why?"  Youssef asked.

"To help you with the daily crossword?"

"Dr.  Hunt," Mandy pointed out more tactfully, "you have to beg the
unit chiefs just to keep you in the picture."

"All the more reason I need your help.  No transfer.  That's final."

Youssef turned to Mandy.

"Dr.  Lesage will reassign us.

Let's go."

"Don't," Jack warned.

"I'm still your superior.  You leave this office, you'll leave with my
negative report, and I promise you I won't be gentle.  My name still
means something, and you'll have a hard time explaining my comments to
future prospective employers."

They glared at him.  We're fighting, like the rest of the team, he
realized.  Dissension, paralysis.  Just what Rachel wants.

The outer door opened and Laurel walked in.  Waggling her fingers at
Jack, she sat down to wait.  Youssef craned around the inner doorway to
look at her.

Dinner, Jack remembered with an inward groan.  Wrong to have promised
her that.  Can't possibly take the time, not now with these two little
prodigies wanting to mutiny.

Everyone's so hot to work on A-l, to follow Rachel blindly as she-Hold
on.  What if I really am being paranoid in dismissing A-l?  What if it
is the answer?  He thought back to that fleeting anxiety he'd caught in
Rachel's eyes.  He hadn't imagined it, and it was no trick.  She'd been
afraid, and it had to do with Al.

Why would she be nervous, if A-l's a dead end?

Suddenly he thought he saw the answer.  He remembered how she'd steered
the meeting away from testing A-l on a monkey; she'd so smoothly let
Whitelaw declare it would just waste time.  That was it.  Everyone
wanted to work on A-l--Rachel had practically orchestrated it--but she
was anxious to keep that work confined to one channel, and out of
another, more dangerous one.  She wants us busy with it;

oh, yes, fixated on it, but with microscopes, not living beings.  In
vitro, not in vivo.

Why?  Because the results would give her away.  Because A-l, given to
any living creature, won't produce the disease.

He couldn't hold back his conviction any longer.

"Listen to me," he said to Mandy and Youssef.

"The team's on completely the wrong track.  The agent's not Al."

Youssef's eyebrows shot up.

"Brilliant, Doc.  Three hundred geniuses here and they've all made a
mistake.  Glad I'm not working with them."

Jack restrained an impulse to deck him.

Mandy wasn't sarcastic, just curt.

"Of course it's the agent.  Doctor.  It's a completely new flu strain,
it's in the victims' tissues, and now we've grown it."

"That's not proof enough," Jack said, forcing patience.

"Look, it's as if the prime suspect in a murder case confesses, so the
investigation stops.  But what if the suspect is just crazy--and
innocent--and the real killer's still at large?

Believe me, a female monkey, even a female human, would not develop the
Artemis disease from A-l.  Our killer is something else altogether."

"What evidence could possibly lead you to that conclusion?"

Mandy asked.

/ know who the killer's creator is!  he wanted to yell.  But he
couldn't tell them that, or how he knew it.  He was stuck with begging,
because, damn it, he needed their help; no way could he manage this
work on his own.

"You've just got to trust me," he said.

"I've been around viruses a long time.

There are some things you just get to know in your gut."

Even as he said it, he despised the lame plea.

They exchanged looks, their patience clearly wearing thin.

"Intuition?"  Youssef asked derisively.

"Listen, kid," Jack flared, "I was classifying viruses before you could
say the word."

The mockery in Youssef's eyes hardened to contempt.

"Doc, you've been out of the loop too long, and you're way out of line
on this.  Okay, I've drawn the straw to baby-sit a star.  I can use the
time for beauty rest.  But I don't have to listen to drivel about gut
feelings and trust."

"How can you talk to him like that?"  Laurel demanded.

She was on her feet.  Her face was pale.

"This is Jack Hunt.  A man who's saved thousands of lives, all over me
world.

He knows more about diseases than you'll ever know.  If he says this
A-l thing is not the right--" "Never mind, LaureL" he broke in.  He'd
lost this round.

His assistants thought him incompetent, even neurotic.  How could he
blame them, when all he could do was plead and look like a fool?  It
galled him, and his own impotence infuriated him.  He needed something
concrete to show them.

The damn thing was, to find anything concrete he needed them.

"You're right," he conceded to Youssef.

"I'm a has-been.  And what are you?  A wanna-be.  Neither of us is
going anywhere fast.  So let's work together on this.  I'm telling you,
A-l is harmless.  It's just flu."

"Well, Doc," Youssef said, coldly humoring him, "if Al isn't
responsible, what is?"

"That's what we have to find out.  The three of us."

"The Three Musketeers?"

Jack bit back rage.  You snot-nosed little shit "Look," Mandy cut in,
"Whitelaw was right.  The only way to find out if A-l is not the agent
is to inject a human female.  Are you prepared to do that?"

"Of course not," Jack said.

"Exactly.  Dr.  Hunt, I've given you a lot of leeway because I felt
sorry for you, but I think grief has seriously clouded your judgment
Now, if you won't release me," she said frostily, "may I at least go
back to my hotel for the night?

I've been here since dawn."

She was tired, angry.  So was Youssef.  Better let them calm down.  Me
too.  Anyway, he needed time to finish reviewing the A-l reports if he
hoped to find any indication of where the team had gone wrong.  Tonight
was all he had, because Tory needed him in New York in the morning.

"Get some sleep, both of you," he said.

"Be here at seven tomorrow, ready to work."

Mandy pushed past Laurel, switched off her computer, and collected her
things.  As she left.  Laurel shot her a murderous look.

Jack gave Laurel a quick hug.

"Thanks for sticking up for me," he whispered in her ear.  He drew her
away, sorry to let her down.

"Sweetheart, I've got far more work than I thought.  Sorry, but I can't
get away for dinner.  Go on home.

I'll make it up to you, I promise."

As she sighed in disappointment, Youssef sidled over to her.

"Dinner?"  he asked with a smile.

"As it turns out, I'm free."

The waiter in the Thai restaurant interrupted them to serve the spring
rolls, then glided away.  Laurel looked at Youssef over the rim of her
wineglass.  He was pouring a small puddle of hot sauce onto his plate
while stealing glances at her chest.

She was nervous.  Very nervous.  But I'm doing the right thing, I know
it.  Jack needs help.  He's so tired, working so hard, all alone, and
no one's listening to his ideas.  She'd asked him quietly before she'd
left him at the lab, "You're absolutely sure this A-l thing is
harmless?"

"Never been more sure of anything," Jack had muttered, and turned back
to his computer.

The people who should be helping him, she thought now, were too
conceited or too dim, or both.  Like this horny little English-Arab
nerd across from her.

She smiled at him and picked up where the waiter had interrupted
them.

"So, like, the ultraviolet in the level four staging area kills every
kind of virus?"

"Yeah, buggers up the viral genetic material," Youssef confirmed.

"Course it wouldn't help if the microbe had already got into a person."
He speared a spring roll with his chopstick, apparently trying to make
the action lascivious.

Laurel restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

"Scary," she said, pretending excitement.  She swallowed the last of
her wine, and Youssef quickly refilled her glass, emptying the bottle.
He ordered another.

She leaned toward him, curling in the wineglass to nudge her breast,
and asked in an intimate hush, "Is it true some people freak out their
fast time in those containment suits you have to wear?"

He wrenched his eyes up from her glass and nodded.

"I've seen it Soon as the helmet goes on.  Panic in the eyes, sweat
breaking out Some blokes start clawing to get the helmet off.  Not a
pretty sight" He leaned closer and added huskily, "Unlike what I'm
looking at right now."

She fingered a tear of condensation on the cold wineglass, feeling a
tumult of emotions, remembering the morning crisis with Liam and how
she'd wept on her bed while the voices carried on down in the kitchen.
Rachel's, staccato, angry, cursing trappers.  Jack's, calm, in charge,
asking for help tying the splint Chris's, high-pitched and eager,
assuring the dog, "Good boy, good boy."  Hot tears again pricked her
eyes.  A four-year-old was more helpful!

Useless.  Rachel's word.  It stuck, like hurled mud.  Or like the
sullen image of her mother; like a bloodstain, it never faded.  The
sullenness had been stamped on her by life.

Teenage pregnancy.  Three kids by three different men.

Stinking basement apartments and food stamps.  Stoned half the time.
Too wasted to even lock the front door against intruders.  Useless.

Almost as useless as her own kid, me--should have come home from
school, should have kept the killer out.

Laurel's guilty secret, and her most sickening fear, was that she was
fated to become just like her mother.  Passive.

Parasitic.  Worthless.

Jack didn't know.  Jack loves me.  His love was me foundation of her
life, and of her hope to climb above fate.  The fast step in doing
that, she told herself, was to help him now.

"Wimpy sauce," Youssef said.  He was poking the spring roll into his
puddle of hot sauce.

"I like it sadistic," he added with a grin.

Laurel forced a smile.

"Sounds like you've seen a lot.  I mean, in level four.  Tell me
more."

She already had a visitor ID tag from the lab's security desk,
authorized by Jack.  His coded magnetic keys would do the rest.  She'd
seen him toss them on his desk before she left, and knew she could palm
them--a legacy of her childhood grounding in shoplifting.  Youssef said
most people would be gone for the night, leaving only a skeleton
staff.

All she had to do was lift a disposable syringe from the serology
department, suit up in the level four antechamber, and locate a flask
ofA-1.

And then, inject it.

"Level four?"  Youssef asked, munching.

"Sure.  What do you want to know?"

She took a last gulp of wine for courage.  Everything.

She was going to help Jack by proving he was right.

She'd show Rachel she was good for something.  Or die trying.

12

"show HIM THE TAPE," THE CHIEF OP STAFF TOLD an aide as Carson entered
the conference room.  The aide slid a cassette into the VCR, and Quincy
added sharply, "Sit down.  Colwell.  Watch this."

Still wondering why he'd been summoned to the White House, Carson
glanced at the others around the table.  Ed Liota, his immediate
superior.  FBI Director McAuliffe.  Attorney General Julia Manchek.  So
much for the Bureau's nonpolitical status, he thought grimly, taking a
chair.

Quincy asked him, "What do you know about a group called People for a
Global Tomorrow?"

Carson hadn't heard of them.

"Nothing."

"Jesus," Liota muttered.

The attorney general said dryly, "Maybe you've been inside the command
center too long, Mr.  Colwell."

"Show him the damn tape" Quincy again told the aide, then said to
Carson, as the aide hit the play button, "It's a sixty-second TV spot.
Watch."

Rear shot of an airline pilot's head, cockpit instruments glowing
before him.  Sounds of the plane's fuselage tearing.

Pilot grips the controls.  Somber male announcer--familiar voice,
Carson thought, though he couldn't identify it--"Our ecosphere is like
an airplane.  Just as a plane is held together by rivets, our ecosphere
is held together by species, by an interconnected web of animals and
plants.  Every time we kill off a species--whether in the rain forest,
the savannah, or the ocean--the structure of our 'plane' is weakened.
It's the burden of too many people consuming too many resources.

And if the critical number of rivets is lost, our plane will come apart
and crash."

The plane trembles.  The pilot shakes his head despairingly.

Camera pans around to the cabin crammed with frightened passengers: a
mother clutches a child, a businessman stares anxiously out at the
darkness, a young woman prays.  New shot of the plane from a distance
as its lights disappear into night clouds.

Scene shift to a sunlit airstrip in a wheat field.  A jetliner sits on
the tarmac, with about fifty people at work refitting it, perched on
ladders and scaffolds--male and female of all races and ages, laboring
with care and pride.  Welders finish off rivets.  Glaziers check window
seals.  Children polish the fuselage so it gleams.

A man standing on the tarmac turns to the camera.  It's Jack Hunt--that
was the voice!--and now he says: "We can rebuild.  It's not too late.
If our government will do the right thing, global population growth can
be slowed and the damage to our world can be reversed.  Then, the
danger ends."

A child slips her hand in his as music swells.  A banner unfurls with
bold lettering: people for A global tomorrow.

An eight-hundred number flashes.  Hunt says: "Join us at PGT.  Call
this number.  Tell your government you don't want a plague.  You want a
global tomorrow."

Fade to black.

Carson sat back, stunned.  When had Hunt made this?

Who was behind it?  A horrible suspicion stabbed.

Quincy said, "PGT began running this spot nationwide at seven tonight.
At seven-twenty the attorney general got a call from Roger Bloom at the
Washington Post asking--" "He faxed this for my comment," Julia Manchek
interrupted, and read aloud, "The Washington Post has learned that
Victoria Farr-Colwell, organizer of People for a Global Tomorrow, the
grassroots organization that has sprung up calling for an accommodation
with the Artemis terrorists, is married to the FBI's counterterrorism
chief, Carson J. Colwell, who is leading the investigation.  The
attorney general, when asked about Mr.  Colwell's apparent conflict of
interest--" Manchek stopped reading and added tartly, "No comment."

Carson felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.

"You knew nothing about this, Mr.  Colwell?"  Manchek asked
incredulously.

Pressure on the government, Tory had told him mat night in Chris's
room.  He thought she'd just meant arranging interviews with Hunt. That
was bad enough--but this!  He answered as calmly as he could, "No,
ma'am."

"Unbelievable," Uota said.

"It's your goddamn wife!"  Carson gritted his teeth.  He hadn't been
home in over a week.

"Head in the fucking sand," Liota muttered.

"Or worse."

Carson flared.

"If you're questioning my loyalty--" "All right, all right," McAuliffe
said, raising his hands for peace.

"Colwell didn't know.  Nobody knew."

"Except his wife and Hunt," Quincy pointed out Tory and Hunt, Carson
thought with a jolt of dread.  Working together.

"The question is, Mr.  Colwell," Manchek said, "why didn't you know? I
thought you were watching Hunt.  Did you miss him running around making
television ads?"

His mind was tripping over itself to piece together the timing.

"He must have filmed this before his original CNN statement," he said,
"or just hours after, because since that evening we've had him under
twenty-four-hour surveillance.

Days he works until late at the Lesage lab.  Nights he's at the house
at Swallow Point.  He's given interviews from the lab, but he hasn't
gone anywhere else."

Questions were ricocheting in his head.  How long had Tory been
planning this?  What else had she organized while he'd been inside the
command center?  What had she been calculating that night in Chris's
room, with her kiss that he'd believed so spontaneous?

"And your wife's involvement?"  Manchek pressed.

He stared at her.  Involvement in terrorism?  Tory?  He could still see
her by Chris's bed, making her impassioned arguments.  The memory
brought some relief, though bitter:

she'd deceived him because she'd deceived herself.  Her cause.  But
Tory knowingly working for Artemis?  He didn't for a moment believe
it.

"We've known from the start that her firm is representing him," he
answered.

"Nothing unlawful there."

Uota said, "Unless she's connected to Artemis."

Carson beard himself declare, "She's not."

"You know that?"

"I'd swear it."

"Good enough for me," the director said.

Carson saw skepticism on all the faces except the director's.

It rattled him, but not enough to change his mind.  Tory was no
terrorist.

It was little comfort.  She was also, clearly, not an innocent, duped
by Hunt.  She'd made herself a player.

"Well obviously, secrecy is one of PGT's tactics," Quincy said with
angry frustration.

"First they brought out Hunt alone, with the Mclvar bombshell.  Then
interviews showing him working diligently at the Lesage lab, all
wham-barn, in and out, with no face-to-face opposition.  Shit, he's got
the whole country thinking he's the Lone Ranger, taking just enough
time away from his scientific work to denounce the big bad government
cover-up.  Now Colwell's wife surrounds him with an overnight
grassroots organization and tells the country.  You're scared?  Just
sign here and the good doctor will ride into Washington with his silver
star of virtue blazing.  Jesus, you've got to hand it to them.  It's
good."

Carson swallowed, his mouth dry.  But he'd finally got his mind back on
track.  Tory had blindsided him for the second time.  He wouldn't let
it happen again.

Quincy went on grimly, "It's the worst possible timing for us, with
Congress about to go ballistic, and Wall Street on the brink of panic,
and every--" "Let's stick to the subject," Manchek said impatiently.

"People for a Global Tomorrow and Mr.  Colwell's wife."

She added with cool firmness, "I'd like to discuss his resignation."

Carson stifled his alarm.

"I can't see any alternative," Manchek went on.

"I've got to go out there and answer the media's questions about this
god-awful situation with PGT, and about the Bureau's failure to find
Artemis.  Mr.  Colwell's failure."

Carson forced calmness into his voice.

"You can't remove me."

"Why not?"

"Because we're facing a deadline not even three weeks away.  Bringing a
replacement up to speed would waste critical time.  Moreover, it's
vital that we maintain public confidence.

Dismissing your lead investigator would cause more panic than any
apparent conflict of interest on my part.  I assure you that the
situation with my ... with PGT will not compromise my ability to
conduct the investigation.  Let me find Artemis.  Let me stop them."

"Like you found PGT?"  Manchek asked acidly.

The director dug in.

"Carson Colwell was my choice for this job, and I stand by him.  No one
can doubt his loyalty."

"The Washington Post does," she shot back' His resignation is not an
option."

"Then maybe yours is."

"Absolutely not," Quincy intervened, horrified.

"Jesus, if we start eating our own what kind of message does that send?
ColwelTs right, the country's terrified.  Flights to Europe are booked
solid with women trying to get out before the deadline.  We're soon
going to see real, ugly panic unless we start fighting back.  And I
don't mean by shooting each other" Tense silence.

"Look, we got some good news today," Quincy went on placatingly.

"Dr.  Lesage announced that her team has isolated the virus.  God knows
she was a liability at first, but with this breakthrough she's brought
us a step closer to a cure.  We're getting the news to every media
outlet, so that's all to the good.  Now let's stop bashing each other
and focus on the immediate emergency.  People for a Global Tomorrow.

If we're going to prevent panic, they've got to be silenced."

Carson felt all their eyes on him.  He didn't hesitate.

"I

agree."

"All right," Quincy said, getting down to business.

"First, before a PGT movement gets rolling we need to bring out some
heavy guns.  But no clear ties to the president--he can't be seen
harassing a legal populist group.  He's suggested we recruit the Wise
Use people, get them to send out their pit bulls."

"What would they want in return?"  the attorney general asked.

"What they're always lobbying for--hands off the resource industries.
The president's going to promise them we'll gut the clean water bill
and drop regulations on clear-cutting.  As an immediate gift, how about
your office facilitating a few lawsuits Wise Use has pending against
environmentalists ?"

She nodded.

"We can talk."

"Good.  We're also enlisting the pro-lifers, warning them PGT's call to
control overpopulation is just a euphemism for abortion.  That'll bring
them out slugging.  And they can get mean."

He sat back.

"Which brings us to our biggest problem.

Jack Hunt.  We've done focus groups--people love him.

He's a fucking hero."  He stabbed his finger at polling sheets on the
table.

"These numbers are killing us."

Carson warned, "I won't be considering polls if I decide to arrest
him."

Quincy said anxiously, "Arrest?  I thought you were just watching him,
hoping he'd take you to Artemis."

"For the moment."

"Well, we must not appear to be bullying him.  People would only
sympathize with him more.  However," he added emphatically, "we can
change their perception of him."  He looked at the FBI director.

"Get your people on it, ian.  Dig up some dirt on Hunt."

"I'm late for the British ambassador," the attorney general
interrupted, getting up.  She turned to Carson.

"The consensus is that your resignation would be counterproductive, but
this conflict of interest with your wife cannot continue.  Alter the
situation, Mr.  Colwell.  Persuade her to cut her ties with PGT."  She
added sternly, "Or cut yours to her."

* * * "One tomato and basil, one Hawaiian, one Italian sausage with
peppers," Eric said, sliding pizza boxes onto the video editing
console.

As everyone reached for the food, Tory was about to say "Whoa!"  They
had to finish cutting Jack's new pitch.

But she glanced at her watch.  Almost midnight.  Everyone was tired and
hungry.

"Pause it there, Rhonda," she told the editor.

Tory sat back rubbing her stinging eyes.  A break was the last thing
she wanted.  It only let her worries about Carson swarm back.  He would
have seen the first PGT spot by now.

He'd know the worst.

"Hawaiian pizza," Rhonda said, getting up stiffly and stretching.

"What is that, an oxymoron?"

"Only to occidental morons," Noah said with a Groucho leer.

Groans all around.

"Oh, and Noah, a message from your wife," Eric added as he dumped soda
cans beside the pizzas.

"The flights are all booked, so she's putting your kids on a train."

"She can put my kids on a train," Vince cracked, flopping back into his
chair with a piece of pizza.

The others traded more lame quips, punchy from another grueling night,
but Tory saw that Noah had stopped smiling.

Was she the only one who'd noticed?  Both his children were preteen
girls.  Was he sending them out of Washington as a precaution?

She sat on the couch beside him as the others went on kidding, and
quietly asked him, "Family taking a holiday?"

"Sort of."

"That's nice.  Where?"

"The cabin in Connecticut.  With Deborah's folks."

"How long?"

He set the wedge of pizza on his knee as if he'd lost his appetite.

"I've got obligations, Tory."

Once, he would have confided in me, she thought.

Artemis has everyone cowed.  She said gently, "No crime in hedging your
bets, my friend."

Obligations, she thought with a pang.  So have I. Why couldn't Carson
understand that?  She'd been unable to forgive him that night in
Chris's room when he'd hidden from her that he'd released Jack.  He
promised she could talk to him as her husband, but he'd lied.  He
wasn't her husband first.  He was FBI to his core.

But in the last few days, as she'd readied the full campaign, she'd had
to face the fact that she had been hiding far more from him.  Her
duplicity had been worse.  Premeditated, calculated, prolonged.  By now
he'd know it, how deeply she had deceived him.  She was ashamed.

Remorse, however, was an emotion she would not indulge.

They had both broken faith: he'd gone along with the original cover-up,
after all, concealing the Artemis danger from her.  They'd both done
what their jobs demanded.  She refused to believe the damage was
irreparable, though.

They'd been on different sides of issues before, sometimes vehemently,
and it had never shaken what was fundamental between them.  Their
family.  The very reason I'm doing this campaign, if only he'd see.

Well, she thought, I hardly gave him a chance that night, did I?
Ranting about terrorism--his specialty--when I should have shown him
what was in my heart: that this is the only way I can be sure I'll
still be around for Chris.

I'll call him.  Explain calmly.  Ask him to try to understand.

And to forgive.

She caught Jack's sober face stilled on the large monitor, looking out
in mid-sentence as if to warn her: "This, Carson won't forgive."

I've got to try.  As soon as we've done this editing.

She sat beside Rhonda and pointed out the next cuts she wanted.
Gradually the others drifted back to work, munching crusts and licking
their fingers.

"The music should be up when Jack says 'global village not global ghost
town,"

" she told Rhonda.

"And bring the wind FX down as--" "Tory, we haven't got time for every
detail," Vince protested.

"There's still tomorrow's rally lineup to revise.

Let's move on."

"No, Jack's got to look perfect.  The rally can--" The door flew open
and Marcia rushed in, breathless.

"FBI!"

Men swarmed in, maybe a dozen federal agents.  As Rhonda froze the
video, Tory demanded, "What's going on?

Who--" Carson walked in and me words died on Tory's breath.

His men fanned out among her shocked people.  One agent announced
they'd come with a court order that authorized a search and seizure of
evidence, and he outlined their rights.  Tory grabbed the phone and
called her attorney.

As she waited to be connected, voices from her staff in the hall rose
in alarm as more agents out there stopped people, opened office doors,
began questioning.  Carson didn't take his eyes off Tory as she spoke
to her lawyer.  She returned his stare as she hung up, and instructed
the seven people with her, "Answer only the minimum.  Gowan's on his
way."

Carson gave orders to the agents to take the seven here down me hall to
question them.  He stood aside as the agents led them out, leaving Tory
alone--for him.  He shut the door.

In the silence between them, as the commotion in the hall buffeted the
editing room, Tory said shakily, "My God, you've brought an army."

His steely expression didn't change.

"Who's behind this campaign?  Who's paying?"

"My mother donated seed money," she said, startled by his coldness into
answering.

"Christ," he said in disgust.  Then.

"Who else?  Jack Hunt?

Is he giving the orders?"

She pulled herself together.

"You know I don't have to answer your questions.  Everything we're
doing here is legal."

He jerked his chin toward the door.

"We'll find out anyway."

She said flatly, "Do that."

This was all wrong!  She knew she should be begging, Please, Carson,
this is us--let me explain how deeply I believe what I'm doing is
right!  But the appeals stuck in her throat He had never wanted to
know.

For a long moment they stared at one another.  He finally blurted a
single word--an accusation: "Why?"

She knew he didn't mean the campaign.  He meant.  Why did you betray
me?  Guilt twisted her heart.

She answered quietly, "I needed the time.  Because I knew you'd have to
do this."

He shook his head with sadness, the first crack in his icy
self-control.

"To you, betrayal's just another tactic."

She winced.  How he hated her world.  Her "dirty" political campaigns,
where loyalties shifted, and the only rule was: Win.  Carson lived by
rules: duty, allegiance, obedience to a code.  She'd always known it
about him.  She even admired it.

"Carson, this war between us is the last thing I want," she said.

"I don't believe you want it either.  It's Artemis.  It's their poison,
and I hate them for it.  But never you.  Please, don't let them split
us apart."

She saw turmoil in his eyes.

"Walk out of here beside me, right now," he said.

"Drop what you're doing.  Then they can't divide us."

A moan escaped her.

"If only."

He seized on her momentary softening.

"You could go to Maine tonight, get Chris.  I don't want him out there
any longer, so close to Hunt.  You could pick him up and take him away
with you, right now, go someplace far, Hawaii, or New Zealand maybe,
until we--" "Until?  Nineteen days, Carson.  That's all you have
left."

She added bleakly, "Oh, yes, escape would be lovely.  No
responsibility.

Except that's not how it is.  Chris is the very reason I can't leave
this up to you."

"Your responsibility is to stay out of this and get our son and
yourself to safety!  Away from Hunt!  Mine is to find Artemis, however
long it takes."

Tory was shocked, because although she'd never considered this macabre
fact, it seemed starkly clear to him.  The deadline existed only for
the females of one American city:

while those people were dying, he could go on searching.

And he would, until he had Artemis.  She saw that now.  Saw, also, that
Jack was the sole target in his sights.  Carson was unbending, just as
he'd been in concealing the ultimatum from her.  It was how he saw his
duty.  That would never change.

"So," she said, "I hide out in paradise while millions here die?
Somehow I don't think I could live with that."

"But you can live with this" Furious, he jerked his chin at the video
monitor, at the frozen frame of Jack's face, larger than life.

"Giving comfort to the enemy?  Treason?

Christ, Tory, it's immoral."

"And what do you call following immoral orders?"

"You wouldn't judge it like that if I brought in Artemis tomorrow."

"I have to judge now."

"And I have to do my job!"

"You're not up to it!"

He slapped her.

She gasped and groped for the monitor for balance.  Carson looked as
shocked as she was.

"Oh, God, Tory.  I'm sorry--" He reached out to touch her stinging
cheek, but her hand shot up to stop him.  She could take his blow, but
not his pity.  She leaned against the monitor to catch her breath.

When she could finally speak, the steadiness in her voice surprised
her.

"I'm sorry I had to deceive you.  But I swear I'd do it again."

He didn't seem to be listening.  He was staring at Jack's image on the
screen beside her, fury and misery warring in his eyes.

"It's Hunt," he said.

"Some power he has over you."  As if to cut her off from Jack's toxic
energy, he grabbed her elbow and pulled her away from the screen.

He didn't let go.  Suddenly his arms were around her and he grappled
her to him and crushed his mouth on hers.  She stood rigid, stunned,
locked in his embrace.  He has no right.  But the sensation of being in
his arms was so familiar, so powerful.  An act she'd welcomed a
thousand times.  She felt her body respond, felt passion kindle.  Her
arms slid around his waist, and she pressed against the hardness of his
body and opened her mouth to his.

He made a low groan, the sound--desire and need--so familiar too.
There's still love here, she thought, exulting, grateful, returning his
kiss with all the ardor she felt As suddenly as he'd grabbed her,
Carson froze.  Stiffly, he drew her away to arm's length.  His
breathing was still uneven as he said, shaken, "Christ, how can I be
sure you're not playing me?  How can I be sure... ever again?"

Her breath caught.  The insult stung more than his blow.

His hands fell away from her as though weighted with stone.

"It's no good, Tory."  His voice was bleak.

"I've always pictured you walking beside me.  From now on I'd have to
look over my shoulder to stop you from putting a knife in my back."

She took a rocky step away.  She licked her bottom lip and tasted
blood.  His kiss bad cut her.  She swallowed the metallic taste, and
felt its bitterness seep down to her very soul.

13

at NOON THE NEXT DAY IN new york, jack STOOD at a fifteenth-floor
window in the Stanhope Hotel across from Central Park.  Even at this
distance, and through the trees, he could faintly hear the band warning
up the crowd on die park's Great Lawn.  Behind him, the suite had been
turned upside down as PGT's rally headquarters, and Tory's people, over
the drone of CNN, were loudly working the phones.

"Within a half hour," one was insisting, "because that's when Dr.
Hunt's making an appearance."

Another coaxed, "Tell Representative Donohue that if he wants to be
part of the photo op--" Jack tried to tune out the voices, concentrate.
So much depended on this rally.  On him.  Last night at the lab he'd
waded through the A-l reports until his eyes ached, but he hadn't found
a single anomaly to prove his theory to Youssef and Mandy.  Nothing to
go on but a hunch.  Was he completely wrong about A-1?  Trying too
furiously to second-guess Rachel?  Could this really be her lethal
agent after all?

Damn her to hell.  If he couldn't penetrate her viral mystery, then
Tory's campaign was the only hope.  Beginning with this rally.

"... estimate the crowd so far at four hundred thousand," CNN declared.
Mike Mclvar, the host of "Artemis Watch," was broadcasting live from
the park.  Ever since his original interview with Jack, his program had
presented continuous coverage--experts' commentaries, roundtable
discussions, interviews, bulletins--all somberly counting down to the
deadline a little more than two weeks away.

Four hundred thousand?  Jack thought with some amazement, looking down.
It was true: the crowd was huge.  People kept streaming in, many
carrying placards and banners supplied by Tory's organizers.  say yes
to survival.  global village not global ghost town.  Almost everyone
wore white ribbons in honor of the dead, and most were wearing green
clothing--also suggested by the organizers--to symbolize the threatened
environment.  On Fifth Avenue Jack saw a teenage girl dashing across to
join the crowd.  Her curly blond hair, bobbing as she ran, reminded him
of Laurel.

He wished he could have had a word with her before he'd left for
Rachel's plane this morning, but she was asleep.  He was worried about
her.  She'd surprised him by coming back to the lab last night after
her dinner with Youssef, looking flushed and preoccupied, then
disappearing down the hall as Jack had worked on alone.  During the
drive home she'd been strangely tense and quiet.

"Keep back from the barricade!"  a police loudspeaker blared.  The NYPD
was out in force.  Along Fifth Avenue phalanxes of officers stood
beside cruisers, and dozens more on horseback were peppered through the
crowd.

"No.  No response from Jack," Tory snapped to Vmce Delvecchio above the
noise.

"You handle the Times."

Jack turned from the window.  Damn it, why won't she let me speak or
myself?  The front page of the New York Times this morning had quoted
Randall Quincy, the White House chief of staff, declaring PGT's
campaign was dangerously misleading and irresponsible, and warning that
Jack's pronouncements as spokesman bordered on criminal subversion.

All morning Tory had been fielding media calls asking for Jack's
response.  Jack was itching to give it, but she hadn't let him.

"I don't like it," he said to her now as Delvecchio went back to the
phone.

"Why shouldn't I talk to them?"

"We don't let them put you on the defensive," she said, watching a fax
slither through.

"It takes us off message."

"A rebuttal from me would reinforce the message."

"Oh?  What is the message.  Jack?"  she said testily.

"That overpopulation is threatening the environment, but that by
educating women we can reduce overpopulation."

"Wrong, the message is fear.  Pure and simple.  And our job is to
intensify that fear.  That's why you're launching the Daily Memorial.
So stick to the speech and don't get all bothered about Quincy."  She
walked away reading the fax.

Her attitude was what bothered him.  He knew better than anyone what
the job here was: he had to convince an entire nation.  The way to do
that was by explaining, not feannongering.

He started after her, but Noah Shapiro reached her first.

"Tory, I've cut the eco-facts like you wanted," he said, holding up the
speech he was revising for Jack, "but there's still a hole between the
Marisa material and the memorial.

How do you want the transition?"

"Marisa?"  Jack jumped in, on guard at Shapiro bandying her name.

"What are you talking about?  The speech is about the environment, then
the Daily Memorial."

"That was a preliminary draft," Tory said.

"I changed it This has more punch, the story of you losing Marisa."

Jack glared at her.  Trading on Marisa's death--the thought sickened
him.  He'd deferred to Tory long enough.

"Change it back.  I won't talk about her."

She was busy writing a long note on the fax, ignoring him.

"Why cut all the important facts anyway?"  he demanded.

"Because they're not important," she muttered.

She's really losing it.  Jack thought.

"How the hell can people understand the problem if we don't tell
them?"

"Doesn't matter if they understand.  It only matters that they act."

"To act they need to hear reasons."

"Not from you," she said, still scribbling.

"So I'm just the voice of doom?"

"For now, yes."

He grabbed the fax from her.

"Listen, I know you're a hotshot media manipulator, but we need a hell
of a lot more here than sound bites.  I'm going to say what has to be
said, and I'll say it in my own goddamn way."

She faced him.

"This maverick bullshit won't play.  Jack.

Just do what I tell you."

"Won't play?  This isn't some movie script!"

"That's all they respond to," she said, pointing to the park.

"Can't you get that through your head?"

"Get this through yours.  This isn't the movies, it's life and death. I
saw the death!"

"Don't give me the song and dance about your dead wife!"  she
shouted.

"Give it to the folks out there who--" She stopped.  Everyone was
watching.  Jack realized he'd been shouting too.  Tory bit her lip.
Shapiro's eyes flicked between them.  A phone rang.

Tory walked briskly toward the bathroom.  A staffer across the room
called to her, holding the phone, "Jim Joyce at

NBC."

"Take a message."  She slammed the bathroom door behind her.  The
frenetic business in the suite resumed.

Jack sat heavily in an armchair and raked his hands through his hair,
trying to collect himself.  He had to address the crowd in twenty
minutes.

"Cut her a little slack," Shapiro said quietly.

"She had a rough night" "Who didn't," Jack growled.

"No, I mean rough.  The FBI raided our Washington office.

And her husband led the raid."

The glass of water slipped from Tory's hand.  She flinched as water
spewed and glass shattered on the bathroom tiles.

She blinked at the shards around her feet hemming her in, trapping
her.

Get a grip, she told herself.  It's just glass.  It's not fucking
radioactive.

She knelt to gather up the pieces with trembling hands.

How was she going to pull this together?  Damn Jack for being so
stubborn.  Damn the White House.  Damn Artemis.

And damn Carson for making it unbearable, breaking them apart.

A knock.  The door opened.

"You okay?"  Jack asked, frowning as he saw her on her knees.

"Dropped a glass."  The waver in her voice startled her.

She caught her reflection in the mirrored wall--even more unnerving:
face white, eyes glistening with tears.  People out in the suite were
anxiously peering her way, and she cringed at having them see her so
raided.

"Go," she told Jack, "and close me door."

He stepped inside, then closed it Mortified under his scrutiny, Tory
bent her head and continued collecting shards of glass.

He crouched in front of her.

"What did Colwell do?"

"Cleaned out the office."

"Will he shut us down?"

"He can't.  We're legal."  Fiercely blocking tears, she was picking up
even the smallest fragments, cupping them in her hand.

"Don't," Jack said.

"You'll cut yourself."

"I broke it, I'll clean it up."

He grabbed her wrist.

"Tory.  Stop."

She realized, from the warmth of his hand, how icy hers was.  She
raised her face to his.  In the short time she'd known Jack Hunt she'd
become used to seeing that shadow of pain in his eyes: now, for the
first time, she understood it in her bones.  The same shadow had
invaded her.  It was loss.

It was knowing something good was gone forever.

"Carson, wait," she'd said last night, pulling him aside as he and his
agents were leaving her office with boxes of evidence.

Despite everything, she couldn't hate him.  Couldn't even blame him. He
was doing what he thought he must to protect his country.  Besides, she
had to think of what was best for Chris--a boy who adored his father.

"This crisis will end, one way or another," she said.

"One day it will be over.  When it is--if I'm still here.  God
willing--I want you to know I'm prepared to start again.  We'll forget
the terrible things we've said.  Just wipe them out and try to--"
"Don't you understand?"  he'd whispered fiercely.

"I can't trust you anymore."

"Here," Jack said, dragging over the wastebasket.

She dropped the fragments in, then sat back on her heels, pretending to
study her fingertips for grains of glass, but really just trying to
hang on.

"You think you love someone," she said, faltering.

"And it's great, as long as everything's going okay.  As long as me
love isn't... tested.  Then something like this happens--" He said
quietly, "Nothing like this ever has happened."

She looked at him, needing to speak, to make sense of the loss.

"It strips you to your core, both of you.  To basic beliefs.

Primal allegiances.  You find you didn't really know that person at
all.  Or yourself."

He nodded, and the shadow in his eyes seemed to darken in a silent
communion of pain.  She felt somehow grateful for his understanding.

"Carson once told me something," she said.

"There are terrorist groups who initiate a recruit by ordering them
right away to kill.  It bloods them.  After that, the group owns them
forever."  She added quietly, "When he brought you in and you stood
firm, I thought: Good, Jack's been blooded, he can't turn back.  Well,
now I've been blooded too."

The CNN drone seeped under the door, along with the hectic voices
working the phones.  The familiar hustle jolted Tory back to the
present The world was waiting for Jack.

She couldn't keep him any longer.

Looking into his troubled eyes, though, she wondered if he really was
ready to go out and handle this.  And what about the danger he stood
in?  She'd seen me gleam of vendetta in Carson's eyes; he was bent on
catching Jack.

Should she warn him?  If she did, would it weaken his commitment to the
campaign?

Leave it.  I've seen him under pressure; he can handle himself with
Carson.  It's his leadership here that's at stake.

"Jack," she said, "I was way out of line, what I said out there.
Forgive me.  I know this is agony for you.  But it is for everybody.
Every one of those people in the park is terrified.

You've got to accept that their fear is our raw material.

You've got to tell it like it is.  Women and girls died hideously, as
Marisa did.  More will die hideously unless the country rallies behind
you.  Forget the details about overpopulation and the environment.  Let
our experts give out that line.  Your voice, your personal loss, is
what people will respond to.  Please, do the speech we've written.
It's the surest way you can reinforce people's fears, get them to see
that only PGT's plan can make them safe, and only--" There was a
knock.

"If the pajama party can spare you two," Noah called through the
door.

"Senator Owen's up next.  Then Jack."

Crossing Fifth Avenue with Tory, Jack gripped the speech in his jacket
pocket.  She was right.  Marisa was the most profound image he could
invoke.  He still hated to do it--but at least, if it works, he
thought, her suffering won't have been for nothing.

Blooded, he thought bitterly.  Me and Tory both.  By Rachel.  More fuel
to heap on his bonfire of hatred.  Tory didn't know that the
manipulating power behind the demands was her own mother, but she did
know she was paying the price in her shattered marriage.  Jack had felt
her misery.  But he'd also realized something new about her, something
bracing.  He felt for the first time--maybe because of her
sacrifice--that she was an ally he could depend on.  Tory would stay
the course.

The street was a media bazaar.  Network video tracks packed the curbs
like hucksters' stalls.  Roving reporters were hustling interviews.  TV
crews were perched on balconies and roofs, hawking direct to the world.
Over the park's loudspeakers a movie star, speaking from the open
stage, was exhorting the crowd to demand action from Congress.

Helicopters--police or more media or both-thrummed overhead.  Jack
heard a faint shout at the park railing.  He turned and saw a woman
spraying red paint at a cop on horseback.  As officers pulled her away
to a cruiser, paint dripped off the cop's boot like blood.

Jack and Tory pushed on, skirting the crowd, which was so large that
most people, forced to stand far from the stage, were watching giant
TV screens instead.  Applause erupted as the movie star finished, then
introduced Senator Prank Owen, a well-known environmentalist, who began
his address.

Tory led Jack to a cordoned-off alley between the rear of the stage and
the V.I.P speakers' trailer, where they stopped to wait.  As Senator
Owen's voice blared over the sound system, Tory flipped open her cell
phone to check in with Delvecchio at the hotel.

"A symbolic setting," the senator boomed.

"This great park with its trees and lake and wildlife represents the
biological richness of the earth.  A richness we should be stewarding,
not plundering--" "How can you do this?"  a man's voice rasped in
Jack's ear.

He turned and found himself face-to-face with a dazed homeless person.
Then the bloodshot eyes blinked.  Gerry!  Two weeks scraggly beard,
greasy hair, stained T-shirt.  Jack barely recognized him.  But what a
relief to see him.

"Christ, Gerry, where have you been?  I've been calling every--" "How
can you do this?  After Marisa and Liz... how can you turn it into this
fucking circus?"

Jack reached out.

"Gerry--" "Don't touch me, man."  He swatted at Jack's arm, "Don't you
fucking touch me."

Alarmed, Jack lifted his hands to show he was backing off.  Gerry
seemed at the breaking point Tory closed her phone with a frown.

"Who's this?"

Gerry ignored her and stabbed an accusing finger in Jack's face.

"You've turned into one of the fucking parasites.

How can you even think of caving in to these animals?

After what they did?  We should be bombing the fuckers, nuking them!
But you've turned into one of them"

Jack was stunned.  If only you knew, Gerry.  / wish I could kill
Rachel myself.

"... and act now!"  the senator's voice boomed.

Gerry flinched.  His red-rimmed eyes lost focus, and he let out a
shuddering sigh.

"Lord, Jack, I hate this bullshit."  He turned and started to wander
off.

"... a hero for our troubled times!"  the senator declared.

"Gerry, wait!"  Jack started after him, but Tory gripped his elbow.

"Jack, you've got to go on."

Go on?  He watched Gerry weave aimlessly into the crowd.

"... a man of uncompromised courage and vision.  My friends, I give you
Dr.  Jack Hunt!"

Tory followed Jack up onstage, afraid this guy Gerry had unhinged him.
She'd had to practically shake Jack just to get him to the steps.  Now,
as he slowly walked forward onstage, she anxiously tucked in behind the
celebrity supporters ranged along the back.  Jack reached the
microphone stand, then stood rock still.  Tory glimpsed Gerry in the
crowd: a grubby misfit weaving among the people, not even looking at
the stage.  She knew Jack's eyes were locked on him.  Jack didn't move.
Watching him, waiting, Tory held her breath.

When she looked out again for Gerry, hoping he was finally gone,
releasing Jack from this spell, she spotted a man following him through
the crowd.  Although he wore a sloppy workshirt and grimy baseball cap,
she knew that purposeful stride.  Unmistakably FBI.  A warning flag
popped up in her mind: They're watching Jack, and watching everyone he
talks to.

Jack still seemed frozen.  Tory felt the moments stretch on.

All across the Great Lawn people had quieted.  There was nervous
coughing in the crowd.  The speech.  Jack, she agonized.  Pull out the
speech!  But he just stood there, staring out.

She clenched her teeth in the awful silence, then made a quick
decision.  Abort.  Move on to part two.  She urgently gestured to the
stage manager standing by the trailer.

"Bring out the memorial.  Now."

Tie trailer door slammed open, and after a moment's flurry of
preparation two teenage girls dressed in white climbed the stage steps
carrying poles that held aloft a poster-size photograph of a shyly
smiling woman.  Now, Jack, please, Tory thought, her eyes on him.  Let
this snap you out of it.

And if it doesn't?  Then I'll have to present part two myself.

Step forward, gently move Jack aside, and launch the Daily Memorial.
Her heart pounded with nervousness.  Stage Sight and worse.  Terrible
solution.  Impossible to take Jack's place.  These people had come to
see him.  This rally depended on him.  But how else can I salvage
this?

The girls had walked forward, flanking Jack.  The huge photo hovered
over him.  Come on.  Jack, Tory willed him.  Come on.

He stared up at the poster as though he didn't know what was happening.
People in the crowd exchanged confused glances.  Tory thought: He's
lost it.  Doesn 't remember what's happening.  It's up to me.  She
cleared her dry throat and was about to step forward.

"Lois Tyson," Jack said suddenly into the mike.  His voice was low,
intense.  Tory held her breath.

"Lois was a third-grade teacher in Stoney Creek," Jack said.

