The Chemist

CHAPTER 2

As she sat waiting for Carston to show, she thought about the other times the department had tried to kill her.

Barnaby – Dr. Joseph Barnaby, her mentor, the last friend she’d known – had prepared her for the first attempt. But even with all his foresight, planning, and deep-rooted paranoia, it was just dumb luck in the form of an extra cup of black coffee that had saved her life.

She hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d worked with Barnaby for six years at that point, and a little more than halfway through that time, he’d told her his suspicions. At first she hadn’t wanted to believe he could be right. They were only doing their job as directed, and doing it well. You can’t think of this as a long-term situation, he’d insisted, though he’d been in the same division for seventeen years. People like us, people who have to know things that no one wants us to know, eventually we become inconvenient. You don’t have to do anything wrong. You can be perfectly trustworthy. They’re the ones you can’t trust.

So much for working for the good guys.

His suspicions had become more specific, then shifted into planning, which had evolved into physical preparation. Barnaby had been a big believer in preparation, not that it had done him any good in the end.

The stress had begun to escalate in those last months as the date for the exodus approached, and, unsurprisingly, she’d had trouble sleeping. That particular April morning it had taken two cups of coffee rather than the usual one to get her brain going. Add that extra cup to the smaller-than-average bladder in her smaller-than-average body, and you ended up with a doctor running to the can, too rushed to even log out, rather than sitting at her desk. And that’s where she had been when the killing gas filtered through the vents into the lab. Barnaby had been exactly where he was supposed to be.

His screams had been his final gift to her, his last warning.

They both had been sure that when the blow came, it wouldn’t happen at the lab. Messy that way. Dead bodies usually raised a few eyebrows, and smart murderers tried to keep that kind of evidence as far removed from themselves as possible. They didn’t strike when the victim was in their own living room.

She should have known never to underestimate the arrogance of the people who wanted her dead. They didn’t worry about the law. They were too cozy with the people who made those laws. She also should have respected the power of pure stupidity to take a smart person completely by surprise.

The next three times had been more straightforward. Professional contractors, she assumed, given that they’d each worked alone. Only men so far, though a woman was always a possibility in the future. One man had tried to shoot her, one to stab her, and one to brain her with a crowbar. None of these tries had been effective because the violence had happened to pillows. And then her assailants had died.

The invisible but very caustic gas had silently flooded the small room – it took about two and a half seconds once the connection between the wires was broken. After that, the assassin was left with a life expectancy of approximately five seconds, depending on his height and weight. It would not have been a pleasant five seconds.

Her bathtub mixture was not the same thing they’d used for Barnaby, but it was close enough. It was the simplest way she knew to kill someone so swiftly and so painfully. And it was a renewable resource, unlike many of her weapons. All she needed was a good stock of peaches and a pool-supply store. Nothing that required restricted access or even a mailing address, nothing that her pursuers could track.

It really pissed her off that they’d managed to find her again.

She’d been furious since waking yesterday and had only gotten angrier as the hours passed while she made her preparations.

She had forced herself to nap and then drove all the next night in a suitable car, rented using a very weak ID for one Taylor Golding and a recently obtained credit card in the same name. Early this morning, she’d arrived in the city she least wanted to be in, and that had turned her anger up to the next level. She’d returned the car to a Hertz near Ronald Reagan National Airport, then walked across the street to another company and rented a new one with District of Columbia plates.

Six months ago, she would have done things differently. Gathered her belongings from the small house she was renting, sold her current vehicle on Craigslist, purchased a new one for cash from some private citizen who didn’t keep records, and then driven aimlessly for a few days until she found a medium-size city-town that looked right. There she’d start the process of staying alive all over again.

But now there was that stupid, twisted hope that Carston was telling the truth. A very anemic hope. It probably wouldn’t have been enough motivation on its own. There was something else – a small but irritating worry that she had neglected a responsibility.

Barnaby had saved her life. Again and again. Every time she survived another assassination attempt, it was because he had warned her, had educated her, had made her ready.

If Carston was lying to her – which she was 97 percent sure he was – and arranging an ambush, then everything he’d said was a lie. Including the part about her being needed. And if they didn’t need her, that meant they’d found someone else to do the job, someone as good as she had been.

They might have replaced her a long time ago, might have assassinated a whole line of employees for all she knew, but she doubted it. While the department had money and access, the one thing it had in short supply was personnel. It took time to locate, cultivate, and train an asset like Barnaby or herself. People with those kinds of skills didn’t grow in test tubes.

She’d had Barnaby to save her. Who was going to save the dumb kid they’d recruited after her? The newcomer would be brilliant, just as she had been, but he or she would be blind to the most important element. Forget serving your country, forget saving innocent lives, forget the state-of-the-art facilities and the groundbreaking science, and the unlimited budget. Forget the seven-figure salary. How about not being murdered? No doubt the person now holding her old position had no idea that his or her survival was even in question.

She wished she had a way to warn that individual. Even if she couldn’t spend all the time Barnaby had devoted to helping her. Even if it could be only one conversation: This is how they reward people like us. Get ready.

But that wasn’t an option.

The morning was spent on more preparations. She checked into the Brayscott, a small boutique hotel, under the name Casey Wilson. The ID she used wasn’t much more convincing than Taylor Golding’s, but two of the phone lines were ringing as she registered, and the busy desk clerk wasn’t paying close attention. There were rooms available this early, the clerk told her, but Casey would have to pay for an extra day, as check-in did not begin till three. Casey agreed to this stipulation without complaint. The clerk seemed relieved. She smiled at Casey, really looking at her for the first time. Casey controlled her flinch. It didn’t matter if this girl remembered Casey’s face; Casey would make herself memorable enough in the next half hour.

Casey used androgynous names on purpose. It was one of the strategies she’d gleaned from the case files Barnaby had fed her, something the real spies did, but it was also common sense, something the fiction writers had figured out as well. The logic was that if people were searching this hotel for a woman, they would start with the clearly female names in the register, like Jennifer and Cathy. It might take them another round to get to the Caseys and the Terrys and the Drews. Any time she could buy for herself was good. An extra minute might save her life.

Casey shook her head at the eager bellman who stepped toward her offering his services and wheeled her single piece of luggage behind her to the elevator. She kept her face turned away from the camera over the control panel. Once inside the room, she opened the bag and removed a large briefcase and a zipper-top black tote. Other than these two things, her suitcase was empty.

She took off the blazer that made her thin gray sweater and plain black pants look professional and hung it up. The sweater was pinned in the back to make it formfitting. She removed the pins and let the sweater bag around her, changing her into someone a little smaller, maybe a bit younger. She removed her lipstick and rubbed off most of her eye makeup, then checked the effect in the large mirror over the dresser. Younger, vulnerable; the baggy sweater suggested that she was hiding in it. She thought it would do.

If she’d been going to see a female hotel manager, she would have played it slightly differently, perhaps tried to add some fake bruises with blue and black eye shadow, but the name on the card at the desk downstairs was William Green, and she didn’t think she would need to put in the extra time.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, and that bothered her. She would have liked to have another week just to review all the possible repercussions. But it was the best option she could set in motion with the time she’d had. It was probably overly elaborate, but it was too late to rethink it now.

She called the desk and asked for Mr. Green. She was connected quickly.

“This is William Green – how can I help you?”

The voice was hearty and overly warm. She immediately had the mental image of a walrus of a man, bushy mustache included.

“Um, yes, I hope I’m not bothering you…”

“No, of course not, Ms. Wilson. I’m here to help in any way I can.”

“I do need help, but it might sound a little odd… It’s hard to explain.”

“Don’t worry, miss, I’m sure I can be of assistance.” He sounded extremely confident. It made her wonder what kinds of odd requests he had fielded before.