"Wife of trucker Pete Tyson, and mother of six-year-old Ryan and
five-year-old Drew.  Lois loved swimming and rafting.  A month ago she
won first prize in the bathtub derby, a fund-raiser for the county
hospital."

Relief washed over Tory.  He'd remembered.

Jack stared up at the photo while continuing to speak.

"Thirteen days ago Lois prepared a breakfast of pancakes for her
family.  She saw her husband off on a truck run to California and got
her boys onto the school bus.  Then she went to work.  At lunchtime
another teacher brought her home sick.  He thought it was flu.  Lois
began to bleed from her nose and her gums.  By the time her boys came
home from school, Lois couldn't see them because blood was seeping from
her eyes.  Then the hemorrhaging began.  The same thing was happening
to women and girls all over town.

Before nightfall, Lois was dead.  Her organs had disintegrated, and
she'd drowned in her own blood."

The park was silent.

Jack looked out at the faces.

Tory waited for him to go on.  He'd delivered basically what she and
Noah had written.  He was on track.

"I'm afraid," Jack said suddenly.

Tory stiffened.  This was out of the blue.

Jack repeated the statement as a bold declaration: "I am afraid.  I've
seen with my own eyes what this disease does, and / am afraid."

Tory gaped.  What the hell is he doing?

"I know you're afraid, too," Jack went on.

"You don't want it to happen to you, or to your daughters, your
sisters, your mothers, your wives.  We wouldn't be human if we weren't
afraid.  But what gives me hope is that we can also make choices.  And
the choices we make in the grip of fear are the truest test of our
humanity.  We can let fear cripple us, or we can let it be a powerful
tool for change."

Tory looked in astonishment across the Great Lawn.  At the thousands of
eyes fixed on Jack.  This wasn't the speech--it was better.

"Today we are facing a chance to remake the world," Jack went on, his
voice vibrant in the still air.

"A chance to overcome the lowest qualities of being human, our greed
and rapaciousness.

A chance to nurture the best quality of being human, our capacity to
care.  Let's take that chance.  Together."

He turned.  The stage manager was shepherding two little boys up the
stage steps.  The finale we planned, Tory thought, feeling off balance.
What'll Jack do?  The boys hung back shyly, staring at the crowd. Jack
took them both by the hand and gently led them forward.  He hoisted the
smaller one up in his arm while still holding the older boy's hand by
his side.

"This is Drew Tyson," Jack said, indicating the child he held.

"And this is Ryan.  These are Lois's sons."

Tory glimpsed a woman who was close to tears gasp and lay her hand on
her heart, glimpsed a man chewing the end of his mustache to maintain a
stoic face.  Looking back at the motherless boys, Tory felt pierced by
pity, too.  And more-she saw Chris.

"Today, we honor Lois Tyson," Jack said, his voice ringing powerfully
now.

"In every day to come we will honor another of the Stoney Creek dead.
They will not be forgotten.

And we will not be silenced in our demand for change.

Our voices will be heard.  Remember this, and tell those who must be
told: If we pass through ear we are made strong."

All over the Great Lawn people stood still, electrified.

Tory gazed at Jack, dazzled.  He hadn't once glanced at her crafted
text.  He had taken her precepts and the desolation in his own heart
and forged them into something more moving than she had ever
imagined.

She remembered Carson's absurd suspicions, and thought: Jack would have
to be the most brilliantly creative terrorist of all time.  But the
opposite was true.  He was that rare thing, a very good man.

Suddenly, little Drew Tyson grabbed me white ribbon pinned to Jack's
breast pocket.  It came away from the pin, and the boy plopped the
ribbon on top of Jack's head--an impossibly silly miniature hat.  Jack
laughed and hugged him, and the child hugged him back.

A sound swelled through the crowd and erupted.  A cheer!

Tory felt hot tears threaten.  Jack had brought this stunning moment to
life, but the design of it was all hers.  She should feel triumph, but
felt only a hollow ache.  The Daily Memorial concept had come to her
that night in Chris's room after Carson had forced her to look at the
photographs.  Confidential FBI photographs, which he'd quickly taken
away.  He should never have let me see.  We are going to win.  Her
tears spilled.

Jack could barely move in the crush.  People had surged into the
cordoned-off area and were reaching out to touch him, calling
encouragement, jubilantly trying to stick their ribbons on him as the
little boy had done.  Tory's organizers pushed through to act as
bodyguards, and police began forcing the people back behind the ropes.
Jack was as overwhelmed by the response as he'd been by his own
eloquence.  Where had he summoned those words from?  he thought in
wonder.  He felt a stirring thrill of hope at the result If all these
people would make their voices heard in Washington ... damn it, this
might work!

Tory caught up to him.  She yelled to the police who were restraining
the reporters, "No, let the press through!"  then went up on her toes
beside Jack to shout in his ear above the noise, "Over there 1 Press
conference!"  Pointing to a spot securely roped off, she guided him to
it, and as they waited for the reporters to reach them, she unfastened
her own ribbon and pinned it to his lapel to replace his lost one.
Straightening the ribbon, she said warmly, "You were incredible."  She
was slightly breathless from the excitement, and Jack saw that she,
too, felt the wild tug of hope.  He also noticed the red rims of her
eyes.  Tears?  Tory?

She caught him looking, and seemed to pull back.

"But for a minute there," she said, "I was afraid we'd lost you.

Who was that guy Gerry?  Why did he spook you so badly?"

Same old Tory, Jack thought, doesn't miss a thing.  Gerry had unnerved
him; had shamed away every thought of delivering the part of the speech
about Marisa.  Yet, oddly, it had worked out for the best.

"An old friend," he answered.

"Gerry Trowbridge."  A friend who's hurt, he thought, as concern
flooded back.  It wasn't just Gerry's fevered outburst;

he'd noticed he was limping.

"Tory, I think he needs help.  He was with me in Jazida and got shot in
the leg.  There might be complications, maybe infection.  Could you
have somebody go after him?  He should see a doctor."

"He was with you during the outbreak?  Why?"

Jack realized that he'd told Colwell about it but not her.

But he had no desire to go into it now.

"He and his wife run a film production company.  Or... ran.  They were
taping me in Jazida for a documentary when it happened."

Tory stared at him.

"This man has video?  Of women dying?"

Jack frowned, uncomfortable.

"I suppose."

"Video of Marisa?"

"Jesus, is this necessary?"

"Jack, does he have video?"

"Yes.  No.  I don't know."  He remembered how Liz had compulsively kept
the camera rolling through it all.

"He took off when Liz died.  God knows if he took the camera with
him."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me this."

He said tightly, "I've had a few things on my mind."

"We've got to get that tape."

"Why?"

"Because the public hasn't seen this disease.  Nobody was allowed into
Stoney Creek until the bodies were taken away.

All we have is 'before' pictures, so we're stuck with talking about
abstracts, statistics.  My God, video of real women dying?  It could
make all the difference to--" She stopped as a new thought struck.

"Shit, the FBI.  They'll want it too."

"FBI?  I don't follow."

"After Gerry talked to you I saw a federal agent trail him.

Once they reach him and find out about the video, they'll want it For
evidence, of course, but they'd also be very glad to keep footage like
that out of our hands.  We've got to get hold of it before they
confiscate it."

She grabbed a couple of her assistants helping with crowd control, gave
mema description of Gerry, and sent them to search the area.

"Where does he live?"  she asked Jack.

"SoHo."  He gave her the address and phone number.  He didn't much like
it, but he knew now to trust Tory's instincts.

Besides, this way Gerry would get to a doctor.

Tory called Delvecchio in the hotel suite and told him to track down
Gerry.

"Take charge of this yourself, Vince.

Trowbridge may have professional video of women dying in Jazida.  The
feds will be after it too."

Reporters had pushed through and were moving closer, shouting
questions.  Closing her phone, Tory said, "Jack, there's something I
have to warn you about.  Carson's convinced himself you're connected
with Artemis.  Crazy.  I know, but he's--" "That's my problem.  You
just concentrate on keeping mis campaign in high gear."  He said it
with more nonchalance than he felt He couldn't have her probing too
near.  This family web--Tory, Colwell, Rachel--could trap them all yet
"Okay.  Just be careful."

The reporters were moving in.  Tory said, "Talk to these guys.  Jack."
Stepping back to give him the limelight, she added with a smile, "Say
whatever you think is best."

Her phone rang and she answered it.

"Yes?... No, he can't.  Laurel, he's in the middle of... pardon?"

"What is it?"  Jack asked.

"She sounds pretty upset."  To Laurel she said, "Look, he'll get back
to you as soon as--" He took the phone.

"Laurel?"

"Jack!  Oh, God, I'm sick.  I'm so sick!"  She was sobbing,
hyperventilating, close to hysteria.

"Calm down, sweetheart.  Tell me what's wrong."

"It's the thing!  The plague!"

"What?"

Reporters surrounded him, yelling questions.

"Dr.  Hunt, do you think PGT riding this wave of support can change the
government's position?"

"Dr.  Hunt, did you contribute to Dr.  Lesage's breakthrough on growing
the virus?"

"Laurel, speak up, I can't hear with--" "I wanted to help you," she
wailed.

"They wouldn't.  You told them it was harmless, but they didn't believe
you.  So I went to the level four lab last night and I... I injected
some ... the virus ... Al."

The words registered, but his mind balked at understanding.

Reporters pressed in, shouting, focusing cameras.  He turned his back
on them and said to Laurel blankly, "You did what?"

"I wanted to help!  To show everybody.  You needed to test it, you
said.  To be sure.  So I tested it, but now--" Panic exploded in his
brain.

"Jesus Christ!"

"You were wrong," she wailed.

"It's in me!  I can feel it.

It's going to kill me!  Oh, God, Jack, please, please come--" "Who's at
the house with you?"

"I'm all alone!  Jack, I'm so scared!"

"Calm down.  Stay where you are.  I'll get help."

He barged through the startled reporters and ran to the trailer.  A
half-dozen people were inside, cleaning up.

"Out!"

he shouted.

He slammed the trailer door after them and rammed home the bolt.  He
dropped the phone, his hands clammy.  He stared at it lying on the
dirty shag carpeting.  Help?  Who did he think he was going to call? He
stepped over the phone, legs unsteady, and walked down the aisle, going
nowhere.  It's happening again.

Got to go to her.  He lunged back to the door, but his hand froze on
the bolt.  Go?  It would take over an hour through traffic to reach
Rachel's plane.  Another hour for the flight.

Then the drive to Swallow Point.  And when I get there, what can I do
for her?  I have no cure.  Nobody does.

Unless... He scrambled for the phone on the floor, and punched the
number and the extension.

"Rachel Lesage," she answered.

He felt his own hot breaths bounce back from the phone.

"Hello?"  she said impatiently.

"Rachel, it's me."  In forcing control he sounded like an automaton.

"Laurel has done something stupid.  She's tested A-l on herself."

There was a pause.

"What?"

"She injected it.  Last night An experiment She just called.  She's
developed some symptoms, but I--" He heard the panic break through in
his voice.

"Rachel, you must have some idea of a treatment because--" He'd almost
blurted, Because you created it.  The FBI could be listening.

"Don't you?"  He was pleading, desperate.

Silence from her.

If she'd been standing here he would have killed her with his bare
hands.

"Get a doctor to her," he implored.

"Tell them to try IV replenishment of electrolytes--it might give her
immune system a chance to fight back.  Or human interferon.  Massive
doses, three million units to--" He knew that was useless.

"Rachel, I'm begging you.  If you can think of any kind of treatment,
anything, please--" "I'll handle this.  Stay there.  Don't do
anything."  She hung up.

His mouth was dry as dust.  Reporters were knocking at the door.

14

jack HARDLY DARED BELIEVE THE EVIDENCE before him.  He was sitting on
the edge of Laurel's bed, pained at seeing her misery as she groggily
woke up, yet unable to stop the exultation coursing through him.  She's
alive... no symptoms ... only flu.  A-l's harmless.  God damn it, I was
right!

Minutes ago he'd been in despair.  Crashing up the staircase, he'd
burst into her room, and for one heart stopping moment, seeing her so
still, he'd thought she was dead.  I've killed her, he thought.  But
Rachel, standing grim watch, told him she'd come from the lab after his
call and found Laurel hysterical, so she'd given her a sedative: she
was just asleep.

A fitful sleep, drugged and feverish, which she was struggling out of
now.  But alive.

Rachel.  She stood rigid beside him, furious.  For one sweet vengeful
moment Jack savored the victory.  I'm onto you, Rachel.  I know.  Then
his euphoria evaporated.  Her Al secret was out, and that changed
everything.  Caution pricked him.  I can't let her fear I'm gaming on
her.  It might push her over the edge.

Her rage was almost palpable.

"Why did you do such a stupid thing?"  she demanded the moment Laurel
opened her eyes.

"Wha... ?"  Laurel said weakly.

"Nothing, sweetheart," Jack said.

"Don't try to talk."  Her wretchedness cut him, her red eyelids
fluttering as she struggled to focus.

Rachel was merciless.

"What made you take such an insane risk?"

Jack couldn't help himself.

"Shut up.  Can't you see how sick she is?"

He suddenly realized his anguish might actually work for him, if it
made Rachel think he was shocked to find Al harmless.

Her eyes flashed suspicion.  She held his gaze for a moment--assessing
the danger?--then abruptly turned away.

Laurel had caught his anxious tone.

"Jack?"  she whispered, terrified.

"Am I going to die?"

He couldn't maintain the charade.  It was barbaric to let her suffer
such fear.

"No, you're fine, sweetheart, fine."  He squeezed her hand.

"Just a low-grade fever.  Nothing to worry about."  He stroked her damp
hair back from her forehead.

Her recovery spoke for itself; she alone couldn't believe it.

"You were right," he reassured her.

"It's only flu."

She sighed in weary relief, then gave him a wobbly smile.

"No, you were right."

He cursed himself for his lapse.  God, Laurel, don't say any more.

"Shhh, you need to rest.  We'll talk later."

Rachel had already turned back.

"Right?  What do you mean?"

"Let's go," Jack said.

"She needs sleep."  He grasped Rachel's elbow to move her out.

"And we need to get back to work."

"Oh?  Why's that.  Jack?"  she said, an icy challenge.  Again she
demanded of Laurel, "Tell me why you did this."

Laurel sighed.

"For Jack.  Okay?"

"Jack?  I don't understand."

"Somehow he knew the A-l virus doesn't cause the Artemis disease.  I
don't know how he figured it out, but I do know he's brilliant.  He
said that it--" "That's enough," Jack cut in.

"I don't want you tiring yourself.  Rachel and I are leaving now, so--"
"No, I want to hear this.  Go on.  Laurel."

"Well, last night he tried to tell his assistants it was harmless, but
they just said he was nuts.  They made me so mad.

I wanted to show them he was right.  Show everybody.  So I did it."

Rachel turned soberly to Jack.

"I see."

Despite himself, he felt an exultant rush of satisfaction and reveled
in it.  Yes, I've found your weak link, and I'm going to stop you.

Her concentration was back on Laurel.  She was looking at her in
wonder.

"You trust him so completely?"

"Of course," Laurel said simply.

"He's the best."  She fidgeted with the blanket, and her expression
turned sheepish.

"But I see now it was a real dumb thing to do.  I mean, everybody else
was sure it was the Artemis virus."  She suddenly looked up at Rachel
with a quizzical expression.

"Except you.  You knew it wasn't, didn't you?  When you found me here.
I mean, even you couldn't have been that calm if you'd thought I was
infected with the plague."

Rachel's eyes flicked to Jack, and he saw she was stuck.  So now I have
to save your ass, he thought grimly.

"Laurel," he said, improvising, "Rachel and I are working together on
something... unusual.  It's pretty controversial, what we're trying,
so the research has to be kept a secret."

"That's right," Rachel agreed.

"A secret."  Her eyes met Jack's, and he'd never felt more acutely
aware of their bizarre alliance-antagonism.  They were bound together,
each having to protect the other against anyone else probing the truth,
though they remained locked in a life and death struggle.

"So you mustn't tell anyone what you've discovered," Rachel pressed
Laurel.

"Will you promise us that?  It's very important."

Laurel shrugged weakly.

"I don't plan to broadcast my idiot move."  Her quizzical look at
Rachel returned, only more penetrating.

"You mean you're not even going to tell the other scientists that
they're on me wrong track?  Isn't that a little weird?"

Jack had to stop this.

"Laurel, leave the thinking to the experts, okay?"

Her confidence crumbled.

"Sure.  Hey, what do I know?"

Jack felt like a shit for shaming her.

The door creaked open.

"Orel?"  Chris peeked in, wide-eyed.

"Are you throwing up?"  He came to the bedside, cradling his stuffed
rabbit "Bunny's throwing up, too."

Laurel offered a trembling smile.

"Sorry to hear that, kiddo."

The boy tenderly settled the rabbit beside the pillow, then leaned over
to listen to its heart.  Watching him.  Laurel was suddenly in tears.

"Oh, Jack, I've never been so scared.  I thought I was going to die.
And I was so alone--I thought you wouldn't come."  Jack sat again on
the bed to comfort her, and she threw her arms around his neck and
sobbed on his shoulder.  He held her, watching Rachel slowly walk
away.

"Shhh," he murmured.

"I'm not leaving."

i> * * Rachel stood at the end of the upstairs hall where the window
overlooked the kitchen garden.  She stared down at the tall red
hollyhocks trained against the wire fence, and tried to regain her
inner balance.  Jack knows.  Even before finding that Laurel was all
right, he knew.  How?  Simple deduction because I'd approved research
on A-l?  If so, that's not so dangerous--it won't take him anywhere.

But what if he's already discovered more?  If so, how much more?

How much closer is he?

It was hard to think, hard to focus on all that after what she'd just
seen.  The depth of Laurel's love for him, to do such a reckless thing.
The strength of his feeling for her, this spoiled, self-centered girl.
How unpredictable, how unfathomable, the wellsprings of love can be,
she thought in wonder.

Her eyes fell on the cushioned window seat, Liam's favorite spot.  He
was recovering at the vet's.  Images tumbled in her mind: Liam's
mangled leg, the trap in the woods, its iron jaws tearing flesh,
Paul.

She stared at the hollyhocks crucified against the wire, the blossoms
crimson as wounds.

She stumbles to the side of the road as a jeep grinds past spitting
gravel at her ankles.  Corpses lie in the ditch, swollen by the African
sun.  Across the road a priest, his cassock ghostly with dust, is
sitting on a rock, rubbing his foot.

Rachel goes to him, spilling words she has repeated so often she is
hoarse.  That she is searching for her son, that two weeks ago he fled
with other children from the soldiers' machetes, fled into a field and
disappeared.  Has the priest seen a group of lost children?
Hollow-eyed, the priest answers, "Many."  Rachel dies again.  She has
seen them too.  Orphans, everywhere, wandering the countryside.  But
not Paul.

She walks on, glad of the pain from bleeding blisters to keep her
brain's primitive core fixated, keep thinking at bay.

Crops are rotting in the fields.  She comes to a silent village, its
huts abandoned.  The only movement is wind rustling the eucalyptus
leaves, their fresh scent smothered by a lingering reek of death.  She
spends the night in a dark hut, lightheaded with hunger, numb with
exhaustion.  She forces herself to remember his tough young body, his
quick young mind: he could be scavenging, surviving on his wits.  But
she knows he has no such skills.  He has only her.

Next day she reaches the main road where a teacher on a motorbike gives
her a lift and shares his stale cheese sandwiches.

She wolfs the food, ignoring its lumpen glut in her shrunk stomach; she
wants only fuel to go on.  Refugees clog the road--human lines miles
long.  They carry clothes in plastic garbage bags, carry mattresses on
their heads.  The teacher tells her a quarter of a million have
streamed into Tanzania in the last twenty-four hours.  When they reach
the Kagara River the teacher continues on, but Rachel stays to search.
Bodies float downstream.  A dead baby bobs in an eddy, light as a
cork.

At sundown she stops at a camp in a field crowded with refugees.  She
sees two boys fight over a bowl of food.  One bashes the other on the
head with a rock and takes the bowl.

During the night, dry coughs of pneumonia and TH echo through me camp.
The crying of children never stops.  Exhaustion drags her into sleep.
She hears Paul's giggle and wakes with a jolt of joy.  It's just an old
woman childishly babbling in delirium.

At first light she walks on.  A Dutch missionary on a rusty bicycle
tells her, Yes, he did hear of a group of children.

Hiding in a village church about four miles east.

"There was talk--yes, I remember thinking, how odd--that one of them is
an American boy."

Joy... it makes her walk so fast that her body leans, ahead of her
feet.  Only four miles.  An hour and I'll be with him.  She almost
wishes she believed in a god, just to be able to thank him.

Four miles.  It's nothing.

FBI agent Rick Barsano felt sweat prickle his back the moment he
stepped out of the air-conditioned car.  Though trees shaded the paved
driveway, the Long Island air felt as thick as pudding.  A rotating
lawn sprinkler was showering a corner of the east-wing parking area
beside the pool, and Barsano could see the asphalt steam.  Even Gold
Coast stockbrokers don't have enough pull to fix the weather, he
thought.

A maid--Hispanic features, crisp uniform--answered the front door to
him and his partner.

"Special Agents Barsano and Jamail, FBI," he said as they showed their
credentials.

"Mrs.  Cabot is expecting us."

"Yes, this way, please.  Mrs.  Cabot is in the conservatory."

People still had those?  Barsano, under orders, had been checking every
cranny of Jack Hunt's past, from the scrubby West Virginia trailer park
he'd grown up in to his med school beer hangouts.  This was the first
conservatory.

Vivian Cabot was standing alone in the sky lit room.

Reaching across a small round supper table--one of seven set with
silver and crystal and over arched by glossy ficus trees--she was
setting a name card into a mother-of-pearl holder.  She wore a green
silk blouse and linen skirt.  Pure Gold Coast, Barsano thought.
Cookie-cutter rich bitch.

"Agent Barsano, right on time," she said, idly casting a final glance
over her table setting.  The orchid centerpiece trembled in the
air-conditioned current, but not a hair on her blond head moved.  She
dusted nonexistent dust particles from her fingertips.

"Is punctuality an FBI virtue?"

Barsano was surprised to find that he instantly liked her voice.  It
had a real Southern-lady quality.

"One of many, ma'am," he answered.

She smiled faintly.  Her skin was so Barbie-doll smooth from a face
lift, it didn't even pucker.  For a woman of fifty-four she was as
attractive as money and effort could make her, Barsano figured, but she
could never have been a beauty.

"First, let me verify some facts, ma'am," he said.  His partner already
had out his pad and pencil.

"You are the former Mrs.  Jack Hunt, correct?"

"I am."

"When was the last time you saw him?  Can you recall?"

"Oh, yes."  Mrs.  Cabot held up a silver knife and examined it intently
for spots.  The gentle timbre of her voice hardened.

"I recall a great deal about the famous Dr.  Hunt."

15

"can WE TALK ABOUT THESE, doctor?"  colwell held Up a clear plastic bag
containing the chained red and purple vials.

"Sure, but let's keep it brief, okay?"  Jack said.

"I'm in the middle of a PCR analysis."  He'd answered as coolly as he
could, but alarms were going off in his head.  Why is he here?  Paged
from his office to Rachel's boardroom, he'd found Colwell waiting. Why?
 Had he found something?  Has he come or Rachel?

Take it easy, he told himself, squelching the panic.  If he was onto
her, would he be bothering with me?

"Shouldn't take long," Colwell said evenly.  Jack saw barely disguised
suspicion in his eyes.  Colwell indicated the vials.

"Any idea where Artemis had these filled?"

"No."

"Guess."

"Unscientific, guessing."

It struck him, though, that that's exactly what he'd been reduced to
with A-1.  Even sweating here in front of Colwell, he felt the
unyielding circular enigma drag at his mind:

Rachel had bioengineered A-l, but A-l was virtually harmless, so why
had she bothered to create it?  He'd reexamined the data on every other
element in the vial soup, but nothing there was deadly.  So what was?
Four days since Laurel's "experiment," yet he was still utterly without
answers.

He had to find them before Colwell found Rachel.

"I'd like to ask you about the fluid," Colwell said.

"As a scientist."

Jack's dread rushed back.  Had Colwell learned about Laurel?  That A-l
was only flu?  Stay out of this, he wanted to warn him.  You don't know
what you're fooling with.

"I'm referring to the binding material that the lethal virus, the A-l,
was found in," Colwell went on.

"The original CDC analysis lists it as 'nutrient broth."  I understand
laboratories use it to grow virus.  Is that right?"

"It's called media," Jack said, relaxing a little.  Clearly, Colwell
still believed A-l was the agent, as Rachel had publicly announced.  He
added, still on his guard, "It's used by labs everywhere."  Why this
line of questioning?

"What's in it?"  Colwell asked.

"Vitamins, minerals, animal serum.  It's available commercially."

"m these it was calf serum."

"Pretty standard."

"We're checking all purchases made throughout the country in the last
year."

Could you trace a batch here?  Jack wondered in alarm.  Or to another
of Rachel's labs?  Have you already traced it?  He said cautiously, "A
lot of media is sold."

Colwell regarded him coldly.

"Dr.  Hunt, why can't I shake the feeling there's something you're
hiding?"

Jack finally realized why Colwell was here.  The visit was a test.  To
pressure me.  To do what?  Incriminate myself?  Reveal my link with
Artemis?  He thinks I'm fronting for some terrorist organization, but
the truth is something he can't even imagine.  Yet.

"Look," he answered, "you and I both know we have different goals.  I
want this crisis resolved by accommodation.  That's PGT's position, and
mine."

He hadn't mentioned Tory.  Didn't have to.  She was a presence between
them.  Something in Colwell's eyes flared, a struggle between the cool
professional and the embittered husband.  But only for a moment.

"Have a seat.  Doctor," he said.

"I've asked Dr.  Lesage to join us."

Sweat slicked Jack's palms.  Has he come for her after all?

Walking in, Rachel saw them turn to her.  She stopped cold.  Tension
seemed to pulse from both men--dread from Jack, a sharp alertness from
her son-in-law.  Her own dread surged.  What's Jack told him?

She caught Jack's eye, and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his
head, as if to reassure her.

"Colwell doesn't know."  Or did it mean the opposite?  A shiver of
triumph he couldn't suppress?  Is he here to crow as the FBI takes me
away?

She made her voice cut through her fear.

"How can we help you, Carson?"

He held up the vials, and Rachel's heart banged in her chest Jack's
cracked the puzzle and told him everything.

Carson dismissively tossed the vials on the table.

"With a fresh perspective, I hope."

He'd answered brusquely, squaring his shoulders for business, and
Rachel, forcing a brake on her racing heart, took it as his signal that
the personal rift between them would be ignored for this higher
priority.  Business, she thought, her breathing coming under control
again.  The handcuffs would have been on by now if his business was me.
Why come at all, then?  Why bring in Jack?  Jack seemed to be watching
with the same confusion she felt.  He doesn't know why Carson's here
either, she realized.

"As an investigator," Carson said to them both, "I look at evidence as
a trail.  I look backward and ask how does this link back to the
perpetrators?  I'm hoping you and Dr.

Hunt--as scientists--might help me see it from the opposite angle,
looking forward.  How might Artemis's scientists have done what they
did, resulting in this evidence?"

Rachel searched, his face for deception but found his somber expression
unreadable.  As for Jack, he seemed to be warily standing down in
relief, taking Carson's statement at face value.  Just business, Rachel
thought again cautiously.

In any case, Carson's tone of authority was unmistakable.

Cooperate, both of you, it said; I'm still the law.

And I'm supposed to be the good corporate citizen, Rachel reminded
herself.  So play the part.  She took her seat at the head of the
conference table, but as she looked up at both men standing watching
her, she couldn't block a furious resentment.  They were both hunting
her--Carson armed with evidence.  Jack laying siege in the lab.  Well,
I'll keep you both at bay.

She picked up a bronze paperweight, turning it in her hands.

"And what is your evidence?"  she asked.

"I'm going to brief you on it," Carson said.

"Please, listen carefully--both of you--because any insights you have
might be helpful."

He ran through everything the FBI had discovered.  That a Pisces
Cosmetics Group of Baton Rouge had placed a phone order four months ago
for the services of Advantage Direct Mail Merchants in Houston.  That
the shipment of perfume vials had arrived at Advantage's warehouse by
van.  That the FBI found no Pisces Cosmetics Group existed, but a
shipping clerk at the Advantage warehouse remembered the van because
of a gash on the door--a silver Ford Windstar.

Rachel listened, appalled.  Every detail, every step she'd so
laboriously planned to conceal her tracks ... uncovered.

"We found the van at a rental lot in Miami," Carson was saying.

"Bogus ID from the driver, and he paid the rental company cash.  We're
looking for him, and when we have him we'll learn where he picked up
the shipment."

He was watching Jack for a reaction.  Jack stonily returned the look.
It finally struck Rachel that this was Carson's reason for coming. He's
trying to entrap Jack.

No, she thought.  You can't arrest him.  He's got to lead the
campaign.

"We also traced the post office money order that "Pisces' sent to pay
Advantage," Carson went on.

"Drawn at an outlet in South Carolina.  From the transaction record we
lifted a latent print."

Rachel felt a shiver, and set down the paperweight.  But there were so
many other things here she must have touched recently.  A spiral-bound
serology report.  A stapler.  A silver pen.  The phone.  Her
fingerprints were everywhere.  She saw by Jack's drawn look that he was
thinking the same thing.

"Also, the vials themselves tell us a lot," Carson was saying,
"starting with the plastic.  Our lab did a differential thermal
analysis of the polymer and got a compositional match, and plastics
manufacturers tell us this is a new extrusion process, used only since
ninety-six, so we should soon locate the manufacturer.  The perfume
could be an even faster trace.  The molecular breakdown shows it
contains a compound called oxyphenolon, relatively unusual, so that's
narrowed the universe of fragrance manufacturers.  Does oxyphenolon
have any significance to you?"

Rachel felt unnerved by the mass of evidence and fought to steady her
voice.

"It's not a compound I'm familiar with."

Carson looked at Jack.

"No."

Carson watched him for a moment.  Then, indicating the vials, he said,
"Finally, there's the connecting chain.  We're analyzing it for
characteristics to determine its origin."

"Is that likely?"  Rachel asked, pretending disinterest, impatience.

"That type of thing must be very common."

"Every metal manufacturing process leaves a mark on the work piece
that's unique to that piece of equipment.  In the past we've been able
to trace nails, tacks, even paper clips back to the equipment that made
them.  So, yes, we're hopeful.

Also, electron microscopy revealed some microscopic debris on the
chain--a paint fleck and some grains of non-indigenous soil.  Almost as
good as fingerprints."

Rachel struggled to contain her alarm.  The question was no longer
whether the trail would lead the FBI to her, only how soon.

Carson then gave a rundown of pertinent interviews along the
investigation route--comments from plastics manufacturers, perfume
producers, direct mail managers--giving locations and dates.  Then he
said abruptly, "That's about it.

Does any of this suggest to either of you how, or where, the Artemis
scientists might have operated?"

"No," Jack said, too quickly.

Carson looked at Rachel.

"I can't say that it does."

"Could you explain something to me?"  Carson asked.

"At the direct mail warehouse, and presumably at other points along the
manufacture and delivery route, the personnel is at least half female.
There's always some pilfering in these places, plus damage to a certain
percentage of post office freight--parcels ruptured and so on.  Yet not
one woman who handled these virus packages became infected until they
were delivered to Stoney Creek.  Can you explain that?"

Rachel couldn't suppress a glance at Jack.  He knew Al was harmless.
She believed he wouldn't reveal that, for his own purposes, yet she
felt little relief, since his purpose was to thwart her himself.  And
she was at a loss about how to answer Carson.  Desperately casting
about for some reasonable reply, she heard Jack say, "There might be
some resistance factor.  Something caused by a particular environment
within the delivery routes.  Or, conversely, a susceptibility factor
among the affected populations."

She thought, amazed.  He's covering for me.  She felt a wild rush of
gratitude.

Carson asked him skeptically.

"Is that really possible?"

"Not impossible," Jack said.  Rachel saw that he couldn't maintain the
reckless ex temporization

"But also not likely," he finally admitted.

Carson regarded him for a moment with barely hidden mistrust.  He
turned to Rachel.

"Something else is bothering me.  People in the scientific community
are constantly collaborating, sharing information, aren't they?  Across
the country, even internationally."

"Certainly."

"Yet despite all our interviews with scientists--and I'm talking about
thousands of interviews here and abroad--not one of them has given us a
single lead to Artemis.  I don't get it.  I mean, this A-l that
Artemis's scientists created, it would have taken a lot of
experimenting to test it, wouldn't it?

While they were refining it?"

She was toying with the paperweight to still her trembling hands.  His
strategy was so obvious now, putting these questions to her and then
watching Jack's reactions.

Carson, waiting, prodded, "Rachel?"

"It's reasonable to assume so," she said carefully.

"All bioengineered products are tested at various stages."

"Where?  I mean, say in a place like your lab here.  Lesage
Laboratories develops drugs and gene-therapy treatments that use some
pretty exotic bioengineering processes, right?

Who exactly does that testing here?"

A warning hissed in her head: It's not a trap, so don't make it one.
It's business.  She turned to him.

"Here?  Well, our vector core laboratory develops the viral systems for
a proposed treatment, and they're tested first in our morphology lab.
Technicians assess certain factors, such as whether transplanted genes
are performing as predicted, and then the animal model core lab tests
the safety of the products in preclinical stages.  Finally, our human
applications lab proceeds with clinical trials."

"So these treatments, these products as you call them, they're handled
or seen by a lot of people."

"Hundreds."

"That's what I mean.  How could Artemis's scientists keep what they
were doing secret?  Scientists are people, and people talk.  With
hundreds of people involved, how could there be no leaks?"

She shot a glance at Jack, but knew he couldn't rescue her this time. A
cold certainty settled over her.  Only one place to hide.  In plain
sight.

"You're right about the numbers of people involved," she answered.

"Every biomedical research project employs large teams, whether in
government institutes or private industry.

In fact, teams are often multinational.  One searching now for a
certain breast cancer gene includes over four hundred scientists on
three continents.  So, the very size of projects leads to
compartmentalizing.  People work on small pieces of a project at the
request of their supervisors, without necessarily knowing what their
piece will be used for.

Often the biochemists down one corridor won't know what the molecular
biologists down another are doing.  It happens in every large-scale
biomedical endeavor, in every country involved in the industry."

Carson seemed struck by this.

"Like Obolensk," he said.

"You actually caught the Russians in the act, didn't you?"

Rachel felt her muscles tense.  She quickly recovered.

"Obolensk is a good example," she replied.

"Only a few individuals at the top knew the scope of that operation."

Carson said in mild wonder, "So, conceivably, an army of scientific
workers could have been developing A-l without knowing what it was.
Maybe without even knowing about Artemis."

"Conceivably."

"Then Artemis could be just a handful of people?"

"It's possible."

"Even, in theory, just one?"

"Yes."

Carson, clearly gripped by the idea, turned a penetrating look on
Jack.

"Doctor?  Your thoughts?"

Released from the "briefing," Jack strode into the hall.  He was
breathing hard, as if he'd been trapped underwater and had finally
broken the surface--the most tortuous twenty minutes he'd ever been
through.  If Colwell had hoped to see him crack under pressure, he
thought ruefully, he'd almost succeeded, though for reasons Colwell
couldn't even fathom.  He'd pushed Rachel so close to the edge, without
even knowing.  So close to disaster.

Despite the awful tension, though, something in Jack had caught fire as
he'd watched Rachel sweat.  He'd seen her faint panic at Colwell's
astute questions, and he had a feeling she'd been cornered into
revealing more than she could control.  Something buried in her answer
about Russia.  What had all that been about?  What was the
connection?

Jesus, did it matter?  Was it getting him anywhere, this clutching at
straws?  Restless, furious, he tramped up the stairs to his office.
Feelings, hunches, dead ends-he had nothing.  Colwell was breathing
down his neck, the Central Park rally hadn't brought even a tremor to
the White House barricades, the lab team was hypnotized at the mirage
of A-1, and his own thinking kept twisting in circles, in knots, the
conundrum incessantly nagging: She created A-1, but it's harmless, so
why take the trouble to create it?

He was coming now to a grim decision.  He simply couldn't get any
further here on his own.  He needed his assistants' help, whatever the
risk.  By the time he reached his office, he was resolved.

Time to rope them in.

hi the outer office he found Youssef lounging, feet on his desk,
repairing a dart feather.  Mandy was setting out her brown-bag lunch
beside her computer, lining up plastic containers in a neat row.
Watching them.  Jack told himself he'd have to manipulate this
recruitment carefully.  He had to convince them, but without giving any
hint of the depth of what he knew.  These were very bright kids, but
ambitious, too.

His plan was simple: a stick, then a carrot.

But first, the proof.

He sat on the edge of Youssef's desk.

"Have a nice dinner with Laurel the other night?"

Youssef shrugged.

"Yeah, real nice girl."  He pulled a box of M&M's from his shirt pocket
and shook candy into his palm.

"Told her all about your adventures in level four labs?"

Youssef shot him a butt-out look.

"Maybe.  Why?"

"Because," Jack said smoothly, "she took your tips and got hold of some
A-l and injected herself."

Youssef's jaw dropped.

"What?"

Mandy turned, equally dumbfounded.

"She figured my theory was right," Jack went on, "so she made herself
an experimental subject.  And you know what?

She only developed flu.  Coming around now, though.  Just a few
sniffles."

They both gaped at him.

Youssef tilted back on his chair's rear legs and whispered, "Holy
shit."

Mandy said, appalled, "How could you test it on your own granddaughter?
That's sick."

"You heard him," Youssef said.

"She wanted to prove he was right.  That's sick."

It was too much for Jack.  He whacked Youssef's feet, knocking them off
the desk.  The tilted chair slid under him.

He tumbled with a yelp and sprawled on the floor, M&M's scattering.

Jack stood over him.

"You little shits.  People are trying to find a way to save lives, and
you two just sit here like slugs.

How dare you suggest I'd experiment on Laurel!  She may have done a
stupid thing, but at least she was trying to help.

What the hell good are you two?"

They stared at him, mouths open.

Jack told himself to cool it.  He couldn't let anger get the better of
him.

"We have a responsibility here," he said, "and it's about time you
arrogant little geniuses realized it.  Laurel understood that.  God
bless her.  However misguided her actions, she's proved my theory
right."

Youssef got to his feet, shaken, and Jack demanded like a drill
sergeant in his face, "Hasn't she?"

"Yeah," he said unsteadily.

"Guess she has."

Jack turned on Mandy.

"How about you?  Any more Al doubts I can help you with?"

She swallowed.

"None."

Jack decided the stick had done its job.  He could put it away.

"All right," he said, "let's move on.  The first thing we're going to
get clear is that discussion about our work does not go beyond this
room."

"I don't understand," Mandy said.

"This is a crucial breakthrough.  We've got to tell Dr.  Lesage."

"We won't be telling anyone."

"Why not?"  Youssef asked.

"I have my reasons."  At all costs he had to keep Rachel from following
his efforts.  She would certainly try to subvert him, maybe even feel
panicked into doing something rash, but he had to keep his fears hidden
from these two.

Mandy said, looking uncomfortable, "Listen, Dr.  Hunt, I admit I'm
impressed that you deduced this before Laurel proved it, but we can't
just sit on these results."

"She's right," Youssef said.

"This isn't like fudging research numbers on warts.  This is world
plague time."

"What do you plan to announce?"  Jack challenged.

"That we conducted an unethical and unapproved experiment, the results
of which are completely without documentation or data?"

"Hey, the experiment wasn't mine," Youssef protested.

"No, you just gave an unauthorized person the necessary information to
enter the level four lab and gain access to the virus.  How do you
think that'll go down with lab supervisors when you're looking for a
job?"

Youssef slumped into his chair.

Mandy was biting her fingernail.

"This is weird," she muttered.

They were softened up.  Jack saw, but still unsure.  They needed more.
A prod.  He quickly thought of one: create an enemy.

"There's another reason for keeping quiet," he said.

There might be an Artemis infiltrator here."

They stared at him.

"Think about it," he said.

"If you were Artemis, wouldn't you want an operative inside observing
the efforts to thwart your work?"

"But Dr.  Lesage handpicked mis team," Mandy said.

"And they all brought extensive support staff, like you two.  An army
of post docs and grad students and technicians.

Can you vouch for them all?  Can every one of them be immune to bribery
from Artemis?  If there is a spy, the last thing we want is for them to
know what we've discovered."

He let this scenario sink in for a moment.

"Look, we'll still have access to technicians' help as long as we're
careful not to divulge the basis of our research.  We can proceed on
our own, quietly."  He saw they were considering this.

Now, he thought, the carrot.

"Also, I promise you that anything we discover, I'll give the two of
you all the credit.

You'll be the first authors listed when we publish."

They exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"Sure would be cool to be the ones to crack it," Youssef said.

"And we do have knowledge no one else has," Mandy added.

"We have an edge."

Jack almost smiled.  They were hooked.

"Let's get started," he said.

They sat down to devise protocols for attacking the research.

Mandy and Youssef got excited when Jack pointed out irregularities he'd
found last night in the serology group's reports.  After a few hours of
brainstorming he offered to fetch coffee from the cafeteria, and left
them hotly discussing the electron micrographs.

He was making his way down the glassed walkway connecting me two wings
when he was stopped by a bottleneck of people.  They'd left offices and
labs and were gazing outside, the walkway buzzing with nervous chatter.
Jack looked out.  Beyond the front lawn about a hundred people had
converged on the street.  Protesters.  Lesage security guards and local
police were patrolling, though the crowd looked peaceful.

Many of the demonstrators were carrying signs.  One read: pot = pagans
for a godless tomorrow.  Another: terRORIST SYMPATHIZERS WORSHIP
TREES, SACRIFICE PEOPLE.  AnA low bang startled everyone.  A car
backfiring.  An old black Chevy slowly drove by, moving like a hungry
shark.

Effective, Jack thought; the protestors, though kept off the property,
were ominously making their presence felL He noticed Rachel's public
affairs manager and asked him where this group had sprung from, and was
told they represented a movement called Wise Use.

"It's you they're mad at.  Dr.  Hunt.  Frankly, it's a development we
didn't need."  He trudged away to resume his job of fending off the
press.

"What's Wise Use?"  Jack asked Tory on the phone back in his office.

"A lie," she said.

"They're a lobby for the natural resource industry's agenda, wise or
otherwise.  Timber, oil, minerals, range land.  They want unregulated
access and abolition of environmental laws.  It started with the big
resource interests protecting their federal subsidies, but lately it's
become an even bigger consortium.  Agribusiness, me Cattlemen's
Association, the National Rifle Association, plus the resource
corporations."

"I don't see any corporate types outside here.  Just average-looking
Joes."

"They've been bussed in," she said.

"Forestry workers, miners, oil rig laborers.  The poor jerks have been
pumped up with scary stories about the green movement taking away their
jobs.  There's a bunch of them staked out in front of our offices, too.
Wise Use organizers are masters at these public harassment tactics.
Also at hiring scientists to say threats to the environment are
exaggerated."

Jack knew the breed.  Hooker PhDs.

"And there's a fresh development.  Jack.  We're getting flack from a
new entity called Concerned Citizens of America  Looks like an
umbrella group manufactured by friends of the White House to take on
PGT.  Wise Use is only part of it They've got the Christian Right on
their side.  Wall Street backing, and--well, you get the picture."

"So the people outside are just surrogates for the big interests?"

"Yeah, but they can still bite.  And they've been told you're the
enemy, as PGT's spokesman.  Stay out of their way, Jack.  They've been
known to get nasty."

"Meaning what?"

"Arson, assaults, even murder.  So watch your back."

"Til add it to my list of things to do."

Tory laughed.  Jack knew it was only a release from the tension, but
her spontaneity--a reminder that there was a life, at ease, beyond all
this--felt oddly comforting.

Then he remembered Colwell.  Little comfort for her.

"Your husband was just here," he said, "asking questions."

He sensed her good humor drain away.

"Is he making trouble for you?"

Other than tracking down your mother any day now?  He gritted his teeth
to lie.

"Not really."

"Well, as I said.  Jack, be care fm  He could hear voices behind her,
the usual Washington hubbub.

"Gotta go," she said.

"You all propped for the Windy City?"

Christ, he'd forgotten the time.  She'd scheduled him to give a speech
in Chicago and lead a PGT rally there.  Only three hours until the
flight.  He said, "Just on my way to pack."

Tory closed her cell phone as she continued down the crowded corridor
of the Longworth House office building.