“Oh, dear,” she dithered. “This might be easier in person?” She made it into a question.

“Of course, Ms. Wilson. Fortunately, I will be available in fifteen minutes. My office is on the first floor, just around the corner from the front desk. Will that suit?”

Fluttery and relieved: “Yes, thank you so much.”

She put the bags in the closet and carefully counted out the bills she needed from the stash in the large briefcase. She slipped this into her pockets, then waited thirteen minutes. She took the stairs to avoid the elevator cameras.

As Mr. Green ushered her into his windowless office, she was amused to see that her mental image had not been that far off. No mustache – no hair at all except for the barest hint of white eyebrows – but in all other ways very walrus-y.

It wasn’t hard to play frightened, and halfway into her tale of her abusive ex-boyfriend who’d stolen the family heirlooms, she knew she had him. He bristled in a very male way, looking as if he wanted to rant about the sort of monsters who hit little women, but he mostly held his peace aside from several Tut-tut, we’ll take good care of you, you’re safe here kinds of assurances. He probably would have helped her without the generous tip she gave him, but it certainly didn’t hurt. He swore to tell only the members of the staff who were part of her plan, and she thanked him warmly. He wished her well and offered to bring the police in, if that would help. Casey confessed with great sadness how ineffective the police and the restraining orders had been for her in the past. She implied that she could handle this alone as long as she had the help of a big, strong man like Mr. Green. He was flattered, and he hurried out to get everything ready.

It wasn’t the only time she’d played this card. Barnaby had suggested it initially, when their escape plan had reached the fine-tuning stage. At first she had bristled at the idea, offended in some obscure way, but Barnaby was always practical. She was small and female; in a lot of people’s heads, that would always make her the underdog. Why not use this assumption to her advantage? Play the victim to keep from being one.

Casey went back to her room and changed into the clothes she’d kept inside the briefcase, trading her sweater for a tight, black V-neck tee and adding a thick black belt with intricately braided leatherwork. Everything she took off had to fit back into the briefcase, because she was leaving the suitcase and she wouldn’t be returning to this hotel.

She was already armed; she never went out without taking some precautions. But now she moved to the high-alert version of her personal protection, arming herself to the literal teeth – or to the tooth, really; she inserted a fake crown full of something much less painful than cyanide but just as deadly. It was the oldest trick in the book for a reason: It worked. And sometimes the last move you had was permanently extracting yourself from the hands of your enemies.

The big black tote bag had two ornamental wooden pieces at the apex of the shoulder strap. Inside the tote was her special jewelry in little padded boxes.

Every piece was one of a kind and irreplaceable. She would never again have the access to acquire ornamental tools like these, so she was very careful with her treasures.

Three rings – one rose gold, one yellow gold, one silver. They all had small barbs hidden under clever little twisting hatches. The color of the metal indicated which substance coated the barb. Very straightforward, probably expected from her.

Next, the earrings, which she always handled with delicate care. She wouldn’t risk wearing them for this part of the journey; she would wait until she was closer to her target. Once they were in, she had to move her head very deliberately. They looked like simple glass globes, but the glass was so thin that a high note could shatter it, especially as the little spheres were already under pressure from the inside. If anyone grabbed her by the neck or head, the glass would burst with a quiet pop. She would hold her breath – which she could do for a minute fifteen, easy – and close her eyes if possible. Her attacker would not know to do that.

Around her neck went a largish silver locket. It was very conspicuous and would command the attention of anyone who knew who she truly was. There was nothing deadly about it, though; it was just a distraction from the real dangers. Inside was a photo of a pretty little girl with fluffy, straw-colored hair. The child’s full name was handwritten on the back of the picture; it looked like something a mother or an aunt would wear. However, this particular girl was Carston’s only grandchild. Hopefully, if it was too late for Casey, the person who found her body would be a real cop who, due to the lack of identification, would be forced to dig into this evidence and bring her murder around to the doorstep where it ultimately belonged. It probably wouldn’t really hurt Carston, but it might make things inconvenient for him, might make him feel threatened or worry that she’d released other information elsewhere.