She didn't like it, Carson out in Bar Harbor harassing Jack.

Probably hoping to make him buckle, or flush him into the open to
contact his "Artemis handlers."  Insane.  How could

he be so wrong about Jack?  Anyway, the intimidation was pointless.
Jack wasn't the buckling type.

She shouldered through the pack of lobbyists staked out at the closed
door of the Ways and Means Committee.  Gucci Gulch, the hallway was
nicknamed, and it was crowded as usual with well-heeled Chamber of
Commerce guys.  She joined them, waiting too.  The House Speaker, a
presidential hopeful, had promised her twenty minutes between
meetings.

She'd given him a boost last year by shaking serious campaign
contributions his way, and it gave her a chit for access, which she was
now going to cash.  Twenty minutes to pitch PGT, and every minute worth
gold if she could swing his support.

Her phone rang.  Vince.

"I've just left Trowbridge's place," he reported.  He'd been trying for
days, at Tory's insistence, to get Gerry Trowbridge to see him.

"No joy, I'm afraid.  He hates our guts.  Told me to fuck off."

Damn.

"Didn't you explain how important that footage could be?"

"Tory, he'd already given the tape to the feds."

That's that, she thought grimly.  Or was it?

"Vince, maybe he made dubs.  Trowbridge is a pro, they always make
copies.  Can you go back?  Check it out?"

"What if he gave the dubs to the feds too?"

"What if he didn't?"

Vince sighed heavily.

"I just got home.  First chance I've had to sit, let alone sleep.  Can
it wait a couple hours?"

She already had a better idea.  Jack.  He and Trowbridge were friends.
Maybe he could persuade Trowbridge to part with a copy.  She told Vince
to get some sleep, then called Jack's office.  He'd just left, so she
called the Chicago hotel he was booked in and left a message.  He'd
have to act fast, she thought Carson wouldn't be long in figuring out
how explosive such footage could be in PGT's hands.  He'd want every
copy destroyed.

The Ways and Means doors opened, revealing Committee staff milling as
the meeting broke up.  Tory could see the Speaker conferring with an
aide, and she started toward him.

Her phone rang again.  She answered it while threading past people.

"Hi, it's Laurel.  Um, sorry to bug you but I thought I'd better call.
I mean, I'm sure it's okay but, well, since you hadn't mentioned
anything--" "What is it?"

"Mr.  Colwell was just here.  He's taken Chris."

Tory stopped, a chill creeping over her heart.

"Taken?  I don't understand."

"I don't really either.  He just told me I wasn't needed anymore to
baby-sit, then he packed up Chris's things.  I told Chris I'd call
him--I really like the little guy, you know?-but Mr.  Colwell said not
to bother because Chris wasn't going home.  They've just left."

The activity in the hall around Tory blurred.  She tried to form
thoughts that were reasonable, rational.  A precaution-he doesn't want
Chris around Jack.  But all she could hear was a frenzied inner voice,
screaming, enraged: He's kidnapped my son.

Jack took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom to pack.

The house was quiet.  He figured Laurel had taken Chris out to the
beach.

He threw some clothes into a bag, his mind still dogged by ColwelTs
words.

"Obolensk.  You caught the Russians in the act" Rachel had flinched as
if he'd touched a nerve.

Why?

Carrying his bag downstairs he stopped, torn.  Probably just another
dead end, and he had to hustle to catch this flight.  But, damn it, he
had to find out He started down the hall to Rachel's study.  Nat King
Cole was crooning on the radio in the kitchen where Doris was
clattering with pots.  The gentle drone of Del's voice drifted from the
verandah where he was taping notes.  Jack opened Rachel's door.  Like
the beach house, this room was stamped with her personality.  There
were bookshelves crammed with volumes of every description from
archaeology to poetry.

Family photographs.  Newspaper's: the London Times, Le Monde.  A
computer.

He turned it on.  Logging on to the Internet, he did a search for
Obolensk.  He chose an article, and almost immediately came across
Rachel's name.  A little over a decade ago she'd led a scientific team
to Russia.

During the eighties, the article said, the Russians had established a
nationwide biotechnology network called Biopreparat.  Plants around the
country employed fifteen thousand people.  Officially, they were
involved in vaccine development and other biomedical research, but when
Biopreparat's top scientist, Vladimir Pasechnik, defected to the West,
his debriefing by the CIA broke open the Russians' secret Biopreparat
was developing a massive biological warfare program.

Pasechnik's whistle-blowing caused an international diplomatic crisis,
and Rachel was asked to lead an Anglo American scientific delegation to
investigate the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Microbiology in
Obolensk.

The team found that the Russians bad been experimenting with tularemia,
pneumonic plague, anthrax spores, and Q fever biological agents. They'd
stored over three hundred thousand tons of biological and chemical
weapons, including sarin, Soman and VX, and they were developing
missiles capable of carrying biological agents.  Yet incredibly, of
the fifteen thousand scientists employed, only a handful at the top had
known what was going on.  Given these findings by Rachel's team--and
intense pressure from Washington and London--the Russians publicly
admitted it all.  They signed a decree halting the program, and it was
shut down.

Jack read on, quotes from Russian scientists about the debacle.

A Doctor Mirzanyanov--one of the few people who'd been in the
know--seemed proud of the work he'd done on a new binary weapon based
on a phosphorous agent.

"Anyone could produce these binary weapons components at civil plants,"
Mirzanyanov said.

"They can be innocent materials, like pesticides or dyes.  It only
requires mixing two components to produce a devastating weapon."

Jack's heart thudded.  Two innocuous components assembled to create
something new--and deadly.

A binary weapon.

He grabbed the phone, then stopped.  FBI wiretaps.  He shut off the
computer and left.

At the Bar Harbor airport he went to a pay phone and punched the
numbers.  Youssef answered.

"Youssef, the direct mail samples.  We know A-l is in the red vials,
but we've got to look at the other ones, the purple ones."

"The CDC tested them right at the start.  It's just perfume."

"I don't think so.  Don't ask me why now, but we've got to get one of
those samples."

"Dr.  Lesage must've been sent a batch.  I'll get a requisition and ask
her for--" "No, don't" He could get all he needed from the CDC.  He
checked his watch.

"Look, I'm at the airport.  Drop everything and get over here and meet
me by the Hertz booth.  And put on a decent shirt.  You're going to
Atlanta."

* * * Gerry poured himself another shot of scotch and knocked it back.
He sat alone, slumped at his desk upstairs in his SoHo loft.  For
sixteen years the place had been both home and studio for him and Liz.
He was listening to Jack's voice feeding into the answering machine in
front of him, live.

"It's late and I figure you can't always be out, so maybe you're there
now.  Are you?  Gerry, if you are, pick up the phone.  Please."

I'm out, Gerry thought bitterly--of my skull.  He poured another shot,
spilling liquor on the desk.  Light from the desk lamp glinted off the
amber puddle.  Downstairs, the studio lay in darkness.

"No?"  Jack said.

"Well, then, here's the message.  I know you told Vince Delvecchio that
you gave your video to the FBI, but we figure you might have made
copies, and if you did, you've got to give us one."

Gerry's eyes fell on the wastebasket where Delvecchio's business card
lay crumpled.  Pat chance.

"Gerry, I'm sorry you feel this way about what I'm doing, but believe
me, this PGT campaign is the only way we can prevent more death.
IfMarisa and Liz ... I mean, if you and I can... Christ, I hate talking
to you on a machine."  He sighed heavily.

"All I can tell you is we need that video desperately.

To do the right thing.  It could make all the difference.

Look, I don't blame you for throwing Delvecchio out, the guy's a bit of
a prick."

Gerry almost smiled.

"But, hey, Gerry, this is me.  You and me, we go way back, and ... Damn
it, are you there?"

Gerry closed his eyes.  Barely.

Jack sighed again, resigned.

"Well, call me.  Soon as you get this, okay?  By the way, you really
should see a doctor about that leg."  He gave his Chicago hotel number,
his office numbers in Bar Harbor, and e-mail address.

"Get in touch, Gerry.  Please."  He hung up.

Gerry listened to the machine whine and click its way back to a fresh
start.  Then, silence.

He reached for the bottle.  Glenfiddich single malt whiskey.  Premium
stuff.  Jack had brought it over--when was that?  Back in the spring,
when Liz first brought up the idea of a follow-up documentary.  Brazil
was his next One World Medics mission.  Jack said, and the three of
them had sat here eating Gerry's extra-fiery chili and planning the
project.  Liz put on some wacky new CD.  Rumba-fusion or some damn
thing.  Jack danced with her in the kitchen.  She'd boogied like a
schoolgirl.

Jesus, it was quiet here.  He looked at his night-black windows, and
across at the dark warehouse next door.  Weekends, the area was
crawling with the bridge-and-tunnel people who swarmed in to swill at
the bistros and gawk at me gays.  On weeknights, though, with the
galleries and warehouse studios deserted, it was sometimes so quiet.
Odd noises echoed off the old cobblestoned part of the street, noises
mat seemed to fly in through the loft windows and dart around like
bats.  Maybe it was just his imagination.  Or maybe the half bottle of
Jack's Glenfiddich.

He looked at the wastebasket and made a sudden decision.

Swiveling his chair around to the computer, he typed a brief e-mail
message and sent it off.  Done.  In the morning me courier could
deliver the cassette.

He slumped back in the chair and stared at the phone.  Call him?  Talk
to him after all?

And say what?  I'm sending you the dub.  Jack, even though I hate this
shit, and the thought of showing people what we saw makes me puke, but
you tell me you need it and I trust you 'cause you're the best friend
I've got since Liz is gone, and I don't know how I'm going to get
through tomorrow let alone the years ahead, so if you really believe
this can do some good, make some sense, help-A sharp sound made him
stiffen.  Downstairs.  He sat still and listened.

A crash.  Glass shattering.  Footsteps.

Fuck, somebody's inside.

He got up almost reluctantly.  Too tired for this.  If they want to
loot the studio equipment, let them take the shit.

Who needs it?

The footsteps weren't stopping.  Solid, assured, coming straight
through.  Not thieves.  Thieves would be looking around.  Then he heard
an odd sound, like water sloshing.

He had no weapon.  He grabbed the scotch bottle by the neck, about to
smash the bottom off so he'd have something sharp, when he caught the
smell.  Gasoline.  He rushed to the top of the stairs just in time to
see a shadowy figure below reach the door, toss a match, then run.  The
fire, with a who mp leaped into a wall of flame.

16

"dirty pictures," youssep announced, waving glossy eight-by-tens as he
walked into Jack's office.

Jack swiveled from his computer, eager to see the electron micrographs
Youssef had processed.

"Let's have a look."

Youssef made a face at the protesters' din outside.

"The natives are restless," he said.

Jack, too, found them irritating--loud even here on the second floor.
Their ranks had been growing all morning, and a speaker was now
exhorting them over a megaphone, to sporadic cheers.  He'd found he
could block it out, though.

"You get used to it," he muttered, grabbing the micrographs.

They'd been working all night.  Youssef had returned with vial samples
from Atlanta, and the two of them and Mandy had begun a careful
examination of the contents of the purple vial, the one containing only
perfume, no A-l.  Jack was guessing that Rachel had used the perfume to
mask a supernatant fluid: fluid containing virus from cells grown in
media, but with the cells removed.  He had immediately inoculated a
female rhesus monkey, telling Rachel's animal model technicians he was
testing a drug.  Although he'd been monitoring the monkey every half
hour, however, it was showing no sign of distress; if the fluid did
contain a virus, it appeared even more harmless than A-l.  Still, Jack
felt in his bones something was here.  Mandy was running assays in the
lab, but he hoped these electron microscope images might at least show
if he was right about virus being present.

"Trouble is, nothing in them turns me on," Youssef said, looking at the
images over Jack's shoulder.

"But maybe you're kinkier than me.  Doc."

Jack was scanning them carefully.

"Hunt down Hunt!"  the protesters began to chant.  Jack looked up in
surprise.

"Hunt down Hunt!"  they cried.

Youssef frowned.

"Very restless."

Watch your back.  Jack remembered Tory telling him.

Mobs, he thought in disgust; the best they could come up with was
"shoot the messenger."

"They're lucky my name isn't Orzenynski," he muttered, turning back to
the micrographs.

Then he saw it.  A minute, aberrant, viruslike particle.

"There," he said, excited, pointing to the top right corner.

"It's got a cone-shaped core.  See it?"

Youssef peered at the tiny image.

"Holy shit," he whispered.

"Is that--" "We've got RT!"  Mandy rushed in, beaming.

"I've been fiddling with assay conditions, the pH, buffer,
temperature."

She flattened her hand on her chest, gulping breaths.

"Sorry, ran all the way.  Anyway, it took some wangling, but now I'm
sure.  We've got reverse transcriptase!"

"Yes!"  Youssef said, exultant.

Jack felt a rush of euphoria.  Only one entity on the planet was known
to use the reverse transcriptase enzyme: retroviruses.  Tiny RNA
viruses, they used the enzyme to make mirror-image copies of their RNA
genetic material, creating a DNA version of themselves.  It gave them
the unique ability to insert their own genome into the genetic makeup
of cells they infected.

"Good work, Mandy," he said.  He meant it.  The assay for the reverse
transcriptase enzyme was complex, involving substrates mat were the
nucleotide building blocks for making DNA, at least one of which was
radioactive.  They could be separated, but it took skill to do it.

"Look," Youssef cracked, "she's glowing."

Mandy laughed.

"Yeah, even in the dark."  She pushed her hair back from her tired
face.

"Of course, I can't prove the particle I found it in really is a new
virus.  We'd have to demonstrate biological activity, or get electron
microscopy to show the structure, but--" "Your wish is my command,"
Youssef said, flourishing the micrographs and pointing out the tiny
particle.

Mandy's eyes widened.

"My God.  There it is."

Youssef gazed over her shoulder at their small piece of evidence.

"Smart choice for a terrorist," he said with growing excitement.

"Retroviruses are real chameleons.  Look at HTV, one of the most
mutable microbes around."

"And retroviruses are hormone responsive," Mandy added
enthusiastically.

"Artemis obviously capitalized on that to make this thing
female-specific."

"Hunt down Hunt!"  the crowd went on chanting.

Mandy seemed to notice it for the first time, glancing at Jack in
surprise.

"Never mind them," he said.  Eager to move on, he checked his watch. He
had to be in New York this evening to appear on Larry King Live.

"All right," he said, "let's review what we know.  In vial number one
we have A-l, a brand-new influenza strain, proven by Laurel to be
nonlethal.

his vial two, masked by the perfume, we have a new retrovirus.  I'm
going to call it A-2.  We also have a female primate inoculated with
A-2, who after fourteen hours shows no sign of Artemis disease."

"No shit?"  Youssef looked crushed.  He and Mandy had been too busy to
follow Jack's monitoring of the animal.

"Then A-2 isn't the killer either," Mandy said, equally dejected.

"Not yet" Jack said.

"What do you mean?  Either it is or it isn't."

"Viruses, like life, aren't that simple," Jack said.  The very essence
of viruses was their fundamental entanglement with the genetic and
metabolic machinery of the host.  The tiny structure in the micrograph
was so easy to miss, and its cone-cored shape was unlike anything he'd
ever seen before, but he was convinced that Rachel had engineered this
viruslike particle to combine with her new flu virus and create
something lethal.  But how?  What had she started with?

Did one viral element transform the other?  What kind of virus could do
that?

Then it struck him.

"An endogenous retrovirus," he blurted.

Youssef and Mandy looked at him blankly.

Jack's mind was charging ahead.  Endogenous retro-viruses lay inside
cells, latent, inert, a kind of fossil.  Little was understood about
them, but this much was known: in the DNA of cells in all animals,
including humans, lay a complete or partial genome of at least one kind
of species-specific retrovirus.  Their origin was a mystery.  Maybe
they had once served some purpose but slowly evolved into the
precursors of today's retroviruses.  Or maybe they were remnants of
ancient infections.  Or maybe they were just the evolutionary remains
of "junk" DNA.  Only rarely were they expressed, and only rarely, or
under special laboratory conditions, could they be found to produce
complete, freestanding RNA viral particles.  Most of the time they
seemed to be inactive.  However, one theory held that the "turning on"
of some endogenous retrovirus was the cause of certain cancers;

that their activation encoded disease-causing proteins.

In this case.  Jack thought, what if... He saw from their faces that he
was already ahead of Mandy and Youssef.

"Look, what can activate an endogenous retrovirus?"  he asked, leading
them into his thinking.

Youssef shrugged.

"Chemical carcinogens.  Or radiation.

Or another virus."  He stopped, the point dawning, and repeated in
wonder, "Another virus."

"Exactly," Jack said.

"I believe what we have here are the components of a binary biological
weapon.  Mix A-l and A-2, relatively benign viral elements, and create
A-3, a killer."

Youssef and Mandy exchanged awed glances.  They quickly caught up.

"An endogenous retrovirus rendered exogenous," she said.

"From inside to outside," Youssef agreed in excitement.

"Then sent back inside, to destroy," Jack confirmed.  He almost
smiled.

"And the instructions are printed right on the vials."

Mandy, eyes aglow with amazement, said breathlessly, "Wow.  Artemis.
We're onto them."

"Yes, my little chickadee," Youssef cried, "we've done it!"  He grabbed
her and danced a little jive step, then spun her around.  In sheer
surprise she did a perfect pirouette.

Jack couldn't hold back a laugh.  He shared their delight, their giddy
awe, and so much more.  He'd beaten Rachel.

Fought past all her feints and dodges to bar him from her labyrinth. He
had stormed her in her stronghold, and this was victory.  This was
conquest.  He felt a surge of dominance as potent as if he'd planted
his foot on her chest.

Whoa, he told himself.  Reality check.  The rough truth was, this was
just the beginning.  He still faced the real challenge:

a therapy.

A siren startled them.  Mandy and Youssef stopped dancing.

Jack went to the window to look.  A police cruiser, siren wailing, was
inching through the crowd.  The protesters-hundreds more than
yesterday.  Jack now realized--were clogging the entrance to the
parking lot and squeezing the traffic in the street.  What had Tory
called the group behind this?  Concerned Citizens of America?  Sure
enough, among the anti green slogans there were some bobbing CCA
placards.

Lots of anti-abortion ones too.  One, with a crude drawing of a fetus,
read: population control means abortion on demand.  Another: kill the
killers not the babies.

Under the watchful eyes of the police the crowd kept roaring, "Hunt
down Hunt!  Hunt down Hunt!  Hunt down Hunt!"

Unbelievable, he thought; such hysteria, such hate.  His anger flared:
the one they should be screaming down was Rachel.  Now that he'd
cracked her puzzle he couldn't help marveling at her Byzantine
achievement.  Taking a fossil microbe that lay harmlessly inert inside
billions of humans and transforming it via her new flu virus into a
deadly invasive agent He caught himself.  Achievement?  With this thing
she had butchered over a thousand people.  Butchered Marisa.  Guilt
stabbed.  He'd been so intent on the combat with Rachel, he hadn't
thought of Marisa in days.

"What a breakthrough," Mandy was murmuring.

"Incredible."

Jack briskly turned back.

"But only a theory," he soberly reminded them, and himself.

"We can't be sure until we combine A-l and A-2 and test the result on
an animal."

"Well, let's do it," Youssef urged.

"Right now.  Let's get--" Something splat ted against the window. 
Mandy gasped.

Jack went to investigate.  The object had fallen, but bloody mucus was
dribbling down the glass where bits of gore adhered.

Raw liver.  Below, the protester who had thrown it was being pulled
away by police.

"They've discovered where your office is," Mandy said nervously.

Youssefs lip curled.

"Assholes."

"Forget them," Jack said.  He was rummaging in his lab coat pockets for
his coded keys to the level four lab.

"We're going ahead with this right away.  We'll combine the two agents
and proceed with the second inoculation of the monkey.

Mandy, I don't want you anywhere near this stuff when we do the mix. If
I'm right, that's when it becomes lethal to females.  You get working
here on the computer modeling.

Youssef, I've got to get to New York, so I'm going to have you do--"
The phone rang.  Annoyed, Jack reached across the desk for it.  It was
Tory.

"Have you heard?  About Gerry Trowbridge?"

"Gerry?  No, what is it?"

"Somebody broke into his loft last night.  Torched the place.  Jack,
he's dead."

He watched the bloody mucus slide down the window.

"I can't prove it," Tory went on bitterly, "but I'd bet money the White
House's CCA thugs are behind this.

Maybe they didn't know Gerry was home, but I'm sure they went in to
keep us from getting copies of his Jazida tape.

They dumped gas on all his video stock, all his cassettes.

There's nothing left."  She added quietly, "Jack, I'm so sorry.

I know he was your friend."

Inside, he curled up in pain, then went numb.

I never got a chance to talk to him, never looked him in the eye and
spoke about Liz, about how sorry I am.  Now, never again.

"Hunt down Hunt!"  The hate-sharpened chanting pierced his numbness,
ripped an opening, and rage invaded him.

He yanked off his lab coat, dumped it on die desk, knocking micrographs
to the floor, and stalked out "Doc?"  Youssef called after him.

"Where're you going?"

He strode down the stairs.  He was all feeling now, filled up with
rage, too full to hold it inside.  The protesters' clamor got louder as
he reached me lobby where lab people were crowded at the glass doors,
watching the commotion outside.

Jack heard Rachel's voice.  She stood outside on the entrance steps,
urging the crowd to disperse.  They were loudly booing her, drowning
her out.

"Please," she called to them, "go home, and let the people inside this
laboratory do their work."

"Hunt's doing terrorist work!"  someone yelled.

Jack shouldered through the lab people toward the doors.

He heard Youssef calling behind him, "Doc, I don't think you should go
out there."

Jack pushed open the doors.

Rachel didn't notice him come out behind her.

"You have every right to your opinions," she declared, trying to be
heard above the catcalls and obscene threats, "but so does Dr.  Hunt.
And if you'd--" "Shut up, bitch, we want Hunt!"

"Here I am!"  Jack yelled.

"Talk to me'" As people saw him, raw excitement rippled through the
crowd, a collective flurry overwhelming individual voices.

"Talk to me, you cowards!"  he shouted.

"Or can't you handle that?  Oh, you're good at screaming obscenities.

You're good at murdering innocent people in their homes!

So come on, give me--" "He's the murderer," a man called out.

"Abortion on demand, that's what he's for!"

"Of course I am.  Birth control of every kind.  Every child should be
a wanted child!"

A roar of boos.  A bony woman pushed to the front.  Her irate voice
piped above the others, but Jack couldn't make out her words.

"Let her speak!  At least one of you has the guts to face me!"

She declared, "Every human life is sacred."

"Well, you people sure don't act like it is.  Most of the world lives
in misery, in despair, but all you care--" He stopped, seeing a man
charge up the steps, metal flashing in his hand.  Jack had only a
moment to realize it was a knife.

The man lunged at him with a savage underhand thrust.

Rachel cried, "No!"  and lurched in front of Jack to shield him.  The
knife meant for his heart rammed into her throat.

She staggered back.  Jack caught her.  The man with the knife dashed
down the steps and disappeared into the crowd.

Everyone else froze.

"Call an ambulance!"  Jack yelled at a lab technician gaping at the
blood; "Go!"  He eased Rachel to the ground as the technician bolted
inside.

Rachel was gasping, clutching her throat.  People were crowding around
and police were rushing in to move them back.  On his knees.  Jack
pulled away Rachel's bloody hands to see the wound.  If the blade had
severed a jugular or carotid artery there was nothing he could do.  She
would bleed to death.

He felt a gust of terror.  Her dead man's switch: if it closes, plague!
It stupefied him, paralyzed his brain.

His hands, on automatic, were obeying a routine from years in the
field.  By rote, he palpated her throat.  Blood oozed over his fingers,
masking the wound, but he felt it:

pierced trachea.

The discovery--the concreteness of it--jolted his brain back.  A single
thought consumed him.  Save her.

He quickly judged the trauma.  Her breathing was tortured and her neck
was swelling, puffing up.  Hematoma: blood collecting in the tissues.
Suddenly the skin made a crackling sound under his touch.  He could
feel no escape of air from the wound.  Subcutaneous emphysema: instead
of exiting via the wound, air was being forced between the skin and the
trachea.  If the swelling continued it would close off her airway
completely.  Even a temporary closure could result in brain damage.
Prolonged closure would bring death.

He needed a tube.  He looked around.  A hollow pen, or plastic straw,
or-He saw Mandy.

"A glass tube from the lab," he yelled.

"Five centimeters diameter.  Hurry!"  She disappeared.

Rachel's body was stiff with shock.  Her pupils were dilated, fixed on
Jack, and her fight for air was desperate.  If it reached the
high-pitched gasping of stridor it would mean her airway was totally
blocked.  Jack beat back his panic.

"We're going to help you," he told her.

"Hold on."

She groped at his chest, clutching a fistful of his shirt.  Police were
pushing people away.

Mandy was back with the tube.  Jack carefully inserted one end into the
bleeding wound, terrified he might sink into surrounding tissue and not
know it.  Blindly, he eased it in.

He needed to keep it from slipping.  He yelled at a man wearing
sneakers, "Give me your shoelaces."

With Mandy's help he lashed the tube in place with the laces, then put
his ear to the protruding end, stifling his own ragged breathing to
listen.  Faint breaths--Rachel was getting air.  But for how long?  The
swelling was increasing.

An ambulance screamed to the entrance.  Jack got in with Rachel and sat
with her through the race into Bar Harbor.  He gripped her hand, told
her to hang on, tried to will strength into her, though he felt weak
himself, disoriented by the paradox: I swore to destroy you, but now
I've got to keep you alive.  By the time they reached Mount Desert
Island Hospital her neck had puffed up ominously.  They rushed her into
the ER.

Jack stood outside, staring at the closed doors.  She'd thrown herself
in front of him to protect him, and now she was fighting to survive.

Terror knifed through him.  Even if she made it, she could be
incapacitated for hours, even days.  He didn't know how she'd rigged
her dead man's switch, only that she sent an ongoing instruction to
keep it open.  What?  How often?  When did it have to be sent?

In three hours he was due in New York, to go on live TV.

Tory met him at La Guardia  Her face was ashen.

"How is she?"

Jack heard the monotone of his own voice, devoid of emotion.

"Critical.  All they can do is keep her under observation.

Any invasive procedure could exacerbate the trauma."  Doctor-speak.  It
was all he could manage.  Couldn't trust himself with more, not faced
with Tory's anguish.  If only she knew!

"I just wish I could be with her," she said.

"You couldn't talk to her.  She's sedated."

"Jack, will she live?"

"I don't know."

They sat side by side in silence as the airport limousine slipped
through the city.  Tory stared straight ahead, but Jack felt her hand
brush his wrist and rest there.  No pressure, just a touch, a reaching
out.

"They meant to kill you," she said, her voice a horrified murmur.

"What have I done?"

He was doing no better himself, images strobing in his brain: Gerry
burning, the assassin lunging, Rachel gasping, her switch closing,
plague.

Larry King's people led them into the warren of network offices.  As
they prepped Jack in die makeup room he sat stiffly, watching with a
sense of disbelief as chattering staff came and went, milling in
collegial chaos.  A half-eaten birthday cake sat abandoned on the
makeup counter near him, and a young man approaching with a clipboard
swiped a fingerful of icing.

"We're ready for you.  Dr.  Hunt," he said.  Jack followed, his legs
spongy, anxiety roiling inside him.

In the studio he was introduced to King, who greeted him cheerfully
from the desk on the set, checking last-minute notes.  Jack took the
guest's seat and stared out beyond the spill from the halo of lights,
chilled by the blithe activity around him.  People were moving and
murmuring in the studio gloom.  Cameras were gliding into position.  A
young couple flirted at the craft services table.  In the glassed
control booth, an elevated aerie, the producer, a woman in a purple
dress, stood looking down at the set.  She said something to the
technicians near her at the console, making them laugh.  How can you?
Jack wanted to yell.  He was sealed up in a private vacuum of horror,
suffocating in his imposed silence.

His eyes frantically searched for Tory.  On me studio floor, lost in
her own thoughts, she leaned back against a wall, her arms crossed,
hugging herself.

Jack took it all in, his terror rising.  If Rachel had targeted New
York, and if she died, within days half the people in this room would
be dead.  Maybe me switch had already closed.  Maybe the virus was
being delivered at this moment Rachel wouldn't have used me
perfume-mixing device again: maybe this time it was some airborne
vector.  Maybe he was looking at women who had only hours to live--and
Tory was one.

Someone yelled, "Quiet!"  and Jack flinched.  A red light flashed over
the studio doors.  The floor director gave a signal.

"It's being called the worst crisis this country has ever faced,"
Larry King announced gravely to a camera.

Jack swallowed.  The show had begun.

"People are scared," King said.

"And as the beleaguered FBI tracks a thousand leads in search for the
Artemis terrorists, with a frightening deadline looming, many Americans
are starting to listen to People for a Global Tomorrow, the grassroots
organization that has sprung up in the wake of the Stoney Creek
tragedy.  PGT's unorthodox message: compromise with Artemis.  My guest
is Dr.  Jack Hunt, humanitarian physician, scientist, and, lately,
controversial activist as the spokesman for People for a Global
Tomorrow.  Tonight our generous sponsors are bringing you this special
program with a minimum of commercial messages so that we can take as
many of your calls to Dr.  Hunt as possible."

Finishing his introduction.  King turned to Jack and flung him a direct
question, something about "Artemis's paranoia about overpopulation."

Jack found himself answering by rote.  Statistics from Tory's office,
facts he'd been pounding out with every speech, every interview, for
over two weeks: almost six billion people on earth, more than double
the number after World War II; ten more born in the time it takes to
say the words; in less developed nations forty percent are under the
age of fifteen--a global fertility time bomb.  He rattled off these
facts, his voice hollow, his mind chained to Rachel.

"Doctor, we all agree this is a very serious issue, but let me play
devil's advocate for a minute.  Many people--and I mean well-educated,
serious people--don't agree that overpopulation is a problem.  I see
their point.  I mean, I've been to Alaska and some other uninhabited
places myself, real pristine wilderness.  Most of the earth still
hasn't even been settled.  Right here in America there's still plenty
of room.

Even if all the people in China and India lived in the continental
United States, this country would still have a smaller population
density than England or Holland."

Jack felt dazed.  What difference did any of this make?  If Rachel dies
there's nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do.

His lungs felt parched.  Hard to breathe.  There was no air.

"Doctor?  How do you respond to those statistics?"

But she might live.  He snatched at the thought, hung on to it.  He had
to hang on, just to breathe.  She might live, and if she does there is
still something I can do.  Got to try.  Right now.  Convince the
country.

"I'd have to say, so what?"  he answered with a surge of energy.

"Density is irrelevant to the question of overpopulation."

"Oh?"  King looked mildly surprised.

"Well then, how do you measure it?"

"By the number of people in an area relative to its resources.

It's called the carrying capacity of the land."  Stock replies still.
Jack knew, but at least his mind was now in gear, and his voice was
strong.

"An area is overpopulated when its population can't be maintained
without depleting resources.  By that standard, almost every nation on
earth is grossly overpopulated."

"But countries like England and the Netherlands and Japan have huge
populations in small areas, and they're doing very well, thank you."

"Because they go outside their boundaries for resources.

That's how rich nations stay rich, by exploiting the resources of
others.  It's devastating the environment, and if the world's
population goes on multiplying, the pressures on ecosystems will
eventually lead to environmental collapse."

Too intellectual, he realized with a pang.  He heard Tory's voice in
his head: Pointy-headed stats, dry, boring.  Get to the juice.  But he
couldn't think how to get to it.  How would she do it?

"Well, some would say that people aren't the problem at all, they're
the answer," King rejoined.

"In fact, people may be the ultimate resource, because human ingenuity
has created technology, and technology can solve these problems.

Just look at the breakthrough you folks on the president's science team
have already accomplished.  You're close to a cure for me Artemis
disease, so right there mat's technology to our rescue."

Jack was appalled.

"Where did you hear that?"

"lime magazine today, cover story."

"They're wrong.  Dr.  Lesage's lab only announced it has isolated a
virus, calledA-1.  That's a far cry from a treatment.

The authorities are hyping these stories because they want the country
to believe me situation is under control.  It's not Believe me, there
is no cure."

"But there probably will be soon."

"No there won't There isn't time."

"Look, we, uh, we sure don't want to start a panic here, so--" "Why
not?  Maybe panic is what it takes."

"But bow can PGT, in all conscience, advocate making deals with
terrorists?  Look at what they're demanding.  They want us to hand over
one percent of our gross national product--to send foreign women to
school!  That's over two hundred billion dollars."

"About (he cost of eighty stealth bombers."

"It still comes out of taxes.  Doctor.  A tax gouge for that would make
the money markets quake.  All that capital of ours flooding into poor
countries would raise their living standards, increasing their
productivity--and if you thought foreign competition was bad news now,
you ain't seen nothing yet" King stopped his pitch and gave a friendly
shrug.

"As I said.  Doctor, I'm just playing devil's advocate."

Jack felt his fury ignite.  There'll be no money markets at all if half
the country's dead.  He was about to speak when King, responding to a
signal from the floor director, turned to the camera.

"Well, folks, what do you think?  Is Artemis's way the right way to
deal with the crisis of overpopulation, as PGT insists?  Or is caving
in to terrorists the worst possible thing we could do?  Are too many
people on earth the problem, or do people present our best hope?  Call
and give us your opinion on the most urgent issue we may ever face.

Or call with questions for Dr.  Hunt.  We want to hear from you.  Our
phone lines are open now, so--" "Wait, I'm not finished."  Jack said.

King gave him an indulgent smile.

"Don't get excited, Doctor, you'll get a chance to say all you want to
the callers.

A free and open exchange of ideas, that's what we're here for."

"No you're not.  You're here to create confrontation as
entertainment."

Anger almost choked him.

"This isn't a contest!

It's not about who can chalk up more points on some popularity
scoreboard.  This is life and death!"

"Well, right now.  Doctor," King said amiably, "it's about going to a
commercial break--" "Enough!"  Jack stood, pushing back his chair so
violently it toppled.  Furious, he leaned on his knuckles across the
desk to King, who shrank back in surprise.

"We have a chance to act.  Maybe our last chance.  If we don't, the
decision is going to be made for us.  The next time the Artemis virus
is released it's going to unleash a plague that will make Stoney Creek
look like a bad case of measles."

He looked around.  People were scurrying beyond the cameras.  The
producer in the booth was waving her arms, instructing the technicians.
Good, Jack thought, I've screwed up your fucking Gong Show.  He called
out in a challenge to the whole studio, "What are you people doing
about it?  You think this is just some hot story to milk?  You TV
people have power.  Power to tell the public what's really happening.
But you abuse it, you fritter it away.  You trivialize every damn thing
you touch!"

King, obeying some cryptic instruction from the control booth, said,
"All right.  Doctor, let's hear your ideas.  What should we in the
media be doing?  Go ahead, this is good."

Jack suddenly understood.  They wanted him to act mean.

Great theater!  People were busy on the studio floor, whispering,
moving cameras, every eye hungrily on him, wanting more.  His rage
almost exploded.  Fools!

Only, who's giving it to them?  he realized with a shock.

He saw himself hunched over, red-eyed, snorting indignation, a
caricature of fury.  Who's a worse fool than a man who can't control
his rage?

Who's following who?

He took a step back, trying to govern his heaving chest, willing
self-control.  He'd watched third-world demagogues, choleric with
arrogance, stirring up confused crowds.  It was no way to lead.  That's
what he had to do here, he realized.

Take charge.  Of himself, of them.  Take command.

Slowly, he righted his chair.  But he didn't sit down.  He turned to
King and spoke calmly.

"Larry, the people watching us are thirsting for the truth.

They don't have access to it, so they turn to those who do.

People like you and me."  He settled his shoulders, more composed
now.

"They give us their trust And with the trust comes a responsibility to
tell those truths, however hard they are to say, and however hard they
are to hear.  That's what being a leader is all about."

He hesitated.  There was still scurrying and whispering on the studio
floor, and it threw him.  Was he getting through at all?  Then he
noticed Tory.  She had walked forward.  People kept moving around her,
but she stood still, alone, listening intently to him.  Jack felt her
faith arc into him like a spark.

"Leaders have an extra responsibility," he went on with more vigor,
"because we can ask exceptional things of people and they will give
them.  Leaders in war even ask the ultimate sacrifice--giving one's
life.  People give what's asked if they know it's necessary.  But
what's being asked of the American people these days?  So little, we've
become a society of adolescents, fixated on partying, on endless buying
sprees.  We don't care how many rain forests have to fall, or how
choked the atmosphere becomes with our exhaust, or what multitudes of
people we force into near slavery to make the cheap goods, just as long
as we get our stuff.  Our leaders tell us that it's okay to stay boozed
up and dancing at the party, that if millions are starving at our gates
it's their tough luck, and probably their own fault too.  Our leaders
don't ask that we share, that we strive, that we create.  They pander
to our most primitive desire, to hoard wealth and feed its growth.
Unchecked growth is the credo of the cancer cell.  In the frenzy, we've
lost sight of what it is to be human."

His lungs felt as cool as water now, his head fresh and clear, as if he
were on pure oxygen.  Once again, as at the rally, he wondered.  Where
had these words come from?

More than stiff facts, more than Tory's zest, more than his own
terror--this was a synergy of it all.  All he knew was, he was speaking
the truth.

He leaned across the desk on his knuckles again, but this time not to
threaten.

"We've got to do better than that, Larry, you and me, if we're going to
lead.  We've got to ask more of people.  Because if we tell it like it
is, I believe the American people have the courage of heart and mind to
understand, and do what has to be done."

He walked around the desk and spoke to the whole studio.

All activity had stopped.  People were finally listening.

"This is how it is," he said.

"We've been partying too long at the expense of our fellow man and our
common environment.

It's time to wind down die party.  Time to live like adults.  If we
don't, if we cannot begin to make a better world, if we don't act now,
Artemis will.  That young woman standing beside the camera?  She'll
soon be dead.  You up there.  Madam Producer, you're going to die, too.
You, the cameraman there, I see you're wearing a wedding ring.  Well,
your wife's going to die.  And your mother, sir.  And your daughter,
Lany.  The choice is yours.  Together we can prevent this disaster.

It's either that, or keep on partying until no one is left dancing."

The studio was silent.

"Hear me," Jack declared, and he heard his voice ring out "/ am
asking."

Youssef woke up with a crick in his neck.  He got up stiffly from the
janitor's cot in the small room off the animal model core lab, and
checked his watch in surprise.  Six a.m.

After watching Larry King on the small TV here last night he must have
fallen asleep.  Not that the Doc's star performance hadn't been a mind
blower  Made a bloke think, that was for sure.  Well, Doc, I'm doing my
bit.

He looked toward the connecting storeroom.  The door was closed, but
inside was the cage with Lucy, the young female rhesus monkey, the
object of the experiment He had taken the janitor's little warren
because it had a door he could lock and personally guard; he couldn't
risk some female technician straying into the area of infection.

If infection there was.  He was beginning to wonder if they'd been
wrong about this whole theory of me Doc's.  The Three Musketeers,
getting carried away.  Fourteen hours since he'd combined some A-l and
A-2 and inoculated the animal, but Lucy wasn't chattering in pain--or
chattering at all; a lazy little monkey at the best of times, she was
still asleep.  Not a sound from Ac storeroom.

Rubbing his stiff shoulder, he got up and unlocked the door.  He froze
at the sight of the cage.  Blood was puddled around Lucy's still form,
coagulated in her open, dead eyes.

Blood caked her rigid lips, matted her fur.  Her corpse looked bony,
drained, as though someone had pulled a plug.

Youssef's stomach lurched at the smell... the agony she must have
suffered.

He pulled himself together.  Opening his gym bag he took out latex
gloves, mask, scalpel, bleach, and the other equipment The necropsy
would have to be quick and dirty: just get samples of tissue, then
bundle up the carcass and incinerate it.  His fingers were trembling as
he began.

Got to hand it to you, Doc.  Right again.

"They are ospreys," Del said from his wheelchair.

"A

common seabird, but lovely nonetheless."

Jack couldn't even summon the will to turn from the verandah railing
where he stood looking at the shorebirds in the sunset.  Fear about
Rachel still wracked him.  After a night and day, she remained in
intensive care.  He sensed Del's anxious presence behind him, where he
sat wrapped in a heavy cardigan to ward off the end-of-day chill.  He
knew Del needed to keep talking as they waited to hear from the
hospital, but conversation felt utterly beyond him.

His eyes strayed to Tory.  Pacing on the lawn, she was talking on her
cell phone, staying just far enough away to keep her calls from
upsetting her father.  Strategies for hanging on.  Jack thought grimly:
Del clung to civilized discourse;

Tory armored herself in work.  And me?  In the last hours he'd thought
he couldn't endure the tension a moment longer, but he had.  No option.
All he could do--all any of them could do--was wait.  But he alone knew
the mind-numbing stakes.

For Del's sake he dragged forth a reply.

"Common here," he said, turning from the railing, "but I guess a
landlocked African might find them exotic."

True," Del agreed with a faint smile.

"And rare sightings are what the birder lives for."  He looked out at
the water.

"I

once traveled across to Nova Scodajust to see an American
swallow-tailed kite.  It's a subtropical hawk normally seen no farther
north than Georgia.  Black and white plumage, but with an
extraordinary, beautiful wine-colored bloom across the shoulders,
visible only at extreme close range.  Worth the trip.  Oddly, the bloom
fades after death."

His last word hovered between them.

Del nodded at the remnant of scotch in Jack's glass.

"Another?"

Jack shook his head.

"Please," Del said.

"I need another.  And drinking alone is indecorous."

"I'll get it," Tory said, coming up the steps.  She slipped the phone
in her jeans pocket and gathered their glasses.

She'd been sticking to plain soda herself.  Jack had noticed.

He watched her go inside, thinking she looked as bone-weary as he felt
She was working at her usual flat-out pace, but he knew she was
devastated to think her mother might die.  As if her anxiety about
Rachel wasn't enough, there was her husband, too.  She'd told him that
Colwell had taken Chris and was keeping the boy's whereabouts hidden
from her.  Bastard, Jack thought.  Tory was stoical about it, but he
knew she was wretched at the rupture from her son.  She didn't deserve
this.  None of it.

He heard her inside dropping ice cubes into the glasses.  It made him
think of Gerry, who'd always taken his liquor neat, a habit from years
of filming in war zones and jungles, where ice was rare.  Gerry...
dead.  Because of PGT.  Because of me.  He pushed that anguish to the
back of his mind.

No room for it.  The specter of Rachel's death dwarfed everything
else, and made this family vigil seem surreal.  Del and Tory, so worded
about Rachel, with no inkling of her crimes, nor of the danger she'd
rigged looming over them all.

"Jack, you must be absolutely exhausted," Del said as Tory returned
with the drinks.

"Working at the lab, traveling, making speeches.  Tory never lets you
rest."

Taking the glass from Tory's hand.  Jack said with a rueful smile,
"Tory's a force of nature."

"I'm only as strong as my material," she said, returning the smile.

"Your favorables jumped sky high after Larry King last night.  People
adored you.  Now, the trick is to turn the bounce we're getting from it
into pressure on the White House.  Get your millions of admirers off
their backsides and badgering Washington.  We're working on it."

She never lets up.  Jack thought in admiration.  If sheer force of will
could win this campaign, Tory would do it Youssef and Mandy, too; their
commitment now was total.  The monkey's death left no doubt that they
had induced the Artemis disease, and all day they'd been hard at work
examining the lethal binary product, A-3.

If Rachel dies, what's the point of any of it?

He shut his eyes, overwhelmed by it all.  If she hadn't stepped in
front of the blade to shield him... "Are you all right?"  Del asked.

"That knife was meant for me.  She saved my life."

"It shouldn't surprise you.  It is true that Rachel has a purely
logical mind, but not when her family is threatened."

Jack frowned, uncomfortable.  He wasn't family.

"You mean a great deal to her," Del said quietly.

Jack winced inside.  Did Del know that he and Rachel had once been
lovers?  He couldn't help glancing at Tory.  Had she heard?  She seemed
preoccupied, looking out at the sea.

Del shivered.

"Perhaps I'll go in.  There's an opera broadcast.  The Barber of
Seville, I believe.  Frivolous fare, but it keeps the mind occupied."
His wheelchair hummed as he went inside.

Jack and Tory, left alone, exchanged a look.  Nothing to do but wait.
He sat down heavily in one of the cane-back armchairs;

she settled on the broad railing between two posts and swung up her
legs.  Feet on the railing, she rested her back against the post and
stared out at the sunset-red ocean.

Jack couldn't see her face, but he noticed an uncharacteristic
slackness in her shoulders, and when she heaved a troubled sigh, though
she tried to subdue it, he knew what was dragging at her thoughts.
Chris.  God, it was awful to watch how Colwell was breaking her
heart.

"You know," she said quietly, "it's true what Dad says about my mother.
Family bonds.  Losing my brother almost killed her."

Brother?  Jack wondered.  Then he remembered.  The photograph in the
beach house, the adopted boy.  He died, Rachel had said.

"What was his name?"  he asked Tory.

"Curious George."  She looked at him with a smile.

"Remember that old children's book?  An American nurse at the orphanage
in Kigali gave him that nickname because he was into everything, though
he was just a baby."

The warmth in her voice, the obvious affection, tugged at something in
Jack.  Made him want to hear her go on.  Besides, he couldn't help
feeling intrigued.

"Rachel and Del went to Rwanda to adopt?"

"No, she went alone.  Not to adopt--I think that just happened."

"Oh?"

Tory ran her finger thoughtfully around the rim of her glass of soda.

"She went to Kenya for a conference.  Twelve years ago.  I was away at
university, plowing into law school, wrapped up in my own life, so I
didn't get home too much, but I do remember having the feeling at the
time mat her desire to adopt--her need, I'd call it--germinated months
before.

Right after she accepted her Nobel prize."

Jack wasn't sure he wanted to hear this after all.  Right after Rachel
had accepted her Nobel prize she was in England, with him.

"You see," she went on, "after the ceremony in Stockholm and a week's
stopover in London, she arrived home to find that Dad had had a stroke.
All our lives changed.  Theirs the most, of course, but in almost
opposite ways, it seemed to me then.  Dad's incapacity somehow
sharpened my mother's vitality, as though to balance the whole they
made.

She seemed like a woman suddenly hungry for life."

The picture disturbed Jack.  Rachel had given him up for Del's sake,
then rechanneled that fierce capacity for love into adopting a child?

"Elaborate analysis," he said.

"True," Tory admitted.

"Maybe I'd better leave that to the shrinks.  What did happen was that
shortly after Dad's stroke she went to Kenya for a conference and spent
some time touring the area, including an orphanage in Rwanda.  She
called home to tell Dad she wanted to adopt.  He agreed.  She brought
the baby home.  To answer your question, his name was Paul."

She pointed to the base of the post beyond her feet.

"See those markings?"  In the fading light Jack could just make out a
series of short horizontal lines running up maybe four feet above the
verandah floor.

"Dad put those there to mark Paul's height as he was growing."  Her
expression turned serious.

"Wish I had made it home more often.  I never really got to know
him."

She smiled, and cocked her head toward the sea.

"I remember he loved the beach.  He'd collect all kinds of treasures.

Shells, driftwood nuggets, hollowed stones.  His pockets used to bulge
with the stuff.  My mother taught him to swim and to sail, and on his
eighth birthday they bought him a Laser dinghy, which he was wild
about.  Won several club races in his age group.  By then I was snowed
under with work in DC."  turning away consulting jobs, got home even
less, so I only heard about the races from Paul's excited letters.  He
was a natural sailor, absolutely fearless.  Like my mother."  She added
with a self-deprecating grin, "Unlike me."

Jack couldn't actually see the grin--could only see her shape in the
dusk--but he heard it in her voice.  He realized, with mild surprise,
what a canning pleasure it gave him to hear her talk.  With all the
chaos roiling inside him, he found comfort in her equilibrium, her fine
balance of heart and brains.  Her voice made a small pool of peace
around him.

He just wanted her to go on.

Her tone suddenly changed.

"Then, about a year later," she said, the smile in her voice gone,
"they heard from the orphanage in Rwanda.  Paul's mother, a Tutsi
woman, had turned up and wanted him back.  I came home to discuss it.

Told Mother and Dad the request was ridiculous: Paul had grown up in
our family, and the adoption had been perfectly legal.  They
agreed--they had no intention of giving him up."  She stared into her
glass.

"But my mother felt k was only right for Paul to at least meet his
natural mother, and for the woman to see that her child was happy and
loved."

A light switched on inside the house, casting her in a burnished glow.
Jack saw sadness on her face.

"They flew to Kigali on April sixth, my mother and Paul.  The next day
the Rwandan president's plane was shot down over the presidential
palace and plunged into the palace gardens.  The whole world watched
what followed.  Hutu gangs swarmed the capital, massacring Tutsis.  My
mother and Paul fled their hotel.  Somewhere in the hills they were
separated.

Then--"

The phone in the house rang.  Jack froze.  Tory swung her legs off the
railing, riveting her attention on the door, waiting, like him, for the
news.  Jack found himself trying not to think, trying not to hear the
terrifying voice in his head:

They're calling to say she's dead.

The wind chime above Tory jangled in a gust.  She reached up to still
it with her fingers.  The gentle silence of dusk returned.  No one came
to the door; the phone call, apparently, was something else.  Watching
Tory, his emotions stretched so tight.  Jack shivered in a kind of
release, as though her fingers on the chime were also stilling him.

A curlew cried in the distance.  The story of Paul hung in the air.
Jack realized that he wanted to know the end.

"What happened?"

Tory seemed to shake off her own trepidation about the phone call.

"She spent weeks searching for him.  God only knows what she went
through.  The country was in total anarchy.

No one could help her.  She was alone.  We heard no news.  Dad was
frantic."  She looked up at the wind chime, which stirred with a faint
tinkle, as though from her breath.

"Then she heard about some children hiding in a village church a few
miles away.  She walked.  When she reached the village--" "Jack," Del
said from the doorway.  His face was like chalk.

"It's the hospital.  They say Rachel is asking for you."

17

'this WAY, PLEASE."  the EDGY NURSE AT THE third-floor reception desk
started down the corridor.  Jack followed, dread cramping his chest.
Was Rachel dying?  Dead?  When the nurse stopped at a private room and
opened the door, relief flooded him.  Rachel was sitting at the foot of
the bed, dressed, signing a form on a clipboard.

The relief lasted only a moment.  What if her dead man's switch had
already closed?

Three doctors stood around her, all talking.

"... can't be held responsible for any complications if you go."

"... return to that punishing pace of work, you'll collapse."

"... stay another day, at least."

Rachel was struggling to get up, but the effort appeared too much and
she sat back.  Jack thought desperately: If it's too late, she couldn't
be so composed, could she?  She suddenly noticed him and begged him
with her eyes to help her, indicating her bandaged throat where purple
bruising spread beyond the dressing.  He rushed forward, pushing
between the doctor's, and leaned down to bring his ear to her mouth.

"Tell them," she whispered hoarsely.

"I must leave."

The switch.

"How much time?"  he blurted.  She shook her head, wincing.  How long
before it closes?  he wanted to yell.  Hours?  Minutes?  He had to get
her out of here.  Grabbing her elbow, he yanked her up.

"I'll be responsible," he told the doctors, and pulled Rachel to a
waiting wheelchair.  She sat, closing her eyes in pain.

Jack pushed the wheelchair out, ignoring me nurse protesting, "Sir, let
me, it's hospital policy--" He rushed Rachel down the corridor.  As
they reached the elevator two nurses went by, chattering: Jack barely
waited until they'd passed.

"How much time do we have?"  he asked under his breath, jabbing the
elevator button.

Rachel said nothing.

He felt a knife of new dread, cold steel in his gut.

"You are going to stop it?"

She jabbed the button herself.

"Tory hasn't succeeded with the campaign."

"Christ, she's doing everything humanly possible.  We all are."

"Not enough," she said in a fierce whisper.

He wanted to scream at her, shake her senseless.  What more can we do?
The elevator doors opened and an orderly stepped out pushing a gurney.
A janitor standing in the elevator corner with his mop and bucket
asked, "Going down?"

Jack maneuvered Rachel's wheelchair in, desperation eating him, and
they rode down in silence.

The ground floor was busier--a stream of night-shift staff
arriving--and he was forced to slow down.  Rachel suddenly pushed out
of me chair.  She started walking quickly down the hall.  Jack caught
up, grabbed her arm, and pinned her to the wall beside a pay phone.

"What are you going to do?"

"Let me go.  There's no time for this."

So she was going to stop it.  No, he thought wildly, this might be just
another of her feints, a ruse to throw me off.

But what if it isn't?  No time ... Jesus, I have no choice.  I have to
trust her.

The moment he released her she started for the lobby doors.  Jack kept
by her side.  Halfway there she faltered, in pain, and groped for him.
He shot his arm around her waist to support her.  Almost dragging her,
terrified she might pass out, he got her to the doors where they
hurried past a yawning security officer.

Jack helped her into the car.  As he rushed around to take the wheel
she sat hugging herself, conserving energy.  He butted recklessly into
the northbound traffic, heading for the lab.  Car horns around them
blared.

"No," Rachel said.

"Take me home."

He shot her a look of suspicion.  What was she trying to pull?

"The lab's too far," she insisted hoarsely.

"There isn't time.  I can send the instruction from home."

He made a squealing U-turn and raced to Swallow Point.

As he roared down the Janeway the headlights caught Del on the
verandah.

"Rachel, are you all right?"  he asked as she and Jack hurried up the
steps.

"Should you be up if--" "I'm fine," she said blankly, brushing a kiss
on his cheek.

Jack followed her inside.

Tory rushed down the stairs.

"Mother!  Are you--" "I'm fine," she said again, not stopping, not
looking.  She went down the hall to her study and closed the door. Jack
heard her lock it.  He stood in the hall, waiting, his heart hammering
as he strained to hear how she was sending her command.  A phone call?
Fax?  E-mail?  He still wasn't sure--had to lean against the door to
steady himself at the thought--if it was a command to stop the switch
from closing, or to activate it.

As sudden as the knife stab that had begun this terror yesterday
morning, it was over.

About an hour after he'd stood outside Rachel's door, the evening sky
outside her jet was darkening.  But for Jack, night had turned into
day.  That's bow it felt.  The dread, the despair consuming him for two
days, it had all lifted like fog in the sun.  He was sitting alone with
Tory, flying to Washington to plan tomorrow's press conference.  She
was upbeat, her relief at Rachel's recovery almost as great as his own.
Finally, Jack allowed himself to relax.  He knew Rachel had stopped the
switch, and more: she would wait out the campaign.  Tory, thank God,
had convinced her.

Buoyant as soon as she'd seen that her mother was out of danger, Tory
had enthusiastically told her all about the Larry King interview.  A
knockout, she'd called it, giving the highlights almost verbatim. She'd
confidently explained to Rachel her strategy for capitalizing on the
huge "bounce" it had given PGT, starting with Jack's press conference
tomorrow.

"His coronation," she'd predicted with a grin.

"So you get some rest.  Mother, and leave this to us.  Me and Jack,
we're on a roll."  Rachel, listening, had reevaluated.  Jack had seen
it in her eyes--an instant command decision to wait out the campaign.

It was all Tory's doing.  Jack could have kissed her.

As he rested his head on the seat-back and glanced at her beside him
working busily on her notes under a small spotlight, he felt her
ebullience, her confidence, flow through him too.  It made him almost
light-headed.  They were on a roll.  Their hard work, their commitment,
were paying off just as she'd planned.  Grateful for her, that's what
he felt A gratitude that was profound, because she'd earned on despite
the pain about Colwell and her son, which Jack knew she was suffering,
yet she'd never wavered.

She caught him looking at her.

"WhatT' He shook his head.

"You deserve a medal."

"Hey, I'd settle for four hours' sleep."

"Outrageous request Hand back the medal."

They both chuckled.

"Jack," she said, resting her head back too, her voice an intimate
murmur in the hushed jet cabin, "I don't know if you realize what an
amazing thing you've accomplished.

True, we're not out of the woods quite yet But, oh, boy, it's looking
awfully sunny beyond those last few trees.  I've never seen anything
like this.  People truly love you.  I could run you for president and
give new meaning to the word landslide."

"I'd settle for hearing this president sign off on what we want."

"Amen to that Believe me, I'm not usually one to encourage me counting
of unhatched chickens, but I'm telling you, we are this close.  Gives
me goose bumps."  She grinned.

"Chickens, geese--I'm so excited my language is getting fowl."

"Love it when you talk dirty."

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.  God, it felt good.
Jack thought Laughter.  Silliness.  Sheer damn happiness.  He'd
forgotten all of that was possible.

The limo whisked them through me capital to Tray's building.  In her
office--her war room.  Jack called it--her top gang of ten were working
late.  Their paperwork was spread out among a litter of still pungent
take-out leftovers, and CNN, as always, was droning under their talk.
As he and Tory walked in the whole group turned and cheered him.

Jack was taken aback.  As they gathered round him clapping, he noticed
himself on CNN--a replayed clip of his King interview.  Ouch, had he
really looked that mad?

"Dr.  Kick-Ass!"  Noah Shapiro quipped.

"Outstanding!"

Vince Delvecchio theatrically unfurled a T-shirt emblazoned with Jack's
stern face above the slogan, I'm asking!

Jack felt an unaccustomed blush.  The others laughed.

Tory's communications director, a strapping Whoopi Goldberg look-alike,
threw her arms around his neck like a swooning heroine and sighed, "My
hero."  Jack had to laugh.

Catching their mood, he raised his fist in a mock revolutionary salute.
It cracked them up.

Tory, her eyes smiling at him, said, "Okay, knock it off, children.
Work to do.  I'm asking."

The others settled down.  Delvecchio handed Tory a briefing paper.
Jack, still chuckling, noticed fresh coffee on the sideboard and
decided he could use some.  Shapiro moved to the TV and switched the
channel, saying to no one in particular, "Roger Bloom called, said to
catch Hard Copy."

Tory got them started discussing strategy for the morning press
conference.  Jack was helping himself to coffee, with people moving
around him getting cream and sugar and picking up briefing notes, when
he heard, "... with the shocking truth about Dr.  Jack Hunt."

His head snapped up to the TV.

"Tonight, Hard Copy brings you an exclusive interview with Mrs.  Vivian
Cabot, the former wife of Jack Hunt, the outspoken humanitarian
doctor."

Jack froze.  There was Vivian, coifed and composed among her orchids.
He had a threatening trapdoor feeling at the bottom of his stomach.

"We visited Mrs.  Cabot, now married to a New York investment
executive, at her home on Long Island.  What she told us about the
saintly Dr.  Hunt will surprise you, and possibly disgust you."

Jack felt the trapdoor tremble.

"Jack and I were both very young when we got married, only twenty,"
Vivian said to the unseen interviewer, "and perhaps that was part of
the problem."

"Who's this?"  Delvecchio asked across the room.

"Shhh!"  Shapiro said, watching.

"... could tell that Jack was a very determined young man.  Very
ambitious.  He grew up rather disadvantaged, you see, whereas my
family--" She offered a modest smile.

"Well, as people in my day used to say.  Jack married well."

Pictures flashed on screen: a trailer park, arid, trash-strewn.  Jack
groaned inside.  Home.

The announcer: "Jack Hunt was a poor kid from the wrong side of the
tracks.  Wealthy Vivian was his ticket out."

Delvecchio snorted, "No cliche unturned."

"Shhh!"  Shapiro hissed.

The interviewer asked, "Were you happy, at first?"

"Not unhappy.  But Jack didn't seem satisfied.  He had a problem
with... well, with fidelity.  I'm old-fashioned, I know, but I've
always believed that wedding vows really mean what they say."

Jack felt all eyes in the room snap toward him.  His palms were
suddenly damp.  Maybe she'll stop there, he thought with sudden wild
hope.  Maybe she'll be satisfied with drawing this blood.  Stop short
of Diane  Please, Vivian.  Stop.

"You said Jack Hunt was ambitious," the announcer was saying.

"How did that ambition present itself?"

"Oh, you know, we always had to have the biggest house, the fanciest
cars, give the most lavish dinners, for the most important people. And,
of course, he was very keen to excel at his work.  He was--is--a
brilliant clinical virologist He rose very high at the CDC, as you
know.  I wouldn't want to take any of that away from Jack.  He's a fine
doctor."

Shots of his former home in Atlanta.  The plantation-style columns,
palm trees, pool, tennis court.  Jack could only watch, helpless, as
Tory's people drifted in closer to the TV.

They were going to hear it all.  He knew that now, saw it in Vivian's
eyes, going for the kill.  Diane.  He tasted the metallic bite of fear,
imagining people all across the country drawing closer to their sets.
Everyone was going to hear.

There was nothing he could do to stop it.

Above ominous music the announcer continued.

"It was at this gracious home in Atlanta, the house bought with
Vivian's money while her ambitious husband pursued his private affairs,
that events occurred that would shatter this family forever."

A school photograph filled the screen--a sullen teenage face.  The
trapdoor in Jack's stomach dropped, and he pitched into the abyss.

The announcer: "This was Diane Hunt, Jack and Vivian's only child."

"Even at fourteen Diane had problems," Vivian said.

"She didn't fit in at school.  She got in trouble with the police
for... well, for drugs.  Marijuana.  Jack smoothed things over with the
police, but he was very angry with Diane.  He hated the image she was
giving of our family.  He cared very much about position, about what
his CDC superiors thought And then ..."

The announcer took over.

"Then, at age fifteen, Diane got pregnant.  It was the last straw for
the social-climbing young doctor.  Furious, he ordered his daughter out
of his house.

His wife remembers it all."

"It was a terrible scene," she said.

"They both shouted things they shouldn't have.  Diane ran out.  That
very night, quite late ..."  She paused as if the memory was too
difficult, and touched a straying lock of hair.

"I'll never forget it It was after midnight Diane was outside banging
on our front door.  I could faintly hear her crying, saying she was
sorry, that she had nowhere to go, asking her father to forgive her.
Her pleas were quite pitiful.  Jack got out of bed and went downstairs.
Diane begged him to let her in.  She sounded like a little girl,
crying.  But Jack turned out the porch light, leaving her in darkness.
He walked back up to bed."

Jack, in limbo, was skidding on nightmare ice, no control, just praying
it would stop in time.

"So the troubled teenager was forced to leave the safety of her home,"
the announcer intoned, "driven out by her unforgiving father.  Her
parents heard nothing more from her for years.  Their marriage, torn by
Jack Hunt's infidelities and ruthless personality, soon foundered and
ended in divorce.

And then..."

A sudden scene shift: jerky shots of a snowy slum street.

Detroit.  Jack had only time to think.  Dear God, no.

Ten years after that fateful night, on a gray, cold February afternoon,
the Detroit Police Department answered a 911 call about a young mother
in a downtown tenement who had gone berserk.  They hurried to the
squalid basement apartment These police file photos show the grisly
scene they discovered."

In the self-torture of me damned.  Jack stared at the pictures:

the youthful couple and the two small children sprawled in pools of
blood.  The announcer intoned.  The young mother had shot her
common-law husband and her two youngest children, then turned the gun
on herself.  Diane Hunt, the troubled teen driven from home, destitute
and drug-addled, had finally ended the pain."

Even in his misery.  Jack heard the muffled gasps of shock in die room
around him.

"But there was one survivor of Diane's gruesome killing spree," the
announcer went on.

"Her oldest child, the baby for which she had been thrown into the
street by her heartless father.  Her name was Laurel.  Now eighteen,
she lives in Boston.  We've been unable to locate her for her
comments."

On screen, a grinning photo of Laurel as a gap-toothed eight-year-old
ambushed Jack.  A machine-gun barrage of emotions riddled him.  Love,
grief, shame, fury at this public confiscation of his life, but most of
all a craving to have Laurel understand.  He grabbed a phone and
hurriedly dialed Swallow Point.  If I can just talk to her before she
hears about it.  Del answered.  Jack asked him to put Laurel on.  Break
it to her slowly, gently-"Liar!"  she shouted the moment she came on
the line.

"She shot them!  She shot herself!  You lied to me!"

The blood seemed to drain from his heart.

"Laurel--" "It was on TV."  She was crying, sobbing.

"I saw the pictures.

Everybody's seen.  The whole world's found out what you're really like.
You threw her out.  We lived like rats because of you.  She snapped and
she killed them because of you" "Laurel, listen to me--" The words
clogged in his throat.

What could he say?

"You told me they'd been murdered!  Some crazy junkie did it, you said,
and I believed you."  Her sobs were uncontrollable.

"I always believed I might have stopped it if I'd just come home from
school, just got there in time.  You let me believe it!  How could
you--" Three phones were loudly ringing near Jack.  The sound knifed
into a separate part of his mind, a separate torture: the press,
smelling blood.

"They're onto you," Laurel cried.

"Oh, and I'm going to be real popular now too," she added savagely.

"Every fucking reporter in the world's going to want to talk to me.
Did your grandfather mistreat you too.  Miss Hunt?  Was it hard having
a teenage addict for a mother.  Miss Hunt?  What's it like.  Miss Hunt,
living with the man who drove your mother to murder and suicide?"

"Jack," Tory cut in across the room.

"We need to talk."

Laurel screamed, "Bastard!  You go around acting like a saint but
you're a hypocritical lying bastard."  She slammed down the phone.

Jack's hands were shaking.  They were watching him, everyone in the
office.  On TV an inane commercial droned.

Someone snapped it off.  The faces here were a blur to him as Laurel's
words burned into his brain.

Phones were ringing madly.  Reporters, Jack was sure, and PGT
field-workers wanting answers, just like everyone here.  Delvecchio was
already on his cell phone: "... fucking lynch mob.  Of course he'll
give a statement, as soon as--" Shapiro sat at Tory's desk, chewing the
end of his pen.

Tory sat tensely on the desk edge.  They were all watching him,
waiting.

"Jack," Tory said firmly, "we've got to know how much of this is
true."

He couldn't bear to meet her eyes.  Stiffly, he walked to the half-moon
window overlooking K Street and stared out Shapiro took his silence as
an answer.

"We're tucked," he groaned, and dropped his head on his arms on me
desk.

Tory said, "Stop it, Noah.  It's bad, but--" "It's disastrous," her
pollster said, and began to pace.

"Zfit's true," Tory said.

"Only Jack can tell us that."

He felt all their eyes bore into his back.  Down on the street a skinny
black teenager with a filthy sleeping bag slung over his shoulders like
a shawl wandered into me traffic.

Horns blasted.  Jack felt a disorienting union with the kid: nowhere to
go, nowhere to hide.

Tory turned to the others.

"Henry, line up your focus groups.  And call Dean Forsythe, I need his
advice."  She called across the room, "Is that Pete Gowan?  I'll talk
to him."  She grabbed the phone to speak to the lawyer.

"Won't help," Shapiro said, lifting his head from the desk.

"Can't put Hmnpty together again.  It's over."

"Not if (he story's a crock," Delvecchio said, closing his phone.

Jack sensed them all turn to him again.  He was frozen to the spot.
It's over.

Shapiro challenged Delvecchio: "So you're saying they made mis up?
That's crazy."

"Oh, right," Delvecchio said sourly.

"Hard Copy is so scrupulous in checking their facts."

"You saw me bodies," Shapiro snapped.

"You think the Detroit PD computer-generated those pictures?"

Bodies--my flesh and blood.  Jack tasted the old horror like vomit in
his mouth.

"I just think we shouldn't be snowed," Delvecchio countered.

"Quincy's CCA gang orchestrated this, you can be sure.  And the FBI
must have dug up the ex-wife.  Who knows how they pressured her?"

"To do what!  Spin this out of thin air?  There was a pregnant
fifteen-year-old, Vince, and there were corpses!.^" The baby's chest
shredded by the bullet.

"All I'm saying," Delvecchio replied, "is that we all know Jack pretty
well now, and this isn't... well, it just isn't him."

Jack saw his own face reflected in the night-dark window.

He shut his eyes.  In that darker blackness he saw Laurel screaming,
betrayed.  He suddenly felt very cold.  She would never forgive him.
How could she, when he'd never forgiven himself?

"Mortally wounded," the pollster was saying as Tory finished on me
phone.

"Our biggest favorables were with women twenty-five to fifty, and that
group always reacts with the strongest negatives to family scandal.
We'll plummet thirty points overnight.  Noah's right.  We're fucked."

"We can recover overnight, too," Tory said sternly.

"We've done it before."

Jack opened his eyes.  Was she serious?  He caught the window
reflection of her face watching him and couldn't bear it, her scrutiny.
He ducked his head.  Of all the eyes in the room, hers were the ones he
craved to avoid.

"My people are going nuts," the field coordinator said, slamming down a
phone.

"We've already got cancellations for fund-raisers in Minneapolis and
Denver.  Major donors are soon going to be stampeding away if--" "We
know the problem," Tory said sharply to the whole room.

"I want solutions!"

The campaign.  Jack thought.  Rachel.  An icy drop of panic dripped in
a dark corner of his consciousness, and then was still.  The well of
his terror about Rachel had gone dry.  Too much had pumped through him
for too long.  He was numb to it.

But not to the merciless shame.

Another phone rang and Eric answered it.

"Dick Shannon, Wall Street Journal, for Dr.  Hunt."

Tory shook her head.

"Not available."

"He's got to give a statement sooner or later," the communications
director warned.

"Later."

Tory's steady voice made Jack shudder.  Can't she see it's over?

"Tory, we've taken too hard a hit," Shapiro said.

"We have to consider cooling Jack and bringing forward Senator Owen as
spokesman."

"Not an option," Tory said.

"Nothing would look weaker.

If we abandon Jack, we abandon all credibility.  No, we've got to hit
back."

Tory, Jack groaned inside, give it up.

"Hit back with what?"  Shapiro demanded.

"Jack saying he's sorry he destroyed his teenage daughter?  This moral
cmsader who's telling everybody in the country they have to clean up
their act?  They'll eat him alive."

"No.  No apologies," Tory insisted.

"We have to fight" "How, if this shit is true?"

Jack heard the room fall silent except for the hysterically ringing
phones.  They were all waiting for his answer.

He couldn't force himself to run around.  Not to Tory.  He could face
the others if he had to, but not her.  She'd put everything on the line
for this.  Put her trust in him, her faith.

She'd believed in him.

"Jack," she said.

"Talk to us."

Tory watched his back as he stood frozen at her window.

She'd never felt such fury.  Damn you.  Jack Hunt, what have you done?
If you've killed this campaign-Suddenly he twisted around.  Their eyes
met, and he went as rigid as a buck stunned by headlights.  He ducked
his head, his stiff hand shielding his face from the stares.  The
gesture was so unlike Jack--so furtive, so pathetic--Tory knew right
then: The story's true.  Her fury was swallowed up by shock.

As she took in his contorted face, shock gave way to pity.

This might not be the Jack she knew, but this was a man in pain.

He suddenly made for the door.

"Hey, we've got to bang out some answers!"  Noah yelled.

"Come back!"

"Shut up, Noah," she said, snatching her shoulder bag to go after
Jack.

"He isn't a politician, he's a human being."

Out in the hall, seeing him head for the elevator, she said to him,
"Not down to the lobby.  Reporters."

He turned on his heel and took the stairs.  Tory followed.

The facts behind the story she had to accept, so if she was going to
salvage anything here she needed more.  The story behind the facts.  As
Jack pushed out through a fire exit and started up the street, she
said, "Where are we going?"

He stared ahead, iron-faced, and kept on.  She had to work to keep pace
with his stride.  In the sultry night heat her T-shirt was already
sticking to her back.  Jack banged shoulders with a kid strolling by
with a ghetto blaster.

"Mother fucker," the kid sneered.

Jack struck out across the street.  Tory was light behind, but got cut
off by an ambulance strobing past, siren screaming.

She called, "Jack, wait."  But he didn't Running, she finally caught
up.  Still he wouldn't look at her.  A pair of well-dressed women
approaching watched him wide-eyed, obviously recognizing him, and
whispered to one another as they neared.  Jack barged past them,
stepping up his pace.

Just before the intersection he stopped cold.  He stood uncertain,
fists bunched at his sides, face taut, as though he longed to keep
going, to escape, only where?  Tory's heart lurched.  He has nowhere to
go.

She stepped to the curb and hailed a cab.

"Too many curious eyes out here, Jack," she said.

"Come on, I'll take you to a nice quiet spot.  Private."

"Not your place," he said, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Colwell ."

"He doesn't come home these days."  She opened the cab door for him.

"Don't worry, we're not going there.  Get in."

The key, as always, was on the grimy lintel above the door outside the
third-floor walk-up apartment.

"Go on in," Tory said, replacing the key.

"My friend's out of town."

The small place was stuffy, with a faint trapped scent of curry.
Plucking at her sticking shirt, Tory moved me dusty cactus off the
windowsill and lifted the window to let in some air.  She glanced at
the flood-lit capital dome in the distance.

It glowed as if in arrogant triumph, and she shivered, despite the heat
"Mortally wounded," her pollster had said, and me coldness in the pit
of her stomach told her it was true.  But she needed to hear Jack's
side first If she could just get him to talk.

"Have a seat," she said.

He was looking around, frowning.  She saw the problem:

there was no seat.  The threadbare sofa was stacked with books.  The
single easy chair held a jumble of greasy bicycle parts nested in a wad
of newspaper.  Of me two wooden chairs at the Formica kitchen table,
one was piled with dirty laundry and the other was missing a leg.  She
noticed him glance at the man's ten-speed bike leaning against the
wall.

True, Jack, you can't sit there.

"Here," she said, moving an armload of books off the sofa.

"How about a drink?"  She opened the cupboard above the fridge.  There
wasn't much.

"Bourbon all right?"  she asked, reaching for it Without a word he took
me bottle from her and sat on the sofa.  She brought him a glass.  He
poured a large shot and downed it She hoped the liquor would soften
him, lead him to open up.

She called Eric at the office and gave him the number without saying
where they were; as long as he didn't know, reporters couldn't pry it
out of him.  He told her me phones had gone ballistic, and the media
were staking out the lobby for Jack.  What was he supposed to tell
people?

"He's unavailable until I say otherwise," Tory said.

"And don't call here unless it's an emergency."

"What do you call this?"  Eric said, and hung up.

Jack muttered in disgust, "Plague threatens and all they want to talk
about is me."

Tory turned to him with hope.  He'd finally spoken.

"People aren't interested in mankind," she said, "only in folks they
know."

"They don't know me," he said darkly, and poured another shot.

Tory felt despair.  Had she totally misjudged this man?

Had she fallen into the most common trap in the business:

believing her own propaganda?  She moved the mess of bicycle parts off
the easy chair, kicked off her shoes, and sat, waiting for the room to
cool down.  Waiting for Jack.  And beginning to wonder if she really
wanted to hear this after all.

Slumped on the sofa.  Jack held the open bottle propped on one knee,
the glass on the other, and gazed at the faded carpet between his feet.
From somewhere through the walls came a thread of orchestral music.
Tory recognized the plaintive theme.  Aaron Copland--"Appalachian
Spring."  A springtime memory stabbed: Chris flying a kite at Swallow
Point with his father.  Oh, why did beautiful music have such power to
torment?  Still she had no idea where Carson was keeping their son.  He
hadn't returned any of her calls.  None of their friends she'd called
knew anything either.  She took some small comfort in knowing he would
have arranged for Chris to be well taken care of--a housekeeper at a
hotel, maybe.  But to cut her off from all contact?  She'd never
thought she could feel such a thing, but she truly hated Carson for
this.  She would never forgive him.  And she would fight him.

That wasn't the crisis to deal with now.  She pushed her concentration
past that private ache, past the music, and focused on Jack.  She
watched as the liquor began to loosen die tension in his face, his
shoulders, his hands.  Talk to me, Jack," she said.

"I'm on your side."

He glanced at her with a look that said: For how long?

Then he let out a deep, angry sigh of resignation, and Tory thought He
knows he's cornered.

Staring again at the thin carpet, he spoke.

"My mother wore washed-out dresses donated to the church.  My dad
picked through ashtrays in truck stops for butts.  I was ashamed of
them for their failure, their weakness.  I went after Vivian to escape
their infection.  Poverty."

"You pursued her?"

"Very successfully.  Got her pregnant" He smiled bitterly.

"like the man said, she was my ticket out" He shook his head at the
folly.

"Twenty years old we were."

The plaintive orchestral music stopped abruptly.  Upbeat Latin dance
music took its place.  The shift seemed to break Jack's tenuous
concentration, and Tory silently cursed it "Did you love her when you
married her?"  she asked to push him back on track.

He looked at her with weary scorn.

"I loved her money.  It got me into med school.  Got me big houses and
fancy cars.

Got me respect" He snorted in self-disgust "Prom country club waiters
and bank managers, the only kind of respect Vivian understood.  And me
too, for too long.  When I finished med school I went on loving her
money, because it let me do the research I wanted and still live like a
prince.  I figured I had it all."

He staled into his drink.

"The work was all I really cared about So hot to make a name for
myself.  God, but it was exciting in those days.  Postdoc research at
Yale Arbovirus Lab.

Fieldwork with Lassa fever in Liberia in seventy-two.  The first Ebola
outbreak in seventy-six.  Cutting-edge stuff.  Vivian wasn't
interested.  She spent half the year in Palm Beach.  I didn't care, as
long as she signed the checks."

This wasn't so bad, Tory thought cautiously.  The picture at least
gibed with the Jack she knew: the exceptional medical man, driven but
dedicated.  And the socialite wife leaving a hardworking husband for
long periods on his own wasn't a character to stir sympathy.

As if reading her thoughts, he said flatly, "Yes, I saw other women.
I'm no monk.  I wasn't straight with you when you asked about that." He
shrugged in distaste.

"Our marriage was a fraud."  His gaze drifted and he added wonderingly,
"But I had no idea she still hated me this much."

He suddenly fixed hard eyes on her.

"You want to know if the rest of what she said is true?  No.  The truth
is worse."

Tory felt a shiver.  His failed marriage wasn't the point, never had
been.  It was the rest that chilled her.  The daughter.

Jack poured another drink.  Tory waited.

"Diane wasn't wanted," he said flatly.

"I was too busy, and Vivian never wanted children in the first place.
Kids know it, always do.  We both ignored the warning signs.  The calls
from the school, the drugs.  Diane was fifteen when she got pregnant.
At breakfast one day she blurted it out.  Vivian was furious.  Her
standing in the community, her good name, blah, blah.  She ordered
Diane to get an abortion.  Diane refused.

They screamed at each other.  Diane stormed out.  I didn't say
anything--I'd heard their screaming matches before.

I just went to work.  I was up for a big promotion at the CDC, been
working hard for it, and there was an interview scheduled that morning
I didn't want to blow.  I still wasn't bringing in anything like the
money Vivian had in her own name.  Anyway, I figured Diane would soon
realize she'd have to have the abortion.  What else could a
fifteen-year-old do?"

His fingers tightened around his glass.

"That night, she came knocking on our door.  I got out of bed to go
downstairs and let her in.  Vivian stopped me.  She'd had all she could
take with Diane, she said, this was the last straw.

Yeah, yeah, I said, and started to go.

"I mean it.  Jack," she said.

"You let her in, I walk out."  I saw she was serious.  She was giving
me an ultimatum, making me choose.  Diane or her."

Tory found she was holding her breath--in disgust at such a
hard-hearted bitch, and in dread at what Jack was going to say next.

He stared into the liquor, his face like stone.

"I was an addict, hooked on the life my rich wife supplied.  So I did
what she wanted.  As she said, I went down and turned off the porch
light.  Never saw my daughter alive again."

Even though she'd braced herself to hear it, Tory was shocked.  To
abandon your own child--how could he?

Jack knocked back the rest of the drink, but he was no longer holding
the bottle steadily.

"When I did it, I figured I could patch things up between the two of
them later.  I was wrong.  Vivian had been itching to burn the bridge,
and Diane didn't want to be found.  I hired someone to look for her,
but... not a trace."

He took a deep, steadying breath.

"Jump to ten years later.

I was a big shot at the CDC by then, chief of Special Pathogens, and
Vivian and I were long divorced.  It was a February morning, cold for
Atlanta.  Diane called me from Detroit.

"Daddy, help me, please."  God forgive me, that's what she said, after
ten years' silence.  I left right away, but there was a blizzard in
Detroit.  Planes backed up, only one runway open.  It was dark when I
got to the address she'd given.  A basement room, smelled like a sewer.
I found her.

Too late.  She'd shot the man she was with and two of her kids, then
herself.  I found the gun under her hip.  She'd fallen on it."  He
paused.  When he spoke again his voice was ragged from trying so long
to keep it controlled.

"Might as well have pulled the trigger myself.  Ten years before, I'd
condemned her to that life.  Her children too.  This was just me
execution."

Tory could almost smell the horror in that basement room.

The indictment Jack had leveled on himself seemed just.

How had he dared, all these years, to pass himself off as a great
humanitarian?

Then she caught herself.  Heaven help me, who am I to judge?  Who
latched on to his superman image, no questions asked, right at (he
start?  Who packaged him for public adoration, mis hero who was going
to save us all?

The Latin music through the wall swelled in lighthearted abandon.  It
rattled Tory, but it couldn't break me pall of this tragic story.  She
sensed she hadn't yet heard it all.

"What about Laurel?"  she asked quietly.

Jack stared at the carpet.

"She was there when I arrived.

She'd found the bodies but hadn't seen the gun, so she didn't realize
how it happened.  I didn't think she could take that extra burden.  She
was eight, a dirty-faced, confused street kid.  First time I'd laid
eyes on her.  So I lied, told her some addict had broken in.  When the
police came I told them what happened and asked them to keep Laurel in
the dark, if they could.  They questioned her, but once they'd
confirmed Diane's fingerprints on the gun, they had no reason to talk
to Laurel further.  She never knew.  Right after, I took her away to
Europe for a year.  Left the CDC cold, never went back- Volunteered for
One World Medics in Brussels.  After that, it was just the two of us.
Laurel and me."

He took a deep bream, and Tory heard the shudder in it.

When he spoke again, his voice was shaky.

"I could build myself anew because of her.  Because in her eyes I was a
great guy, not the obscene failure I knew I was.  I finally saw I was
on this earth to protect her."

Tory felt a quiver run through her.  She was looking hard at him--at
him, she realized, not the newsreel hero she'd created for the public,
not the depraved criminal he'd decided he was, just the man before her.
She thought of her parting shot to Noah.

"He's not a politician, he's a human being."  Why had she never seen it
before?

Jack rubbed his forearm harshly across his face.  His eyes were
bloodshot.

"Now she's found out and she hates--" He didn't finish.

Tory couldn't bear to see him suffer.

"Jack, it was your wife's fault.  If she hadn't--" "My fault!"  he said
with sudden ferocity.  Then again, quietly, "My fault."  He raised his
glass in a bitter mock toast.

"So this's the hero you picked to save the world.  You sure picked
wrong.  The guy's a shit.  Fooled everybody."

He poured another drink, sloshing some onto his pant leg.

Tory saw his exhaustion, felt he was near a breaking point.

She gently eased the bottle and glass away from him, then got him on
his feet and into the bedroom.  He sat heavily on the bed.

"Lie down," she said.

"You need to sleep."

He lay back in a sprawl.  When she reached to take off his shoes, he
snatched her hand and pulled her down to her knees on the floor beside
him.  His bloodshot eyes, losing focus, searched her face.

"Forgive me."  She wasn't sure if he was speaking to her or someone in
his mind.  His grip slackened.  His eyelids drooped.  The bourbon, and
exhaustion, were pulling him under, into sleep.

She didn't let go of his hand.  Seeing him this way, as if for the
first time, she was filled with awe to think of all he'd endured in the
past three weeks.  He'd watched his wife die.

Taken a massive public campaign on his shoulders--and the overwhelming
responsibility.  Lost his friend to arsonist thugs.  Now, smeared on
national TV, he feared he'd lost the affection of the person he loved
most.  Laurel.  He'd taken everything that had been thrown at him, but
this was tearing him apart.

She felt ashamed to realize that she'd never looked beneath his facade.
He wore his fame and stature so effortlessly, she hadn't suspected the
inner demons that tormented him, nor his compulsion to maintain his
image.

Now she understood.  He'd built that image on the ruins of a terrible
personal failure.  How had he put it?

"Built himself anew.  " Jack never called himself a hero, but he loved
having the world call him that.  It had given his life purpose.

She realized that this public unmasking was the one blow he could not
take, and Laurel's love the one loss he could not bear.

Reluctantly, she let go of his hand.  Too much was at stake here to get
sidetracked.  She settled in an armchair across from the bed and
watched him, trying to focus on how to salvage his credibility.  How to
play this.  How to spin.

Her hand tingled from the anguish of his grip, and try as she might to
think of Jack the spokesman, she kept being drawn back to Jack the
man.

He had once been greedy, ambitious, even ruthless.  And a bad father.
But his daughter's death, and Laurel's need, had made him turn his life
around.  To atone, of course; that had obviously been the impetus.
Still, no one could deny the astonishing results.  The unfeeling father
had become the most tender of guardians.  The greedy young doctor had
become a courageous humanitarian, risking his life again and again to
save others.

You're too hard on yourself.  Jack.  Not a hero?  You're the only kind
that's real.  One who made a choice.

A normal man.  He made mistakes, but he's doing good to make up for
them.  Isn't that exactly what the whole country has to do?

My God.  My own feelings about him--is that the spin?

Jack awoke because of the heat.  Glaring sun pinned him to the bed
where he lay still dressed, his clothes bunched up uncomfortably.  He
sat up, thirsty, head throbbing.

The apartment was quiet.  He went to the other room.  Tory was gone.
Her absence hit him like a loss.  But how could he blame her?  He'd
lied about himself.  Lied by pretending.

Where was he to go from here?  The shock of last night's expose was
behind him now--a swamp he'd crawled out of, stinking but alive.  Ahead
lay a desert, uncharted, unknown.

He would no longer have Tory as his guide, while Rachel remained,
all-powerful, on the far side.

On the sofa, sunlight glinted off a piece of metal.  An earring.

He picked it up.  A simple gold hoop, the kind Tory always wore.  She
must have slept here, he thought, noticing the sofa was cleared of
books.  Or maybe she'd left the earring behind some other time.  He
glanced at the man's bike by the wall.  A friend, she'd said.

His hand closed around the earring.  She was a friend to me last night.
Defended me.  Got me away from the staring eyes, hid me, listened to
me.  And passed no judgment.

But she has to judge, that's her job.

And so, she's gone.

Can't keep dwelling on her, he commanded himself.

Can't let emotion get in the way.  He sat on the sofa arm, thumbing the
earring like a worry bead, and tried to think.

His participation in the campaign was finished, that was a given.  His
credibility couldn't survive the scandal.  Tory wouldn't give up, of
course.  She'd regroup, move Senator Owen forward as spokesman, and
fight on, however desperate the odds.  But without him.

That's what was gnawing him.  Rachel would hold off only as long as
she was convinced there was a chance the campaign could succeed, and
right from the start she'd accepted Tory's caveat that success depended
on the public's love affair with him.  Now that I've been disgraced,
will Rachel bother to wait for the deadline?

Call Colwell?  Is that the only way out now?  Tell him everything?  Can
I trust the FBI not to charge in on her with SWAT teams, guns blazing,
and trip her switch?  Assuming they even believe my story.  Assuming
they don't lock me up.  No, he realized, that route's impossible.  No

FBI.

A key scraped in the lock.  The door opened.  Tory.

She came back.

Hugging a paper bag of groceries, she gave him a quick psychic audit
with her eyes.  Then she briskly moved to the kitchen counter and
started to unpack food.

"Feeling better?"

He didn't know how to begin.  He realized he was still holding her
earring.  He came to her, palm open.

"You dropped this."

"Oh, good," she said, touching her ear self-consciously through her
hair.

"Thought I'd lost it."  She usually wore her hair tied back, but Jack
noticed it was loose today.  She still wore the jeans and white T-shirt
she'd had on last night.

"Tory, I want to thank you."

"For letting you have the bed?"  she said with a small smile.

"For standing by me through all that, last night.  For not leaving."

Their eyes met.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said.

A rush of happiness--that's what he felt.  A sensation he knew he had
no right to.  But he held on to it.

She put the earring on the counter.

"I got orange juice and blueberry muffins and coffee," she said,
opening a cupboard for a plate.  As she set the muffins on it she
noticed the plate's chipped edge.

"My friend's not the best little homemaker."

Bizarre, Jack thought, the two of us here.  Hiding away, playing house,
trying to avoid mentioning the crippled campaign, the crisis.  A crisis
her mother created.

"He doesn't get home much," Tory added, moving laundry off the kitchen
chair for him.

Jack sat down, as willing as she was to avoid what had to be said.  To
hang on to this breathing space.

"What's he do?"

"Kevin?  Runs a little group that helps ex-cons get back on their feet.
I do pro bono legal work for them."  She glanced at him.