Because she knew enough about hidden disasters and classified horrors to do much more than inconvenience Carston. But even now, three years past her first death sentence, she hadn’t grown comfortable with the idea of treason or the very real possibility of causing a panic. There was no way to foresee the potential damage of her revelations, the harm they might cause to innocent citizens. So she’d settled for just making Carston think that she had done something so reckless; maybe the worry would give him an aneurysm. A pretty little locket filled with drippings of revenge to make losing the game more palatable.

The cord the locket was attached to, however, was deadly. It had the tensile strength of airline cable in proportion to its size and was easily strong enough to garrote a person. The cord closed with a magnet rather than a clasp; she had no desire to be lassoed with her own weapon. The wooden embellishments on her tote’s shoulder strap had slots where the ends of the cords fit; once the cord was in place, the wooden pieces became handles. Physical force wasn’t her first choice, but it would be unexpected. It gave her an advantage to be ready.

Inside the intricate patterns of her black leather belt were hidden several spring-loaded syringes. She could pull them individually or flip a mechanism that would expose all the sharp ends at once if an attacker pressed her close to his body. The mix of the different substances would not blend well in his system.

Scalpel blades with taped edges were tucked into her pockets.

Standard shoe knives, one that popped forward, one to the rear.

Two cans labeled PEPPER SPRAY in her bag – one containing the real thing, the other with something more permanently debilitating.

A pretty perfume bottle that released gas, not liquid.

What looked like a tube of ChapStick in her pocket.

And several other fun options, just in case. Plus the little things she’d brought for the unlikely outcome – success. A bright yellow, lemon-shaped squeeze bottle, matches, a travel-size fire extinguisher. And cash, plenty of it. She stuck a key card in the tote; she wouldn’t come back to this hotel, but if things went well, someone else would.

She had to move carefully when she was in full armor like this, but she’d practiced enough that she was confident in her walk. It was comforting to know that if anyone caused her to move less carefully, he’d be the worse for it.

She left the hotel, nodding to the clerk who had checked her in, a briefcase in one hand and the black tote over her arm. She got into her car and drove to a crowded park near the middle of the city. She left the car in an adjacent strip mall’s lot on the north side and walked into the park.

She was quite familiar with this park. There was a bathroom near the southeast corner that she headed into now. As she’d expected, midmorning on a school day, it was empty. Out of the briefcase came another set of clothes. There was also a rolled-up backpack and some more accessories. She changed her clothes, put her previous outfit in the briefcase, and then shoved it and the tote into the large backpack.

When she walked out of the bathroom, she was no longer immediately recognizable as a she. She slouched away toward the south end of the park, loose-kneed, concentrating on keeping her hips from swaying and giving her away. Though it didn’t appear that anyone was looking, it was always smarter to act like someone was.

The park started to fill up when lunchtime approached, as she’d known it would. No one paid attention to the androgynous kid sitting on a bench in the shade furiously texting on a smartphone. No one came close enough to see that the phone wasn’t on.

Across the street from the bench was Carston’s favorite lunch spot. It was not the meeting place she’d suggested. She was also five days early.

Behind the men’s sunglasses, her eyes scanned the sidewalks. This might not work. Maybe Carston had changed his habits. Habits were, after all, dangerous things. Like the expectation of safety.

She’d sifted through the advice that both the factual accounts and the novels had given on disguises, always focusing on the commonsense stuff. Don’t slap on a platinum wig and high heels just because you’re a short brunette. Don’t think opposite; think inconspicuous. Think about what attracts attention – like blondes and stilettos – and avoid it. Play to your strengths. Sometimes what you believe makes you unattractive can keep you alive.