"Don't look so surprised.  You thought I didn't have a heart?"

"I thought you'd be too busy."

She gave him a knowing look.

"Same thing."

She was pouring orange juice into two glasses.

"Weird, isn't it?  Carson hauls the bad guys off the streets.  I help
get them back on."  She added quietly, "Guess some things weren't meant
to be."

She drank her juice, still standing.

"Anyway, I usually meet Kevin and his people here.  His clients don't
like the dress requirements on K Street."

Jack tried to imagine her sitting among the dirty laundry and bicycle
parts, explaining parole procedure to a nervous felon too broke to buy
a tie.  No power lunches, no media hype, no fees.  A new picture of
her.  He couldn't help wondering if the guy who lived here was the
inducement.

Wouldn't surprise him if she'd responded to affection from another
quarter.  It was clear that Colwell didn't value her.

"This Kevin must be a very good friend," he said.

"Since Mrs.  Lee's third grade."  She added with a grin, "Ever since he
looked up under my skirt in the lunchroom."

She'd finished setting out everything for him, and she picked up the
earring from the counter.  He watched her toss back her hair and tilt
her head as she fitted the gold hoop back in place.  Her beauty stirred
him--the fall of her hair curving over her shoulder, her bent arm
gently squeezing her breast as she eased the earring into her lobe, her
slim hip braced casually against Ac counter.  All the allure Rachel had
when they'd first met, but with a warmth of spirit Rachel never-He
stopped himself, shocked.  Revolted.  How could he think of Tory like
that, or dishonor her with such a comparison?

She was in no way like the woman who'd murdered thousands.

"Well, I've got to get back to the office," she said, straightening.

"I've been thinking.  You need some time off.

How about you catch your breath here today, with nobody bugging you,
while I get things sorted out at--" "No."

"Jack--" "I'm going back to the lab, Tory.  Right away.  You know, and
I know, that I've become a liability to the campaign."

"That's not true.  I just need some time for damage control and--"
"There is no time."

"Jack, listen to me, I thought about it all night.  You're a good man,
a real man, not a superhuman god.  You took charge of your life and
changed yourself, and that's exactly what me whole country has to--"
"I've been thinking, too," he cut in, getting to his feet.  He came to
her.

"Here's the deal.  I'll give any public statement you want, make any
speech, give any interview--however you want to play ifc I'll support
Senator Owen as the new spokesman if that's what you want, or I'll
grovel with apologies on national TV if that's what you want" The last
thought made his skin crawl, but he had to do everything possible to
keep Rachel believing the campaign was still viable.

"I'll comply with whatever you think is best.  I ask only one thing.
That you keep my appearances to an absolute minimum.  I'm going to
spend every available moment from here on in at the lab.  All right?"

"I would never ask you to apologize."

He blessed her for that.  Still, he had to be sure she understood his
priorities.

"Tory, the lab is where I may still have some hope of turning this
nightmare around.  The only place I still have a chance.  So unless you
call me out, that's going to be my home, night and day.  You
understand?"

She didn't take her eyes off his.  He could almost hear the gears of
her mind whirring.  Finally she said, "I can live with that."

18

carson SCANNED THE CROWDED white house drawing room, looking for FBI
Director McAuliffe.  He hadn't been able to reach Uota, and this
couldn't wait.

President Lowell was finishing a jovial speech to the gathering of
staffers.  It was his anniversary.

"And since the first twenty-five years have been pretty good," he
quipped, "we've decided to go for another twenty-five!"  Beaming, he
put his arm around the First Lady's shoulders.  She smiled.

Laughter and applause from the staffers.  Cameras flashed.  A champagne
cork popped.  The president joked with mock impatience, "Wow can I eat
my cake?"  More laughter.

Carson found it disturbing, this cheerful disregard of the Artemis
threat--and the staffers' unquestioning trust that the president would
overcome it.  Obviously, the party was being staged for this effect;
photographers almost outnumbered the guests.  The First Lady was
setting the blithe tone.

Still, Carson couldn't help being impressed by Mrs.  Lowell's loyalty.
Despite the personal risk of remaining in the capital instead of going
to Camp David or the family retreat in Colorado, she was standing by
her husband.  Bitterly, he recalled the surveillance report on Hunt
yesterday morning.

"At 22:10 he entered a low-rise apartment on Walmer Road.  He spent the
night there."

"Alone?"

"No, sir."

"Well?  Who was with him?"

A pause.

"Your wife, sir."

"Now go enjoy yourselves!"  the president called out He and the First
Lady moved apart to mingle, and the jazz trio seamlessly slid into a
Porgy and Bess medley.

Carson shouldered into the crowd, looking for McAuliffe.

He noticed that the president had joined Quincy in a corner, and he
moved toward them thinking Quincy might point him to the director.

"No word?  Nothing?"  the president was asking in controlled fury.  His
bluff good humor had vanished.

Quincy shook his head.

"Nothing."

"That cocksucker.  How--" The president stopped, seeing Carson, and
Quincy anxiously asked, "Colwell, have you heard from McAuliffe?"

Carson was surprised.

"No.  I'm here to find him."

"Christ," me president growled.

"Tell him."

Quincy said tightly to Carson, "He's bailed."

"What?"

"Forty-five minutes ago I got a call from Akim Paludi at CBS News.
Their video crew at National caught McAuliffe and his wife rushing for
a British Airways flight to London.  I guess McAuliffe tried to keep
his wife quiet, but she talked to the video crew anyway.  Said she was
terrified of the plague and was getting out of the country.  They both
got on the flight.  McAuliffe's gone."  He shook his head at the
enornaity of the disaster.

"Just when the president's making a national address in less than two
hours.  Jesus."

Carson was appalled.  ian McAuliffe had been his mentor, and one of
President Lowell's oldest friends.

Quincy gave a snort of dismay.

"Here I thought we'd blown PGT out of the water with the expose of
Hunt.  He's fucked, sure, but their message is still sucking them in,
people are so scared.  And our message?

"No need to fear, folks, everything's under control."  After this?
After the world sees the FBI director jumping ship on the six o'clock
news?"  He added savagely, "Fucking coward."

"Shut up.  Randy," Lowell said wearily.

"What do you know?  You're not even married."  He glanced at Carson
with a look that said.  What man can predict how he'll act where his
wife is concerned?

My wife left me no alternative, Carson thought bitterly.

Tory chose to stand with the enemy--and apparently to sleep with the
enemy.  Worst of all, she put my son in harm's way at Swallow Point
with Hunt.  That was unforgivable.

Poor Chris--naturally he couldn't understand being taken away to a
strange place.  This morning, when Carson had called the Maryland hotel
where an agent had been with the boy for almost a week, Chris had asked
plaintively, as he did every day, "When is Mommy coming?  When can I go
home?"  It only deepened Carson's anger.  Chris's anxiety was a direct
result of Tory's own destructive actions.  She had damaged their family
beyond repair.

The president asked Quincy with sudden cold-blooded resolve, "All
right, who the fuck do we put in ian's place?"

"EdUota?"

That jerk-off?"

"He's on top of this," Quincy said.

"Acting director, then.  Effective immediately."

Stifling his distaste at the decision, Carson checked his watch.  Time
to move.

"Mr.  President, in the absence of the director, I'd like to inform you
of a decision I've made regarding Jack Hunt" "Not a player anymore,"
Quincy said dismissively.

"His credibility's shot to hell."

"Agreed," Carson said, "but my concern is that me situation may have
put him in an unstable frame of mind.  I don't want to risk it pushing
him over the edge, maybe to effect an early release of the virus."

Did he also want something else?  To wrench Hunt away from Tory?  He'd
had to face that question before he came.

Had this become too personal--a jealous husband's vendetta?

The answer had come easily: no.  Tory had made her own bed, and Carson
felt more disgust than vengeance.  What he felt most strongly, however,
was that his responsibility in this crisis transcended all personal
considerations.

"What do you want to do?"  the president asked him.

"Arrest him, sir."

"I thought you wanted him to guide you to me Artemis leaders."

"I now believe he may be one."

"No shit?"  Quincy asked, excited.

Carson hesitated.  The evidence was thin, but he was running out of
time; he had to go now on instinct He hated being pushed into that, but
on one level at least, his instinct about Hunt had already proved right
look how (he man, years ago, had treated his own family.  As for the
Artemis connection, he was certain of this much: Hunt was biding
something huge.  The conclusion seemed obvious.  Hunt was right at the
center.

"In that case," the president said, "do whatever--" "Colwell," Quincy
jumped in, "how soon can you make this arrest?"

"The Boston SAC is ready to move on me Lesage lab at my signal.  I'm
leaving now.  Barring irregularities, we'll have Hunt within two
hours."

"Then you can announce it in your address, Mr.  President," Quincy said
eagerly.

"Artemis suspect captured.  It's perfect We deflect focus from
McAuliffe's desertion, and annihilate PGT."

Lowell nodded gravely.

"I can't announce anything, though, until we hear from Colwell that
he's got Hunt in custody.  Can we postpone the address until then?"

Quincy looked pained.

"Another hour, tops.  We have to get out their with it before CBS runs
the story on McAuliffe."

The president turned to Carson.

"Mr.  Colwell, you've got until the six o'clock news."

Rachel sat in the easy chair by Del's desk in his study, feeling
imprisoned.  Fussing over her, he had tucked a blanket around her and
insisted she sit quietly for at least an hour while he worked on his
book.  "]f you won't obey the doctors, obey me," he'd told her
firmly.

"I won't have you drive yourself into the ground."

Although she craved to get up, get out, she also craved rest Her throat
still felt on fire, and the headaches were almost unbearable.  But it
was nothing compared to her agony about Jack.  The expose two days ago
disgracing him had jeopardized the whole campaign.  Another crisis she
hadn't foreseen.  There'd been too many.  And still he persisted in his
work at the lab.  Was he gaining on her?

She winced at the throbbing pain in her jaw.  A low-grade infection.
The antibiotics seemed useless.  What if the infection got worse,
incapacitated her?  / cannot allow it, she wanted to shout.  None of
it.

"What is it?"  Del asked, his forehead creased in concern.

"Nothing," she said, still hoarse.  Impatiently, she waved him back to
work.  He'd been writing notes in his meticulous left-handed script;
he still used the gold fountain pen she'd given him twenty years ago.
Instead of taking up the pen again, though, he opened a drawer and
lifted out a yellow binder.  Rachel felt a prick of alarm.

She remembered the binder.  One of Tory's old ones from high school,
exuberantly graffitied with designs--Del never threw anything out.
Rachel remembered it because it held an early draft of Del's
manuscript, one she'd helped him organize over two years ago.  But the
book had gone through radical editing in several drafts since then, so
why had he kept this old version, the only one that presented a threat
to her?

And how had she missed it herself?  She thought she'd destroyed every
shred of evidence.

"That's obsolete material, surely," she said, more edgily than she'd
intended.  After all, the risk here, she reminded herself, was
minimal.

"You should throw it away."

He murmured, "Hmnun," and nodded vaguely, absorbed as he leafed through
pages, apparently looking for something.

Rachel's nervousness became acute.

Too many worries.  It was getting hard to sort them all, prioritize.

Her mind felt fevered from the nagging infection.

Walking wounded, she thought bitterly; a houseful of us-me, poor Del,
Laurel.  The girl had been acting like a zombie ever since the tabloid
TV program, one moment blindly packing to return to her apartment in
Boston, the next moment giving up, whining that the media mob at the
gates would only swarm her, follow her.  Her indecision irritated
Rachel beyond reason.  Why are people so incapable of action?

The thought tripped her.  Have I become incapable too?  Is direct
action the only answer now?  Release the virus early, before Jack
discovers how to stop me at the lab?

There was no perfume device this time; she'd done that only for the
demonstration, separating the two benign viruses to prevent an
outbreak until the shipments reached the remote targeted sites, and
then to ensure confinement of me epidemic there.  This time the
elements were already mixed.  The lethal virus was in shipments of
water bottles-free samples labeled as a promotion for a well-known
charity.

Couriers would deliver them to selected outlets in malls, airports, and
hotels.

Del suddenly looked up at her.

"You're quite right," he said.

"I'm too much of a pack rat.  Must toss this rubbish away."

Rachel gave him a ghost of a smile.  One minuscule worry less.

Gigantic ones remained.

"So the field hospital you were running was under constant shelling?"

"Night and day," Jack said, his eyes on the computer.  He was sitting
with Tory in his office, his concentration split between her questions
about his time in Bosnia and the virus modeling data on the screen.  A
discrepancy in the data was nagging him.  For two days he'd been holed
up with Youssef and Mandy, living on cafeteria sandwiches and caffeine,
refusing all calls but Tory's, trying to force the computer modeling to
reveal a route toward a treatment.

"Explosion every few minutes," he went on absently, shirting the mouse
to speed up the scrolling.

"Bullets through ward windows.  Part of the roof blown off."

"But you kept on operating, delivering babies, tending patients?"

"Sure."

"Thousands wouldn't," she said wryly, jotting a note.

He looked at her.  The negative response to the news that he'd
abandoned his daughter had been instant and vitriolic, even from the
woman's groups and environmental groups who'd been most favorable to
PGT, but Tory still kept slogging.

Yesterday she'd flown a video crew here for him to make a public
statement, and wrote his script herself, crafting it to be neither
groveling nor arrogant, and ending with a challenge to the government
to address the crisis at hand.

Jack had given it his best shot, but PGT's numbers had continued to
plummet.  With only eight days left.

If Rachel waited that long.

Watching Tory write, he could only think with a shudder:

She's at risk.  He couldn't conceive of Rachel jeopardizing her own
daughter by targeting Washington.  But she'd already done so much that
was inconceivable.  Laurel, too, was at risk.  Laurel, who wasn't
talking to him, taking none of his calls.

"So I guess, to you, this is nothing," she said.

"What?"

She nodded at the window where the faint chanting of the protesters
outside could be heard: "Hunt down Hunt!"

"Oh, them.  The police keep them in line now."  He barely noticed them
anymore.  Protesters were.  the least of his worries.

"Mandy," he shouted at the outer office, "did you check these numbers
on the bacteriophages?"

"Not since you added the data on the DNA sequencing," she called.

"Well, damn it, get on it!"

She shot back angrily, "Before or after I analyze the pro viral
integration into the chromosomal DNA?"

He clamped down his frustration.  No good yelling at Mandy.

"Keep at the analysis," he called back, "I'll check this myself."  As
he reached for a spreadsheet on his Uttered desk he told Tory, "That's
all the time I can give you.  Sorry.

You see how it is."

"Well, you've given me lots of ammunition."  She closed her notebook.

"Your One World Medics work is definitely our new focus.  This morning
we taped a testimonial from me organization's director in New York.  He
can't praise you enough.  And we got another from a Zambian immigrant,
a teacher, who swears you saved his life and thousands of others by
turning the tide of a cholera epidemic in his refugee camp.  The world
can't dismiss all the good you've done."

He looked at her skeptically.

"Whatever you say."

Packing away her notes, she shook her head in angry frustration.

"If we only had the Brazil video, or--" "Or?"

"Or Laurel.  Jack, won't you reconsider?"

He'd forbidden Tory to call her.  He was adamant about protecting
Laurel from a media feeding frenzy.  Already she was a virtual prisoner
at Swallow Point, under siege by hordes of journalists at the gates
intimidating her from returning to Boston as she wanted.

"Leave her out of it," he said.

"She's been through enough."

"A statement from her in your defense would mean so much."

"She's not interested in defending me."

"How do you know?  Camping here, you haven't seen her since mat scumbag
program aired.  It caught her off guard, that's all.  Now she's had a
couple of days to think.  If you'd just let me talk to her--" "Drop
it," he said, then immediately regretted his harshness.

"Tory, just leave her alone, please."

She slammed her briefcase shut.

"I can't stand by and watch them crucify you."

He couldn't help thinking how much he liked having her in his corner.
Colwell was a fool.

"Don't worry," he said, I'm still kicking."

Outside, the chanting swelled ominously.

"Hunt down Hunt!"  Tory flashed a murderous look at the window.

"Hastards."  She quickly pulled herself together.

"Well, I'd better go if I'm going to catch my flight."  She stood.

Tory," he said, getting up with her, "couldn't you run the campaign
from somewhere else?  Europe, maybe?  I mean, with all the technology
it's possible, isn't it?"

"Trying to get rid of me?"

At risk.

"Yes."

"Bit of a downer for troop morale though, don't you think?  Commander
sneaking off the battlefield?  Go on, get back to work.  I'm calling a
cab."  She reached for his phone.

"Your keys.  Doc."

"What?"  Jack turned.  Youssef stood in the doorway looking Tory up and
down.

"Keys."  He tapped his watch for Jack's benefit.

"Five o'clock, remember?  CDC?"

"Oh, right."  Jack had called the CDC to request fresh serum samples.
They were being hand-delivered to the airport and he'd asked Youssef to
take his car to pick them up.

He flipped back his lab coat to rummage in his pants pocket for the car
keys.

"Sure you're okay to leave?"  he asked as he tossed over the key chain.
Youssef was running a delicate experiment in level faw.

"Don't fret.  Doc.  I've got an A-3 cake in the oven but it'll be a
couple of hours before I can ice it."

Tory hung up.

"Jack, I'll call you from DC.  after the president's address."  She
started for the door.

"Tory, wait.  Cancel the cab.  Youssef's going to the airport.

He can drive you."

"Okay.  Thanks, Youssef."

Youssef eyed her appreciatively.

"Pleasure's mine."

Hands off, kid.  Jack almost said.  Instead, he grumbled to Tory as he
turned back to work, "Make sure he behaves himself."

As they left, Mandy excused herself to go to the washroom, and Jack,
alone, started scrolling through the data again from the top and
refocusing his thoughts.  The tasks he'd set for Youssef and Mandy and
himself were huge.

He'd directed their research on two fronts.  One was a bacteriophage
interference theory, but it depended on manipulating an intracellular
separation of the binary virus, a process that still eluded them.  The
second involved an attempt to circumvent the virus's ability to
replicate.  With retroviruses, this process was not infallible, and
"mistakes" sometimes led to inactive, dead virus.  He was trying to
find ways to boost those mistakes in A-3 by attacking its protective
structural proteins.

Both, he reminded himself, were only hypotheses.

He was jotting notes when an explosion rocked the room.

His pen scrawled wildly down the page, his head boomed, the window
rattled.  Grabbing the desk edge he knocked over a cup of cold coffee
that flooded his notes and splashed his thigh.

"Mandy, you okay?"  he yelled, then remembered she'd gone.

All was quiet again.  Whatever it was had lasted for just one
shattering moment.

Then he heard screams.  He rushed to the window and saw people running
toward the parking lot where his car was.

Youssef and Tory!

He tore down the stairs.  People were pouring out of offices and
filling the halls.  In the lobby the open glass doors reflected an
orange glow outside.  Jack ran out with the others.

Over people's heads he saw the top of the oak tree on fire at the
corner of the lot.  His parking spot was under that tree.  Through a
break in the people he saw his car.  His heart ballooned in him, then
seized.  The car was an orange ball of flame.

19

"jesus" THE HELICOPTER PILOT HISSED.  the EXPLOSION On the ground
forced him to veer, aborting his landing on the Lesage Laboratories
roof.  Beside him, Carson was craning down at the parking lot, while
behind him the Bangor agent yelled, despite the helmet mike, "What the
hell is that?"

They all stared at the billowing orange blaze.

The pilot was lifting the helicopter in a wide arc, moving away.

"No, down!  Over there!"  Carson ordered, pointing to a company lawn
across the street.  He grabbed the handheld radio.  He could see Bureau
cars racing down the Lesage driveway as scheduled, with Boston SAC Art
Strentz in the lead.  Maine was his territory and he was coordinating
this mission to apprehend Hunt.

"Strentz, what's happening?"

Carson yelled into the radio.

"Are you under fire?"

"Can't tell... stand by!"  Strentz's voice crackled over the radio, the
static not masking his alarm.  Though the importance of the mission
dictated they arrive in force, no one had anticipated serious
resistance, Carson least of all.  Christ, had he underestimated the
extent of Hunt's organization?

Strentz said, "Looks like a car bomb," and the Bangor agent in the rear
clamped Carson's shoulder and said, pointing down, "Demonstrators.
Might be their doing."  Carson could see them running around the blaze.
A bomb at the very moment of his arrival?

The pilot landed on the lawn across the street, and Carson jumped out,
yelling into the radio as he ran, "Strentz, talk to me!"

Over static: "... trouble breaking through the crowd..."

Carson raced across the street toward the Lesage parking lot Chaos.
Protesters and lab personnel swarmed the lot.

Victims of the bomb cried out above the shouting.  Local police
on-site, confused by the explosion and the sudden arrival of the
unmarked Bureau cars, made things worse as they tried to halt the
plainclothes federal agents as well as (he civilians.  Through the
crowd Carson glimpsed the blazing wreck, a tree beside it on fire.  He
pushed through toward Strentz, who stood by his car overseeing the FBI
team's frustrated advance, while also trying to assess the situation,
including the possibility of further attack.

Strentz yelled at several agents in succession, "How many fatalities?
Get some people to the roof.  Are the medics--" He stopped as Carson
reached him.

"It's Hunt's parking space," he reported, "and we're pretty sure it's
his vehicle."

Hunt dead?  Carson thought wildly, No!  He's mine.

"You sure he's in it?"  he demanded.

"Somebody is," Strentz said grimly.  He turned and yelled to an agent,
"Ray, clear these people out of here!"

"Sir," another agent called to Strentz.  He was leading forward a
uniformed, balding man, very agitated.

"This man's a Lesage security guard.  Says he saw Hunt after the
detonation."

Carson pushed through to the guard.

"You saw Jack Hunt out here?  After?"

"Yes, sir.  Running out of the building.  Running right in front of
me."

Carson tried to scan the area around the lab's front doors for Hunt,
but the crowd was too dense.  He turned back to the guard.  The man
wore glasses.  Thick lenses.

"You're positive it was Dr.  Hunt you saw?"

The guard scratched his head, confused.

"Looked like him."

Carson groaned.

"Strentz, get some people to--" "Sir!"  An agent was leading a young
Asian woman toward them.  She stumbled, looking over her shoulder in
horror at the blazing wreck.

"Mandy Chang," the agent reported.

Strentz quickly clarified to Carson, "Yale postdoctoral student, works
with Hunt.  We've been watching her."

"Miss Chang," Carson said, "we've got to know if Dr.

Hunt is in that car."

She couldn't tear her eyes from the fire.

"Youssef," she mumbled.

"Oh, God."

"Al-Saadawi?"  Strentz asked her.

"He's in the car?"

She nodded, stunned.

"Yes."

Strentz told Carson, "Youssef al-Saadawi, John Hopkins doctoral
candidate, also working with Hunt."

Carson said impatiently to the girl, "Did Dr.  Hunt get in the car with
him?"

"No."

"You're positive?"

She nodded shakily.

"Just Youssef and that woman."

"Woman?"

"From Washington.."

Tory.  Carson spun around to the fire, aghast.  No one could have
survived that.

* * * She was struggling to her feet, dazed, dizzy from the
explosion.

She'd stopped in the lobby to make a call.  Coming out and approaching
the car, she'd seen Youssef open the driver's door, then a giant fist
of energy slammed into her, her vision went black, and she'd found
herself on her back on the asphalt, gasping for breath.

She crooked her arm in front of her face to block the searing heat, and
squinted at the flames in honor.  Youssef!  She staggered forward to
look for him.  Smoke clogged her throat.  People were running around,
mouths open as though they were shouting, but she couldn't hear, not
anything--as if her skull were packed with wool.  Suddenly her legs
buckled and she fell to the pavement on her hands and knees, trembling,
disoriented.  She touched the top of her head.  A clump of her hair was
wet.  She lowered her hand: her palm glistened with blood.  Blood
dripped from her head onto the pavement.

Someone jerked her arm and it sprang up, weightless, like a puppet's
arm.  She twisted her head to look.  Jack, pulling her up from her
knees.  His distraught face was lurid in the orange glow.  His mouth
was moving, but she couldn't hear.

Throwing his arm around her waist, he flipped her on her back, catching
her head before it hit the ground, then picked her up and ran with her
in his arms.  She felt the heat diminish from the burning car, the
burning tree.

"No, Jack!"  She pointed back.

"Youssef."

He shouldered around people, reached the lawn, and set her down on me
grass.  She struggled to sit up.

"No!"  she cried, pointing.

"Youssef's--" He grabbed her hands, restraining her.  He was on his
knees beside her, frantically saying something.  She couldn't hear. She
clutched his lab coat.

"We've got to go back for him!"

Face creased in anguish, he looked at the car.  Tory saw it was only a
skeleton as flames consumed it.  She knew now what Jack was saying.
Youssef could not have survived.

"Oh, Jack!"  She threw her arms around him.  He held her so tightly she
felt the breaths ripping into his lungs, felt their hearts pounding
together.  He pulled her away and searched her face as if to assure
himself she was really alive.  He suddenly looked appalled, seeing the
blood on the side of her head--she felt its warmth dribbling through
her hair and into her ear.  She was about to tell him she couldn't
hear, when she glimpsed a form moving through the crowd.  Carson?

She blinked.  Gone.  Must have imagined him?

Jack's head jerked toward the lot as if he'd heard a shout.

Tory turned.  A man was crawling beneath the burning tree.

Jack ran toward him, but a flaming branch from the tree pitched down
and crashed onto the crawling man's legs, and his mouth stretched in a
scream.  Jack reached him and kicked the branch off, but the man's pant
leg was on fire.

Jack ripped off his lab coat to beat out the flames, then dragged the
man by his arms to the lawn beside Tory.

Again, through a break in the crowd, she saw Carson.

Only a glimpse, but no hallucination.  He was here.  She started to get
up.

"Jack.  Look."

He tried to restrain her, gesturing that she must sit down, but she
struggled to her feet.

"I can't hear you, but look!"

She pointed.

"It's Carson."  He was moving purposefully through the crowd,
searching, with two men at his side.  Fellow agents.

"Jack, he's come for you.  You've got to get out of here."

He shook his head, protesting, and gently placed his hands on either
side of her head to calm her, his face tight with worry about her.

Damn it, hadn't he seen Carson?

"Listen to me."  She grabbed his hands to stop him--to hang on to him.
She knew her words must be slurred because she couldn't even hear
herself.

"I know Carson.  He's suspected you from the start.  And I know how the
White House operates.  They're desperate.  They need an arrest and
you're it.  Look around, for God's sake.  Carson's brought a squad."

He still didn't believe her, just kept talking.  It was terrifying, the
impotence, the disorientation--deafness.  She was holding on to him for
balance, for strength, but she had to let go, had to get him away.  Out
of danger.

"Jack, please--" Red lights strobed over them.  An ambulance snaked
through the crowd.  Jack waved wildly to beckon it.

She wrenched his head back to face her.

"You can't let Carson take you.  If he locks you up I can't do anything
for you.  Look, if I'm wrong you won't have done anything illegal by
going, and PGT can carry on.  But if I'm right and he arrests you--if
you're their trophy--it will snap the last thread of hope for the
campaign.  You've got to run."

With a pained look he pointed at the building, talking frantically. She
couldn't hear a word, but she realized why he was still resisting. His
lab work.

"Jack, if they take you into custody, even without charges they can
keep you for days, weeks.  You can't do any good inside prison."  She
was pushing him away.

"Go!  Now!"

Carson shoved aside a police officer, trying to get to her.

Thank God, she was alive.  Two medics were lowering her onto a
stretcher on the grass.  They'd wound a bandage around her head, but a
wet stain of blood had already wept through, her clothes were
splattered with blood, and she looked as if she was in shock.  Or
worse?  Reaching her, he called, "Tory!"

She stared straight ahead as though nothing registered.

Concussion, he thought.  How bad was it?

"Move aside, sir," one of the medics said.

"Is she badly hurt?"

"Are you a relative?"

"She's my wife."

"Call the hospital later.  Now move aside, sir, please."

"Sir," an agent yelled, running to him.

"It's Hunt."  He pointed to the far edge of the parking lot.

Carson twisted around.  Hunt was running out of the lot But not toward
the street.

He looked back at Tory.  If her injuries were critical, how could he
leave?  But if I stay with her.  Hunt escapes.  He wouldn't entrust
this to Strentz's men--he had to take Hunt himself.  For a moment he
stood paralyzed.

"She's my wife," he'd just said.  Three weeks ago their family had been
intact But she had moved herself outside their family, beyond his
protection, and he no longer felt she was his wife, or any essential
part of his life.  He cared, of course--wanted her to live--but she'd
be in good hands at the hospital.  The truth was, he wanted Hunt
more.

He looked back.  Too late: he'd lost Hunt in the crowd.  But he'd seen
the direction he was going.

"Strentz!"  he called into his radio.

"Hunt may be headed back into the lab.

Have your people cover all exits and proceed as planned."

"Haven't got the manpower," Strentz replied.

"We're spread too thin with these casualties, plus deploying among the
demonstrators, because I can't assume this bomb is the last."

"Hunt's the priority!"  Carson yelled back.

"Get your--" He stopped.  The medics were lifting Tory on the
stretcher.

She was looking straight at him, her face white, eyes hard.  She knew.
Carson felt no remorse.  The chasm between them had become too wide to
bridge.  He didn't even want to.

As the medics carried her to the ambulance he lifted his radio and
broke into a run.

"Just get those exits covered!"  he told Strentz.

"I'm going in."

* * * Rachel stood staring at the flames rippling like liquid over the
hulk of the car.  Jack's parking spot.  Jack's car.  A horror like ice
tightened her spine.  Jack's dead.

Coming from home, her chauffeur had stopped at the entrance, and she'd
just stepped out when the explosion made her stagger on the spot.  Now,
in the chaotic swirl around her--people swarming, a fire truck pushing
through, an officer barking orders at a radio--she was the only still
point, frozen, her eyes on the burning car.

"Rachel!"  She turned and saw Carson running toward her.

From the corner of her eye she noticed a man walking quickly into the
building.  The movement caught her attention only because everyone else
was moving in the opposite direction.  It was Jack.

Carson grabbed her elbow and forced her to move along with him.

"Rachel, I need your help.  Hunt's headed into the lab.  I've got a
warrant for his arrest.  I can't explain now.  Just show me the layout
inside."

Jack tore down the ball, rage constricting his chest.  They killed
Youssef.

And almost killed Tory--her blood still streaked his hands.  He'd left
her with agonized reluctance, hardly believing her frantic warnings,
until he'd glimpsed Colwell himself.  For a moment, in fury, he'd
considered a confrontation.  The bastard had no evidence to hold him!
But Tory was right: You can't do anything from prison.

He'd felt his only hope of getting out was to go in; Colwell would have
blocked off the street He would position agents at all the lab's exits,
too, but there was a chance that the thick crowd would keep them from
reaching the rear of the east extension for a few minutes.  All the
lead Jack needed.

3He ran down the empty hall, hearing only his pounding footsteps and
his own breaths strident with rage.  They murdered Gerry.  Now they've
murdered Youssef.  And if Tory's concussion-A door swung open and a
young technician burst out.  Jack lurched around him.  The kid took off
in the opposite direction.

Jack ran on.

He was passing an open staircase when he heard voices ahead.
Colwell--with Rachel.  Sprinting up the steps to avoid them, he'd made
it only halfway when they reached the spot beneath him.  He stopped.
Any sound would make them look up.  Through the steps' open slats he
could see their heads.  He tried to hold back his sawing breaths.

"What about your special lab, level four?"  Colwell was asking her.

"Does he have keys?"

"Yes, but it has only one entrance.  If he went in he'd be trapped."

"Maybe he went for something in his office.  Where is it?"

"Second floor, west wing."

Jack's heart thudded.  Was she actually helping Colwell search?
Logical, he told himself.  His usefulness to the campaign was finished.
She could afford to sacrifice him.

Two agents reached Colwell, their radios crackling.  One reported,
"Sir, we have the west and north exits sealed."

Rachel said, "Carson, I must see about the people hurt outside.  It's
my responsibility.  Jack's office is 2D, that way.

If he's anywhere inside he can't get away."  She left.

"You're with me," Colwell ordered the two agents.  They took off down
the hall.

Jack scrambled down the stairs and ran onto the east extension and
reached Rachel's door.  Crossing her office, he realized he was
horribly exposed: two whole walls were glass.  But her rear door led to
the steel staircase he'd seen her climbing that first day he'd
arrived.  She'd been returning from the ravine.  The ravine was what
he'd come for.

At the glass wall he scanned the grassy area below.  No one in sight.
The wooded ravine lay just a long stone's throw away.  He knew he had
only moments before Colwell's men outside made it around to this
private exit.  Then he would be trapped.

He checked the door handle.  Not locked.  He pushed it open.

"I thought you might try this."

He twisted back.  Rachel stood in the doorway to the hall.

Was ColweU right behind her?

She hurried to her desk, snatched a scrap of paper and a pen, and
scribbled something.

"He's come to arrest you."

Moving to him, she staffed the paper in his shirt pocket.

"Go."

He bolted down the steel staircase.  In thirty seconds he was inside
the woods.

He couldn't help leaving deep tracks in the spongy ground.  He
struggled through the thick trees, descending over uneven ground down
to a stream, and splashed into the water.  Keeping to the gravel edge
where the water was ankle deep, he ran along the stream.  He had no
idea where it led-his only thought was to put distance between himself
and the FBI.  When he judged the stream was shallow enough, he waded
across it and left it by the opposite bank, wet to his thighs.

He started up me opposite slope of the ravine.  Soon his mud-caked
shoes were heavy clubs.  Near the top of the slope he lost his footing
and fell, his knee hitting a sharp rock.  Pain flared up his leg.  He
labored onto the summit, then struck out through dense bush, his knee
throbbing.

He saw more sky through the branches, and heard traffic:

a road was near.  Breathing hard, he looked over his shoulder.

Colwell's men wouldn't be far behind.

One gear of his mind was still locked on Rachel: What had she written?
He pulled the paper from his pocket and read it.  His fist closed
around it.

Have to get out of here.

He pushed on toward the sounds of the road, through a stretch of
brambles, thorns catching at his muddy pants.  The brambles gave way to
unkempt grass at the verge of the road.  A sixteen-wheeler roared by,
belching diesel exhaust.

He paused for breath, and to think.  Can't get far on fooL Hitchhike?
No, police bulletins out soon.  My face is too well known.  Got to find
a vehicle.

A police cruiser sped by, siren screaming.  He bent over as if
collecting beer empties in the grass.  The siren faded.

He looked across the road and saw a Sipco gas station and a strip mail
with a half-dozen shabby stores, including a corner 7-Eleven.  A lone
pickup truck, its cab in shadow, was parked in front of (he 7-Eleven.
Oily exhaust drifted from the tailpipe... It's running.

He waited for a break in the traffic and crossed the asphalt toward the
truck--then noticed the driver in the cab studying a newspaper.  Damn.
He turned to the gas station instead.  No cars there at all, but inside
the cashier's booth a middle-aged man and woman wearing matching blue
windbreakers stood poring over a map with the teenage attendant.
Outside sat their vehicles: identical gleaming blue Honda Goldwing
motorcycles.  On the seat of one lay a silver full-face helmet Jack
judged by me helmet's size it was the man's.  He approached the bike.
No key in the ignition.  The guy must have taken it with him into the
booth.  He looked back across the road, expecting through every break
in the traffic to see federal agents streaming out of the bush.  Two
more wailing cruisers raced by, beading toward the lab.

Then he saw, on the other bike, a blue Pisces decal dangling on a key
chain from the ignition.

He glanced back at the booth.  The man was engrossed in talking to the
attendant, apparently arguing over directions, each pointing a
different way.  The woman was busy applying lipstick, stretching her
lips before the booth's darkened glass.  None of them noticed Jack as
he slid the helmet off the man's seat, stepped back to the other bike,
and straddled it.  He jammed the helmet on his head, twisted the key,
punched the starter, and pulled out into the traffic.

20

the SUN WAS SETTING WTTH ORANGE-GOLD BRILLIANCE behind the small town
of Ryeport as Jack turned the Goldwing onto the quiet main street. He'd
been riding fast for hours; in town now he'd slowed, going as
unobtrusively as possible.

Still, the expensive motorcycle turned heads.  A woman outside the
Laundromat, stuffing a garbage bag of clothes into a station wagon,
looked at him and frowned.  A little boy leaving the drugstore with a
Popsicle stared at the mysterious, helmeted head.  Two teenagers
lounging at the Shell station eyed the bike covetously.

Leaving town.  Jack passed a few straggling outskirts businesses--a
used car lot, a peeling clapboard motel, a deserted roadside fruit
stand--and pulled into a lonely self-serve station where he filled up
and checked the road map.

Only about ten miles to go.

The station had a small general store where he picke bread and cheese,
bottled water, a flashlight, a matches.  At the last moment he grabbed
a swe ured he'd be sleeping rough.  He paid with cash, didn't stop to
talk to the chatty young woman at the register, crammed the stuff in
the bike's saddlebag, and drove off.

Back on the highway again, the going was smooth.  The hours of
riding--the wind, the speed--suffused him with a raw energy that was
both bracing and soothing.  Sheer momentum.

He was on the move, alone, all complicating options left behind, all
baggage of remorse cast off.  The mind-set felt familiar.  How many
third-world roads had he barreled along, concentration grimly but
calmly focused on potholes, mines, and snipers, and the simple, urgent
goal of reaching the next village where suffering people were counting
on him?  Even more familiar was the absence of fear.  A sense that over
the years, he'd faced--and fought through-worse.  Now, people were
depending on him as never before.

Maybe the whole world.  So, was this self-assurance an illusion?

He was being hunted.  His chances were slim.  The stakes were
immeasurable.  Yet, at this moment, on the move, stripped to nothing
but the creed that had defined him for a decade, he felt on solid,
self-chosen ground.

After a few miles, following a sign, he turned off on a dirt road that
skirted a woods.  He slowed, scanning the edge of the trees.  The cover
was thick.  He hated to part with the bike, but it made him too easy to
track, and this was a good place to ditch it He gunned it into the
woods.  He couldn't get far in the dense underbrush; when the tires
spun in the loam he stopped and turned off the engine.  Silence, except
for a woodpecker madly drilling deep inside the woods.

With some effort he pushed the big machine over and set to cutting pine
branches, covering the bike with them, then throwing dead leaves and
dirt on top.  After fifteen minutes he'd only managed to bury
two-thirds of the gleaming metal, but at least what wasn't covered was
dulled by the film of debris.  It would have to do.  He had to get
moving.

He didn't know the country--wasn't sure how far he'd have to walk--and
the sun would soon be gone.

Grabbing his bag of provisions, he headed back to the dirt road.  As he
stepped out of the woods he heard the who mp of helicopter rotors and
ducked back under the foliage canopy.

Had they tracked him so fast?  He listened, his heartbeat thumping like
the rotors.  As the overhead sound faded he decided that they hadn't
spotted him.  He started quickly down the road, constantly checking the
sky.

After about half a mile the road curved around a wooded hill.  He could
make out a large house sitting alone at the top above a thick collar of
pines.  He was startled to see, through a huge picture window, a fire
blazing, orange flames leaping out of control, a form writhing in the
flames--Youssef.

The hallucination lasted only a heartbeat: the blaze was just the
orange sunset reflected in the glass.  For one wild moment he hoped
Youssef's death itself might be just a delusion.  No such luck, of
course; and no such balm for his sorrow.

The mirage of the fire persisted.  He realized it was because the rest
of the house lay in darkness, with no other light as a reference.

The helicopter sounded again in the distance.  Coming back?  He
couldn't risk staying in the open any longer.  He decided to try the
house: no lights on probably meant no one was home.  Besides, it was
near where he needed to be.

Walking quickly up the gravel drive, he saw this was a home on a grand
scale.  Or had been, once.  His hallucination hadn't been completely
unfounded: fire had ravaged the place, though some time ago.  Must have
been some millionaire's fantasy retreat, he thought The sweeping facade
of marble and steel was an arrogant snub to the humble landscape of
scrub pine and rock.  Now, though, it was just a scarred hulk, its
doors and shattered windows boarded up with plywood, a section of the
roof caved in, the lawn a tangle of weeds.  He found a side door where
porcupines had eaten away a corner of the plywood panel; he wrenched
off the rest and went in.

The cavernous, charred living room was barren of furniture, and
squirrel droppings littered the ivory broadloom.  A huge painting took
up half a wall: a nude walking into the sea, her back to the artist,
raven hair swinging between white shoulder blades.  Jack thought of
Tory, deafened by the bomb, blood dribbling through her hair.  How he'd
longed to hold her, stay with her.  He turned away from the painting.

No room for worry about her condition.  The ER staff would do all they
could.  Out of his hands.

He walked briskly through to the back and came out on a deck
overlooking the ocean.  Adjoining it was a squat round tower, its door
hanging on one hinge.  Inside, Jack went up three broad steps to a
marble platform.  He saw that the whole tower was a lavish hot tub
room, its circular walls and domed ceiling brilliant with turquoise
ceramic tiles, though the drained tub was just a hole.  There had once
been a curved picture window, but it too was a gaping hole; its glass
lay in shards in the tub's cracked bottom and over the surrounding
floor.  Bird dung streaked a section of the turquoise walls, and a nest
bristled in the crook of a mahogany beam.

Jack walked to the window hole, shoes crunching on the glass, and
looked out on the cove below.  The tower made a good observation post,
just as he'd hoped.  He glanced again at the darkening sky for
helicopters.  Nothing.  His eyes swept the expanse of water.  Nothing.
His ear strained to hear racing FBI cars crunching up the gravel drive
behind him.

Only silence.  But he knew they were up there, out there, all around.
It was only a matter of time.

He'd taken his stand.

He set down his bag of provisions.  He still had many hours to wait.

At eight the next morning Tory scanned the bleary group slumped around
her conference-room table, and thought everyone looked as beat-up as
she felt.  Her head still throbbed from the wound sutured with staples
last night in the Bar HarborER  Attractive, the shaved spot with those
staples: Bride of Frankenstein.  At least, thank God, her hearing had
returned--although she would almost have preferred deafness, given the
two-hour grilling by FBI agents she'd endured at the hospital. They'd
only let her go when they seemed convinced she didn't know where Jack
was, which was true--a worry that had hovered in her mind all night,
above a heavy lingering sadness about Youssef.  The uneasy sleep she'd
finally snatched on the dawn flight back to Washington had brought
little relief.

"All right, any other thoughts?"  she asked the group.

There'd been precious few in the last twelve hours.  Her staff had been
stunned last night by the attorney general's televised declaration that
Jack was wanted by the FBI in connection with Artemis.  Their shock,
she'd told herself, had been natural: every one of them had been
through political campaigns where, at one crushing blow to their
candidate, all had been lost.  But they'd been through just as many
where they'd rallied by the next press deadline, and turned catastrophe
into victory.  The roller-coaster ride was part of the all-midway
ticket.  The outcome here was infinitely more significant, of
course--but all the more reason, it was clear to Tory, to blast away
with all the firepower of their experience.

For most of this campaign, they had.  No, what was unnatural, what was
worrying her now--and beginning to make her angry--was that twelve
hours later they were still in shock.  Noah had been standing at the
window for fifteen minutes, hands in his pockets, looking out.  Her
pollster, Henry D'Aquila, sat obsessively picking invisible lint from
his sleeve.  Others just stared ahead blankly.  Tory had been doing all
the talking.  No one had answered her last question.

She thought in exasperation: What if they simply don't move?

"Then I'm going with the harassment concept," she said brusquely.

"Persecution of an innocent man.  White House using the FBI hammer to
silence a dissenting voice.  Eric, line up the VidVox people for a
production meeting.

Where's Vince?"  As Eric trudged out she turned to her communications
director.

"Janice, let's get this persecution angle out to the friendly media
first."

"Sure, all two of them," someone muttered in despair.

"Almost impossible to play," Janice agreed shakily.

"Tory, this spin is hopeless," her field coordinator, Fletcher Brown,
said.

She counted to five to master her irritation, then said, "That's a word
I don't use."

"For God's sake," he yelled, slamming his palms on (he table, "the
FBI's calling him Public Enemy Number One!"

Tory was taken aback by his aggression.  Until this moment, Fletcher
had been the quietest.

"That's just to deflect the focus from McAuliffe," she said.  She'd
already explained this White House tactic.  Why couldn't they grasp
it?

"Don't you see?  His desertion has made them desperate."

"And we're not?"  he shot back.

His wrath surprised her.  Flustered, she dug in her pocket for the
painkillers from the ER nurse and popped back two with a mouthful of
lukewarm tea.  She needed them, but she also needed the cover.  The
best policy was to ignore Fleteher's comment.  She couldn't let these
dramatics get out of hand.  She hadn't lost sight of the stakes here,
even if they had.  The fate of millions--maybe of humanity
itself--depended on the fragile hope that this campaign would
succeed.

Fragile, but still very real; her every instinct, her every reading of
the public pulse, told her that.  Clear thinking was needed now as
never before.  She turned to her pollster.

"Henry, how soon can you get me some numbers?"

Wearily, he pushed his glasses to the top of his head and massaged the
inner corners of his eyes.

"Which focus?  Stifling dissent or persecution?"

"Persecution.  Innocent man hounded."

He shrugged, exhausted.

"Maybe some preliminaries by tonight."

"Get on it," she said.

"Noah, I'll need a statement prepared within an hour."

Noah, at the window, didn't turn.

"Is he?"  he asked.

"What?"

"Innocent."

She felt the eyes of the others slide to her, and felt dread hovering
like a raptor.  Her mouth went dry.  In the silence, a phone in the
reception area bleated over and over.  Someone finally answered it.

Noah turned.

"Where's he hiding, Tory?"

She made herself swallow.

"I don't know."

"He hasn't even contacted you, has he."  It was a statement, not a
question.

She pretended to look at her notes.

"Where the hell is Vince?"

"Time to face facts," Noah said.

"Hunt's been using us."

Tory shuddered.  Two weeks ago Carson had said the same thing.  She'd
rejected it wholesale, blocked it out.  Now she had to face the
horrible thought.  Was Jack part of Artemis?

Amazingly, the moment she met the threat eye-to-eye, it dissolved.  The
Jack she had come to know--know almost as intimately as a lover--could
never be part of such a thing.

She said to Noah firmly, "That's not true."

"Damn it, Tory, he ran.  If he's not guilty why did he run?"

"I told him to!  And I'm telling you, Noah, this isn't a campaign you
can just bow out of because you're not comfortable with the candidate's
position.  None of us can.  This matters."

"You're flicking right it matters!"  Pletcher burst out.

"Jesus, Tory, I've got a wife and daughter here in DC.  and a mother
and sister in Minneapolis.  Artemis could target either place.  Any
place.  Jack Hunt's nothing.  You've hung this whole campaign on him
and it was a rotten decision.  You want to talk about persecution? Fuck
Jack Hunt, let's talk about the thousands of innocent women who are
going to die.  The millions.  That's persecution!"

Stunned, Tory was groping for a response when Eric rushed back in
looking stricken, holding up a photograph.

"This was just couriered from Dallas," he said.

"Ken says it's happening all over the South."  The photo showed a PGT
billboard of Jack, his face spray-painted over with huge red letters:
killer!

"I called VidVox," he added shakily.

"They say they won't work with us anymore."

"Christ," Reteher moaned, "it's hopeless.  The FBI's got an army
looking for Hunt They'll get him.  The campaign's finished.  Without it
the White House won't negotiate.  Hopeless.

Christ, a plague."

Janice burst into tears.

"I can't take this!"

"Stop it.  Everybody," Tory said.

"We've got--" "No, you stop," Noah told her.

"You've completely lost sight of the real campaign here.  It's not
about Hunt!  We should have changed tack the minute we heard about what
he did to his family, but you're so smitten with him you can't see
he's--" "That's enough!"

"Yeah," he said coldly, "I guess it is.  I've had it, Tory.  I'm out
of here.  And I'm going to try to get my family out of me country, too,
while there's still time."

Alone in her office she shut the door, then had to lean against it to
collect herself.  She'd pulled the rest of them together after Noah had
stalked out, but only by demanding assignments to keep them frantically
busy.  How long could she keep their panic at bay?  How many more would
desert with Noah?

The only hope is to show them we're not dead.  Show everyone.  There
was still one person who could do that.  She grabbed the phone and
called Swallow Point.

"Doris, I need to talk to Laurel."

When Laurel came on the line she sounded as though she'd been crying.
She's heard from Jack, Tory thought, hope and worry colliding.  She
longed to ask, but she had to assume that Carson had tapped the Swallow
Point phones, so she said quickly, "Laurel, if you've heard from him,
don't say anything, just--" "I haven't," Laurel snapped, "and I hope I
don't.  Ever again."  She sounded about twelve years old, Tory thought,
and very hurt.  Was she still nursing her private wounds, even in this
crisis?  Incredible.

"Why can't everybody just leave me alone?"  Laurel complained.

"You're as bad as the FBI.

"Any secret place he might have spoken about?"  Like I told them, he
doesn't tell me his secrets.  Only lies."

Oh, please, Tory thought, gritting her teeth.  Wasn't anyone going to
stand up for Jack?  Mustn't upset her, though;

got to get her on our side.  Try a different tack.

"I'm sorry about the FBI.  Have they been harassing you?"

"They still are.  Crawling all over the place."

Tory thought of Chris, glad for the first time that he wasn't there any
longer, with armed agents now in the house.  The realization made her
feel slightly sick.  Had Carson been justified in taking him away?

No.  If the house had become dangerous for a child, that was Carson's
doing.  Chris had never been in danger from Jack.

"Laurel," she said firmly, "I need your help.  To make a public
testimonial in Jack's defense.  It could make all the difference to
what we're doing here.  And to Jack.  I know it's asking a lot, that
you've been through a lot.  But, well, you hurt him too, and--" "I hurt
himf What about what he did to me?"

This was too much.

"What's he ever done but take care of you and give you everything you
want and love you unconditionally?

What more should he do?"

"How about telling the truth!  It took my grandmother to do that!"

"Oh?  And where's she been all these years?  Sounds to me like she
didn't knock herself out to find your mother, or even to contact you
after the killings.  Am I right?  Did she ever visit you?  Call you?
Even write to you?"

Frosty silence.  Then: "No.  I never saw her in my life till that
program."

"But since Jack found you he's always been there for you.

He's done everything for you a loving parent could, and he's done it
all alone.  Laurel, you must not hurt the people who love you.  It's
the only sin there is."

"He hurt people.  He treated my mother like shit.  He lied to me!  He
let me go on believing those deaths were my fault.

He's evil" "That's a very stupid thing to say."

"Yeah, well, I'm a stupid kid, right?  Isn't that what you all think of
me?"

"I think you're immature and self-centered, but for some reason Jack
loves you.  Now, when he most needs your support, you desert him? It's
time you took some responsibility for your own life and recognize how
much you owe him."

"God, you're a witch," Laurel sputtered.

"No wonder your husband left you!"  She slammed down the phone.

Tory realized her hand was trembling.  What the hell am I doing,
haranguing a mixed-up adolescent?  How is that going to save this
campaign?  For years she'd cautioned her staff: "It's not personal,
it's politics."  The stakes here went horrifically beyond politics, yet
she couldn't seem to move past the personal--Jack.  Noah's accusation
still echoed.

"You're smitten."  God help me, she thought, closing her eyes, it's
true.  The world's crashing down around me, and I'm falling in love
with the man who's pulled it all down.

By seven that evening the bread and cheese were gone and he was
rationing the water.  He sat cross-legged in me hot tub tower,
rearranging shards of glass on the marble floor.

He hadn't been outside all day.  Last night he'd slept in the charred
living room, his sleep fitful on the musty carpet as he listened to
mice scrabbling in the walls.  About midday he'd heard rotors again,
and the bone-tingling vibrations told him me helicopter was passing
directing overhead.

It was almost time.  He was waiting.  And working.

He'd had to pick the spot by the wall carefully because shattered glass
lay everywhere.  He'd found a use for the glass.  He had lined up the
shards as proxy molecules, each one selected for a resemblance to a
specific molecular shape.  He'd been working with them for hours.

He had blanked out all other thoughts.  About Tory, maybe lying right
now beneath a neurosurgeon's knife.  About the death blow he had
delivered her campaign.  About Colwell tracking him.  About whether
Rachel would stick to the deadline.  All these horrors he refused to
examine.  Marisa, Gerry, Youssef--he allowed none of those pitiful
specters to intrude.  Not even the hated image of Rachel herself.  He
had no idea how much time he had before the FBI would find him.  He
focused his mind on the work, because his mind was all he had.

Over and over he'd been realigning the shards in various
configurations, trying to put himself inside the micro-universe of
Rachel's viral creation.  To overcome it, he needed to enter its
world.

The setting sun turned bloody as he worked.  Moving the glass around,
he conjured up the visuals of Mandy's computer modeling, pondered the
essence of endogenous retroviruses, pictured the sequence of viral DNA
reproduction.

Molecular weight of the retrovirus envelope: 160,000;

glycoprotein 160.

Matrix proteins.

Macrophage tropism.

Data and formulae stretched into thin abstractions of energy that
flitted through his mind like the bats darting outside in the dusk.
Insubstantial, but real.

Something--some answer--felt close, just beyond the reach of his
mind.

Daylight faded as he stared out the window hole, waiting for the last
of the light to die, and thinking ... thinking.

"Persecution of an innocent man, it's all I ask!"  Tory slammed down a
badly written press release draft.

"Come on, people, this isn't rocket science!"

Henry, her pollster, glared at her, one of the remaining few of her
team spread thinly around the conference table.

Tory knew she was bluffing with this indignant act, bluffing herself,
unwilling to face the fact that everything was falling apart.  Janice
and Fletcher had quit around noon, and two more hadn't showed up for
this late meeting.  Tory and the four who remained were trying to
juggle video, print, and radio themselves--and Tory had her doubts
about the pollster.

And where the hell was Vince?

"Damn it," she said, snatching the draft, "I'll edit it myself."

"Excuse me," Marcia interrupted from the door, "there's someone here
to--" "Who is it?"  Tory snapped.

"Laurel Hunt."

The moment they were alone in her office Tory almost pounced with,
"You've heard from him?"

Laurel shook her head.  Tory slumped in disappointment.

Her back ached, her head throbbed, and her whole body longed to sink
into the sofa, curl up, sleep.

"Then what is it?"  she said, more harshly than she'd intended.  She
had no time for more tantrums.

Laurel looked uncertain.  Tory crossed her arms, impatient, waiting. In
the hole of silence between them, the evening traffic on K Street was a
faint, disinterested roar.

"That car bomb," Laurel said hesitantly.

"I still can't believe it.  Youssef took me out to dinner once."  She
added with a sad smile, "Quite a little operator."  The smile
vanished.

"He didn't deserve to die."

Did anyone ever deserve to die?  Tory wondered bitterly.

The millions threatened by Artemis?  Despair was claiming its perch,
hunkering down on her shoulders.  She'd been trying to maintain the
strength to shake it off, and the last thing she needed was the extra
weight of Laurel's angst.

"Listen, Laurel, I'm very busy.  Was there something you came for?"

A struggle was going on in Laurel's eyes.

"Funny," she said quietly, "how a person gets mad when they're really
just scared to death.  Me, that is.  I don't mean about Artemis.

That's out of my control.  I mean, scared about myself.  I think maybe
I've always known, deep down, the truth about what my mother did.  And
always been terrified that"--her voice wavered, thin as a
child's--"that sooner or later I'd become just like her."  Tears
welled.  She looked down in shame.

Tory's anger melted.  Life goes on, she thought, struck by the paradox
Laurel personified: a girl trying to get her own life straight even as
catastrophe loomed.  Self-centered ness is at the core of everything
people have screwed up on our benighted planet, Tory thought, yet this
self-engrossed struggle of Laurel's--to change oneself, to rise
above--is exactly the human spirit that's worth fighting to preserve.

She came to Laurel and cupped her chin and lifted her head.

"You're not your mother," she said gently.

"You've just proved that by facing your demons.  But," she added,
"there's a lot of Jack in you."

Laurel smiled through her tears.

"Thank you," she whispered.

She looked down at the desk where press photos of Jack were scattered,
and fingered one.

"He's been working so hard.  Your campaign, the lab.  Now he's on the
run, all alone--and I've been such a bitch."

She looked Tory in the eye and said suddenly, decisively, "I came to
help him.  What do you want me to do2"

"Scrap the persecution angle," Tory announced, striding back into the
conference room with Jack's photo.  She'd never felt so energized.
Laurel was right behind her.

"We're going to show Jack Hunt for what he is.  A hero.  A leader.

The only one brave enough to act.  His granddaughter is going to tell
that to the nation."

They looked at her, dazed.

Tory suffered a flicker of doubt.  Was it too late to turn them around?
She met Laurel's smiling eyes, and confidence surged back.  I'll bring
in a whole new team if I have to, she thought.  Mercenaries, if that's
what it takes.  I will get this done.

"Rod and Eric," she plowed on, "you come with Laurel and me into the
studio.  To hell with VidVox, we'll tape her statement ourselves, right
now.  We'll work on the script while we set up.  Magda, go find that
guy Jack saved from the fire in the lab parking lot.  He's likely still
in the hospital.

Take a camera and get a testimonial.  I'll tape one too, about how Jack
rescued me.  Don, pull the best file pictures from One World Medics
showing Jack saving lives abroad.

Of kids, if you can.  We're going to give the public a good look at the
man the FBI wants to throw in prison."

A couple of her people sat up straighter, but everyone still looked
hesitant.  Tory realized she'd blasted ahead too fast She had to slow
down, let them catch up, let them feel me hope, the urgency, the
necessity, of her plan.

"Listen to me," she said, "we're not talking about winning or losing
anymore, we're talking about survival.  That's why this campaign is
about Jack.  Artemis is poised to attack."

She grabbed a front page Times photo of President Lowell and held it up
to them.

"The president is willing to take acceptable losses."  She held up
Jack's photo beside it.

"Jack Hunt isn't.  Ask yourself.  Which man will you follow?"

She didn't wait for an answer.

"On your feet, everybody," she commanded as she walked out.

"And somebody find Vmce."

A far-off splash.  Jack straightened with a jolt.  It was dark.  He'd
barely noticed the loss of light, so lost in his thoughts, chasing
formulae, drifting with data.

He depressed the light dial on his watch.  Not yet ten.

Frustrated by the interruption, he went to the window and strained to
see what lay out in the darkness.  The cove was a black desert.  Above,
no stars, just a sliver of moon.  His mind was tugged back to the black
hole of his thinking.  That nagging something felt so near--a core of
light, masked, lurking, as though at the far end of a wormhole, its
attainment just beyond his grasp.  He felt if he could just stop
pushing, just float, let his mind go on ahead... Then he saw it.  A
low, lone star slowly moving through the watery desert, coming directly
toward him.

A masthead light.

He swiftly gathered the garbage of food wrappers and water bottles,
crammed them into the bag they'd come in, then yanked on the
sweatshirt.  Grabbing the bag, he glanced around to make sure he'd
collected everything he'd come with.  No one would know he had been
here.

He scrambled down the slope, virtually blind in the darkness.

Couldn't risk using the flashlight in the open.  When he reached the
cove's sandy shore he could no longer see the masthead light.  He
stared out at the black void.  Lapping water probed his feet.  Frogs
chorused.  Had he only imagined the light?

He cursed the false alarm for severing the thread of his thinking. He'd
felt so close.

His eyes caught a pinprick of yellow.  This new light, smaller, lower,
was bobbing over the water toward him, as though the moving star before
dying had spawned a tiny offspring.

He signaled three times with the flashlight--all he could risk.

Minutes later the inflatable dinghy with its small yellow light on the
gunwale whispered onto the wet sand near him.

Rachel switched off the light.

"Get in."

He tossed the bag aboard and hopped over the gunwale.

"I'll take the oars, he said.

Rachel made room.  Jack rowed.  Yesterday, he'd burned her note:
Kingfisher Cove, seven miles south of Ryeport, 22:00 hours tomorrow.
Meet me.  If the FBI caught him, he couldn't have them find this
message from Rachel on him.

She guided him out through the darkness; she knew where the cove's
rocks were.  They reached her boat and climbed aboard.  Jack hauled up
the anchor as Rachel took the helm.  Within minutes they were leaving
the cove under sail.  The wind was rising.

21

"A private airstrip cut into the bush?"  Carson suggested, standing at
the wall map.

"FAA says there's nothing in a thirty-mile radius."

"Helicopter?"

"Unlikely.  It's all backwoods where he was headed.  If one met him in
a populated area, we'd have heard."

"Well, we haven't heard anything about the damn motorcycle for
twenty-eight hours either.  Question is, what does that mean!  Carson
immediately regretted raising has voice to Stan Kendrew, his deputy. At
least no one else noticed, given the din in me command center.  It was
almost midnight.

An agent nearby was irritably demanding clarification on stats from a
red-eyed researcher.  Phones were ringing.

Someone slammed shut a filing drawer.  The smell of burned coffee
lingered in the air.

"He's got to have been picked up," Carson insisted, eyes again on me
map.

"You sure the people at Machias are on top of this?"  He jabbed the
spot indicating the Machias municipal airport fifty miles west of Bar
Harbor.

"We've had guys crawling over it since dawn.  All roadblocks are
operational."

"Dawn, hell, the witnesses saw him pass the Ryeport Laundromat at
seven-fifteen last night, and Machias is just another twenty miles.  He
could be having breakfast in Baghdad by now."

"Or he could still be out there right under our noses," Kendrew shot
back.

"Look, the Choppers'll be up again at first light.  We can't assume
we've lost him."

"I'm not assuming anything.  Keep your guys looking, sure, but think
about what Hunt is doing."

"Keeping his head down, if he's gone to ground."

"He isn't a man to sit and wait."

"Unless he had orders to."

"That's not how we've seen him operate.  He has to be doing."

"Well, shit, he only has to sit tight for six days.  Less, if Artemis
shoots before the deadline."

Carson didn't miss the desperation in Kendrew's voice, but his own
concentration was already elsewhere.  On Rachel.  He was thinking of
her deduction that Artemis, like the Russians' Biopreparat operation,
might comprise only a handful of individuals.  Conceivably, just one.

Of course, that was just from a scientist's point of view;

she'd been thinking of the virus.  At the time, Carson had felt that
the sophisticated organization of Artemis's attacks required a network.
Yet in three weeks he hadn't uncovered a single link to it, not even an
informer.  A multitude of crank calls aside, not one authenticated
individual had come forward spurred by remorse, or fear, or even greed
for a reward.

Artemis's network was either the best trained army in history, or
nonexistent.

So now he was thinking.  What if Hunt alone is Artemis?

If so, he'd have to be operational to release the virus by the
deadline.  Strentz's people had established, as nearly as they could,
that Hunt had escaped from the lab with nothing, not even a cell phone,
so to activate the release he'd have to get somewhere.  Carson turned
back to the map.  Three weeks ago he'd considered Hunt only an
opportunistic mouthpiece of the terrorists.  Then, almost immediately,
as one of their operatives.  Recently, as one of their leaders.  Now,
the sole leader?

"He isn't in hiding," he said to Kendrew.

"He's on the move."  On the map he ran his ringer along the coastline
around Ryeport.  For miles it was raggedly indented with bays and coves
and inlets.  Literally hundreds of them.  And each one led to the open
sea.

There was only one answer.  A boat.

Jack saw a jagged pine horizon burst out of the night off their port
bow.  As Rachel quickly tacked.  Jack winched in the jib sheet, and the
island's rocky coast slipped past, a mere two boat-lengths from their
hull.  Minutes later, to resume their course, they had to tack again.
For a nerve-wracking hour they'd been beating into me wind this way,
zigzagging toward open water.  He knew Rachel's whole concentration was
on navigating through the maze of small islands, with only a slice of
moon to light their way, and the strain showed on her face.  Jack, too,
when he wasn't grinding the winch after their tacks, was peering out
for rock hazards.

They had barely spoken, except, as soon as they'd left Kingfisher Cove,
he'd anxiously asked, "How's Tory?"

"She's fine, back at work."

Thank God, he thought.

"Keep a lookout.  Jack.  Other boats can't see us to avoid us."  With
the running lights off, they were ghosting through the night.

Finally they cleared the bay and headed south, and Rachel bore off onto
a swift beam reach.  Jack could almost feel the boat settle into a
groove, black water combing past the leeward deck.  Despite the
darkness, he could sense the wider sea room, too.  It felt good to be
moving fast and free again after his night and day huddled in the
burned house.  But he reminded himself that both the speed and me
freedom were illusions.

"Where are we going?"  he asked warily.

"Home."

Home?

"They'll be looking for me there."

"They already have.  They're still there.  If we can maintain this
speed and make it back before dawn, I'll put you ashore in the dark at
our point.  You can hide in the beach house.  They checked it once.  I
doubt they will again."

Hide.  The thought galled him.  Is she shutting me down, or protecting
me?  Why bother?  With the campaign in its death throes, why not let
them capture me?  She knows I can't betray her.

She seemed to read his face.

"I don't believe you'd talk willingly, but they do have sodium
pentathol."

Drugs to elicit truth.  A sobering thought.

"Besides," Rachel added, "it's important to me you remain available to
communicate with Tory.  You may still have some small influence with
the public.  There's still a chance, however slight..."  Her voice
drifted, and Jack thought: She knows it's hopeless.

"If I'm wrong," she said flatly, "I'm prepared to accept the
alternative."

Jesus.  Release of the virus.

"You can contact Tory from the beach house," she went on as if they
were merely talking business.

"Not by phone, of course--I'm sure our lines are tapped.  But there's
email.

My company Internet domain name covers thousands of employees'
computers at my labs here and abroad.  It would be virtually impossible
for the FBI to trace a message sent from me beach house computer."

"What about you?  If they're at the house didn't they see you sail
away?"

"They saw me sail to the lab.  I told my assistant I'd be busy with an
experiment all night and wasn't to be disturbed.

After I drop you off I'll sail back, then use the ravine to get back
inside."

As if she'd never left, he thought Very neat.  She'll be free to act;
I'll be a prisoner in the beach house.  What can I do from there?

Christ, what had he expected?  A flight to Paris on her jet and free
use of the Pasteur Institute?  Obviously me FBI would have the roads
and airports covered.  He looked up at the Milky Way glittering coldly
above, and suddenly felt like the desperate fugitive he was. Powerless.
His fate in her hands.  The deaths of innocent friends in his wake. 
The deaths of millions looming.

The black night seemed to blot him out, make his irrelevance absolute.
It struck him, with a whole new sickening perspective, that in the last
hours he'd been reduced to obsessively shuffling glass shards, as if
they might yield up some magic.  There was no magic, he saw now, only
reality.

And me reality was that he had failed, in every way.  Failed to
convince the country.  Failed to discover a treatment.

Failed Gerry and Youssef.  Failed Tory.  Failed Marisa.

He felt cold to his bones.  Rachel was going to win her dark victory,
and there was nothing he could do to stop her.  I can't even kill
her.

Never had he known such despair.

He watched her.  Her eyes were feverish in the starlight, her breathing
shallow, and she was shivering slightly, though the night was warm.
The purple bruising around the bandaged sutures on her throat looked
inflamed.  Was infection from her wound making her fevered?  Was she
unhinged after the weeks of tension?  Or just plain insane?  He
remembered Del's words: "She has a purely logical mind, but not when
her family is threatened."  And Tory's statement: "Losing my brother
almost killed her."  Was that what had triggered this madness?  Rwanda?
The lost boy?

The thought gave him the faintest jolt of hope.  Could he use that?
Disable her with kindness?

"Curious George," he said suddenly.

Rachel gave a small gasp and stared at him.  Turning way abruptly, she
concentrated again on the helm.  But Jack saw that she was fighting for
composure.  He'd exposed a traumatized nerve.

"Tory told me," he said cautiously.

"How you took him to Kigali, then got separated in the war."  Careful,
he told himself.

Probe the wound but don't induce pain.  He sensed the partly severed
nerve would yield an answer, if he could delicately reconnect it.

"What happened?"  he asked gently.

"Didn't you ever find him?"

She said, as if he hadn't spoken, "There's a bell buoy around here
marking a channel entrance.  Watch for it."

"Rachel, tell me about Paul.  Please."

"Why?"

"Because I want to understand."

Her eyes flicked to him, betraying a spark of trust.  She said in a
hollow voice, "I found nun."  Her gaze slid back to the darkness.

Jack waited.  Finally, she spoke.

"I came to a village.  Full of hope, because a missionary told me he'd
heard there were children hiding there and one was American.  But I
heard no children's voices when I walked in.  No voices at all.  The
place was deserted.  Soldiers had been camping, I could see dial, but
they'd gone.  An orange brick church dominated die square, the Church
of Our Lady.  Inside, more soldiers' litter.  Apparently mey'd stayed
for some time.  I sat in a pew, sick with disappointment.  I'd been
searching for weeks

A bell tolled mournfully in me distance as a wave stirred me channel
buoy.

Then I heard a snuffling sound.  I hurried past the altar.  A hall led
back to me church offices and kitchen.  A dog was tearing open garbage
under me kitchen sink.  But there was a smell--an awful smell--farther
down the hall.  I reached the room--(he library.  Easy chairs.  A
portrait of me pope.

And on me floor, corpses of naked children.  Twenty or so.

They'd been beaten, tortured, starved..."

She looked up at the barren sky.

"I found him in an alcove.

Curied up as if asleep.  Wrists tied behind his back with wire.  Leg
chained to a spike in me floor.  The shackle on his ankle had scraped
his skin raw.  He'd been sodomized, burned with cigarettes..."  Her
voice broke.

"Every agony you'd rather suffer a thousand times yourself than have
your child go through."

She closed her eyes, unable to go on.

Watching her.  Jack felt the mountain of his hatred erode under a
trickle of pity.

When Rachel could speak again she seemed to shunt her mind forcibly
onto a different track, to leave the place of misery and move on.  She
said flatly, "Rwanda is one of the most densely populated places on
earth, and me result was the most barbarous civil war in memory. People
dismiss the cause as tribalism, but that's too shallow.  All humans are
tribal.  No, me Rwandan chaos stemmed from something worse, from--"
"Too many people fighting over too few resources," he said, finally
piecing it all together.

She nodded.

"People clawing each other for the last bone.

Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Congo.  It's what lies in store for the whole
planet Hundreds of millions will die."

He saw now what must have happened after Rwanda.  Rachel was not a
woman to weep, or whine, or even rage.

She had rechanneled the energy of her grief by learning the tragedy's
root cause.  These last weeks, he'd been trying to inhabit her mind,
and knew that was how her mind worked:

for every phenomenon, a cause.  For every problem, a solution.

"So," he said carefully, "you're doing this to prevent the death of
hundreds of millions."

"Triage, Jack.  Sacrificing some so the majority may survive.

It's a technical decision, not a moral one.  You know that.  As a
physician you've practiced triage every working day of your life."

He thought of Somalia, of the Mogadishu hospital overflowing with the
sick while hundreds of wounded and dying camped in the street.  He'd
personally walked among them taping numbered squares of paper on their
foreheads: a "one" for the cases where intervention could be
lifesaving, a "two" for those to be hospitalized and treated later, a
"three" for those whose injuries required too many resources and must
be left to die.

"All the time" he admitted.

"But--" "But this is too many deaths?  Well, tell me, what's the magic
number?  In a refugee camp you'll sacrifice hundreds to save thousands,
and you're called a hero.  Yet you won't grant me that same standard on
a global scale?"

"No one gave you the authority.  You aren't God."

She smiled with profound sadness.

"I've learned the humility of being a god.  When Paul and I were first
separated, when he ran from the soldiers' guns, I screamed at them,
"He's not one of you!"  How wrong I was.  They are us.  and we are
them.  We will all live together, or we'll die together."

"Paul.  That's what all of this is about, isn't it?  Because you
failed to protect him."

Her eyes searched his.

"You understand.  I know you do.

Because you failed, too, with your daughter.  You've been trying to
atone ever since by committing yourself to saving others, one at a
time."

"This isn't about me."

"Yes, it is.  You think your way of saving the world is better than
mine.  It's not, because it's not enough.  You change nothing."

He'd been following, sticking with her arguments, edging closer to her
reasoning, and finding he couldn't help but agree with most of it.  Her
logic, unassailable, had almost seduced him.  But finally his mind
balked.  Logic could not mask the fundamental evil of her actions.  No
amount of brilliant dialectic could change her in his eyes into
anything less than Marisa's murderer.  He said harshly, "Global murder
cannot be the answer."

"That's not my choice!"  she shot back.

"I'm offering a humane solution, but they--" She coughed, and Jack saw
again that she was shivering.  He stood and pulled off his sweatshirt
for her.

"Here."

"I'm all right."

"There's hours of hard sailing ahead, right?  Take it."

She relented.  As she slipped the sweatshirt on she raised her eyes to
his.  They were standing face-to-face.

"Rachel," he said quietly, "you can still stop this.  Give it up. Right
now."

She shook her head.

"Too late."

Dread clutched him.

"There's still six days before--" "The campaign has self-destructed.
The country's paralyzed.

Nothing but hysteria and viciousness.  Car bombs and homicidal protests
and billions of dollars spent on a mad scramble of security forces
instead of on the solution.  People don't change even when it's
blatantly in their interest.

Humans cannot see beyond tomorrow."

Her doom-laden voice infririated him.

"Christ, if you think we're such a worthless species, why not just let
the ecological disaster you're so sure is coming wipe us out, get it
over with?  Why go through this psychotic exercise?"

She looked surprised.

"Worthless?  I thought you understood.

I'm doing this because I have hope."

"Hope?"  After her nihilistic statements the word made no sense.

"Of course.  I believe humankind has dazzling potential."

He felt unbalanced.

"You say the whole problem is that we can't change."

"No, I say it's rare.  Our history is mostly a story of mediocrity.

Greed and misuse of power and willful ignorance.

But it's also a story studded with individuals who've pushed us onto
higher planes.  Forgiving one's enemy.  Sharing wealth.  Dreaming of
going to the moon, and doing it These are the spheres of true humanity,
and they are within our collective reach."

"I've always believed that."

"I know.  You're the finest example of what humans can be.  You're the
paradigm I'm talking about."

He couldn't speak.

"Unlike you," she went on darkly, "the rest of humanity presently shows
no will to change.  Well, the virus has no such obstinacy.  Maybe, in
its aftermath, this stubborn species will finally learn.  That's what
I'm trying to do.  Jack.  Give me human race a chance to get it
right."

He looked out into the darkness.  Wind sighed over the sails.  Water
whispered past the hull.  Stars glinted in the high black sky and in
the low black ripples.  The night was wildly beautiful.  He stared at
it, his thoughts in free fall as they sailed on, alone on the ocean--he
and the woman who was prepared to destroy perhaps a third of the
world's people.

For all the right reasons.

"The wind's dropping," she said.

Jack pulled his mind back from the void.

In the faint electronic glow of the compasses he could see Rachel
checking her watch, then the readout on the GPS, which gave their
position.  She seemed to be calculating odds.

"We've got to get back before it's light," she said.

She turned on the engine.  It kicked in with a brutal roar, shattering
the still night.  As she slid the throttle forward, the hull plowed
into the low waves.

They were a ghost boat no longer.  Now, they could be heard.

"He's out there," Carson said under his breath, staring at the map's
blue expanse.

"Coast Guard's reporting every hour," Kendrew reminded him.

"I want our people on it, checking every craft along this coast.
Tankers, trawlers, power yachts, sailboats, even dinghies if they've
got an outboard.  There's been good weather for thirty hours, so even a
small boat with enough fuel could have covered a couple hundred miles
by now.  If he made a rendezvous at sea with an oceangoing vessel--"
"Then he could be halfway down to Cuba or up to Newfoundland."

They exchanged glances.  Carson knew it, but didn't say it: a boat at
sea would be all but impossible to trace.

"Sir, we found the motorcycle!"  It was Strentz's liaison man,
shouldering past people to get to Carson.

"Hunt ditched it in the woods about six miles south of Ryeport."

"Good, let's lay out a grid," Carson said.  He was moving to a table
map when he noticed Shelby Sanger, the FBI lab's materials analysis
chief, pushing in through the glass doors and heading his way.

"What have you got?"  he asked as Sanger reached him.

"Something real interesting," the chief reported in his soft Georgia
drawl.

"Those traces of soil on some of the vials?

We found a microorganism in them that Chem/Tox reports is rare.  In
fact, only found on a few islands in the Caribbean."  He handed Carson
a list.

Carson snatched it.  Seven islands of the Greater Antilles.

It brought him closer.  Damn it, not close enough.

Sanger was smiling.

"I also did a little checking.  Did you know that Uncle Sam gives a
mighty generous tax subsidy to U.S. corporations doing business in
Puerto Rico?  Section Nine three six of the Internal Revenue Code.
Costs the America taxpayer a bundle, but I guess the windfall of jobs
keeps me islanders from getting uppity and heading north.

And you know what the biggest business sector in Puerto Rico is?
Pharmaceuticals.  Why, just about every drug corporation on the Fortune
500's there.  Whole flock of em, soaking up the Caribbean sun."

Carson felt a fierce adrenaline rush.  Finally, the breakthrough he'd
been waiting for.

The wind had been dropping all night.  The sails were almost useless
now, but the engine kept the boat's speed up.

The auto helm which Rachel had programmed with coordinates hours ago,
was steering a straight course.  She was resting in the cabin below.
Jack was alone on deck.

He sat in the cockpit, his back against the cold fiberglass, his spine
deadened by the engine's vibrations, his mind numb.  He'd seen no
boats, heard no sounds above the engine drone.  For hours there'd been
nothing for him to do.

When me realization had swept him that there was nothing more he could
do to stop Rachel, he had finally surrendered.

To the truth.  To the exhaustion of weeks of trying.  To the
inevitable.

He'd let go, emptied his mind.  Emptied himself into the nothingness
around him.

The submission had been oddly liberating: a kind of relief to no longer
exist.

His eyes burned from staring so long into the darkness.

He closed them, and when he opened them again he noticed that the cover
of the lazarette--a seat locker by the tiller-was raised about a
finger's width, propped open by a protruding loop of dock line.  When
Rachel had lifted out the auto helm she must have tugged the line with
it.

Absently, Jack raised the cover to stuff the line away.  Inside, a
plastic bucket held a jumble of junk: broken shackles, a cracked block,
some frayed nylon line.  He crammed the dock line in and was about to
close the cover when he noticed an object on top of the junk.  A sphere
of dulled metal about me size of his fist.  Its surface was badly
corroded, gouged in craters, some so deep that they exposed-which was
what had attracted him--the starkly white core, white as an apple's
flesh.

A memory tugged.  They'd been sitting over lunch at Swallow Point that
day he and Laurel had arrived, and Del had spoken about the boat's
recent repairs, including a new sacrificial anode.  He'd explained
about corrosion in underwater metals caused by current due to the
difference in electrical potential.

"If a zinc anode is mounted near the metal you want to preserve, like
the bronze propeller, the zinc corrodes first, protecting the bronze.
It's sacrificed."

This half-eaten object must be the discarded anode.  Jack thought.  He
lifted it from the bucket, its pitted surface rough against his palm,
and studied it, oddly attracted by its poignancy.  Maybe it was the
hours of inactivity, so alien to him.  Or maybe the sense of his own
insignificance.  Whatever the reason, he let his mind drift into
unexplored channels.  Like words.  Sacrifice--a word so potent with
meaning.  Attract--the corrosion had attracted him.  Protect--the zinc
is sacrificed to protect the bronze.

Suddenly, in his mind's eye, a glass shard glittered.  A shard in the
hot tub tower.  He'd used it to represent the molecule called CDS.  It
was present on the surface of cells related to macro phages and he and
Mandy and Youssef had identified it as die principal cell receptor for
the A-3 virus.

He felt a tingling at the back of his neck, like a mild electrical
current.  What if free CDS molecules could be introduced into the
bloodstream?  This purified CDS might compete with the CDS on cell
surfaces for binding with the virus.  In theory, it would attract the
virus, blocking its binding to the cell.  Eventually, the complex of
free CDS and virus would simply degrade.  The free molecules would be
"sacrificed," preserving the cell.  The chemical equivalent of a
sacrificial anode.

A molecular decoy.

Cool air chilled his wide-open eyes.  He realized he was holding his
breath.

A sound startled him, a faint electronic beeping inside the cabin.  It
stopped, and Rachel came up on deck holding the portable GPS.  Jack
remembered she'd programmed it to signal when they reached a critical
way point He quickly slipped the zinc anode into his pocket.

"We're approaching the channel to our bay," she said.

He peered into me gloom and could just make out the mainland in the
distance.  Still far off, though, and the house at Swallow Point was
hidden, tucked into its bay.  He knew the FBI was there, watching.

Rachel switched off the engine.

"From here on we can't risk the noise."

The moment the motor cut out, they slowed, and Jack felt the wind on
his face die.  Silence shrouded the boat.

I: Rachel eased out the limp sails.  They were running downwind--what
little wind there was, really no more than a breath--but were barely
gliding through the placid water.

Dawn was beginning to glimmer.

Rachel tried sailing wing and wing.  They worked together, Jack pushing
the boom out as far as he could over the port side, while she coaxed
the languid jib sheet as far as possible to starboard.  They inched
along, the sails luffing sluggishly, the boat hardly leaving a wake.

They crept through the channel and into the bay.  In the predawn
murkiness the wooded shore stretched out on either side.  Jack watched
it slide by, feeling their exposure.  They still had to limp around the
point.  Would Colwell's agents be on the dock, waiting?  He recalled
that a rocky spit hid the beach house from the dock.  Unless they were
posted there too He heard birdsong on the shore, the faintest liquid
warble from deep within the woods.  The sun would soon be up.  He slid
his hand into his pocket to feel the anode's pitted surface, needing to
hang on to the sensation, the thrill of the inspiration.

Already it was slipping away.  Even if he did make it ashore without
being seen, he was going to have to hide in me beach house, alone, cut
off from the lab.  What good would inspiration be then?

Tory told Rhonda, the video editor, "Again," and watched while Rhonda,
with a weary sigh, re cued the final section of Laurel's taped
testimonial, then hit the start button.

"... ask you a very important question," the off-camera interviewer
said somberly to Laurel.

"Are you absolutely convinced, in your heart, that Dr.  Hunt is not in
any way connected to the terrorists?"

"Absolutely," Laurel declared.

"It's not possible.  It's a terrible mistake.  He's just not capable of
hurting people like that.  I mean, look at the lives he's saved around
the world.

Now he's trying to save us all, from Artemis.  He had the courage to
stand up to the government, and now he's paying for his courage."  She
looked at the camera.

"I think what all Americans have to do is tell the government they
think he was right.  Tell them now.  Before it's too late.  I guess
it's not safe for my grandfather to come out and say that himself, so
I'm saying it for him--" "Cut after 'too late,"" Tory said, "and lower
the FX of--" "Ms.  Farr-Colwell?"  a hesitant voice said over the
intercom.

Yesterday, Marcia, her receptionist of five years, had jumped on a
flight to Mexico.  Over three-quarters of Tory's staff had quit after
Noah.  This was the voice of a young male intern: no wife, no
daughters.  He said, "I know you said not to disturb--" "But?"

"Um, your father's here.  Should I send him to the screening room?"

Dad?  Mother... a relapse.

"No, my office."  She hurried down the quiet hall.  A phone was ringing
in aa empty cubicle.

At first, opening her office door, she saw only the broad back of Ron
Norsky, her father's nurse, standing behind the wheelchair, masking
him.

"Dad, what's happened?  Is it Mother?"  She reached his side and
stopped, shocked by the pallor of his face.  He was ill.

"Ron," Del said shakily, "would you please wait outsider-Alone with
him, Tory knelt by the wheelchair.

"Dad, what's wrong?  Are you sick?"

He fluttered his hand erratically, dismissing the question.

About to speak, his distorted mouth became more twisted than usual.
Tory wondered if she should call a doctor.

"Last night," Del began rockily, "I was consulting an early draft of
my manuscript.  She said, the other day... told me I should throw it
out, but--" His voice drifted.

"You know my tendency to hoard."

What's he talking about?  Tory wondered.

"I wanted to corroborate some facts," Del went on, "on the relation
between water table depletion and infant mortality in sub-Saharan
Africa.  I had compiled the population statistics several years ago,
you see, and--" Tory groaned and stood up.

"Dad, I've got stats from a whole stable of population experts, and
U.N. demographic charts ad infinitum.  I don't need more."  She moved
to her desk where a scatter of faxes lay, and picked up one.  Mclvar
at

CNN.

"Is that all you came for?"

"No!"  His ferocity surprised her.

"No," he repeated softly.

"It's because I came across a footnote in the manuscript.  A
surprisingly detailed note, yet I had forgotten all about it."

Tory knew he wanted to help, but she had no time for this.

Her eyes went back to the fax.

"The footnote was a reference to Artemis."

She looked up.

Del swallowed and went on.

"Artemis was a goddess to whom the ancients assigned several spheres of
power, one of them quite special--she was considered the protector of
all young things, both human and animal."

He moved his wheelchair to her.

"Tory, when Paul was killed your mother was stricken.  People did not
see it in her because she kept on at her work so steadily, so
conscientiously.

But I saw it.  I tried to do what I could to ease her grief, encouraged
her to help me with my demographic research, just to focus her mind
elsewhere.  She did, indeed, become engrossed in the work, organizing
large parts of my manuscript, at least the early draft I just spoke of.
But meanwhile her own work, her scientific work, was moving, I now
believe, into paths ... of darkness.  I am only now discovering how
dark."

She started at him.

"Tory, in asking her to help me I may have set in motion a dreadful
thing."

"What are you saying?"

"That Rachel... that I believe ... Rachel is Artemis."

Her brain made the leap, but her consciousness refused to follow.  The
thought hovered, unclaimed, unbearable.

Her mother had begged for her political advice.  Her mother had
provided the campaign funding.  Her mother had talked Jack into
becoming the spokesman... Del made a small sound of despair.

"You see it, don't you?  Who else has the genius?  The financial and
technical capability?  The will?"

She heard an echo of Carson's voice, the FBI man sounding the litany of
criteria for a crime: motive, means, and opportunity.

The echo became a bludgeon.  Her mind shrank back in pain.  The edges
of her vision blackened.

Someone knocked at the door.  Tory flinched.

Her father grabbed her wrist.

"I have said nothing to your mother.  I wouldn't know how.  And
informing on her is something I cannot do.  But you--" His cold fingers
dug into her like claws.

"Tory, I don't know what she has planned if the president refuses her
ultimatum, but I do know she will somehow enact what she threatens.
I've come to ask you-beg you--you must make the government heed your
appeals.

Whatever it takes to convince them.  You must.  And Jack Hunt--don't
listen to him anymore.  He and Rachel, they ... knew each other, years
ago.  People told me.  Tory, I fear he may be in this as deep as--"
"Ms.  Farr-Colwell?"  Vince's assistant had opened the door.

"Got a minute?"

Tory could not move.  Sound would not come to her throat, nor breath.
The very valves of her heart had locked.

The assistant took a few steps in.

"Sorry, but I noticed this package in Mr.  Delvecchio's office.  It was
couriered a few days ago but I guess in all the craziness he missed it,
so I thought I'd better open it.  It's a video from Gerry Trowbridge's
distribution agent.  The Brazil footage."  He approached her desk with
it, looking anxious.

"I called the agent.  Turns out he had dubs.  Trowbridge, the night he
died, had just sent an e-mail authorizing him to send one here."

He set the videocassette on the desk as if relieved to put some
distance between it and himself.

"It's disturbing.  I thought you'd want to check it out."

Tory's eyes fixed on the black cassette.  She feared her mind had
broken and she was going mad, because she thought she could see inside
the box, and all she saw was blood.

22

You're a genius!  I'm starting with the CDS on T4 lymphocytes.  Want me
to keep investigating steps in virus penetration after the binding to
CDS?  Also, should we be considering potential resistance to the
therapy?

jack considered the message on the computer screen.

The moment Rachel had dropped him off at the beach house yesterday he'd
contacted Mandy by e-mail, almost blessing Rachel for pointing out how
untraceable it would be from her computer here.  He'd told Mandy he was
in hiding, and broached his molecular decoy theory.  Working all
yesterday and most of last night through a flurry of messages, they'd
been hacking at the problems inherent in the hypothesis.

Now she had to do the actual tests herself.  Jack typed a reply:

No to both queries because, 1.1 doubt there would be effective
inhibition at an advanced level.

2.  Resistance would indicate that A-3 had mutated to a form that no
longer causes the Artemis disease.

3. There's no time.

Can you start in vitro tests immediately?

After a frustrating few hours of silence he got a reply:

Will do.  Sorry about the holdup, but I was in town at the memorial
service for Youssef.  Hard to jump back into work.  I'm on it now.  By
the way, the FBI have finally taken their damn army out, though there's
still a few left patrolling the halls.  I don't know what's going on,
but I know they must be wrong about you.  Wherever you are, be
careful.