Back in the normal days, she’d resented her boyish frame. Now she used it. If you put on a baggy jersey and a pair of well-worn jeans a size too big, any eyes looking for woman might slide right over boy. Her hair was short as a boy’s and easy to hide under a ball cap, and layered socks inside a pair of too-large Reeboks gave her that puppy-pawed look of the average teenage male. Someone who really looked at her face might notice some discrepancies. But why would anyone look? The park was filling with people of all ages and sexes. She did not stand out, and no one hunting for her would expect her to be here. She hadn’t been back to DC since the department’s first attempt to murder her.

This wasn’t her forte – leaving her web, hunting. But it was, at least, something she’d put some thought into beforehand. Most of what she did in an average day took only a small part of her attention and intelligence. The rest of her mind was always working through possibilities, imagining scenarios. It made her slightly more confident now. She was working from a mental map that had been many months in the creation.

Carston had not changed his habits. At exactly 12:15 he sat down at a metal bistro table in front of his café. He’d picked the one that was angled so he could be completely covered by the umbrella’s shade, as she’d expected. Carston had once been a redhead. He didn’t have much of the hair anymore, but he still had the complexion.

The waitress waved to him, nodded toward the pad of paper in her hand, then went back inside. So he had a usual order. Another habit that could get you killed. If Casey had wanted Carston dead, she could have managed it without his ever knowing she had been here.

She got up, shoved the phone in her pocket, and slung her backpack onto one shoulder.

The sidewalk led behind a rise and some trees. Carston couldn’t see her here. It was time for another costume. Her posture changed. The hat came off. She shrugged out of the jersey she’d layered over the T-shirt. She tightened the belt and rolled up the bottom inches of the jeans, turning them into a boyfriend-cut look. The Reeboks came off and traded places with the slip-on ballet-slash-athletic shoes from the backpack. She did all this casually, as if she were hot and just stripping down a bit. The weather made it believable. Bystanders might have been surprised to see a girl under the masculine clothing, but she doubted this moment would linger in anyone’s memory. There were too many more extreme styles on display in the park today. The sunshine always did bring out the freaks in DC.

Her tote went over her shoulder again. She dropped the backpack behind an out-of-the-way tree while no one was looking. If someone found it, there was nothing inside that she couldn’t live without.

Decently certain that no one could see her, she added a wig and then, finally, carefully, she threaded her earrings into place.

She could have confronted Carston in her boyish garb, but why give up any secrets? Why let him connect her to her surveillance? If he’d even noticed the boy, that is. She might need to be a boy again soon, so she would not waste the persona now. And she could have saved some time by wearing the costume from the hotel, but if she’d made no changes to her appearance, the image of her captured by the closed-circuit security cameras at the hotel could be easily linked to the footage from any public or private cameras picking her up now. By spending extra time on her appearance, she’d broken as many links as she could; if someone was trying to find the boy, or the businesswoman, or the casual park visitor she was now, he would have a complicated trail to follow.

It was cooler in her female outfit. She let the light breeze dry the sweat that had been building up under the nylon jersey and then walked out to the street.

She came at him from behind, taking the same path he had just a few minutes earlier. His food had arrived – a chicken parm – and he seemed to be totally absorbed in consuming it. But she knew Carston was better than she was at appearing to be something he was not.

She dropped into the seat across from him with no fanfare. His mouth was full of sandwich when he looked up.

She knew that he was a good actor. She assumed he would bury his true reaction and display the emotion he wished before she could catch sight of the first. Because he didn’t look surprised at all, she assumed she’d taken him completely unawares. If he had been expecting her, he would have acted like her sudden appearance had shocked him. But this, the steady gaze across the table, the unwidened eyes, the methodical chewing – this was him controlling his surprise. She was almost 80 percent sure.

She didn’t say anything. She just met his expressionless gaze while he finished masticating his bite of sandwich.

“I guess it would be too easy to just meet as planned,” he said.

“Too easy for your sniper, sure.” She said the words lightly, using the same volume he had. Anyone overhearing would think the words a joke. But the two other lunch groups were talking and laughing loudly; the people passing by on the sidewalk listened to earphones and telephones. No one cared what she was saying except Carston.

“That was never me, Juliana. You must know that.”

It was her turn to act unsurprised. It had been so long since anyone had addressed her by her real name, it sounded like a stranger’s. After the initial jolt, she felt a small wave of pleasure. It was good that her name sounded foreign to her. That meant she was doing it right.

His eyes flitted to her obvious wig – it was actually quite similar to her real hair, but now he would suspect she was hiding something very different. Then he forced his eyes back to hers. He waited for a response for another moment, but when she didn’t speak he continued, choosing his words carefully.

“The, er, parties who decided you should… retire have… fallen into disfavor. It was never a popular decision to begin with, and now those of us who were always in disagreement are no longer ruled by those parties.”

It could be true. It probably wasn’t.

He answered the skepticism in her eyes. “Have you had any… unpleasant disturbances in the past nine months?”

“And here I was thinking that I’d just gotten better at playing hide-and-seek than you.”

“It’s over, Julie. Might has been overcome by right.”

“I love happy endings.” Heavy sarcasm.

He winced, hurt by the sarcasm. Or pretending to be.

“Not so happy as all that,” he said slowly. “A happy ending would mean I wouldn’t have contacted you. You would have been left alone for the rest of your life. And it would have been a long one, as much as that was in our power.”

She nodded as if she agreed, as if she believed. In the old days, she’d always assumed Carston was exactly what he appeared to be. He had been the face of the good guys for a long time. It was almost fun now in a strange way, like a game, to try to decipher what each word actually meant.

Except then there was the tiny voice that asked, What if there is no game? What if this is true… if I could be free?

“You were the best, Juliana.”

“Dr. Barnaby was the best.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but he never had your talent.”

“Thank you.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Not for the compliment,” she explained. “Thank you for not trying to tell me his death was an accident.” All of this still in the lighthearted tone.

“It was a poor choice motivated by paranoia and disloyalty. A person who will sell out his partner always sees the partner as plotting in exactly the same way. Dishonest people don’t believe honest people exist.”

She kept her face stony while he spoke.

Never, in three years of constant running, had she ever spilled a single secret that she’d been privy to. Never once had she given her pursuers any reason to think her a traitor. Even as they tried to kill her, she had remained faithful. And that hadn’t mattered to her department, not at all.

Not much did matter to them. She was distracted for a moment by the memory of how close she had been to what she was looking for, the place she might have reached by now on her most pressing avenue of research and creation if she hadn’t been interrupted. That project had not mattered to them, either, apparently.

“But the egg is on those disloyal faces now,” Carston continued. “Because we never found anyone as good as you. Hell, we never found anyone half as good as Barnaby. It amazes me how people can forget that true talent is a limited commodity.”

He waited, clearly hoping she would speak, hoping she would ask something, betray some sign of interest. She just stared at him politely, the way someone would look at the stranger ringing her up at a register.

He sighed and then leaned in, suddenly intent. “We have a problem. We need the kind of answers only you can give us. We don’t have anyone else who can do this job. And we can’t screw this one up.”

“You, not we,” she said simply.

“I know you better than that, Juliana. You care about the innocents.”

“I used to. You could say that part of me was murdered.”

Carston winced again.

“Juliana, I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry. I tried to stop them. I was so relieved when you slipped through their fingers. Every time you slipped through their fingers.”

She couldn’t help but be impressed he was admitting all of it. No denials, no excuses. None of the It was just an unfortunate accident at the lab kind of thing she had been expecting. No It wasn’t us; it was enemies of the state. No stories, just acknowledgment.

“And now everyone is sorry.” His voice dropped and she had to listen hard to make out his words. “Because we don’t have you, and people are going to die, Juliana. Thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands.”

He waited this time while she thought it over. It took her a few minutes to examine all the possible angles.