Youssef.  I should have been there.  And what am I getting Mandy into?
She's a brilliant kid, but is she up to this?  With the FBI breathing
down her neck?  You be careful, Mandy.

It was hot, the room stuffy, the linen curtains closed.  The noon sun
baking the beach house found pinholes in the curtains' weave and probed
the room with needle-thin beams.

Jack's shirt was plastered to his back.  Restless, he pushed away from
the computer.  E-mail was a maddeningly constrained way to work.  He
needed to be there.  And how long before the FBI agents up at the house
decided to patrol this far down the beach?  Could he give Mandy enough
guidance to make progress on her own before they found him?

And why hadn't he heard from Tory?  In his e-mail to her he hadn't said
where he was--more for her safety than his-but he had broached an idea:
Could she strike a bargain with the FBI?  After all, Colwell didn't
have a shred of evidence against him.  If Tory went to the media
telling them Jack would turn himself in, ready to cooperate with the
FBI's inquiries on the condition they wouldn't arrest him, might that
leverage gain him his liberty, and access to the lab?  For that he
would bargain anything.  He needed Tory to swing such a delicate deal.
He needed to hear from her.

Before a federal agent kicked in the door.

He glanced at the mute TV tuned to CNN.  He was keeping the picture on,
turning up the sound only for "Artemis Watch" bulletins.  Nothing now;
just two politicians in hard hats in a factory.  Outside the beach
house the sound of waves washing monotonously over the shore whispered
through the open window, though no breeze stirred the curtains.

Far out, a seabird shrieked.

Jack nib bed me stiffness in the back of his neck.  In a dark moment
last night he'd again considered telling the FBI everything.  Colwell
was a professional.  If the peril of Rachel's dead man's switch was
made clear to him, surely he would proceed against her with extreme
caution.  But that would take precious hours, maybe days, and Jack's
biggest hurdle now was the clock.  He'd seen Rachel's precarious state
of mind on the boat.  If she sensed the smallest change in the FBI's
movements, it could push her over the brink.

No, nothing to do but wait for Tory.

And Mandy.

He prowled the room, frustrated, hot.  He pulled open the fridge,
grabbed a can of soda, and ripped off the tab, thinking uncomfortably
that he couldn't touch a single object here that hadn't been touched by
Rachel.  The food she'd left him.  The scattered books and newspapers.
Her collection of driftwood over the fireplace.  Her bed.

He winced at the memory, and turning, saw the desk photograph of Paul
in his Superman bathing suit and orange life jacket, giggling at the
helm of his dinghy.  Looking at the sweet face.  Jack took a swig of
soda.  A breeze drifted in, picking up a smell of cold ashes from the
grate.  He swallowed the soda, tasting ash.  He heard buzzing.  A bee
was trapped between the window and the curtain.  He could hear it
bumping against the glass, frantic for release.

A fighter jet roared overhead and Tory shuddered at the noise.  It died
as quickly as it had erupted, and she was left with the monstrous
silence of her living room.

She was standing at the sliding-glass door that overlooked the patioo
and yard.  A mangy squirrel crouched in a crook of (he magnolia tree,
staring up as though dazed by the noonday heat.  Even with the glass
door closed, and above the whisper of the air-conditioning, Tory could
hear the high-pitched keening of cicadas in the trees.  Like hearing
the heat.

She was alone.  She'd disconnected the phone.  Hadn't turned on CNN.
Hadn't called the office.  Hadn't even got dressed; she still wore the
long shirt she'd slept in, except she'd barely slept.  She had sat in
the dark in misery.  Around three she'd curled up on top of the bed and
drifted into a wretched semiconsciousness.  Dawn had found her bleary,
her stomach rocky.

The printed e-mail Jack had sent yesterday lay on the table, waiting
for an answer.  Gerry Trowbridge's videocassette waited, too, jutting
from the VCR.  She felt it like a living presence--the tortured ghosts
of Jazida's dead watching her, waiting for her decision.  A judgment
about their murderer.  My mother.

The tomblike silence of the house was agony.  She craved to get out.
Escape.

She slid open the glass door and stepped onto the patio flagstones,
blinking in the sun.  The steambath noonday heat of Washington wilted
over her.  In moments her shirt was damp under her arms, and a bead of
sweat trickled between her breasts.  The flagstones, broiled by the
sun, hurt her bare soles.

A shriek of female laughter burst through the neighbor's foliage.  A
party.  Tory imagined it, hosted by the stockbroker's wife--Bloody
Marys, a swim, lunch, bridge--these women, like so many others,
obsessively ignoring me crisis.

She thought of stories she'd heard about London during the Blitz, when
teenagers at jitterbug clubs kept on dancing while the bombs fell. Next
door, me inane laughter crescendoed, sounding eerily like screams. Tory
imagined them all cut down by the virus, dead in a pool of sunlit
blood.

She stumbled inside and wrenched the door shut Jack's message again
caught her eye, and the questions that had hissed at her all night
began again.  Did Jack know the truth about her mother?  Was he a
partner in this horrifying plot?  It seemed inconceivable.  Yet her
father's suspicion haunted her: "They knew each other, years ago." From
me start Tory had sensed some dark current flowing between Jack and her
mother.  What was behind that?  She couldn't think... didn't want to
imagine.

She clutched at the idea that Rachel had somehow coerced him.  She
remembered meeting him at Swallow Point, and his initial adamant
refusal to lead the campaign until her mother spoke to him alone.  The
change in him had been dramatic, both his sudden agreement and his
shaken composure.

Could it be that he'd suspected Rachel was Artemis?

Or maybe she had even revealed it to him?  Yet, if he knew, why hadn't
he turned her in?  Why had he silently submitted, and allowed the FBI's
suspicions to fall on ton?  It only made sense if her mother had some
hold over him, something forcing his compliance.  But what?  Tory
couldn't disentangle it.

Unless there was nothing to disentangle.  A simple answer.

The one Carson had seen right at the start.  That Jack was a conscious,
active agent.

Her mother's partner in mass murder.

It made her ill to think any further.  Her mind recoiled from even
trying.

Only one dung was clear: Tory herself had been acting in total
ignorance.  She felt a flash of rage, realizing how her mother had used
her.  I've been her pawn.

Oh, no, she thought grimly, catching herself, I can't let myself so
easily off the hook.  I willfully defied all Carson's warnings, leaped
into the campaign, certain that I understood the stakes better than he
did, that no approach was right but mine.  I'm no pawn.

For the hundredth time she tortured herself with the most fundamental
question of all: Could her father simply be wrong?  Was this only a
panicked, ailing man's delusion?

She bad so desperately tried to assure herself of that during her
night-long vigil, minutely examining the events of the past weeks,
dissecting her mother's actions, her mother's words, her mother's
character.  But every conclusion convinced her that her father's
suspicion was right.  Every piece fit, and every instinct about her
mother confirmed it.  She'd grown up knowing--proud!--that her mother
was capable of doing things ordinary people could not.  Brilliant,
unconventional, freethinking, Rachel was an exalted person, with
extraordinary power at her fingertips.  A power to use for good... or
evil.

My mother is Artemis.

Must I, therefore, turn her in?  Do I have a duty.  just as Carson said
from the beginning?  A duty to my country?  To humanity?

But don't I have some duty to my mother, if she's gone insane?

Besides, would humanity really be served by her capture?

The crimes she'd committed were unspeakable, yet Tory simply could not
believe her plan was to release the virus on a city, unleashing a
pandemic.  No, her weapon was merely the threat of that terror.
Amazingly, it had brought America to the brink of something
extraordinary: a chance to act like a truly great nation.  Without the
threat, the chance would be lost.  Her mother knew that, had
commissioned the campaign knowing it.  So perhaps she's not insane at
all.

Dear God, what am I talking myself into?  All those people in Stoney
Creek and Pakistan and Brazil.

She looked at the VCR with its protruding black cassette.

The hidden, writhing ghosts.  She would not view the tape again.  Once
had been torture enough.  In a normal world she would destroy the
thing.

But this was no longer a normal world, and she was no longer sure of
anything.  Except one fact: she had to make a decision.

Confront Rachel?  Try to talk her out of this madness, call off the
threat?  The thought was barely formed before Tory knew that route was
hopeless.  She'd seen her mother's fervor that first day in her office,
almost a fantacism.  No there argument would break such steely
resolve.

That leaves only two choices, she realized.  Make a last stand, or
betray my mother.

I can send the video to the networks.  One call to my office would do
it.

Or I can turn my mother in.  One call to Carson.

Her legs trembled, suddenly weak.  She groped for the curtain, but it
was too flimsy to steady her and she sank to her knees beside the glass
door.  The squirrel in the magnolia tree sat holding its paws before
its chest as if in fright, and stared into the room, either not seeing
her or too alarmed to move.  Tory stared back into its glassy, vacant
eyes.

If I send out the video I'll be giving the campaign one last chance.

But if the campaign succeeds, I'll have let my mother get away with
mass murder.

She watched the squirrel's paws shiver almost imperceptibly to the
pulse of its racing heart.

She got to her feet.  The squirrel darted for cover.  Before she could
change her mind, she went straight to the phone.

The noise level at the command center was frantic.  Carson, briefing a
group of agents, saw his phone line flashing.

How long had it been ringing?

He lunged across the desk for it.  He'd take anything.  The Puerto Rico
lead was too little, too late, and Hunt seemed to have evaporated from
the surface of the sea.  He snatched the phone.

"ColweU."

"Perez, sir.  We're in the--" The Puerto Rico connection was so bad,
the San Juan SAC sounded as if he were drowning in a mine shaft.

"Say again, Perez.  The line's terrible."

"Creative Containers," Perez shouted, excited.

"It's a small operation here in a San Juan suburb.  They buy cheap
cosmetics in bulk, and package them in containers they make.  That's
where the trace of soil on the vials originated, some packer's grubby
fingers.  Prints analysis just confirmed it.  Plus, they regularly buy
perfume from one of the scent manufacturers on our list.  We don't know
yet whether they also received product from a pharmaceutical lab here,
because their records are a mess, but we're going through them now."

Carson tried to rein in his excitement.

"But you believe they put the Artemis material in the vials?"

"They may not have known what it was, sir.  We're talking to their
people now, and we'll have a better idea once we get through their
files.  Trouble is, well, we're not set up down here for an operation
of this scale.  We could use some help, particularly ops specialists,
because--" "I'll pull the team together myself," Carson said quickly.

His eyes snapped to the clock.  Eight minutes before noon.  A Bureau
jet could have him and the team in San Juan in a few hours.  Kendrew
could take over here.  Cradling the receiver against his shoulder, he
snatched his jacket off the chair.

"Perez, we're on our way."

At dusk Jack was entering a detailed message to Mandy, the glow of the
computer screen and TV the only illumination in the beach house, when
he heard a thud outside.  Footsteps on the wooden stairs.  They became
louder, moving along the deck.  FBI?  Stiffening, Jack stood to face me
door.

Rachel opened it.

"I didn't want to knock in case they're watching."  She quickly stepped
in and shut the door.

Jack's relief turned to apprehension.

"What's happened?"

"Nothing."

"You shouldn't come here."

"It's all right, I told them I was going for a swim."  She lifted a
straw bag with a beach towel on top.

"I've brought you clean clothes."  She looked around.

"Are you all right?

Enough food?"

Her eyes brushed over the computer screen beside him, and he realized:
Mandy's message!  He hit a key and iconized the text, making it
disappear.

She came beside him and looked at the blank screen.  Did she suspect he
was communicating with Mandy, getting closer?

"Have you heard from Tory?"  she asked.

"No."

"But you have e-mailed her?"

"Several times.  She must be too busy to check."

He moved away from her.  While the worst of the day's heat had faded,
the evening was still sultry.  He wished he could rip open the
curtains, let in the last of the light, feel some space.  He wished
Rachel would leave.

She was looking now at the mute TV, her face unguarded, and he saw
again the feverish gleam in her eyes that he'd no deed on the boat,
intensified now in the harsh electronic light.

"Jack," she murmured.

"It's you."

He followed her gaze to the TV.  It was him, in Brazil.

With Marisa.

Stepping out of the church, holding hands.  Waltzing at her uncle's
house, confetti brightening her hair and the shoulder of his suit.
Hurrying across the tarmac to her uncle's plane.

Joking with Liz Trowbridge as she hefted video gear aboard.

Jack realized with a shock: Gerry took this video.

Rachel turned up the sound.  An announcer gravely intoned:

"Jack and Marisa Hunt never reached their honeymoon paradise.  When the
pilot received a call concerning a sick woman in a mining settlement.
Jack insisted on a detour to take the woman to the hospital.  They
landed in the remote shantytown of Jazida.  What was supposed to be a
short stopover turned into Jack Hunt's longest day, and Marisa's
last."

There he was, striding through the shantytown.  Mudcaked miners,
scabby-mouthed children, skinny dogs.  The pink-painted brothel at the
edge of town.  Inside the brothel, shot after shot of women in agony.
They lay on beds, some on bare mattresses on the floor, mumbling in
fevered incoherence.

Sixteen-year-old Ka, her eyes ruby-red.  Pregnant Teresinha,
hemorrhaging between her legs.  Jack, trying to care for them, his
hands and shirt streaked with blood.

He stared, with Rachel, at Liz's record of the horror, realizing this
was me video that the White House's friends had been so bent on
suppressing they had torched Gerry's loft.

"Jack Hunt was the only doctor in town," the announcer went on, "and
every female was stricken by the deadly disease.

They screamed.  They suffered brain damage.  They bled uncontrollably.
They began to die.  Jack worked on, trying to ease their suffering, and
so did Marisa."  Shots of Marisa wiping bloody vomit from me mouth of a
woman in convulsions.

Rachel gave a small gasp and clamped her hand to her mouth.

On screen, Teresinha's baby was born into Jack's hands.

The child wasn't breathing.  Jack lifted it and pressed its small mouth
against his in gentle, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The baby's blood smeared his face.

"Jack Hunt did not know then that the disease spared men," the
announcer declared.

"For all he knew, he was now infected with death.  But he was a doctor.
He saw only the chance to give life."  The baby gasped, breathing on
its own, and Jack spat out blood with a laugh of desperate elation. The
mother lay dead, sprawled in a swamp of blood.

Rachel strangled a cry at die back of her throat, and turned away.

Jack felt hatred boil up.

"You didn't know it was like this, did you?"  He grabbed her shoulders
and brutally twisted her around to the TV.  Her hand shot up to cover
her eyes.  Jack yanked it away.

"Look!"

"His efforts could not stem the tide of honor," the announcer went on
in a hush.

"Because now, Marisa had been struck."  On screen.  Jack knelt beside
Marisa, who lay on the floor, mumbling, bleeding from her nose and
gums, dying red tears.

"Jack," she moaned.

Rachel's legs gave way.  She slid from Jack's grip, to her knees.

Marisa lay sprawled in blood.  Jack ripped off his shirt to stanch her
hemorrhaging.  Then she was dead.  He knelt by her, panting, blood
glinting on his skin.

Rachel gagged.  She staggered to her feet and tried to make it to the
bathroom, but only got to the door before she began to retch.  She
collapsed onto her hands and knees and vomited.

Jack felt something alien overtake him, something seething, vicious. He
craved to witness her pain.  He stood over her, taking in every spasm
of her suffering, wanting more.  As her body jerked in dry heaves, he
said with savage satisfaction, "Good.  Good!"  He grabbed a fistful of
her hair, and her arm, and pulling both, dragged her across the floor
back to the TV.

"You did this.  You lookl" The video became jerky as the camera panned
erratically across the brothel carnage, until finally the scene was
just a series of freeze-frame images: snapshots of hell.

Rachel moaned.  On her knees between Jack's legs she groped blindly for
his leg to steady herself.  He saw that she was broken.  Looking down
at her, he felt the alien sadism drain out of him as quickly as it had
overwhelmed him.

He lifted her to her feet.  She swayed against him.  He led her to the
bed and told her to sit.

"Lower your head," he said.

"Take deep breaths."

She sat with her face in her hands, shivering.

Jack soaked a towel in the sink, then filled a glass with water and
brought them both to her.

"Here.  Drink."  He held the towel against her clammy forehead as she
sipped the water.

Jack looked back to the TV.  Mike Mclvar was now reporting from the CNN
studio, sounding excited.

"... harrowing video document first broadcast just six hours ago. Since
then, in the interest of public awareness, CNN and other networks have
been replaying it continuously.

The impact on the country seems to be nothing less than staggering.
Calls are clogging the White House lines.  In cities across the nation,
people have taken to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations against
the government's hard line stand."

The picture flashed to crowds of people jamming streets in one city
after another.  There were many men, but the vast majority marching
were female.  Young mothers helped their little girls hold up signs and
banners.  Elderly women walked with determined steps, arms linked with
friends or sisters.

Teenage girls jabbed fists in the air.  All of America was represented
here, young and old, black and white, rich and poor.  Jack saw that one
thing united them all: fear.  Tory was right, he thought in awe.  It
takes terror to get them to move.

Abruptly, the picture shifted to a harried reporter standing in the
White House press briefing room.

"Mike, yes, we're here.  Uh, we've been advised that the president will
be arriving momentarily to make an address.  We're just waiting."

Around him reporters were rushing to take chairs, while others were
locked in whispered, frantic discussions.  Suddenly, the president
walked in.  The press room hushed.

Taking the podium, Lowell looked out over the tangle of cameras and
cables, lights and faces.  He appeared solemn but confident.

"My fellow Americans," he began, "in the past weeks I have watched with
tremendous pride as citizens all across this great nation have remained
calm and resolute in the face of terrible tragedy and strain.  I have
talked to many of you personally about your hopes and fears, and I have
discussed the situation in great depth with scientific experts and with
your representatives in Congress.  I want to assure you now that I have
listened very carefully to everything I have heard, to all the varying
points of view.  I have considered and weighed the merits of each
argument.  I have listened with my mind, and with my heart.

"In the end, it is my responsibility to make the difficult decisions
for this nation.  Today I am announcing a decision I hope will ease
the fears so many of you have expressed, one that will insure the
bright and secure future to which all Americans have a right America's
future is inextricably linked with me future of me rest of the world,
and with the health of our shared environment That is the inescapable
reality of today's global village."

Jack stood staring at me screen, hardly daring to hope, unable not
to.

"Two facts have become clear during the last weeks," the president went
on.

"Clear to me and, I know, to many of you.  First, that our shared
global environment is threatened by me planet's burgeoning human
population, and second, that as study after study has proved, me key to
reducing runaway population growth lies in raising the living standards
of poor women, a goal best accomplished through basic education.
Therefore, I am herewith establishing, immediately, the Global
Educational Assistance Endowment, a program to be funded by a new,
modest federal tax which will raise revenues equaling one percent of
the nation's gross national product" There were gasps from the
reporters.  Jack felt the same gasp fill his own lungs.  This was
incredible!

The president ignored the audible shock wave.  The Global Education
Assistance Endowment will provide schools, teachers, learning
materials, and education administrators to developing nations, with the
goal of eventually assuring that girls and women worldwide receive me
minimum of a primary school education.  With this farsighted step,
America will be playing a vital role in..."

His words were drowned by me sudden roar from reporters shouting
questions--at me president at each other.

A few jumped up to yell for quiet A woman at the back cheered.  People
rushed forward with cameras.  Secret Service agents lurched to block
them.  It was mayhem.

Jack was stunned.  He thudded down on the edge of the bed beside
Rachel.

"My God," he whispered.

"It's over."

Absorbing the shock, he felt elation begin to burble inside him. They'd
done it, he and Tory.  Done the impossible.

The elation quickly fizzled.  It was over, yes, but at what cost?
Marisa's image on the screen had barely faded.

"Over?"  Rachel said dully, as if she could scarcely believe it.  Jack
looked back at the TV.  The president seemed to make a sudden decision
that, given the hopelessness of restoring order, his best policy was to
leave before he appeared ineffectual.  He strode off the podium, a door
was opened for him, and he was gone.  A flustered spokesman rushed to
the lectern to field the onslaught of questions.

Jack turned back to Rachel.  Her face was ashen, as though she could
not comprehend what was happening.  He grabbed her shoulders.

"Rachel, don't you see?  They're doing exactly what you want.  The
survival tax.  The fund.  All of it.  You've won."

Suddenly, she seemed to believe it, accept it.  Color flushed over her
cheeks.

"Over.  Oh, Jack, is it?"

Her pager beeped.

Tory was packing a suitcase.  She had watched the president's address
and knew the broadcast of the video had worked the miracle she'd hoped
for.  But she felt no jubilation.

She was sick to her soul.  She had just talked to Carson.

She dropped clothes into the suitcase automatically, barely thinking of
what she was choosing.  Trying, in fact, to block memories of the last
time she'd packed for the tropics.

It had been the first holiday she and Carson had taken--the honeymoon
they'd both been too busy for when they'd got married two years
before--and she had picked her clothes with languid pleasure.  Gauzy
dresses, sarongs, bikinis.  Perfect for the seaside guest house at
Luquillo, with its secluded beach.  Carson always said later he was
sure that the beach was where Chris had been conceived.

She zipped the suitcase shut and stood for a moment in the awful
silence of her bedroom, willing the strength to carry this out.

She'd called the FBI command center and told Stan Kendrew it was urgent
that she speak to Carson; it was about the case.

"He's in Puerto Rico, Tory, but I'll relay your message," Stan said.
Puerto Rico, she'd thought in horror.  Her mother had a lab in San
Juan.  Had Carson already discovered the truth?  Impossible, she
decided: If he knew, his agents would already have us both in custody.
Yet, some evidence must have taken him there, so how much time did she
have?

Within fifteen minutes Carson had called her back.

"So, Puerto Rico," she'd said, trying to sound at ease.  She needed to
open a channel, offer a truce.

"Remember Luquillo?  Last time we were there Chris was just a gleam in
your eye."

Silence.  Then he said witheringly, "I'm busy, Tory.  What is it?"

She cringed inside.  She had hoped the invocation of their son might
soften him, but it had only antagonized him.  Still, she plowed on.

"Carson, there's no more deadline.  You can relax a little."

"Not until I have Artemis."

She felt a gust pass through her heart.  He was implacable.

Her mother's life lay in her hands.  She would have to match his
hardness.

"That's what I called about," she said.

"What if Artemis were to surrender?"  She stated it flatly, the opening
salvo of a negotiation.

She could almost hear him trying to control his excitement: she knew
he was thinking of Jack.  He said carefully, "What makes you think
that's possible?"

"Everything's changed now that the president has agreed to the fund.
Artemis might be persuaded."

"By you?"

"Yes.  I have a proposition.  But I'll present it only to you, and only
face-to-face."

Her plan was this: a plea bargain.  Surrender, in return for a
guarantee that Artemis would be spared the death penalty.

On the phone, she'd given Carson no indication of what was in her mind;
however, he had agreed to meet her.  Oh, yes, he was eager.  It
sickened her how easily he'd believed she was acting in betrayal.  How
quickly he'd concluded she was turning in Jack.

They would meet in just a few hours.  If all went well, it might take
only a moment for her to strike the deal, and save her mother from the
electric chair.

She was booked on a dawn flight out of National.  After a short stop in
Atlanta to change planes, she would be on her way to San Juan.  She had
no idea if either part of her plan was possible: whether she could
persuade her mother now to turn herself in, or whether Carson even had
the authority to make such a bargain.  She only knew she had to try.

23

"the PRESIDENT IS WAiTING FOR YOU, dr.  lesage."

Rachel, clipping on an ID badge at the White House security desk,
looked up at the young aide.

"This way," the girl said, smiling.

"They're in the solarium."

Rachel followed her over the plush carpeting of the west wing.  At
three a.m. the brightly lit corridors were bustling with staffers.
Rachel found she had to concentrate on walking, like someone
intoxicated.  It wasn't trepidation at the summons; she was confident
she could discuss whatever follow-up agenda the president had in mind
for her lab team.

No, this was sheer euphoria.  It's over.  Like a pardoned prisoner, she
was light-headed with joy.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?"  the aide whispered conspiratorially as
they stepped into the elevator.

"Like waking up after a nightmare and finding you're safe.  I can't
stop smiling."

It's infectious, Rachel thought, unable to stop smiling herself.

They emerged on die third floor of the Executive Mansion.

"The solarium is the president's favorite room," the girl told her with
the blithe assurance of an insider.  She opened a door and gestured for
her to enter.

Rachel stepped into a spacious sun parlor, a private aerie on top of
the White House, though at the moment the electric night-glow of
Washington was an anemic surrogate for the sun.  About a dozen people
glanced at her, some standing, carrying on hushed conversations, some
sitting hunched over a coffee table messy with papers, half-eaten
sandwiches, coffee cups, and juice bottles.  Hank Vorhees, the CDC
director, shot her a harried look.  President Lowell, wearing a gray
sweatshirt and shorts, stood apart at the night-black bay of windows.
He held a can of Coke, snapping off the tab as he turned to Rachel.  He
did not smile.

Something's wrong, she thought.

Randall Quincy, the White House chief of staff, beckoned her in, and
she slipped into a chair beside Vorhees.  Her eye was caught by a
photocopied message on the coffee table in front of him.

"Yes, it came in right after the president's address," Vorhees said in
a whisper, handing it to her.

"The Artemis signature icon is the same as on the original warning, so
they've accepted it's authentic."

Reading it, she kept her face immobile.

"Regarding the immediate implementation of the Global Education
Assistance Fund: this is acceptable."  After taking the president's
call at home, she'd just had time to fire off this email, anonymized by
her Internet server, before heading for her plane.  Vorhees added, "So
they're satisfied the terrorists are standing down."

No one seemed to be celebrating, Rachel thought uneasily.

Or even relaxing.  The mood was more like a war party strategy session.
What was going on?

A cell phone rang and a stocky man answered it.  Rachel recognized him
from newscasts, Ed Liota, the new FBI director.

"What's he doing?"  Liota shouted into the phone.

"Well, Christ, tell him to call me.  No, I'm with the president now.
He's waiting."

Rachel leaned over to replace the Artemis message on the table as
Liota, closing the cell phone, said loudly to the whole room, "Okay,
the San Juan SAC says Colwell's been at the Creative Container offices
all evening, and that's definitely where the vials were filled."

San Juan!  Her hand jerked back, knocking an open bottle of orange
juice.  It splashed Vorhees's pant leg and flooded the corner of the
table, and he grabbed some napkins to sop it up and dabbed at the stain
on his leg.

Carson in San Juan.  Now she knew: they knew.  She hadn't been called
to a meeting, she'd walked into an ambush.

Yet the atmosphere made no sense.  No one was even looking at her. They
were all still focused on Liota.

"Mr.

President," he said, moving toward Lowell, "I'm sorry about this delay,
but we're getting very close now, and the moment Colwell has anything
he'll--" "Yeah, yeah," Lowell muttered tightly.

Rachel's mind lurched again.  Carson doesn't know?

Lowell guzzled the last of his Coke, then rolled the can between his
hands.  His eyes fell again on Rachel.

"Tell her," he said to Quincy.

Quincy cleared his throat.

This is it, Rachel thought, stiffening.  You're under arrest.

"Dr.  Lesage, we're very grateful for the service you've performed,"
Quincy began.

"However, the situation has changed dramatically, and me president has
decided to consolidate the scientific effort within existing government
institutions.

That is, within the CDC, NIH, and USAMRHD.

Dr.  Vertices of the CDC will be coordinating mat mission from now on,
and we would appreciate your cooperation in managing a swift and
efficient transition."

Rachel blinked at him.  What's going on?

"Am I to understand--"

"You're fired," Lowell said with sudden venom.

People instantly looked at their notes, or nervously stared at Vorhees
wiping up the last of the spilled juice.  Rachel alone met the
president's gaze, her heart pounding.  It was clear to her now.  Lowell
wanted to distance himself from her before her arrest.  A ferocious
instinct welled up in her-she would not go meekly, silenced for his
purposes!

"Mr.

President,"* she said, "if not for your political--" "Oh, it's not
politics," he cut in acidly, "it's personal.  You had to cross me at
the very beginning, didn't you?  Right after that first meeting, you
had to undermine my position.  Then you leaked the declaration, and
bankrolled PGT.  At first they told me I couldn't touch you--bad PR--so
I let you have your say.  Free country.  But now.  Doctor, everything's
changed."  He crushed the Coke can in his hand.

"For the end game here, I need people I can trust."

He turned back to the window, done with her.

Rachel felt she'd been dragged to the edge of a cliff and left
teetering on the brink.  Is that all?  She knew enough to shut her
mouth.

"Dr.  Lesage, your team will be reassigned to the CDC," Quincy went on
smoothly.

"Dr.  Vorhees will arrange with you the transfer of your lab's data.
He's already been briefed, so perhaps you two could get together to
discuss the details now?  Outside?"  He gave her a perfunctory smile of
dismissal.

"Dr.  Lesage, Dr.  Vorhees, thank you both for coming."

Vorhees gathered his notes.  The others resumed their conversations.

Quincy buzzed the steward for more coffee.

Rachel was forgotten.  Swallowing in relief, she stepped back from the
cliff edge.  But this was far from over, she knew.  Carson would very
soon discover the truth.  This reprieve, this foothold, was only a
narrow ledge above the chasm.  It would not support her long.

She had to get out of here.  She was moving to the door when she heard
Quincy saying grimly to his aide, "... need some heavy spin for the
president to bounce back from these unfavorables."

The aide muttered, "Crazy thing is, agreeing to the fund would have
given us room for that, if we'd just announced it at the start."

"We?"  the president bellowed.  He pitched the Coke can at the aide's
back with a vicious overhand.

"Fuck your hindsight!"

He turned to Quincy and yelled, "Get him out of here!"

Quincy pulled the stunned aide to his feet and hustled him out of the
room.  Rachel watched Lowell, amazed at his outburst.

"Who does that little cocksucker think he is?"  Lowell raged.

"I'm the one who had to go out there and spew that global village crap.
I'm the one who had to roll over like some little bitch pissing itself.
I bent over and let Artemis screw me in front of the whole country,
the whole fucking world!  So don't give me your bullshit about spin and
bouncing back.  My chance of a second term is about as viable as your
dead grandma's cunt!"

His face suddenly creased, his emotions beyond his control.

Tears welled and his voice wobbled.

"I did it because I love this country.  God damn it.  I did it because
it's my job to save American lives.  I'd do it again if I had to.  But,
by Christ, if you people had done your job I could have gone out there
like a man!"

He took a deep, steadying breath, and stabbed a threatening finger in
Liota's face.

"You find me my counterpart in Artemis," he said with quiet menace.

"Hunt, or Saddam, or whoever the fuck it is.  You deliver him up to me,
you hear?

Because, by God, before I go I'm going to rip the bastard's balls off
and make him eat them."

No one moved.  People were looking down.  Rachel alone stared Lowell in
the face, repelled.

Quincy whispered to the president.

"Sir..."  He nodded toward Rachel and Vorhees as if to say.  Don't let
the outsiders see this.

Lowell lifted his head high, mastering himself, then abruptly turned
his back and began talking to an advisor, me incident closed.

Quincy quickly escorted Rachel and Vorhees to the door, murmuring,
"I've buzzed downstairs--someone will meet you and show you out."

She and Vorhees stepped into the corridor and the door closed behind
them.  Rachel felt slightly dizzy.  The president out of control, and
Carson so close.

"Real helpful way to behave," Vorhees scoffed as they approached the
elevator.

"These political people, they just don't get it, do they--the public
health time bomb we're dealing with.  But how can I tell the president
of the United States what to do?  I mean, even if we do have something
with this breakthrough, Artemis might already have--" "Breakthrough?"
she asked.

"Didn't you get my memo?"

"No."

"Well, there's a possibility of developing a DNA chain terminator."  He
repeated grimly, "A possibility ... shit" Distracted, he ran a hand
over his hair.

"I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but you were right, Rachel,
from me start.  The president should have agreed to the demand
immediately."

They'd reached the elevator, and Rachel jabbed the button.

"He's agreed now," she said.

"That's what matters."

"Ha," he grunted.

"Smoke screen."

She looked at him.

"What?"

He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, though no one was
in the corridor except a Secret Service agent far behind them.  Vorhees
whispered, "I heard them talking.  They have absolutely no intention of
honoring the education fund pledge."

An icicle entered her heart.

"But... the president's address."

"Smoke screen, to give the FBI time.  They're so damn sure they're just
about to catch Artemis."

"It's over."

Nothing was over.

From her jet's darkened cabin she stared out in fury at the blackness
above New England.  A new moon glimmered like a scythe, and
moon-silvered clouds ghosted by.

"We intention of honoring the pledge."

Twice now she had misjudged her adversary.  At the outset she'd so
naively assumed that the demonstrations would make them agree to her
demand, a demand so benign, so logically in the best interest of all
humanity.  But she'd just been graphically reminded by Lowell that
human beings, far from logical, routinely acted against their own best
interests.

"I'm the one who had to roll over like some little bitch pissing
itself!"  Ego superseded even self-interest.

They would not do the right thing, though the facts stared them in the
face.  Exponential population growth made global environmental
catastrophe inevitable.  In the misery of mass migrations and mass
famine that would follow, desperate populations would savagely turn on
one another for the last scraps, and the madness that had descended on
Rwanda would consume the world.

The people in power could prevent this, but they refused.

They were prepared to leave their children--all the earth's children--a
planet on the brink of an abyss.  In the face of her threat, they were
willing to gamble.  Their arrogance enraged her!

Well, she thought, they're going to lose that gamble.

I win by doing absolutely nothing.

Shipments of virus-contaminated bottled water were waiting in storage
facilities in three major American cities, as well as in Rio,
Frankfurt, Nairobi, and Shanghai.  They were labeled as free samples in
a promotion for a respected worldwide charity.  The moment she stopped
sending me regular computer command, faxes would automatically go to
couriers, ordering pickup of the water and its delivery to selected
outlets in public places: shopping malls, airports, hotels.  The
operation would be complete within a day.

Worldwide plague would follow, and the goal would be accomplished.

A partial cull of humans.  Swift, limited, precise.

Possibly including me.

She looked out at the darkness, and hesitated.  She did not fear death;
she had died long ago.  What made her waver now was anger, a bitter
fury at herself, because this failure was hers as much as Lowell's.
She'd been too timid in her demonstration.  The two foreign villages
had held people Americans cared nothing about, and the target at home,
Stoney Creek, was small enough for the government to write off.  If she
had made the demonstration overwhelming--devastated San Francisco,
say--it would have brought Lowell to his knees at the start.  And now?
she asked herself.  Must the entire world suffer because my lapse has
empowered a vain and ignorant president?  Am I letting my rage, my ego,
push me into a decision as bad as his?

That wasn't all.  She could forfeit her own life ... but forfeit
Tory?

Step back.  The Artemis Declaration was specific: noncompliance would
result in the virus being released in one American city to begin.  Just
as I should have done three weeks ago.  One meaningful strategic
target.  A demonstration of power so staggering, it will shock the
enemy to its senses.  A Hiroshima.

The deadline was still five days away, but she didn't have five days.
Carson would trace the viral material to her San Juan lab within hours,
a day at most.  If the FBI incapacitated her, all the virus shipments
would be delivered automatically.  As long as I control the dead man's
switch, I maintain my option to limit the targets.  The moment Carson
captures me, I lose that.  I must act now.

One phone call to temporarily modify the computer command would do it.
Delivery would be made by midmorning.

The target city would be infected by nightfall.

One more call would be necessary--to the FBI.  To keep the disease from
spreading, the infection must be contained.

An anonymous tip about the impending outbreak would compel the FBI to
seal off the target city--its roads, its airports.

She would make that call the moment she was satisfied that delivery had
been accomplished.

She was becoming calm.  The wild ups and downs of the past weeks--the
nerve-wracking live chess match with Jack, the hope for Tory's
campaign, the anxiety of watching Carson close in, the elation at
Lowell's announcement, the rage at learning he'd lied--it was all
behind her now.  She would allow no more distracting emotions.

Now it came down to which city.  She considered the trio of preselected
targets.  San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Atlanta.

The choice, she realized, was clear.  The president was transferring
the scientific program to the CDC's purview, and that threatened her
control; Vorhees had said they were trying to develop a DNA chain
terminator.  The CDC's headquarters were in Atlanta, so Atlanta would
be the target The only obstacle left would be Jack.

At the Bar Harbor airport she found the terminal almost deserted.  A
yawning caretaker mopped the floor.  The air held faint, competing
smells of cigarette butts and bleach.

At a pay phone outside the darkened snack bar she lifted the receiver,
cold in her hand.  The caretaker, shuffling by her with mop and pail,
nodded deferentially.  She paused, staring at the metallic numbered
squares in front of her.

waiting until he'd passed.  Her hand faintly trembling, she depressed
the squares, and issued her command.

24

in the morning sun tory walked down the corridor of Atlanta's busy
terminal, heading for the departure lounge.  Her connecting flight to
Puerto Rico left in twenty minutes.  She was so engrossed in her
tortured thoughts over how she would begin the negotiation with Carson
that she didn't at first tune in to the announcement over the public
address system.

"... is due to severe electrical storms in the area," the disembodied
voice declared.

"Again, we repeat, all flights are indefinitely delayed."

Delayed?  Tory thought in alarm.  All flights?  She looked outside the
wall of windows at blue sky and bun ding sunshine.

Storms?  What was going on?

She rushed to the departure lounge.  Angry travelers were swarming the
harried airline agents at the desk.  One agent announced over a
handheld microphone that all passengers would be issued hotel vouchers
for the length of the delay, or reimbursed if they preferred to arrange
overnight accommodation on their own.  Overnight?  Tory thought in
dismay.  It was barely ten a.m.

She managed to push through to an agent, who confessed they were
getting conflicting information from management about the cause of the
delay.

"Now they're saying it's a foul-up with the air traffic control
computers.  Ten minutes ago it was because of storms.  It's weird."  He
gave an exasperated shrug.

"Anyway, a long delay is definite.  No flights in or out until tonight,
maybe even tomorrow."  He thrust a hotel voucher at her and turned to
the next protesting passenger.

Tory couldn't wait until tomorrow.  Or even a few hours.

Carson was getting too close to her mother's lab, and the moment he
made that connection, the chance to negotiate would be lost.  She
pulled out her phone, her mouth dry, and called the San Juan number
he'd given her.  Told he wasn't available, she clamped down her panic
and left a message.  It was extremely urgent, she said, explaining that
her flight had been delayed and it was imperative that Carson call
her.

Glancing at the voucher, she gave the hotel number, adding she'd be
there in half an hour.  Her skin was clammy at the thought of plea
bargaining with Carson on the phone, but she had no more options.

The taxi rank was crowded with irate travelers.  Tory finally got a
cab.  As the driver sped through the spaghetti of freeway junctions
that rimmed Atlanta's downtown, Tory looked out at the bright sunshine
glittering off the skyscrapers.

The storm that wasn't a storm.  She thought of the summer her mother
bad taught her to sail.  She must have been eleven or twelve, and
definitely not a natural sailor.  One day the sunny afternoon
deteriorated into heavy weather with high winds, choppy seas, the sails
and rigging howling.

Tory, at the helm, was terrified.  She got disoriented after a tack,
and wrenched the tiller over so far she lost all control of steering.
She panicked.

"What do I doT she screamed.

402 stephen kyle

Rachel said calmly, "Let go."

"What?"  Tory gasped in terror, frantically struggling with the
tiller.

"Lift both hands.  Just let go."

It seemed like suicide, but she did it because her mother said so. They
didn't capsize.  The boat, unhelmed, simply rounded up into the wind,
slowed, and settled.

"There's a balance," her mother explained, gently placing Tory's hand
back on the tiller and helping her to begin again, in control.

"To move ahead you have to work with the wind and water, not fight
them."

How she wished she could lift her hands now and have everything settle,
at peace.  She feared that the storm closing in around her this time
had unleashed forces more terrible man she could manage.

Her mind strayed to Jack.  Ensnared with all her other fears, thoughts
of him had troubled her all night Following those hours of uncertainty
about him, she'd finally reached a conclusion as her plane took off
from DC.  It had come to her suddenly, a welling-up of conviction so
absolute it felt like the only thing she'd ever been sure of in her
life: no way on earth was Jack a partner in this horror.  It was
remembering the video of Jazida mat did it--seeing him desperately
trying to help those suffering people and save his wife.  He'd kept on
despite inhuman conditions, despite his own exhaustion and despair,
working past the point when hope was gone.  Jack was the most heroic
man she'd ever known.  His every action since Jazida confirmed it How
could she have doubted him?

Where was he now?  she wondered sadly.  She hadn't replied to his
e-mail, though from the sound of it he was safe, at least; she knew
Jack could take care of himself.  She wished he were at her side now,
to act, as he had through every crisis in the past weeks, as her
exacting conscience:

arguing, questioning her tactics, forcing her to reexamine, clarify,
refine.  How she'd come to rely on his steadiness, his nerve.  On an
impulse she grabbed her phone again and called his office.  His
voice-mail recording answered as she'd expected, and she realized how
tightly wound she was--and how hopelessly deep her feelings for
him--that she could draw such comfort just from the sound of his
voice.

She doubted he was checking his messages, but she longed to sustain
this connection with him, even if it was only in her mind.  So she just
talked.  Told him she was stuck in Atlanta, that she'd be staying at
the Hyatt Regency, and that she was about to attempt the most
terrifying gamble she'd ever undertaken.

"I need some of your bravery now.  Jack," she said, gazing out uneasily
at the Caribbean-blue sky.

"Or at least a little of your pigheadedness.  Wish me luck."

25

at THE BEACH HOUSE, jack HAD SLEPT LATE.  A profound, empty, renewing
sleep.  He didn't know what the call was that had made Rachel leave so
abruptly last night, and he hardly cared.  It was enough that she knew
she'd won, and could stop.  The moment she had gone, his body seemed to
decide that he too, after weeks of strain, could finally stop.

He sank onto the bed and was asleep almost the moment his head hit the
pillow.

When he awoke to the squawk of a beach combing gull, it was after ten.
The first thing he checked was his email.

Hold on to your hat!  The computer modeling shows the purified CDS
inhibiting entry of virus to macro phages and T4 lymphocytes!  Of
course, the in vitro results won't be conclusive for another twelve
hours, but I really believe this is FT!  Kind of anticlimactic, isn't
it, considering the president's speech?  Anyway, I'll keep you posted.
P.S. Tory

left a message for you.  She's in Atlanta at the Hyatt Regency and
wants you to wish her luck.  Didn't say why.  P.P.S. Can you come back
now?

Why Atlanta?  Jack wondered.  Whatever had taken Tory there, he was
glad she'd called.  It was going to be a joy congratulating her on what
she'd accomplished.  The CDS results were equally satisfying,
anticlimax or not; the most welcome ending to the last month's troubled
events.

Events?  Marisa.  Gerry.  Youssef.  Those had been lives, and the
remembrance of their deaths was still an open wound in his soul.  But
now, at least, there would be no more.

The nightmare was over.

He thought of Laurel.  Cut off from the world for three days, he didn't
know if she was still up at the house or had gone back to Boston. These
last weeks, he'd wanted her to stay, figuring the safest place for her
was with Rachel.  Now, he hoped she'd gone home; he wanted her to get
back to a normal life.  He had caught the last bit of a TV testimonial
she had done, supporting him.  That had to have been Tory's work, and
it filled Jack with gladness.  What wonders Tory could do. It gave him
hope that, one day.  Laurel would talk to him again.

The nightmare was over, but the waiting was not.  He would still have
to face Colwell.  Terrible crimes had been committed, and he remained
the FBI's prime suspect.  That meeting with Colwell was going to be
tricky.  Best to have Tory broker it, with her attorneys present.
Before coming out of hiding he needed to confer with her.  No phones
yet;

the FBI would still be listening.

Tricky?  he thought.  It was going to be hell.  He didn't know if it
was finally time to tell Colwell about Rachel.  Her lethal viral
material was still out there.  Was it really safe to divulge everything
before he was sure she had recalled all her virus "bombs"?

Yet, if he kept silent what did that make him?  Her accomplice.

One step at a time, he told himself.  Wait for Tory to reply to his
email.

Damn it, though, he hated being penned up here any longer.

He'd give it another few hours.  If she hadn't contacted him by then
he'd walk out and deal with the FBI himself, however the hell that
might play out.  He wasn't going to spend another day prowling this
prison cell.  Not now, when it was all over.

Three hours later he checked his mail and found a message from Mandy.

I don't know what to do.  The CDC just posted an e-mail bulletin.  They
caution it's only a preliminary report, but they say a lot of women in
Atlanta are coming in for ER services and presenting what look like
Artemis symptoms.  The FBI's closed Atlanta's airports and roads.  Is
it an outbreak?  What's going on?  Please tell me what to do.  I'm so
scared.