She spoke quietly too, now, but made sure there was no interest or emotion in her voice. Just stating obvious facts to move the conversation forward. “You know someone who has vital information.”

Carston nodded.

“You can’t take him or her out, because that would let others know that you are aware of them. Which would expedite whatever course of action you would prefer not to happen.”

Another nod.

“We’re talking about the bad stuff here, yes?”

A sigh.

Nothing worked the department up like terrorism. She’d been recruited before the emotional dust had entirely settled around the hole where the Twin Towers used to stand. Preventing terrorism had always been the main component of her job – the best justification for it. The threat of terrorism had also been manipulated, turned and twisted, till by the end she’d lost a lot of faith in the idea that she was actually doing the work of a patriot.

“And a large device,” she said, not a question. The biggest bogeyman was always this – that at some point, someone who truly hated the United States would get his or her hands on something nuclear. That was the dark shadow that hid her profession from the eyes of the world, that made her so indispensable, no matter how much Joe Citizen wanted to think she didn’t exist.

And it had happened – more than once. People like her had kept those situations from turning into massive human tragedies. It was a trade-off. Small-scale horror versus wholesale slaughter.

Carston shook his head and suddenly his pale eyes were haunted. She couldn’t help but shudder a little internally as she realized it was door number two. There were only ever two fears that big.

It’s biological. She didn’t say the words out loud, just mouthed them.

Carston’s bleak expression was her answer.

She looked down for a moment, sorting through all of his responses and reducing them to two columns, two lists of possibilities in her head. Column one: Carston was a talented liar who was saying things he thought would motivate her to visit a place where people were better prepared to dispose of Juliana Fortis forever. He was thinking quickly on his feet, pushing her most sensitive buttons.

Column two: Someone had a biological weapon of mass destruction, and the powers that be didn’t know where it was or when it would be used. But they knew someone who did.

Vanity carried some weight, shifting the balance slightly. She knew she was good. It was true that they probably hadn’t found someone better.

Still, she would put her money on column one.

“Jules, I don’t want you dead,” he said quietly, guessing her train of thought. “I wouldn’t have contacted you if that were the case. I wouldn’t want to meet with you. Because I am certain you have at least six ways to kill me on your person right now, and every reason in the world to use one of them.”

“You really think I would come with only six?” she asked.

He frowned nervously for a second, then decided to laugh. “You make my point for me. I don’t have a death wish, Jules. I’m on the level.”

He eyed the locket around her neck, and she suppressed a smile.

She returned to her light voice. “I would prefer it if you called me Dr. Fortis. I think we’re past the point of nicknames.”

He made a hurt face. “I’m not asking you to forgive me. I should have done more.”

She nodded, though again, she wasn’t agreeing with him, she was just moving the conversation along.

“I am asking you to help me. No, not me. To help the innocent people who are going to die if you don’t.”

“If they die, it’s not on me.”

“I know, Ju-Doctor. I know. It will be on me. But who’s to blame won’t really matter to them. They’ll be dead.”

She held his gaze. She wouldn’t be the one to blink.

His expression shifted to something darker. “Would you like to hear what it will do to them?”

“No.”

“It might be too much even for your stomach.”

“I doubt it. But it doesn’t really matter. What might happen is secondary.”

“I’d like to know what is more important than hundreds of thousands of American lives.”

“It’s going to sound horribly selfish, but breathing in and out has sort of trumped everything else for me.”

“You can’t help us if you’re dead,” Carston said bluntly. “The lesson has been learned. This won’t be the last time we’ll need you. We won’t make the same mistake again.”

She hated to buy into this, but the balance was shifting even more. What Carston was saying did make sense. She was certainly no stranger to policy changes. What if it was all true? She could play cold, but Carston knew her well. She would have a difficult time living with a disaster of this magnitude if she thought there was any chance she could have done something. That was how, in the beginning, they’d roped her into possibly the worst profession in the entire world.

“I don’t suppose you have the files on you,” she said.