Jack stared at the words.  They seemed to sc rear-.  at him.

Outbreak!  Artemis!

What has Rachel done?

One word shrieked above the others.  Atlanta.

He snatched me phone.  The Hyatt Regency, Mandy had said.  From
Information he got the number.  Busy.  He punched the redial.  Busy. He
finally got through and asked for her room.  His puke drubbed in his
throat as he waited.

Her phone rang and rang.  The clerk came back, sounding frantic.  Over
a dozen women in the hotel had been taken to Grady Memorial Hospital,
he said, and it was simply impossible to-"Was Tory Colwell one?"  Jack
cut in.  The clerk said he'd check the list but it was getting hard to
keep track of every ... oh, dear, there were so many other calls, he
was sorry , he had to go... wait, yes, a Victoria FarrColwell was on
the list.  Was that the same--?

Jack hung up.  His heart banged so hard he couldn't breathe.

Have to get to Atlanta!

And do what?  Watch her die?

His legs weakened.  The room hissed in his ears.  Objects around him
blurred.  Has Rachel struck other cities too?  The screen sucked back
his attention.  He zeroed in on the email address: mchang@lesage.com.
The lab.

Purified CD5.  Could it work?  It did in theory.  Christ, in theory?
Millions of people are going to die!  Tory ... Laurel.

He beat down the panic.  Theory was all he had.  Have to try.

How much CDS?  How purified?  Is enough available?  Is there time?

Think!

The data.  Get the data.

He pulled open the door and charged down the beach.

When he reached the path that led up to the house, he stopped,
breathing hard, unsure.  Can't go for the car.  FBI in the house. Can't
let them stop me.

He looked to the dock.  Rachel's inflatable dinghy was tethered at the
far end.  He ran down the dock, loosened the bowline, and scrambled to
the stern.  As he yanked the motor's cord it roared to life, and he
sped across the bay to the town jetty.  Twenty minutes later he was
crashing through the underbrush in the ravine.  He raced across the
clearing to the back of the lab and bounded up the steel staircase.

Rachel's office was empty.

He crossed it and opened the door to the hall.  People were hurrying
past.  He could almost smell their fear at the news of the outbreak. He
walked out among them, his chest heaving after the race from the jetty
and through the ravine.  He tried to conceal it, tried to force himself
to walk slowly.

Mustn't draw attention.  Mandy said the FBI was still here.

Can't let them stop me.  Unable to hold himself back he bounded up the
stairs to his office.

Mandy was at her computer.  As Jack closed the door she turned in
surprise.

"Pull up the CD5 data," he ordered.

Her face was white.

"Mandy, the data!  Now!"

She stammered, "It's gone."

"What?"

"Five minutes ago.  The files just began to disappear.  I get nothing
but this."  She gestured at the screen, blank except for the words:
unable to find pile.  please verify that the

CORRECT PATH AND FILENAME ARE GIVEN.

"A VU-US invaded the directory," she said in shock.

Jack shoved her aside and took over at the keyboard.  He typed command
after command, everything he could think of to retrieve the files.  He
and Mandy and Youssef had input a massive amount of data in over two
hundred files, but each one he opened displayed the same disclaimer
unable to

FIND FILE.  PLEASE VERIFY THAT THE CORRECT PATH AND FILENAME ARE

GIVEN.

"Christ, what did you do?"

"Nothing!  I'd just come back from Dr.  Lesage's office and I--" "You
went to her?"

"Of course.  We might have the only viable concept for a treatment."

Rachel.  She'd trashed the files.  Wiped out the entire directory.

He grabbed Mandy's arm.

"Did you back it up?"

She winced at his grip.

"Of course, it's automatic.  But when I tried to retrieve the backup, I
found it was erased too.

I was just going to call the systems administrator.  Everything in the
lab's computers is backed up to an offsite server, so maybe he can--"
Jack didn't listen to the rest.  Rachel would have trashed that backup,
too.  He was listening instead to a cold voice inside him: Think like
she thinks ... what would she have done--you know her.

And she knows me.  That was it.  She'd known he was doing this
research.  She'd been hacking into it all along.  At the very
beginning, to prevent that.  Jack had encrypted the data, but clearly
he hadn't known the full extent of Rachel's security systems.  Now he
realized: she'd previously input a decrypting command, system-wide.
He'd believed his data was hidden, but everything he and Mandy and
Youssef had been doing, Rachel had been following.

She would never destroy such vital information, though.

She would secure it, transfer it to some safe place.  Then she could
study it herself, test the theories, manipulate them.  If the CDS
treatment proved effective she could counter it, maybe by creating a
resistant strain.

What if she's already created one?  Stop--one step at a time.  She's
only had the same number of hours I did.  She's probably still working
on it.  And she can only do that if she has my data.

He was already at the door.

He dashed downstairs to the first floor and moved along the hall
scanning faces like a predator.  He wanted only Rachel.  People
stepped back, out of his way.  She couldn't have gone far.  Mandy had
just talked to her.

Then he saw her, walking quickly, her back to him, heading for her
office.  She hadn't seen him.  Silently, he fell in behind her.

She reached her door and opened it, and he shoved her inside.

She gasped in surprise and stumbled.  Grabbing her, he kicked the door
shut and forced her up against the wall.

Rachel met his eyes levelly, unrepentant.

He wanted to smash her face.

"Have you released it worldwide?"

"One city.  To make the president see."

Just Atlanta.  Laurel was safe, so far.  But not Tory.

"Where's the data?"  he demanded.

"Gone."

"You're lying!  You've transferred it somewhere.  Where?"

She said nothing.

He gripped her throat and pressed his thumbs on her windpipe.

"Where?"

Her stitched wound turned livid.  She coughed and tried to pull his
hands away.

"Jack, believe me, you can't get it back."  She strained to breathe.

"There's nothing you can do."  She clawed at his hands.

Fury overwhelmed him.

"There's a chance!"  He pulled her around, forced her backward across
the room, and pushed her down on the desk on her back.  He bent over
her, gripping her shoulders, and shook her viciously.

"Where is it?"

Her hands flailed, knocking things to the floor--books, papers, disks.
Enraged, Jack shoved her farther along the desk.  The computer keyboard
crashed to the floor, and the side of Rachel's head thudded against the
monitor.  She gasped in pain, blood trickling from her ear.  She groped
across the desk for something.  Whatever it was.  Jack wrenched her
away from it.

"You've got to tell me," he cried.

"For Tory.  She's there!"

Even in her pain she was immovable.

"That trick won't work.  Jack.  Tory's in Washington."

"I'm telling you, she went to Atlanta!  I don't know why, but she's
there."

She blinked at him.

"No, she's at her office.  She's been at home since--" "I just called
her hotel in Atlanta.  She's been sent to Grady Hospital.  You put her
there."

Rachel froze.

"I won't let you kill her," he yelled, and grappled her throat again.

Suddenly he felt a tremor course through her, a surge of power.

"Release me," she said, a disembodied voice, a threat.  Jack heard a
scrape of metal, glimpsed the flash of a brass letter opener... and
then she stabbed.

Pain flamed through his thigh.  He staggered back.  Clutching behind
him at the letter opener, he wrenched the blade out of his thigh.  Pain
seared up to his groin.

Rachel stumbled to her feet and hurried past him to the adjoining room,
her private lab.  He limped after her, his leg on fire, blood soaking
his pant leg.  He found her beside the stainless-steel counter, pulling
open a wall safe.  Pulling out a gun.

"Stop there!"  she said, aiming the gun at him.

He didn't.  He couldn't.  He wanted to crack open her skull and force
the data out.  He stalked toward her, the bloody letter opener still in
his fist.

She turned the gun and held it at her own temple.

Jack stopped.  Her fevered eyes told him she might actually do it. Then
there'd be no hope for Tory.  If the switch released a global outbreak,
there'd be no hope for millions.

With the gun trained again on him, Rachel grabbed a hard-sided
briefcase and opened it on the counter.  She snatched bound wads of
cash from the safe and threw them in.  He couldn't believe it.  Escape?
Was that her mad plan?

She opened the door of a refrigeration unit and lifted out a stoppered
test tube half-filled with blue liquid.  As she carefully fitted it
into the briefcase, cushioning it inside the wadded money, the truth of
what she was doing slammed into Jack: "Logical mind except when her
family is threatened.

" "My God," he whispered.

"It's CD5."

Her face was immobile.  She snapped the briefcase shut.

Blood still trickled from her ear.  She glanced at the doorway behind
him.

"Step aside.  Jack."

She was leaving to go to Tory.

If she didn't die first herself.

"Rachel, let me come with you."  He lifted his hands in surrender.  He
stepped closer, blocking her path.  If she goes there and dies, it's
all over.

"You're not well enough," he urged gently.

"Let me help you do this."

She scoffed.

"Why would you?"

"Because it's Tory."

It was from his heart, and she saw it.

She hesitated.

"If I could believe--" The office door slammed open.  Three FBI agents
pounded in, weapons raised, taking in the scene: Rachel's bloody ear,
the bloody letter opener in Jack's hand.

"Drop the knife!"  one yelled.

Jack realized what she'd been groping at earlier on the desk: the
security alarm.

The agent shouted again to drop the knife, step back, raise his hands,
and make no sudden moves.  Jack heard the click of the safety catch
released.

"Do it now!"

With a maddened groan he dropped the letter opener.  Two agents
grabbed his arms and dragged him away from Rachel.  She slipped her gun
in her pocket.  Carrying the briefcase, she headed for the door while
the FBI man told Jack, "Don't move!"

Handcuffs clamped his wrists.

Rachel was gone.

It took him over half an hour just to get them to listen.

They marched him outside, handcuffed, surrounded by a throng of more
agents, and excited local police, and a hastily conscripted doctor to
dress his bleeding wound.  They shoved him into a car to transport him
to Bangor, ignoring his protests amid their flurry of activity and
calls on car phones and radios, asking for instructions from
superiors.

Not until they were speeding along Route 1A, with Jack wedged between
two of them in the back, did he flatly declare, like the madman they
thought he was, that virus bombs were about to detonate in cities
across the country and around the world, that global plague was
imminent, and that only he could stop it They finally gave him their
stunned attention.

"I've got to speak to Carson Colwell," he ordered.  The agent to his
right held a phone.  Jack, wrists cuffed behind him, thrust his chin
toward it.

"Get him on the line."

"Mr.  Colwell left San Juan as soon as he knew we'd apprehended you,"
the agent said nervously.

"He's on his way."

"Then patch me through to his plane.  God damn it!"

The agent seemed frozen by doubt.  Jack's bloody knee shot up, knocking
the phone from the man's hand.

"Do it now!"

26

the learjet screamed down the runway.  Rachel was on her feet before it
taxied to a stop.  She opened the clamshell door and warm evening air
rushed into the air-conditioned cabin.

Warm as the Rwandan rain, warm as blood.

The suburban Atlanta flying club--no air traffic control--looked like
any modest municipal airport on any normal evening.  A low, rambling
terminal.  A few parked cars and service trucks.  Chain-link fencing.
Neon-lit fast-food outlets on the street beyond, wafting a faint odor
of frying oil.  No sign that the city twelve miles away was in the
throes of panic.

Tory, I'm coming.

She picked up the briefcase and stepped off the plane.  As she walked
across the tarmac she could faintly hear car horns blaring far in the
distance.  Inside the club terminal a knot of employees, a half-dozen
men, stood silently around a TV.  Passing behind them, Rachel glimpsed
me screen: a man in military fatigues making an announcement.

At the taxi rank only one cab sat waiting, a dented green Buick, the
driver nowhere in sight She went back inside.

"Is there a cabdriver?"

The men looked at her, dazed.

"That's me, ma'am."  A burly black man with grizzled gray hair.

"You're available?"

"Guess so."

They went out to the green Buick.

"Where to?"  he asked as he opened his door.

"Downtown."  She slid into me backseat, careful to keep the briefcase
upright.

He flopped behind the wheel, frowning.

"Maybe you ain't beard, ma'am.  They got bad sickness there.  Real
bad."

"Yes.  I'm a doctor."

"That so?"  He turned to look at her.

"So you got some special--what they call it?--immunity, I guess?"

She tightened her grip on the briefcase.  My blood or my daughter's
blood.

"Go," she said.

"Please."

The driver shook his head.

"Sorry.  Army's put up roadblocks."

"There must be some way.  I'll make it worth your while."

He studied her.

"Wasn't easy getting' out Be plenty hard getdn' back in."

She handed him a thick wad of cash.

"Is five thousand dollars enough?"

His eyes widened.  He took the money and examined it On the car radio a
clipped, male, military voice was giving instructions on staying
indoors and keeping windows and doors closed, and announcing emergency
numbers for police and ambulance services.  The quarantine was being
strictly enforced, he warned.  Persons found out-of-doors would be
taken into custody.

"Man, that's bad," the driver murmured, shaking his head while he
counted the cash.

"It don't bother me, on account of this bug don't hurt men.  But you
... You sure 'bout this, ma'am?"

"Just go."

He shrugged.

"Long as you know what you're doin'."  He tucked away the cash and
started the car, adding with grim satisfaction, "My wife and kids're in
Disney World."

As he pulled away from the curb, he turned up the radio.

The announcer was listing roads that were closed.

"Folks is so scared," the driver said, "they all been tryin' to get
out.

Few hours ago, you couldn't hardly move on them roads.

But the army come in, cleaned things up some."

"I'm not familiar with Atlanta," Rachel said.

"Do you know Grady Hospital?"

He nodded.

"See that blue dome yonder?  Up top the Hyatt Regency?  Grady's just a
hop skip away."

She looked at the lights of the skyline where a bubble of deep royal
blue on the hotel roof glowed like a beacon in the dark.

I'm coming.

The driver was frowning at her in the rearview mirror.

"Them GI's are mighty jumpy.  They clap eyes on you, a woman, they'll
haul you out for sure, doctor or no."

"Stop," she said.

"I'll get in the trunk."

As she climbed into the dank space that smelled of gasoline and mildew,
the driver said, "Don't you fret, ma'am."

He gave her a sly look.

"I know me a way or two them good of boys don't know."

27

grady memorial hospital WAS UNDER SIEGE.

At first, looking out from the FBI car.  Jack could see only a hatching
of crisscrossed headlight beams as the car crawled in among the snarl
of vehicles in front of the twenty-one-story medical complex on Butler
Street.  Police cruisers, ambulances, fire trucks, FBI cars, armored
military vans.  It was almost impossible to move.  On the flight from
Maine, Jack's escort.  Agent Heaslip, had been giving him updates as
they came in.

First bulletin: Rachel had taken over the hospital's sixth floor at
gunpoint, sending the staff out, and now she had the authorities in a
standoff.  Heaslip had been astounded by her action; it was suicide.
Jack was not.  He knew exactly what she was doing.  Trying to save
Tory.  His despair and hope fused--one relentless impulse to reach them
both in time.

Second bulletin: Grady and every other hospital in the city were
overflowing with victims.

Third: the dying had begun.

As their car was squeezed to a halt.  Jack looked up at the floodlit
building's facade.  The windows were dark squares in the illumination
of the searchlights.  Tory was in there, suffering.

He pushed open the door and plunged into the swarm of people.  Pain
stabbed from the wound in his thigh.  Heaslip was right behind him,
yelling, "Doctor, slow down!"

There were soldiers, SWAT teams, officers in riot gear, FBI, reporters
restrained far back behind barricades.  All the faces were male.
Helicopters thrummed overhead.  All around was a din of barked
commands, voices crackling on two-way radios, and me clatter of weapons
being prepared.

Jack and Heaslip were pushing through toward the FBI command post when
Jack spotted Colwell.  He'd never seen a man age so much in mere hours.
Over the phone to Colwell's plane, when Jack had finally told him
everything-about Rachel, her dead man's switch, the hidden data--he had
beard, inside the awful silence, Colwell's thundering realization of
his failure: his obstructive obsession with Jack, his fatal blindness
about Rachel.  Jack now saw it etched in his face.

Colwell was still proceeding like the calm professional, though.  He
stood conferring with a circle of about twenty FBI agents in riot gear,
all equipped with submachine guns and night-vision apparatus.

"FBI Hostage Rescue Team," Heaslip told Jack as they moved closer.

"Elite SWAT guys."

Colwell, giving last-minute instructions to the HRT commander, turned
Jack's way.  Their eyes met, acknowledging all they shared: an
admission of despair, a refusal to accept it, and pain over the woman
in both their minds, Tory.

Jack was thinking of Laurel, too.  Of the millions who would die if
Rachel died.  The FBI was at work alerting couriers across the country
and around the world, but there were so many: large corporations, small
companies, independents, unlicensed fly-by-nights, individuals even.
No one knew what kind of containers to look for this time.  or what
alias Rachel had used in consigning the shipments to the storage
companies.

As the HRT commander moved off with his team.  Jack, limping, pushed
through to Colwell.

"Are they going in?"  he asked anxiously.

"Do they know Rachel must not be banned?"

"They know," Colwell said, and Jack heard the edge of rage beneath the
steely voice.

"She's armed, with patients as hostages, and she's threatened to kill
them if we interfere."

Unnerved, Heaslip said, "The virus'll kill them anyway."

"Including her, right.  Doctor?"  Colwell asked.

Jack nodded.

"Yes.  I don't believe she has enough CDS for herself."  He didn't
utter the myriad other fears tearing at him: maybe not even enough for
Tory... if it even works ... and then, all the others here, millions
more if the switch closes.  Too little, too late.

Colwell said evenly, "So we've got to find out two things fast.  Where
she's stored your therapy data, and how she's rigged her dead man's
switch.  Our computer systems analysts in DC.  are standing by.  All
they need are her codes."

He looked Jack in the eye.

"She used to consider you her friend.  Doctor.  If I get you inside,
you think you can talk to her?"

Jack looked up at the dark windows.  Her friend?  No one could hate her
more.

"Get me in," he said.

"I'll try."

Jack watched as the HRT commander took half his team inside.  The
moment their point man reported to ColweU from position on the sixth
floor, Colwell radioed me Atlanta SWAT team to confirm they'd secured
the exits.  Then, drawing his own side arm, he turned to Jack.

"Ready?**

Jack took a deep breath.

"Let's go."

He moved inside with Colwell and the rest of the HRT force.  In the
deserted lobby his nostrils stung at the smell of death.  As the group
swarmed up to the sixth floor.  Jack ran with them.  On the sixth floor
the team took up position in the main corridor, and Jack and Colwell
stopped with them.

The advance team were still moving patients from this section of the
corridor to safety, so they had to wait until the space was cleared.
Watching the agents work.  Jack stood catching his breath, wiping his
sweating palms on his pants.

He could hear women's voices, crying, moaning.  The sounds were
terrible, but at least they covered the team's movements.  The HRT
commander, ahead, was giving hand signals.  Jack looked frantically
back at Colwell: what did the signals mean?  Then he understood--they
were establishing that Rachel was in the hallway around the corner.

The pit of his stomach cramped.  In a moment, this would all be up to
him.

He saw Colwell motion to the half-dozen sharpshooters to stand by. Then
Colwell lifted a megaphone.  For a moment he froze, and Jack could
almost smell the man's dread.  None of Colwell's experience in
negotiating with desperate criminals, none of his training, not even
his imagination, could have prepared him for this.  Nor mine.  Jack
thought with a sickening stab of doubt.

"Rachel," Colwell finally called to her, "this is Carson Colwell.  Can
you hear me?  I'd like to talk to you."

"Don't come any closer!"  she called.

"Don't let your men interfere with me, Carson.  Virus deliveries are
ready in other cities, and if I'm killed they'll be activated."

He said with calmness, real or pretended, "We need to talk about
that."

"No more talking.  It's over.  If I see your men come this way I will
kill myself."

Jack made a gesture to catch Colwell's eye.  Colwell turned his head
and Jack nodded vigorously to tell him.  Yes, she'd do it!

"No one's coming, Rachel," Colwell said, a new flintiness in his
voice.

"You have my word.  But there's someone who wants to see you.  It's
Jack Hunt.  Will you let him come?"

Silence.  Jack waited in agony.  Why should she give in now?

Then: "Jack's here?"

"Right beside me.  He wants very much to meet with you.

Can I send him to you?"

Silence.  Jack clenched his teeth, regretting every brutal word he'd
ever said to her, every act that had poisoned her trust in him. Please,
Rachel, just one last time!

Then: "Yes.  Only Jack."

His heart almost sprang into his throat.  Colwell swiveled to him and
whispered fiercely, "Get her codes!  Go!"

Moving down the silent corridor.  Jack could hardly hear his own
footsteps above the rasping pulse in his ears.  As he neared the
corner, his fingers felt for the small microphone the HRT technician
had fitted in his breast pocket.  He turned the corner into the
hallway, and was immediately among a jumble of gurneys.  Women lay on
them moaning.  Bloody dressings littered the floor.  Jack blocked it
all out.  His target was Rachel.

He saw her standing at the far end of the hall near a fire door.  On a
trolley beside her lay her gun, a syringe, and the stoppered test tube
with the blue fluid.  Where was Tory?

Hadn't Rachel found her?  Was she on some other floor, writhing in
terror and pain, alone?

Get the codes, his brain commanded.  It's all over--for Tory, for all
of them--if you can't get the codes.

He kept on toward Rachel, sidestepping the moaning women as obstacles
in his path.  Rachel watched him come.

Then he saw Tory lying on a gurney behind Rachel.  His heart cracked.
Her head was lolling on the bloodstained sheet.  Her lips had split Her
gums were bleeding.  Blood trickled from her nose.  A sob like a saw
blade ripped his throat Tory!"

He couldn't stop himself.  He ran to her and took her by the shoulders
and pulled her into his arms.  She was so weak, her head flopped onto
his shoulder.  Frantically, he looked toward the test tube on the
trolley.  The blue fluid was almost gone.

"Isn't it working?"  he asked Rachel in despair.

"I don't know if it's enough.  It's all I had."

Jack pressed Tory against him, helplessly willing his strength into
her.

"Jack," Rachel said, clutching his arm.

"Carson is going to stop me, and when he does you must give her--" She
coughed, and pointed to the syringe.

"Give the last injection.

hi twenty minutes.  She's had two.  Three's the minimum--at least an
hour apart."  She coughed again.

"Twenty minutes.

Do you understand?"

Oh, God, if only it would work.

"Do you understand?"  she demanded hoarsely.

He noticed a bright bead of blood oozing from a crack in Rachel's lower
lip.  Her eyes were losing focus.  The first visible symptoms.  She was
going to die in agony, like the rest of her victims.  But Tory?

"Yes," he said shakily, "I understand."

Tory suddenly moaned, "Why?"

Jack released his embrace enough to look at her face.  Was she
rallying?

Tory whispered, her eyes on Rachel.

"Why did you do it?

You were always ... my idol," Blood dribbled from the corner of her
mouth.

"Why, Mother?  When there was no need?  We'd won."

Rachel seemed to rock on her feet Jack saw this was breaking her
heart.

"The president lied," she said.

"I had to act."  She shook her head and looked at Jack as though
supremely puzzled.

"He could have chosen life.  Jack.  Why wouldn't he do that?"

The president lied?  Jack had no answer.

Rachel suddenly winced in pain and reached out to brace herself against
Tory's gurney.  Jack knew there was no more time.  He was holding Tory
so tightly against him she was covering the mike.  To do what he must,
he had to let her go.

He gently laid her down, then stood face to face with Rachel.

"You don't have much longer," he said.

"When you're gone, the switch will close."  He took hold of her arms.

"I

don't believe you want that.  Not in the deepest, best part of you.  I
know you, Rachel, the way you used to be.  Your brilliance.

Your genius.  Your soul.  Don't let this be your legacy.  Don't let
this be the way you change the world.  Let me stop it.  Let me do it
for you.  Please, Rachel, tell me your codes."

A sharp noise clicked down the corridor.  Rachel flinched.

"Yes, you know me.  And I know you.  And if I tell... ?"  She
hesitated, then suddenly clamped her hands on his shoulders and locked
her eyes on his.

"Listen to me.  Jack."

Her sudden focus caught him like an electrode in the chest She's going
to tell me.

"The switch," she said.

"You keep it from closing by calling a number.  At the prompt, you
input a numeric code.  The call has to be made by eleven.  The
numbers--" She grabbed the edge of Tory's gurney for balance, her
strength ebbing.

"A pencil?"

Jack groped in his pocket for a pen, then grabbed a doctor's abandoned
clipboard from the floor.  He scribbled the numbers Rachel dictated.

"Your therapy data," she went on quickly.

"It's safe, but encrypted.  You can access it through my Internet
address and decrypt it with a simple alpha code--a name."  Blood
trickled from the crack in her lip.

"My son's name."

Paul!  Jack scribbled it, then stiffened as he heard the faint crackle
of a radio down the hall.  Colwell.  He would have heard all of this
over the mike.  He had the codes now too.

"The Pear Tree Inn," Rachel said quietly.

Jack's eyes snapped back to her.  She was watching his face intently.

"Remember, Jack?"  she whispered.

"The daffodils?"

He stared at her, shaken.  Their hotel outside London.

Caution pricked his scalp.  Something was wrong here.

A sudden deafening tramp of boots.  Sharpshooters storming the hall.
Jack froze, thinking wildly, Colwell, no.  You gave her your word.  He
saw Colwell running with them.

More commandos burst through the fire door near Rachel, shouting,
flashing lights to stun her.

Rachel stood in shock, her back braced against Tory's gurney .

Colwell raised his weapon, aiming at her.

Jack cried, "No!"  He threw himself against Rachel, pushing her down on
top of Tory, shielding them both with his body.

"Hold your fire," Colwell shouted.

The sharpshooters halted, weapons still poised.

Rachel squirmed out from under Jack.  She groped for the trolley, for
the syringe.

"Jack, remember!"  she gasped.

"The third injec--" "She's going for the gun!"  someone yelled.

Colwell fired twice.  Her head and her heart.

Jack caught her in his arms.  No!  No!

* * *

"Jack?  Are you there?"

His fingers trembled as he injected the last of the blue fluid into
Tory's arm.  Her eyelids fluttered as she hovered in and out of
delirium.

"It's all right," he said, using his sleeve to wipe blood from her
mouth.  He squeezed her hand.

"You're going to be fine."  He had no idea if it was true.

His eyes flicked to Colwell across the hall, standing with a few of his
men, all on phones, working to dismantle Rachel's system.  Jack could
hear their ragged voices, see their tension, and he sensed again, with
a slippery feeling in his stomach, that something was very wrong.

He was sitting on a chair in an abandoned room, alone with Tory.  He'd
pushed her gurney here, far from Rachel's body.  Through the open door
he was watching the cluster of Colwell and his men.  One of them, a
phone jammed between chin and shoulder, was relaying the code for the
data to FBI computer specialists in Washington.  On another phone,
Colwell himself was making the call to halt the dead man's switch. Jack
could see there was a problem.  Uneasy, he went to the doorway.

Colwell, lowering the cell phone, saw him.

"Woke up some old man," he said shakily.  He hit the numbers again,
verified the number with the person who answered, then closed the phone
again, white-faced.  Slowly, meticulously, he tried the number again.
Again, he listened briefly, then lowered the phone.  Jack saw his look
of horror.  And felt the horror himself.  The number was no good.

"Sir," the agent on the other phone blurted, "you did say the code for
the encrypted data was "Paul," correct?"

"Yes."

"The computer team is reporting that code doesn't get them in."

Jack felt a claw of fear.

"My son's name," she had said.

But "Paul" was wrong.  And the phone number Colwell had tried was
wrong.  All the information she 'd given was wrong.

In fifteen minutes the dead man's switch would close.

Colwell was now in a frantic discussion with the other agents.  Jack
looked toward Rachel's body down the corridor.

Two agents were lifting her onto a gurney, covering her with a bloodied
sheet.  And suddenly it struck him what was wrong.  What she'd done.

"The Pear Tree hm," she'd said.  The English country hotel where he had
come to her in the coach house surrounded by daffodils.  The night
before, in London, she'd told him the inn's phone number as they stood
encircled by reporters, then had whispered as she passed him, "Deduct
one numeral."

She had guessed Colwell was listening so she'd given the codes--in
code.  A message only Jack would understand.

She handed me her power.  To carry on?  For a moment, the enormity of
it stunned him.

Tory moaned.  The military din outside on the street reached him.  All
around him, the city was dying.

It wrenched him back.  He ran across the hall.

"Colwell."

Jack quickly explained.  He dictated me altered digits, which Colwell
furiously scribbled down.  Jack watched him grab the phone and, very
carefully, press the numbers.  This time Colwell seemed to get through:
no words, so probably a computer had answered.  Colwell proceeded
gingerly to enter the command, the reconfigured numeric code.

The other agent, who'd immediately relayed to the DC.

specialists the new rendering of "Paul" to unlock the therapy data, now
called to Colwell in a panicky voice, "They're saying that doesn't work
either."

Jack thought: Another of Rachel's tricks?

Colwell, desperation in his eyes, turned to Jack.  Desperate himself.
Jack saw nowhere else to go.

Then a feeble voice behind him said, "Not Paul."

Jack twisted around.  Tory was staggering toward him, bracing herself
against the wall as she came.  Jack ran to her.

Her face was chalky, her lips blue.

"Not Paul," she said, clutching his arm, her voice a thread.

"His nickname... she loved it."  She stopped, coughing a mist of blood.
Jack twisted back to Colwell.

"Curious George!  Try it!"

Colwell wrenched the phone from the agent and shouted it over the line
to DC.  Tory swayed on her feet.  Her eyes rolled up in their
sockets.

"Tory!"  Jack cried.  He caught her in his arms as she collapsed.

28

winter stubbornly persisted in pockets of the Maine woods.  Driving
from the Bar Harbor airport, Jack passed through countryside filigreed
with spring buds in the youngest, freshest colors of green, where birds
with nest twigs in their beaks were darting among the branches.  When
he turned onto the private road to Swallow Point, however, the deeper
into the woods he went the more residue of winter he saw.  Clumps of
snow clung in hollows in the shade of trees.  Melting knobs of ice,
trapped under matted fallen leaves, dripped slowly down to their
cores.

Some cores of sadness.  Jack thought, would never melt.

The gate stood open, unattended, security no longer a priority here,
and he drove through under the foliage canopy.  It had been six months
since he had passed these birches and maples and beeches, but the woods
had endured unchanged.

Nothing around him spoke of the chaos that had shaken the world
outside.  Nothing registered the human tragedy.  Nothing marked the
final passing in the home at the end of this road, but it was the
reason Jack had come.  Del Fan had died.

He wasn't sure who would be here for the memorial gathering--as he
emerged from the woods he saw about two dozen cars parked in front of
the house--but there was one person he wanted very much to see.  When
he'd got her note about her father's death, the contact from her, after
so many months of solitude, had shafted through his darkness like
sunlight through a forest The old house, he saw as he pulled up, looked
as unchanged as the woods.  The government had confiscated Rachel's
corporate assets, but Swallow Point, which had been in Del's name, they
could not touch.  It felt strange to be back.  Jack thought as he
climbed the verandah steps.

In the living room about forty people stood around awkwardly, holding
coffee cups.  Men in suits, women in dresses, a few kids scrubbed for
the event and fidgeting.

Conversation was muted.

Jack spotted Tory across the room.  In the six months since he'd seen
her, sorrow had sculpted its claim on her.  Her face was thinner, her
eyes more watchful, her air more subdued.

The effect only intensified her beauty, he thought.  Turning her head,
she met his gaze, and a faint smile lighted her eyes.  He started to go
to her, but an anxious-looking older couple drew her into conversation.
Jack held back.

"Oh, Dr.  Hunt," Doris, the housekeeper, greeted him, "it's so good of
you to come.  We saw you the other day on TV.

The president giving you that medal."

"How are you, Doris?"

She shrugged sadly.

"Getting by."  She leaned closer and said in a conspiratorial whisper,
"Don't look now, but half these people want your autograph."

"They'll get over it."

The president's invitation to accept a special humanitarian award had
reached him in Italy three weeks ago, yet as he'd looked out his hotel
window at the glacial beauty of Lake Como, he'd felt only a profound
melancholy.  Twentytwo thousand women and girls in Atlanta had died.

Tory had been right about the nickname that night at Grady Hospital.

"Curious George" had accessed the stored data.  And the decoded phone
number had halted the dead man's switch.  With Colwell organizing FBI
and military support.  Jack had coordinated a nationwide operation to
mass-produce the CD5 therapy.  Within hours, labs across the country
were preparing the antidote.  The army flew it into the quarantined
city and the CDC managed an inoculation blitz.  The treatment had saved
the lives of hundreds of thousands of stricken victims, and prevented
the spread of the disease beyond Atlanta.  Jack had been hailed as a
national hero.  Yet over twenty-two thousand had died.

Afterward, in Washington, there were months of hearings and inquiries.
Jack gave reports, answered endless questions from committees, told
everything he knew.  But he'd shunned the mobs of reporters.  Colwell,
after tracking the virus containers in other cities here and abroad and
having them destroyed, had been promoted, and now headed up the FBI's
National Security Division.  Jack could only approve.

Under hellish conditions, the man had done his job.

Tory, as soon as she'd recovered, had been obliged to give public
testimony too, about PGT, although the FBI laid no charges once they
were satisfied she had played no part in her mother's crimes.  Jack had
watched in admiration as she'd handled herself in the hearings with
dignity and restraint while the media trumpeted her mother as evil
incarnate.

He had seen Tory's private suffering, though, so he'd stayed away to
give her space.  That was hard.  In those awful hours when he'd known
she might die, he had realized all that she meant to him.  While
working round the clock on the treatment program in the following
days, he'd continually checked with the doctors about her, drawing
relief from the news of her steady recovery.

Laurel had been his lifesaver.  He'd called her after that night in
Grady, so grateful she hadn't been harmed.  She'd cried and apologized
for the way she'd treated him; he told her none of that mattered, he
was just happy to hear her voice.  Later, during the Washington
hearings, she'd come to stay with him for several days, her presence a
comfort, just like the old days, until the start of classes took her
back to Boston.  Jack had been glad to see her get back to a normal
life.  His own life felt on hold.

A month before, while Tory was still recuperating in the hospital, he'd
gone to visit her, flowers in hand.  He'd stopped at me doorway when he
saw Colwell sitting on her bed.  They were quietly talking; their
little boy stood beside Colwell.  The intimacy of the scene made Jack
back away, and made him face a hard truth.  He had no rights here.  She
was Colwell's wife.

When the inquiries were done, he left the country.  Went to Scotland
first and hiked for long days in the rainy highlands.

Went on to Italy, where his host in Milan, a friend on the university's
medical faculty, didn't ask questions about his days spent mountain
climbing, or walking alone by me lake, or wandering in galleries and
gazing at sculpture.

There, on a chilly hill above Lake Como, he said his final, silent
good-bye to Marisa.  A lovely woman he'd barely known.

Three weeks ago he'd received President Lowell's invitation, so he'd
come straight home.  A few days later he got Tory's note about Del.

Finally, when it was clear that no more guests were going to straggle
in, a white-haired man introduced himself to the gathering as Del's
brother, Arthur, then cleared his throat and began solemnly, "I want to
thank you all for coming."

Jack looked over at Tory.  She was listening gravely to her uncle's
eulogy, another male relative's arm around her shoulders.  Jack
suddenly felt out of place.  He'd come to honor Del, and in his heart
he did, but he wasn't part of this group.  He wasn't family.

He quietly made his way out the door.

Standing on the dock in the raw spring wind, he gazed out at the
unsettled ocean, thinking of Rachel.  Like some vengeful sea goddess
who'd risen from the deep to send a whirlwind against humanity, she
had, in the end, been swallowed into its vortex.  She could not be more
alien to him now, or more dead.  He shivered.

"Cold?"

He turned.  It was Tory, coming down the lawn, the grass a rippling
palette of shadows around her as sunshine fought through racing
clouds.

"Just thinking," he said as she reached him.

They stood together, looking out at the energy-charged world of sea and
sky.  Jack felt as turbulent as the scene.

How was he to begin?

"You did a fine job, organizing this," he said.

"Del would have been pleased."

She nodded.

"So many friends, his colleagues, old students.

Poor Ron got pretty choked up.  He'd been with my father for eleven
years and he told me, "Half these folks I don't even know, but they've
been telling me stories about him like he was their best pal.""
"Doesn't surprise me," Jack said.

"Del was a good man."

"The best.  Tolerant, always ready to see good in people.

A truly wise man."  She crossed her arms, hugging herself in the chilly
wind.

"It broke him, that she was gone.  One mo ming I was bringing him tea
and he just sort of turned himself off for good.  I saw it in his
eyes--like a switch.  Next day, another stroke.  He never recovered.
And yet, not long before that, he'd looked at me with an odd smile and
said, "Isn't this world extraordinary?"  Imagine.  After all he'd
suffered.

in knowing about her."

Jack listened gravely.  He doubted that Tory could ever forgive Rachel,
but he felt that Del probably had.

She looked at him.

"You, too.  All those weeks, knowing about her, unable to turn her in.
It must have been horrible living with that truth."

Truth, he thought, steeling himself.  She deserved to know it all.

"Tory, there's something I need to tell you.  About Rachel and me.
Once, we--" "I know."

He was taken aback.

"At least, I guessed," she said.

"I had a hint, and"--she looked down--"and I remember the way she
looked at you."

He waited to see some kind of door shut between them.

He'd prepared himself for it, and he certainly wouldn't blame her.
Instead she said simply, somberly, "Jack, when my mother wanted
something, nobody could say no."

He watched her in wonder.  Clear-eyed, forgiving--she was her father's
daughter.

"So," she said, briskly changing the subject, "what's up with you?
Climbed enough mountains yet?"

"Maybe too many."

"Does that mean you're ready to come back to earth?"

He nodded.

"I've been in touch with One World Medics.

Their cholera camp in Sierra Leone needs some straightening out.  I
leave tomorrow."  He'd be glad to get back to work.

"Mr.  Fix-It," she said, smiling.

Mr.  Tongue-Tied at the moment, he thought She'd spoken of everyone
but herself, and he longed to know.

"Tory," he said gently, "how are you?  "Busy.  I've been in touch with
some people, environmental groups, hashing out some ideas.  I'm
considering launching an organization to target congressional seats,
exact a direct political price for bad environmental policies.  Sort of
a new unproved People for a Global Tomorrow."

Jack couldn't hide his surprise.

"The wrongness of her crimes doesn't change what's right," Tory said
quietly.

"During the campaign I learned a lot about the sorry state of the
world.  I want to carry on.  But I know people are uncomfortable with
my ... pedigree."

She turned to him.

"I could use your help.  Jack.  On the board of directors.  You're an
international hero again, presidential medal and all.  You could help
attract some serious attention."

He shook his bead in awe.

"You're amazing."

"Does that mean you'll join me?"

"Tory, I hope you know I'll always be there to help you, but--"
"But?"

"I'd like to do more."  For weeks he'd felt an inchoate nagging that
the One World Medics work wasn't enough.

"I

don't even know what yet.  Hell, I don't even know what I'm talking
about.  Are you sure I'm the man you want for this?"

She said warmly, "Very sure."

The verandah wind chime far behind them sounded faintly in a gust Tory
looked up at the house.  The sea-resonant tinkling seemed to hold her
focus.

"People are telling me to sell Swallow Point, move away from the
terrible associations.

To me, though, me memories aren't terrible.  I can't hate this place.
Can't even hate my mother.  At first, yes, in the awful days after
Atlanta.  She murdered thousands, almost murdered me.  But somehow,
inside that fog of evil, I don't see my mother's face.  It's as though
someone else committed those atrocities, someone wild, deranged.  I
can't feel any connection there with the inspiring woman I grew up with
in this house.  The memories remain pure."

She turned back to him.

"I only hope it won't hurt Chris."

"Chris'll be fine wherever you are."

"I live for the weeks I get to be with him."

"Isn't he with you now?"

"With Carson this week.  You didn't know we'd got a divorce?"

"No."  He hoped the thrill he felt didn't show on his face.

"We've worked out joint custody.  It's the only civilized arrangement.
Best for Chris."

Jack looked out at the sea.  He told himself he had no right to hope.
He was too old for her.  It was too weird, his past affair with her
mother.  Besides, she'd been through such hell.

Yet hope he did.

"I came out here to tell you something," Tory said.  Her businesslike
tone was suddenly vibrant, as though suppressing excitement.

"About two months ago I got a statement from the Credite Suisse Bank in
Zurich--an annual statement on a numbered account in my name.  Except
that I've never in my life opened an account there.  The depositor is
anonymous, and of course there's no way to trace their identity.

Jack, the balance is just over three hundred million dollars.

A life-blood infusion for PGT, out of the blue."

He felt a shiver between his shoulder blades.

"Rachel."

She nodded.

"I had no idea until I got the statement.  A year ago, apparently, she
was worth over six hundred million dollars, but when the government
confiscated her estate there was only half that left.  From what I've
been able to find out, she'd liquidated most of her offshore assets and
deposited that whole amount in Switzerland for me.  And she did it a
month before she set her terrible plan in motion.  She knew.  Jack.
Knew she wasn't going to make it."

A benevolent final blessing?  he wondered.  Or the implacable grip of
the dead?  Did it matter which?  He'd never believed money was
intrinsically good or evil; people gave it that power in how they used
it.  He was sure Tory would put this legacy to the most dynamic and
positive use.  He suddenly realized: that's what Rachel intended.

"You're the only person I've told," she said.

"There's no one else I'd trust with the location of three hundred
million the government still wants."

He was moved that she would confide it to him.

"You're wondering why tell you at all?"  she asked.

"Because I'm hoping you'll come on the board of the new

PGT."

"I told you, I'll always be around to help you."

"Well, actually," she said with a sly smile, "I'm talking about you
being around a lot.  In DC.  In fact, right on the Hill."

He didn't follow.

"The Hill?"

"Yesterday I received a letter from Senator Owen.  Remember him?"

Of course.  Good man.  Prank Owen had been one of the campaign's
staunchest supporters.

"He's resigning his seat," Tory said.

"Quincy and his CCA pit bulls didn't succeed in digging up any dirt on
the poor guy during me crisis, but he was shaken by their harassment
and I guess he's had enough.  He heard you were out of the country, so
he wrote me asking if I thought you'd consider running for his seat.
He'd like to endorse you.  Jack.

He says you won't let the CCA types of this world get away with their
shit."  She smiled.

"That's a paraphrase, but it's his general sentiment.  And I agree.
You're a man who won't be beholden to any special interests.  Even if
your character didn't ensure that, this legacy will.  You can be truly
independent, and work for real change right from the heart of the
system.  What do you say?"

He was surprised.  Very surprised.  But he liked the idea.

Somehow it felt natural, as though this was the challenge he'd been
wanting but didn't know it until she'd made it concrete.

Challenge?  No, it went deeper than that.  Tory," he said, needing to
share this with her, "for a moment, that night in Atlanta, when I
realized what she'd done in giving me the codes, I was stunned by the
capability she'd put in my hands.  Her global threat to do right. She'd
handed me her power, and for a moment I actually craved to run with
it."

"Only for a moment."

"But how powerful the feeling was."

"Don't kid yourself.  Jack.  You'd make a lousy terrorist."

"True enough," he said, glad to have that bubble burst.

"But there's another reason.  We shouldn't need some godlike
intervention to bring us to our senses about how to live on this planet
without destroying it.  If that's what it takes, maybe we don't deserve
to prevail.  We've got to clean up our mess and it's time we began,
here and now."

"Damn straight," she said with a grin.

"And you're the guy to tell the country.  From Congress."

Jack nodded, excited.  He was up for this.  Then reality gave him a
slap: he'd have to get elected first.

"Frank Owen's a class act to follow.  You think I'd have a chance?"

"A chance?  I think the voters will eat you with a spoon!"

God, he loved that smile others.

"You'll manage the campaign, I hope?"

"I'll be handing out free spoons."

He laughed.  It felt so great--to laugh again.  He wanted to do a lot
more of that, and with her.  He didn't feel old.  He didn't feel wrong.
He'd have six weeks in Sierra Leone, and he was already counting the
days until he could see her again.

They started up to his car, Tory explaining the intricate machinery of
the Senate to him.  He was watching the breeze play with her hair like
a lover.

He stopped.  He took her face in his hands, gently, longingly.

It was not the gesture of a candidate to his campaign manager, and Tory
blushed.  He didn't think he'd ever seen her blush before.

Then she smiled.  A big, dazzling smile.

"Jack, I thought you'd never ask."

Suddenly, the world was his home again.